FIVE SERMONS UPON SPECIAL OCCASIONS. (Viz.) 

1. A Sermon preached at Paul's Cross.  
2. To the Honourable the Virginia Company  
3. At the Consecration of Lincoln's Inn Chapel.  
4. The first Sermon preached to K. Charles at St. james, 1625.  
5. A Sermon preached to his Majesty at Whitehall, 24. Febr. 1625.    
By JOHN DONNE Deane of Saint Paul's, London.  
LONDON, Printed for THOMAS JONES, and are to be sold at the Sign of the Black Raven in the Strand. 1626.   

JUDGES. 5.20. 
De coelo dimicatum est contra eos: stellae manentes in Ordine, & cursu suo adversus Siseram pugnaverunt.  
They fought from Heaven; The stars in their courses fought against Sisera.   
ALl the words of God are always sweet in themselves, says David; but sweeter in the mouth, and in the pen of some of the Prophets, and some of the Apostles, then of others, as they differed in their natural gifts, or in their education: but sweetest of all, where the Holy Ghost hath been pleased to set the word of God to Music, and to convey it into a Song; and this Text is of that kind: part of the Song which Deborah & Barak sung after their great victory upon Sisera; Sisera who was jabin the King of Canaan's General against Israel. God himself made Moses a Song, 
Deut. 31.19.  and expressed his reason why; The children of Israel, says God, will forget my Law; but this song they will not forget; and whensoever they sing this song, this song shall testify against them, what I have done for them, how they have forsaken me. And to such a purpose hath God left this Song of Deborah and Barak in the Scriptures, that all Murmurers, and all that stray into a diffidence of God's power, or of his purpose to sustain his own cause, and destroy his own Enemies, might run and read, might read and sing, the wonderful deliverances that God hath given to his people, by weak and unexpected means. This world begun with a Song, if the Chalde Paraphrasts, upon salomon's Song of Songs have taken a true tradition, That as soon as Adam's sin was forgiven him, he expressed (as he calls it in that Song) Sabbatum suum, his Sabbath, his peace of conscience, in a Song; of which, we have the entrance in that Paraphrase. This world begun so; and so did the next world too, if we count the beginning of that (as it is a good computation to do so) from the coming of Christ jesus: for that was expressed on Earth, in diverse Songs; in the blessed Virgins Magnificat; My soul doth magnify the Lord: In Zacharies Benedictus; Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; and in Simeons, Nunc dimittis, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant departed in peace. This world began so, and the other; and when both shall join, and make up one world without end, it shall continue so in heaven, in that Song of the Lamb, 
Apoc. 3.  Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints. And, to Tune us, to Compose and give us a Harmony and Concord of affections, in all perturbations and passions, and discords in the passages of this life, if we had no more of the same Music in the Scriptures (as we have the Song of Moses at the Red Sea, and many Psalms of David to the same purpose) this Song of Deborah were enough, abundantly enough, to slumber any storm, to becalm any tempest, to rectify any scruple of God's slackness in the defence of his cause, when in the History and occasion of this Song, expressed in the Chapter before this, we see, That Israel had done evil in the sight of the Lord again, and yet again, God came to them: That God himself had sold Israel into the hands of jabin King of Canaan, and yet he repent the bargain, and came to them; That in twenty years oppression he came not, and yet he came. That when Sisera came against them, with nine hundred Chariots of Iron, and all preparations, proportionable to that, and God called up a woman, a Prophetess, a Deborah against him, because Deborah had a zeal to the cause, and consequently an enmity to the enemy, God would effect his purpose by so weak an instrument, by a woman, but by a woman, which had no such interest, nor zeal to the cause; by Jael: And in jaels' hand, by such an instrument, as with that, scarce any man could do it, if it were to be done again, with a hammer she drives a nail through his temples, and nails him to the ground, as he lay sleeping in her tent: And then the end of all, was the end of all, not one man of his army left alive. O my Soul, why art thou so sad, why art thou so disquieted within me? Sing unto the Lord an old song, the song of Deborah and Barak, That God by weak means doth mighty works, That all Gods creatures fight in his behalf, They fought from heaven, the stars in their Order, fought against Sisera.  
You shall have but two parts out of these words; And to make these two parts, 
Division.  I consider the Text, as the two Hemispheres of the world, laid open in a flat, in a plain Map. All those parts of the world, which the Ancients have used to consider, are in one of those Hemispheres; All Europe is in that, and in that is all Asia, and Africa too: So that when we have seen that Hemisphere, done with that, we might seem to have seen all, done with all the world; but yet the other Hemisphere, that of America is as big as it; though, but by occasion of new, and late discoveries, we had had nothing to say of America. So the first part of our Text, will be as that first Hemisphere; all which the ancient Expositors found occasion to note out of these words, will be in that: but by the new discoveries of some humours of men, and rumours of men, we shall have occasion to say somewhat of a second part to. The parts are, first, the Literal, the Historical sense of the words; And then an emergent, a collateral, an occasional sense of them. The explication of the words, and the Application, Quid tunc, Quid nunc, How the words were spoken then, How they may be applied now, will be our two parts. And, in passing through our first, we shall make these steps. First, God can, and sometimes doth effect his purposes by himself; entirely, immediately, extraordinarily, miraculously by himself: But yet, in a second place, we shall see, by this story, That he looks for assistance, for concurrence of second causes, and subordinate means: And that therefore, God in this Song of Deborah, hath provided an honourable commemoration of them, who did assist his cause; for, the Princes have their place, 
Verse 15.  The Princes of Issachar were with her: And then, the Governors, The great Persons, the great Officers of the State, have their place in this honour, That they offered themselves willingly to that service; And after them, the Merchants, 
Verse 9  
Verse 10,  for those who are said there, to ride upon white Asses, to be well mounted, according to the manner of those Nations, are, by Peter Martyr, amongst our Expositors, and by Serarius the jesuite, amongst the others, fitly understood, to be intended of Merchants; And in the same verse, the judges are honourably remembered, Those that fit in judgement; And a fare unlikelier sort of people, than any of these, in the same verse too, Those that walked by the way; Idle, and discoursing men, that were not much affected, how business went, so they might talk of them: And lastly, the whole people in general, 
Verse 2.  how poor soever, they have evidence from this record, That they offered themselves (and what will they deny, that offer themselves) and willingly, to this employment. And then, God having here afforded this honourable mention of them, who did assist him, he lays also a heavy note upon such, who for collateral respects prevaricated or withdraw themselves from his service: 
Verse 16.  particularly upon Reuben, who was divided by greatness of heart, And upon Dan, 
Verse 17.  who remained in his ships. And therefore to the encouragement of those who did assist him, in any proportion, though their assistance were no ways competent against so potent an enemy, God fought for himself too, They fought from Heaven, The stars in their order fought against Sisera. And these will be the branches, or circumstances of our first part: for the particulars of the second, we shall open them more commodiously for your memory and use, then, when we come to handle them, than now. Now we proceed to those of the first part.  

