with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all honour, praise, and glory, for ever and ever. Amen.D9%

St. Matthew wrote for the Hebrews, and St. Luke for the Greeks, and each of them records the miraculous conception of our Lord. To the Redeemer's offering of himself as an expiatory sacrifice, it was necessary that his conception should be such as should in no degree partake of the natural pollution of the fallen race, whose guilt he came to atone, nor be included in the general condemnation of Adam's progeny. And since every person produced in the natural way could not but be of the contaminated race; the purity, requisite to the efficacy of the Redeemer's atonement, made it necessary that the manner of his conception should be supernatural.

2

For Good-Friday, concerning the Death and Passion of our Saviour Jesus Christ.:

IT should not become us, well-beloved in Christ, being that people which be redeemed from the devil, from sin and death, and from everlasting damnation, by Christ, to suffer this time to pass forth without any meditation and remembrance of that excellent work of our redemption, wrought as about this time, through the great mercy and charity of our Saviour Jesus Christ, for us wretched sinners, and his mortal enemies. For if a mortal man's deed, done in behalf of the commonwealth, be had in remembrance of us, with thanks for the benefit and profit which we receive thereby; how much more readily should we have in memory this excellent act and benefit of Christ's death? whereby he hath purchased for us the undoubted pardon and forgiveness of our sins, whereby he made at one the Father of heaven

HOM. XXV.

7

For Good Friday.

with us, in such wise, that he taketh us now for his loving children, and for the true inheritors, with Christ his natural Son, of the kingdom of heaven. And verily so much more doth Christ's kindness appear unto us, in that it pleased him to deliver himself of all goodly honour, in which he was equal with his Father in heaven, and to come down into this vale of misery, to be made mortal man, and to be in the state of a most low servant, serving us for our wealth and profit; us, I say, which were his sworn enemies, which had renounced his holy law and commandments, and followed the lusts and sinful pleasures of our corrupt nature. And yet, I say, did Christ put himself between God's deserved wrath and our sin, and rent that obligation, wherein we were in danger to God, and paid our debt. Our debt was a great deal too great for us to have paid. And without payment, God the Father could never be at one with us. Neither was it possible to be loosed from this debt by our own ability. It pleased him therefore to be the payer thereof, and to discharge us quite.

Who can now consider the grievous debt of sin, which could none otherwise be paid, but by the death of an Innocent, and will not hate sin in his heart? If God hateth sin so much, that he would allow neither man nor angel for the redemption thereof, but only the death of his only and well-beloved Son, who will not stand in fear thereof? If we, my friends, consider this, that for our sins this most innocent Lamb was driven to death, we shall have much more cause to bewail ourselves that we were the cause of his death, than to cry out of the malice and cruelty of the Jews, which pursued him to his death. We did the deeds wherefore he was thus stricken and wounded; they were only the ministers of our wickedness. It is meet then that we should step

Coloss, ii.

HOM. XXV.

For Good-Firday.

low down into our hearts, and bewail our own wretchedness and sinful living. Let us know for a certainty, that if the most dearly beloved Son of God "was thus punished and stricken for the sin which he had not done himself; how much more ought we sore to be stricken for our daily and manifold sins which we cominit against God, if we earnestly repent us not, and be not sorry for them? No man can love sin, which God hateth so much, and be in his favour. No man can say that he loveth Christ truly, and have his great enemy (sin I mean, the author of his death) familiar and in friendship with him. So much do we love God and Christ, as we hate sin. We ought therefore to take great heed, that we be not favourers thereof, lest we be found enemies to God, and traitors to Christ. For not only they, which nailed Christ apon the cross, are his tormentors and crucifiers; But all they,' saith St. Paul, "crucify again the Son of God, as much as in them, who do commit vice and sin, which brought him to his death.' If the wages of sin be death, and death everlasting, surely it is no small danger to be in service thereof. 'If we live after the flesh, and after the sinful Justs thereof,' St. Paul threateneth, yea, Almighty God in St. Paul threateneth, that we shall surely die.' We can none otherwise live to God, but by dying to sin. If Christ be in us, then is sin dead in us: and if the Spirit of God be in us, which raised Christ from death to life, so shall the same Spirit raise us to the resurrection of everlasting life. But ifsin rule and reign in us, then is God, which is the fountain of all grace and virtue, departed from us: then hath the devil and his ungracious spirit rule and dominiou in us.' And surely if in such miserable state we die, we shall not rise to life, but fall down to death and damnation, and that without end. For

15.

Heb. vi. Rom. vi. viii, i
3 N

Christ hath not so redeemed us from sin, that we may safely return thereto again: but he hath redeemed us, that we should forsake the motions thereof, and live to righteousness. Yea, we be therefore washed in our baptism from the filthiness of sin, that we should live afterward in the pureness of life. In baptism we promised to renounce the devil and his suggestions, we promised to be, as obedient children, always following God's will and pleasure. Then if he be our Father indeed, let us give him his due honour. If we be his children, let us shew him our obedience, like as Christ openly declared his obedience to his Father, "which,' as St. Paul writeth, 'was obedient even to the very death, the death of the cross.' And this he did for us all that believe in him. For himself he was not punished, for he was pure and undefiled of all manner of sin. "He was wounded,' saith Isaiah, for our wickedness, and stripped for our sins:' he suffered the penalty of them himself, to deliver us from danger: He bare,' saith Isaiah, all our sores and infirmities upon his own back.' No pain did he refuse to suffer in his own body, that he might deliver us from pain everlasting. His pleasure it was thus to do for us; we deserved it not. Wherefore the more we see ourselves bound unto him, the more he ought to be thanked of us, yea, and the more hope may we take, that we shall receive all other good things of his hand, in that we have received the gift of his only Son, through his liberality. For if God,' saith St. Paul, hath not spared his own Son from pain and punishment, but delivered him for us all unto the death; how should he not give us all other things with him? If we want any thing, either for body or soul, we may lawfully and boldly approach to God as to our merciful Father, to ask that we desire, and we shall obtain it.' For such power

Phil. ii. Isaiah lii. Rom. viii. John 1. Matth. xi,

HOM. XXV.

For Good-Friday.

is given to us, to be the children of God, so many as believe in Christ's name. 'In his name whatsoever we ask, we shall have it granted us. For so well pleased is the Father Almighty God with Christ his Son, that for his sake he favoureth us, and will deny us nothing. So pleasant was this sacrifice and oblation of his Son's death, which he so obediently and innocently suffered, that we should take it for the only and full amends for all the sins of the world. And such favour did he purchase by his death, of his heavenly Father for us, that for the merit thereof (if we be true Christians in deed, and not in word only) we be now fully in God's grace again, and clearly discharged from our sin. No tongue surely is able to express the worthiness of this so precious a death. For in this standeth the continual pardon of our daily offences, in this resteth our justification, in this we be allowed, in this is purchased the everlasting health of all our souls. Yea, there is none other thing that can be named under heaven to save our souls, but this only work of Christ's precious offering of his body upon the altar of the cross.' Certainly there can be no work of any mortal man, be he never so holy, that shall be coupled in merits with Christ's most holy act. For no doubt, all our thoughts and deeds were of no value, if they were not allowed in the merits of Christ's death. All our righteousness is far unperfect, if it be compared with Christ's righteousness: for in his acts and deeds: there was no spot of sin, or of any imperfectness.> And for this cause they were the more able to be the true amends of our righteousness, where, our acts and deeds be full of imperfection and infirmities, and therefore nothing worthy of themselves to stir God to. any favour, much less to challenge that glory that is due to Christ's act and merit; For not to us,' saith