body. You would have said, at noon, this light is the sun, and you will say now this light is the candle; that light was not the sun, this light is not the candle, but it is that portion of air which the sun did then, and which the candle doth now, enlighten. We say the Sacramental bread is the body of Christ, because God hath shed his ordinance upon it, and made it of another nature in the use, though not the substance. About six hundred years ago the Roman church made Berengarius swear, Sensualiter tangitur, frangitur, teritur corpus Christi, That the body of Christ was sensibly handled, and broken, and chewed. They are ashamed of that now, and have mollified it with many modifications; and God knows whether, one hundred years hence, they will not be as much ashamed of their transubstantiation, and see as much unnatural absurdity in their Trent canon or Lateran canon, as they do in Berengarius' oath. As they that deny the body of Christ to be in the Sacrament lose their footing in departing from their ground, the express Scriptures, so they that will assign a particular manner how that body is there, have no footing, no ground at all, no Scripture to anchor upon; and so, diving in a bottomless sea, they pop sometimes above water to take breath, to appear to say something, and then snatch at a loose preposition that swims upon the face of the waters; and so the Roman church had catched a trans, and others a con, and a sub, and an in, and varied their poetry into a transubstantiation, and a consubstantiation, and the rest, and rhymed themselves beyond reason into absurdities and heresies, and by a young figure of similiter cadens, they are fallen alike into error, though the errors that they are fallen into be not of a like nature nor danger. We offer to go no farther than according to his word; in the Sacrament our eyes see his salvation, according to that, so far as that hath manifested unto us, and in that light, we depart in without scruple in our own, without offence to other men's consciences.

peace,

Having thus seen Simeon in these his dimensions, with these holy impressions, these blessed characters upon him, first, (1,) a man in a reverend age, and then, (2,) in a holy function and calling, and with that, (3,) righteous in the eyes of men, and withal, (4,) devout in the eyes of God, (5,) and made a prophet

upon himself by the Holy Ghost, (6,) still waiting God's time and his leisure, (7,) and in that desiring that his joy might be spread upon the whole Israel of God, (8,) frequenting holy places, the temple, (9,) and that upon holy motions, and there, (10,) seeing the salvation of the Lord, that is, discerning the application of salvation in the ordinances of the church, (11,) and lastly, contenting himself with so much therein as was according to his word, and not inquiring farther than God had been pleased to reveal, and having reflected all these several beams upon every worthy receiver of the Sacrament, the whole choir of such worthy receivers may join with Simeon in this antiphon, Nunc dimittis, Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, &c. St. Ambrose reads not this place as we do, Nunc dimittis, but Nunc dimitte; not, Lord, thou doest so, but, Lord, do so; and so he gives it the form of a prayer, and implies not only a patience and a contentedness, but a desire and an ambition that he might die, at least such an indifferency and equanimity as Israel had when he had seen Joseph: Now let me die since I have seen thy face1; after he had seen his face, the next face that he desired to see was the face of God. For howsoever there may be some disorder, some irregularity in St. Paul's Anathema pro fratribus, that he desired to be separated from Christ rather than his brethren should, (that may scarce be drawn into consequence, or made a wish for us to imitate,) yet to St. Paul's Cupio dissolri, to an express and to a deliberate desire to be dissolved here, and to be united to Christ in heaven, (still with a primary relation to the glory of God, and a reservation of the will of God,) a godly, a rectified, and a well-disposed man may safely come. And so, (I know not upon what grounds,) Nicephorus says Simeon did wish, and had his wish; he prayed that he might die, and actually he did die then. Neither can a man at any time be fitter to make and obtain this wish, than when his eyes have seen his salvation in the Sacrament. At least make this an argument of your having been worthy receivers thereof, that you are in æquilibrio, in an evenness, in an indifferency, in an equanimity, whether ye die this night or no. For howsoever St. Ambrose seems to make it a direct prayer that he might die, he intends but such an

18 Gen. xLvi. 30.

equanimity, such an indifferency: Quasi servus non refugit vitæ obsequium, et quasi sapiens lucrum mortis amplectitur, says that father, Simeon is so good a servant, as that he is content to serve his old master still, in his old place, in this world, but yet he is so good a husband, too, as that he sees what a gainer he might be, if he might be made free by death. If thou desire not death, (that is the case of very few, to do so in a rectified conscience, and without distemper,) if thou beest not equally disposed towards death, (that should be the case of all, and yet we are far from condemning all that are not come to that equanimity,) yet if thou now fear death inordinately, I should fear that thine eyes have not seen thy salvation to-day. Who can fear the darkness of death, that hath had the light of this world, and of the next, too? who can fear death this night, that hath had the Lord of life in his hand to-day? It is a question of consternation, a question that should strike him that should answer it dumb, (as Christ's question, Amice, quomodo intrasti, Friend, how camest in hither? did him to whom that was said,) which Origen asks in this case, When wilt thou dare to go out of this world, if thou darest not go now, when Christ Jesus hath taken thee by the hand to lead thee out?