Part 1.  And into those I pass with this protestation, That in all which I shall say this day, being to speak often of God, in that Notion, as he is Lord of Hosts, and fights his own battles, I am fare from giving fire to them that desire war. Peace in this world, is a precious Earnest, and a fair and lovely Type of the everlasting peace of the world to come: And war in this world, is a shrewd and fearful Emblem of the everlasting discord and tumult, and torment of the world to come: And therefore, our Blessed God, bless us with this external, and this internal, and make that lead us to an eternal peace. But I speak of this subject, especially to establish and settle them, that suspect God's power, or God's purpose, to secure those, who in foreign parts, groan under heavy pressures in matter of Religion, or to restore those, who in foreign parts, are devested of their lawful possessions, and inheritance; and because God hath not done these great works yet, nor yet raised up means, in appearance, and in their apprehension, likely to effect it, That therefore God likes not the cause; and therefore they begin to be shaked in their own Religion at home, since they think that God neglects it abroad. But, beloved, since God made all this world of nothing, cannot he recover any one piece thereof, or restore any one piece, with a little? In the Creation, his production of specifique forms, and several Creatures in the several days, was much, very much; but not very much, compared with that, which he had done immediately before, when he made Heaven and Earth of nothing. For, for the particular Creatures, God had then Praeiacentem Materiam, he had stuff before him; enough to cut out Creatures of the largest size, his Elephants of the Earth, his Whales and Leviathans in the Sea. In that matter there was Semen Creaturarum, The Seed of all Creatures in that stuff. But for the stuff itself, the Heaven and Earth, God had not Semen Coeli, any such seed of Heaven as that he could say to it, do thou hatch a Heaven; he had not any such Semen terrae, as that he could bid that grow up into an Earth: There was nothing at all, and all, that is, was produced from that; and than who shall doubt of his proceeding, if by a little he will do much? He suffered his greater works to be paralleled, or to be counterfeit by Pharaohs Magicians, but in his least, in the making of Lice, he brought them to confess Digitum Dei, the finger of God; and that was enough; The arm of God, the hand of God needs not; where he will work, his finger is enough, It was not that imagination, that dream of the Rabbins, that hind ered the Magicians, who say, that the Devil cannot make any Creature, less than a Barley corn; As it is with men, they misconceive it to be with the Devil too; harder to make a little clock, a little picture, any thing in a little, then in a larger form. That was no part of the reason in that case: but since man ordinarily esteems it so, and ordinarily admires great works in little form, why will he not be content to glorify God that way, in a faithful confidence, that he can and will do great works by weak means. Should God have stayed to levy, and arm, and train, and muster, and present men enough to discomfit Sennacherib? He took a nearer way; he slew almost two hundreth thousand of them, in one night by an Angel. 
Esa. 37.36.  Should God have troubled an Angel to satisfy Elisha his servant? Only by apparition in the clouds, 
2. Reg. 5.16.  he brought him to acknowledge, that there were more with them, then with the Enemy, when there was none. He troubled not so much as a cloud, he employed no Creature at all, against the Philistines, 
1. Sam. 23 5  when they came up with thirty thousand Chariots; but he breathed a damp, an astonishment into them, he imprinted a divine terror in their hearts, 
jud. 6.  and they fought against one another. God foresaw a diminution of his honour, in the augmentation of Israel's forces, and therefore he reduced gideon's thirty two thousand to three hundred persons. It was so in persons, God does much with few, and it was so in time, God does much, though late; though God seem a long time to have forgot his people, yet in due time, that is, in his time, he returns to them again. S. Augustine makes a useful Historical note, That that land to which God brought the Children of Israel, was their own land before; they were the right heirs to it, lineally descended from him, who was the first possessor of it, after the flood: but they were so long out of possession of it, as that they were never able to set their title on foot; nay, they did scarce know their own title, and yet God repossessed them of it, reinvested them in it. It is so for persons, and times in his ways in this world, Much with few, much though late, and it is so in his ways to the next world too: for persons, Elias knew of no more but himself, that served the right God aright: God makes him know that there were seven thousand more; seven thousand was much to one, but it was little to all the world: and yet these seven thousand have peopled heaven, and sent up all those Colonies thither; all those Armies of Martyrs, those flocks of Lambs, innocent children, those Fathers, the Fathers of the Church, and Mothers, holy Matrons, and daughters, blessed Virgins, and learned and laborious Doctors; these seven thousand have filled up the places of the fallen Angels, and repeopled that Kingdom: And wheresoever we think them most worn out, God at this time hath his remnant (as the Apostle says) and God is able to make up the whole garment of that remnant. 
Rom. 11.5.  So he does much with few, in the ways to heaven; and that he does much though late, in that way too, thou mayest discern in his working upon thyself. How often hast thou suffered thy Soul, to grow clean out of all reparations into ruin, by thine inconsiderate and habitual course of sin, and never repaired it by any good use of hearing the word, or receiving the Sacrament in a long time, and when thou hast at any time, come to a survey of thy conscience, how hast thou been affected with an inordinate apprehension of God's anger, and his inaccessibleness, his inexorableness towards thee, and sunk even into the jaws of desperation; And yet, Quia manet semen dei, because the seed of God hath remained in thee, 
1. Io. 3.4.  Incubat Spiritus, the Holy Ghost hath sat upon that seed, and hatched a new Creature in thee, a modest, but yet infallible assurance of the Mercy of thy God. Recollect all; in raising of sieges, and discomfiting of Armies, in restoring possessions, and reinuesting right heirs, in repairing the ruins of the Kingdom of heaven, depopulated in the fall of Angels, in reestablishing peace of conscience; in a presumptuous confidence, or over-timorous diffidence in God, God glorifies himself that way, to do much with little.  
He does so; but yet he will have something. God is a good Husband, a good Steward of Man's contributions, but contributions he will have: he will have a concurrence, a cooperation of persons. Even in that great work, which we spoke of at first, the first creation, which was so absolutely of Nothing, yet there was a Faciamus, let us, us, make Man; though but one God, yet more Persons in that work. 
Matt. 4.3.  Christ had been able to have done as the Devil would have had him do, to have made bread of stones, when he had so great a number to feed in the Wilderness; but he does not so: He asks his Disciples, Quot panes habetis; How many loafes have you? and though they were but five, yet since they were some, he multiplies them, and feeds above five thousand with those five. He would have a remnant of gedeon's Army to fight his battles: A remnant of Israel's believers to make up his Kingdom; A remnant of thy Soul, his seed wrapped up somewhere, to save thy Soul; And a remnant of thyself, of thy Mind, of thy Purse, of thy Person, for thy temporal deliverance. God goes low, and accepts small Sacrifices; a Pigeon, a handful of Flower, a few ears of Corn; but a Sacrifice he will have. The Christian Church implies a shrewd distress, when she provides that reason, that clause in her prayer, Quia non est alius, Give Peace in our time, O Lord, because there is no other that fighteth for us: If the bowels of compassion be eaten out, if the band of the Communion of Saints be dissolved, we fight for none, none fights for us, at last neither we nor they shall fight for Christ, nor Christ for them nor us, but all become a prey to the general enemy of the name of Christ; for God requires something, some assistance, some concurrence, some cooperation, though he can fight from heaven, and the Stars, in their order, can fight against Sisera.  
And therefore, though God give his glory to none, his glory, that is to do all with Nothing, yet he gives them their glory, that do any thing for him, or for themselves. And as he hath laid up a record, for their glory and Memorial, who were remarkable for Faith (for the eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews, is a Catalogue of them.) So in this Song of Deborah and Barake, he hath laid up a Record for their glory, who expressed their faith in Works, and assisted his service. That which is said in general, The Memory of the just is blessed, 
Prou. 13.7.  but the name of the wicked shall rot, That is applied and promised in particular, by him, who can perform it, by Christ, to that woman, who anointed him, That wheresoever his Gospel should be Preached in the whole world, 
Mat. 26.13  there should also this that this woman had done, be told for a memorial of her. She assisted at his Funeral (as Christ himself interprets her action, That she did it to bury him) and hath her glory: how shall he glorify them, that advance his glory? She hath her reward in his death; what shall they have, that keep him, and his Gospel alive? Not a verse in Deborah and barak's song, and yet that is honourable evidence: Not a commemoration at the Preaching of the Gospel; and yet that is the honourable testimony in this place, and at these Exercises, of such as have contributed to the conveniencies of these Exercises, but they shall have a place in the Book of life; indelibly in the Book of life, if they proceed in that devotion of assisting God's cause, and do not think, that they have done all, or done enough, if they have done something some one time. The Moral man hath said well, and well applied it; 
Plutar.  A Ship is a Ship for ever, if you repair it. So, says he, Honour is Honour, and so say we, A good Conscience is a good Conscience for ever, if you repair it: But, says he well, Aliquid famae addendum, ne putrescat. Honour will putrify, and so will a good Conscience too, if it be not repaired. He that hath done Nothing must begin, and he that hath done something for God's cause, must do more, if he will continue his name in the Book of Life; though God leave no one particular action, done for his glory, without glory; as those who assisted his glory here, have a glorious Commemoration in this Song.  
In the fifteenth verse, Princes have their place; The Princes of Issachar, were with Deborah▪ when the King goes to the field, Many, who are in other cases Privileged, are by their Tenors bound to go. It is a high Tenure to hold by a Crown; And when God, of whom, and whom only they hold, that hold so, goes into the field, it becomes them to go with him. But as God sits in Heaven, and yet goes into the field, so they of whom God hath said, Ye are Gods, the Kings of the Earth, may stay at home, and yet go too. They go in their assistance to the War; They go in their Mediation for Peace; They go in their Example, when from their sweetness, and moderation in their Government at home, their flows out an instruction, a persuasion to Princes abroad. King's go many times, and are not thanked, because their ways are not seen: and Christ himself would not always be seen; In the eight of john, he would not be seen. When they took up stones to stone him, he withdrew himself invisibly, he would not be seen: When Princes find that open actions exasperate, they do best, if they be not seen. In the sixth of john, Christ would not be seen. When they would have put upon him, that which was not fit for him to take, when they would have made him King, he withdrew himself, and was not seen. When Princes are tempted to take Territories, or possessions in to their hands, to which other Princes have just pretences, they do best, if they withdraw themselves from engagements in unnecessary Wars, for that, 
2. Reg. 23.29.  that only was josiahs' ruin. King's cannot always go in the sight of Men, and so they lose their thankes; but they cannot go out of the sight of God, and there they never lose their reward: For the Lord that sees them in secret, shall reward them openly, with peace in their own States, and Honour in their own Chronicles, as here, for assisting his cause, he gave the Princes of Issachar a room, a strain in Deborah and Barakes Song.  
And in the ninth verse, the Governors, the great Officers, have their place, in this praise, My heart is towards the Governors of Israel that offered themselves willingly. It is not themselves in person; Great Officers cannot do so; They are Intelligences that move great Spheres, but they must not be moved out of them. But their glory here is their willingness. That before they were inquired into, how they carried themselves in their Offices, before they were intimidated, or souple with fines and ransoms, voluntarily they assisted the cause of God. Some in the Roman Church write, that the Cardinals of that Church, are so incorporated into the Pope, so much of his body, and so blood of his blood, that in a fever they may not let blood without his leave. Truly, the great Persons and Governors in any state, are so noble and near parts of the King, as that they may not bleed out in any subventions and assistances of such causes underhand, as are not avowd by the King; for, it is not evident that that cause is God's cause; at least not evident that that way is an assistance of God's cause. But a good, and tractable, and ductile disposition, in all courses which shall lawfully be declared to be for God's glory, then, not Contra, but Praeter, not against, but beside, not in opposing, but in preventing the Kings will, before he urge, before he press, to be willing and forward in such assistances, this gives great Persons, Governors, and Officers, a verse in barak's and Deborahs' Song, and Deborah and barak's Song is the Word of God.  
The Merchants have their place in that verse too. For, (as we said before) those who ride upon white Asses, (which was as honourable a transportation, as Coaches are now) are by Peter Martyr amongst ours, and by Serarius the Jesuit amongst others, well understood to be the Merchants. The greatness and the dignity of the Merchants of the East is sufficiently expressed in those of Babylon, Thy Merchants were the great Men of the Earth. 
Apoc. 18.23  And for the Merchants of the West, we know that in diverse foreign parts, their Nobility is in their Merchants, their Merchants are their Gentlemen. And certainly, no place of the world, for Commodities and Situation, better disposed then this Kingdom, to make Merchants great. You cannot show your greatness more, then in serving God, with part of it; you did serve before you were free; but here you do both at once, for his service is perfect freedom. I am not here to day, to beg a Benevolence for any particular cause on foot now: there is none; but my Errand in this first part is, first to remove jealousies and suspicions of Gods neglecting his business, because he does it not at our appointment, and then to promove and advance a disposition, to assist his cause and his glory, in all ways, which shall be declared to conduce thereunto, whether in his body, by relieving the poor, or in his house by repairing these walls, or in his honour in employments more public: And to assure you that you cannot have a better debtor, a better paymaster than Christ jesus: for all your entails, and all your perpetuities do not so nail, so hoop in, so rivet an estate in your posterity, as to make the Son of God your Son too, and to give Christ jesus a Child's part, with the rest of your Children. It is noted (perchance but out of levity) that your Children do not keep that which you get: It is but a calumny, or but a fascination of ill wishers. We have many happy instances to the contrary, many noble families derived from you; One, enough to ennoble a World; Queen ELIZABETH was the great granchild of a Lord Mayor of London. Our blessed God bless all your Estates, and bless your posterity in a blessed enjoying thereof; But truly it is a good way to that, amongst all your purchases, to purchase a place in Barak and Deborahs' Song, a testimony of the Holy Ghost, that you were forward in all due times in the assistance of God's cause.  
That testimony, in this Service in our Text, have the judges of the Land, in the same verse too, ye that fit in judgement. Certainly, Men exercised in Judgement, are likeliest to think of the last judgement. Men accustomed to give judgement, likeliest to think of the judgement they are to receive. And at that last judgement the Malediction of the left hand falls upon them that have not harboured Christ, not fed him, not clothed him, And when Christ comes to want those things in that degree, that his Kingdom, his Gospel, himself cannot subsist, where it did, without such a sustentation, an omission in such an assistance, is much more heavy. All judgements end in this, Suum cuique, to give every one his own. Give God his own, and he hath enough; give him his own, in his own place, and his cause will be preferred before any Civil or Natural obligation. But God requires not that: pay every other Man first, own nothing to any Man; pay your Children, apportion them convenient portions. Pay your estimation, your reputatation, live in that good fashion which your rank and calling calls for: when all this is done, of your superfluities begin to pay God, and even for that you shall have your room in Deborah, and Baraks' Song, for Assistants, and Coadjutors to him.  
For a fare unlikelier sort of people, than any of these, have that in the same verse also, Ambulantes super viam, They that walk up and down idle, discourcing Men, Men of no Calling, of no Profession, of no sense of other men's miseries, and yet they assist this cause. Men that suck the sweet of the Earth, and the sweat of other Men: Men that pay the State nothing in doing the offices of mutual society, and embracing particular vocations; Men that make themselves but pipes to receive and convey, and vent rumours, but sponges to suck in, and pour out foul water; Men that do not spend time, but wear time, they trade not, they plough not, they preach not, they plead not, but walk, and walk upon the way, till they have walked out their six months for the renewing of bands, even these had some remorse in God's cause, even these got into Deborah and barak's Song for assisting there.  
And less; that is, Poorer than these: for in the Second verse, the people are as forward as the Governors, in the Ninth, They offered themselves willingly. They might offer themselves, their persons. It is likely they did; and likely that many of them had nothing to offer but themselves. And when Men of that poverty offer, part easily with that which was hardly got, how acceptable to God, that Sacrifice is, we see in Christ's testimony of that Widow, who amongst many great givers gave her Mite, That she gave more than all they, because she gave all: which testified not only her Liberality to God, but her Confidence in God, that though she left nothing, she should not lack: for that right use doth Saint Augustine make of that example, Divites largiuntur securi de divitijs, pauper securus de Domino: A rich man gives, and feels it not, fears no want, because he is sure of a full Chest at home; A poor man gives, and feels it as little, because he is sure of a bountiful God in Heaven.  
God then can work alone; there we set out: yet he does require assistance; that way we went: And to those that do assist, he gives glory here; so fare we are gone: but yet this remains, that he lays notes of blame, and reproach upon them, whom collateral respects withdrew from this assistance. For there is a kind of reproach and increpation laid upon Reuben in that question, Why abodest thou amongst the sheepfolds? 
Verse 16.  The divisions of REUBEN were great thoughts of heart. Ambition of precedency in places of employment, greatness of heart, and a loathness to be under the command of any other, and so an incoherence, not concurring in Counsels and Executions, retard oftentimes even the cause of God. So is there also a reproach and increpation upon Dan, in that question, 
Verse 17.  why did Dan remain in his ships; A confidence in their own strength, a sacrificing to their own Nets, an attributing of their security to their own wisdom or power, may also retard the cause of God; that stayed Dan behind.  
Thus than they have their thankes that do, thus their marks that do not assist in God's cause: though God to encourage them that do, accomplish his work himself, They fought from heaven, The Stars in their order fought against Sisera. They fought, says the Text, but does not tell us who; lest men should direct their thankes for that which is past, or their prayers for future benefits, to any other, even in heaven, then to God himself. The stars are named; It could not be feared that Men would pray to them, sacrifice to them, Angels & Saints are not named; Men might come to ascribe to them, that which appertained to God only. Now these Stars, says the text, fought in their courses, Manentes in Ordine, they fought not disorderly. It was no Enchantment, no Sorcery, no disordering of the frame, or the powers, or the influence of these heavenly bodies, in favour of the Israelites; God would not be beholden to the Devil, or to Witches, for his best friends. It was no disorderly Enchantment, nor it was no Miracle, that disordered these Stars; as in josuahs' time, the Sun and Moon were disordered in their Motions; But as josephus, who relates this battle more particularly, says, with whom all agree, The natural Influence of these heavenly bodies, at this time, had created and gathered such storms and hails, as blowing vehemently in the Enemy's face, was the cause of this defeat: for so we might have said, in that deliverance, which God gave us at Sea, They fought from heaven, The Stars in their order fought against the Enemy. Without conjuring, without Miracle, from heaven, but yet by natural means, God preserved us. For that is the force of that phrase, and of that manner of expressing it, Manentes in Ordine, The Stars, containing themselves in their Order, fought. And that phrase induces our second part, the accommodation, the occasional application of these words: God will not fight, nor be fought for disorderly; And therefore in illustration, and confirmation of those words of the Apostle, Let all things be done decently, and in order, Aquinas, in his Commentaries upon that place, cities, and applies this Text, as words to the same purpose, and of the same signification. You, says Saint Paul, you who are Stars in the Church, must proceed in your warfare, decently, and in order, for the stars of heaven, when they fight for the Lord, they do their service, Manentes in Ordine, containing themselves in their Order. And so in our order, we are come to our second part. In which we own you by promise made at first, an Analysis, a distribution of the steps and branches of this part, now when we are come to the handling thereof: And thus we shall proceed; first, the War, which we are to speak of here, is not as before, a Worldly war, it is a Spiritual War: And then the Munition, the provision for this war, is not as before, temporal assistance of Princes, Officers, judges, Merchants, all sorts of People, but it is the Gospel of Christ jesus, and the preaching thereof. Preaching is Gods ordinance, with that Ordinance he fights from heaven, and batters down all errors. And thirdly, to maintain this War, he hath made Preachers Stars; and vae si non, woe be unto them, if they do not fight, if they do not preach: But yet in the last place, they must fight, as the Stars in heaven do, In their order, in that Order, and according to those directions, which, they, to whom it appertains, shall give them: for that is to fight in Order. And in these four branches, we shall determine this second part.  
First then we are in Contemplation of a Spiritual war; now, though there be a Beatie Pacifici, a blessing reserved to Peacemakers, to the Peacemaker, our Peacemaker, who hath sometimes effected it in some places, and always seriously and chargeably, and honourably endeavoured it in all places, yet there is a spiritual War, in which, Maledicti Pacifici; Cursed be they that go about to make Peace, and to make all one, The wars between Christ and belial. Let no man sever those whom God hath joined, but let no Man join those whom God hath severed neither, and God hath severed Christ and Belial: and that was God's action, Ponam inimicitias; The Seed of the woman, and the Seed of the Serpent, we and the Devil, should never have fallen out; we agree but too well; but God hath put an enmity between us. God hath put Truth and Falsehood, idolatry and Sincerity so fare asunder, and infused such an incompatibility, and imprinted such an implacability between them, as that they cannot flow into one another: And therefore, there, Maledicti Pacifici, It is an opposition against God, by any colourable Modifications, to reconcile opinions diametrally contrary to one another, in fundamental things. Day and Night may join and meet. In Diluculis and in Crepusculis, The dawning of the day, in the Morning, and the shutting in of the day in the Evening, make day and night so much one, as sometimes you cannot tell which to call them: but Lux & tenebrae, light and darkness, Midnight and Noon never met, never joined. There are points, which passions of men, and vehemence of disputation, have carried farther a sunder then needed: and these indeed have made the greatest noise; because upon these, for the most part, depends the matter of profit: and Beati pacifici, blessed were that labour, and that labourer, that could reconcile those things; and of that there might be hope, because it is often but the Persons that fight, it is not the thing, the matters are not so different. But then there are matters so different, as that a Man may sit at home, and weep, and wish, praise God that he is in the right, and pray to God for them that are in the wrong, but to think that they are indifferent, and all one, Maledicti Pacifici, he that hath brought such a Peace, hath brought a curse upon his own Conscience, and laid, not a Satisfaction, but a Scupefaction upon it. A Turk might perchance say, in scorn of us both, They call you Heretics, you call them Idolaters, why might not Idolaters, and Heretics agree well enough together? But a true Christian will never make Contrarieties in fundamental things indifferent, never make foundations, and superedifications, the Word of God, and the Traditions of men, all one. Every man is a little world, says the Philosopher; Every man is a little Church too; and in every man there are two sides, two armies: the flesh fights against the Spirit. This is but a Civil war, nay it is but a Rebellion indeed; and yet it can never be absolutely quenched. So every man is also a Soldier in that great and general war, between Christ, and belial, the Word of God, and the will of man. Every man is bound to hearken to a peace, in such things as may admit peace, in differences, where men differ from men; but bound also to shut himself up against all overtures of peace, in such things, as are in their Nature irreconcilable, in differences where men differ from God. That war God hath kindled, and that war must be maintained, and maintained by his way; and his way, and his Ordinance in this war, is Preaching.  
If God had not said to Noah, Fac tibi Arcam; and when he had said so, if he had not given him a Design, a Model, a Platform of that Ark, we may doubt credibly, whether ever man would have thought of a Ship, or of any such way of trade & Commerce. Shipping was God's own Invention, and therein Laetentur Insulae, as David says, Let the Lands rejoice. So also, if Christ had not said to his Apostles, Ite praedicate, Go and preach: And when he had said so, said thus much more, Qui non crediderit damnabitur, He that believes not your Preaching, shall be damned: certainly man would never have thought of such a way of establishing a kingdom, as by Preaching. No other Nation had any such Institution, as Preaching. In the Roman State, there was a public Officer, Conditor Precum, who upon great emergent occasions, deprecations of imminent dangers, or Gratulations for evident benefits, did make particular Collects answerable to those occasions: And some such occasional Panegyriques, and gratulatory Orations for temporal benefits, they had in that State. But a fixed and constant course of containing Subjects in their Religious and Civil duties, by preaching, only God ordained, only his Children enjoyed. Christ when he sent his Apostles, did not give them a particular command, Ite orate, go and pray in the public Congregation; All Nations were accustomed to that; Christ made no doubt of any man's opposing, or questioning Public Prayer; and therefore for that, he only said, Sic orabitis, Not go, and pray, but, when you pray, pray thus, he instructed them in the form; the duty was well known to all before. But, for Preaching, He himself was anointed for that, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
Esa. 61.1  because the Lord hath anointed me to preach: His unction was his function. He was anointed with that power, and he hath anointed us with part of his own unction: All power is given unto me, says he, in Heaven and in Earth; and therefore (as he adds there) Go ye, 
Math. 28 19  and preach: Because I have all power, for preaching, take ye part of my power, and preach too. For, Preaching is the power of God unto Salvation, and the savour of life unto life When therefore the Apostle says, 
1 Thes. 5.19.  Quench not the Spirit, Nec in te, nec in alio, says Aquinas; Quench it not in yourself, by forbearing to hear the Word preached; quench it not in others, by discouraging them that do preach. For so Saint chrysostom, (and not he alone) understood that place, That they quench the spirit, who discountenance preaching, and dishearten Preachers. Saint chrysostom took his example from the lamp that burned by him, when he was preaching; (It seems therefore he did preach in the afternoon) and he says, You may quench this Lamp, by putting in water, and you may quench it by taking out the oil. So a man may quench the spirit in himself, if he smother it, suffocate it with worldly pleasures, or profits, and he may quench it in others, if he withdraw that favour, or that help, which keeps that Man, who hath the spirit of Prophecy, the Unction of Preaching, in a cheerful discharge of his duty. Preaching then being God's Ordinance to beget Faith, to take away preaching, were to disarm God, and to quench the spirit; for by that Ordinance he fights from heaven.  
And to maintain that fight, he hath made his Ministers Stars; as they are called in the first of the Revelation. And they fight against Sisera, that is, they preach against Error. They preach out of Necessity; Necessity is laid upon me to preach, says the Apostle, 
1 Cor. 9.16.  and upon a heavy penalty, if they do not; Vae mihi si non, Woe be unto me if I do not preach the Gospel. Neither is that spoke there with the case of a future, as the Roman Translation hath it, Si non Elivangelizavero, If I do not hereafter preach; If I preach not at one time or other; If I preach not when I see how things will go, what kind of preaching will be most acceptable: But it is, Si non Euangelizem, If I preach not now; now, though I had preached yesterday; for so Saint Ambrose preached his Sermon de sancto Lat●…one, of the good Thief, Hesterno die, Yesterday I told you etc. So Saint Augustin preached his Sermon upon All Saint's day: And so did Saint Bernard his twelfth Sermon upon the Psalm: Qui habitat. Now, though I preached but lately before; and now, though I had but late warning to preach now; So St. Basil preached his 2. Sermon upon the Hexameron, the six days work, when he had but that Morning for Meditation: and more than so, in his 2. Sermon de Baptissimo; for, it seems he preached that without any premeditation, Prout suggerit Spiritus sanctus. Now, though I had not time to labour a Sermon; and now, though I preach in another's man's place; for so Saint Augustine preached his Sermon upon the 95. Psalm: where he says, Frater noster Severus, Our brother Severus should by promise have preached here, but since he comes not, I will. Now, that is, whensoever Gods good people may be edified by my preaching: Vae si non, woe be unto me, if I do not preach. The Dragon drew a third part of the Stars from heaven. 
Apoc. 12.3.  Antichrist by his Persecutions, and Excommunications silenced many; all that would not magnify him. And many amongst us, have silenced themselves: Abundance silences some, & Laziness, and Ignorance some, and some their own Indiscretion, and then they lay that upon the Magistrate. But God hath placed us in a Church, and under a Head of the Church, where none are silenced, nor discountenanced, if being Stars, called to the Ministry of the Gospel, & appointed to fight, to preach there, they fight within the discipline and limits of this Text, Manentes in ordine, containing themselves in Order.  
In this phrase, as we told you before, out of Aquinas, the same thing is intended, as in that place of Saint Paul, Let all things be done decently, and in Order. That the Vulgat Edition reads, Fiant honest; and then says Saint Ambrose, Honest fit, quod cum pace fit, That is done honestly, and decently, which is done quietly, and peaceably. Not with a peace, and indifferency to contrary Opinions in fundamental Doctrines, not to shuffle Religions together, and make it all one which you choose, but a peace with persons, an abstinence from contumelies, and revile. It is true that we must hate God's enemies with a perfect hatred, and it is true that Saint chrysostom says, Odium perfectum est, odium consummatissimum, that is not a perfect hatred, that leaves out any of their Errors unhated. But yet a perfect hatred is that too, which may consist with perfection, and Charity is perfection: a perfect hatred is that which a perfect, that is, a charitable man may bear, which is still to hate Errors, not Persons. When their insolences provoke us to speak of them, we shall do no good therein, if therein we proceed not decently, and in order. Christ says of his Church: 
Cant. 6.3  Terribilis ut Castrorumacies, It is powerful as an Army; but it is ut acies ordinata, as an army disciplined, and in order: for without order, an Army is but a great Riot; and without this decency, this peaceableness, this discretion, this Order, zeal is but fury, and such preaching is but to the obduration of ill, not to the edification of good Christians. Saint Paul in his absence from the Colossians, 
Col. 2.5.  rejoices as much in beholding their Order, as in their steadfastness in the faith of Christ jesus: Nay, if we consider the words well, as Saint chrysostom hath done, we shall see that it is only their Order that he rejoices in: for Non dixit fidem, sed firmamentum fidei, says that Father, It was not their faith, but that which established their faith, that was their order, that occasioned his joy. For when there is not an uniform, a comely, an orderly presenting of matters of faith, faith itself grows lose, and loses her estimation; and preaching in the Church comes to be as pleading at the Bar, and not so well: there the Counsel speaks not himself, but him that sent him, here we shall preach not him who sent us, Christ jesus, but ourselves. Study to be quiet, and to do your own business, 
1 Thes 4.11.  is the Apostles commandment to every particular man amongst the Thessalonians. It seems some amongst them disobeyed that: and therefore he writes no more to particular persons, but to the whole Church, in his other Epistle, and with more vehemence, than a small matter would have required: 
2 Thes. 3.6.  We command you in the name of our Lord jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourself from all that walk Inordinate, as the vulgat reads that in one place, and Inquietè, as they translate the same word, in another, disorderly, unquietly: from all such as preach suspiciously, and jealously; and be the garden never so fair, will make the world believe, there is a Snake under every leaf, be the intention never so sincere, will presage, and prognosticate, and predivine sinister and mischievous effects from it. A troubled spirit is a sacrifice to God, 
Psa 51.7  but a troublesome spirit is fare from it. I am glad that our Ministry is called Orders; that when we take this calling, we are said to take Orders. Yours are called Trades, and Occupations, and Mysteries: Law and Physic are called Sciences, and Professions: many others have many other names, ours is Orders. When by his Majesty's leave we meet in our Convocations, and being met, have his further leave, to treat of remedies for any disorders in the Church, our Constitutions are Canons, Canons are Rules, Rules are Orders: Parliaments determine in Laws, judges in Decrees, we in Orders. And by our Service in this Mother Church, we are Canonici, Canons, Regular, Orderly men; not Canonistae, men that know Orders, but Canonici, men that keep them: where we are also called Prebendaries, rather à Praebendo, then à Praebenda, rather for giving example of obedience to Orders, then for any other respect. In the Roman Church the most disorderly men, are their men in Orders. I speak not of the viciousness of their life, I am no judge of that, I know not that: but they are so out of all Order, that they are within rule of no temporal Law, within jurisdiction of no Civil Magistrate, no secular judge. They may kill Kings, and yet can be no Traitors, they assign their reason, Because they are no Subjects. He that kills one of them, shall be really hanged; and if one of them kill, he shall be Metaphorically hanged, he shall be suspended. We enjoy gratefully, and we use modestly the Privileges which godly Princes, out of their piety have afforded us, and which ●heir godly Successors have given us again by their gracious continuing of them to us; but our Profession of itself, naturally (though the very nature of it dispose Princes to a gracious disposition to us) exempts us not from the tye of their Laws. All men are in deed, we are in Deed and in name too, Men of Orders; and therefore aught to be most ready of all others to obey.  
Now, beloved, 
Aquin.  Ordo semper dicitur ratione principij: Order always presumes a head, it always implies some by whom we are to be ordered, and it implies our conformity to him. Who is that? God certainly, without all question, God. But between God, & Man, we consider a twofold Order One, as all creatures depend upon God, as upon their beginning, for their very Being; and so every creature is wrought upon immediately by God, and whether he discern it or no, does obey God's order, that is, that which God hath ordained, his purpose, his providence is executed upon him, & accomplished in him. But then the other Order is, not as man depends upon God, as upon his beginning, but as he is to be reduced and brought back to God, as to his end: & that is done by means in this world. What is that means? for those things which we have now in consideration, the Church. But the body speaks not, the head does. It is the Head of the Church that declares to us those things whereby we are to be ordered.  
This the Royal and religious Head of these Churches within his Dominions hath lately had occasion to do. And in doing this, doth he innovate any thing, offer to do any new thing? Do we repent that Canon, & Constitution, in which at his Majesty's first coming we declared with so much alacrity, as that it was the second Canon we made, That the King had the same authority in causes Ecclesiastical, that the godly Kings of judah, and the Christian Emperors in the primative Church had? Or are we ignorant what those Kings of judah, and those Emperors did? We are not, we know them well. Take it where the power of the Empire may seem somewhat declind in Charles the great; we see by those Capitularies of his, that remain yet, what orders he gave in such causes; there he says in his entrance to them, Nemo presumptuosum dicat; Let no man call this that I do an usurpation, to prescribe Orders in these cases, Nam legimus quid Iosias fecerit, We have red what josiah did, and we know that we have the same Authority that josiah had. But, that Emperor consulted with his Clergy, before he published those Orders. It is true, he says he did. But he, from whom we have received these Orders, did more than so; His Majesty forbore, till a representation of some inconveniences by disorderly preaching, was made to him, by those in the highest place in our Clergy, and other grave and reverend Prelates of this Church; they presented it to him, and thereupon he entered into the remedy. But that Emperor did but declare things constituted by other Counsels before: but yet the giving the life of execution to those Constitutions in his Dominions, was introductory, and many of the things themselves were so. Amongst them, his 70. Capitularie is appliable to our present case; there he says, Episcopi videant, That the Bishops take care, that all Preachers preach to the people the Exposition of the Lord's Prayer: and he enioynes them too, Ne quid nowm, ne quid non Canonicum, That no man preach any new opinion of his own; nay, though it be the opinion of other learned men in other places, yet if it be Non Canonicum, not declared in the universal Church, not declared in that Church, in which he hath his station, he may not preach it to the people: And so he proceeds there to Catechistical Doctrine.  
That is not new then, which the Kings of judah did, and which the Christian Emperors did. But it is new to us, if the Kings of this kingdom have not done it. Have they not done it? How little the Kings of this kingdom did in Ecclesiastical causes then, when by their connivance that power was devold into a foreign Prelate's hand, it is pity to consider, pity to remember, pity to bring into Contemplation; And yet truly even then our Kings did exercise more of that power, than our adversaries who oppose it, will confess. But, since the true jurisdiction was vindicated, and reapplyed to the Crown, in what just height Henry the eight, and those who governed his Son's minority, Edward the sixth, exercised that jurisdiction in Ecclesiastical causes, none, that knows their Story, knows not. And, because ordinarily, we settle ourselves best in the Actions, and Precedents of the late Queen of blessed and everlasting memory, I may have leave to remember them that know, and to tell them that know not, one act of her power and her wisdom, to this purpose. When some Articles concerning the falling away from justifying grace, and other points that beat upon that haunt; had been ventilated, in Conventicle, and in Pulpits too, and Preaching on both sides past, and that some persons of great place and estimation in our Church, together with him who was the greatest of all, amongst our Clergy, had upon mature deliberation established a resolution what should be thought, and taught, held and preached in those points, and had thereupon sent down that resolution to be published in the University, not vulgarly neither, to the people, but in a Sermon, Ad Clerum only, yet her Majesty being informed thereof, declared her displeasure so, as that, scarce any hours before the Sermon was to have been, there was a Countermand, an Inhibition to the Preacher for meddling with any of those points. Not that her Majesty made herself judge of the Doctrines, but that nothing, not formerly declared to be so, aught to be declared to be the Tenet, and Doctrine of this Church, her Majesty not being acquainted, nor suplicated to give her gracious allowance for the publication thereof.  
His sacred Majesty then, is herein upon the steps of the Kings of judah, of the Christian Emperors, of the Kings of England, of all the Kings of England, that embraced the Reformation, of Queen Elizabeth herself; and he is upon his own steps too. For, it is a seditious calumny to apply this which is done now, to any occasion that rises but now: as though the King had done this, now, for satisfaction of any persons at this time. For some years since, when he was pleased to call the Heads of Houses from the University, and intimate to them the inconveniences that arose from the Preaching of such men, as were not at all conversant in the Fathers, in the School, nor in the Ecclesiastical Story, but had shut up themselves in a few later Writers; and gave order to those Governors for remedy herein, Then he began, than he laid the foundation for that, in which he hath proceeded thus much further now, to reduce Preaching nearer to the manner of those Primitive times, when God gave so evident, and so remarkable blessings to men's Preaching.  
Consider more particularly that which he hath done now; His Majesty hath accompanied his most gracious Letter to the most Reverend Father in God, my Lord's Grace of Canterbury, with certain Directions how Preachers ought to behave themselves in the exercise of that part of their Ministry. These being derived from his Grace, in due course to his reverend Brethren, the other Bishops, our worthy Diocesan, ever vigilant for the Peace and unity of the Church, gave a speedy, very speedy intimation thereof, to the Clergy of his jurisdiction; so did others, to whom it appertained so to do in theirs. Since that, his Majesty who always taking good works in hand, love's to perfect his own works, hath vouchsafed to give some Reasons of this his proceeding; which being signified by him to whom the State and Church owes much, The right Reverend Father in God, the Bishop of Lincoln, Lord Keeper of the great Seal, and after by him also, who began at first, his Majesty's pleasure appearing thereby, (as he is too Great, and too Good a King to seek corners, or disguises, for his actions) that these proceed should be made public, I was not willing only, but glad to have my part therein, that as, in the fear of God, I have always preached to you the Gospel of Christ jesus, who is the God of your Salvation; So in the testimony of a good Conscience, I might now preach to you, the Gospel of the Holy ghost, who is the God of peace, of unity, and concord.  
These Directions then, and the Reasons of them, by his Majesty's particular care, every man in the Ministry may see & write out, in the several Registers Offices, with his own hand for nothing, and for very little, if he use the hand of another. Perchance you have, at your convenience, you may see them. When you do, you shall see, That his Majesty's general intention therein is, to put a difference, between grave, and solid, from light and humorous preaching. Origen does so, when upon the Epistle to the Romans, he says, There is a great difference, Inter praedicare, & docere: A man may teach an Auditory, that is, make them know something that they knew not before, and yet not Preach; for Preaching is to make them know things appertaining to their salvation. But when men do neither, neither Teach, nor Preach, but (as his Majesty observes the manner to be) To soar in points too deep, To muster up their own Reading, To display their own Wit, or Ignorance in meddling with Civil matters, or (as his Majesty adds) in rude and undecent reviling of persons: this is that which hath drawn down his Majesty's piercing Eye to see it, and his Royal care to correct it. He corrects it by Christ's own way, Quid ab initio, by considering how it was at first: for, (as himself to right purpose cities Tertullian) Id verum quod primum; That is best, which was first. He would therefore have us conversant in Antiquity: For, Nazianzen asks that question with some scorn, Quis est qui veritatis propugnatorem, unius diei spatio, velut e luto statuam fingit. Can any man hope to make a good Preacher, as soon as a good Picture? In three or four days, or with three or four Books? His Majesty therefore calls us to look, Quid primum, what was first in the whole Church? And again, Quid primum, when we received the Reformation in this Kingdom, by what means, (as his Majesty expresseth it) Papistry was driven out, and Puritanisme kept out, and we delivered from the Superstition of the Papist, and the madness of the Anabaptists, as before he expresseth it: and his religious and judicious eye sees clearly, That all that Doctrine, which wrought this great cure upon us, in the Reformation, is contained in the two Catechisms, in the 39 Articles, and in the 2. Books of Homilies. And to these, as to Heads, and Abundaries, from whence all knowledge necessary to salvation, may abundantly be derived, he directs the meditations of Preachers.  
Are these new ways? No way new: for they were our first way in receiving Christianity, and our first way in receiving the Reformation. Take a short view of them all: as it is in the Catechisms, as it is in the Articles, as it is in the Homilies. First you are called back to the practice of Catechising: Remember what Catechising is; it is Institutio viva voce. And in the Primitive Church, when those persons, who coming from the Gentiles to the Christian Religion, might have been scandalised with the outward Ceremonial, and Ritual worship of God in the Church, (for Ceremonies are stumbling blocks to them who look upon them without their Signification, and without the reason of their Institution) to avoid that danger, though they were not admitted to see the Sacraments administered, nor the other Service of God performed in the Church, yet in the Church, they received Instruction, Institution, by word of mouth, in the fundamental Articles of the Christian Religion, and that was Catechising. The Christians had it from the beginning, and the jews had it too: for their word Chanach, is of that signification, Initiare, to enter. Train up a child in the way he should go, 
Pro. 22.6  and when he is old, he will not departed from it. Train up, says our Translation in the Text; Catechise, say our Translators in the Margin, according to the natural force of the Hebrew word. And Sepher Chinnuch, which is Liber Institutionum, that is, of Catechism, is a Book well known amongst the jews, every where, where they are now: Their Institution is their Catechism. And if we should tell some men, That Caluins' Institutions were a Catechism, would they not love Catechising the better for that name? And would they not love it the better, if they gave me leave to tell them that of which I had the experience. An Artificer of this City brought his Child to me, to admire (as truly there was much reason) the capacity, the memory, especially of the child. It was but a Girl, and not above nine years of age, her Parents said less, some years less; we could scarf propose any Verse of any Book, or Chapter of the Bible, but that that child would go forward without Book. I began to Catechise this child; and truly, she understood nothing of the Trinity, nothing of any of those fundamental points which must save us: and the wonder was doubled, how she knew so much, how so little.  
The Primitive Church discerned this necessity of Catechising: And therefore they instituted a particular Office, a Calling in the Church of Catechisers. Which Office, as we see in Saint Cyprians 42. Epistle, that great man Optatus exercised at Carthage, and Origen at Alexandria. When S. Augustine took the Epistle, and the Gospel, and the Psalm of the day, for his Text to one Sermon, did he, think you, much more than paraphrase, then Catechise? When Athanasius makes one Sermon, and, God knows, a very short one too, Contra omnes Haereses, To overthrew all Heresies in one Sermon; did he, think you, any more than propose fundamental Doctrines, which is truly the way to overthrew all Heresies? When Saint Chrysostom enters into his Sermon upon the 3. Chapter to the Galatians, with that preparation, Attendite diligenter, non enim rem vulgarem pollicemur, Now harken diligently, says he, for it is no ordinary matter that I propose, There he proposes catechistical Doctrine of faith and works. Come to lower times, when Chrysologus makes six or seven Sermons upon the Creed, and not a several Sermon upon every several Article, but takes the whole Creed for his Text, in every Sermon, and scarce any of those Sermons a quarter of an hour long, will you not allow this manner of Preaching to be Catechising? Go as low as can be gone, to the jesuites; and that great Catechiser amongst them, Canisius, says, Nos hoc munus suscipimus: We, wee jesuites make Catechising our Profession. I doubt not but they do recreate themselves sometimes in other matters too, but that they glory in, that they are Catechizers. And in that Profession, says he, we have Saint Basil, Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, Saint Cyrill, in our Society; and truly as Catechizers, they have; as State-Friers, as jesuits, they have not. And in the first Capacity they have him, who is more than all; for as he says rightly, Ipse Christus Catechista, Christ's own Preaching was a Catechising. I pray God that jesuits' conclusion of that Epistle of his, be true still; There he says, Si nihil aliud, If nothing else, yet this alone should provoke us to a greater diligence in Catechising; Improbus labour, & indesessa cura, That our Adversaries, the Protestants do spend so much time, as he says, day and night in catechising. Now, if it were so then, when he writ, and be not so still amongst us, we have intermitted one of our best advantages: and therefore God hath graciously raised a blessed and a Royal Instrument, to call us back to that, which advantaged us, and so much offended the Enemy. That man may sleep with a good Conscience, of having discharged his duty in his Ministry, that hath preached in the forenoon, and Catechised after. Quaere, says Tertullian, (and he says that with indignation) an Idolatriam committat, qui de Idolis catechizat: Will any man doubt, says he, whether that man be an Idolater, that catechises Children, and Servants in Idolatry? Will any man doubt, whether he be painful in his Ministry, that catechises children, and servant in the sincere Religion of Christ jesus. The Roman Church hath still made her use of us; of our fortunes, when she governed here, and of our example, since she did not: They did, as they saw us do; And thereupon they came to that order, in the Council of Trent, That upon Sundays and Holidays, they should Preach in the forenoon, and Catechise in the afternoon; till we did both, they did neither. 
Mat. 18.3  Except ye become as little Children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, says Christ. Except ye, ye the people be content at first to feed on the milk of the Gospel, and not presently to fall to gnawing of bones, of Controversies, and unrevealed Mysteries, And except ye, the Ministers and Preachers of the Gospel, descend and apply yourselves to the Capacity of little Children, and become as they, and build not your estimation only upon the satisfaction of the expectation of great and curious Auditories, you stop theirs, you lose your own way to the kingdom of Heaven. Not that we are to shut up, and determine ourselves, in the knowledge of catechistical rudiments, but to be sure to know them first. The Apostle puts us upon that progress, 
Heb. 6.1.  Let us learn the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ, and go on to perfection. Not leave at them; but yet not leave them out: endeavour to increase in knowledge, but first make sure of the foundation. And that increase of knowledge, is royally, and fatherly presented to us, in that, which is another limne of his Majesty's directions, the 39 Articles.  
The Foundation of necessary knowledge, is in our Catechisms; the Superedification, the extension in these Articles. For they carry the understanding, and the zeal of the ablest Man; high enough, & deep enough. In the third Article there is an Orthodox assertion of Christ's descent into Hell; who can go deeper? In the 17. Article there is a Modest declaration of the Doctrine of Predestination; who can go higher? neither do these Articles only build up Positive Doctrine; If the Church had no adversaries, that were enough; but they embrace Controversies too, in points that are necessary. As in the two and twentieth Article of Purgatory, of Pardons, of Images, of Invocations: and these not in general only, but against the Romish Doctrine of Pardons, of Images, of Invocation. And in the eight and twentieth Article against Transubstantiation, and in such terms, as admit no meeting, no reconciliation; but that it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, and hath given occasion to many Superstitions. And in one word, we may see the purpose and scope of these Articles, as they were intended against the Roman Church, in that Title which they had in one Edition (in which though there were some other things, that justly gave offence, yet none was given nor taken in this) That these Articles were conceived and published, to condemn the Heresies of the Manichees, of the Arrians, of the Nestorians, of the Papists, and others. And therefore in these reasons, which his Majesty hath descended to give of his Directions, himself is pleased to assign this, That the people might be seasoned in all the Heads of the Protestant Religion. Not only of the Christian against jews, Turks, and Infidels, but of the Protestant against the Roman Church.  
The Foundation is in the Catechism; the growth and extension in the Articles, and then the Application of all to particular Auditories in the Homilies: which, if his Majesty had not named, yet had been employed in his recommendation of the Articles. For the five and thirtieth Article appoints the reading of them: both those, which were published in the time of Edward the sixth, and those which after. In the first Book, the very first Homilies are, of the Sufficiency of Scriptures, and of the absolute necessity of Reading them; sufficiently opposed against that which hath been said in that Church, both of the impertinency, of Scriptures, as not absolutely necessary, and of the insufficiency of these Scriptures, if Scriptures were necessary. And in the second Book, the second Homily is against Idolatry; and so fare against all approaches towards it, by having any Images in Churches, as that perchance Moderate Men, would rather think that Homily to severe in that kind, then suspect the Homilies of declination towards Papistry. Is it the name of Homilies that Scandalises them? would they have none? Saint Cyril's 30. Paschall Sermons, which he preached in so many several Easter days, at his Arch-bishoprike of Alexandria, and his Christmas days Sermons too, were ordinarily exscribed, and rehearsed over again, by the most part of the Clergy of those parts: and in their Mouths they were but Homilies. And Caluins' Homilies upon job (as Beza in his Preface before them, calls them) were ordinarily repeated over again in many places of France: and in their mouths they were but Homilies. It is but the name, that scandalises; and yet the name of Homilia and Concio, a Homily and a Sermon, is all one. And if some of these were spoken, and not read, and so exhibited in the name of a Sermon, they would like them well enough. Certainly his Majesty mistook it not, that in our Catechisms, In our Articles, in our Homilies, there is enough for Positive, enough for Controverted Divinity; For that jesuit, that intended to bring in the whole body of Controverted Divinity into his book, (whom we named before) desired no other Subject, no other occasion to do that, but the Catechism of that Church; neither need any sober Man, that intends to handle Controversies ask more, or go further.  
His Majesty therefore, who as he understands his duty to God, so doth he his Subject's duties to him, might justly think, That these so well grounded Directions, might, (as himself says) be received upon implicit obedience. Yet he vouchsafes to communicate to all, who desire satisfaction, the Reasons that moved him. Some of which I have related, and all which, all may, when they will see, and have. Of all which the Sum is, His Royal and his Pastoral care, that by that Primitive way of Preaching, his Subjects might be armed against all kind of Adversaries, in fundamental truths. And when he takes knowledge, That some few Churchmen, but many of the people, have made sinister constructions of his sincere intentions, As he is grieved at the heart, (to give you his own words) to see every day so many defections from our religion to Popery and Anabaptism; So without doubt he is grieved with much bitterness, that any should so pervert his meaning, as to think, that these Directions either restrained the Exercise of Preaching, or abated the number of Sermons, or made a breach to Ignorance and Superstition, of which three scandals he hath been pleased to take knowledge. What could any Calumniator, any Libeler on the other side, have imagined more opposite, more contrary to him, then approaches towards Ignorance, or Superstition? Let us say for him, Can so learned, so abundantly learned a prince be suspected to plot for Ignorance? And let us bless God, that we hear him say now, That he doth constantly profess himself an open adversary to the Superstition of the Papist (without any milder Modification) and to the madness of the Anabaptist: And that the preaching against either of their Doctrines is not only approved, but much commended by his royal Majesty, if it be done without rude and undecent reviling. If he had affected Ignorance in himself, he would never have read so much; and if he had affected Ignorance in us, he would never have writ so much, and made us so much the more learned by his Books. And if he had had any declination towards Superstition, he would not have gone so much farther, than his rank and quality pressed him to do, in declaring his opinion concerning Antichrist, as out of Zeal, and zeal with knowledge he hath done. We have him now, (and long, long, O eternal God, continue him to us,) we have him now for a father of the Church, a Foster-father; such a father as Constantine, as Theodosius was; our posterity shall have him for a Father, a Classic father; such a father as Ambrose, as Austin was. And when his works shall stand in the Libraries of our Posterity, amongst the Fathers, even these Papers, these Directions, & these Reasons shallbe pregnant evidences for his constant zeal to God's truth, and in the mean time, as arrows shot in their eyes, that imagine so vain a thing, as a defection in him, to their superstition. Thus far he is from admitting Ignorance, and from Superstition thus far, which seems to be one of their fears. And for the other two, (which concur in one) That these Directions should restrain the Exercise of Preaching, or abate the number of Sermons, his Majesty hath declared himself to those Reverend Fathers, To be so far from giving the least discouragement to solid Preaching, or to discreet and religious Preachers, or from abating the number of Sermons, that he expects at their hands, that this should increase their number, by renewing upon every Sunday in the afternoon, in all Parish Churches throughout the kingdom, that primitive, and most profitable exposition of the Catechism. So that here is no abating of Sermons, but a direction of the Preacher to preach usefully, and to edification.  
And therefore, to end all, you, you whom God hath made Stars in this Firmament, Preachers in this Church, deliver yourselves from that imputation, 
job 25.5  The Stars were not pure in his sight; The Preachers were not obedient to him in the voice of his Lieutenant. And you, you who are Gods holy people, and zealous of his glory, as you know from St. Paul, 
1 Cor. 15 14.  that Stars differ from Stars in glory, but all conduce to the benefit of man: So, when you see these Stars, Preachers to differ in gifts; yet, since all their ends are to advance your salvation, encourage the Catechiser, as well as the curious Preacher. Look so fare towards your way to Heaven, as to the Firmament, and consider there, that that star by which we sail, and make great voyages, is none of the stars of the greatest magnitude; but yet it is none of the lest neither; but a middle star. Those Preachers which must save your souls, are not ignorant, unlearned, extemporal men; but they are not over curious men neither. Your children are you, and your servants are you; and you do not provide for your salvation, if you provide not for them, who are so much yours, as that they are you. No man is saved as a good man, if he be not saved as a good Father, and as a good Master too, if God have given him a family. That so, Priest and people, the whole Congregation, may by their religious obedience, and fight in this spiritual warfare in their Order, minister occasion of joy to that heart, which hath been grieved; in that fullness of joy, Which David expresseth. 
Psal. 21.  The King shall rejoice in thy strength, O Lord, and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice? Thou hast given him his hearts desire, and thou hast not withholden the request of his lips: for the King trusteth in the Lord, and by the mercy of the most High, he shall not be moved. And with that Psalm, a Psalm of Confidence in a good King, and a Psalm of Thanksgiving for that blessing, I desire that this Congregation may be dissolved; for this is all that I intended for the Explication, which was our first, and for the Application, which was the other part proposed in these words.  
FINIS.   

