some of the more speculative philosophers had got some beams of this light, but because they saw it would not be believed, they let it alone, they said little of it. Hence is it that St. Augustine says", if Plato and his disciples should rise from the dead, and come now into our streets, and see those great congregations, which thrust and throng every Sabbath, and every day of holy convocation, to the worship of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, this it is likely they would say, says he, Hæc sunt, quæ populis persuadere non ausi, consuetudini cessimus, This is that religion, which because it consisted so much in future things, we durst not propose to the people, but were fain to leave them to those present, and sensible, and visible things, to which they had been accustomed before, lest when we had shaken them in their old religion, we should not be able to settle, and establish them in the new; and, as in civil government, a tyranny is better than an anarchy, a hard king better than none, so when we consider religions, idolatry is better than atheism, and superstition better than profaneness. Not that the idolater shall any more be saved than the atheist; but that the idolater having been accustomed to some sense and worship of God (of God in his estimation) is therefore apter to receive religious impressions, than the atheist is. In this then consists this second act of Christ's mercy to us in this word, I came, I am actually, really, personally, presentially come, so that those types and figures and sacrifices, which represented Christ to the old world, were not more visible to the eye, more palpable to the hand, more obvious to the very bodily senses, that Christ himself hath been since to us. Therefore St. John does not only rest in that, That which was from the beginning", (Christ was always in purpose, in prophecy, in promise) nor in that, That which we have heard, (the world heard of Christ long before they saw him) but he proceeds to that, That which we have seen, and looked upon with our eyes, and handled with our hands, that declare we unto you. So that we are now delivered from that jealousy that possessed those Septuagint, those translators, that they durst not speak plain, and delivered from that suspicion that possessed Plato, and his disciples, that the people were incapable of that doctrine. We know that

De vera relig. cap. 4.

45 1 John i. 1.

Christ is come, and we avow it, and we preach it, and we affirm, that it is not only as impious, and irreligious a thing, but as senseless, and as absurd a thing to deny that the Son of God hath redeemed the world, as to deny that God hath created the world; and that he is as formally, and as gloriously a martyr that dies for this article, the Son of God is come, as he that dies for this, there is a God. And these two acts of his mercy, enwrapped in this one word, I came, (first, that he who is always present, out of an abundant love to man, studied a new way of coming, and then, that he who was but betrothed to the old world by way of promise, is married to us by an actual coming) will be farther explicated to us, in that, which only remains and constitutes our third, and last part, the end and purpose of his coming, That they might have life, and might have it more abundantly. And though this last part put forth many handles, we can but take them by the hand, and shake them by the hand, that is, open them, and so leave them.

First then in this last part, we consider the 'gift itself, the treasure, life, That they might have life. Now life is the character by which Christ specificates and denominates himself; life is his very name, and that name by which he consummates all his other names, I am the way, the truth, and the life"; and therefore does Peter justly and bitterly upbraid the Jews with that, Ye desired a murderer, (an enemy to life) to be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of Life". It is an honour to anything that it may be sworn by; by vulgar and trivial things men might not swear, How shall I pardon them this? says God, they have sworn by things that are not gods." And therefore God, who in so many places professes to swear by himself, and of whom the apostle says, That because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself, because he could propose no greater thing in himself, no clearer notion of himself than life, (for his life is his eternity, and his eternity is himself,) does therefore through all the law and the prophets still swear in that form, As I live, saith the Lord, and as the Lord liveth; still he swears by his own life; as that solemn oath which is mentioned in Daniel, is

46 John xiv. 6. 47 Acts iii. 14.

48 Jer. v. 7.

49 Heb. vi. 13.

conceived in that form too, He lift up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by him that liveth for ever50; that is, by God, and God in that notion as he is life. All that the queen and council could wish and apprecate to the king, was but that, life, O king, live for ever". God is life, and would not the death of any. We are not sure that stones have not life; stones may have life; neither (to speak humanly) is it unreasonably thought by them, that thought the whole world to be inanimated by one soul, and to be one entire living creature; and in that respect does St. Augustine prefer a fly before the sun, because a fly hath life, and the sun hath not. This is the worst that the apostle says of the young wanton widow, That if she live in pleasure, she is dead whilst she lives. So is that magistrate that studies nothing but his own honour, and dignity in his place, dead in his place; and that priest that studies nothing but his own ease, and profit, dead in his living; and that judge that dares not condemn a guilty person, and (which is the bolder transgression) dares condemn the innocent, deader upon the bench, then the prisoner at the bar; God hath included all that is good, in the name of life, and all that is ill in the name of death, when he says, See, I have set before thee life and good, death and evil. This is the reward proposed to our faith", to live by our faith; and this is the reward proposed to our works, to live by our works; all is life. And this fulness, this consummation of happiness, life, and the life of life, spiritual life, and the exaltation of spiritual life, eternal life, is the end of Christ's coming, I came that they might have life.

