scourges; fatigando, when his soul was heavy unto death; retardando, when they brought him to think it long, Utquid dereliquisti, Why hast thou forsaken me? and then, præcipitando, to make that haste to the consummatum est, to the finishing of all, as to die before his fellows that were crucified with him, died; to bow down his head, and to give up his soul, before they extorted it from him.

Thus we burdened him; and thus he unburdened us; et cum exonerat nos onerat, when he unburdens us, he burdens us even in that unburdening: onerat beneficio, cum exonerat peccato. He hath taken off the obligation of sin, but he hath laid upon us the obligation of thankfulness, and retribution. Quid retribuam? What shall I render to the Lord, for all his benefits to me"? is rox onerati, a voice that groans under the burden, though not of sin, yet of debt, to that Saviour, that hath taken away that sin. Exi à me Domine, that which St. Peter said to Christ, Lord depart from me, for I am a sinful man1, is, says that father, rox onerati, the voice of one oppressed with the blessings and benefits of God, and desirous to spare, and to husband that treasure of God's benefits, as though he were better able to stand without the support of some of those benefits, then stand under the debt, which so many, so great benefits laid upon him: truly he that considers seriously, what his sins have put the Son of God to, cannot but say, Lord lay some of my sins upon me, rather than thy Son should bear all this; that devotion, that says after, Spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood, would say before, Spare that Son, that must die, spare that precious blood, that must be shed to redeem us. And rather than Christ should truly, really bear the torments of hell, in his soul, (which torments cannot be severed from obduration, nor from everlastingness) I would, I should desire, that my sins might return to me, and those punishments for those sins; I should be ashamed to be so far exceeded in zeal, by Moses, who would have been blotted out of the book of life, or by Paul, who would have been separated from Christ for his brethren, as that I would not undertake as much, to redeem my Redeemer, and suffer the torments of hell myself, rather than he should; but it is an insupportable burden

11 Psalm cxvi. 12.

12 Luke v. 8.

of debt, that he hath laid upon me, by suffering that which he suffered, without the torments of hell. Those words, Vis sanus fieri, Hast thou a desire to be well, and a faith that I can make thee well? are cox exonerantis, the words of him that would take off our burden; but then, the Tolle grabatum et ambula, Take up thy bed and walk, this is vox onerantis, the voice of Christ, as he lays a new burden upon us; ut quod prius suave, jam onerosum sit, that bed which he had ease in before, must now be borne with pain; that sin which was forgotten with pleasure, must now be remembered with contrition, Christ speaks not with a vacuity nor of a levity; when he takes off one burden, he lays on another, nay, two for one. He takes off the burden, of irremediableness, of irrecoverableness, and he reaches out his hand, in his ordinances, in his word and sacraments, by which we may be disburdened of all our sins; but then he lays upon us, onus resipiscentia, the burden of repentance for ourselves, and onus gratitudinis, the burden of retribution, and thankfulness to him, in them who are his, by our relieving of them, in whom he suffers. The end of all, (that we may end all in endless comfort) is, that our word in the original, in which the Holy Ghost spoke, is jikkebedu, which is not altogether, as we read them, graves sunt, but graves fieri: not that they are, but that they were as a burden, too heavy for me; till I could lay hold upon a Saviour to sustain me, they were too heavy for me: and by him I can run through a troop (through the multiplicity of my sins,) and by my God I can leap over a wall; though mine iniquities be got over my head, as a wall of separation, yet in Christo omnia possum, in Christ I can do all things; mine iniquities are got over my head; but my head is Christ; and in him, I can do whatsoever he hath done, by applying his sufferings to my soul for all; my sins are his, and all his merit is mine and all my sins shall no more hinder my ascending into heaven, nor my sitting at the right hand of God, in mine own person, than they hindered him, who bore them all in his person, mine only Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, blessed for

ever.

13 Psalm xviii. 29.

407

SERMON CV.

PREACHED AT WHITEHALL.

EZEKIEL XXxiv. 19.

And as for my flock, they eat that, which ye have trodden with your feet, and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet.