A SERMON UPON THE EIGHT VERE OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. Preached To the Honourable Company of the VIRGINIAN PLANTATION, 13. Novemb. 1622.  
BY JOHN DONNE Deane of Saint Paul's, LONDON,  
LONDON, Printed for Thomas jones. 1624.   

TO THE HONOURABLE COMPANY OF THE VIRGINIAN PLANTATION.  
BY your Favours, I had some place amongst you, before; but now I am an Adventurer, if not to VIRGINIA, yet for VIRGINIA: for, every man that Prints, Adventures. For the Preaching of this Sermon, I was but under your Invitation; my Time was mine own, and my Meditations mine own: and I had been excusable towards you, if I had turned that Time, and those Meditations, to GOD'S Service, in any other place. But for the Printing of this Sermon, I am not only under your Invitation, but under your Commandment; for, after it was preached, it was not mine, but yours: And therefore, if I gave it at first, I do but restore it now, The first, was an act of Love; this, of justice: both which Virtues, Almighty God evermore promove, and exalt in all your proceed. AMEN.  
Your humble Servant in Christ jesus, JOHN DONNE.   

ACTS. 1.8. 
But ye shall receive power after that the HOLY GHOST is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in jerusalem, and in all judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the Earth.   

THERE are reckoned in this Book, Two and Twenty Sermons of the Apostles; and yet the Book is not called the Preaching, but the Practice, not the Words but the Acts of the Apostles: and the Acts of the Apostles were to convey that name of Christ jesus, and to propagate his Gospel over all the world: Beloved, you are Actors upon the same Stage too: the uttermost part of the Earth are your Scene: Act over the Acts of the Apostles; be you a Light to the Gentiles, that sit in darkness, be you content to carry him over these Seas, who dried up one Red Sea for his first people, and hath poured out another Red Sea, his own Blood, for them and us. When man was fallen, God clothed him, made him a Leather Garment, there God descended to one occupation: when the time of man's redemption was come, than God, as it were, to house him, became a Carpenter's Son, there God descended to another Occupation. Naturally, without doubt, man would have been his own Tailor, and his own Carpenter; something in these two kinds man would have done of himself, though he had had no pattern from God: but in preserving man who was fallen, to this redemption, by which he was to be raised, in preserving man from perishing, in the Flood, God descended to a third occupation, to be his Shipwright to give him the model of a Ship, an Ark, and so to be the author of that, which man himself in likelihood, would never have thought of, a means to pass from Nation to Nation. Now, as GOD taught us to make , not only to  ourselves, but to  him in his poor and naked members here; as God taught us to build houses, not to house ourselves, but to house him, in erecting Churches, to his glory: So God taught us to make Ships, not to transport ourselves, but to transport him, That when we have received power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon us, we might be witnesses unto him, both in jerusalem, and in all judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the Earth.  
As I speak now principally to them who are concerned in this Plantation of Virginia, yet there may be diverse in this Congregation, who, though they have no interest in this Plantation, yet they may have benefit and edification, by that which they hear me say, so Christ spoke the words of this Text, principally to the Apostles, who were present and questioned him at his Ascension, but they are in their just extension, and due accommodation, appliable to our present occasion of meeting here: As Christ himself is Alpha, and Omega, so first, as that he is last too, so these words which he spoke in the East, belong to us, who are to glorify him in the West? That we having received power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon us, might be witnesses unto him, both in jerusalem, and in all judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the Earth.  
The first word of the Text is the Cardinal word, the word the hinge upon which the whole Text turns; The first word, But, is the But, that all the rest shoots at. First it is an exclusive word; something the Apostles had required, which might not be had; not that; And it is an inclusive word; something Christ was pleased to afford to the Apostles, which they thought not of; not that, not that which you beat upon, But, but yet, something else, something better then that, you shall have. That which this but, excludes, is that which the Apostles express in the Verse immediately before the Text, a Temporal Kingdom; Wilt thou restore again the kingdom of Israel? No; not a temporal Kingdom, let not the riches and commodities of this world, be in your contemplation in your adventures. Or, because they ask more, Wilt thou now restore that? not yet: If I will give you riches, and commodities of this world, yet if I do it not at first, if I do it not yet, be not you discouraged; you shall not have that, that is not Gods first intention, and though that be in God's intention, to give it you hereafter, you shall not have it yet, that's the exclusive part; But; there enters the inclusive, You shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me, both in jerusalem, and in all judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the Earth. In which second part, we shall pass by these steps; Superueniet Spiritus, The holy Ghost shall come upon you, The Spirit shall witness to your Spirit, and rectify your Conscience; And then, by that, you shall receive power; A new power besides the power you have from the State, and that power shall enable you, to be witnesses of Christ, that is, to make his doctrine the more credible, by your testimony, when you conform yourselves to him, and do as he did; and this witness you shall bear, this conformity you shall declare, first in jerusalem, in this City; And in judaea, in all the parts of the Kingdom; and in Samaria, even amongst them who are departed from the true worship of God, the Papists; and to the uttermost part of the Earth, to those poor Souls, to whom you are continually sending. Summarily, If from the Holy Ghost you have a good testimony in your own Conscience, you shall be witnesses for Christ, that is, as he did, you shall give satisfaction to all, to the City, to the Country, to the Calumniating Adversary, and the naturals of the place, to whom you shall present both Spiritual and Temporal benefit to. And so you have the Model of the whole frame, and of the partitions; we proceed now to the furnishing of the particular rooms.   

1. Part.  
FIrst then, this first word, But, excludes a temporal Kingdom; the Apostles had filled themselves with an expectation, with an ambition of it; but that was not intended them. It was no wonder, that a woman could conceive such an expectation, and such an ambition, as to have her two sons sit at Christ's right hand, 
Mat. 20.20.  and at his left, in his Kingdom, when the Apostles expected such a Kingdom, as might afford them honours and preferment upon Earth. More than once they were in the disputation, in which Christ deprehended them, which of them should be the greatest in his Kingdom. 
Mat. 1.81.  Neither hath the Bishop of Rome, any thing, wherein he may so properly call himself Apostolical, as this error of the Apostles, this their infirmity; that he is evermore too conversant upon the contemplation of temporal Kingdoms. They did it all the way, when Christ was with them, and now at his last step, Cum actu ascendisset, when Christ was not Ascending, but in part ascended, when one foot was upon the Earth, and the other in the cloud that took him up, they ask him now, wilt thou at this time, restore the Kingdom? so women put their husbands, and men their fathers, and friends, upon their torture, at their last gasp, and make their death bed a rack to make them stretch and increase jointures, and portions, and legacies, and sign Schedules and Codicils, with their hand, when his hand that presents them is ready to close his eyes, that should sign them: And when they are upon the wing for heaven, men tie lead to their feet, and when they are laying hand fast upon Abraham's bosom, they must pull their hand out of his bosom again, to obey importunities of men, and sign their papers: so underminable is the love of this World, which determines every minute. GOD, as he is three persons, hath three Kingdoms; There is Regnum potentiae, The Kingdom of power; and this we attribute to the Father; it is power and providence: There is Regnum gloriae, the Kingdom of glory; this we attribute to the Sonn and to his purchase; for he is the King that shall say, 
Mat. 25.34.  Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you, from the foundation of the World. And then between these three is Regnum Gratiae, The Kingdom of Grace, and this we attribute to the Holy Ghost; he takes them, whom the king of power, Almighty God hath rescued from the Gentiles, 
Mat. 4.11.  and as the king of grace, He gives them the knowledge of the mystery of the Kingdom of GOD, that is, of future glory, by sanctifying them with his grace, in his Church. The two first kingdoms are in this world, but yet neither of them, are of this world; because both they refer to the kingdom of glory. The kingdom of the Father, which is the providence of God, does but preserve us, The kingdom of the Holy Ghost which is the grace of God, does but prepare us to the kingdom of the Son, which is the glory of GOD; and that's in heaven. And therefore, though to good men, this world be the way to that kingdom, yet this kingdom is not of this world, says Chest himself: Though the Apostles themselves, 
john 18.36.  as good a School as they were bred in, could never take out that lesson yet that lesson Christ gives, and repeats to all, you seek a Temporal kingdom, But, says the Text, stop there, A kingdom you must not have.  
Beloved in him, whose kingdom, and Gospel you seek to advance, in this Plantation, our Lord and Saviour Christ jesus, if you seek to establish a temporal kingdom there, you are not rectified, if you seek to be kings in either acceptation of the word; To be a King signifies Liberty and indepency, and Supremacy, to be under no man, and to be a King signifies Abundance, and omnisufficiency, to need no man. If those that govern there, would establish such a government, as should not depend upon this, or if those that go thither, propose to themselves an exemption from Laws, to live at their liberty, this is to be Kings, to divest Allegiance, to be under no man: and if those that adventure thither, propose to themselves present benefit, and profit, a sudden way to be rich, and an abundance of all desirable commodities from thence, this is to be sufficient of themselves, and to need no man: and to be under no man and to need no man, are the two acceptations of being Kings. Whom liberty draws to go, or present profit draws to adventure, are not yet in the right way. O, if you could once bring a Catechism to be as good ware amongst them as a Bugle, as a knife, as a hatchet: O, if you would be as ready to hearken at the return of a ship, how many Indians were converted to Christ jesus, as what trees, or drugs, or Dies that Ship had brought, than you were in your right way, and not till then; Liberty and Abundance, are Characters of kingdoms, and a kingdom is excluded in the Text; The Apostles were not to look for it, in their employment, nor you in this your Plantation.  
At lest CHRIST expresses himself thus fare, in this answer, that if he would give them a kingdom, 
Non adhuc.  he would not give it them yet. They ask him, Wilt thou at this time, restore the kingdom? and he answers, It is not for you to know the times: whatsoever God will do, Man must not appoint him his time. The Apostles thought of a kingdom presently after Christ's departure; the coming of the Holy Ghost, who lead them into all truths, soon delivered them of that error. Other men in favour of the jews, interpreting all the prophecies, which are of a Spiritual Kingdom, the kingdom of the Gospel, into which, the jews shall be admitted) in a literal sense, have thought that the jews shall have, not only a temporal kingdom in the same place, in jerusalem again, but because they find that kingdom which is promised, (that is the kingdom of the Gospel) to be expressed in large phrases, and in an abundant manner, applying all that largeness to a temporal kingdom, they think, that the jews shall have such a kingdom, as shall swallow and annihilate all other kingdoms, and be the sole Empire and Monarchy of the world. After this, very great men in the Church upon these words, of One thousand years after the Resurrection, have imagined a Temporal Kingdom of the Saints of God here upon Earth, 
Apo. 20.  before they entered the joys of Heaven: and Saint Augustine himself, 
De Civit. Dei 20.7.  had at first some declinations towards that opinion, though he dispute powerfully against it, after: That there should be Sabatismus in terris; that as the world was to last Six thousand years in troubles, there should be a Seventh thousand, in such joys as this world could give.  
And some others, who have avoided both the Temporal kingdom imagined by the Apostles, presently after the Ascension, And the Imperial kingdom of the jews, before the Resurrection, And the Carnal kingdom of the Chiliasts, the Millenarians, after the Resurrection, though they speak of no kingdom, but the true kingdom, the kingdom of glory, yet they err as much in assigning a certain time when that kingdom shall begin, when the end of this world, when the Resurrection, when the judgement shall be. Non est vestrum nosse tempora, says Christ to his Apostles then; and lest it might be thought, that they might know these things, when the Holy Ghost came upon them, Christ denies that he himself knew that, as Man; and as Man, Christ knew more, than ever the Apostles knew. Whatsoever therefore Christ intended to his Apostles here, he would not give it presently, non adhuc, he would not bind himself to a certain time, Non est vestrum nosse tempora, It belongs not to us to know God's times.  
Beloved, use godly means, and give God his leisure. You cannot beget a Son, and tell the Mother, I will have this Son born within five Months; nor, when he is borne, say, you will have him past danger of Wardship within five years. You cannot sow your Corn to day, and say it shall be above ground to morrow, and in my Barn next week. How soon the best Husbandman, sowed the best Seed in the best ground? GOD cast the promise of a Messiah, as the seed of all, in Paradise; In Semine Mulieris; The Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Serpent's head; and yet this Plant was Four thousand years after before it appeared; this Messiah Four thousand years before he came. GOD showed the ground where that should grow, Two thousand years after the Promise; in Abraham's Family; In semine tuo, In thy Seed all Nations shall be blessed. God hedged in this Ground almost One thousand years after that; In Micheas time, Et tu Bethlem, Thou Bethlem shalt be the place; and God watered that, and weeded that, refreshed that dry expectation, with a Succession of Prophets, and yet it was so long before this expectation of Nations, this Messiah came. So GOD promised the jews a Kingdom, in jacobs' Prophecy to juda, 
Gen. 49.  That the Sceptre should not departed from his Tribe. In Two hundred years more, he says no more of it; 
Deut. 17.14.  then he ordains some institutions for their King, when they should have one. And then it was Four hundred years after that, before they had a King. GOD meant from the first hour, to people the whole earth; and God could have made men of clay, as fast as they made Bricks of Clay in Egypt; but he began upon two, and when they had been multiplying and replenishing the Earth One thousand six hundred years, the Flood washed all that away, and GOD was almost to begin again upon eight persons; and they have served to people Earth and Heaven too; Be not you discouraged, if the Promises which you have made to yourselves, or to others, be not so soon discharged; though you see not your money, though you see not your men, though a Flood, a Flood of Blood have broken in upon them, be not discouraged. Great Creatures lie long in the Womb; Lions are littered perfect, but Beare-whelpes licked unto their shape; actions which Kings undertake, are cast in a mould, they have their perfection quickly; actions of private men, and private Purses, require more hammering, and more filing to their perfection. Only let your principal end, be the propagation of the glorious Gospel: and though there be an Exclusive in the Text, GOD does not promise you a Kingdom, Ease, and Abundance in all things, and that which he does intent to you, he does not promise presently, yet there is an Inclusive too; not that, But, but something equivolent at least, But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in jerusalem, and in all judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the Earth.   

2. Part.  
NOw our Saviour Christ does not say to these men, since you are so importunate, you shall have no Kingdom; now, nor never, 'tis, not yet; But, 
Sed.  he does not say, you shall have no Kingdom, nor any thing else; 'tis, not that; But: the importunity of beggars, sometimes draws us to such a froward answer, For this importunity, I will never give you any thing. Our pattern was not so froward; he gave them not that, but as good as that. Samuel was sent to super-induct a King upon Saul, 
1. Sam. 16.  to anoint a new King. He thought his Commission had been determined in Eliab, Surely this is the Lords Anointed. But the Lord said, not he; nor the next, Aminadab; nor the next, Shammah; nor none of the next seven; But▪ but yet there is one in the field, keeping sheep, anoint him; David is he. Saint Paul prayed earnestly, and frequently, to be discharged of that Stimulus Carnis: God says no; not that; but Gratia mea sufficit, Thou shalt have grace to overcome the tentation, though the tentation remain. God says to you, No Kingdom, not Ease, not Abundance; nay, nothing at all yet; the Plantation shall not discharge the Charges, not defray itself yet; but yet already, now at first, it shall conduce to great uses: It shall redeem many a wretch from the Laws of death, from the hands of the Executioner, upon whom, perchance a small fault, or perchance a first fault, or perchance a fault hearty and sincerely repent, perchance no fault, but malice, had otherwise cast a present and ignominious death. It shall sweep your streets, and wash your doors, from idle persons, and the children of idle persons, and employ them: and truly, if the whole Country were but such a Bridewell, to force idle persons to work, it had a good use. But it is already, not only a Spleen, to drain the ill humours of the body, but a Liver, to breed good blood; already the employment breeds Mariners; already the place gives Essays, nay, Fraights of Merchantable Commodities; already it is a mark for the Envy, and for the ambition of our Enemies; I speak but of our Doctrinal, not Nationall Enemies: as they are Papists, they are sorry we have this Country; and surely, twenty Lectures in matter of Controversy do not so much vex them, as one Ship that goes, and strengthens that Plantation. Neither can I recommend it to you, by any better Rhetoric, than their malice: They would gladly have it, and therefore let us be glad to hold it.  
Thus than this Text proceeds, 
Spiritus Sanctus.  and gathers upon you. All that you would have by this Plantation, you shall not have: GOD binds not himself to measures; All that you shall have, you have not yet: GOD binds not himself to times, but something you shall have; nay, you have already some great things: and of those, that in the Text is, The Holy Ghost shall come upon you. We find the Holy Ghost to have come upon men, four times in this Book: First, upon the Apostles, 
Acts 2,1.  at Pentecost: Then, when the whole Congregation was in prayer for the imprisonment of Peter and john. 
4,31.  Again, when Peter preached in Cornelius his house, 
10,44.  the Holy Ghost fell upon all them that heard him. And fourthly, when Saint Paul laid his hands upon them, 
19,6.  who had been formerly baptised at Ephesus. At the three latter times it is evident, that the Holy Ghost fell upon whole and promiscuous Congregations, and not upon the Apostles only: and in the first, at Pentecost, the contrary is not evident; nay, the Fathers, for the most part, that handle that, concur in that, that the Holy Ghost fell then upon the whole Congregation, men and women. The Holy Ghost fell upon Peter before he preached, and it fell upon the hearers when he preached, and it hath fallen upon every one of them, who have found motions in themselves, to propagate the Gospel of Christ jesus by this means. The Son of GOD did not abhor the Virgin's Womb, when he would be made man; when he was man, he did not disdain to ride upon an Ass into jerusalem: the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Ghost, is as humble as the second, he refuses Nullum vehiculum, no conveyance, no door of entrance into you; whether the example and precedent of other good men, or a probable imagination of future profit, or a willingness to concur to the vexation of the Enemy; what collateral respect soever drew thee in, if now thou art in, thy principal respect be the glory of God; that occasion, whatsoever it was, was vehiculum Spiritus Sancti; that was the Petard, that broke open thy Iron Gate; that was the Chariot, by which he entered into thee, and now he is fallen upon thee, if thou do not Depose; (lay aside all consideration of profit for ever, never to look for return) No, not Sopose, (leave out the consideration of profit for a time; for that, and Religion may well consist together:) but if thou do but Post-pose the consideration of Temporal gain, and study first the advancement of the Gospel of Christ jesus, the Holy Ghost is fallen upon you; for by that you receive Power, says the Text.  
There is a Power rooted in Nature, and a Power rooted in Grace; 
Potestatem.  a Power issuing from the Law of Nations, and a Power growing out of the Gospel. In the Law of Nature, and Nations, A Land never inhabited by any, or utterly derelicted, and immemorially abandoned by the former Inhabitants, becomes theirs that will possess it. So also is it, if the inhabitants do not in some measure fill the Land, so as the Land may bring forth her increase for the use of men: for as a man does not become proprietary of the Sea, because he hath two or three Boats fishing in it; so neither does a man become Lord of a main Continent, because he hath two or three Cottages in the Skirts thereof. That Rule which passes through all Municipal Laws in particular States, Interest Reipublicae ut quis re sua bene utatur; The State must take order, that every man improve that which he hath, for the best advantage of that State, passes also through the Law of Nations, which is to all the World, as the Municipal Law is to a particular State: Interest Mundo. The whole World, all Mankind must take care, that all places be improved, as fare as may be, to the best advantage of Mankind in general. Again, if the Land be peopled, and cultivated by the people, and that Land produce in abundance such things, for want whereof, their neighbours, or others (being not enemies) perish; the Law of Nations may justify some force, in seeking, by permutation of other Commodities which they need, to come to some of theirs. Many cases may be put, when not only Commerce, and Trade, but Plantations in Lands, not formerly our own, may be lawful. And for that, Accepistis potestatem, you have your Commission, your Patents, your Charters, your Seals from Him, upon whose Acts any private Subject, in Civil matters, may safely rely. But then, Accipietis potestatem, You shall receive power, says the Text; you shall, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you, that is, when the instinct, the influence, the motions of the Holy Ghost enables your Conscience to say, That your principal end is not Gain, nor Glory, but to gain Souls to the glory of GOD; this seals the Great Scale, this justifies justice itself, this authorises Authority, and gives power to Strength itself. Let the Conscience be upright, and then Seals, and Patents, and Commissions, are Wings; they assist him to fly the faster: Let the Conscience be lame, and distorted, and he that goes upon Seals, and Patents, and Commissions, goes upon weak and feeble Crutches. When the Holy Ghost is come upon you, your Conscience rectified, you shall have Power, a new power out of that; what to do? that follows, to be Witnesses unto Christ.  

