a dull and drowsie faculty a great deal of do to make it ready and besides it is somewhat cowardly in point of danger It dares not shew it self the least agitation makes it run away and my self hath partly spared it for your sake and the University My present Sermon is but a Brief I would desire you to hear it read You may please to turn to the Text It s written Acts 2.1 the latter part They were all with one accord in one place Man ceaseth to be Man if we conceive him all-sufficient God onely is so He onely is all-sufficient who is onely Almighty Mans being and his good is indigency and want his chiefest business is to contend against it and his happiness to abolish it Private want is an occasion of difference and dissent but common want the common cause of Concord the Parent and procurer of moral unity and all humane societies So all our Assemblies are grounded upon want sometimes to give thanks that the past hath been supplied but commonly to supply the wants present The reason is that when a Plurality of Agents are united in their efficacy the operation is farre more effectual then if each wrought single and what the single members cannot obtain apart they may acquire joyntly being incorporate into one body This also is the case of Christs Disciples the want of their Master collects and imbodies them in together They want him twice once on Mount Calvary there they want his soul this gathers them close in Jerusalem and the door is shut on them but the place not specified The second time he forsakes them on Mount Olivet at the 9th verse of the former Chapter then they want his person that puts them together again at the 13th verse in the upper room there they consider of another want meanes to perform their Ministry Judas the Traitor hath hang'd himself at the 18th verse his Bishoprick is voyd and they will choose another in his room at the 22th verse there they prick two then pray and draw lots and at the last verse Matthias is elected and consecrated All this being finished they yet find another want variety of Languages to utter their Embassie to several Nations where they were to be employed For this there is another meeting upon a set day the fifth from the Resurrection and the tenth from the Ascension and then as it is in my Text They were all with one accord in one place In which may it please you to observe three Circumstances 1. The plurality or number they were all 2. Their unanimity or morall union of soul with one accord 3. The unipresence or locall union of body In one place Of these in their order as the time hath scanted and God strengthned by weakned thoughts We begin with the Plurality or number They were all The Expositors run much pro and con about the persons of these all whether therein the Virgin Mary and other Women were included But for the most they go by conjecture and either affirm or deny it to serve their own purpose and seeing the Scripture declares neither we may exclude them to serve ours They might be in presence but not as part of the Assembly and partakers of the benefits The reason of this conjecture is though the Women otherwise might receive many gifts and graces yet they were not fit vessels to be filled with the holy Ghost in this kind to speak with divers tongues The sub-reason is they might not exercise the functions for which these Tongues were ordained they were for prophecying in the Church from which St. Paul debarres the Women 1 Cor. 14.24 Let your Women keep silence in the Church for it is not permitted unto them to speak Let us not be thought over-weening for casting now and then a conjecture diverse from the common current We are free Denisons of Christendom and may challenge the liberty of our thoughts as well as out-landish men Let their learning not out-look us for where the Scripture leaves us all learning lies lame and her two truths are Criticismes and Conjectures What persons soever excluded the Disciples will not they are ordered in this all for the Consistory-Cardinalls will be in no order for they make the Canons hold that the Clause All manner of persons doth not include a Cardinall The number is universal not collective but representative for the whole primitive Church who was all there not in their own single but in the persons of these all who were there for the acceptation of the holy Ghost according to the gracious promises of our Saviour or haply all relatively too the number specified in the Assembly for the election of Matthias The total sum of that all was about 120. at the 15. verse of the former Chapter the major part was the 12. Apostles 12. the major part of 120. not in number but in power and therefore the better part though some think otherwise and thereupon infer that every ordinary man is as good as a Bishop The number here is 12. not unsignificant the 12. Disciples answering the 12. Patriarchs for so it pleased God that both the Testaments the new and old should be founded upon dodecadies as the Church of the Jews under the Law sprung from the twelve Patriarchs so the Church of the Gentiles under the Gospel from the twelve Apostles The Fathers and after-Divines both ancient and modern do much descant upon the number of the 12. Apostles in relation to the 12. Fountains in Elim and 12. Stones in Aarons breast-plate the 12. Stones of the Altar the 12. loaves of Proposition the 12. Levites that carried the Ark the 12. spies sent to search the Land of promise the 12. gates of Jerusalem the 12. Signes of the Zodiack moneths of the year and hours of the day with many more the like some whereof are pious others but fancies Yet in each they frame out a resemblance as ye may see at large in Palmeron and divers others With the twelve Apostles the rest of the Disciples made up one hundred and twenty Hereon St. Austine moralls in