This, then, is truly to depart in peace; by the gospel of peace, to the God of peace. My body is my prison, and I would be so obedient to the law, as not to break prison; I would not hasten my death by starving or macerating this body; but if this prison be burnt down by continual fevers, or blown down with continual vapours, would any man be so in love with that ground upon which that prison stood, as to desire rather to stay there than to go home? Our prisons are fallen, our bodies are dead to many former uses; our palate dead in tastelessness; our stomach dead in an indigestibleness; our feet dead in a lameness, and our invention in a dulness, and our memory in a forgetfulness; and yet, as a man that should love the ground where his prison stood, we love this clay, that was a body in the days of our youth, and but our prison then, when it was at best; we abhor the graves of our bodies; and the body, which, in the best vigour thereof, was but the grave of the soul, we over-love. Pharaoh's butler1 and

19 Gen. XL.

his baker went both out of prison in a day, and in both cases Joseph, in the interpretation of their dreams, calls that (their very discharge out of prison,) a lifting up of their heads, a kind of preferment. Death raises every man alike, so far as that it delivers every man from his prison, from the incumbrances of this body; both baker and butler were delivered of their prison, but they passed into divers states after, one to the restitution of his place, the other to an ignominious execution. Of thy prison thou shalt be delivered whether thou wilt or no; thou must die: Fool, this night thy soul may be taken from thee, and then, what thou shalt be to-morrow, prophesy upon thyself, by that which thou hast done to-day. If thou didst depart from that table in peace, thou canst depart from this world in peace. And the peace of that table is, to come to it in pace desiderii, with a contented mind, and with an enjoying of those temporal blessings which thou hast, without macerating thyself, without usurping upon others, without murmuring at God; and to be at that table, in pace cogitationis, in the peace of the church, without the spirit of contradiction or inquisition, without uncharitableness towards others, without curiosity in thyself. And then to come from that table in pace domestica, with a bosom peace in thine own conscience in that seal of thy reconciliation, in that Sacrament; that so, riding at that anchor, and in that calm, whether God. enlarge thy voyage by enlarging thy life, or put thee into the harbour, by the breath, by the breathlessness of death, either way, east or west, thou mayest depart in peace according to his word, that is, as he shall be pleased to manifest his pleasure upon thee.

79

SERMON V.

preached at ST. PAUL'S ON CHRISTMAS-DAY, 1627.

EXOD. iv. 13.

O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.

Ir hath been suspiciously doubted, and more than that, freely disputed, and more than that too, absolutely denied, that Christ was born the five-and-twentieth of December; that this is Christmas-day yet for all these doubts and disputations, and denials, we forbear not, with the whole church of God, constantly and confidently to celebrate this for his day. It hath been doubted, and disputed, and denied, too, that this text, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send, hath any relation to the sending of the Messiah, to the coming of Christ, to Christmas-day; yet we forbear not to wait upon the ancient fathers, and, as they said, to say, that Moses having received a commandment from God to undertake that great employment of delivering the children of Israel from the oppressions of Pharaoh in Egypt, and having excused himself by some other modest and pious pretensions, at last, when God pressed the employment still upon him, he determines all in this, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send, or, (as it is in our margin,) whom thou shouldest send. It is a work next to the great work of the redemption of the whole world, to redeem Israel out of Egypt; and therefore do both works at once, put both into one hand, and mitte quem missurus es: send him whom I know thou wilt send, him whom, pursuing thine own decree, thou shouldest send; send Christ, send him now, to redeem Israel from Egypt.

These words then (though some have made that interpretation of them, and truly not without a fair appearance and probability and verisimilitude,) do not necessarily imply a slackness in Moses' zeal, that he desired not affectionately and earnestly the deliverance of his nation from the pressures of Egypt; nor do they imply any diffidence or distrust that God could not, or