(Luke xi. 22. Isai. xxiii. 12) He never fails of full and final victory ; reigns, till all enemies are put under his feet." (Cor. xv. 24, 25) And this is the crown of his people's joy; that they have not only a just, a valiant, an humble, an active, but a prosperous and successful prince; making his people rejoice in the spoils of their enemies; breaking the yoke of their burden, the staff of their shoulder, the rod of their oppressor; extending peace to them like a river, and the glory of the gentiles like a flowing stream; causing them to put their feet on the necks of their adversaries. Thus, many ways, are the people of Christ encouraged to rejoice in him.

This, then, serveth, 1. To reprove the sin and folly of al! those, who seek for joy out of the broken cisterns of the creatures. which can hold none; and leave that living fountain, out of which it naturally floweth. Some seek it in secular wealth and greatness; others, in sensual pleasures, feasting, gaming, luxury, excess; some, in titles of honour; others, in variety of knowledge; some, in stately structures, magnificent retinue, goodly provisions; others, in low, sordid, and brutish lusts. Unto all of whom we may say, as the angel unto the women, (Luke xxiv. 5) “Why seek ye the living among the dead?" or, as Samuel did unto Saul, "Set not thy mind upon the asses :" there are nobler things to fix thy desires upon. Solomon had more varieties this way, and more wisdom to improve it, than any now have; and he made it his business critically and curiously to examine all the creatures, and to find out all the good which was under the sun. And the product and result of all his inquiries, amounted at last to a total made up all of cyphers, of mere wind and emptiness. " Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities, all is vanity:" so he begins his book :-and to shew that he was not mistaken, so he concludes it. (Eccles. i. 12) Every particular vanity alone; and all in a mass and collection; vanity together; enough to vex the soul, enough to weary it; but never enough to fill it, or to suffice it. Many of them sinful delights, poisoned cordials, killing, cursing, damning joys; dropping as a honey-comb; smooth as oil; but going down to death, and taking hold of hell." (Prov. v. 35) All of them empty delights, in their matter and expectation, earthly; in their acquisition, painful; in

393 their fruition, nauseous and cloying; in their duration, dying and perishing; in their operation, hardening, effeminating, leavening, puffing up, estranging the heart from God; in their consequences, seconded with anxiety, solicitude, fear, sorrow, despair, disappointment; in their measure, shorter than that a man can stretch himself on, narrower than that a man can wrap himself in ; every way defective and disproportionable to the vast and spacious capacity of the soul, as unable to fill that, as the light of a candle to give day to the world. Whatever delights men take pleasure in, leaving Christ out, are but as the wine of a condemned man ; as the feast of him who sat under a naked sword, hanging over him by a slender thread; as Adam's forbidden fruit, seconded by a flaming sword; as Belshazzar's dainties, with a hand-writing against the wall. "In the midst of all such joy, the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness." (Prov. xiv. 12) Like a flame of stubble, or a flash of gunpowder, "Claro strepitus, largo fulgore, cito incremento: sed enim materia levi, caduco incendio, nullis reliquiis;" a sudden and flaming blaze, which endeth in smoke and stink. "The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment;" (Job xx. 5) like the Roman Saturnalia, wherein the servants feasted for two or three days, and then returned to their low condition again".

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2. This discovereth the great sin and folly of those, who take offence at Christ; and, when others entertain him with hosanna and acclamations, are displeased at him, as the scribes; (Matth. xxi. 15) and, with the young man in the gospel, go away sorrowful" from him. (Mark x. 22) Our Saviour pronounceth them blessed, who are not offended with him; (Matth. xi. 6) thereby intimating the misery of those, who, stumbling at him, as a rock of offence, are thereupon disobedient unto his word. Christ doth not give any just cause of offence unto any but there are many things belonging unto Christ, which the proud and corrupt heart of men do turn into matter of grief and offence unto themselves.

1. Some are offended at his person, in whom the Godhead

Apul. Apolog.

b Macrob. Satur. 1. 1. c. 7. 10. Ainenaus 1. 14. c. 17.

and manhood are united; as the Jews, (John i. 9, 33) and the Samosatenians, Photinians, and Neophotinians since; who, though the Lord in his word calls him the "Mighty God;" (Isa. ix. 6) tell us that the "Word was God;"(John i. 1) "God blessed for ever;" (Rom. ii. 5) " Equal with God;" (Phil. ii. 6) the "True God;" (1 John v. 20) "The Great God;" (Tit. ii. 13) "A God, whose throne is for ever and ever;" (Heb. i. 8) "The Lord who, in the beginning, laid the foundations of the earth;" (verse 10)“ Jehovah our righteousness;" (Jer. xxiii. 6) yet will not endure to have him any more than a mere man, without any personal or real subsistence, till he was born into the world of the Virgin Mary. It would be tedious to trouble you with the manifold offences which ancient and modern heretics have taken at the person, nature, and hypostatical union in Christ. The Sabellians acknowledging three names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but only one Hypostasis. The Arians affirming him to have been of like essence with the Father, but not co-essential, nor co-eternal, but a mere creature; the Manichees' denying the truth of his human nature; the Apollinarians", the integrity of it; the Valentinians and Maronites", the original of it from the blessed Virgin; the Nestorians affirming a plurality of persons, as well as of natures; the Eutychians, a confusion of natures in one person. So mightily hath Satan bestirred himself by many and quite contrary instruments to plunder the church (if it had been possible) of the Lord their righteousness.

