Elias Redivivus: A SERMON PREACHED Before the honourable House OF COMMONS, In the Parish of Saint Margaret's West minster, at the public Fast, March 29, 1643. By JOHN Lightfoot, Preacher of the Gospel at Bartholomew Exchange, London.  
LONDON, Printed by R. Cotes, for Andrew Crook, and are to be sold at his shop at the sign of the green Dragon, in Paul's churchyard. 1643.   

TO THE honourable the House of COMMONS Assembled in PARLIAMENT.  
Right Honourable,  
THE great council of Jerusalem sat near the Temple, 
R. Sol. in Ex. 21  and the greatest managings of the council, 
Luke 2. 46.  were the matters of Religion. 
Talm. in Sanhed. cap. Dine. mammonoth.  Such hath been the posture of your desires, and such the bent of your endeavours in all your sitting: And as it is ingratitude in any degrees of men not to serve you, who strive so much to preserve the State, so especially is it in the Ministers of the Temple, since you labour so much also to serve the Temple. Obedience to your commands is the lowest expression of such a service, because it is so naturally due, yet is it the highest that my meanness can reach unto; readiness being joined to that obedience: These are the two mites that I can tender unto your Corban, and the two Turtles that I have to offer at your Altar, not having a better or more valuable gift and offering to bring, your nobleness will please to accept of the gift because of the heart of the giver given with it, and like him whom ye represent, to account. To obey, to be better than Sacrifice, and to harken, better than the fat of Rams. What in obedience to your command was humbly presented to your ears and hearing not long ago, is now upon the like command in the same obedience and humility presented to your eyes and reading. If it shall find acceptance with you, it secureth me against all thought or care of inferiors displeasure or exceptions. I most humbly and submissively cast it, myself, and all that I am or can at the feet and disposal of your honourable House: and because short discourse best fitteth your great occasions, cease to trouble you with more words: but shall never cease to solicit the Throne of grace for continued defence and blessing upon your persons and endeavours; that the lawgiver may never fail till Shiloh come as we desire amongst us: And so ever prayeth,  
Your most unworthy, but truly devoted Servant, John Lightfoot.   

A SERMON Preached before the honourable House of Commons, at the public Fast holden, March 29. 1643. In the Parish Church of S. Margaret's Westminster.  LUKE, 1. 17. And he shall go before him in the Spirit and power of Elias to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. 
IF ever the Hearts of the Fathers had need to be turned to the children, that need is now, and if ever the Disobedient had need to be reduced to the wisdom of the just, that need is now also: but where is the Spirit, and where the power? where an Elias, or where a Baptist to do the work? For if ever those searching and trying times, which were spoken of so long ago by our Saviour in the twelfth of Luk. and the three and fiftieth have overtaken any Nation, they have overtaken this of ours: Five in one house, and they divided, three against two, and two against three. The Father divided against the son, and the son against the Father; the Mother against the Daughter, 
Mat. 10. 36.  and the Daughter against the Mother; the Mother in law against her Daughter in law, and the Daughter in law against her Mother in law. And a man's enemies are they of his own household. And if ever those irregular and exorbitant behaviours, which were spoken of so long ago, by the Prophet Esay, in the third of Esay and the fifth, have overrun and foraged any people, they have done so by this of ours. The people oppressed every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child behaving himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable. These are our sorrows, but where our remedy? this our misery, but where our redress? For the divisions of Reuben, there are great thoughts of heart, but who can help them? for the divisions in the Church, for divisions in the State, divisions in families, divisions in opinions, divisions in affections, (the Lord keep them out of your two Houses) divisions in every division, 
Antonio di Guevarra in Rel●x de los princip. lib. 1. cap. 2.  but who can heal them? As the host at Nola in the story, who when he was commanded by the Roman Censor to go & call the good men of the City to appear before him, went to the churchyard, and there called at the graves of the dead, Oh ye good men of Nola come away, for the Roman Censor calls for your appearance: for he knew not where to find a good man alive. So in these distractions and distempers of this our Land, if we would find out a joiner of hearts and a moulder of humours, that could piece again the disunited affections, and form again the unfashioned demeanours of men towards men, we might go and look for the mansion of Elias, or go and knock at the grave of John the Baptist, and call them to come to such a cure as this, for they once have wrought so great a cure; but who can do it that is now alive? Oh how happy were the case with us, if the Spirit and power of Elias were as ready to be found in your two Houses as they were once to be found in John the Baptist, and as they are to be seen in the words of the text.  
But as the ark and the Ephod at the sacking of Nob, they which should always have remained together, were by that doleful accident parted asunder, and kept at distance: even so these two which God once joined together in Elias and in the Baptist, and which the holy Ghost hath joined together in the words of the text, some evil counsel hath put asunder, so that the Spirit is with you, but the Power removed a great way off. What our Saviour saith concerning offences, It cannot be but offences will come, but woe to him by whom the offence cometh: so may we dolefully concerning this, It is our misery that this divorce is come among us, but woe to that counsel by whom the divorce first came, it had been good for that counsellor had he never been borne.  
How happy are those days which are spoken of by the Psalmist, when mercy and truth are met together, and righteousness and Peace do kiss each other? And how happily should we hope to see those days, and those things in this Land to meet, if we could but see these two to meet again that are now so unhappily removed to distance? Well, all that we can do is to seek to drive them together with our prayers, and as Moses for the urim and Thummim upon Levi, so we for these united upon you to pray in public, and to pray in private, to pray on the Lord's day, and to pray on other days; and it is to be a main petition on this solemn day of humiliation, that as the Lord hath put the Spirit of Elias into your hearts, so that he would put the Power of Elias into your hands, that as he hath made you willing, so would he also make you able, to turn the hearts of the Fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the Righteous.  
The words of the text are the last words of the old Testament, there uttered by a Prophet, here expounded by an angel: there concluding the Law, and here beginning the gospel: Behold, saith Malachi, Mal. 4. 5. I will send you Eliah the Prophet: And he saith, the angel, shall go before him in the Spirit and power of Elias. And he shall turn the hearts of the Fathers to the children, saith the one; And to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, saith the other. Thus sweetly and nearly should the two Testaments join together, and thus divinely would they kiss each other, but that the wretched Apocrypha doth thrust in between: 
The Apocrypha injurious to the two Testaments.  Like the two 
* 1 King. 6. 27.  Cherubims in the Temple Oracle, as with their outer-wings, they touch the two sides of the house, from In the beginning, to Come Lord Jesus, so with their inner, they would touch each other, the end of the law with the beginning of the gospel, did not this patchery of human invention divorce them a funder.  
It is a thing not a little to be admired, 
How the Apocrypha came into request.  how this Apocrypha could ever get such place in the hearts, and in the Bibles of the Primitive times, as to come to sit in the very centre of them both: But to this wonderment there may be some satisfaction given, namely because that these books came to them from among the Jews, as well as the old Testament and the new. And because that the Jews alone, and alone so long, had had the knowledge of Divinity and Religion among them, the converted Gentiles could not but give their writings extraordinary esteem. And because the Talmud not being yet written, the world was not acquainted with the vanity and strain of Jewish learning, those insuspecting times did swallow these books, as not tasting as yet how unsavoury that was, nor distinguishing these to be of the same taste. It is therefore more to be admired, 
How it continued.  that when the Talmud was written, and the impious and ridiculous doctrines and fables of the Jewish schools laid open to the world, that then these books which show themselves to be of the very same stamp in many things, should not only not be refused out the Bibles and out men's good conceit, but also get better and further footing in the same: but to this wonderment some satisfaction also may be given: namely that superstition begun then to grow in the Church every day more and more, and it became a Religion to do as their forefathers had done before, and to retain what they had retained, be it whatsoever it would, and of what ungroundlessness soever.  
But it is a wonder to which I could never yet receive satisfaction, that in Churches that are reformed, that have shaken off the yoke of superstition, and unpinned themselves from off the sleeve of former customs or doing as their ancestors have done: yet in such a thing as this, and of so great import, should do as first ignorance, and then superstition hath done before them: It is true indeed that they have refused these books out of the Canon, but they have reserved them still in the Bible: as if God should have cast Adam out of the state of happiness, and yet have continued him in the place of happiness. Not to insist upon this, which is some digression, you know the counsel of Sarah concerning Ishmael, and in that she outstripped Abraham in the Spirit of Prophecy, 
Vid. R. Sol. & R. Menal. in lo.  Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman may not be heir with the son of the free.  
