that passe by and behold, see if ever there were sorrow like unto my sorrow wherewith the hand of the Lord hath afflicted me."

Touching the inferiour part of the soul, the part where fancy and affection dwell, the part which is subject unto fear and unto heaviness; if this part, but only approaching and drawing neer to that furnace which now it was in, felt sufficient to turne sweat into drops of blood, sufficient to cause a thrise repeated supplication to be dispensed with, if there were any possible way to escape from it; what his feeling was at this present hower when he cryed, " Sabactani: Thou hast forsaken me;" what man is able to imagin? Our conceipt in this case is too short to reach the bottom of that we speake of. Neither may we think that Satan, who before was so vigilant to take occasions of assalting him, did here leave his soule unbesett with legions of most grisely terrors and fears. Heretofore Angels were sent from heaven to comfort him, neither God, nor Angel, nor man to ease his heavines with the comfort of their presence at this howre; but between the passionate powers of his soule and whatsoever might refresh them a courtain drawn. O thou afflicted and tossed with tempest, whome doth not this thy mournfull complaint of dereliction cause even almost to feel that thy soul was become now as a scorched heath where no one drop of the moisture of sensible joy was left? But I do foolishly to labour in explicating that which is not explicable, that whereof our fittest esteeme is our very astonished silence.

Lam. chap. 1, ver. 12.

SERMON II.

HEBR. CHAP. II. VER. 14, 15.

That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil; and deliver them which for fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage.

GOD gave his people, the Jewes, a law, which law is set down in the 25th of Leviticus, that at the ende of every seven times seven yeares, which rise in all unto nine-andfourty, the yeare next following, which was the fiftith, should be a yeare of jubily unto them, which yeare had these two peculiar pre-eminences, first the free restitution of all men into such lands as, being their ancient inheritance, need had caused them before to part with; secondly, the full release of all men whom debt or bondage did make obnoxious unto others. Men deprived of freedome, bereaved of hereditary goods and possessions, laid in bonds, inclosed in dungeons and prisons, were all at this time set free; they were all in this yeare of jubily restored unto the state of perfect liberty, so that no man might chalenge or charge them for any thing past, which jubilyes were types and figures of a jubily that was to come.

The angel Gabriel, in the ninth of Daniel's prophecy, reckoneth from the time of the edict of Cyrus concerning the Jewes' returne home (which edict was published in a yeare of jubily), gathereth by computation from that time to the time of our Saviour Christ, as amounting unto seventy septimaines of yeares, which yeares contained ten jubilyes.

This was the tenth which God had sett, and the same expiring had purposed "to finish transgression, to bring an end unto sinne, to extinguish iniquity, to induce everlasting righteousnesse, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoynt the most holy." After he addeth that the Messias should then be slain and "not for himselfe." If not for himselfe, for whome? The prophet Esay doth show for whome: "Surely OUR infirmity he hath born, and carried our sorrowes he was wounded for OUR transgressions; he was broken for OUR iniquities; for the transgression of MY PEOPLE was he plagueda." His death was the price of our redemption; the dayes of his sorrowe have brought unto us the joyes of a jubily that hath no end; the benefit of perfect deliverance from thraldome, and restitution unto that inheritance which Satan beguiled our parents of. So that of bondemen we are made free by redemption, and of free men through adoption, Sonnes, coinheritours with our Redeemer, to whom let the tongues of men and angels for ever sound out that blessed hymne, framed even for this selfe-same purpose, "Praise, and honour, and glory, and power to Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb, for evermore"."

Our

Thus you see the reason wherefore both Christ and his Apostles, to express the fruits of his death and passion, do speake so much sometime concerning matter of inheritance, sometime concerning deliverance out of thraldome. Saviour, to draw the Jewes to the due consideration of this kind of servitude, and from delivery from the same beginning to preach in a yeare of jubily, taught directlye that the ancient prophecyes which speake of an acceptable yeare of the Lord, a principall jubily wherein deliverance to captives should be proclaimed, now then came to the time of accomplishment. They took it hardly at his hands to have their dignitye so much abaited as to be termed servants, and men which did need deliverance. "We are Abraham's seed, and were never bondmen to any." Wherefore speakest thou to us of freedome." "He that committeth sinne is

a Esai. chap. 53.

b Apocal. chap. 5.

