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XXI.

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SER M. troublesome sea than they toiled and wrought in before. And to these men in the text, accustomed to the study and contemplation of the stars, He presents them with a star agreeable to their own employment, that so He might bring them that way, by their own way, to Himself.

And yet He does it not here by an asterism, but by one star only, and no more, the better to advance their learning from a natural and ordinary, to a supernatural and divine knowledge of Him. For those that are natural astrologers, Gen. 1. 14. to whom, as we read in Genesis, God hath given the stars of heaven for signs and seasons, they never use to calculate by one star alone, but most an end by the conjunctions of many aspects, by constellations and oppositions in the ascendant of one star against another, which here these men found not.

1 Cor. 9. 22.

But this they found, that herein God did not so much put them out of this way as He set them forwards, and far righter in it than they were before.

Be but we willing to have Christ alway in our eye, to make Him the guide and end of our way, and He will never lead us out of it, but make use even of our own ways to bring us to heaven. For He is, as His Apostle was; He makes heaven all things to all men, that He might gain all. To the man that loves true pleasure and gladness, He presents it Gal. 5. 22. as all joy; and to the like ambitious man, as all glory; to 2 Cor. 4.17. the merchant-man it is a pearl; to the husbandman it is a rich field. To all men it is made all things, that they might come all thither to Him.

Mat. 13.

45.

Mat. 13. 24.

1 Cor.9.19.

And these three are good lessons for us, and good reasons for the star.

(4.) But there is yet another, to which I must stick closer, and rely upon it more than upon all these, and that is the fourth and the last reason of all, if we could pursue it now; that God might be as good as His word, and found true in His promise, whereof He never fails.

For He had long since made a special promise to us all, that this star, by the name of a star, should arise upon us; orietur Num. 24. stella ex Jacob. It will take up some time to look upon it well. But there came one from the mountains of the east, fifteen B.C. 1452. hundred years before, and saw in his prophecy there, (which Num. 23. God Himself had put into his mouth,) the same star that the

17.

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wise men X saw here, and the same light that Simeon saw after, saw it with his eyes; we say one of our hymns Lu. 2. 42. for it there everyy day, in memory that this promise of God was kept, and that this prophecy was fulfilled by it, the prophecy of orietur stella in Jacob; which is all the light we have now or ever they had before us, to bring us all out of the kingdom of sin and darkness to the kingdom of grace and glory; grace here and glory hereafter.

It is a good point, this, to be followed; but we are now at a good period to make our stand.

And because both the season is to be regarded, and the Sacrament to be attended, I will therefore suffer the time to take me here off from this sermon. There are in the text both this point and two more, which I propounded to myself at first to be stood upon and considered more at large; but there are more Sundays belonging to this Epiphany of Christ than one, and it will not be untimely both to make an end of this text and to make our best use of this star, upon any of them all.

To God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three persons and one eternal Deity, be all honour and glory, now and for Amen.

ever.

See the authorities quoted by Suarez, in 3 Thom., tom. ii. p. 154.

y The Nunc dimittis.

COSIN.

X

SERMON XXII.

CORAM [REGE ET DUCIBUS a] JACOBO, &c.

PARIS. IN FESTO NATIVITATIS CHRISTI. 1655.

SERM.
XXII.

1 TIMOTHY iii. 16.b

Magnum est pietatis mysterium, Deus manifestatus in carne.
Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh.

HERE is mysterium and magnum, a mystery, and a great one; and it is not the least nor the easiest part of our office in preaching, to explain and unfold a mystery, so that every one may apprehend and understand what we say it is. A great mystery it is that we are now to speak of; in which respect the time and the text are so far both alike; for this is a time wherein we keep a great festival in the Church, and this is a text whereupon we found a great article in our Creed, the feast and the article of God's nativity and mysterious incarnation; than which there is not a greater that belongs to our religion. But the greatness is not all. There is, besides the greatness of the day and the greatness of the mystery, somewhat else required, both to make up the text and to make up our duty that we owe too: for it is not only magnum mysterium, but magnæ pietatis mysterium;-a great mystery, and a great deal of piety and godliness that goes along with it; wherein, if the greatness of our duty may be answerable also to the greatness of the feast, and be made like to the

a The words enclosed within brackets are marked for omission.