In the words of the text you may see your own work and task: and those two things that you have so long laboured under, and that we have so long longed after, Reconciliation and Reformation. You may behold in a part of the text, Reconciliation in these words, To turn the hearts of the fathers to the Children: and Reformation in the other, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. These are the two hands of our master which is in heaven, or rather the two good things in his hands, after which we his servants have looked so long, and do look this day, and cannot be taken off till he give them to us. These are the hands of your two Houses, or rather the two great gifts which we wait till God put into your hands to convey them towards us. These are the two pillars, 
1 King. 7. 21.  Jachin & Boaz, firmness and Strength, that we long to see set up at the door of that Temple that you are in building: And these are the two twins for which the Tamar of our England is in travail and is pained to be delivered, if there be but strength to bring them forth.  
These two things contained in the latter part of the text, are set forth and illustrated by two circumstances in the former: First, by the party and the function of that party that must perform so great a work, those included in these words, He shall go before him: Secondly, the qualifications and endowments of that party for the function, and for the work, that expressed in these; In the Spirit and power of Elias. The party rare, the function honourable, his endowments singular, his work divine, He shall go before him, &c.  
We will take up the words according to this Division, but not according to this order: for as in nature the agent is before the action, and as in the text, the workman is named before the work, so are they fit to be considered, and so will we take them into our handling, and so shall we take them as they lie in the text, and first of the first, He shall go before him.  
Who are meant by the He and the him in this part of the text the dimmest eye that is, will easily judge and discern, upon its own reading, namely John the Baptist, and our Saviour Christ. Two that were in a very near relation one to another by nature, for they were kinsmen according to the flesh, but of a nearer and of a higher relation in regard of their function, for they were they that began the gospel, or the one begun & the other perfected; & they were they that were the two great Prophets of the new Testament, or the one greater than a Prophet, and the other greater than a man. I cannot omit that which is not, nor cannot be omitted by any expositor it is so plain upon the him in this part: namely, that in the verse next before, he is called the God of Israel, He shall turn many of the Children to the Lord their God, and in this verse and in this whole passage he is showed to be Christ, of whom is spoken which giveth a pregnant and undeniable proof that Christ is God, against the wicked Arius that held him for a Creature.  
The Baptist went before our Saviour in divers particulars; in his conception, in his birth, in his preaching, in his death. For the miraculous conception and birth of John, went before the more miraculous conception and birth of Christ; his powerful Preaching, before the others more powerful; and his renowned death, before the others more renowned. But the words do not mean so much his going before him in time, as his going before him in ministry, nor his appearing before him in the world, as his appearing before him to do him service, as a servant doth before his Master to provide for his entertainment; and so the words following do explain it, He shall go before him, To make ready a people prepared for the Lord: 
Luk. 10. 1.  And so the seventy Disciples are said to be sent before our Saviour two and two before his face, that is, to prepare men for his receiving against that he himself should come.  
All the Prophets went before our Saviour in their ministry, in their divers generations, but John in a more special manner above them all. They like Balaam in the four and twentyeth of Numbers, did behold him, but not now, did foretell him, but not near; but he beheld him face to face, and he told of him standing by. And hence it is, that our Saviour calls him more than a Prophet, Mat. 11. 9 nay as much or more than any mere man that was naturally borne of a woman: More than a Prophet, because he went before Christ as his forerunner; and as great as any that was ever borne, because he was the beginner of the gospel. The ministry of John the Baptist, 
The Ministry of John the beginning of the gospel.  and the publishing of the gospel, like time and the motion of the heavens, began together, and in one and the same instant. So hath mark conjoined them, in the very beginning of the gospel, Mark. 1. 1. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, As it is written in the Prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thee. So likewise, in the first of the Acts and the two and twenty, Peter proposing a Disciple to be chosen in stead of Judaas, Of these men, saith he, which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John: And so in the tenth chapter of the same book of the Acts, and the thirty seventh. The word you know which was published throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached. And one place for all. Mat. 11. 13. All the Prophets and the Law Prophesied until John, and from him began the gospel. So that what some of the Fathers say concerning Malachi, That he was limbs Judeismi & Christianismi, we may not unfitly say, concerning him, that he was the bounds of Judaism and Christianity, the limits from whence the Law and the Prophets took their conclusion, and the gospel, and the kingdom of Heaven their beginning.  
Now as the ministry of John consisted of two distinct and considerable parts, 
The ministry of John, of two parts.  Preaching and baptising, [like as the gift of Prophecy had consisted in times before, of a double spirit, or to speak more properly, of a double power of one and the same spirit, to foretell things to come and to work miracles;] so by both these did he begin the gospel, and by both these did he go before our Saviour. These were, as it were the two hands with which he laid the foundation, and began to build up the fabric of the Evangelical Temple. And these two hath mark joined together in his relation, as John did in the exercise of his function, Mar. 1. 4. John did baptise in the wilderness and preach the baptism of Repentance.  
By both these he began the gospel, and first by his baptism: for,  
First, 
baptism used under the law.  baptism was used in the times before and under the Law, but it was to admit Proselytes to the religion of the Jews: But the Baptist now cometh with a baptism to admit the Jews to another Religion besides their own. Jacob in Gen. 35. when he is to enter and admit the remnant of Sichem that escaped the sword into his family and Religion, he doth it by baptism. Put away, saith he, the strange Gods that are among you, and be clean and change your garments, where, by the second injunction, 
Ab. Ezr. in Gen. 35.  Be clean, Aben Ezra▪ well observeth is meant the washing of their bodies in water, and indeed nothing else can so properly be meant, 
Tom. 1. p. 317. Azure blah. perek 13.  which what was it else but a baptising? And so Rambam or Maimonides in his Epitome of the Talmud, relateth from thence, 
1 King. 5. 15. 16.  that in the times of David and Solomon, when Heathens came into the Jews religion by thousands (for a hundred three and fifty thousand of them helped to build the Temple) they were admitted thereinto by baptism, or by being washed, and not by circumcision. Thus was baptism used in 
* 49/8 Vid. R. Sol. ●arch in Ex. 24.  those ancient times, and used to induct the Gentiles into the Church and Religion of the Jews: But now comes John with a baptism of another ●nd, namely, to enter the Jews into another Church and religion than their own, and so by his baptism doth he begin the gospel.  
Secondly, And so also did he by his preaching: For whereas the law called for absolute and exact performance, and cried a curse on him that confirmed not all the words of the Law to do them, Deut. 27. 26. John cometh in another tenor, like God in the still voice, and instead of challenging the strict performance of works, he Preacheth the gentle doctrine of Repentance; that whereas they could not do what the Law required, they should repent for that they had broke the law, and thus is the rigorous and terrible tenor of the law, changed into the sweet and comfortable doctrine of Repentance, and thus both by baptising and Preaching, doth John begin the gospel.  
And so by both also did he go before our Saviour: By baptism to admit men into Christ against he should come, and by his Preaching to let Christ into men when as he came: By his baptising to make way for Christ his coming among men, and by his Preaching to make way for men their coming unto Christ: And so much is intimated by the words that next and immediately do follow the text, To make ready a people prepared for the Lord. This might be taken only for an elegancy such as the Scripture useth, to quicken expressions, by repetitions, but it hath its proper vigour and significancy, and in the two several words denoteth the two distinct fruits of the ministry of the Baptist in her two parts: His baptism, to make men ready to look for Christ that was now in coming; and his Preaching, to have them prepared for his receiving when he came.  
The observation that we may take up from hence is this, 
Observ.  That Christ when he came to show himself in the world had need of a powerful, and a Spirited forerunner: He was the expectation of the Gentiles. Gen. 49. 10. He was the expectation of the Samaritans. John 4. 25. He was the expectation of the Jews. Luk. 19 11. He was the expectation of all nations. Hag. 2. 7. And yet when he came that was so expected, he had need of a Harbinger to go before him, and a strong forerunner to make his way; and all this too little too. For when he came amongst his own, his own received him not. Joh. 1. 11.  
The Jews fancy concerning the cloud of glory, that conducted Israel through the wilderness, that it did not only show them the way, but also plane it, that it did not only lead them in the way in which they must go, but also fit them the way to go upon: That it leveled all the mountains and smoothed all the rocks, that it cleared all the bushes, and removed all the rubs. No less preparatives were required for our saviour's coming to make way for him, in the entertainment of men, or to make way for men to the entertaining of him: And so hath the Scripture expressed it in terms not much different: Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth: Esay 40. 4. Luk. 4. 5.  
There were two main things that lay betwixt the Jews and Christ at his appearing, that were most likely to keep them asunder, and to hinder the access of each to other, and so they did. And those were their corruption in manners, and in behaviour, and their corruption in doctrine, and in religion; the former like rough ways that must be smoothed, and the latter like crooked, that must be straightened; and both being such as must be helped, or little hopes they can come to Christ.  
First. As for their corruption in manners, had we not evidence enough thereof in the Scripture, that lays it open, we have sufficient in their own writers. They were a generation of vipers; so John calls them, Mat. 3. 7. 