Testes.  Infamy is one of the highest punishments that the Law inflicts upon man; for it lies upon him even after death: Infamy is the worst punishment, and Intestabilitie (to be made intestable) is one of the deepest wounds of Infamy; and then the worst degree of Intestabilitie, is not to be believed, not to be admitted to be a Witness of any other: He is Intestable, that cannot make a Testament, not give his own goods; and he Intestable, that can receive nothing by the Testament of another; he is Intestable, in whose behalf no testimony may be accepted: but he is the most miserably Intestable of all, the most detestably intestable, that discredits another man, by speaking well of him; and makes him the more suspicious, by his commendations. A Christian in profession, that is not a Christian in life, is so intestable, he discredits Christ, and hardens others against him. john Baptist was more than a Prophet, because he was a Witness of Christ; and he was a Witness, because he was like him, he did as he did, he lead a holy and a religious life; so he was a Witness. That great and glorious name of Martyr, is but a Witness. Saint Stephen was Proto-martyr, Christ's first Witness, because he was the first that did as he did, that put on his Colours, that drunk of his Cup, that was baptised with his Baptism, with his own Blood: so he was a Witness. To be Witnesses for Christ, is to be like Christ; to conform yourselves to Christ: and they in the Text, and you, are to be Witnesses of Christ in jerusalem, and in all judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the Earth.  
Saint Hierome notes, that john Baptist was not bid to bear witness in jerusalem, 
Jerusalem.  in the City, but in the Wilderness; he, and none but he: there were but few men to witness to, there; and those few that were, came thither with a good disposition, to be wrought upon there: and there there were few Witnesses to oppose john's Testimony, few Tentations, few worldly Allurements, few worldly Businesses. One was enough for the Wilderness; but for jerusalem, for the City, where all the excuses in the Gospel do always meet, they have bought Commodities, and they must utter them; they have duchased Lands, and they must state them, they have married Wives, and they must study them: to the City, to jerusalem, Christ sends all his Apostles, and all little enough. He hath sent a great many Apostles, Preachers, to this City; more than to any other, that I know Religious persons, as they call them, Cloistered Friars, are not sent to the City; by their first Canons, they should not preach abroad: but for those who are to do that service, there are more in this City, then in others; for there are more Parish Churches here, then in others. Now, beloved, if in this City you have taken away a great part of the revenue of the Preacher, to yourselves, take thus much of his labour upon yourselves too, as to preach to one another by a holy and exemplar life, and a religious conversation. Let those of the City, who have interest in the Government of this Plantation, be Witnesses of Christ, who is Truth itself, to all other Governors of Companies, in all true and just proceed: That as CHRIST said to them who thought themselves greatest, Except you become as this little Child; so we may say to the Governors of the greatest Companies, Except you proceed with the integrity, with the justice, with the clearness of your little Sister, this Plantation, you do not take, you do not follow a good example. This is to bear witness of Christ in jerusalem, in the City, to be examples of Truth, and justice, and Clearness, to others, in, and of this City.  

judaea.  The Apostles were to do this in judaea too, their service lay in the Country as well as in the City. Birds that are kept in Cages, may learn some Notes, which they should never have sung in the Woods, or Fields; but yet they may forget their natural Notes too. Preachers that bind themselves always to Cities, and Courts, and great Auditories, may learn new Notes; they may become occasional Preachers, and make the emergent affairs of the time, their Text, and the humours of the hearers, their Bible: but they may lose their Natural Notes, both the simplicity and the boldness that belongs to the Preaching of the Gospel; both their power upon low Understandings, to raise them, and upon high Affections, to humble them They may think, that their Errand is but to knock at the door, to delight the ear, and not to search the House, to ransack the Conscience. Christ left the Ninety and nine for one Sheep; populous Cities are for the most part, best provided, remoter parts need our labour more, and we should not make such differences. Yeoman, and Labourer, and Spinster, are distinctions upon Earth, in the Earth; in the Grave there is no distinction. The Angel that shall call us out of that Dust, will not stand to survey, who lies naked, who in a Coffin, who in Wood, who in Lead; who in a fine, who in a courser Sheet: In that one day of the Resurrection, there is not a forenoon for Lords to rise first, and an afternoon for meaner persons to rise after. Christ was not whipped, to save Beggars; and crowned with Thorns, to save Kings; he died, he suffered all, for all: and we (whose bearing witness of him, is to do as he did) must confer our Labours upon all; upon jerusalem, and upon judaea too; upon the City, and upon the Country too. You (who are his Witnesses too) must do so too; Preach in your just actions, as to the City, to the Country too. Not to seal up the secrets, and the mysteries of your business within the bosom of Merchants, and exclude all others: to nourish an incompatibility between Merchants & Gentlemen; that Merchants shall say to them in reproach, You have played the Gentlemen; and they in equal reproach, You have played the Merchant: but as Merchants grow up into worshipful Families, and worshipful Families let fall Branches amongst Merchants again; so for this particular Plantation, you may consider City and Country to be one Body; and as you give example of a just Government to other Companies in the City, (that's your bearing witness in jerusalem;) so you may be content to give Reasons of your Proceed, and Account of Monies levied over the Country, for that's your bearing witness in judaea.  
But the Apostles Diocese is enlarged, farther than jerusalem, farther than judaea, 
Samaria.  they are carried into Samaria; you must bear witness of me in Samaria. Beloved, when I have remembered you, who the Samaritans were, Men that had not renounced GOD, but mingled other gods with him, Men that had not burned the Law of GOD, but made Traditions of Men equal to it; you will easily guess to whom I apply the name of Samaritans now. A jesuit hath told us (an ill Intelligencer I confess, but even his Intelligencer, the Devil himself, says true sometimes) Maldonate says, the Samaritans were odious to the jews, upon the same grounds as Heretics and Schismatics to us; and they we know were odious to them, for mingling false gods, and false worships with the true. And if that be the Character of a Samaritan, we know who are the Samaritans, who the Heretics, who the Schismatics of our times. In the highest reproach to Christ, the jews said, Samaritanus es & Daemonium habes, Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a Devil. In our just detestation of these Men, we justly fasten both those upon them. For as they delight in lies, and fill the world with weekly rumours, Daemonium habent, they have a Devil, quia mendax est & pater eius. 
john 8.44.  As they multiply assassinats upon Princes, and Massacres upon people, Daemonium habent, they have a Devil, quia homicida ab initio: as they toss, and tumble, and dispose kingdoms, Daemonium habent, they have a Devil, 
Math. 4.10.  Omnia haec dabo was the Devil's compliment: but as they mingle truths and falsehoods together in Religion, as they carry the word of GOD, and the Traditions of Men, in an even balance, Samaritani sunt, they are Samaritans. At first Christ forbade his Apostles, to go into any City of the Samaritans; after, 
10.5.  they did preach in many of them. Bear witness first in jerusalem, 
Acts 8.25.  and in judaea; give good satisfaction especially to those of the household of the Faithful, in the City and Country, but yet satisfy even those Samaritans too.  
They would be satisfied, what Miracles you work in Virginia, and what people you have converted to the Christian Faith, there. If we could as easily call natural effects Miracles, or casual accidents Miracles, or Magical illusions Miracles, as they do; to make a miraculous drawing of a Tooth, a miraculous cutting of a Corn; or, as justus Baronius says, when he was converted to them, that he was miraculously cured of the Cholique, by stooping to kiss the Pope's foot: If we would pile up Miracles so fast as Pope john 22. did in the Canonization of Aquinas, Tota Miracula confecit, quot determinavit quaestiones, he wrought as many Miracles, as he resolved Questions, we might find Miracles too. In truth, their greatest Miracle to me, is, that they find men to believe their Miracles. If they rely upon Miracles, they imply a confession, that they induce new Doctrines; that that is old, & received, needs no Miracles: If they require Miracles, because though that be ancient Doctrine, it is newly brought into those parts, we have the confession of their jesuit Acosta, that they do no Miracle in those Indies; & he assigns very good reasons, why they are not necessary, nor to be expected there. But yet bear witness to these Samaritans, in the other point; labour to give them satisfaction in the other point of their charge, What Heathens you have converted to the Faith; which is that which is intended in the next, which is the last branch, You are to be witnesses unto me both in jerusalem, and in all judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the Earth.  
Literally, 
Fines terrae.  the Apostles were to be such Witnesses for Christ: were they so? did the Apostles in person preach the Gospel over all the World? I know that it is not hard to multiply places of the Fathers, in confirmation of that opinion, that the Apostles did actually and personally preach the Gospel in all Nations, 
Math. 24.14.  in their life. Christ says, The Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the World; and there he tells the Apostles, that they shall see something done, after that; Therefore they shall live to it. So he says to them, 
Mark 13.9.  You shall be brought before Rulers and Kings for my sake; but the Gospel must first be published among all Nations: In one Evangelist there is the Commission; 
Luke 24.47.  Preach in my name to all Nations. And in another, the Execution of this Commission, 
Mark 16.20.  And they went and preached every where. And after the Apostle certifies, and returns the execution of this Commission, 
Col. 1.5.  The Gospel is come and bringeth forth fruit to all the world: and upon those, and such places, have some of the Fathers been pleased to ground their literal exposition, of an actual and personal preaching of the Apostles over all the world. But had they dreamed of this world which hath been discovered since, into which, we dispute with perplexity, and intricacy enough, how any men came at first, or how any beasts, especially such beasts as men were not likely to carry, they would never have doubted to have admitted a Figure, in that, 
Luke 1.1.  The Gospel was preached to all the world; for when Augustus his Decree went out, That all the World should be taxed, the Decree and the Tax went not certainly into the West Indies; when Saint Paul says, 
Rom 1.8.  That their Faith was spoken of throughout the whole World, 
16.19.  and that their obedience was come abroad unto all men, surely the West Indies had not heard of the faith and the obedience of the Romans. But as in Moses time, they called the Mediterranean Sea, the great Sea, because it was the greatest that those men had then seen; so in the Apostles time, they called that all the World, which was known and traded in then; and in all that, they preached the Gospel. So that as Christ when he said to the Apostles; 
Mar. vlt. vlt.  I am with you unto the end of the World, could not intent that of them in person, because they did not last to the end of the World, but in a succession of Apostolic men, so when he says, the Apostles should preach him to all the World, it is of the Succession too.  
Those of our profession, that go; you, that send them who go, do all an Apostolical Function. What Action soever hath in the first intention thereof a purpose to propagate the Gospel of Christ jesus, that is an Apostolical Action: Before the end of the World come, before this Mortality shall put on Immortality, 
Rom. 8.  before the Creature shall be delivered of the Bondage of Corruption under which it groans, before the Martyrs under the Altar shall be silenced, before all things shall be subdued to Christ, his Kingdom perfited, and the last Enemy (Death) destroyed, the Gospel must be preached to those men to whom ye send; to all men. Further and hasten you this blessed, this joyful, this glorious consummation of all, and happy reunion of all Bodies to their Souls, by preaching the Gospel to those men. Preach to them Doctrinally, preach to them Practically; enamore them with your justice, and (as fare as may consist with your security) your Civility; but inflame them with your Godliness, and your Religion. Bring them to love and reverence the name of that King, that sends men to teach them the ways of Civility in this World, but to fear and adore the Name of that King of Kings, that sends men to teach them the ways of Religion, for the next World. Those amongst you, that are old now, shall pass out of this World with this great comfort, that you contributed to the beginning of that Common Wealth, and of that Church, though they live not to see the growth thereof to perfection: Apollo watered, 
1. Cor. 3.6.  but Paul planted, he that begun the work, was the greater man. And you that are young now, may live to see the Enemy as much impeached by that place, and your friends, yea Children, aswell accommodated in that place, as any other. You shall have made this Island, which is but as the Suburbs of the old world, a Bridge, a Gallery to the new; to join all to that world that shall never grow old, the Kingdom of Heaven, You shall add persons to this Kingdom, and to the Kingdom of Heaven, and add names to the Books of our Chronicles, and to the Book of Life.  
To end all, as the Orators which declaimed in the presence of the Roman Emperors, in their Panegyriques, took that way, to make those Emperors see what they were bound to do, to say in those public Orations, that those Emperors had done so, (for that increased the love of the Subject to the Prince, to be so told, that he had done those great things, and then it conveyed a Counsel into the Prince to do them after.) As their way was to procure things to be done, by saying they were done, so beloved I have taken a contrary way: for when I, by way of exhortation, all this while have seemed to tell you what should be done by you; I have, indeed, but told the Congregation, what hath been done already: neither do I speak to move a wheel that stood still, but to keep the wheel in due motion; nor persuade you to begin, but to continue a good work, nor propose foreign, but your own Examples, to do still, as you have done hitherto. For, for that, that which is especially in my contemplation, the conversion of the people, as I have received, so I can give this Testimony, That of those persons who have sent in Monies, and concealed their Names, the greatest part, almost all, have limited their Devotion and Contribution upon that point, the propagation of Religion, and the conversion of the People; for the building and beautifying of the House of GOD, and for the instruction and education of their young Children. Christ jesus himself is yesterday, and to day, and the same for ever. In the advancing of his Glory, be you so too, yesterday, and to day, and the same for ever, here: and hereafter, when Time shall be no more, no more yesterday, no more to day, yet for ever and ever you shall enjoy that joy, and that glory, which no ill accident can attain to diminish, or Eclipse it.   

PRAYER.  
WE return to thee again, O GOD, with Praise and Prayer; as for all thy mercies from before Minutes began, to this Minute, from our Election, to this present Beam of Sanctification, which thou hast shed upon us now: and more particularly, that thou hast afforded us that great Dignity, to be this way Witnesses of thy Son Christ jesus, and Instruments of his Glory. Look graciously, and look powerfully upon this Body, which thou hast been now some years in building and compacting together, this Plantation. Look graciously upon the Head of this Body, our Sovereign, and bless him with a good disposition to this Work, and bless him for that disposition: Look graciously upon them, who are as the Brain of this Body, those who by his power counsel, and advice, and assist in the Government thereof: bless them with disposition to Unity and Concord, and bless them for that disposition. Look graciously upon them who are as Eyes of this Body, those of the Clergy, who have any interest therein: bless them with a disposition to preach there, to pray here, to exhort every where, for the advancement thereof, and bless them for that disposition. Bless them who are the Feet of this Body, who go thither; and the Hands of this Body, who labour there; and them who are the Heart of this Body, all that are hearty affected, and declare actually that heartiness to this action; bless them all with a cheerful disposition to that, and bless them for that disposition. Bless it so in this Calm, that when the Tempest comes, it may ride it out safely; bless it so with Friends now, that it may stand against Enemies hereafter. Prepare thyself a glorious Harvest there, and give us leave to be thy Labourers; That so the number of thy Saints being fulfilled, we may with better assurance join in that Prayer, Come Lord jesus, come quickly; and so meet all in that Kingdom which the Son of GOD hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible Blood. To which glorious Son of GOD, etc. Amen.   
FINIS.   

Encaenia. THE FEAST OF DEDICATION. CELEBRATED AT LINCOLN'S INN, in a Sermon there upon Ascension day, 1623. At the Dedication of a new Chapel there, Consecrated by the Right Reverend Father in God, the Bishop of LONDON.  
Preached by JOHN DONNE, Deane of St. PAUL'S.  
LONDON, Printed by AUG. MAT. for THOMAS JONES, and are to be sold at his Shop in the Strand, at the black Raven, near unto Saint Clement's Church. 1623.   

TO THE MASTERS OF THE BENCH, AND the rest of the Honourable Society of LINCOLN'S INN.  
IT pleased you to exercise your interest in me, and to express your favour to me, in inviting me to preach this Sermon: and it hath pleased you to do both over again, in inviting me to publish it. To this latter service I was the more inclinable, because, though in it I had no occasion to handle any matter of Controversy between us, and those of the Roman Persuasion, yet the whole body and frame of the Sermon, is opposed against one pestilent calumny of theirs, that we have cast off all distinction of places, and of days, and all outward means of assisting the devotion of the Congregation. For this use, I am not sorry that it is made public, for I shall never be sorry to appear plainly, and openly, and directly, without disguise or modification, in the vindicating of our Church from the imputations and calumnies of that Adversary. If it had no public use, yet I should satisfy myself in this, that it is done in obedience to that, which you may call your Request, but I shall call your Commandment upon  
Your very humble Servant in Christ jesus. JOHN DONNE.   

The Prayer before the Sermon.  
O Eternal, and most gracious God, Father of our Lord jesus Christ; and in him, of all those that are his, As thou didst make him so much ours, as that he became like us, in all things, sin only excepted, make us so much his, as that we may be like him, even without the exception of sin, that all our sins may be buried in his wounds, and drowned in his Blood. And as this day we celebrate his Ascension to thee, be pleased to accept our endeavour of conforming ourselves to his pattern, in raising this place for our Ascension to him. Lean upon these Pinnacles, O Lord, as thou did dist upon jacobs' Ladder, and hearken after us. Be this thine Ark, and let thy Dove, thy blessed Spirit, come in and out, at these Windows: and let a full pot of thy Manna, a good measure of thy Word, and an effectual preaching thereof, be evermore preserved, and evermore be distributed in this place. Let the leprosy of Superstition never enter within these Walls, nor the hand of Sacrilege ever fall upon them. And in these walls, to them that love Profit and Gain, manifest thou thyself as a Treasure, and fill them so; To them that love Pleasure, manifest thyself, as Marrow and Fatness, and fill them so; And to them that love Preferment, manifest thyself, as a Kingdom, and fill them so; that so thou mayest be all unto all; give thyself wholly to us all, and make us all wholly thine. Accept our humble thanks for all, etc.   

JOHN 10.22. 
And it was at jerusalem, the Feast of the Dedication; and it was Winter; and jesus walked in the Temple in salomon's Porch.   
SAint Basill in a Sermon upon the 114. 
Basill.  Psalm; upon the like occasion as draws us together now, The consecration of a Church, makes this the reason and the excuse of his late coming thither to do that Service, that he stayed by the way, to consecrate another Church: I hope every person here hath done so; consecrated himself, who is a Temple of the Holy Ghost; before he came to assist, or to testify the consecration of this place of the Service of God. 
Bern. Ser. 1.  Nostra festivitas haec est, quia de Ecclesia nostra; says Saint Bernard. This Festival belongs to us, because it is the consecration of that place, which is ours, Magis autem nostr●…, quia de nobis ipsis: But it is more properly our Festival, because it is the consecration of ourselves to God's service. For, Sanctae Animae propter inhabitantem Spiritum; your Souls are holy, by the inhabitation of God's holy spirit, who dwells in them. Sancta corpora propter inhabitantem animam; Your Bodies are holy, by the inhabitation of those sanctified Souls. Sancti parietes, propter Corpora Sanctorum. These walls are holy, because the Saints of God meet here within these walls to glorify him. But yet these places are not only consecrated & sanctified by your coming; but to be sanctified also for your coming; that so, as the Congregation sanctifies the place, the place may sanctify the Congregation too. They must accompany one another; holy persons and holy places; If men would wash sheep in the Baptisterie, in the Font, those sheep were not christened. If profane men, or idolatrous men, pray here after their way, their prayers are not sanctified by the place. Neither if it be after polluted, doth the place retain that sanctity, which is this day to be derived upon it, and to be imprinted in it.  

Divisio.  Our Text settles us upon both these considerations, The holy place, and the holy person. It was the Feast of the Dedication: there's the holiness of the place; And the holy person, was holiness itself in the person of Christ jesus, who walked in the Temple in salomon's Porch. These two will be our two parts: And the first of these we shall make up of these pieces. First, we shall see a lawful use of Feasts, of Festival days. And then of other Feasts, than were instituted by God himself; diverse were so; this was not. And thirdly, not only a festival solemnising of some one thing, at some one time, for the present, but an Anniversary returning to that solemnity every year; And lastly, in that first part, this Festival in particular, The Feast of the Dedication of the Temple: that sanctified the place, that shall determine that part. In the second part, The holiness of the person, we shall carry your thoughts no farther, but upon this, That even this holy person jesus himself, would have recourse to this place, thus dedicated, thus sanctified: And upon this, that he would do that especially at such times, as he might countenance and authorize the Ordinances and Institutions of the Church, which had appointed this Festival. And this, says the Text, he did in the Winter: First, Etsi Hiems, though it were Winter, he came, and walked in the Porch, a little inconvenience kept him not off: And, Quia Hiems, because it was Winter, he walked in the Porch which was covered, not in the Temple which was open. So that here with modesty, and without scandal he condemned not the favouring of a man's health, even in the Temple, And it was at jerusalem, the Feast of the Dedication; and it was Winter; and jesus walked in the Temple in salomon's Porch.  
In our first part, Holy places, 
1. Part. Festa.  we look first upon the times of our meeting there, Holy days. The root of all those is the Sabbath, that God planted himself, even in himself, in his own rest, from the Creation. But the root, and those branches which grow from that root, are of the same nature, and the same name: And therefore as well of the flower, as of the root of a Rose, or of a Violet, we would say, This is a Violet, this is a Rose: so as well to other Feasts of God's institution, as to the first Sabbath, God gives that name; he calls those several Feasts which he instituted, Sabbaths; enioynes the same things to be done upon them, inflicts the same punishments upon them that break them. 
Levit. 23.  So that there is one Morality, that is the soul of all Sabbaths, of all Festivals; howsoever all Sabbaths have a ceremonial part in them, yet there is a Moral part that inanimates them all; they are elemented of Ceremony, but they animated with Morality. And that Morality is in them all, Rest: for if Adam could name creatures according to their nature, God could name his Sabbath according to the nature of it, and Sabbath is Rest. It is a Rest of two kinds; our rest, and God's rest. Our rest is the cessation from labour on those days; Gods rest, is our sanctifying of the day: for so in the religious sacrifice of Noah, when he was come out of the Ark, 
Genes. 8.  God is said to have smelled, Odorem quietis, the savour of rest: upon those days we rest from serving the world, and God rests in our serving of him. And as God takes a tenth part of our goods, in Tithes, but yet he takes more too, he takes Sacrifices, so though he take a seventh part of our time in the Sabbath, yet he takes more too, he appoints other Sabbaths, other Festivals, that he may have more glory, and we more Rest: for all wherein those two concur, are Sabbaths. Vacate & videte quoniam ego sum Dominus says God. First vacate, 
Psal. 46.10  rest from your bodily labours, distinguish the day, and then videte, come hither into the Lord's presence, and worship the Lord your God, sanctify the day: And in all the Sabbaths there is still a Cessate, 
Levit. 23.  and a Humiliate animas, bodily rest, and spiritual sanctifying of the day. Holy days then, that is, days seposed for holy uses, and for the outward & public service of God, are in Nature, and in that Moral Law which is written in the heart of man. That such days there must be is Moral; and this is Moral too, that all things in the service of God be done in order; and this also, that obedience be given to Superiors, in those things wherein they are Superiors. And therefore it was to the jews, as well Moral, to observe the certain days which God had determined, as to observe any at all. Not that God's commandment limiting the days, infused a Morality into those particular days: for Morality is perpetual; and if that had been Moral, it must have been so before, and it must be so still; Gods determining the days did not infuse, not induce a Morality there, but it awakened a former Morality, that is, an obedience to the commandment, for that time, which God had apppointed that for them; for this Obedience, and Order is perpetual, and so, Moral. We depart therefore from that error, which those ancient Heretics, the Ebionites begun, and some laboured to refresh in Saint Gregory's time, and which continues in practice in some places of the world still; To observe both the jews Sabbath, and the Christians, Saturday, and Sunday too; because the Sabbath is called Pactum sempiternum: 
Exod. 31.  for to that any of Saint Augustine's Answers will serve; either that it is called everlasting, because it signified an everlasting rest; (where be pleased to note by the way, that Holy days, Sabbaths, are not only instituted for Order, but they have their Mystery, and their Signification; for Holy days, 
Col. 2.16.  (as the Text calls them there) and New Moons, and the Sabbath, were but shadows of things to come:) or else the Sabbath was called everlasting to them, because it bond them everlastingly, and they might never intermit it, as some other ceremonies they might. But their Sabbaths bind not us; we depart from them who think so; and so we do from them, who think we are bound to no Festivals at all, or at least to none but the Sabbath. For God requires as much service from us, as from the jews, and to them he enlarged his Sabbaths, and made them diverse. But those were of God's immediate institution: but all that the jews observed were not so; and that's our next consideration, Festivals instituted by the Church.  

Sine Mandato.  At first, when God was alone, it is but Faciamus, let us, us the Trinity make man. This was, when God was, as we may say, in Coelibatu. But after God hath taken his spouse, married the Church, than it is Capite nobis vulpes, 
Cant. 2.15.  do you take the little Foxes, you the Church; for our vines have grapes; the vines are ours; yours and mine says Christ to the Church: and therefore do you look to them, as well as I. The Tables of the law God himself writ, and gave them written to Moses: he left none of that to him; not a power to make other Laws like those laws: but for the Tabernacle, which concerned the outward worship of God, that was to be made by Moses, 
Exod. 25.9.  juxta similitudinem, according to the pattern which God had showed him. God hath given the Church a pattern of Holy days, in those Sabbaths which he himself instituted, and according to the pattern, the Church hath instituted more: and Recte festa Ecclesiae colunt, 
Aug.  qui se Ecclesiae filios recognoscunt: They who disdain not the name of sons of the Church, refuse not to celebrate the days which are of the Church's institution. There was no immediate commandment of God for that Holy day, which Mordechai, by his letters established; 
Ester 9.23  but yet the jews undertook to do as Mordechai had written to them. There was no such commandment for this Holy day, in the Text; and yet that was observed, as long as they had any being. And where the reason remains, the practice may; The jews did, we may institute new Holy days. And not only transitory days, for a present thanks giving for a present benefit, but Anniverssaries, perpetual memorial of God's deliverances. And that's our next step.  

Anniversaria.  Both the Holy days, which we named before, which were instituted with out special Commandment from God, were so. That of Mordechai, he commanded to be kept every year for two days, and this in the Text, judas Maccabeus commanded to be kept yearly for eight days, which was more than was apppointed to any of the Holy days, instituted by God himself, for the Festival alone. According to which pattern, 
Felix.  one Bishop of Rome, ordained that the Festivals of the Dedication of Churches should be yearly celebrated in those places; 
Greg.  and another extended the Festival to eight days; at least at the first dedication thereof, if not every year: that God might not only be put into the possession of the place, but settled in it. God by Moses made the children of Israel a Song, because, as he says, 
Deut. 31.19  howsoever they did by the Law, they would never forget that Song, & that Song should be his witness against them. Therefore would God have us institute solemn memorials of his great deliverances, that if when those days come about, we do not glorify him, that might aggravate our condemnation. Every fift of August, the Lord rises up, to hearken whether we meet to glorify him, for his great deliverance of his Majesty, before he blessed us with his presence in this Kingdom: and when he finds us zealous in our thankes for that, he gives us farther blessings. Certainly he is up as early every fift of November, to hearken if we meet to glorify him for that deliverance still; and if he should find our zeal less than heretofore, he would wonder why. God's principal, his radical Holy day, the Sabbath, had a weekly return; his other Sabbaths, instituted by himself, and those which were instituted by those patterns, that of Mordechai, that of the Maccabees, & those of the Christian Church, They all return once a year. God would keep his Courts once a year, and see whether we make our appearances as heretofore; that if not, he may know it. Feasts in general, Feasts instituted by the Church alone, Feasts in their yearly return and observation, have their use, and particularly those Feasts of the Dedication of Churches, which was properly and literally the Feast of this Text. It was the Feast of Dedication.  