THOSE four prophets, whom the church hath called the great prophets, Esay, and Jeremy, Ezekiel and Daniel, are not only therefore called great, because they writ more, than the lesser prophets did, (for Zechary, who is amongst the lesser, writ more than Daniel who is amongst the greater) but because their prophecies are of a larger comprehension, and extent, and, for the most part, speak more of the coming of Christ, and the establishing of the Christian church, than the lesser prophets do, who were more conversant about the temporal deliverance of Israel from Babylon, though there be aspersions of Christ, and his future government in those prophets too, though more thinly shed. Amongst the four great ones, our prophet Ezekiel is the greatest. I compare not their extraction and race; for, though Ezekiel were de genere sacerdotali, of the Levitical and priestly race; (and, as Philo Judæus notes, all nations having some marks of gentry, some calling that ennobled the professors thereof, (in some arms, and merchandise in some, and the arts in others) amongst the Jews, that was priesthood, priesthood was gentry) though Ezekiel were of this race, Esay was of a higher, for he was of the extraction of their kings, of the blood royal. But the extraordinary greatness of Ezekiel, is in his extraordinary depth, and mysteriousness, for this is one of those parts of Scripture, (as the beginning of Genesis, and the Canticles of Solomon, also are) which are forbid to be read amongst the Jews, till they come to be thirty years old, which was the canonical age to be made priests; insomuch, that St. Gregory says, when he comes to expound any part of this prophet, Nocturnum iter ago, that he travelled by night, and did but guess at his way. But, besides that many of the obscure places of the prophets are more open to

us, than they were to the ancients, because many of those prophecies are now fulfilled, and so that which was prophecy to them, is history to us, in this place, which we have now undertaken, there never was darkness, nor difficulty, neither in the first emanation of the light thereof, nor in the reflexion; neither in the literal, nor in the figurative sense thereof; for the literal sense is plainly that, that amongst the manifold oppressions, under which the children of Israel languished in Babylon, this was the heaviest, that their own priests joined with the state against them, and infused pestilent doctrines into them, that so themselves might enjoy the favour of the state, and the people committed to their charge, might slacken their obedience to God, and surrender themselves to all commandments of all men; this was their oppression, the church joined with the court, to oppress them; their own priests gave these sheep grass which they had trodden with their feet, (doctrines, not as God gave them to them, but as they had tampered, and tempered them, and accommodated them to serve turns, and fit their ends, whose servants they had made themselves, more than God's) and they gave them water to drink which they had troubled with their feet, that is, doctrines mudded with other ends than the glory of God; and that therefore God would take his sheep into his own care, and reduce them from that double oppression of that court, and that church, those tyrannous officers, and those over-obsequious priests. This is the literal sense of our text, and context, evident enough in the letter thereof. And then the figurative and mystical sense is of the same oppressions, and the same deliverance over again in the times of Christ, and of the Christian church; for that is more than figurative, fully literal, soon after the text, I will set up one shepherd, my servant David, and I will raise up for them a plant of renown; which is the same that Esay' had called A rod out of the stem of Jesse, and Jeremiah had called A righteous branch, a king that should reign and prosper. This prophecy then comprehending the kingdom of Christ, it comprehends the whole kingdom of Christ, not only the oppressions, and deliverances of our forefathers, from the heathen, and the heretics in the Primitive church, but that also which touches us more 2 Jer. xxiii. 5.

1 Isaiah xi. l.

nearly, the oppressions and deliverance of our fathers, in the reformation of religion, and the shaking off of the yoke of Rome, that Italian Babylon, as heavy as the Chaldean. We shall therefore at this time fix our meditations upon that accommodation of the text, the oppression that the Israel of God was under, then, when he delivered them by that way, the reformation of religion, and consider how these metaphors of the Holy Ghost, The treading with their feet the grass that the sheep were to eat, and the troubling with their feet the water that the sheep were to drink, do answer and set out the oppressions of the Roman church then, as lively as they did in the other Babylon. And so, having said enough of the primary sense of these words, as they concern God's Israel, in the first Babylon, and something by way of commemoration, and thankfulness, for God's deliverance of his Israel, from the persecutions in the Primitive church, insist we now, upon the several metaphors of the text, as the Holy Ghost continues them to the whole reign of Christ, and so to the Reformation.

First, the greatest calamity of those sheep in Babylon, was that their own shepherds concurred to their oppression. In Babylon they were a part, but in Rome they were all; in Babylon they joined with the state, but in Rome they were the state. St. Hierome notes out of a tradition of the Jews, that those loaves which their priests were to offer to the Lord, were to be of such corn as those priests had sowed and reaped and threshed, and ground, and baked all with their own hands. But they were so far from that at Babylon, and at Rome, as that they ploughed iniquity, and sowed wickedness, and reaped the same; and (as God himself complains) trod his portion under foot"; that is, first, neglected his people, (for God's people are his portion) and then whatsoever pious men had given to the church, is his portion too, and that portion they had trodden under foot; not neglected it, not despised it, for they collected it, and audited it providently enough, but they trod it under foot, when that which was given for the sustentation of the priest, they turned upon. their own splendour, and glory, and surfeit: Christ will be fed in

3 Mal. i. 7.

4 Job iv. 8.

Jer. xii. 20.