Jews corruption in manner.  They were a wicked and adulterous generation; so our Saviour calls them, Mat. 16. 4. seeming to allude to the Phrase of Hosea, the children of fornications, Hos. 1. 2. They were a people stiffnecked and of uncircumcised hearts and ears: so Stephen calls them Act. 7. 51. And to spare more, our Saviour makes them as it were the common shore of all vengeance, and consequently the sink of all iniquity, Mat. 23. 35. That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel, unto the blood of Zacharias.  
To these Characters of their manners given by Scripture, we may add the confession of their own authors in their writings. The Talmud in Sanhedrim, in the eleventh chapter hath these words. 
Talm. Sanh. pag. 97.  R: Juda saith, In the generation in which the son of David shall come, The house of the Assembly shall be a stews, the wisdom of the Scribes shall fail, they that fear sin shall be despised, and the face of that generation shall be like dogs. Saint Paul hits them with their own title, Beware of dogs, beware of the concision, Phil. 3. 2. and so doth John seem also to do, 
R. Dav. Kimek on isaiah 59  Without are dogs. Rev. 22. 15. Such another testimony doth David Kimchi give out of the Rabbins on Easy 59 16. Rabbi Johanan saith, saith he, The Son of David cometh not, but either in a generation all holy, as it is written, Thy people shall all be righteous, and inherit the Land for ever: or in a generation all wicked, as it is written, He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor. Too pregnant and woeful experience showed that the latter was only true, and their own behaviour at our saviour's coming, confirmeth the gloss to prophesy truly, that their manners then should be most corrupt.  
Secondly, and so was also their Doctrine: and that withal in a twofold relation. 1. In regard of the opinion that they held concerning the legal rites that were amongst them before: and 2. in regard of the opinion that they held concerning Christ, who was now in coming.  
1. They were so glued to the Ceremonies of Moses, and so bewitched with the Traditions of the Fathers, that it was an impossibility in human reason to thaw them asunder.  
Paul speaking of his own doting upon these, speaketh the affection of his whole Nation in this particular, 
Jews vehement addiction to their traditions and legal rites.  I was exceedingly zealous of the Traditions of the Fathers, Gal. 1. 14. Stephen in Act. 6. 14. for but speaking of the abolishing of the customs of Moses, must lose his life, though he spoke but what Moses himself had spoken before, and what an Angel had spoken after Moses, & though his face when he was to answer for these things, shone like the face of Moses, and was like the face of an Angel. But what need I to insist upon particulars? If you look throughout all the Acts of the Apostles, you shall find that almost in every place where the Gospel came among the Jews, this was the main obstacle that ever lay in the way to hinder the freedom of its passage, the fixedness of that people and Nation to their Ceremonies and Traditions. Let one place suffice for many, Act. 21. 28. The Jews of Asia laid hands on Paul, crying out; Men of Israel help, this man teacheth all men everywhere against the people, and the law, and this place.  
The preaching of the Gospel goeth against their heart, because it goeth against their customs, and he that speaketh against that people, law, and place, is sure to be spoken against himself, for they were so pinned unto the rites of those three, that there must be nothinking of their removal. And thus were they most corrupt in opinion concerning the Ceremonies of the Law which they had used of old.  
2. And so also were they concerning Christ when he should come. They expected him to appear in the world as an earthly Conqueror, like Naaman the Syrian by the Prophet Elisha; 
2 King. 5. 11.  He thought he will surely come out and stand, 
Jew's misconceit concerning the Messiah.  and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place and recover the Leper; and he only sent him this plain and simple message, go wash in Jordan and be clean: So they by Christ, they conceited, Surely he will come with great worldly pomp, and make his way with a conquering sword, he will destroy many people even as earthly Princes do, and seat his people in Canaan again in more prosperity and pomp then ever: 
Esay 53. 2.  and he on the contrary, came in the form of a servant, he had no form nor comeliness in the eyes of men that they could desire him: he appeared in a posture of humility and lowliness, riding upon an ass, and upon a Colt, 
Zech. 9 9  the foal of an ass. And how far were they from entertaining such a Christ as this, when they expected one of a quality so infinitely different? Who could believe that the title over our saviour's head upon his cross, should be a stumbling block unto the Jews feet? And yet was it so at that very time when they fixed it there, and so it hath been ever since, and so it is at this very day, Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews. 
John 7. 42.  They looked for the Messiah to come from Bethlehem, and they knew him but for Jesus of Nazareth. And they expected a pompous King of the Jews, and how far was he from such a King. And thus they knew not him, 
Acts 13. 27.  when he came from Galilee, nor the voices of the Prophets what they meant by his kingdom, and thus were they very far unlikely to receive him when he came.  
These three things then being thus considered, and notice taken how far this people of the Jews were gone away both in life and doctrine, what corruption they had contracted in their manners, what doting upon their ancient customs, and what misprision concerning Christ, it is no wonder if he that came to reform these things that were so far amiss, had need of a spirited and a powerful forerunner, to make some way for him against he came.  
And as it was at our saviour's coming in the flesh, so also is it at his coming in the spirit: Whensoever Christ is to be brought in among a corrupt and irregular people, in the power and purity of his Word & Gospel, great hindrances do ever offer themselves to stop the way, and they had need of great forerunners to clear them thence. 
Dan. 9 26.  A Jerusalem is never built street and wall, but those times are troublous: & a Reformation in a corrupted State is never wrought but with these opposals. The very same things do make the ways rough and unpassable for Christ's coming now, in his work and power, that made it then when he came in the flesh. These three are as the net upon Mispah and the snare upon Tabor, Hos. 5. 1. as the ambushes that the Idolatrous Priests laid upon those mountains to catch up all the passengers that should go to Jerusalem to worship the true God, these catch up men that they come not at Christ. These are the Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, that are ever ready to oppose the Moses and Aaron that seek to work good in the Congregation; and the Jannes, Jambres and Egyptians, that affront them in the work of the Lord. And hence is it no wonder, that that work of the same nature, that you have had so long in hand, hath gone so slowly and so heavily on. For,  
1. How truly is the moral of that Story concerning Anomon in 2 Sam. 12. come to pass in these days of ours? First, he was sick for love of his sister Tamar, and having used her at his pleasure, he was then as sick for hate. So hath it been with us of this Land: we were sick but a while ago for a Parliament, and nothing would cure us if we had not that, like David we longed and longed again for this water of Bethlehem that is beside the gate, and could not rest till we had got it, and yet when we have obtained it, and that not without the hazard of your lives, we now cast it upon the ground, and care not for it: We are now as weary of this Manna which God hath sent us, as we were desirous of it before it came. What should be the reason of men's such crossness and contrariety in their affections, as to will and to loathe, to desire and to detest the same thing, with the same earnestness, in so short a time? Why, that in the Prophet, 
Jer. ●1. 9  You would have healed Babel, and she will not be healed. Men are affrighted I know not how at the rumor of a Reformation, because they are afraid to be stripped off their carnalities and corruptions. Like a simple Patient, that in an eating and corroding sore, if the Surgeon can abate his pain, he likes it well, but to cut out any proud dangerous and corrupting flesh, that he will not endure: Just so hath it been with us. Whilst you eased us of the pains of those pressures, that did pinch, and took off the yoke from off our neck that glad so sore, it pleased us well, and you had our liking; but to be restrained any whit from our former & beloved sensualities, to be straightened any thing of the extravagancies of our former ways by the reins of a Reformation, oh this goes to the quick, and we cannot endure it, Durus sermo, a hard business, who can abide it? Our Saviour hath told us long ago, that parting with an old acquaintance bosom sin is as pinching to flesh and bloods, 
Matth. 5. 29. 30.  as to pluck out an eye and to cut off a hand, and we see it true by too woeful experience, by men's unseparableness from their delights, they carrying them, and they them, and will not be parted, to perdition. The Vine, Olive, 
Judg. 9 9  and Figtree in Jotham's Parable, will not leave their wine, fatness, and sweetness, to gain a kingdom, Herod his Herodias to save his soul, nor men of corrupt manners, the corruption of their manners for a blessed Reformation.  
This is the first adversary that you have in your way, that seeketh to cross the glorious work that you have in hand. And there is a second which is like to this, as a twin of the same womb, and as bad as it, and that is corruption in opinion concerning ancient customs, and a fixedness to what our forefathers have used before.  