Encania.  As it diminishes not, preiudices not God's Eternity, that we give him his Quando, certain times of Invocation, God is not the less yesterday, 
Temple.  and to day, and the same for ever, because we meet here to day, and not yesterday, so it diminishes not, preiudices not God's Vliquitie and Omnipresence, that we give him his Vbi, certain places for Invocation. That's not the less true, that the most High dwells not in Temples made with hands, 
Acts 7.48.  though God accept at our hands our dedication of certain places to his service, & manifest his working more effectually, more energetically in those places, then in any other. for when we pray, Our Father which art in Heaven, 
chrysostom.  It is not (says Saint chrysostom) that we deny him to be here, where we kneel when we say that Prayer, but it is that we acknowledge him to be there, where he can grant, and accomplish our prayer. It is as Origen hath very well expressed it, 
Origen.   in melioribus mundi requiramus Deum: That still we look for God in the best places; look for him, as he hears our petitions, here, in the best places of this world, in his House, in the Church; look for him as he grants our petition, in the best place of the next world, at the right hand, and in the bosom of the Father. 
Deut. 30.13  When Moses says that the word of God is not beyond Sea, he adds, It is not so beyond Sea, as that thou must not have it without sending thither. When he says there, it is not in heaven, he adds, not so in heaven, as that one must go up, before he can have it. The word of God, is beyond Sea, the true word, truly preached in many true Churches there, but yet we have it here, within these Seas too; God is in Heaven, but yet he is here, within these walls too. And therefore the impiety of the Manicheans exceeded all the Gentiles, who concluded the God of the Old Testament to be an impotent, an unperfect God, because he commanded Moses first to make him a Tabernacle, and then Solomon to make him a Temple, as though he needed a House. God does not need a house, but man does need, that God should have a House. And therefore the first question, that Christ's first Disciples asked of him, was Magister, ubi habitas, they would know his standing house, where he hath promised to be always within, and where at the ringing of the Bell, some body comes to answer you, to take your errand, to offer your Prayers to God, to return his pleasure in the preaching of his Word to you. The many and heavy Laws, with which sacred and secular stories abound, against the profanation of places, appropriated to God's service, and that religious custom, that passed almost through all civil Nations, that an oath, which was the bond between man, and man, had the stronger Obligation, if that were taken in the Church, in the presence of God, (for such was the practice of Rome towards her enemies, Tango arras mediosque ignes, to make their vows of hostility in the Church, and at time of divine Service, (and such is their practice still, they seal their Treasons in the Sacrament) such was Rome's practice towards others, and such was the practice of others towards Rome, (for so Hannibal says, that his father Amilcar swore him at the Altar, that he should never be reconciled to Rome, (And such is your practice still, as often as you meet here, you renew your band to God, that you will never be reconciled to the Superstitions of Rome) all these, and all such as these, and such as these are infinite, heap up testimonies, that even in Nature there is a disposition to apply, and appropriate certain places to God's service. And this impression in nature is illustrated in the Law, as the time, so the place is distinguished, Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, 
Levi. 19.30  there is the time, and you shall reverence my Sanctuary, there is the place. But that they may be reverenced, that they may be Sanctuaries, they are to be sanctified; and that's the Encaenia, the Dedication.  

Encania.  Even in those things which a●…e unto God, and become his, by another title, then as he is Lord of all, by Creation, that is, by appropriation, by dedication to his use and Service, There is a Lay Dedication, and an Ecclesiastical Dedication. I hope the distinction of Laiety, and Clergy, the words, scandalise no man. Luther, and Caluin too might have just cause to decline the words, as they did; when so much was over-attributed to that Clergy which they intent, as that they were so Sors Domini, the Lords portion, as that the world had no portion in them, and yet they had the greatest portion of the world; and how little soever they had to do with God, yet no State, no King might have any thing to do with them. But, as long as we declare, that by the laiety we intent the people glorifying God in their secular callings, and by the Clergy, persons seposed by his ordinance, for spiritual functions, The laiety no farther removed than the Clergy, The Clergy no farther entitled than the laiety, in the blood of Christ jesus, neither in the effusion of that blood upon the Cross, nor in the participation of that blood in the Sacrament, and that an equal care in Clergy, and laiety, of doing the duties of their several callings, gives them an equal interest in the joys, and glory of heaven, I hope no man is scandalised with the names. The Lay Dedication then is, the voluntary surrendering of this piece of ground thus built, to God. For we must say, as Saint Peter said to Ananias, 
Acts 5.4.  Whiles it remained, was that not your own? and now, when that is raised (saving that there was Dedicatio Intentionalis, a purpose from the beginning to appropriate it, to this holy use) might you not, till this hour, have made this room your Hall, if you would? But this is your Dedication, that you have cheerfully pursued your first holy purposes, and deliver now into the hands of this servant of God, the Right Reverend Father the Bishop of this See, a place to be presented to God for you, by him, not misbecoming the Majesty of the great God, who is pleased to dwell thus amongst us. What was spent in salomon's Temple is not told us. What was prepared, before it was begun, is such a sum, as certainly, if all the Christian Kings that are, would send in all that they have, at once, to any one service, all would not equal that sum. They gave there, till they who had the overseeing thereof, complained of the abundance, and proclaimed an abstinence. Yet there was one, who gave more than all they; for Christ says the poor widow gave more than all the rest, because she gave all she had. There is a way of giving more than she gave; & I, who by your favours was no stranger to the beginning of this work, and an often refresher of it to your memories, and a poor assistant in laying the first stone, the material stone, as I am now, a poor assistant again in this laying of this first formal Stone, the Word & Sacrament, and shall ever desire to be so in the service of this place, I, I say, can truly testify, that you (speaking of the whole Society together of the public stock, the public treasury, the public revenue) you gave more than the widow, who gave all, for you gave more than all. A stranger shall not intermeddle with our joy, as Solomon says: strangers shall not know, how ill we were provided for such a work, when we begun it, nor with what difficulties we have wrestled in the way; but strangers shall know to God's glory, that you have perfected a work of full three times as much charge, as you proposed for it at beginning: so bountifully doth God bless, and prosper intentions to his glory, with enlarging your hearts within, and opening the hearts of others, abroad. And this is your Dedication, and that which without prejudice, and for distinction, we call a Lay Dedication, though from religious hearts, and hands.  
There is another Dedication; 
Ecclesiastica  that we have called Ecclesiastical, appointed by God, so as God speaks in the ordinances, and in the practice of his Church. Haereditary Kings are begotten & conceived the natural way; but that body which is so begotten of the blood of Kings, is not a King, no nor a man, till there be a Soul infused by God. Here is a House, a Child conceived (we may say borne) of Christian parents, of persons religiously disposed to God's glory; but yet, that was to receive another influence, an inanimation, a quickening, by another Consecration. Oportet denuo nasci, holds even in the children of Christian parents; when they are borne, they must be borne again by Baptism: when this place is thus given by you, for God, oportet denuo dari, it must be given again to God, by him, who receives it of you. It must; there seems a necessity to be implied, because even in Nature, there was a consecration of holy places; jacob in his journey, 
Gen. 28.20.  before the Law, consecrated even that stone, which he set up, in intention to build God a House there. In the time of the Law, 
Num. 7.1.  this Feast of Dedication, was in practice; first in the Tabernacle; that and all that appertained to it, was anointed, and sanctified: So was salomon's Temple after; so was that which was re-edified after their return from Babylon, and so was this in the Text, after the Heathen had defiled and profaned the Altar thereof, and a new one was erected by judas Maccabeus. Thus in Nature, thus in Law, and thus far thus in the Gospel too: that as sure as we are that the people of God had material Churches in the Apostles first times, so sure we are, that those places had a Sanctity in them. If that place of Saint Paul, 
1 Cor. 11.22  Despise ye the Church of God? be to be understood of the local, of the material Church, and not of the Congregation, you see there is a rebuke for the profanation of the place, and consequently a sanctity in the place. But as soon as the Church came evidently by the favour of Princes, to have liberty to make laws, and power to see them practised, it was never pretermitted to consecrate the places. Before that, we find an ordinance by Pope Hyginus (he was within 150. after Christ, and the eighth Bishop of that See after Saint Peter) even of particulars in the Consecrations. But after, 
Athanas.  Athanasius in his Apology to Constantius, makes that protestation for all Christians, That they never meet in any Church, till it be consecrated: And Constantine the Emperor lest he should be at any time unprovided of such a place, (as we read in the Ecclesiastical story) in all his wars, carried about with him a Tabernacle which was consecrated: In Nature, in the Law, in the Gospel, in Precept, in Practice, these Consecrations are established.  

Vsus.  This they did. But to what use did they consecrate them? not to one use only; and therefore it is a frivolous contention, whether Churches be for preaching, or for praying. But if Consecration be a kind of Christening of the Church, & that at the Christening it have a name, we know what name God hath apppointed for his House, Domus mea, Domus orationis vocabitur. My House shall be called the House of Prayer. And how impudent and inexcusable a falsehood is that in Bellarmine, That the Lutherans and Caluinistes do admit Churches for Sermons and Sacraments, Sed reprehendunt quod fiant ad orandum, They dislike that they should be for Prayer: when as Caluin himself, (who may seem to be more subject to this reprehension than Luther) (for there is no such Liturgy in the Caluinists' Churches, as in the Lutheran) yet in that very place which Bellarmine cities, says Conceptae preces in Ecclesia Deo gratae; and for singing in Churches, (which in that place of Caluin cannot be only meant of Psalms, for it was of that manner of singing, which being formerly in use in the Eastern churches, S. Ambrose, in his time, brought into the Church of Milan, and so it was derived over the Western churches, which was the modulation and singing of Versicles and Antiphons' and the like) this singing, says Caluin, was in use amongst the Apostles themselves, Et sanctissimum & saluberimum est institutum. 
l. 3.20. § 32.  It was a most holy and most profitable Institution. Still consider Consecration to be a Christening of the place; and though we find them often called Templa propter Sacrificia, for our sacrifices of prayer, and of praise, & of the merits of Christ, and often called Ecclesiae ad conciones, Churches, in respect of congregations, for preaching, and often called Martyria, for preserving with respect, and honour the bodies of Martyrs, and other Saints of God, there buried, & often, often, by other names, Dominica, Basilica, and the like, yet the name that God gave to his house, is not Concionatorium, nor Sacramentarium, but Oratorium, the House of Prayer. And therefore without prejudice to the other functions too, (for as there is a vae upon me, Si non Euangelizavero, If I preach not myself, so may that vae be multiplied upon any, who would draw that holy ordinance of God into a dis-estimation, or into a slackness,) let us never intermit that duty, to present ourselves to God in these places, though in these places there be then, no other Service, but Common prayer. For than doth the House answer to that name, which God hath given it, if it be a house of Prayer.  

Modus.  Thus then were these places to receive a double Dedication; a Dedication, which was a Donation from the Patron, a Dedication which was a consecration from the Bishop, for to his person, and to that rank in the Hierarchy of the Church, the most ancient Canons limited it; and to those purposes, which we have spoken of; of which, Prayer is so fare from being none, as that there is none above it. A little should be said, (before we shut up this part) of the manner, the form of Consecrations. In which, in the Primitive Church, as soon as Consecrations came into free use, they were full of Ceremonies. And many of those Ceremonies derived from the jews: and not unlawful, for that. The Ceremonies of the jews, which had their foundation in the prefiguration of Christ, and were types of him, were unlawful after Christ was come; because the use of them, then, employed a denial or a doubt of his being come. But those Ceremonies, which, though the jews used them, had their foundation in Nature, as bowing of the knee, lifting up the eyes, and hands, and many, very many others, which either testified their devotion that did them, or exalted their devotion that saw them done, are not therefore excluded the Church, because they were in use amongst the jews. That Pope whom we named before, Hyginus, the eighth after Saint Peter, he instituted, Ne Basilica sine Missa consecretur. That no Church be consecrated without a Mass. If this must bind us, to a Mass of the present Roman Church, it were hard; and yet not very hard truly; for they are easily had. But that word, Mass, is in Saint Ambrose, in Saint Augustine in some very ancient Counsels; and surely intends nothing, to this purpose, but the Service, the Common Prayer of the Church, then in use, there. And when the Bishop Panigarola says in his Sermon upon Whitsunday, that the Holy Ghost found the blessed Virgin and the Apostles at Mass, I presume he means no more, then that they were met at such public Prayer, as at those times they might make. Sure Pope Clemens, and Pope Hyginus mean the same thing, when one says Missa consecretur, and the other Divinis Precibus: One says, Let the Consecration be with a Mass, the other, with Divine Service; the Liturgy, the Divine Service was then the Mass. In a word, a constant form of Consecrations, we find none that goes through our rituals: the Ceremonies were still more or less, as they were more or less obnoxious, or might be subject to scandalise, or to be misinterpreted. And therefore I am not here either to direct, or so much as to remember, that which appertains to the manner of these Consecrations; only in concurring in that, which is the Soul of all, humble and hearty prayer, that God will hear his Servants in this place, I shall not offend to say, that I am sure my zeal is inferior to none. And more I say not of the first Part, The Holy place; and but a little more, of the other; though at first it were proposed for an equal part, The Holy Person, That at the Feast of the Dedication, jesus walked in the Temple in salomon's Porch.  

2. Part.  In this second part, we did not spread the words, nor shed our considerations upon many particulars: the first was, 
Jesus in Temple.  that even jesus himself had recourse to this Holy place. In the new jerusalem, in Heaven, there is no Temple. 
Apo. 21.22  I saw no Temple there says Saint john: for the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb are the Temple of it. In Heaven, where there is no danger of falling, there is no need of assistance. Hear the Temple is called Gnazar, 
2. Paral. 4.9  that is Auxilium: A Helper: the strongest that is, needs the help of the Church: And it is called Sanctificium, by Saint Hierom, 
Psal. 78.69.  a place that is not only made holy by Consecration, but that makes others holy by GOD in it. And therefore Christ himself, whose person and presence might consecrate the Sanctum Sanctorum, would yet make his often repair to this Holy place; not that he needed this subsidy of Local holiness in himself, but that his example might bring others who did need it; and those who did not; and, that even his own Preaching might have the benefit and the blessing of God's Ordinance in that place, he says of himself, 
Math. 26.  Quotidie apud vos sedebam docens in Templo, and Semper docui in Synagoga, & in Templo; as in the Acts, the Angel that had delivered the Apostles out of prison, sends them to Church, 
Acts 5.  Stantes in Templo loquimini plebi. The Apostles were sent to preach, but to preach in the Temple, in the place appropriated and consecrated for that holy use and employment.  

Tempus.  He came to this place, and he came at those times, which no immediate command of God, but the Church had instituted. Facta sunt Encaenia, says the Text; It was the Feast of the Dedication. We know what Dedication this was; That of Solomon was much greater; A Temple built where none was before; That of Esdras at the return was much greater than this, An entire reedification of that demolished Temple, where it was before. This was but a zealous restoring of an Altar in the Temple: which having been profaned by the Gentiles, the jews themselves threw down, and erected a new, and dedicated that. Salomons Dedication is called a Feast, 
2 Chr. 5.3.  a Holy day: by the very same name that the Feast of unleavened bread, and the Feast of the Tabernacle is called so often in Scripture, which is Kag. The Dedication of Ezra 
Ezra 6.16.  is sufficiently declared to be a solemn Feast too. But neither of these Feasts, though of fare greater Dedications, were Anniversarie; neither commanded to be kept every year; and yet this, which was so much lesser than the others, the Church had put under that Obligation, to be kept every year; and Christ himself contemns not, condemns not, disputes not the institution of the Church. But as for matter of doctrine he sends even his own Disciples, to them who sat in Moses Chair, so for matter of Ceremony, he brings even his own person, to the celebrating, to the authorising, to the countenancing of the Institutions of the Church, and rests in that.  
Now it was Winter, says the Text: 
Etsi Hiems  Christ came etsi Hiems, though it were Winter; so small an inconvenience kept him not off. Beloved, it is not always colder upon Sunday, then upon Saturday; nor at any time colder in the Chapel; then in Westminster Hall. A thrust keeps some off in Summer; and cold in Winter: and there are more of both these in other places, where for all that, they are more content to be. Remember that Peter was warming himself, and he denied Christ. They who love a warm bed, let it be a warm Study, let it be a warm profit, better than this place, they deny CHRIST in his Institution. That therefore which CHRIST says, Pray that your flight be not in the Winter, 
Mat. 24.20.  nor upon the Sabbath; we may apply thus, Pray that upon the Sabbath (I told you at first, what were Sabbaths,) the Winter make you not fly, not abstain from this place. Put off thy shoes, 
Exod. 35.  says God to Moses, for the place is holy ground. When God's ordinance by his Church call you to this holy place, put off those shoes, all those earthly respects, of ease or profit, Christ came, Etsi Hiems.  
But then, Quia Hiems, 
Quia Hiems  Because it was Winter, He did walk in salomon's Porch, which was covered, not in Atrio, in that part of the Temple, which was open, and exposed to the weather. We do not say, that infirm and weak men, may not favour themselves, in a due care of their health, in these places. That he who is not able to raise himself, must always stand at the Gospel, or bow the knee at the name of jesus, or stay some whole hours, altogether uncovered here, if that increase infirmities of that kind. And yet Courts of Princes, are strange Bethesdaes; how quickly they recover any man that is brought into that Pool? How much a little change of air does? and how well they can stand, and stand bare many hours, in the Privy Chamber, that would melt and flow out into Rheums, and Catarrhs, in a long Gospel here? But, Citra Scandalum, a man may favour himself in these places: but yet this excuses not the irreverent manner which hath overtaken us in all these places; That any Master may think himself to have the same liberty here, as in his own house, or that that Servant, that never puts on his hat in his Master's presence all the week, on Sunday, when he and his Master are in God's presence, should have his hat on perchance before his Masters. Christ shall make Master and Servant equal; but not yet; not here; nor ever, equal to himself, how ever they become equal to one another. God's service is not a continual Martyrdom, that a man must be here, and here in such a posture, and such a manner, though he dye for it; but God's House is no Ordinary neither; where any man may pretend to do what he will, and every man may do, what any man does. Christ slept in a storm; I dare not make that general; let all do so. Christ favoured himself in the Church; I dare not make that general neither: to make all places equal, or all persons equal in any place.  
'tis time to end. 
Basil.  Saint Basill himself, as acceptable as he was to his Auditory, in his second Sermon upon the 14. Psalm, takes knowledge that he had preached an hour, and therefore broke off: I see it is a Compass, that all Ages have thought sufficient. But as we have contracted the consideration of great Temples, to this lesser Chapel, so let us contract the Chapel to ourselves: Et facta sint Encaenia nostra, let this be the Feast of the Dedication of ourselves too God. Christ calls himself a Temple, Soluite templum hoc: 
john 2.19.  Destroy this Temple. 
1 Cor. 3.16. & 6.19.  And Saint Paul calls us so twice; Know ye not that ye are the Temples of the Holy Ghost? Facta sint Encaenia nostra: Encaenia signifies Renovationem, a renewing: 
Aug.  and Saint Augustine says that in his time, Si quis nova tunica indueretur, Encaeniare diceretur. If any man put on a new garment, he called it by that name, Encaenia sua. Much more is it so, if we renew in ourselves the Image of God, and put off the Old man, and put on the Lord jesus Christ. This is truly Encaeniare, to dedicate, to renew ourselves: 
Nazian.  and so Nazian. in a Sermon, or Oration, upon the like occasion as this, calls, Conuersionem nostram, Encaenia, our turning to God, in a true repentance, or renewing, our dedication. Let me charge your memories, but with this note more, That when God forbade David the building of an House, Because he was a man of blood, at that time David had not embrued his hands in Vriahs' blood; nor shed any blood, but lawfully in just wars; yet even that made him uncapable of this favour to provide God a house. Some callings are in their nature more obnoxious, and more exposed to sin, than others are: accompanied with more tentations; & so retard us more in holy duties. And therefore as there are particular sins that attend certain places, certain ages, certain complexions, and certain vocations, let us watch ourselves in all those, and remember that not only the highest degrees of those sins, but any thing that conduces thereunto, profanes the Consecration, and Dedication of this Temple, ourselves, to the service of God; it annihilates our repentance, and frustrates our former reconciliations to him. Almighty God work in you a perfect dedication of yourselves at this time; that so, receiving it from hands dedicated to God, he whose holy Office this is, may present acceptably this House to God in your behalves, and establish an assurance to you, that God will be always present with you and your Succession in this place. Amen.   

THE FIRST SERMON PREACHED TO KING CHARLES, At Saint JAMES: 3o. April. 1625.  
By JOHN DONNE, Deane of Saint Paul's, London.  
LONDON, Printed by A. M. for THOMAS JONES, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Sign of the Black Raven in the Strand. 1625.   

PSALM. 11.3. 
If the Foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?   
We are still in the season of Mortification; in Lent: But we search no longer for Texts of Mortification; The Almighty hand of God hath shed and spread a Text of Mortification over all the land. The last Sabbath day, was his Sabbath who entered then into his everlasting Rest; Be this our Sabbath, to enter into a holy and thankful acknowledgement of that Rest, which God affords us, in continuing to us our Foundations; for, If foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?  
I scarce know any word in the Word of God, in which the Original is more ambiguous, and consequently the Translations more various, and therefore, necessarily also, the Expositions more diverse, then in these words. There is one thing, in which all agree, that is, the Argument, and purpose, and scope of the Psalm; And then, in what sense, the words of the Text may conduce to the scope of the Psalm, we rest in this Translation, which our Church hath accepted and authorized, and which agrees with the first Translation known to us, by way of Exposition, that is the Chalde Paraphrase, If Foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?  
The Church of God ever delighted herself in a holy officiousness in the Commemoration of Martyrs: Almost all their solemn, and extraordinary Meetings, and Congregations, in the Primitive Church, were 〈◊〉 that, for the honourable Commemoration of Martyrs: And for that, they came soon to institute and appoint certain Liturgies, certain Offices (as they called them) certain Services in the Church, which should have reference to that, to the Commemoration of Martyrs; as we have in our Book of Common Prayer, certain Services for Marriage, for Burial, and for such other holy Celebrations; And in the Office and Service of a Martyr, the Church did use this Psalm; This Psalm, which is in general, a Protestation of David, That though he were so vehemently pursued by Saul, as that all that wished him well, said to his Soul, Fly as a Bird to the Mountain, as it is in the first verse; Though he saw, That the wicked had bend their Bows, and made ready their Arrows, upon the string, that they might privily shoot at the upright in heart, as it is in the second verse: Though he take it almost as granted, that Foundations are destroyed, (And then, what can the righteous do?) as it is in the third verse which is our Text, yet in this distress he finds what to do. For as he begun in the first verse, In thee Lord, put I my trust: So after he had passed the enumeration of his dangers, in the second and third verses, in the fourth he pursues it as he begun, The Lord is in his holy Temple, the Lords Throne is in Heaven. And in the fifth he fixes it thus, The Lord tryeth the Righteous, (he may suffer much to be done for their trial) but the wicked, and him that loveth violence, his soul hateth. This then is the Syllogism, this is the Argumentation of the righteous Man; In Collateral things, in Circumstantial things, in things that are not fundamental, a righteous Man, a constant Man should not be shaked at all, not at all Scandalised; That's true; But then, (in a second place) sometimes it comes to that, That Foundations are destroyed, and what can the Righteous do then? Why even then, this is a question, not of desperation, that nothing can be done, but of Consultation with God, what should be done. I know, says David, I should not be, and thou knowest, O God, I have not been moved with ordinary trials; not though my Friends have dis-avowed me, and bid me fly to the Mountain as a Bird, not though mine enemies prepare, and prepare Arrows, and shoot, and shoot privily, (bestow their labour, and their cost, and their wits, to ruin me) yet these have not moved me, because I had fixed myself upon certain Foundations, Confidences, and Assurances of Deliverance from thee. But if, O Lord, I see these foundations destroyed, if thou put me into mine Enemy's hand, if thou make them thy Sword, if their fury draw that Sword, and then, thy Almighty Arm, sinewed even with thine own indignation, strike with that sword, what can I, how righteous soever I were, do? So then, for the Explication, and Application of these words, there will need no more, but to spread them by way of Paraphrase upon these three considerations: 
Divisio.  First, That the righteous is bold as a Lion, not easily shaked; But then, Foundations themselves may be destroyed, and so he may be shaked; If he be, yet he knows what to do, or where to ask Counsel, for these are not words of Desperation, but of Consultation, If Foundations be destroyed, etc.  

