But I persuade myself better things of you all, that hear me this day. There is none of you, I hope, but would be glad to strew his garments, his olive-boughs, yea his myrtles and laurels, yea crown and sceptre, under the feet of Christ, and cry, Hosannah altissimo. Oh then, if you be in earnest, take the Psalmist's counsel; Osculamini filium: give him the kiss of homage, of obedience.

Let me have leave to say, that this charge is there given to the great princes and rulers of the earth: they, who honour others with a kiss of their hand, must honour themselves with the humble kiss of his no power can exempt from this sweet subjection. Ecce servus tuus, Behold, I am thy servant, saith David; yea, and vilior ero, I will be yet more vile for the Lord. Tremble before his footstool, O ye Great Ones, that bindeth Kings with chains and Nobles with fetters of iron; Psalm exlix. 8. Your very height enforces your obedience: the detrectation whereof hath no other, but, Potentes potenter punientur, “Mighty ones shall be mightily tormented." As an angel of God, so is my lord the king; as that wise Tekoan said. Do ye not see, how awful, how submiss the angels of heaven are? Before his throne, they hide their faces with their wings; and, from his throne, at his command, they wait upon base and sinful flesh. It was a great praise, that was given to Placilla the wife of Theodosius, in Theodoret's History; Neque enim imperii principatu extollebatur, &c. Her throne had not over-carried her thoughts; but enflamed her holy desires the more for the largeness of God's blessing so much more intendedher love to the giver." Let me be bold to say, we have seen, we have seen the incomparable favours of God to your Sacred Majesty; we, that were witnesses both of the weakness of your cradle, and the strength of your throne: and what loyal heart did not feel the danger of your late southern voyage, and the safety of your return? Go on happily to fear and honour that God, who hath so blessed you, and us in you. Yield still unto the Son of God the faithful kisses of your reverence, loyalty, observance he shall return unto you the happy kisses of his Divine Love and Favour; and, after a long and safe protection, the dear embracements of an eternal welcome to Glory.

III. Thus much of the Negation; Christ is not our King. The IMPLICATION follows; Christ is not our King, because Cæsar is. The Anabaptist and the Jew are so cross, that I wonder how one Amsterdam can hold them both: the Anabaptist says, "Cæsar is not our King, because Christ is :" the Jew says, "Christ is not our King, because Cæsar is:" both of them equally absurd. Could there be a more ignorant paralogism than this, wherewith the foolish Jews beguiled themselves? as if these two, Christ and Caesar, had been utterly incompatible. This senseless misprision was guilty of all the plots against Christ. Herod no sooner hears of a King of the Jews, than he startles

up; and is straight jealous of his crown: the Jews hear of a King; and they are jealous of Cæsar's crown: the Cæsars following hear of a King; and they are jealous of the Jews; for, as Suetonius tells us in the Life of Vespasian, Percrebuerat in Oriente toto vetus et constans opinio, esse in fatis ut Judæi hoc tempore rerum potirentur; "It was an old and constant conceit all the East over, that the Jews were about this time destined to rule." This was on all hands an ignorant, an injurious scrupulosity. O vain men! could they but have known, that this was he, that truly said, Per me Reges regnant, By me Kings reign, they had concluded, Cæsar could be no king but from him, Earthly jurisdiction is derived from this heavenly. It is he, that makes this, a monarch; that, a prince; that other, a peer: Omnis potestas, All power is given to him both in heaven and earth; and, from him, to men. Cæsar hath his crown from Christ: so far is Christ from pulling the Crown from Cæsar.

There were two points of State, which, if they had known, would have secured them from these idle fears; the Subordination, the Diversity of Christ's kingdom and Cæsar's.