his one hundred and sixteenth Sermon de Temp. that the holy Ghost was given ten-fold to the twelve Apostles because that ten multipiled by twelve makes up the product one hundred and twenty But the morall of St. Gregory in his 35. Moral and 3d Chapter is too mystical if not meerly Pythagorical he would have 120. partly to signifie things temporall partly eternal by this deduction an hundred and twenty by Arithmeticall progresse ariseth from one to fifteen and because the components are seven and eight things temporal are conceived by seven and eternall by eight of this I conceive not the ground nor find it approved in Arithmetick If thus to break numbers were rational a man might deduce 600. mysteries from the number 120. St. Jerome prefigures this number in the age of Moses whose years were full one hundred and twenty With modesty be it spoken St. Jerome might
have pretyped it by the age of man in general Gen. 6.3 when God saith of man that his years shall be one hundred and twenty Then put Moses and Man together and the résemblance will be rationall Moses a type of Christ the Scriptures both say and shew it As the Law descended first from God upon Moses alone and after him to the people so the descent of the holy Ghost first from God upon Christ alone and after from Christ upon all the Disciples whose utmost number was about one hundred and twenty men and from them communicated to the utmost of mankind whose utmost age is but 120. years but for the purpose this member is more precisely typed in 2 Chron. 5.15 at the latter end of the verse by one hundred and twenty Priests sounding on Trumpets whereas it came to passe that the Trumpeters and Singers were all one to make one sound so here the Disciples though 120. in number yet but one accord which is my second circumstance the unanimity or moral union of soul with one accord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what the word means is shewed in the fourth Chapter following at the thirty second verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They were of one heart and one soul not Physically but Morally an union and moral identity of souls not the apprehensive soul understanding or sense Accord consists not in assent of opinions or points of speculation for to him that affirms the Sun bigger then the earth my assent or dissent neither makes nor marres one accord The reason is for that the judgment in such cases proceeds from natural reason and by consequence from necessity but in accord it springs from the will from a voluntary choice and free for true accord is an union of the motive soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an union of the Will and affections not the faculties themselves though much at discord but in unanimous actions and operations resulting from the faculties when our Velle's and Nolle's are one and the same either concerning the end it self in the same fruition or intention or concerning the means that led us to that end In the summe councel and consent they savour choice and use and all this not in matters trivial but things of moment where there lies a sensible commodity to a good community Thus was the unanimity and accord of the Disciples first for the end they have one accord for the fruition of the Gospel and intent to publish it especially the point of Resurrection Secondly for the means one accord for counsel and consent and one for choice and use of them And yet their one accord stands not here but descends adâ—cor it signifies a co-heartedness an unanimity or concurrring in affection one accord in love and hatred in desire and dislike in joy and sorrow and so in other passions irascible yea there most of all for where there lies a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there 's most properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where all these agree in one ther 's truly one accord To this if we superadde a quantity of Impetus a vehemency to conquer all impediments or difficulties of the action we hit just on the nature of the thing for then we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when our agreement is the same and hath the same degrees in operation where we have a propense and earnest concurrence jointly to prosecute the same good or shunne the same evil doing either action the same way And thus were the Disciples in their affections 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same love desire and joy concerning the publishing of the Gospel and good news of salvation and the same hate dislike and sorrow for any evil that might oppose it Their affections which before were irregular and cast on infirmities as Ambition Incredulity Apostasie were now rectified and directed to their right object It was not any rude accord where the worst do rule neither was it a dissembling accord with a league in the mouth and discord at the heart neither was it a wicked accord as of the Ephesians for their idolatry but of good men with a good mind and to a good end Thus were the Disciples to receive the Holy Ghost This accord had God to its efficient for as God onely makes the heart so he onely seasons it and gives it grace It had God for its author and God for its end and therefore brings to one place which is my third circumstance In the same place Not the same place numerically but relatively in the same room This place was a high place it was an upper room and comely We should do all religious exercises in a decent place the paring away of ceremonies do but take away the Churches ornaments Then it was a high room at all spiritual exercises we should ascend Now it is called in Latine Coenaculum a room to supp in All religious exercises should be begun with the Supper of the Lord and that must be common too not for one only this room some say was