sented and offered unto him, and in contemplation thereof, he will be merciful to that congregation, and apply those merits of his, to their particular souls. These are our sacrifices, prayer and praise, and Christ thus offered; and how are these more than the Jews had they had more laws, and more sacrifices, and as many sacraments as we; and if nearness of salvation consist in the plurality of these, how is salvation nearer to us than to them? Quatenus plura, in that first respects as the means are more, as it is truly and properly said, that there are more ingredients, more simples, more means of restoring in our dram of triacle or mithridate*, than in an ounce of any particular syrup, in which there may be three or four in the other, perchance so many hundred; so in that receipt of our Saviour Christ, quicquid ligaveris, in the absolution of the minister, that whatsoever he shall bind or loose upon earth, shall be bound or loosed in heaven; there is more physic, than in all the expiations and sacrifices of the old law. There an expiation would serve to-day, which would not serve to-morrow; if it were omitted till the sun were set upon it, it required a more severe expiation: and so also an expiation would serve for one transgression, which would not serve for another; but here, in the absolution of the minister, there is a concurrence, a confluence of medicines of all qualities; purgative in confession, and restorative in absolution; corrosive in the preaching of judgments, and cordial in the balm of the sacrament: here is no limitation of time, at what time soever a sinner repenteth, nor limitation of sins, whatsoever is forgiven in earth is forgiven in heaven: salvation is nearer us in this respect, that we have plura adminicula, more outward and visible means than the Jews had, because we may receive more in one action, than they could in all theirs.

It is so also, not only quia plura, because we have more means, but quia potiora, because those means which we have are in their nature, better, more attractive, and more winning. The means, (as we have said before) were their laws, and their sacrifices, and their sacraments, and for their law, it was Lex interficiens, non perficiens; It was a law, that punished unrighteousness, but it

• Universal medicines, compounded of a variety of ingredients. See Vol. IV. p. 343, note *. Augustine.

did not confer righteousness: and their sacrifices, being in blood, (if we remove from them their typical signification, and what they prefigured, which was the shedding of the blood of the Lamb which takes away the sins of the world) must necessarily create and excite a natural horror in man, and an averseness from them. Take their sacraments into comparison, and then one of their sacraments, circumcision, was limited to one sex, it reached not to women; and their other sacrament, the passover, was in the primary signification and institution thereof, only a gratulatory commemoration of a temporal benefit of their deliverance from Egypt. And therefore to constitute a judgment proportionably by the effects, we see the law, and the sacrifice, and the sacraments of the Jews, did not much work upon foreign nations; it was salvation, but salvation shut up amongst themselves; whereas we see that the law of the Christians, which is, to conform ourselves to our great example and pattern, Christ Jesus, who, (if we would consider him merely as man) was the most exemplar man, for all theological virtues, and moral too, that ever any history presented; and the sacrifices of Christians, which are all spiritual, and therein more proportional to God who is all Spirit; and the sacraments of Christians, in which, though not ex opere operator, not because that action is performed, not because that sacrament is administered, yet ex pacto, and quando opus operamur: by God's covenant, whensoever that action is performed, whensoever that sacrament is administered, the grace of God is exhibited and offered; Nec fallaciter, as Calvin says well, It is offered with a purpose on God's part, that that grace should be accepted, we see, I say that these laws, and these sacrifices, and these sacraments have gained upon the whole world; for in their nature, and in their attractiveness, and in their appliableness, and so in their effect, they are potiora, better, and in that respect, salvation is nearer us than it was to the Jews.

And so it is, lastly, quia manifestiora, because they have an evidence and manifestation of themselves in themselves. Now, this is especially true in the sacraments, because the sacraments exhibit and convey grace; and grace is such a light, such a torch, such a beacon, as where it is, it is easily seen. As there is a lustre in a precious stone, which no man's eye or finger can limit