This sermon abounds with so many

alterations and transpositions, that the arrangement intended to be ultimately adopted is not quite obvious.

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mystery of this text; that is to say, if God's being made manifest in the flesh may teach us to deny and abandon all the ungodly and manifest lusts of the flesh; which is the great and the proper lesson of this day, the lesson that we shall hear anon at night,-then, and then only, do we keep a good Christmas: for this feast is ever so to begin and so to be concluded, that it may leave the better impression in us, and learn us how to begin to-day with Christ, to live well all the year after. To this end is this feast to be ordered; for to no other ends do we observe any times or feasts in the Church whatsoever; that, the lesson and the doctrine, and this, the use of them all.

The doctrine, to confirm us in the faith of Christ; and the use, to conform us to the life of Christ: that our godliness may be as manifest to Him, as His mystery was made manifest here to usc.

But to set forth the heads which we intend upon this text, there are in it four several terms, whereof each term will make us a part.

I. Mysterium is the first. That there are certain secrets and mysteries in our Christian religion, whereof here is one.

II. Secondly, Quid sibi vult hoc mysterium, what this mystery here is; and it is Deus manifestatus in carne, God manifest in the flesh.

III. To which there belongs, in the third place, a quantum, how great a mystery it is.

IV. And in the fourth, a quale, of what nature and quality it is.

Magnum pietatis mysterium. It is a great mystery of piety; was so to-day with Christ, and would be no less with us; for He looks to have such use made of it. This mystery of piety to be opposed to all the mysteries of iniquity; and God's coming in the flesh to be set against the ungodly and sinful lusts of the flesh; for otherwise we shall make no more than a history only of this mystery, and be never the better.

[The first words of this verse are, that this mystery was

Then originally followed these words, which were afterwards erased:'and that we might give no more contradiction to the one than St. Paul and all true Christians after him made a

controversy of the other.'

The passage here enclosed within brackets has been marked by Cosin for omission.

XXII.

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SER M. without controversy; that is, was so in the Apostle's days, all the Church over; and but for a few unquiet and unruly spirits of contradiction, that have risen up since, would have continued so still; we should have heard of no more controversy about it in our days than St. Paul did in his but we meddle with no controversies here. Be it where it will, of this sure I am, that the true Churches of Christ make none about it at all. And I presume there are none in this place, for we are all come out to keep the feast; I cannot answer for them that be away and keep it not; but none of us that are otherwise minded. Therefore did I at first leave these first words out, and took it for granted, that without controversy this text will pass upon St. Paul's terms of oμoλoyovμévws; that is, for an article of our common confession, and a received truth among us all.

Concerning which truth, though there be among our interpreters some difference in the readinge, and some in the sense, yet neither of them is material; and I shall pray you to think I make choice both of that reading and that sense, which I judge to be most sound and agreeable to this festival.]

Of which that we may speak, &c.

Pater noster, &c.

I. Great is the mystery.' We will first discourse of it a little in the general, that there are some mysteries in religion. For as all other arts and sciences have their own proper and peculiar mysteries belonging specially to themselves, which are not so well known or comprehended by every ordinary and vulgar capacity, as they are by those that be professed that way, and have had their wits and their senses long exercised in them,—so is it in divinity; wherein, besides the known and universal principles which it hath common with other sciences, there be certain secret and mystical points to be delivered, which it hath peculiar to itself; there be some deep and high points of religion: whereof the mystery of God incarnate here in our flesh is but one. The things of Christ are secrets, all. His whole history is a mystery, and the pro

Namely, or ös, instead of meds, concerning which see Wolfius, and the authorities there pointed out, to which

add Burton's Testimonies of the AnteNicene Fathers, p. 141. 369.

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