2. Custom, as it is commonly said, is a second nature, and men cannot easily leave that which they have long used themselves, and they will not easily leave that which they have seen and known to be used by their Predecessors. The Ephraimites in the book of Judges, that had been brought up to say 
Judg. 12. 6.  Sibboleth all their life, cannot say Shibboleth to save their life, but they perish two and forty thousand. Famous and fearful is the story of Rabodus [some call him by another name] who when he was so far persuaded from his heathenism into Christianity, that he had one foot in the water towards being baptised, and there asking whither his forefathers were gone that were not Christians nor baptised, whether to Heaven or Hell, and it being answered to Hell, he pulls his foot back again out of the water, with words to this purpose, That he would go whither his ancestors were gone, and so he resolved to be what his Ancestors had been. This, the more is the pity, is the ultima Analysis of the Religion of too many thousands in this Land and time; men and women are too commonly and generally pinned in opinion and in practice of religious things upon the customs and usage of ancient times, and they are loath to be parted from them: The woman of Sychar was zealous for the Temple upon Mount Gerizim, but the best reason she can give for that her zeal, is but this, because her, Fathers worshipped in that mountain, Joh. 4. 20. Laban in the marriage of his daughter Leah, will rather follow custom▪ then either conscience, or his own promise and covenant: He had agreed with Jacob for Rachel, and for Rachel had Jacob served, but when it cometh to the point of performance he suborneth Leah, and deceives him with her, and what is his reason? Why, it was not the custom of the country, to give the younger before the elder, Gen. 29. 26. How the predominancy of this humour in the diseased body of this Church doth cause us to cast up again the wholesome physic of a Reformation, it is known too well. The confession of the Prophet may be taken up concerning us, and with addition, We have sinned with our forefathers, nay we are resolved so to do still. The errors that the ignorance and dulness of former times did admit into the worship of God and profession of Religion, we are resolved to retain because they were the customs of former times.  
3. And thirdly, a main obstacle in the way of Christ's powerful coming among a people, and in the way of your work that seeks thus to bring him, is a corruption of opinion that men have concerning Christ or Religion itself. Religion to carnal men must be a little gaudy, or else it cannot be a pleasing Religion: as the Virgin Mary must be a Lady, or she is not thought fit to be a Saint. The simplicity and plainness of the Gospel, spoils its entertainment with sensual minds. And Antichrist by putting his Religion in so gorgeous clothes hath gained so much upon them, and stolen men's hearts through their eyes. God did once indeed comply with the gross dulness of the Jews, that he might win them, and because they could not go further in Religion than they were led by the eyes, he gave them such a one as suited to them, and because it was so with them once, carnal men would have it so still.  
These are the three sons of Anak with whom you have had so long to wrestle, and with whom you have to combat still, before you can bring our Israel to the desired Canaan. I may say again, that it is no wonder that this work in your hands goes so slowly on, when three such Giants do seek to hinder it. You have to fight not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, with the strong holds of Satan in the hearts of men. Oh that we could find out some such powerful forerunners to go before you, as might clear the way for your readier passage! Where might we get so skilful a Mustian as could calm these evil spirits that thus disturb all? It is far from my skill to advise you what to do in these respects: But to you others that sit by, and are spectators how these Worthies labour under these opposals, this may show what need you have to drive on the great and weighty works that they have in hand with the earnestness of your prayers. Their hands, like those of Moses, it is no wonder if they be weary with holding up so long in so great employments, these must be the Aaron and Hur that must support them that they fall not quite. Me think we may even see written in the very things that they are in managing, they are so weighty, what Paul inserts to so many of his Epistles, Brethren pray for us; And Brethren pray for them. I will conclude all in the words of the Psalmist, Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth: nay, let me change the number, for I know you will join with me in the saying, Let our tongues cleave to the roofs of our mouths: if we forget the Parliament in our best devotions. And so have I done with the first part that I named, the Person and his function that must do the work; now I come to the qualification of that person for that work and for his function, He shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias.  
We meet in this part with two several parties, 
The second part.  Elias and John, men exceedingly renowned in their generations, and exceeding great reformers in their times. Elias in the middle of the times of the Law, and John in the beginning of the times of the Gospel. We might deal with them as the Prophet Ezekiel doth with his two sticks with the names written upon them, 
Ezek. 37. 19  Judah and Joseph: First, we might take in either hand one, and treat of them severally, then might we take them both into one hand, and in our handling they might become one; but we will take up such things concerning them only, as shall be most material to be considered, and most suitable to the present times.  
And first, we may lay this position, and the text will warrant it, 
Observ.  That Elias shall never come to live and continue upon earth again. The Prophet Malachi indeed delivereth it in such terms as if he should come once again. Behold, I will send you Eliah the Prophet: And the Septuagint have driven the nail to the head to make this sense the surer, for they have added, Behold, I send you Elias the Tishbite: yet the Angel Gabriel in the text doth tell us, that Elias himself is not to come in his own soul, but another in his spirit, nor he in his own person, but it was John Baptist was to come in his power. And so our Saviour, 
De Elia praeterito vid. R. Lev. Gersh in 1 Reg. 27. De vent. vid. R. Dav. Kimeh. in Mal. 4.  Matth. 11. 14. And if you will receive it, this is Elias which was to come: and Matth. 17. 12. Elias, saith he, is already come, which his Disciples do truly understand of John the Baptist. The Jews, as they do erroneously hold that the Messiah is not yet come, so do they hold also that Elias shall personally come before his coming: And it is no wonder that they err that error mistaking the meaning of Malachi, when so many Christians do err the same error with them, though they have an exposition by an Angel, and by our Saviour upon that prophecy. Jansenius, Maldonate, and others of the same nest, Jesuits and Papists, explaining these words that we have in hand, do resolve, that they are more fitly to be applied to Elias his second coming which is yet to be, then to his coming in the days of Ahab: and they gloss them thus, He shall go before Christ at his first coming, 
Sic etiam Bed● in l●o & Amb. Epiph. &c. Haeres 70.  in the spirit and power that Elias shall go before him in at his second. A gloss much like that senseless one of the Sect in Epiphanius, upon these words in Gen. 1. 27. God created man in his own image, whereon they seemed to hold, that the body of man was made after the Image of God, and that Christ's human shape was the copy for the shape of Adam, whereas Adam was not made a man after the likeness of Christ, but Christ was made man after the likeness of Adam. Even so is it with these expositors. They either make John Baptist his going before Christ, a pattern of Elias his doing the like, whereas Elias in the Prophet and in the text is a pattern of John: or else they make Elias who is to come (no one can tell when) the copy or pattern of the Baptist already come, which is more than ridiculous. Nor is it so much to be wondered, that these men of corrupt judgements and minds, should err this same error with the Jews, 
Vid. Cornel. à Lapide in Apoc. 11. 3. Aleazer, ibid.  when we find so many of the Fathers to have erred in the same opinion also, and to Elias they have added Enoch, and both these, they say, must come before the coming of Christ, for these they hold to be the two witnesses in the 11. of the Revelation.  
It is true indeed that some ones shall come in the spirit of Elias toward the end of the world, 
The two witnesses, Rev. 11▪  according to that description in the Revelation, but no expectation of Elias himself, nor no description of Enoch at all. The two witnesses in that place are plainly charactered and deciphered forth by the emblems of Moses & Elias. They have power to shut up Heaven that there be no rain, vers. 6. Here is apregnant intimation of Elias: &, They have power over the waters to turn them into blood, there is as pregnant a one of Moses. These two men do meet more than once mentioned together in the Scriptures. They are named together in the conclusion of the Prophets, Mal. 4. 4. Remember the Law of Moses my servant, and in v. 5. Behold I send you Elias the Prophet. They appeared together and attended our Saviour at his transfiguration, Matth. 17. 3. They are thought on together in that description of the two witnesses, as they also agreed together in this, that the one was the giver of the Law at the first, and the other the restorer of it when it was decaying: the one was the great Prophet of the Jews, the other the great Prophet of the Gentiles, 
A ministry in the spirit and power of Moses and Elias at the Jews conversion.  as shall be touched anon. When therefore the Jews and the Gentiles shall be knit together into one Church upon the fullness of the one and the conversion of the other, then shall God raise up a powerful ministry to them both united, as in the spirit of Moses and Elias, (the time of their preaching is alluded to the time of our Saviours, three years and a half) and Antichrist shall rise up against them, 
tropical phrases.  and persecute some of them to the death.  
By the way as we go, it is not immaterial to be observed, how things signifying and things signified do often in Scripture bear one and the same name: sometime the thing signifying is called by the same name of the thing signified. As at the making of the first Covenant Exod. 24. 8. Moses sprinkled the blood of the Covenant upon all the people, Heb. 9 19 That is, upon the twelve Pillars, which he had set up to represent the people, vers. 4. as he had set up an Altar also to represent God: For to besprinkle so many hundred thousands severally, it was impossible in so short a time as he employed in that work. And so in the second Covenant in the blood of Christ, the Bread and Wine that represent his body and blood, are called by the very names of his body and blood.  