1. Part.  First then, we fix ourselves upon this consideration, that the Prophet in proposing this thus, If Foundations be destroyed, intimates pregnantly, that except there be danger of destroying Foundations, it is the part of the righteous Man, the godly man to be quiet. Study to be quiet, says the Apostle; Study, 
1 Thess. 4.11.  that is an action of the Mind; and then, Operam detis, say the Vulgate Edition, Labour to be quiet, and Labour is an action of the body: Indeed it is the proper business of the Mind and Body too, of Thoughts and Actions too, to be quiet: And yet, alas, how many break their sleep in the night, about things that disquiet them in the day too, and trouble themselves in the day, about things that disquiet them all night too? We disquiet ourselves too much, in being over tender, over sensible of imaginary injuries. Transeunt iniuriae, says the Moral man; Let many injuries pass over; for, 
Seneca.  Plaerasque non accipit, qui nescit; He that knows not of an injury, or takes no knowledge of it, for the most part, hath no injury. Qui inquirunt, quid in se dictum est, says he, They that are too inquisitive, what other men say of them, they disquiet themselves; for that which others would but whisper, they publish. And therefore that which he adds there, for Moral, and Civil matters, holds in a good proportion, in things of a more Divine Nature, in such parts of the religious worship and service of God, as concern not Foundations, Non expedit omnia videre, non omnia audire; we must not too jealously suspect, not too bitterly condemn, not too peremptorily conclude, that what soever is not done, as we would have it done, or as we have seen it done in former times, is not well done: for there is a large Latitude, and, by necessity of Circumstances, much may be admitted, and yet no Foundations destroyed; and till Foundations be destroyed, the righteous should be quiet.  
Now this should not prepare, this should not incline any man, to such an indifferency, as that it should be all one to him, what became of all things; all one, whether we had one, or two, or ten, or no Religion; or that he should not be awake, and active, and diligent, in assisting truth, and resisting all approaches of Error. For, God hath said of all, into whose hand he hath committed power, You are Gods. Now, they are not Gods, but Idols, if, as the Prophet says, 
Psal. 115.6.  They have Eyes and see not, Ears and hear not, Hands and strike not; nay, (as he adds there) if they have Noses and smell not, if they smell not out a mischievous practice, before it come to execution. For, God's eyes are upon the ways of man, 
job. 33.21.  and he sees all his doings: Those, who are in the number of them, of whom God hath said, they are Gods, must have their eyes upon the ways of men, and not upon their Ends only; upon the paths of mischief, and not upon the bed of mischief only; upon the Actors of mischief, and not upon the Act only. God's eye sees our ways, says David too; that is, he can see them, when he will; but there is more in the other Prophet, God's eyes are open upon all our ways; 
jere. 32.19.  always open, and he cannot choose but see: So that, a wilful shutting of the eye, a winking, a connivency, is not an assimilation to God. And then, 
Abac. 1.13.  God's eyes are purer, then to behold evil, and they cannot look upon iniquity: So that in an indifferency, whether Times, or Persons be good or bad, there is not this assimulation to God. 
Hebr. 4.13.  Again, All things are naked and open to the eyes of God: So that in the disguising, and palliating, and extenuating the faults of men, there is not this assimilation to God. Thus fare they falsify God's Word, who hath said, They are Gods; for they are Idols, and not Gods, if they have eyes, and see not. So is it also in the consideration of the Ear too: for, as David says, 
Psal. 94.9.  Shall not he that planted the Ear, hear? So we may say, Shall he upon whom God hath planted an Ear, be deaf? God's ears are so open, so tender, so sensible of any motion, 
Psal. 39.12  as that David forms one Prayer thus, Auribus percipe lachrimas meas, O Lord, hear my tears, he puts the office of the Eye too, upon the Eare. And then, if the Magistrate stop his Ears with Wool, (with staple bribes, profitable bribes) and with Cyvet in his wool, (perfumes of pleasure and preferment in his bribes) he falsifies God's Word, who hath said, they are Gods, for they are Idols, and not Gods, if they have ears, and hear not. And so it is also of the hand too; In all that job suffered, he says no more, but that the Hand of God had touched him; but touched him, in respect of that he could have done: for, when job says to men, Why persecute you me, 
job 19.22  as God? he means, as God could do, so vehemently, so ruinously, so destructively, so irreparably. There is no phrase oftener in the Scriptures, then that God delivered his people, i● the hand of Moses, and the hand of David, and the hand of the Prophets: all their Ministerial office is called the Hand: and therefore, as David prays to God, That he would pull his hand out of his bosom, and strike: so must we ever exhort the Magistrate, That he would pluck his hand out of his pocket, and forget what is there, and execute the Cause committed to him. For, as we, at last, shall commend our Spirits, into the hands of God, God hath commended our Spirits, not only our civil peace, but our Religion too, into the hand of the Magistrate. And therefore, when the Apostle says, Study to be quiet, it is not quiet in the blindness of the Eye, nor quiet in the Deafness of the Ear, nor quiet in the Lameness of the Hand; the just discharge of the duties of our several places, is no disquieting to any man. But when private men will spend all their thoughts upon their Superiors actions, this must necessarily disquiet them; for they are off of their own Centre, and they are extra Sphaeram Activitatis, out of their own Distance, and Compass, and they cannot possibly discern the End, to which their Superiors go. And to such a jealous man, when his jealousy is not a tenderness towards his own actions, which is a holy and a wholesome jealousy, but a suspicion of his Superiors actions, to this Man, every Wheel is a Drum, and every Drum a Thunder, and every Thunder-clapp a dissolution of the whole frame of the World: If there fall a broken tile from the house, he thinks Foundations are destroyed; if a crazy woman, or a disobedient child, or a needy servant fall from our Religion, from our Church, he thinks the whole Church must necessarily fall, when all this while there are no Foundations destroyed; and till foundations be destroyed, the righteous should be quiet.  
Hence have we just occasion, first to condole amongst ourselves, who, for matters of Foundations profess one and the same Religion, and then to complain of our Adversaries, who are of another. First, that amongst ourselves, for matters not Doctrinal, or if Doctrinal, yet not Fundamental, only because we are subdivided in diverse Names, there should be such Exasperations, such Exacerbations, such Vociferations, such Eiulations, such Defamations of one another, as if all Foundations were destroyed. Who would not tremble, to hear those Infernal words, spoken by men, to men, of one and the same Religion fundamentally, as Indiabolificata, Perdiabolificata, and Superdiabolificata, that the Devil, and all the Devils in Hell, and worse than the Devil is in their Doctrine, and in their Divinity, when, God in heaven knows, if their own uncharitableness did not exclude him, there were room enough for the Holy Ghost, on both, and on either side, in those Fundamental things, which are unanimely professed by both: And yet every Mart, we see more Books written by these men against one another, then by them both, for Christ.  
But yet though this Torrent of uncharitableness amongst them, be too violent, yet it is within some banks; though it be a Sea, and too tempestuous, it is limited within some bounds; The points are certain, known, limited, and do not grow upon us every year, and day. But the uncharitableness of the Church of Rome towards us all, is not a Torrent, nor it is not a Sea, but a general Flood, an universal Deluge, that swallows all the world, but that Church, and Churchyard, that Town, and Suburbs, themselves, and those that depend upon them; and will not allow possibility of Salvation to the whole Ark, the whole Christian Church, but to one Cabin in that Ark, the Church of Rome; and then deny us this Salvation, not for any Positive Error, that ever they charged us to affirm; not because we affirm any thing, that they deny, but because we deny some things, which they in their afternoon are come to affirm.  
If they were justi, Righteous, right and just dealing men, they would not raise such dustes, and then blind● men's eyes with this dust of their own raising, in things that concern no Foundations. It is true, that all Heresy does concern Foundations: there is no Heresy to be called little: Great Heresies proceeded from things, in appearance, small at first, and seemed to look but towards small matters. There were great Heresies, that were but Verbal, Heresies in some Word. That great Storm, that shaked the State, and the Church, in the Council of Ephesus, and came to Factions, and Commotions in the Secular part, and to Exautorations, and Excommunications amongst the Bishops, so fare, as that the Emperor came to declare both sides to be Heretics; All this was for an Error in a Word, in the word Deipara, whether the Blessed Virgin Marie were to be called the Mother of God, or no. There have been Verbal Heresies, and Heresies that were but Syllabicall; little Praepositions made Heresies; not only State-praepositions, Precedencies, and Prerogatives of Church above Church, occasioned great Schisms, but Literal Praepositions, Praepositions in Grammar, occasioned great Heresies. That great Heresy of the Acepbali, against which Damascene bends himself in his Book, De Natura Composita, was grounded in the Preposition, In; They would confess Ex, but not In, That Christ was made of two Natures, but that he did not consist in two Natures. And we all know, what differences have been raised in the Church, in that one point of the Sacrament, by these three Prepositions, Trans, Con, and Sub. There have been great Heresies, but Verhall, but Syllabicall; and as great, but Literal; The greatest Heresy that ever was, that of the Arrians, was but in one Letter. So then, in Heresy, there is nothing to be called little, nothing to be suffered. It was excellently said of Heretics, (though by one, who, though not then declared, 
Nestorius.  was then an Heretic in his heart,) Condolere Hereticis crimen est; It is a fault, not only to be too indulgent to an Heretic, but to be too compassionate of an Heretic, too sorry for an Heretic. It is a fault to say, Alas, let him alone, he is but an Heretic; but, to say, Alas, hope well of him, till you be better sure, that he is an Heretic, is charitably spoken. God knows, the sharp and sour Name of Heretic, was too soon let lose, and too fast spread in many places of the world. We see, that in some of the first Catalogues, that were made of Heretics, men were Registered for Heretics, that had but expounded a place of Scripture, otherwise then that place had been formerly expounded, though there were no harm, in that new Exposition. And then, when once that infamous Name of Heretic was fastened upon a man, nothing was too heavy for, any thing was believed of that man: And from thence it is, without question; that we find so many so absurd, so senseless Opinions imputed to those men, who were then called Heretics, as could not, in truth, with any possibility, fall into the imagination or fancy of any man, much less be Doctrinally, or Dogmatically delivered. And then, upon this there issued Laws, from particular States, against particular Heresies, that troubled those States then, as namely, against the Arrians, or Macedonians, and such; and in a short time, these Laws came to be extended, to all such Opinions, as the passion of succeeding times, called Heresy. And at last, the Roman Church having constituted that Monopoly, That She only should declare what should be Heresy, and having declared that to be Heresy, which opposed, or retarded the dignity of that Church, now they call in Brachium Spirituale, All those Sentences of Fathers, or Counsels that mention Heresy, and they call in Brachium Saeculare, all those Laws which punish Heresy, and wherea● these Fathers, and Counsels, and States, intended by Heresy, Opinions that destroyed Foundations, they bend all these against every point, which may endamage, not the Church of God, but the Church of Rome; nor the Church of Rome, but the Court of Rome; nor the Court of Rome, but the Kitchen of Rome; not for the Heart, but for the Belly; not the Religion, but the Policy; not the Altar, but the Exchequer of Rome.  
But the Righteous looks to Foundations, before he will be scandalised himself, or condemn another. When they call Saint Peter their first Pope, and being remembered, how he denied his Master, say then, that was but an Act of Infirmity, not of Infidelity, and there were no Foundations destroyed in that; we press not that evidence against Saint Peter, we forbear, and we are quiet. When we charge some of Saint Peter's imaginary Successors, some of their Popes, with actual, and personal Sacrificing to Idols, some with subscribing to formal Heresies, with their own hand, many with so enormous an ill life, as that their own Authors will say, that for many years together, there lived not one Pope, of whose Salvation, any hope could be conceived; and they answer to all this, that all these were but Personal faults, and destroyed no Foundations; we can be content to bury their faults with their persons, and we are quiet. When we remember them, how many of the Fathers excused officious Lies, and thought some kind of Lying to be no Sin, how very many of them herded in the heresy of the Millenarians, That the Saints of God should enjoy a thousand years of temporal felicity in this world, after their Resurrection, before they ascended into Heaven; And that they say to all this, The Fathers said these things before the Church had decreed any thing to the contrary, and till that, it was lawful for any man to say, or think what he would, we do not load the memory of those blessed Fathers with any heavier press, but we are quiet. Yet we cannot choose but tell them, that tell us this, that they have taken a hard way, to make that saying true, that all things are grown dear in our times; for they have made Salvation dear; Threescore years ago, a man might have been saved at half the price he can now: Threescore years ago, he might have been saved for believing the Apostles Creed; now it will cost him the Trent Creed too. Evermore they will press for all, and yield nothing; and there is indeed their Specification, there's their Character, that's their Catholic, their Universal; To have all; As, in Athanasius his time, when the Emperor pressed him to afford the Arrians one Church in Alexandria, where he was Bishop, and he asked but one Church in Antioch, where the Arrians prevailed, not doubting but he should draw more ●o the true Church in Antioch, than they should corrupt in Alexandria, yet this would not be granted; It would not be granted at Rome, if we should ask a Church for a Church. In a word, we charge them with uncharitableness, (and Charity is without all Controversy, a Foundation of Religion) that they will so peremptorily exclude us from Heaven, for matters that do not appertain to Foundations. For, if they will call all Foundations, that that Church hath, or doth, or shall decree, we must learn our Catechism upon our Deathbed, and inquire for the Articles of our Faith, when we are going out of the world, for they may have decreed something that Morning. No one Author of theirs denied Pope joane, till they discerned the Consequence, That by confessing a Woman Pope, they should disparage that Succession of Bishops, which they pretend, And this Succession must be Foundation. No Author of our side denied Saint Peter's being at Rome, till we discerned the Consequence, That upon his personal being there, they grounded a Primacy in that Sea, And this Primacy must be Foundation. Much might be admitted in cases of Indifferency, even in the Nature of the things, Much in cases of Necessity, for the importance of Circumstances, much in cases of Conveniency, for the suppling of boisterous, and for the becalming of tempestuous humours; but when every thing must be called Foundation, we shall never know where to stop, where to consist. If we should believe their Sacrificium incruentum, their unbloody Sacrifice in the Mass, if we did not believe their Sacrificium Cruentum too, that there was a power in that Church, to sacrifice the Blood of Kings, we should be said to be defective in a fundamental Article. If we should admit their Metaphysics, their transcendent Transubstantiation, and admit their Chimiques, their Purgatory Fires, and their Mythology, and Poetry, their apparitions of Souls and Spirits, they would bind us to their Mathematics too, and they would not let us be saved, except we would reform our Almanacs to their ten days, and reform our Clocks to their four and twenty: for who can tell when there is an end of Articles of Faith, in an arbitrary, and in an Occasional Religion? When then this Prophet says, If Foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do, he means, that till that, the righteous should be quiet: Except it were in fundamental Articles of Faith, ourselves should not be so bitter towards one another, our Adversary should not be so uncharitable against us all. And farther we need not extend this first Consideration.  
The second is, 
2. Part.  to Survey some such Foundations, as fall within the frailty, and suspicion, and possibility of this Text, that they may be destroyed: for when the Prophet says, If they be, they may be. Now Fundamentum proprie de aedificijs dicitur, says the Law: when we speak of Foundations, we intent a house: and here, we extend this House to four Considerations; for in four Houses have every one of us a dwelling. For, first, Ecclesia Domus, the Church is a House, it is God's house; and in that House, we are of the household of the faithful, if (as it is testified of Moses) we be faithful in all his House, 
Hebr. 3.5.  as Servants. You see there is a faithfulness required in every man, in all the house of God, not in any one room; a disposition required to do good to the whole Church of God every where, and not only at home. Secondly, Respublica Domus, The Commonwealth, the State, the Kingdom is a House; and this is that which is called so often, Domus Israel, The house of Israel, the State, the Government of the jews: And in this House, God dwells, as well as in the other; In the State, as well as in the Church: For, these words, The Lord hath chosen Zion, 
Psa. 132.13  he hath desired it for a habitation, are spoken of the whole Body, Church, and State. Thirdly, there is Domus Habitationis, Domus quae Domicilium, a House to dwell in, and to dwell with, a Family: and in this House God dwells too; for, as David says of the Building, we may say of the Dwelling, Except the Lord build the House, 
Psal. 127.1.  they labour in vain: So except the Lord dwell in the House, it is a desolate Habitation. And then lastly, there is Domus quae Dominus, a house which is the Master of the House; for as every Man is a little World, so every man is his own House, and dwells in himself: And in this House God dwells too; for the Apostle seems so much to delight himself in that Metaphor, as that he repeats it almost in all his Epistles, Habitat in nobis, That the Holy Ghost dwells in us. Now, of all these four Houses, that house which hath no walls, but is spread over the face of the whole Earth, the Church, And that House, which with us, hath no other walls, but the Sea, the State, the Kingdom, And that house which is walled with dry Earth, our dwelling house, our family, and this house which is walled with wet Earth, this loam of flesh, ourself, Of all these four houses, those three, of which, and in which we are, and this fourth, which we ourself are, God is the Foundation, and so foundations cannot be destroyed; But, as, though the common foundation of all buildings be the Earth, yet we make particular foundations for particular Buildings, of Stone, or Brick, or Piles, as the Soil requires; so shall we also here consider such particular Foundations of these four houses, as may fall within the frailty, and suspicion, within the possibility, and danger of the Text, of being destroyed.  
Of the first House then, 
Ecclesia Domus.  which is the Church, the foundation is Christ, Other foundation can no man lay, 
1 Cor. 3.11.  then that which is laid, which is jesus Christ. Non propterea dicimus, says Saint Augustine. 
De unita. Eccles. C. 16.  We do not say that our Church is Catholic therefore, because Optatus says so, and because Ambrose says so, (and yet Optatus, and Ambrose, the Fathers, are good Witnesses) neither do we say it, (says he) Quia Collegarum nostrorum Conciliis praedicata est, Because some Synods and Counsels of men of our own Religion have said it is Catholic (And yet a Harmony of Confessions is good Evidence,) Nec quia tanta fiunt in ea mirabilia, says he, we call it not Catholic, because so many Miracles are wrought in it, (for we oppose Gods many miraculous Deliverances of this State and Church, to all their imaginary miracles of Rome) Non ideo manifestatur Catholica, says still that Father, All this does not make our Church Catholic, nay, non manifestatur, all this does not declare it to be Catholic, all these are no infallible marks thereof, but only this one, says he, Quia ipse Dominus jesus, etc. because the Lord jesus himself is the Foundation of this Church. But may not this be subject to reasoning, to various Disputation, Whether we have that foundation, or no? It may; but that will go fare in the clearing thereof, which the same Father says in another Book, 
De Moribus Eccles. Cat. C. 25.  Nihil in Ecclesia catholica salubrius fit, quam ut Rationem praecedat Autoritas: Nothing is safer for the finding of the Catholic Church, then to prefer Authority before my Reason, to submit and captivated my Reason to Authority. This the Roman Church pretends to embrace; but Apishly; like an Ape, it kills with embracing; for it evacuates the right Authority; The Authority that they obtrude, is the Decretals of their own Bishops, The authority, which Saint Augustine literally and expressly declares himself to mean, is the authority of the Scriptures.  
Christ then, that is, the Doctrine of Christ, is the foundation of this first House, the Church. 
2 Chro. 3.3.  Haec sunt fundamenta quae iecit Solomon, says the vulgate Edition, These are the foundations that Solomon laid; and then our Translation hath it, These are the things in which Solomon was instructed; One calls it Foundations, the other Instructions; All's one; The Instructions of Christ, the Doctrine of Christ, the Word, the Scriptures of Christ, are the Foundation of this House. For, when the Apostle says, 
Ephes. 2.20  Christ jesus himself is the chief corner Stone, yet he adds there, Ye are built upon the Prophets and Apostles: for the Prophets and Apostles, had their part in the foundation; in the laying, though not in the being of the Foundation. The wall of the city, 
Apoc. 21.14  says Saint john, had twelve Foundations, and in them, the Names of the twelve Apostles: But still, in that place, they are Apostles of the Lamb, still they have relation to Christ: For, they, who by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, writ of Christ, and so made up the Body of the Scriptures, have their parts too, in this Foundation. Besides these, it is said, in the building of the Material Temple, 
2 Reg. 5.17.  The King commanded, and they brought, great Stones, and costly Stones, and hewed Stones, to lay the foundations of the House: The care of the King, the labours of men conduce to the foundation. And besides this, in that place of the Revelation, The foundation of the Wall, is said to be garnished with all manner of precious stones; Garnished, but not made of that kind of precious stones. So then salomon's hewed Stones, and costly stones, may, in a fair accommodation, be understood to be the Determinations, and Resolutions, Canons, and Decrees of general Counsels: And Saint john's garnishment of precious stones, may, in a fair accommodation, be understood to be the Learned and Laborious, the zealous and the pious Commentaries and Expositions of the Fathers; For Counsels and Fathers assist the Foundation; But the foundation itself is Christ himself in his Word; his Scriptures. And then, certainly they love the House best, that love the foundation best: not they, that impute to the Scriptures such an Obscurity, as should make them in-intelligible to us, or such a defect as should make them insufficient in themselves. To deny us the use of Scriptures in our vulgar Translations, and yet to deny us the use of them, in the Original Tongues too, To tell us we must not try Controversies by our English, or our Latin Bibles, nor by the Hebrew Bibles neither, To put such a Majesty upon the Scriptures, as that a Lay man may not touch them, and yet to put such a diminution upon them, as that the writings of men shall be equal to them; this is a wrinching, a shrinking, a sinking, an undermining, a destroying of Foundations, of the foundation of this first House, which is the Church, the Scriptures.  

Respub. Domus.  Enter we now into a Survey of the second House, The State, the Kingdom, the Commonwealth; and of this House, the foundation is the Law. And therefore Saint Hierome refers this Text, in a literal and primary signification to that, to the Law: for so, in his Commentaries upon the Psalms, he translates this Text, Si dissipatae Leges, He makes the evacuating of the Law, this destroying of foundations. Lex communis Reipub. sponsio, says the Law itself: The Law is the mutual, the reciprocal Surety between the State and the Subject. The Law is my Surety to the State, that I shall pay my Obedience, And the Law is the State's Surety to me, that I shall enjoy my Protection. And therefore, therein did the jews justly exalt themselves above all other Nations, That God was come so much nearer to them then to other Nations, by how much they had Laws and Ordinances more righteous than other Nations had. Now, as it is said of the Foundations of the other House, the Temple, The King commanded in the laying thereof, the King had his hand in the Church, so is it also in this House, the State, the Commonwealth, the King hath his hand in, and upon the foundation here also, which is the Law: so fare, as that every forbearing of a Law, is not an Euacuating of the Law; every Pardon, whether a Post-pardon, by way of mercy, after a Law is broken, or a Prae-pardon, by way of Dispensation, in wisdom before a Law be broken, is not a Destroying of this foundation. For, when such things as these are done, 
Iuo.  Non astu Mentientis, sed affectu compatientis, not upon colourable disguises, nor private respects, but truly for the General good, all these Pardons, and Dispensations conduce and concur to the Office, and contract the Nature of the Foundation itself, which is, that the whole Body may be the better supported. But where there is an inducing of a super-soveraigne, and a super-Supremacie, and a Sea above our four Seas, and a Horn above our Head, and a foreign Power above our Native and natural Power, where there are dogmatic, Positive Assertions, that men borne of us, and living with us, and by us, are yet none of us, no Subjects, own no Allegiance, this is a wrinching, a shrinking, a sinking, an undermining, a destroying of Foundations, the Foundation of this second House, which is the State, the Law.  
The third House that falls into our present Survey, 
Domus Domicilium.  is Domus quae Domicilium, Domus habitationis, our Dwelling house, or Family, and of this house, the foundation is Peace: for Peace compacts all the pieces of a family together; Husband and Wife, in Love and in Obedience, Father and Son, in Care and in Obedience, Master and Servant, in Discipline and in Obedience: Still Obedience is one Ingredient in all Peace; there is no Peace, where there is no Obedience. Now every smoke does not argue the house to be on fire; Every domestic offence taken or given, does not destroy this Foundation, this Peace, within doors. There may be a Thunder from above, and there may be an Earthquake from below, and yet the foundation of the House safe: From above there may be a defect in the Superior, in the Husband, the Father, the Master; and from below, in the Wife, the Son, the Servant; There may be a jealousy in the Husband, a Morosity in the Father, an Imperiousness in the Master; And there may be an inobsequiousnesse and an indiligence in the Wife, there may be levity and inconsideration in the Son, and there may be unreadiness, unseasonableness in a Servant, and yet Foundations stand, and Peace, maintained, though not by an exquisite performing of all duties, yet by a mutual, support of one another's infirmities. This destroys no Foundation; But if there be a window opened in the house, to let in a jesuitical firebrand, that shall whisper, though not proclaim, deliver with a non Dominus sed Ego, that though it be not a declared Tenet of the Church, yet he thinks, that in case of Heresy, Civil and Natural, and Matrimonial duties cease, no Civil, no Natural, no Matrimonial Tribute due to an Heretic; Or if there be such a fire kindled within doors, that the Husband's jealousy come to a Substraction of necessary means at home, or to Defamation abroad, or the Wife's levity induce just Imputation at home, or scandal abroad, If the Father's wastfulnesse amount to a Disinheriting, because he leaves nothing to be inherited, Or the Son's incorrigibleness occasion a just disinheriting, though there be enough, If the Master make Slaves of Servants, and macerate them, or the Servants make prize of the Master, and prey upon him, in these cases, and such as these, there is a wrinching, a shrinking, a sinking, an underming, a destroying of Foundations, the Foundation of this third House, which is the family, Peace.  

Domus Dominus.  There remains yet another House, a fourth House, a poor and wretched Cottage; worse than our Statute Cottages; for to them the Statute lays out certain Acres; but for these Cottages, we measure not by Acres, but by Feet; and five or six foot serves any Cottager: so much as makes a Grave, makes up the best of our Globe, that are of the Inferior, and the best of their Temporalties, that are of the Superior Clergy, and the best of their Demeanes that are in the greatest Sovereignty in this world: for this house is but ourself, and the foundation of this House is Conscience. For, this proceeding with a good Conscience in every particular action, is that, which the Apostle calls, 
1 Tim. 6.19  The laying up in store for ourselves, a good foundation, against the time to come. The House comes not till the time to come, but the Foundation must be laid here. Abraham looked for a City; 
Heb. 11.10  that was a future expectation; but, says that Text, it was a City that hath a foundation; the foundation was laid already, even in this life, in a good Conscience: For no interest, no mansion shall that Man have in the upper-roomes of that jerusalem, that hath not laid the foundation in a good Conscience here. But what is Conscience? Conscience hath but these two Elements, Knowledge, and Practise; for Conscientia presumit Scientiam; He that does any thing with a good Conscience, knows that he should do it, and why he does it: He that does good ignorantly, stupidly, inconsiderately, implicitly, does good, but he does that good ill. Conscience is, Syllagismus practicus; upon certain premises, well debated, I conclude, that I should do it, and then I do it. Now for the destroying of this foundation, there are sins, which by God's ordinary grace exhibited in his Church, prove but Alarms, but Sentinels to the Conscience: The very sin, or something that does naturally accompany that sin, Poverty, or Sickness, or Infamy, calls upon a man, and awakens him to a remorse of the sin. Which made Saint Augustine say, That a man got by some sins; some sins help him in the way of repentance for sin; and these sins do not destroy the foundation. But there are sins, which in their nature preclude repentance, & batter the Conscience, devastate, depopulate, exterminate, annihilate the Conscience, and leave no sense at all, or but a sense of Desperation. And then, the case being reduced to that, 
Sap. 17.11.  That wickedness condemned by her own wickedness, becomes very timorous, (so as the Conscience grows afraid, that the promises of the Gospel belong not to her) And (as it is added there) being pressed with Conscience, always forecasteth grievous things) that whatsoever God lays upon him here, all that is but his earnest of future worse torments, when it comes to such a Fear, as (as it is added in the next verse) Betrays the succours that Reason offers him, 
ver. 12.  That whereas in reason a man might argue, God hath pardoned greater sins, and greater sinners, yet he can find no hope for himself; this is a shrinking, a sinking, an undermining, a destroying of this Foundation of this fourth House, the Conscience: And farther we proceed not in this Survey.  
We are now upon that which we proposed for our last Consideration; 
3. Part.  Till foundations are shaked, the righteous stirs not; In some cases some foundations may be shaked; if they be, what can the righteous do? The holy Ghost never asks the question, what the unrighteous, the wicked can do: They do well enough, best of all, in such cases: Demolitions and Ruins are their raisings; Troubles are their peace, Tempests are their calms, Fires and combustions are their refresh, Massacres are their harvest, and Destruction is their Vintage; All their Rivers run in Eddies, and all their Centres are in wheels, and in perpetual motions; the wicked do well enough, best of all then; but what shall the righteous do? The first entrance of the Psalm in the first verse, seems to give an answer; The righteous may fly to the Mountain as a Bird; he may retire, withdraw himself. But then the general scope of the Psalm, gives a Reply to the Answer; for all Expositors take the whole Psalm to be an answer from David, and given with some indignation against them, who persuaded him to fly, or retire himself. Not that David would constitute a Rule in his Example, that it was unlawful to fly in a time of danger or persecution, (for it would not be hard to observe at least nine or ten several flights of David) but that in some cases such circumstances of Time, and Place, and Person, may accompany and invest the action, as that it may be inconvenient for that Man, at that Time, to retire himself. As oft, as the retiring amounts to the forsaking of a Calling, it will become a very disputable thing, how fare a retiring may be lawful. Saint Peter's vehement zeal in dissuading Christ from going up to jerusalem, 
Mat. 16.21.  in a time of danger, was so fare from retarding Christ in that purpose, as that it drew a more bitter increpation from Christ upon Peter, then at any other time.  
So then, in the Text, we have a Rule employed, Something is left to the righteous to do, though some Foundations be destroyed; for the words are words of Consultation, and consultation with God; when Man can afford no Counsel, God can, and will direct those that are his, the righteous, what to do. The words give us the Rule, and Christ gives us the Example in himself. First, he continues his Innocence, and avows that; the destroying of Foundations, does not destroy his Foundation, Innocence: still he is able to confound his adversaries, 
joh. 8.46.  with that, Which of you can convince me of sin? And then, he prays for the removing of the persecution, Transeat Calix, let this Cup pass. When that might not be, he prays even for them, who inflicted this persecution, Pater ignosce, Father forgive them; And when all is done, he suffers all that can be done unto him: And he calls his whole Passion, Horam suam, it spent nights and days; his whole life was a continual Passion; yet how long soever, he calls it but an Hour, and how much soever it were their act, the act of their malignity that did it, yet he calls it his, because it was the act of his own Predestination as God, upon himself as Man; And he calls it by a more acceptable Name then that, he calls his Passion Calicem suum, his Cup, because he brought not only a patience to it, but a delight and a joy in it; for, for the joy that was set before him, 
Hebr. 12.2.  he endured the Cross. All this then the righteous can do, though Foundations be destroyed; He can withdraw himself, if the duties of his place make not his residence necessary; If it do, he can pray; and then he can suffer; and then he can rejoice in his sufferings; and he can make that protestation, Our God is able to deliver us, 
Dan. 3.17.  and he will deliver us; but if not, we will serve no other Gods. For, the righteous hath evermore this refuge, this assurance, that though some Foundations be destroyed, all cannot be: for first, The foundation of God stands sure, 
2 Tim. 2.19  and he knows who are his; He is safe in God; and then he is safe in his own Conscience, 
Pro. 10.25.  for, The Righteous is an everlasting foundation; not only that he hath one, but is one; and not a temporary, but an everlasting Foundation: So that foundations can never be so destroyed, but that he is safe in God, and safe in himself.  