belonging to Nicodemus yet this proves not for Conventicles for if we have the like authority we will release our Canon What if we say this is Solomon's Porch for there were sixscore persons and it was noised about by and by yea by nine of the clock Peter was in his Sermon This therefore is like not to be in a private chamber but were not this yet the other was verse 46. God would have them joyn together to receive the Holy Ghost for where the hearts are together it is much but where they are together and their body in one place there is all the good place can afford Thus we came from the plurality to the unanimity and from the unanimity to the unipresence the first without the second is but confused and the second without the third is but singularity but these altogether make a complete Parliament And now for application of what hath been said to our Parliament In the Disciples a spiritual want was the cause of their assembly in the Parliament a temporal want The event in the one was good God grant it be so in the other The time of that was after the resurrection and so is it of this The persons are all alike Men all no women they are too talkative The number alike those all the Primitive Church these all the Common-wealth Of them both our opinions are alike the one we honour and the other too a true Law-givers They were unanimous and unipresent and so also is the Parliament they had one Counsel so have we their accord was good and so is ours perfect to cut off all bad accord Their accord resolves a spiritual welfare and so is our accord to maintain our selves by warre So of these our opinions are alike the one would be without warre were they not provoked thereto but now 't is needful so is our warre also That was an upper room high and stately so is the Parliament that was in the suburbs of Jerusalem this of London Now let us praise God for them and pray for them that there be not opposition between them Let the King be the Head they the Heart we the Members Let it be like the Parliament in Mount Sinai the King and subjects as God and Moses and we like the Israelites Let God say to the King that he will help him and destroy his enemies Let the King say to the people as David to the Gibeonites and let the people say to him as Israel to David We will serve and obey thee onely and do what thou commandest us and let me pray for them that they may stand fast in the Faith and let 's all say of them all that be of Israel as a Congregation of one minde that this union may be ruled by order and that like this spiritual one let 's pray there may be one God one Minde one Spirit and let all the people say Amen Here remains as yet a personal conclusion If I heretofore seemed to deliver any Doctrine contrary to this I now deliver I utterly renounce it The last time I had these words Now the Peasant thinks c. I I had also these words Nothing contents the Commonalty but war and contention I there I did very ill forgetting that of Solomon There is a time for warre and a time for peace For another erroneous thing I require your pardon A word once spoken cannot be recalled it may be stopt In the same place where the blot was made I am come to wipe it out My last Petition to you is for patronage from further trouble FINIS
we were all knock'd down and at our Recovery Rabbi Malchus a follower of the High-priests company and our Captain was singled out by one of their side a Sayler he seemed who with his whinyard lopt off one of his ears and had the blow light right it would have cleft him down to the twist Nay they were all Bravers and their bloody mind was seen upon Judas Iscariot one of their own company who because he was our Blood-hound to sent their Master out they persecuted the poor wretch till they had paunch'd him for not far from their walk he was found hang'd with his guts about his heels And for their bloody pranks that way the place begins to bear the name of Aceldama the bloody field For the exploit of his resurrection they had the assistance of their fellow she-disciples night house-wives too for they were hovering about the Sepulchre from the dead of the night till the morning and were as the Counter-watch to give notice of some advantage to the Disciples who lay not far off some where above ground while their master was under it All the day-time they stir not for fear of Passengers frequenting to and fro in the gardens and walks about Mount Calvary it being both Sabbath and Passeover but in the night they took their opportunity by this means We had been extreamly over-travell'd both to apprehend and guard him first to the High-priest next to the President from him to Herod and back again then to his arraignment then to his Execution and ever since at his grave so turbulent the man was that his very dead body would not lye still and be quiet This over-watching seconded with the darkness of the night and coldnesse of the ayre cast us into a heavy sleep thereupon the women give the watch-word to the Disciples who immediately do exhumate his body and while they translate and bury it elsewhere the women trot into the Town and bruit it abroad that their Master is risen And the credulous City is partly inclined to believe the Legerdemain they are willing to frame their faith and build their salvation upon a flying gull raised by three way-going women gadling Gossips that came from Galilee One of them notorious so divellish that there came seven divells out of her how many staid behind God knows it is like she was so full there was room for no more and by her ye may guess at her companions Consider of it the matter is of moment a main point of State that concerns your own Nation We are but strangers and no farther interessed then for the truths sake to speak it and therefore be advised whether ye will rely herein