And first, that he might give life, bring life into the world, that there might be life to be had, that the world might be redeemed from that loss, which St. Augustine says it was fallen into, that we had all lost all possibility of life. For the heaven and the earth, and all that the poet would call chaos, was not a deader lump before the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, than mankind was, before the influence of Christ's coming wrought upon it. But now that God so loved the word, as that he gave his Son, now that the Son so loved the

50 Dan. xii. 7.

59 Deut. xxx. 15.

51 Dan. V.

52

1 Tim. v. 6. 54 Heb. ii. 4.

world, as that he gave himself, as David says of the sun of the firmament", the father of nature, there is nothing hid from the heat thereof; so we say of this Son of God, the Father of the faithful in a far higher sense than Abraham was called so, there is nothing hid from him, no place, no person excluded from the benefit of his coming. The Son hath paid, the Father hath received enough for all; not in single money, for the discharge of thy lesser debts, thy idle words, thy wanton thoughts, thy unchaste looks, but in massy talents, to discharge thy crying debts, the clamours of those poor whom thou hast oppressed, and thy thundering debts, those blasphemies by which thou hast toru that Father that made thee, that Son that redeemed thee, that holy Ghost that would comfort thee. There is enough given; but then, as Hiram sent materials sufficient for the building of the temple, but there was something else to be done, for the fitting and placing thereof; so there is life enough brought into the world, for all the world, by the death of Christ, but then there is something else to be done for the application of this life to particular persons, intended in this word in our text, came

THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE LIFE.

There is air enough in the world to give breath to everything, though everything do not breathe. If a tree, or a stone do not breathe, it is not because it wants air, but because it wants means to receive it, or to return it. All eggs are not hatched that the hens sits upon; neither could Christ himself get all the chickens that were hatched, to come, and to stay under his wings. That man that is blind, or that will wink, shall see no more sun upon St. Barnabie's day, than upon St. Lucie's; no more in the summer, than in the winter solstice. And therefore as there is a plentiful redemption brought into the world by the death of Christ, so (as St. Paul found it in his particular conversion) there is a great and a powerful light exhibited to us, that we might see, and lay hold of this life, in the ordinances of the church, in the confessions, and absolutions, and services, and sermons, and sacraments of the church: Christ came that he might bring life into the world, by his death, and then he instituted his church, that by the means thereof this life might

be infused into us, and infused so, as the last word of our text delivers it, I came, that they might have life MORE ABUNDANTLY.

Dignaris Domine, ut eis, quibus debita dimittis, te, promissionibus tuis, debitorem facias", This, O Lord, is thine abundant proceeding; first, thou forgivest me my debt to thee, and then thou makest thyself a debtor to me by thy large promises; and, after all, performest those promises more largely than thou madest them. Indeed, God can do nothing scantily, penuriously, singly. Even his maledictions, (to which God is ever loath to come) his first commination was plural, it was death, and death upon death; Morte morieris. Death may be plural; but this benediction of life cannot admit a singular; Chajim, which is the word for life, hath no singular number. This is the difference between God's mercy, and his judgments, that sometimes his judgments may be plural, complicated, enwrapped in one another, but his mercies are always so, and cannot be otherwise; he gives them more abundantly.

More abundantly than to whom? The natural man hath the image of God imprinted in his soul; eternity is God himself, man hath not that, not eternity; but the image of eternity, that is immortality, a post-eternity there is in the soul of man. And then, man is all soul in Moses' expression; for he does not say that man had, but that man became a living soul. So that the natural man hath life more abundantly than any other creature, (howsoever oaks, and crows, and harts may be said to out-live him) because he hath a life after this life. But Christ came to give life more abundantly than this.

That he did, when he came to the Jews in promises, in types, and figures, and sacrifices: he gave life more abundantly to the Jew, then to the Gentile, because he gave him better means to preserve that life, better means to illustrate that image of God in his soul, that is, to make his immortality immortal happiness, (for otherwise our immortality were our greatest curse) better means to conform himself to God, by having a particular law for the direction of all his actions, which the Gentiles had not. For, therein especially consisted the abundant favour of God to the Jews, as it is expressed by Moses, Unto what nation are their