again God's true religion? No, no. The Scripture faith, The people laughed them to fcorn, and mocked the king's meffengers. And in the laft chapter of the fame book it is written, that Almighty God, having compaffion upon his people, fent his meffengers, the prophets, unto them, to call them from their abominable idolatry and wicked kind of living. But they mocked his messengers, they defpifed his words, and mifufed his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arofe against his people, and till there was no remedy: for he gave them up into the hands of their enemies, even unto Nabuchodonofor, king of Babylon, who fpoiled them of their goods, burnt their city, and led them, their wives, and their children, captives unto Babylon. The wicked people that were in the days of Noah made but a mock at the word of God, when Noah told them that God would take vengeance upon them for their fins. The flood therefore came fuddenly upon them, and drowned them, with the whole world. Lot preached to the Sodomites, that, except they repented, both they and their city fhould be destroyed. They thought his fayings impoffible to be true, they fcorned and mocked his admonition, and reputed him as an old doting fool. But when God by his holy angels had taken Lot, his wife, and two daughters from among them, he rained down fire and brimftone from heaven, and burnt up thofe fcorners and mockers of his holy word. And what eftimation had Chrift's doctrine among the Scribes and Pharifees? What reward had he among them? The Gospel reporteth thus: The Pharifees, which were covetous, did fcorn him in his doctrine. O then ye fee that worldly rich men fcorn the doctrine of their falvation. The worldly wife men fcorn the doctrine of Chrift, as foolishness to their understanding. Thefe fcorners have ever been, and ever fhall be to the world's 2 Pet. iii. end. For St. Peter prophefied, that fuch fcorners should be in the world before the latter day. Take heed therefore, my brethren, take heed; be ye not scorners of God's most holy word; provoke him not to pour out his wrath now upon you, as he did then upon those gybers and mockers. Be not wilful murderers of your own fouls. Turn unto God while there is yet time of mercy; ye fhall elfe repent it in the world to come, when it shall be too late, for there fhall be judgment without mercy. This might fuffice to admonish us, and cause us henceforth to reverence God's holy Scriptures; but all men have not faith. This therefore fhall not fatisfy and content all men's minds but as fome are carnal, fo they will ftill continue,

and

and abuse the Scriptures carnally, to their greater damnation. The unlearned and unftable, faith St. Peter, pervert 2 Pet. iii. the holy Scriptures to their own deftruction. Jefus Chrift, as

St. Paul faith, is to the Jews an offence, to the Gentiles 1 Cor. i. foolishness; but to God's children, as well of the Jews as of the Gentiles, he is the power and wisdom of God. The holy man Simeon faith, that he is fet forth for the fall and rifing Luke ii. again of many in Ifrael. As Chrift Jefus is a fall to the reprobate, which yet perish through their own default; fo is his word, yea, the whole book of God, a cause of damnation unto them, through their incredulity. And as he is a rifing up to none other than those which are God's children by adoption; fo is his word, yea, the whole Scripture, the power of God to falvation to them only that do believe it. Chrift himself, the Prophets before him, the Apostles after him, all the true minifters of God's holy word, yea, every word in God's book, is unto the reprobate the favour of death unto death.

Chrift Jefus, the Prophets, the Apoftles, and all the true minifters of his word, yea, every jot and tittle in the holy Scripture, have been, is, and thall be for evermore, the favour of life unto eternal life, unto all those whose hearts God hath purified by true faith. Let us earnestly take heed that we make no jefting-stock of the books of holy Scriptures. The more obfcure and dark the fayings be to our understanding, the further let us think ourselves to be from God, and his holy Spirit, who was the author of them. Let us with more reverence endeavour ourselves to fearch out the wisdom hidden in the outward bark of the Scripture. If we cannot underftand the fenfe and the reafon of the faying, yet let us not be scorners, jefters, and deriders; for that is the uttermoft token and fhew of a reprobate, of a plain enemy to God and his wifdom. They be not idle fables to jeft at, which God doth seriously pronounce; and for ferious matters let us esteem them. And though in fundry places of the Scriptures be fet out divers rites and ceremonies, oblations and facrifices; let us not think ftrange of them, but refer them to the times and people for whom they ferved, although yet to learned men they be not unprofitable to be confidered, but to be expounded as figures and fhadows of things and perfons, afterward openly revealed in the New Teftament. Though the rehearsal of the genealogies and pedigrees of the fathers be not to much edification of the plain ignorant people; yet is