upon the word of a woman or upon the faith and reputation of a Souldier And here the Souldier puts up he sheaths his malicious and blasphemous tongue more sharp and deadly then his sword and gives our Saviour a wound more mortal far then those upon the Cross they did but put him in a trance suspend his life for a day or two at the most but kill his Humanity but this would murther his Divinity and dead his Immortality it would nullifie the Gospel and frustrate all our Faith for If Christ be not risen saith S. Paul then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain And therefore I come to my second Cursory For his Disciples stole him away by night Herein we will deal Christianly and civilly not give the lye to the Souldiers foul words to the Watch But yet we may say that their tale hath no truth in any point of it but a meer saying Saying say ye They say not of themselves but as the Priests taught them they knew they said false and therefore our saying to the contrary will easily obtain And therein we follow not the Random of their roving but take the sum of their saying as it is here set down by the Holy Ghost giving it order and parts The words then may easily be taken Judiciarily in form of an accusation and then Morally they are Calumny the Souldiers either not heard or not practised the doctrine of John Baptist Accuse no man falsely Or they may be taken popularly in form of a report or rumour and then morally they are a meer gull or slander In what sense soever there are three parties wronged in them The Disciples our Saviour and the Souldiers themselves The Disciples here are tax'd of theft that they should come by night and steal away their Master Our Saviour of Impotency and Imposture that he neither could nor did rise from the dead but was conveyed away by his Disciples And the Souldiers of capital negligence that they were asleep In the Cursory then for the Disciples may ye please that I lay down three plain Contradictories ro the words of the Text as they lie in order First the Disciples came not hither by night Secondy he was not stole away Thirdly the Souldiers were not asleep For proof of each whereof there are no cogent demonstrations in nature Quòd sint single voluntary actions that leave no evident effect admit it not We preach not before Jews and Infidels to whom this doctrine is scandalous and fool shness but the simple-hearted Christian the willing hearer shall have rationall probabilities and perswasive arguments sufficient to convey belief into a heart illuminated and prepared by grace for it For the first then His Disciples came not by night The body moves not voluntarily unless the motion be grounded upon the Will so that when the influence of the Will upon the external members is either intercepted or frustrated by any forreign accident the body hardly admits of going and comming The heart and first mover of the Disciples was now mated and set up by a Lease of impetuous passions All those Violents of the Soul which have mischiefs for their Objects and are immediately distractive to the Patient that endures them as sorrow fear and despair did now wholly possess them Extreme sorrow for their Masters present sufferings as much fear for their own future danger and their like despaire for their fore hoped happinesse Their senses seel the sorrow their fear torments their fancies and their memory maintains their despair their whole soul so assaulted that there wanted nothing but a Fever to make them quite frantick And Peter came neer to that so distracted that for his Masters sake first he will needs fight then he flyes away anon again he follows after him at length he forswears him and in the end goes out and cries In this mode he is carried up and down till he layes a clog on his conscience that would hold him work enough without coming to Mount Calvary The case of his other fellows might be as bad or worse although the Scripture be therein silent Thus far they go all with Peter that they sleep and flye and follow after off But when their Master was past all recovery then each passion plaid his part to hinder
themselves confessed it why were they not punished and order taken to stop the rumour of the Resurrection There is no way now left but to pretend the Spirit as our Enthusiasts do and to say that while they slept they had it in a dream by revelation But that is refuted by retortion of the same for by revelation every Christian knowes the contrary God reveals it unto him But why do the Souldiers produce this reason the reason is they took it upon trust from the Priests It is an old errour let us not contend for the age to believe that the Priest cannot erre But why are the Souldiers got thus to argue against themselves the reason is no body else durst do it In those times the souldiers bare all the sway assumed all power to make Kings and Emperours But since the Priest hath done the like putting the Souldier by And now the Peasant thinks t is come to his turn under pretence of his priviledge in Parliament he would dispose of Kings and Common-wealths and rather then return it to the Priest from whom he hath taken it would cast the course back again upon the Souldiers Nothing now contents the Commonalty but Warre and Contention he hath taken a surfeit of peace the very name of it growes odious Now to give the Souldier his Pasport we summe up four exceptions against his saying First it is not verisimile the unlikelihood of it hath appeared in every Contradictory Secondly They were ignari rerum had no information of what they affirm neither eye nor ear-witness of what they say for they confess themselves asleep Thirdly Their saying is contrary to what they had said before in the morning they told another tale at the eleventh verse of this Chapter if that were true this