Luc. chap. 4.

the servant of sinne."

SERMON II.

xxix

Behold a servitude from which none but the Sonne can deliver you. He it is that must "make you freed."

Now, of all the works miraculous that have been since the first foundation of the world, there is not that can be compared unto this which our Lord and Saviour hath done by bringing to pass by death, that he who hath even a soverainty of death should be frustrated, and his main endeavour tending unto destruction made of none effect. The sequence whereof is that which followeth in the next verse, namely, the deliverance of them, whosoever "with fear of death throughout their whole life time were the detainers of servitude." So that, 1. after the mean by which Christ hath defeated Satan; 2. the second thing which we are to observe is the benefit of deliverance thereupon ensuing; 3. the third, the number of men unto whome that benefit may reach; 4. the fourth, their thraldome whome Christ did dy to sett at liberty; 5. the fifth, their feare of death to come; 6. the last, the continuance of their feare, reaching throughout the whole limits of their lives.

I. The very center of Christian beliefe, the life and soul of the Gospell of Christ, doth rest in this, that by ignomonye honour and glory is obtained; power vanquished by imbecillity, and by death salvation purchased. That there should a Messias come, and that he at his coming should save and redeeme the world, none of the Jewes did ever doubt. It hath bene alwaies, and at this

ישלח בקץ ימים משיחנו ;day even, an article in their creed

God in the end of the dayes appointed shall send our Messiah to redeem them that look for the end and performance of that salvation which he shall purchase. Upon which article of the Jewish faith R. Moses doth thus scholy. "Whosoever he be that doubteth this point, he accuseth of falsehood the whole law, and from Moses unto Malachy even all the prophets; for they all require expressly and cleerly, that we repose our trust and confidence in that annointed." Whence then is their blindnes which are so

d John, chap. 8.

hardned against the Gospell of Jesus Christ? Even this and no other is the cause thereof. The Jew cannot brooke to heare of life and salvation by the death and passion of him that should be their Lord and Saviour. For why? Their conceipte hath ever beene that their Messias should be a monarch universall upon earth, and that by force of armes the world should be brought in subjection under him. Thus Herod conceived; and therefore the birth of our Lord did vexe, molest, and trouble him. Thus nations forrein amongst whom the fame of Jewish prophecyes was spread concerning their expected king did likewise all imagin. All this his own disciples aymed in asking the question: "Lord, when wilt thou restore again the kingdome of Israel?" These vaine aspiring requests, to sit, one at the right, and another at the left hand of Christ, those ambitious contentions who should be greatest in place about him, they all sprang from the same root. Christ was dead, raised againe, and ascended unto his Father, before the right understanding of ancient prophecyes concerning that point could take place. Tillthen they never imagined that death was the mean whereby so great things should be accomplished. In this respect it is that the apostle doth terme the Gospell a mystery hid since the first beginning of the world, and concealed from former ages, never opened before, but now made manifest unto the saincts of God, as God indeed did mean ite. Might not the Sonne of God then, having power to create and support the world, deliver his people by main strength out of Satan's hands? Could Satan have held them which the Sonne of God had but commanded him only to yeeld? What necessity of delivering them by death, whom by his bare authosity he might have delivered well without dying?

II. The fittnes of this may better appear if we referre it unto the next point, which is the benefit whereunto this act did tend, namely, Deliverance. For, 1. first, if our condition be respected in relation to the Father filled with just indignation and wrath, what way so fit to worke our reconcilement as His intercession which was highest in favour

e Colos. chap. 1. ver. 2.