Sometimes the thing signified is called by the name of the thing signifying, as Hos. 3. 5. Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God and David their King, that is, Christ their King, which was signified by David: And so in the matter that we have in hand, the Prophet Malachi calls the Baptist Elias, because he was so nearly represented and typified by Elias. To them that hold that Elias shall personally come again indeed, we may justly propose these two or three queres. First, how shall a glorified body converse with bodies laden with corruption and mortality? Observe at the transfiguration of our Saviour, when the glorified bodies of Moses and Elias appeared to him, the Disciples were so uncapable and unfit for conversing with them, that some of them spoke they knew not what. 
Luke 9 33.  Consider the disproportion that is between Angels and men, if I may so call it, in regard of converse, the one spirits, the other bodies, how can these two be familiar together, if an Angel take not on him a visible shape? There is not so much distance indeed betwixt bodies glorified and bodies mortal, yet is there so much as is sufficient to spoil the converse of each with other.  
Secondly, What should Elias do in his person here? If to preach: our Saviour hath told us, that if men would not harken to Moses and the Prophets, 
Luk. 16. 12.  they will not be persuaded though one rose from the dead: And may we not infer? If men will not harken to Moses, the Prophets, the Evangelists, and the Apostles; they will not believe though Elias came from heaven, 
Gal. 1. 8.  To Preach the Gospel? If another than what was preached by Christ and his Apostles, 
2 Cor. 4. 7.  then is he accursed though he be Elias. If the same: why, that treasure is carried in earthen vessels, and not in vessels already glorified. To destroy Antichrist? This indeed is the common opinion: 
2 Thes. 2. 8. vid. Chald. Paron Esay. 11. 4. in edit. Buxtorf.  but Paul hath told us that the Lord shall do it with the Spirit of his mouth, and the brightness of his coming. Such questions as these might be proposed to that opinion, that is indeed of much like nature with this, but of far more strangeness, namely that that would bring Christ from heaven again, to live personally on earth a thousand years. First, what should Christ that is in heaven, blessed for ever, do a thousand years upon earth that is cursed? The very first lesson that God taught Adam after he had taught him the lesson of Christ, was this, that he should not expect Christ's kingdom upon earth, for that he cursed, Gen. 3. 17. Secondly, how strange and improbable is it to conceive, that Christ who in his human frailty had a kingdom, which was called and was the kingdom of Heaven, should now in his immortal glory come and possess a kingdom on earth? An opinion according to the censure of Eusebius, raised upon the misconstruction of a place in the last book of the New Testament, as this about Elias was of a place in the last book of the old. 
Easeb. hist. Eccles. lib. 3. cap. 39  For thus speaketh he concerning Papias, the first father of this conceit: The same Author also, saith he, showeth that other things came to him by unwritten tradition which contain certain strange Parables of our Saviour and new doctrines of his, and some other things stuffed with legendary fables. Among which he averreth that the kingdom of Christ, after the resurrection of all flesh from the dead, shall continue and endure upon this earth, after a human and bodily manner, for a thousand years: Which opinions I believe that he did entertain, because he misunderstood the apostolical interpretations, which were delivered by them under hidden figures, and obscure Parables. For he was a man, as may be guessed by his writings of a very shallow wit. Yet was he the Author of the like error to most ecclesiastical men, who cited this man's antiquity for the defence of their part: as Irenaeus, and whosoever else is of the same opinion with him.  
I will not censure nor condemn the opinion, but refer it to superior examination, only this I cannot but say of it, that I do not remember that ever I heard or read of an opinion of so extreme and monstrous strangeness, that in so short a time, hath gotten so great a belief and so large an entertainment, and neither tongue or pen hath stirred against it. It is our hope and prayer, that once you may have liberty and leisure from the great rent in the whole piece of the State to look upon the rippings in the seams of the Church, that such opinions as this and others may be taken either by you or by your authority into examination, before, like Joab and Abishai the sons of Zerviah, they grow too strong, and defy a trial.  
The Spirit and power of Elias is held by some to mean but one and the same thing, his powerful Spirit. So indeed sometime runneth the sense of the Hebrew stile. As in that answer of our Saviour, Joh. 14. 6. I am the way, the truth, and the life, the scope of the question that occasioned it seemeth to call it to such a sense, I am the true and the living way.  
Others distinguish the meaning with the words, and by the Spirit of Elias understand patience and tolerancy of persecution, and by the power, the prevalent and efficacious virtue of his ministration. But we need not to go far for interpretations, when either the words are of no great difficulty, or what they be of, will easily be explained by the Scripture itself.  
By Elias his Spirit then are we to understand, not his own within him, 
Joh. 10. 41.  but the Spirit of the Lord or of Prophecy upon him: 
2 King. 2. 15.  And so his spirit is said to be upon John, as Moses his spirit was upon the Elders, and the spirit of the same Elias upon Elisha.  
By the power of Elias upon the Baptist, is not meant the power of miracles, 
Num. 11. 25.  for John wrought none, whereas Elias did many, but his power of preaching for the conversion of many unto God. So that whereas the ancient Prophets of the Law, and among them Elias, had a double power of the Spirit upon them, To foretell things to come, and to work miracles; so had John the first Prophet of the gospel, a double power, but of another nature and a better. He foretold not things to come, but he explained those that had him foretold; and he wrought not miracles upon bodies, but he was miraculously powerful upon souls.  
Now, should we come to compare Elias & the Baptist there we should find them agree in many parallels: as that they both came in very corrupt times, that they both restored religion very much in that corruption, that they were both persecuted exceedingly for that restoring, Elias by Ahab and Jezabell, and John by Herod and Herodias; and divers other agreements, upon which not to insist, because they be obvious to every eye, 
Observ.  this collection may we take up from the words in hand, That Elias is a proper and pregnant pattern for Reformers.  
As when Moses was making the Sanctuary and the appurtenances, 
Exod. 26. 40. & 26. 30. & 27. 8. Heb. 8. 4. 5.  God often calls upon him to make all things according to the pattern which was showed him in the mount: So in this like work of yours which you have in hand can you platform out a reformation by a better pattern than by Elias, since you will not do it but by some pattern from the Mount? A man that in the text is a copy to John the Baptist in his reforming: And a man that in his own time restored all things, as our Saviour saith of him, Mat. 17. 11. And fitly then may he be a pattern for these times of ours.  
He restored perishing religion, & the decaying law: he restored forgotten Prophecy, and as the Jews hold, forsaken Circumcision: for of Circumcision do they understand those words of Elias himself, They have forsaken thy Covenant, 1 King. 19 14. And of Elias the restorer of Circumcision they misunderstand those words of the Prophet, 
Vid. R. D. Rimchi in Reg. & in Molach.  The angel or Messenger of the Covenant, Mal. 3. 1.  
But I stand not here as a Surgeon over his Anatomy, to read unto you a Lecture of reforming, upon the skeleton of Elias, it were beyond good manners, as it is beyond my skill: Let me address myself to you that sit by and are spectators of these Worthies as they labour in their work, in a word or two of application, and that according to the two words that are before us, the Spirit of Elias and his power.  
1. By the Spirit of Elias, I told you, is understood the Spirit of God that was upon him: Now as the Apostle saith, x Cor. 12. 4. the Spirit was but one, but the gifts were diverse. For look in the fourth of the Acts, and the thirty first, it is said of the Apostles there, that when they had prayed the place was shaken and they were filled with the Holy Ghost. And so they had been some days before, namely on Pentecost day, Act. 2. 4. Now they having been filled then, how can they be said to be filled again? Why▪ then with the gift of tongues, and now with the gift of holy boldness, for, for that it was they prayed, ver. 29.  
Among the diverse gifts then of the holy Spirit, 
Elias his zeal.  that Elias had, this is not the last nor the least that made him renowned, His extraordinary zeal for the Lord of hosts. So much expresseth he concerning himself, 1 King. 19 10. 14. And so much seemeth our Saviour to aim at, in his answer to his two disciples that would have fire fetched from heaven, as Elias had done, Ye know not, saith he, what manner of spirit ye are of, Luk. 9 55. of a zeal beyond your warrant, and you would be forward you know not how. The thing that you may take notice of from hence is this, That no true reformation can be expected which is not carried on with a spirit of zeal. The works of God must be wrought with his Spirit, & they that desire to forward his glory, must do it with a holy forwardness. It is the honour of Levi, Deut. 33. 9 that when he was about the employment of the Lord, he was so zealous in it, that he forgot all civil relations, and said unto his father, and to his mother, I have not seen him, neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children. And so our Saviour in the third of mark, when his mother and kindred would have taken him off from preaching, for they said he will faint, 
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, he is besides himself, in the Syriack. Arab. vulg.. Lat. Ital. of Deodate, the Spanish hath it, he goeth out of his calling & estate, in marg. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in the Lxx. Gen. 45. 26.  or he is beside himself, be it whether it will, for the original word will bear both, he was so zealous in the work in hand, that he would not own them that came to hinder it. For he answered, saying, Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? Mark 3. 33.  