is false if that were not true why should we believe this or who will trust men in contrary tales Lastly the parties were corrupted hired with a large summe to utter their saying at the twelfth verse These two latter lie without the Text and therefore I wholly forbear them especially for the point of corruption 'T is a crafty crime and commonly hard to prove We also forbear the lie to the Souldier because he abhorres it But to the Priests who put this lie in their mouths and to their Disciple-Priests who at this day practise lying and allow it to be lawful we would mend the old saying A Liar should have a good memory and rather require in him a good Wit His memory serves but to avoid contradictions of himself but his Wit to prevent the contradictions of others that an untruth seem not also unlikely If therefore the Priests would have lied wisely and with credit like Satan himself the Serpent whom they served they should as they did formerly have laid our Saviour to Satan's charge and have said that the foul Fiend came by night fetcht him away leaving out whil'st the watch slept and instead thereof have argued from the descent of the Angel and the earthquake this could not so easily have been discovered but it might even as easily where Faith had a Fortification Humane reasons urged against it are but as Paper-shot Carnal wisdom working against God is but dirt and rottenness Our counsels are confounded when carried against Christ And so I come to my third and last Cursory upon the word of our Saviour Hitherto we have cleared the Disciples but we must also give the Souldier content There is no such difference but the matter may be reconciled and the question stated on the Souldiers side Said I not it was the fashion The Souldiers then are in the right their saying very sound and Christian A Disciple of his did come by night and stole him away and the Souldiers were asleep A Disciple of his and his most beloved Disciple his humane soul came by night was united to his body raised it and withdrew it from the Sepulcher by stealth while the Souldiers were so between sleeping and waking that they perceived it not Of this Cursory very briefly as the words lie in order declining all emergent Controversies for that our present quarrel lay onely with the Souldier We term him a Disciple who receives knowledge and chastisement from another As our Saviour was God his soul was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the truest and most proper Disciple that ever was it had received both knowledge and chastisement as never man had knowledge of all manner both Divine and Humane infused and acquired but whether it had no Ignorance we leave it to the Catholicks And all manner of chastisement both exemplary and satisfactory for all Mankind the chastisement of our peace was upon it but whether it satisfied for Reprobates we leave it to the Arminians His soul came it could move for it was separate the soul was from the body though neither from the Godhead as all the rest of the Disciples it forsook him on the Crosse and now it came again but it came not as it went it went by violence and forraign force the Jewes expelled it from him although he also willing it should go but it came purely voluntary by a domestick agent but whether by vertue of the Godhead or its own motive faculty we leave to the School-men It came then not as poor Lazarus soul came to Abraham's bosom carried by Angels but single upon its own force and without any help of others But whether attended and waited upon by a troop of Angels we leave it to the Fathers For the time it came by Night not for fear of the Jews as Nicodemus came to him but for love of his promise that he might rise the third day He came the second Night the Night second to his Passion but third to the day of his Resurrection some time between Mid-night and Morning but at what time we leave it to the Chronologers The Undè of its coming was from somewhere else from a distant Ubi for it was not come before it came but from whence definitively whether from Heaven or Hell we leave it to the Calvinists The Quò or Term of its coming was the Grave he subsisted there but the end of the Comer was the Re-union to the body to make his real presence there but whether thereby he became omnipresent to be every where while he was in the grave we leave to the Lutherans His final intent not to organize the body it was not dismembred nor any way corrupted not so much as in fieri no not dispositively but to animate those members and to raise the body from the grave in which action both the body and the soul had their mutual efficiency each co-elevating other to make up the Resurrection but whether these two Agents imply several operations really distinct we leave it to the Nominalists The manner of his resurrection so miraculous and ineffable that bad words express it best In a moral relation to the Jewes it is here termed stealing not to shew what our