Domus Ecclesia.  For such things then, as concern the foundation of the first House, the Church, Be not apt to call Superedifications, Foundations; Collateral Divinity, Fundamental Divinity; problematical, Disputable, Controvertible points, points Essential, and Articles of Faith. Call not Superedifications, Foundations, nor call not the furniture of the House, Foundations; Call not Ceremonial, and Ritual things, Essential parts of Religion, and of the worship of God, otherwise then as they imply Disobedience; for Obedience to lawful Authority, is always an Essential part of Religion. Do not Antedate Misery; do not Prophesy Ruin; do not Concur with Mischief, nor Contribute to Mischief so fare, as to over-feare it before, nor to misinterprete their ways, whose Ends you cannot know; And do not call the cracking of a pane of glass, a Destroying of foundations. But every man doing the particular duties of his distinct Calling, for the preservation of Foundations, Praying, and Preaching, and Doing, and Counselling, and Contributing too, Foundations being never destroyed, the Righteous shall do still, as they have done, enjoy God manifested in Christ, and Christ applied in the Scriptures, which is the foundation of the first House, the Church.  
For things concerning the Foundation of the second House, 
Respub. Domus.  the Commonwealth, which is the Law, Dispute not Laws, but obey them when they are made; In those Counsels, where Laws are made, or reform, dispute; but there also, without particular interest, without private affection, without personal relations. Call not every entrance of such a judge, as thou thinkest insufficient, a corrupt entrance; nor every judgement, which he enters, and thou understandest not, or likest not, a corrupt judgement. As in Natural things, it is a weakness to think, that every thing that I know not how it is done, is done by Witchcraft, So is it also in Civil things, if I know not why it is done, to think it is done for Money. Let the Law be sacred to thee, and the Dispenser's of the Law, reverend; Keep the Law, and the Law shall keep thee; And so Foundations being never destroyed, the Righteous shall do still, as they have done, enjoy their Possessions, and Honours, and themselves, by the overshadowing of the Law, which is the Foundation of the second House, the State.  
For those things which concern the Foundations of the third House, 
Domus Domicilium.  the Family, Call not light faults by heavy Names; Call not all sociableness, and Conversation, Disloyalty in thy Wife; Nor all levity, or pleasurablenesse, Incorrigibleness in thy Son; nor all negligence, or forgetfulness, Perfidiousness in thy Servant; Nor let every light disorder within doors, shut thee out of doors, or make thee a stranger in thine own House. In a smoky room, it may be enough to open a Window, without leaving the place; In Domestic unkindnesses, and discontents, it may be wholesomer to give them a Concoction at home in a discreet patience, or to give them a vent at home, in a moderate rebuke, then to think to ease them, or put them off, with false divertions abroad. As States subsist in part, by keeping their weaknesses from being known, so is it the quiet of Families, to have their Chancery, and their Parliament within doors, and to compose and determine all emergent differences there: for so also, Foundations being kept undestroyed, the righteous shall do, as they should do, enjoy a Religious Unity, and a Civil Unity, the same Soul towards God, the same heart towards one another, in a holy, and in a happy Peace, and Peace is the foundation of this third House, The Family.  

Domus Dominus.  Lastly, for those things which concern the Foundations of the fourth House, Ourselves, Misinterprete not Gods former Corrections upon thee, how long, how sharp soever: Call not his Physic, poison, nor his Fish, Scorpions, nor his Bread, Stone: Accuse not God, for that he hath done, nor suspect not God, for that he may do, as though God had made thee, only because he lacked a man, to damn. In all scruples of Conscience, say with Saint Peter, Domine quo vadam, Lord, whither shall I go, thou hast the Word of eternal life, And God will not leave thee in the dark: In all oppression from potent Adversaries, say with David, Tibi soli peccavi: Against thee, O Lord, only have I sinned, And God will not make the malice of another man his Executioner upon thee. Cry to him; and if he have not heard thee, cry louder, and cry oftener; The first way that God admitted thee to him, was by Water, the water of Baptism; Go still the same way to him, by Water, by repentant Tears: And remember still, that when Ezechias wept, Vidit lachrymam, God saw his Tear, His Tear in the Singular; God saw his first tear, every several tear: If thou think God have not done so by thee, Continue thy tears, till thou find he do. The first way that Christ came to thee, was in Blood; when he submitted himself to the Law, in Circumcision; And the last thing that he bequeathed to thee, was his Blood, in the Institution of the Blessed Sacrament; Refuse not to go to him, the same way too, if his glory require that Sacrifice. If thou pray, and hast an apprehension that thou hearest God say, he will not hear thy prayers, do not believe that it is he that speaks; If thou canst not choose but believe that it is he, let me say, in a pious sense, do not believe him: God would not be believed, in denouncing of judgements, so absolutely, so peremptorily, as to be thought to speak unconditionally, illimitedly: God took it well at David's hands, that when the Prophet had told him, The child shall surely die, yet he believed not the Prophet so peremptorily, but that he proceeded in Prayer to God, for the life of the child. Say with David, Thou hast been a strong Tower to me; 
Psal. 61.4.  I will abide in thy Tabernacle, 
62.7.  Et non Emigrabo, I will never go out, I know thou hast a Church, I know I am in it, and I will never departed from it; and so Foundations being never destroyed, the righteous shall do, as the righteous have always done, enjoy the Evidence, and the Verdict, and the judgement, and the Possession of a good Conscience, which is the Foundation of this fourth House. First, govern this first House, Thyself, well; and as Christ said, he shall say again, Thou hast been faithful in a little, take more; He shall enlarge thee in the next House, Thy Family, and the next, The State, and the other, The Church, till he say to thee, as he did to jerusalem, after all his other Blessings, Et prosperata es in Regnum, Now I have brought thee up to a Kingdom, A Kingdom, where not only no Foundations can be destroyed, but no stone shaked; and where the Righteous know always what to do, to glorify God, in that incessant Acclamation, Salvation to our God, who sits upon the Throne, and to the Lamb; And to this Lamb of God, who hath taken away the sins of the world, and but changed the Suns of the world, who hath complicated two wondrous works in one, To make our Sun to set at Noon, and to make our Sun to rise at Noon too, That hath given him Glory, and not taken away our Peace, That hath exalted him to Vpper-roomes, and not shaked any Foundations of ours, To this Lamb of God, the glorious Son of God, and the most Almighty Father, and the Blessed Spirit of Comfort, three Persons, and one God, be ascribed by us, and the whole Church, the Triumphant Church, where the Father of blessed Memory reigns with God, and the Militant Church, where the Son of blessed Assurance reigns for God, All Power, Praise, Might, Majesty, Glory, and Dominion, now, and for ever. Amen.  
FINIS.   

Errat. Pag. 12. l. 17. for Cause, read Laws. pa 43. l. 20. for Syllagismus, r. Syllogismus.   

A SERMON, PREACHED TO THE KING'S M tie. AT WHITEHALL, 24. Febr. 1625.  
By JOHN DONNE Deane of Saint Paul's, London.  
And now by his Maiestes' commandment Published.  
LONDON, Printed for THOMAS JONES, dwelling at the Black Raven in the Strand. 1626.   

TO HIS SACRED MAJESTY.  
MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN  
AMongst the many comforts of my Ministry, to the embracing whereof, Almighty God was pleased, to move the heart of your Majesty's blessed Father, of holy memory, to move mine, this is a great one, That your Majesty is pleased some times, not only to receive into yourself, but to return, unto others, my poor Meditations, and so by your gracious commandment of publishing them, to make yourself as a Glass, (when the Sun itself is the Gospel of Christ Jesus) to reflect, & cast them upon your Subjects. It was a Metaphor in which, your Majesty's Blessed Father seemed to delight; for in the name of a Mirroir, a Looking Glass, he sometimes presented Himself, in his public declarations & speeches to his People; and a continued Metaphor is an Allegory, and holds in more. So your Majesty doth more of the offices of such a Glass; You do that office which Moses his Glasses did, at the Brazen Sea in the Temple, (for you show others their spots, and in a Pious and unspotted life of your own, you show your Subjects their deficiences) And you do the other office of such Glasses, by this communicating to all, the beams which your Majesty received in yourself. We are in Times when the way to Peace is War, but my Profession leads not me to those Wars; And we are in Times when the Peace of the Church, may seem to implore a kind of War, of Debatements and Conferences in some points; but my disposition leads me not to that War neither. For in this Sermon, my only purpose was, that no By-stander, should be hurt, whilst the Fray lasted, with either Opinion. And that your Majesty accepts it so yourself, & so reflects it upon others, I humbly beseech your Majesty to accept also this Sacrifice of Thanksgiving, for that, From  
Your Sacred Majesty's humblest Subject, and Devotedst Servant and Chaplain. JOHN DONNE.   

ESAI. 50.1. 
Thus saith the Lord: Where is the Bill of your Mother's Divorcement whom I have put away? Or which of my Creditors is it, to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have you sold yourselves, and for your transgressions, is your Mother put away.   
ALL Lent is Easter Eve; And though the Eve be a Fasting day, yet the Eve is half holiday too. God, by our Ministry, would so exercise you in a spiritual Fast, in a sober consideration of sin, and the sad Consequences thereof, as that in the Eve you might see the holy day; in the Lent, your Easter; in the sight of your sins, the cheerfulness of his good will towards you. Nay, in this Text, he gives you your Easter before Lent, your Holiday before the Eve; For first he raises you to the sense of his goodness, Thus saith the Lord, where is the bill of your mother's Divorcement, whom I have put away, Or which of my Creditors is it to whom I have sold you? And then, and not till then, he sinks you, to the sense of your sins, and the dangers of them, Behold, for your iniquities you are sold, and for your transgressions, your Mother is put away. And this Raising, and this Sinking, are his Corks, and his Leads, by which God enables us, whom he hath made Fishers of Men, to cast out his nets, and draw in your souls.  
Haec dicit Dominus, Thus saith the Lord, says our Prophet here; And, Semel locutus Deus, 
Psalm. 62.12  duo haec audivi, says the Prophet David, Once spoke the Lord, and twice have I heard him; In one speech of the Lords, two instructions, in one piece of his Word, two directions. Thus saith the Lord, where is the Bill, etc. And in these words, some hear him once, some hear him say, That how desperate soever our case be, how irremediable soever our state, we ourselves, and not God, are the cause of that desperate irremediablenesse; some hear him twice, some hear him say, There is no such matter, there is no such peremptory Divorce, there is no such absolute sale, there is no such desperate irremediablenes declared to any particular conscience, as is imagined, but you, any, may return to me, when you will, and I will receive you. Some Expositors think they have gone fare enough, when they have raised that sense, God is no cause of our perishing, though we must perish, Others, (and fairly) carry it thus much farther, There is no necessity that any Man, any this or that Man should perish. Some determine it in this, It is true, your Damnation is unavoidable, but you must blame yourselves, Some extend it to this, There is no such avoidablenes in your damnation, and therefore you may comfort yourselves, Once hath the Lord spoken, and twice do we hear him; we hear him once speaking for his own honour, He does not damn us, if we be damned, And we hear him again speaking for our comfort, we need not be damned at all. And therefore, as God hath opened himself to us, both ways, let us open both ears to him, and from one Text receive both Doctrines.  

Divisio.  You may apprehend the parts easily, and as easily comprehend them; They are few, and plain, & of things agreed by all; But two; Those, these; Gods discharge, and Man's Discharge; Gods discharge from all imputation of tyranny, Behold, for your sins you are sold, and for your transgressions your Mother is put away. And then Man's discharge from the necessity of perishing, Vbi iste libellus, Where is the Bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away, Or which of my Creditors is it, to whom I have sold you? I might justly have done both, and left you without just cause of complaint, but yet I have not done it; look to your Bill of Divorce, and look to your bill of sale, and you will find the case to be otherwise: In each of these two parts, there will be some particular branches; In the first, which is God's discharge, first the Ecce, Behold, Behold this and this will fall upon you; first there is a light showed, there is a warning afforded, of those calamities, that will follow, God gins not at judgement, but at Mercy. That Mercy being despised, It will come to a selling away, venditi estis, you are sold, And it will come to a putting away, Dimissa est, your Mother is put away; For God may sell us to punishments for sin, that when the measure of our sin is full, he shall empty the measure of this judgements upon us, And God may sell us to sins for punishments, God may make future sins, the punishments of former. And here may be a Divorce, a putting away, out of God's sight and service, in any particular soul, and there may be a putting away of your Mother, a withdrawing of God's spirit from that Church, to whose breasts he hath applied you. But if all this be done, it is not done out of any tyrannical wantonness in God, for, For your iniquities you are sold, and for your transgressions is your Mother put away: So God is fully discharged in the first part; But, least in the second it should lie heavy upon Man, (for, howsoever God be discharged, He does not kill me, though I die, it is but poor comfort to me, if I must dye, to be told that I have killed myself) God tells me here, there is no such necessity, I need not dye; show the bill of Divorce, says he, which makes your case so desperate, and see if I have not left you ways of returning to me, show the bill of Sale, which makes your state so irrecoverable, and see if I have not left myself ways of redeeming you. And in these few branches, of these two parts, I shall exercise your Devotion, and holy patience, at this time.  

Part. 1. Ecce.  First then, for the first branch of the first part, the Ecce, Behold this will fall upon you, Upon those words of David, Ecce intenderunt, Ecce paraverunt, Behold the wicked have bend their bow, 
Psal. 11 2.  and Behold they have made ready their arrow, 
Origen.  Origen says, Ecce antequam vulneremur, monemur, Before our Enemies hit us, God gives us warning, that they mean to do so. When God himself is so far incensed against us, That he is turned to be our enemy, and to fight against us, (It was come to that, 
Esay 63,10  in this Prophet) when he hath bend his how against us, as an Enemy, (It was come to that in the Prophet jeremy) yet still he gives us warning before hand, 
Lam. 2.4.  and still there comes a lightning before his thunder: God comes seldom to that dispatch, a word and a blow, but to a blow without a word, to an execution without a warning, never. Cain took offence at his brother Abel; The quarrel was Gods, because he had accepted Abel's Sacrifice; Therefore God joins himself to Abel's party; and so the party being too strong for Cain to subsist, GOD would not surprise Cain, but he tells him his danger, Why is thy Countenance cast down; 
Gen 4.10.  If thou dost not well, sin lies at thy door: you may proceed if you will, but if you will needs, you will lose by it at last. Saul persecutes Christ in the Christians; Christ meets him upon the way, speaks to him, strikes him to the ground, tells him vocally, and tells him actually, That he hath undertaken too hard a-work, in opposing him: This which GOD did to Saul reduces him; that which God did to Cain, wrought not upon him; but still GOD went his own way in both, to speak before he strikes, to lighten before he thunders, to warn before he wounds. 
Numb. 16.  In Dathan and abiram's case, God may seem to proceed apace towards Execution, but yet it had all these pauses in arrest of judgement, & these reprieves before Execution. First, when Moses had information & evidence of their factious Proceeding, 
vers. 4.  he falls not upon them, but he falls upon his face before GOD, and laments, and deprecates in their behalf. He calls them to a fair trial, 
verse 5.  and examination, the next day, To morrow the Lord will show, who are his, and are holy; 
verse 12.  And they said, we will not come; And again, 
verse 14.  (which implies that Moses cited them again) we will not come. Then GOD, upon their contumacy, when they would stand mute, and not plead, takes a resolution, 
verse 21  to consume them, in a Moment; And then, Moses & Aaron return to petition for them, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, 
verse 25  shall one Man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with the whole Congregation; And Moses went up to them again, And the Elders of Israel followed, and all prevailed not: And then Moses comes to pronounce judgement, 
verse 29.  These men shall not dye a common death, and after, and yet not presently after that he gave judgement, Execution followed, The earth opened and swallowed them: 
verse 31  but God begun not there; God opened his Mouth, and Moses his, and Aaron his, and the Elders theirs, before the Earth opened hers. It is our case in the Text; For, whether this judgement wrapped up in the text, This selling away, and this putting away, have relation to the Captivity of the jews in Babylon, before Christ, or to the Dispertion of the jews since Christ, (some Expositors take it one, some the other way) still it is of a future thing: The Prophecy came before the Calamity, wheresoever you pitch it; wheresoever you pitch it, still there was a lightning before the thunder, a word before the blow, a warning before the wound. In which, as we see, that God always leaves a latitude, between his Sentence, and the Execution, (for that Interim, is Sphaera activitatis, the Sphere, in which our Repentance and his Mercy move, and direct themselves in a benign aspect, towards one another, so where this repentance is deferred, and this Mercy neglected, the execution is so certain, so infallible, as that, though this in the Text, be intended for a future judgement, a future Captivity, a future Dispersion, yet in the Text it is presented as present, nay, more than so, as past, and executed already; it is venditi estis, you are sold, sold already, and Dimissa Mater, your Mother is put away, put away already. All gathers and con-centers itself in this, God's judgements and executions are not sudden, there is always room for Repentance, and Mercy, but his judgements and Executions are certain, there is no room for Presumption nor Collusion.  

Venditi ab Adam.  To pursue then the Holy Ghosts two Metaphors, of selling away, and putting away, First, venditi estis, says our Prophet to the jews, and to all, Behold, you are sold; And so they were; sold thrice over; sold by Adam first; sold by themselves every day; and at last, sold by God. For the first general sale by Adam, we complain now, that Land will not sell; that 20. is come to 15. year's purchase; but do we not take too late a Medium, too low a time to reckon by? How cheap was Land at first, how cheap were we? what was Paradise sold for? What was Heaven, what was Mankind sold for? Immortality was sold, and what years Purchase was that worth? Immortality is our Eternity; God hath another manner of eternity in him; He hath a whole eternal day; an eternal afternoon, and an eternal forenoon too; for as he shall have no end, so he never had beginning; we have an eternal afternoon in our immortality; we shall no more see an end, than God hath seen a beginning; and Millions of years, multiplied by Millions, make not up a Minute to this Eternity, this Immortality. When Dives values a drop of water at so high a price, what would he give for a River? How poor a Clod of of Earth is a Manor? how poor an inch, a Shire? how poor a span, a Kingdom? how poor a pace, the whole World? and yet how prodigally we sell Paradise, Heaven, Souls, Consciences, Immortality, Eternity, for a few Grains of this Dust? What had Eve for Heaven, so little, as that the Holy Ghost will not let us know, what she had, not what kind of Fruit; yet something Eve had. What had Adam for Heaven? but a satisfaction that he had pleased an Ill wife, as St. Hierome states his fault, that he eat that Fruit, Ne contristaretur Delicias suas, lest he should cast her, whom he loved so much, into an inordinate dejection; but if he satisfied her, and his own Vxoriousnesse, any satisfaction is not nothing. But what had I for Heaven? Adam sinned, and I suffer; I forfeited before I had any Possession, or could claim any Interest; I had a Punishment, before I had a being, And God was displeased with me before I was I; I was built up scarce 50. years ago, in my Mother's womb, & I was cast down, almost 6000. years ago, in Adam's loins; I was borne in the last Age of the world, and died in the first. How & how justly do we cry out against a Man, that hath sold a Town, or sold an Army. And Adam sold the World. He sold Abraham, and Isaac and jacob, and all the Patriarches, and all the Prophets. He sold Peter, and Paul, and both their Regiments, both the glorious Hemispheres of the World, The jews, and the Gentiles. He sold Evangelists, and Apostles, and Disciples, and the Disciple whom the Lord loved, & the beloved Mother of the Lord, herself, say what they will to the contrary. And if Christ had not provided for himself, by a miraculous Generation, Adam had sold him: If Christ had been conceived in Original sin, he must have died for himself, nay, he could not have died for himself, but must have needed another Saviour. It is in that Contemplation, as he was descended from Adam, that St. Paul says of himself, 
Rom. 7.14.  Venundatus, I am carnal, sold under sin. For though St. Augustine, and some others of the Fathers, do sometimes take the Apostle, in that place, to speak of himself, as in the person of a natural Man, (that every Man considered in nature, is sold under sin, but the Supernatural, the Sanctified Man is not so) yet St. Augustine himself, in his latest, and gravest Books, and particularly in his Retractions, returns to this sense of these words, That no man, in what measure soever Sanctified, can so emancipate himself from that Captivity, to which Adam hath enthralld him, but that, as he is enwrapped in Original sin, he is sold under sin. And both S. Hierome, and S. Ambrose, (both which, seem in other places, to go an other way, That only they are sold under sin, which have abandoned, and prostituted themselves to particular sins,) do yet return to this sense, That because the Embers, the Spawn, the leaven of Origiginall sin, remains, by Adam's sale, in the best, the best are sold under sin.  

A Nobis.  So the jews were, and so were we sold by Adam, to Original sin, very cheap; but in the second sale, as we are sold to actual, and habitual sins, by ourselves, cheaper; 
42.19.  for so, says this Prophet, You have sold yourselves for nothing: Ourselves, that is all ourselves; or bodies to intemperance, and riot, and licentiousness, and our souls to a greediness of sin; and all this for nothing, for sin itself, for which we sell ourselves, is but a privation, and privations are nothing. 
Rom. 6 21.  What fruit had you of those things, whereof you are now ashamed, says the Apostle; here is Barrenness and shame; Barrenness is a privation of fruit, shame is a privation of that confidence, which a good Conscience administers, and when the Apostle tells them, they sold themselves for barrenness and shame, it was for privations, for nothing. 
job. 24.15.  The Adulterer waits for the twilight, says job. The Twilight comes, & serves his turn; and sin, to night looks like a Purchase, like a Treasure; but ask this sinner to morrow, and he hath sold himself for nothing; for debility in his limnes, for darkness in his understanding, for emptiness in his purse, for absence of grace in his Soul; and Debilitie, and Darkness, and emptiness, and Absence, are privations, and privations are nothing. All the name of Substance or Treasure that sin takes, is that in the Apostle, Thesaurizastis Iram Dei, You have treasured up the wrath of God, against the day of wrath: And this is a fearful privation, of the grace of God here, and of the Face of God hereafter; a privation so much worse than nothing, as that they upon whom it falls, would fain be nothing, and cannot.  

A Deo.  So then we were sold, so cheap by Adam, to Original, and cheaper by ourselves, to Actual Sin, but cheapest of all, when we come to be sold by God; For he gives us away, casts us away, delivers us over, to punishments for sin, and to sin for punishment; God makes Sin itself his executioner in us, and future sins, are the punishments of former. 
Vendit paenis.  As some Schoolmasters have used that Discipline, to correct the Children of great Persons, whose personal correction they find reason to forbear, by correcting other Children in their names, and in their sight, and have wrought upon good Natures, that way, So did Almighty God correct the jews in the Egyptians; for the ten plagues of Egypt, were as Moses Decem Verba, as the ten Commandments to Israel, that they should not provoke GOD. Every judgement that falls upon another, should be a Catechism to me. But when this Discipline prevailed not upon them. God sold them away, gave them away, cast them away, in the tempest, in the whirlwind, in the inundation of his indignation, and scattered them as so much dust in a windy day, as so many broken straws upon a wrought Sea. With one word, One Fiat, (Let there be a world,) nay with one thought of God cast toward it, (for Gods speaking in the Creation, was but a thinking,) God made all of Nothing. And is any one rational Ant, (The wisest Philosopher is no more) Is any roaring Lion, (the most ambitious and devouring Prince is no more) Is any hive of Bees, (The wisest Counsels, and Parliaments are no more) Is any of these so estabishd, as that, that God who by a word, by a thought, made them of nothing, cannot by recalling that word, and withdrawing that thought, in sequestering his Providence, reduce them to nothing again? That Man, that Prince, that State thinks Pasteboard Canon-proofe, that thinks Power, or Policy a Rampart, when the Ordinance of God is planted against it. Navyes will not keep off Navies, if God be not the Pilot, Nor Walls keep out Men, if God be not the Sentinel. If they could, if we were walled with a Sea of fire and brimstone without, and walled with Brass within, yet we cannot ciel the Heavens with a roof of Brass, but that God can come down in Thunder that way, Nor pave the Earth with a floor of Brass, but that God can come up in Earthquakes that way. God can call up Damps, & Vapours from below, and pour down putrid defluxions from above, and bid them meet and condense into a plague, a plague that shall not be only uncurable, uncontrollable, unexorable, but undisputable, unexaminable, unquestionable; A plague that shall not only not admit a remedy, when it is come, but not give a reason how it did come. If God had not set a mark upon Cain, every Man, any Man, any thing might have killed him. He apprehended that of himself, and was afraid, when we know of none, by name, in the world, but his Father, and Mother: But, as Saint Heirome exalts this consideration, cain's own Conscience tells him, Catharma sum, Anathema sum, I am the plague of the world, and I must dye, to deliver it Catharma sum. I am a separated Vagabond, not an Anachorit shut up between two walls, but shut out from all, Anathema sum. As long as the Cherubin, and the fiery Sword is at the Gate, Adam cannot return to Paradise; as long as the Testimonies of GOD'S anger lie at the door of the Conscience, no man can return to peace there. If God sell away a Man, give him away, give way to him, by withdrawing his Providence, he shall but need (as the Prophet says) Sibilare Muscam, to hisse, to whisper for the Fly, for the Bee, for the Hornet, for Foreign Encumbrances; nay, he shall not need to hisse, to whisper for them; for at home, Locusts shall swarm in his Gardens, and Frogs in his bedchamber, & hailstones, as big as talents, (as they are measured in the Revelation) shall break, as well the covered, and the armed, as the bare, & naked head; as well the mitred, and the Turban, & the crowned head, that lifts itself up against GOD, lies open to him, as his that must not put on his Hat, as his that hath no Hat to put on; when as that head, which being exalted here, submits itself to that GOD, that exalted it, GOD shall crown, with multiplied crowns here, and having so crowned that head with Crowns here, he shall crown those crowns, with the Head of all, Christ jesus, and all that is his, hereafter.  