2. The power of Elias in Reformation was exceeding much, and he did wondrous things in what he did, but yet he left exceeding much undone, which he could not help, and abundance of corruption, which he could not remove. He took away Baalim, but he could not take away the golden Calves, he destroyed the Prophets of the one, but he could not destroy the Prophets of the other. 
1 King. 18. 19 40.  four hundred and fifty Prophets of Baal perished by his means at Carmel, and yet are there four hundred false Prophets left that seduce Ahab to go to Ramoth. 
1 King. 22. 6.  Thus impossible is an utter extirpation of all corruption out of a State and Church that is corrupt.  
Lay these two now together in the two scales of an unprejudicate judgement, and they will help very well to balance and to poise a right your thoughts and censures concerning these Worthies that are toiling in our work. Some think they have been too forward, others think they have been too slow; some, that they have done too much, others that they have done too little; some complain of too much zeal, and some of too little reformation. To the former may be answered, that Elias must be zealous if he will reform; to the latter, that Elias cannot utterly purge out all corruption though he be Elias; and to both together, that in stead of murmuring against them, it were far fitter to be thankful to God for them, for that he hath put so much zeal into their hearts, and so much reformation already into their hands, as that we see more already than we expected ever to have seen: The same Lord continue the same Spirit unto them, and increase the Power, that their hearts and their hands may hold up and grow strong, that we may see the salvation of the Lord exerted by them; for the reconciling of the disaffected, and the reducing of the disobedient. And so I pass to the third part of the text, the work of the Baptist, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, &c. The case was woeful when father and son had need of a reconciler to make them friends, yet was it theirs then, and so is it ours now.  
It was a very hard task surely to John the Baptist, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, or to do this work, for I find it a very hard task and trouble to expositors to find out and to resolve, who these fathers and children were.  
Some by the fathers understand the Jews, 
Vid. Carthis.  and by the children, Christ and his Apostles, as Luke 11. 19 and that John turned the hearts of the fathers to the children, when he brought the Jews to embrace their Doctrine; but how can the other part be made good with this gloss, that he turned the heart of Christ and his Apostles to the Jews?  
Some render it thus, He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the Children by the right understanding of the Scriptures, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous by the obedience of faith. An exposition that leaveth us as far to seek who were the fathers and who the children, as we were before.  
Others therefore come nearer the letter, 
Maldon. in Lec.  and expound it from the difference that was at that time in opinions among the Jews, the father it may be a Pharisee, and one son a Sadducee, and another an Essaean, and John by bringing them all to the entertainment of the Gospel, extinguished that division which opinions had set between them. It is true indeed that these three Sects were among the Jews at the Baptists coming, 
Joseph. Antiq. lib. 18. cap. 2.  the three shepherds which were to be destroyed in one month, Zach. 11. 8. but for any such division in Sect betwixt father and sons, it is but a conjecture, and it cannot be so certainly averred.  
But furthest off of all other glosses, and the most improper, is that of Jansenius and others of his feather, which yet they hold to be the nearest and the properest of all, and that is this. That John turned the hearts of the children to the fathers, when he brought the Jews to whom he preached, or those of his own time, to embrace the faith and doctrine of the Patriarchs that had been before: and the hearts of the fathers to the children, when by reducing them thus to that faith, he occasioned that those holy men in Limbo did begin to affect them, and take them to heart, which they had not done before. I will not stand to examine or convince this exposition, for it is not worth the labour, you yourselves have confuted it in thought I know as soon as heard it. 
Fathers and Children, Jews and Gentiles.  The most genuine and real meaning of the words that we have in hand I conceive to be this. That by the Fathers are to be understood the Jews, and by the Children the Gentiles; and by John's turning each others heart unto others, his winning them both jointly and unanimously, to the knowledge and profession of Christ and of the Gospel, and by the tie of that to the joint communion one with another. And I am made confident and emboldened to entertain this exposition as the very meaning of the place upon these reasons.  
1. Because the Church of the Gentiles is styled by the name of the children of the Jews, commonly and constantly in the Prophets: as Esay 54. 13. All thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and 60. 4. Thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be turned at thy sight, and 62. 5. As a young man marrieth a Virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee. And in very many other places.  
2. Because it was a special and peculiar work and office of the Gospel to unite and tie the Jew and Gentile into one: so saith the Apostle, Ephes. 2. 14. Christ is our peace, who hath made both one, and the Gospel the means. And then must it be the work and office of the Baptist who began the Gospel.  
3. Experience and the History itself confirmeth this our exposition; for as the Gospel in its own nature and promulgation belonged to the Gentiles as well as the Jews, 
John 1. 7.  and as John came for a witness that all through him might believe, the one Nation as well as the other, so did he baptize and convert some of the one as well as the other, 
Joseph Ant. lib. 18. cap. 7.  Roman soldiers, as well as Jewish Pharisees, and make them both according to the phrase which Josephus useth of him, {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, to convent or knit together in his baptism.  
4. This exposition maketh John the more fully to resemble Elias, who was a Preacher and a Prophet to the Gentiles as well as to Israel, nay the first Prophet of the Gentiles. This our Saviour toucheth, Luke 4. 25. Many widows were in Israel, in the days of Elias, but to none was he sent, saving to one in Sarepta a City of Zidon: and the men of Nazareth though but plain and rustic simple men, yet did they quickly understand it of preaching to the Gentiles, which put them into an anger, and our Saviour into a danger. Nor can we think that the holy and zealous Prophet, residing in that Heathen City two or three years together, as appeareth by the text, would live there idly and doing nothing, but that he preached there as well as he had done to Israel whilst he was among them, for he was everywhere jealous for the Lord of Hosts. I would this were but seriously thought on, in men's expounding the prophecy about the two witnesses in the Revelation, which we touched before. For if they would but see Elias there which is so plainly emblemed and pictured out, and withal but consider that Elias was the first Prophet of the Gentiles, it would help to settle an interpretation to that place, which now hangs exceeding loose in diversity of opinions.  
This being then the proper and only meaning of the words in hand, that John by his preaching should turn the hearts of the Jews to the Gentiles, and of the Gentiles to the Jews; and by his baptism should as it were tie them up together; the observation or collection that we may take up from hence is this, That true Religion is the truest reconciler: There is no peacemaker like the Gospel, but it is among them that are true professors of the Gospel.  
Nor is there any breed-bate like the Gospel neither: And so saith our Savioar, Suppose you that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell ye nay, but rather division, Luke 12. 51. which he speaketh out more plainly by another Evangelist: I came not to send peace, but a sword, Matth. 10. 34. 
Gen. 3. 15.  But this is between the two seeds, betwixt whom God hath set enmity, and there can be no reconciliation, the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent: but to the children of the same father, God, and of the same mother, the Church, the Gospel is the sweet messenger of peace, and the sweet peace maker.  
A deadlier hate could not be betwixt man and man, than was of the Jew toward the Gentile. They reputed them as Dogs, and so our Saviour useth their common phrase, 
Matth. 15. 26.  It is not good to take the children's bread and give it to Dogs: they reputed them as swine, and accordingly they render that verse of the eighteenth psalm, the boar out of the Wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of field doth devour it: they abhorred their society, nay they abhorred the very mention of their conversion, Luke 4. 28. Act. 22. 22. And yet when true Religion cometh in, & seizeth both the Jew & Gentile, the hate is forgotten, 
Acts 11. 18.  the feud is gone, and the deadly enemies are the nearest friends. Much like as it is reported concerning Cairo in Egypt, that if the Plague rage never so much over night, that they die by thousands, yet if the River Nilus come flowing in the next day, the mortality is ceased, and there dieth not one: Even so is it with Religion: Be there never so much bitterness and heartburning betwixt man and man, never so much contention and contestation betwixt neighbour and neighbour, if the power of Religion do but once flow in and seize them both, the Plague is ceased, the malignity gone.  
This is that that cries down the partition walls of all divisions: this is the great tie of men's affections, yea, it is the greatest; this is the matrimony of souls, making two men to be of one spirit, as the other doth a man and a woman to be one flesh. It is Christ which is the truest cause of making men offended, to be reconciled in a good sense, as he was the occasion of Herod's and Pilate's being so in a bad. With what spleen and rancour did Saul set for Damascus against the professors there? yet when Christ comes into him by the way, no greater friend than Paul to them when he comes near them. For,  
1. Religion is a special and sovereign means to calm, 
Reas. 1.  tame, and cicurate those exorbitant affections and extravagant humours that breed division and maintain it. 