Subordination for Christ is the founder of all just sovereignty: he can be no enemy to it. Plainly, Christ is Cæsar's Lord; Cæsar is Christ's Deputy. The deputed power is not against the original; but, as by it, so for it. As Cæsar was Christ's Lord in forma servi; (ye know his charge, Give to Cæsar the things that are Casar's; and the liquid coffer of the sea shall rather yield the Didrachma than he will not pay it, Matt. xvii. 27.) so Christ is Cæsar's Lord in the Sovereignty of his Deity: Solus supra Cæsarem Deus, qui fecit Cæsarem; None above Cæsar, but the God that made Cæsar;" as that Father said. There can be no contrariety in subordination. So is Cæsar to Christ, as earth is to heaven; under, not against it. All the life, and. motion, of any earthly creature is from the influences of heaven; without which, this whole globe were nothing but a dull and drossy clod.

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And, as here is subordination one way, so Diversity another. Pilate questioned our Saviour punctually of his Kingdom; Art thou a King? He denies not; but distinguishes: My Kingdom is not of this world; John xviii. 36. Lo, Christ's Kingdom was not of this world; Cæsar's, was not of the other: here can be no danger of opposition. Audite Judæi, audite Gentes, as St. Austin wittily, "Hear, O Jews, hear, O Gentiles: I hinder not your dominion in this world, for mine is of another. Fear not Herod's vain fear, who killed the infants to rid Christ (timendo magis quàm irascendo crudelior) more cruel in his fear than in his rage. My. Kingdom, he says, is not of this world. Oh come then to that kingdom, which is not of this world; come in believing, and do not tyrannize in fearing." Thus he. "This King came not into the world to subdue kings by fighting, but to win them by dying ;",

as Fulgentius well. "Neither doth he take away mortal kingdoms, who gives heavenly;" as the Christian Poet said aright.

Upon both these grounds, therefore, it is a blasphemous inconsequence, "Cæsar is our king, therefore not Christ:" yea, therefore Cæsar, because Christ. Religion doth not cross policy, but perfects it rather. Give me leave, I beseech you, to press this point a little.

It is religion, that teacheth us, that God hath ordained kingly Sovereignty; Rom. xiii. 1: ordained it immediately. That position was worthy of a Red Hat, Potestas Principis dimanavit à populo, Pontificis à Deo, (Bellarm. Recogn.) in the Recognition of the book de Laicis: purposely raised to depress the dignity of kings, to advance the priesthood. I am sure, Samuel (when it was) said, Ecce, præfecit vobis Jehovah Regem; Behold, God hath set a King over you; 1 Sam. xii. 13. And Kings are wont to have no less title than Unctus Jehova, the Anointed of the Lord; not unctus populi, the anointed of the people; 1 Sam. xxiv. 6. 2 Sam. i. 14. Daniel could say of God, He removes Kings, and setteth up Kings; Dan. ii. 21. What need I persuade Christian Kings and Princes, that they hold their crowns and sceptres as in fee from the God of Heaven? Cyrus himself had so much divinity; Ezra i. 2.

It is religion, that teaches us, that the same power, which ordained Cæsar, enjoins all faithful subjection to Cæsar; not for fear, but for conscience; Rom. xiii. 5. Tribute to whom tribute, honour to whom honour; yea, all devout prayers for a Nero himself; 1 Tim. ii. 2: curbing both the tongue and the heart; Thou shalt not curse the King in thy thoughts, nor the rich in thy bedchamber; Eccl. x. 20.

It is religion, that teaches us, that vengeance shall be sure to follow rebellion; Nuntius crudelis; Prov. xvii. 11: yea, no less than hell and damnation; Rom. xiii. 2.

Cursed be they, that say, religion is only to keep men in awe; and cursed be he, that says, there is any so sure way to keep men in awe as religion. Go, ye Crafty Politics, and rake hell for reasons of State: ye shall once find that there is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord. It was a true and well-grounded resolution of Constantius, that "they cannot be faithful to their King, who are perfidious to their God."

Let the great Cæsars of the world then know, that the more subject they are to Christ, the more sure they are of the loyalty of their subjects to them. Neither is there, in all the world, any so firm and strait bond to tie the hearts of their people to them, as true religion to God.