Saviour did in his rising but to intimate what the Jews had committed by their crucifying Things of a super-eminent nature are fain to borrow words of an inferiour signification when they are related to a low capacity so God gives himself attributes not as he is but according to the weaknesse whereby man apprehends him And here the action of our Saviour is set down not as it is done but according to the wickedness that the Jews had done The active signification of stealing belongs to our Saviour but the moral evil of it reflected upon others The Law saith he steals who fraudulently takes away something of anothers with intent to get the thing it self its use or possession if this definition be true his resurrection was stealing His body was now cadaver puniti the carcase of one that had publickly suffered and thereby forfeit to the State no man might meddle with it further then to bury it nor that without special permission it was now none of his his right and possession of it both gone tradiderat he had made delivery of it dispensed and passed it away to Pilat Pilat disposed his right to bury it to the Watch to detain it and now it was theirs When therefore he took it from the Grave he stole it his repossession of it defrauded all the Prae-detainers Said they not also he was a Deceiver But whether the Angel that rolled away the stone were necessary or ministerial we leave it to the Hermonists By natural relation his body was his own as being the essential and proper counter-part of his soul prae coexistent with it in one person but morally it was not so or if it were yet he might steal it for all that A man may steal that which is his own by interverting that right in it which hath been transferred to another and what kind of Theft this was we leave it to the Lawyers God forbid we should lay other Theft to our Saviour then that he attributes to himself in saying He came like a Thief in the night i. e. secretly and unawares so was his conveyance from the Grave close without the consent and notice of those that were present such a carriage we commonly call stealth We steal away from a room when we depart without the knowledge of the Company But whether he could convey himself so closely as to passe thorough the Tombe-stone we leave it to the Philosophers Yet so close it was that the Watch perceived it not for they were asleep they were set to watch it but they did not Not to watch is all one with not to be awake and that with to be be asleep We commonly call him sleepy that is negligent or careless of what passeth as the contrary we terme vigilant so the Watch was fast asleep they never gave heed to the Resurrection that so farre from their belief that they had no opinion of it But if death be a kind of sleep he is soundly asleep that lies for dead and so did the Watch in the 4th verse of this Chapter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for fear of the Angel they fell a shaking and became as dead men His presence gave them a strong Dormative it wrought beyond sleep Sleep reacheth but only to a Ligation of sense but in them all motion ceased they were examinate but whether that fit held them onely by way of Syncope or did determine in a Cataphora or soporiferous passion we leave it to the Physitians Fearful and Cowardish Souldiers more womanish than women At the presence of the Angel the Women stand upright but the Souldiers fall in a swoun Help them good Women unbutton the Souldiers ye need not fear their Halberts There 's work for you and your Spices your odours to comfort and recall their Spirits Bestow that Charity on the dying Souldiers which you intended on your dear Saviour for he is risen and needs them not but they may benefit the Souldiers The Souldiers used to such fits they had one of them the other night in Gethsemane but whether these dejections were sins in the Souldiers we leave to the Casuists Thus they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 laid as men asleep for it signifies rather the reclination or posture of one asleep then the affection of sleep it self He that lies still without sense or motion whether he be in a sleep or trance or dead we say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and we call the Church-yard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because the dead lie there as if they were asleep they stir not And so we must all be layd There 's no Dormitory Our case somewhat like the Souldiers We are appointed here to watch our Saviour and as we do it we are subject to the Souldiers infirmity apt to be cast asleep and become as dead men Yet let us not be subject to their fear our death is but like their swouning that 's the worst We are liable to rise again and our Resurrection shall be like our Saviours His and ours make a mutual Aspect His the Specimen and ours the Complement What he practised on himself he perfects in us He will come again by night and steal us to glory while we lie sleeping in the Grave Even so come Lord Jesus THE RECANTATION SERMON The PREFACE before the SERMON PErsonall Prefaces are commonly unpleasant mine is to me It is nomine poenae it requires my patience it entreats yours I never came here sponte sometimes upon request but now upon Command to which my obedience is very voluntary as willing to give satisfaction as any to receive it I never stood here to shew my self but now and now not for worth or wickedness but yet for weakness in not discerning the three vitall circumstances of a well ordered Action Person Time and Place For it I am now Prisoner to censure the Spectacle of submission and Petitioner for pardon It is good to be humble I like it very well and use it more then some men think I do My present business is not to repeat that Sermon which the Repeater condemned and left unrepeated in the forenoon I call it that for now it is none of mine It hath been censured publickly and justly and so let it suffer the whole for some bad parts as usually the pravity of one member is destructive to the whole body If ye will please to let it die I will substitute another in the room whereto though enjoyned by Authority my self doth most willingly condescend My Text was also imposed and delivered in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In prosecution whereof I humbly crave a fair construction and a favourable acceptation First for my offence past that my readiness to acknowledge it may go for one degree of satisfaction and sudden recantation for another What it wants in ripeness is supplied in sincerity though in this the more mature because the more timely Secondly for my present memory I have had no time to furnish it it is