SERMON XVII.

THE BEAUTY AND UNITY OF THE CHURCH:

IN A SERMON PREACHED AT WHITEHALL.

CANTICLES VI. 9.

My Dove, my Undefiled, is One.

OUR last day's discourse was, as you heard, of War and Dissipation: this shall be of Love and Unity.

Away with all profane thoughts: every syllable in this BridalSong is Divine. Who doubts that the Bridegroom is Christ, the Bride his Church? the Church, whether at large in all the faithful, or abridged in every faithful soul.

Christ the Bridegroom praises the Bride, his Church, for her Beauty, for her Entireness. For her Beauty, she is Columba, A Dove; she is perfecta, undefiled. Her entireness is praised by her Propriety in respect of him, Columba mea, My Dove; by her Unity in respect of herself, Una, One alone. My Dove, my Undefiled is but One. So as the BEAUTIFUL SINCERITY, the DEAR PROPRIETY, the INDIVISIBLE UNITY of the whole Church in common, and of the epitome thereof every Regenerate Soul, is the matter of my Text, of my speech. Let your holy attention follow me, and find yourselves in every particular.

I. The two first titles, Columba and perfecta, are in effect but one. This creature hath a pleasing BEAUTY, and an innocent SIMPLICITY: Columba imports the one, and perfecta the other; yea, each both: for what is the perfection which can be attained here, but Sincerity? and what other is our honest Sincerity, than those graceful proportions and colours which make us appear Lovely in the eyes of God?

The undefiled then interprets the Dove; and convertibly for, therefore is the Church undefiled, because she is a Dove: she is, as Christ bade her, dxépauos, innocent; Matt. x. 16, and therefore is she Christ's Dove, because she is undefiled with the gall of spiritual bitterness.

Would you rather see these graces apart? Look then, first, at the Loveliness; then, at the Harmlessness, of the Church, of the Soul.

1. Every thing in the Dove is AMIABLE; her eyes; Cant. i. 15: her feathers; Psalm lxviii. 13: and what not? So is the Church in the eyes of Christ: and therefore the Vulgate translation puts both these together, Columba mea, formosa mea; My dove, my

fair one; Cant. ii. 10, which Lucas Brugensis confesses not to be in the Hebrew, yet adds, Ne facilè omittas.

Thy Dove, O God? Yea, why not thy Raven rather? I am sure she can say of herself, I am black: and, if our own hearts condemn us, thou art greater. Alas! what canst thou see in us but the pustules of corruption, the morphews of deformity, the hereditary leprosy of sin, the pestilential spots of death? And dost thou say, My Dove, my undefiled? Let malice speak her worst. The Church says she is black; but she says she is comely: and that is fair, that pleaseth. Neither doth God look upon us with our eyes, but with his own: He sees not as man seeth. The king's daughter is all glorious within: finite eyes reach not thither. The skin-deep beauty of earthly faces, is a fit object for our shallow sense, that can see nothing but colour.

Have ye not seen some pictures, which, being looked on one way, shew some ugly beast or bird; another way, shew an exquisite face? Even so doth God see our best side, with favour; while we see our worst, with rigour.

Not that his justice sees any thing, as it is not; but that his mercy will not see some things, as they are. Blessed is the man, whose sin is covered; Psalm xxxii. 1. If we be foul; yet thou, O Saviour, art glorious. Thy Righteousness beautifies us, who are blemished by our own corruptions.

But what? shall our borrowed beauty blemish, the while, thine infinite Justice? Shall we taint thee, to clear ourselves? Dost thou justify the wicked? Dost thou feather the Raven with the wings of the Dove? While the cloth is fair, is the skin nasty? Is it no more, but to deck a blackmore with white? Even with the long white robes which are the justifications of saints? God forbid! Cursed be he, O Lord, that makes thy mercies unjust. No; whom thou accountest holy, thou makest so: whom thou justifiest, him thou sanctifiest. No man can be perfectly just in thee, who is not truly, though unperfectly, holy in himself.