to a certain place or point in that stone, so though we do not assign in the sacrament, where, that is, in what circumstance or part of that holy action grace is or when, or how it enters, (for though the word of consecration alter the bread, not to another thing, but to another use and though they leave it bread, yet they make it other bread, yet the enunciation of those words doth not infuse nor imprint this grace, which we speak of, into that bread) yet whosoever receives this sacrament worthily, sees evidently an entrance, and a growth of grace in himself. But this evidence which we speak of this manifestation, is not only, (though especially) in the sacraments, but in other sacramental and ceremonial things, which God (as he speaks by his church) hath ordained, as the cross in baptism, and adoration at the sacrament (I do not say, I am far from saying, adoration of the sacrament; there is a fair distance and a spacious latitude between those two, an adoring of God in a devout humiliation of the body in that holy action, and an adoring the bread, out of a false imagination that that bread is God: a rectified man may be very humble and devout in that action, and yet a great way on this side the superstition and idolatry in the practice of the Roman church) in these sacramental and ritual, and ceremonial things, which are the bellows of devotion, and the subsidies of religion, and which were always in all churches, there is a more evident manifestation and clearness in these things in the Christian church, than was amongst the Jews in the ceremonial parts of their religion, because almost all ours have reference to that which is already done and accomplished, and not to things of a future expectation, as those of the Jews were: so you know the passover of the Jews, had a relation to their coming out of Egypt; that was past, and thereby obvious to every man's apprehension; every man that eat the passover, remembered their deliverance out of Egypt; but then the passover had also relation to that Lamb which was to redeem that world; and this was a future thing; and this certainly very few amongst them understood, or considered upon that occasion, that as thy lamb is killed here, so there shall be a Lamb killed for all the world hereafter. Now, our actions in the church, do most respect things formerly done, and so they awaken, and work upon our memory, which is an easier faculty to work

upon, than the understanding or the will. Salvation is nearer us, in these outward helps, because their signification is clearer to us, and more apprehensible by us, being of things past, and accomplished already. So then the apostle might well say that salvation, that is, outward means of salvation, was nearer, that is, more in number, better in use, clearer in evidence than it was before; quando crediderunt, when they believed, which is the third and last term, in this first acceptation of the word. Salvation was brought into the world, in the first promise of a Messias in the semen contract, that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head; and it was brought nearer, when this Messias was fixed in Abraham's race, In semine tuo, In thy seed shall all nations be blessed; it was brought nearer than that, when it was brought from Abraham's race to David's family, In solio tuo, The sceptre shall not depart from thee, till he come; and still nearer, in Isaiah's virgo concipiet, when so particular mark was set upon the Messias, as that he should be the son of a virgin; and yet nearer in Micah's et tu Bethlem, that Bethlem was designed for the place of his birth; and nearer in Daniel's seventy weeks, when the time was manifested. And though it were nearer than all this, when John Baptist came to say, Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand, yet it was truly very near, nearest of all, when Christ came to say, Behold the kingdom of God is amongst you'; for all the rest were in the crediderunt, he was nearer them because they believed he would come; but then it was brought to the viderunt, they saw he was come. Beati, says Christ: Blessed are they that have believed, and have not seen3: they had salvation brought nearer unto them by their believing; but yet Christ speaks of another manner of blessedness conferred upon his disciples, Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear'; for, verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men, have desired to see the things which ye see, and have not seen them. To end this, the belief of the patriarchs was blessedness; and it was a kind of seeing too; for so Christ says, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it1: but this was a

6 Matt. iii. 2.
Matt. xiii. 16.

8 John xx. 29.

7 Luke xvii. 21.

10 John viii. 56.

seeing with the eye of faith which discovers future things; but Christ prefers the blessedness of the disciples, because they saw things present and already done. All our life is a passing bell, but then was Simeon content his bell should ring out, when his eyes had seen his salvation. In that especially doth St. John exalt the force of his argument; Qua vidimus: That which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life, that declare we unto you". Here is then the inestimable prerogative of the Christian religion, it is grounded so far upon things which were seen to be done; it is brought so far from matter of faith, to matter of fact; from prophecy to history; from what the Messias should do, to what he hath done; and that was their case to whom this apostle spake these words, as we take them in the first acceptation; salvation, that is, outward means of salvation in the church is

nearer, that is, more and better and clearer to you now, that is, when you have seen Christ in the flesh, than when you prefigured him in your law, or sacrifices, or sacraments, or believed him in your prophets.

In a second sense we took these words, of Christ's second advent, or coming, his coming to our heart, in the working of his grace; and so the apostle's words are directed to all Christians, and not only to the new convertites of that nation; and so these three terms, salvation, nearness, and believing, (which we proposed to be considered in all the three acceptations of the words) will have this signification. Salvation is the inward means of salvation, the working of the spirit, that sets a seal to the eternal means: the prope, the nearness lies in this, that this grace which is this salvation in this sense, grows out of that which is in you already; not out of any thing which is in you naturally, but God's first graces that are in you, grows into more and more grace. Grace does not grow out of nature; for nature in the highest exaltation and rectifying thereof cannot produce grace. Corn does not grow out of the earth, it must be sowed; but corn grows only in the earth; nature, and natural reason do not produce grace, but yet grace can take root in no other thing but in the nature and reason of man; whether we consider God's subsequent

11 1 John i. 1.