Vendit peccato.  If God sell us away to punishments for sin, it is thus, but if God sell us to sin for punishment, it is worse. For, when God, by the Prophet, offered David, his choice of three Executioners, war, famine, and pestilence, if all these three had taken hold of him, it had not been so heavy, as when God had sold him over, given him away, into the hands of an Executioner in his own bosom, The studying and the plotting of the prosecution of his sin. When God made Murder, in the death of Vriah, his Bailiff, to attach David for his Adultery, And made Blasphemy, in the triumphant Army of the Gentiles, his Bailiff, to attach David for his Murder, And then made impenitence, and a long senselessness in his sin, his Bailiff to attach David, for that blasphemy, than was David sold, under a dangerous sub-hastation, then lay David under a heavy Execution. Let me fall into the hands of God, and not of Man, says David; Between God and Man, in this case, there may be foam kind of comparison, But would any sinner say, Let me fall into the hands of the Devil, and not of Man, rather into more sins, than some punishments. David himself could not conceive a more vehement prayer and imprecation, upon his, and his God's Enemies, then that, 
Psa. 69.27.  Add Iniquity to their Iniquity; Nor hath the Holy Ghost any where expressed a more vehement commination, then that upon jerusalem, (as the vulgat reads that place) Iniquitatem, Iniquitatem, Iniquitatem ponam eam; 
Ezech. 21.26.  Which is not Gods multiplying of punishments for sin, but his multiplying of sin itself upon them, till he had made them all Iniquity, all sin. For this is, (in a great part) that which the Apostle calls, Gods giving over, to a reprobate sense; to mistake false, and miserable comforts for true comforts; to mollify and assuage the anguish of one sin, by doing another; to maintain prodigality, by Usury, or Extortion; to overcome the inordinate deiections of spirit, with a false cheerfulness and encantation from strong drink: In one word, 
Sap. 14.22.  (as the wise man expresses it) to call great plagues peace; To smother sin from the eye of the world, or to slumber the eye of our own conscience from the sight of sin, by interposing more sins. And farther, we carry not this first Metaphor of the Holy Ghost, Venditi estis, You are sold, for, the deeper impression, he presses it with another, Dimissa est, for your transgressions, your Mother is put away.  
And here in the way, we consider first Dimissam animam, 
Dimissa anima.  Gods putting away of the Daughter, of any particular soul. And his putting away of such a soul, is his leaving of that soul to itself; when God will not come so near loving it, as to hate it, nor give it so much peace, as to trouble it. For, as long as God punishes me, he gives me Physic; if he draw his knife, it is but to prune his Vine, and if he draw blood, it is but to rectify a distemper: If God break my bones, it is but to set them straiter, And if he bruise me in a Mortar, it is but that I might exhale, and breath up a sweet savour, in his nostrils: I am his handiwork, and if one hand be under me, let the other lie as heavy, as he shall be pleased to lay it, upon me; let God handle me how he will, so he cast me not out of his hands: I had rather God frowned upon me, than not look upon me; and I had rather God pursued me, than left me to myself. It is the height of his indignation, 
Esa 1.5.  O people laden with iniquity, why should ye be smitten any more? Why should I study your recovery any longer? 
Basil.  Vox est animi non habentis in promptu, quid statuat, et desperantis salutem; When God says so, says S. Basil, he is as a Father who had tried all ways to reduce his son, and failed in all, and then leaves him to his own desperate ways; This is the worst that God doth say, (we may say, that God can say) which he says in Ezech. Auferam zelum, 
16.42.  My jealousy shall departed from thee, and I will be quiet, and be no more angry: God is most angry, when he lets not us know, that he is so. And then, Refuse silver shall men call thee, 
jer. 6.30.  because the Lord hath rejected thee, says the Prophet; Though thou mayest have some tincture of a precious mettle, fortune, power, valour, wisdom, yet Refuse silver shalt thou be, and more, Refuse meetall shall men call thee, (for Men are often worse, than men dare call them) because the Lord hath rejected thee. Cain cries out, that his punishment is greater than he can bear; and what's the weight? This; From thy Face shall I be hid; It is not that GOD would not look graciously upon him, but that GOD would not look at all upon him. Infinite, and infinitely desperate are the effects of Gods putting away a soul; but we wait upon the Holy Ghosts farther enlargement of this consideration, Dimissa Mater, for the children's transgressions, the Mother is put away.  

Dimissa Mater.  This Mother, is the Church; that Church, to whose breasts GOD hath applied that Soul; and Gods putting away of this Mother, is (as it was in the Daughter) his leaving her to herself. So those imaginary Churches, that will receive no light from Antiquity, nor Primitive forms, GOD leaves to themselves, and they crumble into Conventicles: And that Church, which will needs be the Form to all Churches, God leaves to herself, to her own Traditions, and She swells into tumours, and ulcers, and blisters. And when any Church is thus left to herself, devested of the Spirit of GOD, then follow heavy Symptoms, and Accidents; That which is forbidden in the Law, 
Levit. 21.16.  That Men that have blemishes, offer the Bread of our God; Men blemished in their Opinions, in their Doctrine, blemished in their Lives, in their Conversation, are admitted to Sacrifice at God's Altar. Then follows that which is complained of in jeroboams time, The lowest of the People, 
1 King. 22 33  and whosoever will, shall be made Priests; Contemptible men shall be made Priests; and so the Priesthood shall be made Contemptible. The follows that which the Prophet Ose says, The Prophet shall be a Fool, 
9.7.  and the Spiritual Man mad; Mad, as Saint Hierome translates that word, Arreptitius, possest; possessed with an airy spirit of ambition, and an Earthly Spirit of Servility, And a watery Spirit of Irresolution, and dispossessed of the true Spirit of Holy fire, the Zeal of the exaltation of God's glory. There is a Curse in removing but the Candlestick; 
Apoc. 2.5.  That the Light shall not be in that eminency, and evidence, that becomes it, but that some faint shadows, some Corner Disguises, some Temporize, some Modifications must be admitted. There is a heavier Curse, in weakening the Eye of the beholder, when (as this Prophet says) God shall make hearts fat, and ears deaf, and eyes blind; There shall be Light, but you shall not see by it, there shall be good Preaching, but you shall not profit by it. But the greatest Curse of all, is in putting out the Light, when GOD blinds the Teachers themselves: For, 
Math. 6.23.  If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness? This is that 
Luke 22.53.  Potestas tenebrarum, when power is put into their hands, who are possessed with this darkness. And this is that 
jude 13.  Procella tenebrarum, The storm of darkness, The blackness of Darkness, (as we Translate it) when darkness, & power, and passion meet in one Man. And to these fearful heights may the sins of the Children bring the Mother, That that Church, which now enjoys so abundantly Truth and Unity, may be poisoned with Heresy, and wounded with Schism, and yet GOD be free from all imputation of Tyranny. And so we have done with all those pieces which constitute our First Part, Gods Discharge; His Mercy in his Ecce, that he warns us of his judgements before they fall; And his justice, in his Proceeding, though after we be sold cheap by Adam, to Original sin, (So Saint Paul says, He was sold under sin,) And Cheaper by ourselves, to actual sins, for Nothing, for Privations, (So the Prophet told Ahab that he was sold to sin,) God also Sell us away, Cast us away, To Punishments for sins, (So he did the Israelites,) and then to sins for punishments, (So he did David, and so he did jerusalem,) and though he come to a Divorce, of Daughter and Mother, of our Souls in particular, and the Church itself in general.  

Part. 2.  We are descended to our second part, Man's discharge; That, not disputing what God, of his absolute power might do, nor what by his unreveald Decree he hath done, God hath not allowed me, nor thee, nor any to conclude against ourselves, a necessity of perishing. May this seem an impertinent part in a Court? To suspect that any here, are too much afraid of God; or too much dejected with the sense of their sins, or his judgements? Are sins of presumption rather to be feared here, than sins of desperation? It hath a fair probability. But, all the Lent, we prepare Men for the Sacrament. And, as Casuists, we say, Sacramentum, & articulus Mortis aequiparantur, We consider a Man, at the Sacrament, as at his death bed: and, upon our Deathbeds, we are likelier to be attempted with sins of Dejection, then of presumption. And so, (though in a Court,) if you will be content to think of a deathbed in a Court, (and God hath taken ways, to awaken those thoughts in you) it may be pertinent, and seasonable, to establish you now, against those deiections, and diffidences, which may offer at you then. 'tis true then, there may be a selling, there may be a putting away, but hath not God reserved to himself a power of revocation in both, in all cases? Audisti repudium, Crede coniugium, Is sweetly, and safely said by St. Ambrose: As often as thy thoughts fall upon a fearfulness of a Divorce from thy God, establish thyself with that comfort, of a Marriage to thy God; for the words of his Contracts, are, Sponsabo te mihi in aeternum. There can be no Divorce imagined, if there were not a marriage; and if there be a marriage With God there can be no Divorce, for sponsat in aeternum, he marries for ever. Can God do so, forsake forever? The Crow went out of the Ark, and came no more; The Dove went, and came again, and came with an Olive branch. God may absent himself, that he may be sought; but he comes again, and with the Olive of peace. Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, 
Esay 49.14.  and my Lord hath forgotten me. Why will Zion say so? says God. Can Zion say, My Lord, my Lord, hath forgotten me? Can she remember that GOD is hers, and not think that she is his? Can she remember him, and think that he hath forgotten her? Can Zion retain her bowels of piety, and think that GOD is disembowelled of his? GOD calls her not to Nationall examples; to how low conditions he came, in the behalf of Sodom; what he did for Nineve; what he did for Zion herself in Egypt, but he carries her home to her own breast, and her own Cradle, and only asks her that question, Can a Mother forget her sucking Child? And he stays not her answer, nor assures himself of a good answer from her, but adds himself, Yes, a Mother may forget her sucking Child, yet I will not forget thee. Can GOD do it? Did GOD ever do it? Did he ever put away without possibility of reassuming? when? where? whom? Israel? the ten Tribes? Yet even to them, 
3.7.  says jeremy, After they had done all this, GOD said, turn unto me, and they would not turn: And then, God put her away, and sent her a bill of Divorce, 
V 8.  and never re-assumd her, never brought back the ten Tribes from their dispersion. 'tis true, in a whole and entire body, GOD never brought them back, but in many fair and Noble Pieces, they came when judah came; for, from that place of Ezra, 
2.64.  where there is an entire number in gross exhibited of all that returned from Babylon, and then the particular Numbers also exhibited, of the Tribes and families that returned, because those particular Numbers do not make up the general Number, by many thousands, the Hebrew Rabbins argue fairly; and conclude probably, that those Supernumerary thousands, which are involved in the general Number, and are not comprised in the particulars, were such, as from the other ten Tribes, in the return of judah, adhered to judah; who are so often said never to have returned, because in a body, & Magistracy of their own, otherwise then as they incorporated themselves in judah, they never returned: but God never put them away so, but that he offered them return, and in a great part effected it. I know how frivolous a tale that is, That Saint Gregory drew Traian's soul out of Hell, after it was there; and I know, how groundless an opinion it is, that is ascribed to Origen, that at last, the Devil shall be saved; but if they could persuade me one half, that Traian, or that the Devil came to Repentance in hell, I should not be hard, in believing the other half, that they might be delivered out of hell. What mean you, says God Almighty, 
Ezeck. 18.2.  that ye, use this Proverb, The Fathers have eat sour herbs, and the children's teeth are set on edge? Do ye mean, that because your Fathers have sinned, you must perish? Why neither his parents have sinned, nor he, says Christ, of the Man borne blind, 
john 9.2.  but all is, that the work of God might he made manifest; Neither have thy parents sinned, nor thou thyself sinned so, as that there should be a necessity in thy perishing, but that thereby there might be the greater manifestation of God mercy, that where sin hath abounded, grace might abound much more. If therefore thy tender Conscience, and thy startling Soul, mis-imagine the hearing of that voice, Depart thou sinner, a voice of Divorce, a voice that bids thee, go, Say thou with Peter, to his and thy Saviour, Domine quo Ibimus? Lord whither shall I go? thou hast the Word of Eternal life, and we believe and are sure, that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God; And that Christ, the Son of the living GOD, will call thee back, and call back his own Word, and find Error, holy Error, occasion of repenting his own proceeding, in his Bill of Divorce; to which purpose he calls upon thee here to produce that Bill, Vbi iste libellus, Where is the Bill, etc.  
First then, Vbi libellus, 
Libellus.  where is this Bill, upon what do ye ground this jealousy and suspicion in God, that he should Divorce you? First, it is in the Original, Sepher; that which is called a Bill, is a Book; It must be GOD'S whole Book, and not a few misunderstood Sentences out of that Book, that must try thee. Thou must not press heavily to thine own damnation every such Sentence, Stipendium peccati Mors est That the reward of sin is death; Nor the Impossibile est, That it is impossible for him that falls after Grace to be renewed; That which must try thee is the whole Book, the tenor and purpose, the Scope and intention of GOD in his Scriptures. His Book is a Testament; and in the Testament, the Testator is dead, and dead for thee; And would that GOD that would dye for thee, Divorce thee? His Book is Euangelium, Gospel; and Gospel's  good tidings, a gracious Message; And would God pretend to send thee a gracious Message, and send thee a Divorce? GOD is Love, and the Holy Ghost is amorous in his Metaphors; every where his Scriptures abound with the notions of Love, of Spouse, and Husband, and Marriage Songs, and Marriage Supper, and Marriadge-Bedde. But for words of Separation, and Divorce, of Spiritual Divorce for ever, of any soul formerly taken in Marriage, this very word Divorce, is but twice read in the Scriptures; once in this Text; and here God disavows it; For when he says, Where is the Bill, he means there is no such Bill; And the other place is that which we mentioned before, when after they had done all, 
jer. 3.8.  GOD called Israel all together back, and effectually, in a fair part, and his principal purpose in that Divorce of Israel, was to intimidate, and warn her Sister judah from the like provocations. Surely a good Spirit moved our last Translators of the Bible, to departed from all Translations which were before them, in reading that place of Malachi thus, 
2.16.  The Lord the God of Israel saith, that he hates putting away. Whereas all other Translations, both Vulgat, and Vulgar, And in Vulgar, and in Holy Tongues, The Septuagint, the Chalde, all, read that place thus, If a man hate her, let him put her away, (which induced a facility of divorces) our Translators thought it more conformable to the Original, and to the ways of God, to read it thus, The Lord the God of Israel saith, that he hates putting away. Every where in the Scriptures, we meet with God's venites, in every Prophet's mouth, invitations to come unto God; There is a venite de circuitu, Come, though you come from compassing the Earth, 
job 3.11.  which is Satan's perambulation; though you have walked in his ways, yet come unto God. 
Esay  There is a Venite non habentes, Come and buy, though you have no money; though you have no Merits of your own, come, and dilate your measures, and fill them according to that dilatation, with the merits of Christ jesus. 
Osc. 6.1.  There is a venite et reue●timini, Come, though your coming be but a returning; be not ashamed of coming, though your returning be a confessing of a former running away; come in a repentance, though you cannot come in an innocence; There is a Venite & consolamini, 
Esay.  How heavy so ever the fetters of your own sins, or the chains of God's judgements lie upon you, come and receive ease here, change your yoke, for an easier, if you cannot divest it. There is a venite & consulite, 
Esay,  If you find it hard to come, or if you find an easiness to fall back, though you do come, come to consult with God, how you may come, so, as you may stay, when you are come. Nay, there is a venite & arguite, 
Esay 1.18.  Come and reason with God, argue, plead, dispute, expostulate with God, come upon any conditions: The venite is multiplied, infinite invitations to come; but the Ite maledicti, Depart ye accursed, is but once heard from God's mouth, and that not in this world neither; as long as we are in this world, God hates putting away. And therefore God calls for the bill, and God calls the bill a book, that thou mightst not vex thy soul, with mistaken sentences, but rely upon the establishment of God's purpose in the whole book, which is that he hates putting away.  
If the evidence pressed by thine own pressures, heighthned by thine own deiections, exalted by thine own sinking, grow strong against thee, that thou canst not quench the jealousy, nor divest the scruple of such a Divorce, do but consider, who should occasion, who should induce it; It must be God, or thyself: Though the jews put away their wives, not only for the wife's fault, but for the husband's frowardness, thou hast had too good experience of God's patience, to charge him with that: If it be done, it is thy fault; and if thou acknowledge that, i● is not done; for it is never done so irrevocably, but the confessing of the fault, cancels and avoids it. Relieve thyself by reflecting upon some of those circumstances, Essential circumstances, which were required in their bills of Divorce, and without which, those bills were void, and see if those be in thine; for though we have not these circumstances, in that place of Scripture, 
Deut. 24.  where Divorce is permitted, yet in the ordinary practice of the jews abroad, and in the books of forms and precedents, which their Rabbins have collected, we have them expressed. They are many, and many impertinent; we will but name, and but a few, such as best admit application, and most conduce to the trial of thy case. First, a man might not produce a bill written in private, in the husband's bedchamber, but he must go to a Scribe, to a public Notary, to an authorizd Officer. Vbi iste libellus? Where is this bill of thy Divorce? Thou must not look for it, in God's bedchamber, in his unrevealed Decrees in heaven, but in his public Records, his Scriptures: If from thence thou pretend to produce any thing that convince thy sad soul, go to them, to whom God hath committed the dispensation thereof, and there thou mayest receive consolation, when thine own private misinterpretation might mislead thee. Again, the wife, how guilty so ever in her own conscience, might not take herself to be put away, except the husband had expressly given her a Bill of Divorce; Hath thy Husband, thy God done so; Vbi est libellus? Consider the bill, that is, the book of God, and see if it be not full of such protestations, Vivo ego, As I live, saith the Lord, I would not the death of any sinner, nor the departing of any soul. So also these bills must be well testified, with unreproachable witnesses; Vbi iste libellus? Hath thy bill such witnesses? who be they? Inordinate dejection of spirit, irreligious sadness; jealousy of the anger, distrustfulness of the mercy, diffidence in the promises of the Gospel; Are these witnesses to be heard against God? God calls heaven and earth to witness, that he hath offered thee thy choice of life or death; but that he hath thrust death upon thee, there is no witness. Thy conscience is a thousand witnesses? It is, that thou hast committed a thousand sins; and it is, that thou hast received a thousand blessings; but of an eternal decree of thy divorce, thy conscience, (thus misinformed) can be no witness, for thou wast not called to the making of those decrees. Those Bills were also to be authentically sealed: Vbi iste Libellus? Hath thy imaginary Bill of Divorce, and everlasting separation from GOD, any Seal from him? GOD hath given thee Seals of his Mercy, in both his Sacraments; Seals in White, and Seals in Red Wax; Seals in the participation of the candour and innocence of his Son, in thy Baptism, and Seals in the participation of his Body and Blood, in the other; But Seals of Reprobation at first, or of irrevocable Separation now, there are none from GOD: No Calamity, not Temporal, no not Spiritual; No Darkness in the Understanding, no Scruple in the Conscience, no Perplexity in the resolution; Not a Sudden Death, not a Shameful Death, not a stupid, not a raging Death, must be to thyself by the way, or may be to us, who may see thine End, an Evidence, a Seal, of Eternal Reprobation, or of final Separation. Almighty God bless us all, from all these in ourselves; but his blessed Spirit bless us to, from making any of these, when he, in his unsearchable ways, to his unsearchable ends, shall suffer them to fall upon any other, seals of such Separation in them. Though we may not enlarge ourselves to far, in these Circumstances, another was, That the Names of the Parties must be set down, and of both the Parties Parents, and those to the third Generation; The Son and Daughter of such, and such, and such. Vbi iste Libellus? Findest thou in thy Bill, the three Descents, the three Generations, (if we may so say) of thy God? A Holy Ghost proceeding from a Son, And a Son begotten by a Father? Findest thou the God of thy Consolation, the God of thy Redemption, the God of thy Creation, and canst thou produce a God of Divorce, of Separation, out of these? Findest thou thine own three Descents, as thou wast the Son of Dust, of Nothing, And the Son of Adam, reduced to nothing, And then the Son of God in Christ, in whom thou art all things; and canst thou think that that GOD who married thee in the house of dust, and married thee in the house of infirmity, and Divorced thee not then, (he made thee not no Creature, nor he made thee not no Man,) having now married thee in the House of Power, and of Peace, in the body of his Son, the Church, will now Divorce thee? Lastly, to end this consideration of Divorces, If the Bill were interlinde, or blotted, or dropped, the Bill was void. Vbi Libellus? What place of Scripture soever thou pretend, that place is enterlinde; enterlinde by the Spirit of God himself, with Conditions, and Limitations, and Provisions, If thou repent, If thou return; and that enterlining destroys the Bill. Look also if this Bill be not dropped upon, and blotted; The venom of the Serpent is dropped upon it, The Wormwood of thy Desperation, is dropped upon it, The Gall of thy Melancholy is dropped upon it, and that voids the Bill. If thou canst not discern these drops before, drop upon it now; Drop the tears of true compunction, drop the blood of thy Saviour, and that voids the Bill: And through that Spectacle, the blood of thy Saviour, look upon that Bill, and thou shalt see, that that Bill was nailed to the Cross when he was naylde, and torn when his body was torn, and that hath cancelld the bill. Oppress not thyself with what GOD may do, of his absolute power, God hath no where told thee, that he hath done any such thing as an overtender Conscience may mis-imagine, from this Metaphor of Divorcing, nor from the other, (which begs leave for one word, by way of Conclusion) Selling away; Which of my Creditors is it, to whom I have sold you?  

Quis Creditor?  As Christ in his Parable comprehends all excuses, and all backwardnesses in the following of him, 
Luke 14.18.  in those two, Marriage and Purchasing, (for one had bought Land and stock, and another had married a Wife) So God expresses his love to Man, in these two too, He hath married us, he hath bought us, that so he might take in all dispositions, and work upon Uxorious Men, men souple and entendered with Matrimonial love, and upon worldly men, men kneaded and plastered with earthly love: Haet hath Married us, he will not Divorce, He hath bought us, he will not sell; For who can give so much as he paid? 
Deut 32.30.  Do ye thus requite the Lord, O ye foolish people? Is not he your Father that hath bought you? And will you suspect your Father? Yes, says this Disconsolate Soul, Fathers might sell their Children; and my Father, my GOD hath sold me. 'tis true, Fathers might sell their Children; Amongst the Gentiles they might; for matter of Law, for matter of Fact, their Books are full of Evidence. Amongst the jews they might, till a jubilee redeemed them. Amongst the Christians they might, and for ever. Saint Ambrose found the World in possession of that unnatural Custom, and lamented it: Vidi miserabile spectaculum, says he, liberos haeredes calamitatis, qui nec participes successionis: The Children, says he, inherit the Calamity, but not the Lands of their Fathers, when they were sold to maintain them, who had wastefully sold, that which was to maintain them all: And Saint Ambrose induces the Creditor making his Claim, Mea nutriti pecunia, This Child was nourced, and brought up with my Money, and belongs to me. Constantine found this, and amended it; enacted and constituted that it should be no more done; and canst thou imagine such a hard-heartedness in GOD, as Saint Ambrose should need to lament, or Constantin need to correct? Quis Creditor, says GOD, Which of my Creditors is it, to whom I have sold you?  
As in the Bill of Divorce, so in this bill of sale, we ask who should occasion it? A Father might sell, for his Son's fault, or for his own necessity; but in no other case. If thou say it is done for thy fault, it is not done; that implies a Confession, and a Repentance, and that avoids all; but if thou imagine a sale for thy Father's necessity, Quis Creditor, says he, Which of my Creditors, etc. Adam brought GOD in Debt, to Death, to Satan, to Hell; in justice, GOD ought all mankind to them; but then at one payment he paid more, in the death of his Son Christ jesus: And now, Quis Creditor? The word indeed, is originally Nashah, and Nashah is an Usurer; and so Saint Ambrose reads this place, Quis Faenerator, To what Usurer am I so indebted, as that I need sell thee? Let it be so, That the principal debt was all Mankind; pursue your Usurious Computations, that every seven years doubles, and then redoubles your Debt, (and what a Debt might this be in almost 4000 year from Adam to Christ, and 1000 from Christ to us?) yet when all this is multiplied infinitely, it was infinitely overpaid, if but one drop of the blood of the Son of God had been paid; and the Son of God bled out his Soul, and then, Quis Creditor, may God well say, Which of those Usurers is it, to whom I need sell thee? God may lend thee out, even to Satan; suffer thee to be his Bailiff, and his Instrument to the vexation of others; So he lent out Saint Paul to the Scribes and Pharises, to serve them in their Persecutions; So God may lend thee out. God may Let thee out for a time, to them that shall plough and harrow thee, fell and cleave thee, and reserve to himself but a little Rent, a little glory, in thy Patience; So he Let out job even to Satan himself; so God may Let thee out. GOD may Mortgage thee to a six months' Fever, or to a longer debility; So he Mortgaged Hezekias. God may lay thee waste, and Pull up thy Fences, extinguish their Power, or withdraw their Love, upon whom thou hast establishd thy dependence; So he laid David waste, when he withdrew his children's obedience from him; so God may lay thee waste. God may Let out all his time in thee in this World, and reserve to himself only a last year, a last day, a last minute; suffer thee in unrepented sins, to the last gasp, so God let out the good Thief. God is Lord of all that thou hast and art; and then, Dominium potestas est tum utendi cum abutendi, He that is Lord, Owner, Proprietary, may do with that which is his, what he will. But God will not, cannot divest his Dominion, nor sell thee so, as not to reserve, a Power, and a Will to Redeem thee, if thou wouldst be redeemed. For, howsoever he seem to thee, to have sold thee to Sin, to Sadness, to Sickness, to Superstition, (for these be the Ismaelits, 
Gen. 37.27.  these be the Midianite Merchants that buy up our josephs', our souls) though he seem to sell his present estate, he will not sell Reversions; his future title to thee, by a future Repentance, he will not sell; But whensoever thou shalt grow due to him, by a new, and a true repentance, he shall reassume thee, into his bed, and his bosom, no bill of Divorce, and re-enter thee into his Revenue, and his Audit, No bill of sale, shall stand up to thy prejudice, but thy dejected spirit shall be raised from thy consternation, to a holy cheerfulness, and a peaceful alacrity, and no tentation shall offer a reply, to this question, which GOD makes to establish thy Conscience, ubi libellus, Where is the Bill of thy Mother's Divorcement, etc.  
FINIS.   

Errat. Pag. 13. l. 24. for retractions, read retractations. pa. 32. l. 14, for Herbs, read Grapes.