Whether therefore, as fully just by thy gracious imputation, or as inchoately just by thy gracious inoperation, we are in both thy Dove, thy Undefiled. In spite of all the blemishes of her outward administrations, God's Church is beautiful: in spite of her inward weaknesses, the faithful soul is comely in spite of both, each of them is a dove, each of them undefiled. It is with both, as he said long since of physicians, "The sun sees their successes, the earth hides their errors." None of their unwilling infirmities can hinder the God of Mercies from a gracious allowance of their integrity; Behold, thou art all fair.

But let no idle Donatist of Amsterdam dream hence of an Utopical perfection. Even here is the Dove still: but Columba seducta, or fatua (as Tremellius reads it) Ephraim; Ephraim is a silly, seduced Dove; Hos. vii. 11. The rifeness of their familiar excommunications, may have taught them to seek for a spotless

ness above. And if their furious censures had left but one man in their Church, yet that one man would have need to excommunicate the greater half of himself, the old man in his own bosom. Our Church may too truly speak of them, in the voice of God, Woe to them, for they have fled from me; Hos. vii. 13. It is not in the power of their uncharity, to make the rest of God's Church, and ours, any other than what it is, the Dove of Christ, the undefiled.

2. The HARMLESSNESS follows. A quality so eminent in the dove, that our Saviour hath hereupon singled it out for a hieroglyphic of Simplicity. Whence it was, questionless, that God, of all fowls, chose out this for his sacrifice: Sin ex aliquá volucri ; Lev. i. 14. And, before the Law, Abraham was appointed no other, Gen. xv. 9, than a turtle and a pigeon: neither did the Holy Virgin offer any other, at her Purifying, than this emblem of herself and her Blessed Babe. Shortly, hence it was that a dove was employed for the messenger of the exsiccation of the Deluge: no fowl so fit to carry an olive of peace to the Church, which she represented. And lastly, in a dove the Holy Ghost descended upon the meek Saviour of the World: whence, as Illyricus and some ancients have guessed, the sellers of doves were whipped out of the Temple, as Simoniacal chafferers of the Holy Ghost.

The Church then is a Dove. Not an envious Partridge, not a careless Ostrich, not a stridulous Jay, not a petulant Sparrow, not a deluding Lapwing, not an unclean-fed Duck, not a nosoime Crow, not an unthankful Swallow, not a death-boding ScreechOwl; but a harmless Dove, that fowl, in which alone envy itself can find nothing to tax.

Hear this then, ye Violent Spirits, that think there can be no piety that is not cruel; the Church is a Dove: not a Glead, not a Vulture, not a Falcon, not an Eagle, not any Bird of Prey or Rapine. Who ever saw the rough foot of the Dove armed with griping talons? Who ever saw the beak of the Dove bloody? Who ever saw that innocent bird pluming of her spoil, and tyring upon bones?

Indeed, we have seen the Church crimson-suited, like her celestial Husband; of whom the Prophet, Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? And straight, Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garment like him that treadeth in the wine-press? Isaiah lxiii. 1, 2: but it hath been with her own blood, shed by others; not with others' blood, shed by her hand. She hath learned to suffer, what she hateth to inflict.

Do ye see any faction with knives in their hands, stained with massacres; with firebrands in their hands, ready to kindle the unjust stakes, yea woods of martyrdom; with pistols and poniards in their hands, ambitiously affecting a canonization by the death of God's Anointed; with matches in their hands, ready to give fire unto that powder, which shall blow up King, Prince, State,

Church with thunderbolts of censures, ready to strike down into hell whosoever refuses to receive novel opinions into the Articles of Faith? If ye find these dispositions and actions Dove-like, applaud them, as beseeming the true Spouse of Christ, who is ever like herself, Columba perfecta, yea, perfecta columba, a true Dove for her quiet Innocence.

For us, let our Dove-ship approve itself in meekness of suffering; not in actions of cruelty. We may, we must delight in blood; but the blood shed for us, not shed by us. Thus let us be Columba in foraminibus petræ ; Cant. ii. 14. a Dove in the clefts of the rock; that is, in vulneribus Christi, In the wounds of Christ, as the Gloss; in the gashes of him, that is the true Rock of the Church. This is the way to be innocent, to be beautiful, a dove, and undefiled.