To conclude therefore, Christ is not Cæsar's rival, but Cæsar's Lord and Patron. Cæsar rules by his laws; Christ, by religion. If execution be the life of laws, I am sure religion is the life of execution. In short, religion is the strongest pillar of policy;

the base of the palace; the feet and arms of the chair of state; the frame of the council-board.

As ye love your peace, ye Great Ones, make much of it: plant it, where it is not; enlarge it, where it is: maintain it, at home; encourage it, abroad. And, if distressed Religion shall come, with her face blubbered and her garments rent, wringing her hands and tearing her hair, and shall prostrate herself at the feet of earthly Greatness for lawful succour, with veni opitulari, come and help, as Macedonia in the Acts; woe be to the power, that fails it and blessed, thrice blessed from heaven be that hand, that shall raise her on her feet, and wipe off her tears, and stretch out itself mightily for her safeguard! Let me never prosper, if that hand make not that head immortally glorious.

For us, blessed be God, we live here in the warm zone: where the hot beams of the Sun of Righteousness beat right down upon our heads.

But what need I tell your Sacred Majesty, that, in the northwest part of your dominions, there are some that live in the frozen and dark climate of ignorance and superstition; whose eyes have seldom, if ever, been blest with so much as an oblique irradiation of the Gospel? I know the bowels of your princely compassion cannot but be stirred with the misery of these poor Cimmerian souls, that have not so much light as to wish more. Oh, may it please your Gracious Majesty to shine into those darksome corners, by improving your Sovereign Authority to the commanding of a learned and powerful Ministry amongst them. Let true religion be settled in them; and true religion shall settle their hearts to your Majesty, more than all conquests, laws, violences, oaths, endearments whatsoever.

And, for these happy regions, which are comfortably illuminated with the saving doctrine of Jesus Christ, may it please you to forbid their impuration, by the noisome fogs and mists of those mis-opinions, whose very principles are professedly rebellious; as being well assured, that the more your Majesty shall advance the Spiritual Kingdom of Christ, the more he shall advance the strength and glory of your Temporal: the more perfectly he is your Christ, the more unmoveably shall you be his Cæsar. And may he still and ever be yours, and you his, till earth and time be no more; till he shall have delivered up his Mediatory Kingdom into the hands of his Father: To whom, &c.

SERMON XXII.

SAINT PAUL'S COMBAT.

IN TWO SERMONS.

PREACHED AT THE COURT TO HIS MAJESTY, IN ORDINARY ATTENDANCE.

1 Cor. xv. 32.

If, after the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus,

&c.

Εθηριομάχησα.

OUR Saviour foretold us, that these last days should be quarrelsome. All the world doth either act, or talk of fighting. Give me leave therefore, to fall upon the common theme of the times; and to tell you of a Holy Combat.

St. Peter tells us, there are many knots in St. Paul's Epistles: this may well go for one of them, which is the relation of his conflict at Ephesus.

There are, that have held it literal; and those not mean, nor only modern authors.

Nicephorus tells us a round tale of St. Paul's commitment to prison by Hieronymus the governor of Ephesus; his miraculous deliverance for the Christening of Eubula and Artemilla; his voluntary return to his gaol; his casting to the lion; of the beast couching at the feet of the Saint; of the hail-storm sending away the beholders with broken heads, and the governor with one ear shorn off; of the lion's escape to the mountains ; (Nic. 1. ii. c. 25.) It is a wonder in what mint he had it. There was indeed a theatre at Ephesus for such purposes; Acts xix. 29: and, Christianos ad leonem, was a common word; as we find in Tertullian. Ignatius, Tecla, Prisca, and many other blessed martyrs were corn allotted to this mill.

But what is this to St. Paul's Combat? It is one thing, to be cast to the beasts, as an offender; another thing, to fight with beasts, as a champion; a difference, which I wonder the sharp eyes of Erasmus saw not. Those were forced by the sentence of condemnation; these voluntaries, as in the Jogo de toros those were brought to suffer; these came to kill: those naked; these armed. Can any man be so senseless, as to think that St. Paul (tricubitalis ille, as Chrysostom calls him) would put himself into the theatre with his sword and target, to main