Esay 11. 6, 7.  The Prophet Esay describing the power of the Gospel in the Christian Church saith, that it shall bring the wolf to dwell with the lamb, the Leopard to lie down with the Kid, the calf and the young Lion to feed together, and the Cow and the bear to go in company. His allusion is to the carriage of the beasts in the ark of Noah: before they came in thither, the Lion was ravenous, and the lamb his prey, the Leopard and the bear devouring, and the Kid and the calf afraid to come near them: but when they were come within the ark, there was no such thing, all bloodiness and rapine was laid aside, and the lamb and Lion couch together, and the Lion now as harmless as the lamb. So is it in the Church, and so is it by the power of Religion: those humours and passions of men which before have been bloody, cruel, proud, self-willed, dissentious, and rebellious, if once the powerful operation of Religion get in among them, it quells these Rebels, quenches these firebrands, reduces these extravagants, and like the dispossessed in the Gospel, makes him to sit calmly and quietly, and in his right mind, whom none might come within the compass of before without a danger.  
2. Religion doth centre men's affections in the centre of unity God himself, 
Reas. 2.  and those things that concern God, that they cannot separate: It is an old saying, Quae conveniunt in uno tertio conveniunt inter se; Those things that agree in a third thing agree among themselves: Then how many third things are there in which true Christians meet as lines in a centre, that must needs hold them together and make them agree? S. Paul hath reckoned them to our hands in the fourth to the Ephesians, the fourth, fifth, and sixth verses. They meet in one body, in one spirit, in one hope of their calling, in one Lord, one faith, one baptism, in one God and Father of all.  
3. Religion maketh conscience of living in division and giving offence; 
Reas. 3.  It dares not offer its gift at the Altar, till it and the offended be reconciled. It dares not suffer the sun to go down upon its wrath, nor will eat that meat that shall offend a weak brother: And as the Father in another sense, accounts it as desperate to sleep in malice, as to go to bed in a den of lions. The use that we may make of this may be double, and briefly thus, because I know not your hours and occasions and I fear to offend.  
First, 
Use 1.  this may direct us very well in the choosing of a friend. Would we have one that shall be true to us? let us look out such a one as is true to God: Would we have one that shall be faithful in our little things, in our affairs? let us seek out such a one as is faithful in the great thing, in Religion. As his counsel was, to agree to Gregory's Austen if he were humble, 
Acts and Mon. old edit. pag. 10●.  so be it our holy policy to tie to that man in friendship that is religious: and as Jehu to Jonadab, 2 King. 10. 15. If we light on a man whose heart is right towards the Lord as we desire a friends heart should be to us, let us fix on that friend, and give him the hand.  
Secondly, this also may show us who cannot be our friend: and with whom it is impossible to have unity and amity, namely with the Church of Rome, which is clean Antipodes to us in Religion.  
Is there peace, 
Use 2.  Jehu? saith Joram to him. No, there is no peace, where whoredoms and witchcrafts are so many. 
2 King. 9 22.  No communion can be betwixt Christ and Belial, or betwixt Religion and Idolatry: 
Belial, i. e. an Idol.  for so I conceive the word Belial signifieth throughout the Scripture. 
The children of Belial, i. e. Idolaters.  The enmity that God himself fixed at the very beginning betwixt the seed of the Serpent and the seed of the Woman, must continue unreconciled to the very end: and as quos Deus conjunxit, whom God hath joined together, no man whatsoever must put asunder; so what God hath parted and put asunder, no man must offer to join together: Who are the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent, so plain to be seen, as Christ and Antichrist? and he that will seek to make conjunction of Rome and us, will marry light and darkness, God and the devil, Christ and Antichrist together, and make a friendship betwixt those, betwixt whom God himself hath doomed an enmity while the world endureth.  
We bless God that hath brought us out of her familiarity and friendship to be now her haters and hated of her: and we bless the time when we first fell from the society and converse of Egypt, to be her enemies and at distance with her: And we bless you and your endeavours, that strive so much and so constantly to keep us clear of reingagements. And may the work prosper in your hands, and you in the work, to hold us still at our proper distance to the feed of the Serpent, and to keep us at enmity where God hath set it▪ but for turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the reducing of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, it is our prayer still and still, as it was before, that you may have the power of Elias, or the Baptist, as you have the spirit: and so I come to the last part of the text, and the second part of John's work in his Ministration, To turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the just.  
These words as they lie in our English Translation do show no great difficulties, but being examined in the original, they are not so very easy. A man scruple that appears in both, is this; That the Angel undertaking to quote the Prophet should so far now decline from his text: 
Difference of allegation.  In the former part that we have newly handled, he followeth him punctually and verbatim, He shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, so saith the Prophet, and so the Angel; but now that he should have taken up the other part in these words, And the hearts of the children to the fathers, he changeth them into this clause, 
Reason of it▪  And the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. But to this may be answered. 1. That the Angel is not so punctual to cite the very letter of the Prophet as to give the sense. And so we may observe it to be usual in the new Testament, in its allegations from the old. And that he giveth the same sense, or a true interpretation of the Prophet, we shall see as we go. 2. It was not very long after the baptising and Preaching of John, that the Jews ceased to be a Church and Nation, nay even in the time of him himself, they showed themselves enemies to the Gospel, and to the Professors of the same, for the general or greatest part of them; therefore he saith not that the hearts of the children the Gentiles, should be turned to their fathers the Jews, which should cease to be fathers and to be a people, but to the wisdom of the just. And thus in the first part of his speech about turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, he intimateth the Jews that should be reconciled and united to the Gentiles in embracing the Gospel: and in this latter, by omitting to call them Fathers, he giveth a touch of the hostility and evil mind that the others of the Jews should bear both to it, and to the Gentiles that embraced it. And now that we see the reason and difference in the allegation, let us take up the words that thus differ, every one single, and one after another as they lie in order; and would the time permit, every word would afford us matter profitably to insist upon, but I will only hint it as we go along, for I fear to offend in transgressing the time.  
1. As in this clause he refuseth to use the term of fathers, 
Disobedient.  for the reason mentioned, so doth he also of the correlative children, because of his refusing of that. And yet he coucheth the sense of that title under the word disobedient, which in its most proper and natural signification reflecteth upon untowardly children disobedient to their parents. For though there be a disobedience to any superior whatsoever, as to Kings, Magistrates, Masters, and the like, yet is the obedience of children to Parents the original from whence it receiveth denomination, and that appeareth in that those superiors are called Fathers. As therefore the Angel omitting to call the Jews Fathers, insinuateth their opposition against the Gospel, so by terming the Gentiles Disobedient in stead of Children, he showeth what they were before they embraced it.  
The vulgar Latin in stead of Disobedient readeth Incredulous or unbelieving: 
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, Disobedient or unbelieving.  which though the Greek word doth sometime signify, as might be evidenced in divers instances, yet that it doth not so in this place may be collected from these considerations. First, that the speech is concerning children and fathers, as is apparent in the clause preceding, and between them disobedience is a more proper term and notion than Inoredulity. Secondly, that he saith not, He shall turn them to the faith, which were the most proper if he spoke of the unbelieving, but to the wisdom of the righteous. And thirdly, 
Matth. 1. 4.  that the preaching of the Baptist, was more especially the doctrine of repentance as his baptism was the baptism of repentance, but the preaching of Christ was the doctrine of faith. Therefore John saith only, Repent, Matth. 3. 2. but our Saviour, Repent and believe, Mar. 1. 15.  
Now from this double signification of the original word, and indeed also from the proper cause of the Heathens disobedience, 
Observ.  we might observe, that a chief and main cause of disobedience is unbelief.  
It is a saying of the Jews in their Talmud in the Treatise Maccoth, 
Rab. Abhuhabh in Ner. 1.  that all those six hundred and thirteen commandments that God gave to Moses in Mount Sinai, are reduced to this one in the Prophet Habakkuk, The just by his faith shall live: 
Hab. 2, 4.  we may say something the like concerning sins; that those hundreds and thousands of transgressions that are committed in the world, and all those various and numerous causes and occasions from whence they proceed, they may all in fine be traced and reduced to this one original, from unbelief. From whence is it that men do violate the commands of the Law? because they will not believe the threatenings upon the violation. And whence is it, that men refuse the promises of the Gospel? because they will not believe the certainty and excellency of those promises.  
2. The word wisdom in this place doth signify Religion, as it doth in divers other places of the Scripture, as Deut. 4. 6. Keep therefore and do the Statutes and commandments of the Lord, for this is your wisdom: that is, your Religion. And so likewise, Psal. 111. 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: that is, the fear of the Lord is the entry into Religion. And so may we find the word to signify in divers passages in the Proverbs. And to this sense me thinks Eliphaz scoffeth religious Job in the fourth of that book and the sixth verse if it be looked into in the original. 