II. The PROPRIETY follows; My Dove. The kite, or the crow, or the sparrow, and such like, are challenged by no owner; but the Dove still hath a master. The world runs wild; it is feræ naturæ: but the Church is Christ's; domestically, entirely his: My Dove; not the world's, not her own.

Not the world's for, If ye were of the world, saith our Saviour, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you; John xv. 19.

Not her own so St. Paul; 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20. Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price.

Justly then may he say, My Dove. "Mine, for I made her;" there is the right of Creation: "Mine, for I made her again;" there is the right of Regeneration: "Mine, for I bought her;" there is the right of Redemption: "Mine, for I made her mine;" there is the right of spiritual and inseparable Union.

O God, be we thine, since we are thine. We are thine by thy merit let us be thine in our affections, in our obedience. It is our honour, it is our happiness, that we may be thine. Have thou all thine own. What should any piece of us be cast away, upon the vain glory and trash of this transitory world? Why should the powers of darkness run away with any of our services, in the momentary pleasures of sin? The great King of Heaven hath cast his love upon us, and hath espoused us to himself in truth and righteousness; Oh then, why will we cast roving and lustful eyes upon adulterous rivals, base drudges? Yea, why will we run on madding after ugly devils? How justly shall he loathe us, if we be thus shamefully prostituted? Away then with all our unchaste glances of desires, all unclean ribaldry of conversation: let us say mutually, with the blessed Spouse, My Beloved is mine, and I am his; Cant. ii. 16.

My Dove: mine, as to love; so to defend. That inference is natural, I am thine, save me. Interest challenges protection. The hand says, "It is my head; therefore I will guard it:" the

head says, "It is my hand; therefore I will devise to arm it, to withdraw it from violence:" the soul says, " It is my body; therefore I will cast to cherish it:" the body says, “It is my soul; therefore I would not part with it." The husband says, Bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; and therefore are, he makes much of her; Eph. v. 29. And, as she is desiderium oculorum, the delight of his eyes, to him; Ezek. xxiv. 16. so is he operimentum oculorum, the shelter of her eyes, to her; Gen. xx. 16. In all cases, it is thus. So as, if God say of the Church, Columba mea, My Dove, she cannot but say of him, Adjutor meus, My Helper. Neither can it be otherwise, save where is lack, either of love or power. Here can be no lack of either: not of love; he saith, Whoso toucheth Israel toucheth the apple of mine eye: not of power; Our God doth whatsoever he will, both in heaven and earth.

Band you yourselves therefore, ye bloody Tyrants of the World, against the poor despised Church of God: threaten to trample it to dust; and, when you have done, to carry away that dust upon the soles of your shoes: He, that sits in heaven, laughs you to scorn; the Lord hath you in derision. O Virgin daughter of Sion, they have despised thee: O daughter of Jerusalem, they have shaken their heads at thee. But whom have ye reproached and blasphemed? And against whom have ye exalted your voice, and lift up your eyes on high? Even against the Holy One of Israel, who hath said, Columba mea, My Dove.

Yea, let all the spiritual wickednesses in heavenly places, all the legions of hell troop together, they shall as soon be able to pluck God out of his throne of heaven, as to pull one feather from the wing of this Dove. This Propriety secures her: she is Columba mea, My Dove.

III. From the Propriety, turn your eyes to the best of her properties, UNITY.

Let me leave arithmeticians disputing whether unity be a num ber. I am sure, it is both the beginning of all numbering numbers, and the beginning and end of all numbers numbered.

1. All PERFECTION rises hence, and runs hither; and every thing, the nearer it comes to perfection, gathers up itself the more towards unity as all the virtue of the loadstone is recollected into one point.

Jehovah our God is one: from him, there is but one world, one heaven in that world, one sun in that heaven, one uniform face of all that glorious vault: the nature of the holy Angels is one and simple, as creatures can be: the Head of Angels and Saints, one Saviour; whose blessed Humanity, if it carry some semblance of composition, yet it is answered by a threefold union of one and the same subject, a double union of the Deity with the Humanity, a third union of the Humanity in itself. So that, as in the Deity there is one essence and three