whom it hath the being? To recollect these, if I will have joy in suffering it must be mine, mine, and not borrowed out of an imaginary treasure of the church; from the works of others supererogation: mine, and not stolen or enforced by exasperating the magistrate to a persecution: mine by good title, and not by suffering for breach of the law, mine in particular, and not a general persecution upon the church by my occasion; and mine by a stranger title than all this, mine by resignation, mine by disavowing it, mine by confessing that it is none of mine; till I acknowledge, that all my sufferings are even for God's glory, are his works, and none of mine, they are none of mine, and by that humility they become mine, and then I may rejoice in my sufferings.

Through all our sufferings then, there must pass an acknowledgment that we are unprofitable servants; towards God utterly unprofitable; so unprofitable to ourselves, as that we can merit nothing by our sufferings; but still we may and must have a purpose to profit others by our constancy; it is pro vobis, that St. Paul says he suffers for them, for their souls; I will most gladly bestow, and be bestowed for your souls2o, (says he.) But numquid Paulus crucifixus pro vobis, was Paul crucified for you? is his own question, as he suffered for them here, so we may be bold to say he was crucified for them; that is, that by his crucifying and suffering, the benefit of Christ's sufferings, and crucifying might be the more cheerfully embraced by them, and the more effectually applied to them; Pro vobis, is pro vestro commodo, for your advantage, and to make you the more active in making sure your own salvation; We are afflicted (says he) for your consolation 22; that is first, that you might take comfort, and spiritual courage by our example, that God will no more forsake you, than he hath done us, and then, he adds salvation too; for your consolation and salvation; for our sufferings beget this consolation; and then, this consolation facilitates your salvation; and then, when St. Paul had that testimony in his own conscience, that his purpose in his sufferings, was pro illis, to advantage God's children, and then saw in his experience so good effect of it, as that it wrought, and begot faith in them, then the more his sufferings

20

2 Cor. xii. 15.

21 1 Cor. i. 13.

221 Cor. i. 13.

increased, the more his joys increased; though (says he) I be offered up, upon the service, and sacrifice of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all; and therefore he calls the Philippians, who were converted by him, gaudium, et coronam, his joy and his crown; not only a crown, in that sense, as an auditory, a congregation that compasses the preacher, was ordinarily called a crown, corona, (in which sense that martyr Cornelius answered the judge, when he was charged to have held intelligence, and to have received letters from St. Cyprian against the state, Ego de corona Domini, (says he from God's church, it is true, I have, but contra rempublicam, against the state, I have received no letters.) But not only in this sense, St. Paul calls those whom he had converted, his crown, his crown, that is, his church; but he calls them his crown in heaven, What is our hope, our joy, our crown of rejoicing, are not even you it? and where? even in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming, says the apostle; and therefore not to stand upon that contemplation of St. Gregory's, that at the resurrection Peter shall lead up his converted Jews, and Paul his converted nations, and every apostle his own church; since you, to whom God sends us, do as well make up our crown, as we do yours, since your being wrought upon, and our working upon you conduce to both our crowns, call you the labour, and diligence of your pastors, (for that is all the suffering they are called to, till our sins together call in a persecution) call you their painfulness your crown, and we shall call your appliableness to the gospel, which we preach, our crown, for both conduce to both; but especially children's children, are the crown of the elders, says Solomon: if when we have begot you in Christ, by our preaching, you also beget others by your holy life and conversation, you have added another generation unto us, and you have preached over our sermons again, as fruitfully as we ourselves; you shall be our crown, and they shall be your crowns, and Christ Jesus a crown of everlasting glory to us all. Amen.

277

SERMON XCVIII.

PREACHED AT LINCOLN'S INN.

MATTHEW Xviii. 7.

Wo unto the world, because of offences.

THE man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth'. The man Moses was so; but the child Jesus was meeker than he. Compare Moses with men, and Moses will scarce be paralleled; compare him with him, who being so much more than man, as that he was God too, was made so much less than man, as that he was a worm and no man, and Moses will not be admitted. If you consider Moses' highest expression, what he would have parted with for his brethren, in his Dele me, pardon them, or blot my name out of thy book, yet St. Paul's zeal will enter into the balance, and come into comparison with Moses, in his Anathema pro fratribus, in that he wished himself to be separated from Christ, rather than his brethren should be. But what comparison hath a sudden, a passionate, and indigested vehemence of love, expressed in a phrase that tastes of zeal, but is not done, (Moses was not blotted out of the book of life, nor St. Paul was not separated from Christ for his brethren) what comparison hath such a love, that was but said, and perchance should not have been said (for we can scarce excuse Moses, or St. Paul, of all excess and inordinateness, in that that they said) with a deliberate and an eternal purpose in Christ Jesus conceived as soon as we can conceive God to have known that Adam would fall, to come into this world, and die for man, and then actually and really, in the fulness of time, to do so; he did come, and he did die. The man Moses was very meek, the child Jesus meeker than he. Moses' meekness had a determination, (at least an interruption, a discontinuance) when he revenged the wrong of another upon that Egyptian whom he slew. But a bruised reed might have stood unbroken, and smoking flax might have lain unquenched for ever, for all