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2. Others are offended at his cross, both Jews and Grecks: (1 Cor. i. 23) those pitching, in their expectations, upon a glorious prince, who should free them from the Roman yoke, could not endure to be so disappointed, as, in the stead thereof, to have a crucified man, one in the form of a servant to be their Messiah; and therefore whosoever rule over them, he shall not. (Luke xix. 4) These, judging it a foolish thing to expect life from a dead man; glory and blessedness from one who did not keep himself from shame and curse; hearing doctrines wholly dissonant and inconsistent with the principles they had been prepossessed withal,

kSocrates lib. 1. c. 3.

i Nicephor. Calist. 1. 6. c. 26. 1. 2. to. 2. m Greg. Naz. orat. 46. • Vid. Aug. Phi, et Epiphan, de Hæresibus.

1 Epiphan.

n Tertul. de Carn. Christ. c. 1.

did thereupon refuse to submit to Christ; who, notwithstanding, to them which are called, was the power of God, and the wisdom of God; had more power than that which the Jews required, more wisdom than that which the Greeks sought after. The cross of Christ, likewise to be taken up by his disciples and followers, is matter of offence unto many others, called "the offence of the cross." (Gal. v. 11) When they hear that they must suffer with him, if they will reign with him; that, through many tribulations, they must enter into the kingdom of God; that affliction is an appendix to the gospel, and find the truth of it by experience (persecution arising because of the word), then "presently they are offended." (Matth. xiii. 21)

3. Others are offended at the free grace of Christ, cannot endure to be shut out from all share and casualty towards their own salvation. Thus the Jews, not willing to seek righteousness by faith in Christ, but, as it were, by the works of the law, stumbled at that stumbling-stone. (Rom. ix. 32, 33) Men would fain owe some of the thank for their salvation to themselves, to their own will, their own work, than to consenting to Christ, their not resisting of him, their cooperating with him, their works of condignity and congruity disposing them towards him. They like not to hear of discriminating grace: but when men have used all the arts and arguments they can, to have the efficacy of divine grace unto conversion, within the power or reach of their own will; yet still this will be scripture, "That it is God that worketh in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure :”" (Phil. ii. 13) that it is "God who maketh us to differ;" (1 Cor. iv. 7) that he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy;" (Rom. ix. 15) that "his grace is his own," to dispose of as he will; (Matth. xx. 5. 1 Cor. xii. 21) that "the purpose of God according election shall stand; not of works, but of him that calleth;" (Rom. ix. to xi) that "by grace we are saved, through faith, and that not of ourselves ;" (Eph. ii. 8) that "it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of

p Fideles seipsos discernunt ab infidelibus: Grevinchov. dissertat. de elect, et fide prævisa. p. 226.-Vid. Aug. ep. 46. de spiritu et liter. cap. 34. de prædestinat. c. 3. et 5, 8. De Grat. Christi 1. 1. c. 24. Contra duas Epist. Pelag. 1. c. 19, 20. et 1. 4. c. 6. De Grat. et lib. Arb. c. 21. De Corrept. et Grat. c. 14.

God that sheweth mercy; (Rom ix. 16) that " God's divine power" gives us things pertaining to life and godliness; (2 Pet. i. 3) that there is an "exceeding greatness of his power" towards those that believe the working of the might of his power; (Ephes. i. 19) that the Lord's people are" willing in the day of his power." (Psalm cx. 3) So then our willingness is the work of his power. The efficacy of his power is not suspended upon our will. We will, because he effectually works; he doth not work effectually, and with success, because we will.

4. Others are offended at the doctrine of Christ; they are not able to endure the things that are spoken by him.

1. Some at the sublimity of it, as being above the disquisition of reason. The philosophers mocked at the doctrine of the resurrection. (Acts xvii. 32) Julian scorned Christians, as yielding up their souls captive to a blind belief. Pride of reason, disdaining to admit any thing beyond its own comprehension, hath been the cause of that offence which niany have taken at Evangelical doctrine; the deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, the hypostatical union, traduction of sin, imputation of righteousness, &c. It hath been noted by learned men, that the eastern nations, by reason of the pride and curiosity of their wits, have been most troubled with horrid and prodigious heresies. And it hath been "regularis hæreticorum temeritas," the constant presumption of heretical spirits, to oppose sound believers, as unskilful and illiterate persons, with the name and pretence of reason.

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2. Some at the simplicity of it: The doctrine of the cross was esteemed foolishness by the grandees of the world, partly because delivered without the enticing words of man's wisdom; (1 Cor. ii. 4) partly because the things were such, as pride and lust judged unreasonable to stoop to. Christian doctrine is above reason natural, against reason sinful. 3. Some at the sanctity and severity of it. When it teacheth self-denial, pulling out the right eye; cutting off the right hand; taking up a cross; following Christ without

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r Hooker

t Matth.

4 Greg. Naz. Orat. 3. Aug. de Civ. Dei 1. 10. c. 29. et l. 13. c. 16. 1.5. s. 3. Aug. Epist. 56. $ 1 Cor. i. 18. Acts xvii. 18. xvi. 24, and v. 29, 30. Heb. xiii. 13. Luke xiv. 26, 27. Matth. vii. 13, 14. Phil. ii. 20. Col. iii. 1, 5. Matth. v. 44. Eph. vi. 12. 18. 2 Thess. v. 22. Acts xxiv. 16. Phil. ii. 15. Ephes. v. 15. Psalm xvi. S. Heb. xi. 25, 26.