there

there nothing fo impertinently uttered in all the whole book of the Bible, but may ferve to fpiritual purpose in some refpect, to all fuch as will beftow their labours to fearch out the meanings. These may not be condemned, because they serve not to our understanding, nor make to our edification. But let us turn our labour to understand, and to carry away fuch fentences and ftories, as be more fit for our capacity and inftruction.

And whereas we read in divers Pfalms how David did wish to the adverfaries of God fometimes fhame, rebuke, and confufion; fometime the decay of their offspring and iffue, fometime that they might perifh and come fuddenly to deftruction, as he did with to the captains Pf. cxliv. of the Philistines: Caft forth, faith he, thy lightning, and tear them; fhoot out thine arrows, and confume them; with fuch other manner of imprecations: yet ought we not to be offended at fuch prayers of David, being a Prophet as he was, fingularly beloved of God, and rapt in spirit, with an ardent zeal to God's glory. He fpake them not of a private hatred, and in a ftomach against their perfons but wifhed fpiritually the deftruction of fuch corrupt errors and vices, which reigned in all devilish perfons fet against God. He was of like mind as St. Paul was, when he did deliver Hymeneus and Alexander, with the notorious fornicator, to Satan, to their temporal confufion, that their spirit might be faved against the day of the Lord. And when David did profess in fome places, that he hated the wicked, yet in other places of his Pfalms he profeffeth, that he hated them with a perfect hate, not with a malicious hate, to the hurt of the foul. Which perfection of fpirit, because it cannot be performed in us, fo corrupted in affections as we be, we ought not to use in our private causes the like words in form, for that we cannot fulfil the like words in sense. Let us not therefore be offended, but fearch out the reafon of fuch words before we be offended, that we may the more reverently judge of fuch fayings, though ftrange to our carnal understandings, yet to them that be spiritually minded, judged to be zealously and godly pronounced. God therefore, for his mercies fake, vouchfafe to purify our minds through faith in his Son Jefus Chrift, and to inftil the heavenly drops of his grace into our hard ftony hearts, to fupple the fame, that we be not contemners and deriders of his infallible word; but that with all humbleness of mind

and

and Chriftian reverence, we may endeavour ourselves to hear and to read his facred Scriptures, and inwardly fo to digeft them, as fhall be to the comfort of our fouls, and fanctification of his holy name: to whom, with the Son and the Holy Ghoft, three Perfons, and one living God, be all laud, honour, and praife, for ever and ever.

Amen.

AN

HOMILY

OF

Alms-Deeds, and Mercifulness toward the Poor and Needy.

AMONGST the manifold duties that Almighty God requireth of his faithful fervants the true Chriftians, by the which he would that both his name fhould be glorified, and the certainty of their vocation declared, there is none that is either more acceptable unto him, or more profitable for them, than are the works of mercy and pity fhewed upon the poor, which be afflicted with any kind of mifery. And yet this notwithstanding, fuch is the flothful fluggishness of our dull nature to that which is good and godly, that we are almost in nothing more negligent and lefs careful than we are therein. It is therefore a very neceffary thing, that God's people should awake their fleepy minds, and confider their duty on this behalf. And meet it is that all true Chriftians fhould defiroufly feek and learn what God by his holy Word doth herein require of them: that first knowing their duty, (whereof many by their flackness seem to be very ig norant,) they may afterwards diligently endeavour to per form the fame. By the which both the godly charitable perfons may be encouraged to go forwards and continue in their merciful deeds of alms-giving to the poor, and alfo fuch as hitherto have either neglected or contemned it, may yet now at length, when they fhall hear how much it appertaineth to them, advisedly confider it, and virtuously apply themselves thereunto.

And to the intent that every one of you may the better understand that which is taught, and alfo eafilier bear away, and fo take more fruit of that shall be faid,

when