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}: Folly▪ Psal. 85. 9  Halo jireatheca chislatheca, Is not thy fear or thy Religion become thy folly?  
Religion is the only wisdom, 
Observ.  and to be truly wise, is to be truly religious: (which is the observation that we might take up upon this word) But, where or what, saith this miserable comforter, is this religious wisdom of thine become now? Thou hast been thus and thus precise and devout, thus and thus pious and religious, and what is now become of all this great devotion, but a fearful affliction? Is not now thy Religion become thy folly?  
But there is yet a double scruple, and those no small ones neither, in this small clause or parcel of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, To the wisdom.  
First, it is something harsh to translate the Greek word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, in this place to signify To: for though it do sometimes signify so, as Commentaries quote certain other places, to justify that translation of it in this, yet 1. That is but rarely and but somewhat improperly wheresoever it is so used; and 2. It cannot be imagined that if the Angel intended that very sense of To in this place, as to say, To the wisdom, but that he would have used the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, which he used immediately before in the other clause, and say, {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, as he had said, {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, and not have betaken himself to a construction of the preposition {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, harsh, scrupulous, and unusual. I conceive therefore that that little particle is to be taken here, in its most proper, genuine and general sense, and as it is used millions of times in Greek, Authors to signify In: 
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}. In the wisdom  and to be interpreted in the wisdom. And the wisdom of the righteous is not here to be held the terminus ad quem, or the ultimate end to which these disobedient Gentiles were to be converted; but the medium per quod, the means or way through which they were to be converted to God. For let the two clauses of this speech of the Angel, or the parts of the work of the Baptist be laid in Antithesis or opposition against another, as naturally indeed they lie, the one aiming at the Jews as the proper subject, and the other at the Gentiles, the subject as proper, and then will it appear very plainly, that two several acts were to be performed by the Baptist as concerning the Jews and their conversion. First, that he should turn their hearts or affections to God, as it is laid down in the verse preceding; He shall turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And secondly, that he should turn their hearts and affections also to the Gentiles, as it is in this, He shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. According therefore to this double work of John upon the Jews in that part of the angel's speech, must the like duplicity be looked for in this that concerneth the Gentiles, and to be understood though it be not expressed. For the Angel in this part purposely changeth his stile, and neither calleth the Gentiles children, but disobedient, because they generally were so before the coming of Christ, nor the Jews fathers, because they ceased to be so shortly after, as was touched before, nor mentioneth he the Gentiles turning to God, but includeth it, partly he had set that as the chiefest bent and work of the Baptist, to turn men to God, and partly he involveth it in this phrase, in the wisdom of the righteous. So that this being the meaning of the Angel, as I doubt not but it is, it may afford us this Observation, 
Observ.  That there can be no true conversion unto God, but in the true Religion, or in the wisdom of the just.  
Secondly, the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, which cometh next unto our handling, will afford a twofold consideration. 1. That it is not without divine reason, that the hearts of the Gentiles are not said to be turned to the Jews, as on the contrary it was said of the Jews to the Gentiles, but that they should be turned in the wisdom of the righteous. For the enmity and feud, detestation and averseness that was betwixt Jew and Gentile, and Gentile and Jew, 
The cause of a Jews hatred of a Gentile.  proceeded not from the same cause and original. The Jew abhorred the Gentile not of ignorance, but of scorn and and jealousy, partly because they stood upon their own privilege of being the people of God, which the other were not, and partly because they were provoked with suspicion, that the other might be the people of God when they should not be. And therefore when the reconciliation is to be wrought between them, it is said, that their hearts or affections should be turned to them, for they were pointblank and diametrically against them before. But the Gentile abhorred a Jew out of ignorance, because of his Religion, hating him as a man separate from, and contrary to all the men in the world, accounting that to be but singular and senseless superstition, which was indeed the divine command and wisdom, whereby he sequestered that people for his own from all other people on the earth. So that a Gentile did not so much detest the person of a Jew for himself, as for his Religion and profession, which, ignorant as the Heathen were, they understood not what it meant. Therefore when the Gentiles must be brought to knit and to unite to the Jews, it must be in the wisdom of the righteous, or in the embracing of that Religion, which the righteous ones among the Jews professed, and which the Gentiles, till they knew and understood what it meant, accounted but vanity, singularity and folly.  
2. It is remarkable that the Angel doth forsake the proper and common word used to signify wisdom, which is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}. and taketh up {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, which is of a something stricter and stranger use. And so doth the Syriack relinquish Hhechmetho its ordinary word that it useth for wisdom, 
1 Cor. 2. 2. 4, 5, 6 Rev. 13. 16. &c.  and fixeth upon Jedhangro a word more singular, and of more peculiar importance. The original word then that we have in hand, doth not only import the wisdom or Religion of the Jews, but also the Gentiles attaining to the knowledge, and apprehension of that Religion and wisdom with them. Not only the theory and practice of the Jewish Nation in their religious profession, but the Heathens reaching to the understanding of those mysteries in that Religion and profession, which they had accounted such vanity and senselessness before. So that this word considerately looked into will afford us this collection: 
Observ.  That it is not enough to embrace the true Religion in outward profession, but we are to have understanding, and to be acquainted with the doctrine and principles of that Religion. For the Heathen to turn to the wisdom of the righteous Jews in an outside profession, and an ignorant religiousness, was a poor conversion, as good as none, a work unfit the pains of the Baptist; but their true turning, and his powerful work is when they are brought to embrace that Religion in the knowledge and understanding of the mysteries of it. Ignorance was never the mother of any devotion but of a Romish devotion, which is as good or as bad as none.  
And lastly, there is some doubtfulness also in the last word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, for it may be indifferently translated of righteous things, or of righteous men: But it is the more undoubted that persons and persons are rather here compared together then persons and things: in the former part of this work of the Baptist, there are fathers and children, and in this part it is most like that they are answered with persons again, disobedient children and righteous fathers, and the meaning of the Angel to be this, that as the Jews the fathers in the embracing of the Gospel, shall be turned to God, & reconciled to the Gentiles, so the Gentiles the children, in the wisdom of the righteous, or in the embracing and understanding of the Religion professed by the righteous ones that had been & were among the Jews, should be turned to God and in affection to the Jews. And hereupon might we take up this observation, 
Observ.  that the faith of the holy Jews under the Law, and of the holy Gentiles under the Gospel, was one and the same: They that went before Christ in the one, and they that followed Christ in the other, did both cry Hosanna to the son of David, did both obtain salvation, by the same Saviour and by the same way.  
And so have I gone with the words as far as I dare be bold upon the time, your patience and occasions: I will but put this last clause together which I have thus taken piecemeal, and laid asunder, and so have I done. The disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous▪ the Heathen to the knowledge of the true Religion: Me thinks in these words we may behold the condition of this Land as it hath been in ancient times, and as it is in these of ours. We were once Loammi, no people of the Lords, and utter aliens from his congregation: we sat, and that not very long ago, in darkness and in the shadow of death, and it is no wonder if we might be called Disobedient: But God who is good to all, and whose tender mercies are over all his works, 
Psal. 145. 9  hath come in unto us and shone upon us. He hath discharged us of the name of Heathens, oh that we could discharge ourselves of the title of Disobedient! he hath brought us into the wisdom of the righteous, unto the knowledge of the Gospel, and of salvation, oh that we could drive on through that to God He hath made us more Israel then Israel itself, and whereas we were once the furthest off of any Nation from this wisdom, he hath brought this wisdom to us, to no Nation nearer. Now what thankfulness doth so great a mercy call for, for its bestowing? and what prayers for its continuance? Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which thus hath visited his people with his Gospel, and redeemed them out of the darkness of superstition. And the blessing of the God of Israel be still upon his own gift, that it may continue and still flourish among us: Let not the Candle which he himself hath lighted be ever put out: Nor let the candlestick which he himself hath placed, be ever moved out of its place: Let scattered Popery never cloud us again, nor superstition overwhelm us. Let Religion and the Gospel be in all our borders, and peace and truth in all our times. And to these our praises, and to these our prayers let all the people say Amen.  
Amen and Amen.  
FINIS.   

Die Mercurii 29. Martii. 1643.  
IT is this day Ordered by the Commons House of Parliament, that Sir Edward Littleton, a Member of the said House, do return thanks to Mr. Lightfoot, for the great pains he took in the Sermon he preached this day at Saint Margaret's in the City of Westminster, at the entreaty of the said House, it being the day of public Humiliation; and that he entreat him to Print his Sermon: And it is Ordered that no man shall Print the said Sermon but who shall be authorized under the handwriting of the said Mr. Lightfoot.  
H. Elsing Cler. Parl. D. Com.   

I appoint Andrew Crook to Print my Sermon.  
John Lightfoot.