1 Numb. xii. 3.

? Exod. ii. 11.

3 Isaiah XLii. 3.

Christ. And therefore though Christ send his disciples to school, to the Scribes and Pharisees, because they sat in Moses's seat‘, for other lessons, yet for this, he was their schoolmaster himself, Discite à me, learn of me, for I am meeks. In this chapter he gives them three lessons in this doctrine of meekness; he gives them foundations, and upper buildings, the text, and a comment, all the elements of true instruction, rule and example. First, he finds them contending for place, quis maximus, who should be greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The disease which they were sick of, was truly an ignorance what this kingdom was; for, though they were never ignorant that there should be an eternal kingdom in heaven, yet they thought not that the kingdom of Christ here should only be a spiritual kingdom, but they looked for a temporal inchoation of that kingdom here. That was their disease, and a dangerous one. But as physicians, are forced to do sometimes, to turn upon the present cure of some vehement symptom, and accident, and leave the consideration of the main disease for a time, so Christ leaves the doctrine of the kingdom for the present, and does not rectify them in that yet, but for this pestilent symptom, this malignant accident of precedency, and ambition of place, he corrects that first, and to that purpose gives them the example of a little child, and tells them, that except they become as humble, as gentle, as supple, as simple, as seely, as tractable, as ductile, as careless of place, as negligent of precedency, as that little child, they could not only not be great, but they could not at all enter into the kingdom of heaven. He gives them a second lesson in this doctrine of meekness against scandals, and offences, against an easiness in giving or an easiness in taking offences. For, how well soever we may seem to be in ourselves, we are not well, if we forbear not that company, and abstain not from that conversation, which by ill example may make us worse, or if we forbear not such things, as, though they be indifferent in themselves, and can do us no harm, yet our example may make weaker persons than we are, worse, because they may come to do as we do, and not proceed upon so good ground as we do; they may sin in doing those things by our example, in which we did not sin, because we

Matt. xxiii. 1, 2.

5 Matt. xi. 29.

knew them to be indifferent things, and therefore did them, and they did them though they thought them to be sins. And for this doctrine, Christ takes an example very near to them, If thy hand, or foot, or eye offend thee, cut it off, pull it out. And his third lesson in this doctrine of meekness is against hardness of heart, against a loathness, a weariness in forgiving the offences of other men, against us, occasioned by Peter's question, Quoties remittam, How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? and the example in this rule Christ hath wrapped up in a parable, The master forgave his servant ten thousand talents, (more money than perchance any private man is worth) and that servant took his fellow by the throat, and cast him into prison, because he did not presently pay an hundred pence, perchance fifty shillings, not three pounds of our money: in such a proportion was Christ pleased to express the master's inexhaustible largeness and bounty, (which is himself,) and the servant's inexcusable cruelty, and penuriousness, (which is every one of us). The root of all Christian duties is humility, meekness, that is violated in an ambitious precedency, for that implies an over estimation of ourselves, and an under value of others; and it is violated in scandals, and offences, for that implies an unsettledness and irresolution in ourselves, that we can be so easily shaked, or a neglecting of weaker persons, of whom Christ neglected none; and it is violated in an unmercifulness, and inexorableness, for that implies an indocileness, that we will not learn by Christ's doctrine; and an ungratefulness, that we will not apply his example, and do to his servants, as, he, our Master, hath done to us and s have you some paraphrase of the whole chapter, as it consists of rules and examples in this doctrine of meekness, endangered by pride, by scandal, by uncharitableness. But of those two, pride and uncharitableness (though they deserve to be often spoken of), I shall have no occasion from these words of my text, to speak, for into the second of these three parts, the doctrine of scandals, our text falls, and it is a doctrine very necessary and seldom touched upon.

As the words of our text, our parts must be three. First, that heavy word va, woe; secondly, that general word, mundo, woe be unto the world; and lastly, that mischievous word, a scandalis,