THE

SEVENTH SERMON

PREACHED BEFORE KING EDWARD,

APRIL 19th.

ROMANS xv. 4.

Quæcunque scripta sunt; ad nostram doctrinam scripta sunt.

All things that be written, they be written to be our doctrine. By occasion of this text, most honourable audience, I have walked this Lent in the broad field of scripture, and used my liberty, and entreated of such matters as I thought meet for this auditory. I have had ado with many estates, even with the highest of all. I have entreated of the duty of kings, of the duty of magistrates and judges, of the duty of prelates; and allowing that that is good, and disallowing the contrary. I have taught that we are all sinners; I think there is none of us all, neither preacher nor hearer, but we may be amended, and redress our lives: We may all say, yea, all the pack of us, Peccavimus cum patribus nostris, "We have offended and sinned with our forefathers," in multis offendimus omnes, there is none of us all, but we have in sundry things grievously offended almighty God. I here entreated of many faults, and rebuked many kinds of sins. kinds of sins. I intend to-day, by God's grace, to shew you the remedy of sin. We be in the place of repontance, now is the time to call for mercy; whilst we be in this world, we be all sinners, even the best of us all. Therefore it is good to hear the remedy of sin.

This day is commonly called Good-Friday: although every day ought to be with us Good-Friday, yet this day we are accustomed specially to have a commemoration and remembrance of the passion of our Saviour Jesus Christ. This day we have in

memory his bitter passion and death, which is the remedy of our sin. Therefore I intend to entreat of a piece of a story of his passion; I am not able to entreat of all. That I may do that the better, and that it may be to the honour of God, and the edification of your souls, and mine both, I shall desire you to pray, &c. In this prayer I will desire you to remember the souls departed, with lauds and praise to almighty God, and that he would vouchsafe to assist the dying at the hour of their death: In so doing you shall be put in remembrance to pray for yourselves, that it may please God to assist and comfort you in the agonies and pains of death.

The place that I will entreat of, is the twenty-sixth chapter of St. Matthew. Howbeit, as I entreat of it, I will borrow part of St. Mark, and part of St. Luke: for they have somewhat, that St. Matthew hath not: and especially Luke. The text is, Tunc cum venisset Jesus in villam, quæ dicitur Gethsemani, "Then when Jesus came;" some have IN VILLAM, Some IN AGRUM, Some IN PRÆDIUM. But it is all one; when Christ came into a grange, into a piece of land, into a field, it makes no matter; call it what ye will. At what time he had come into an honest man's house, and there eaten his paschal lamb, and instituted and celebrated the Lord's supper, and set forth the blessed communion; then when this was done, he took his way to the place, where he knew Judas would come. It was a solitary place, and thither he went with his eleven apostles: For Judas, the twelfth, was about his business, he was occupied about his merchandise, and was providing among the bishops and priests, to come with an ambushment of Jews, to take our Saviour Jesu Christ.

And when he was come into the field or grange, this village, or farm-place which was called Gethsemane, there was a garden, saith Luke, into the which he goeth and leaves eight of his disciples without; howbeit he appointed them what they should do. He saith, Sedete hic donec illuc vadam et orem, "Sit you here, whilst I go yonder and pray." He told them, that he went to pray, to monish them what they should do, to fall to prayer as he did. He left them there, and took no more with him but three, Peter, James, and John, to teach us that a solitary place is meet for prayer. Then when he was come into this garden, cæpit expavescere, "He began to tremble,"

insomuch that he said, Tristis est anima mea usque ad mortem, "My soul is heavy and pensive even unto death."

This is a notable place, and one of the most especial and chiefest of all that be in the story of the passion of Christ. Here is our remedy: Here we must have in consideration all his doings and sayings, for our learning, for our edification, for our comfort and consolation.

First of all, he set his three disciples that he took with him in an order, and told them what they should do, saying; Sedete hic, et vigilate, mecum et orate, "Sit here, and pray that ye enter not into temptation." But of that I will entreat afterward. Now when he was in the garden, Capit expavescere, he began to be heavy, pensive, heavy-hearted. I like not Origen's playing with this word cæpit; it was a perfect heaviness: it was such a one as was never seen the greater, it was not merely the beginning of a sorrow.

These Doctors, we have great cause to thank God for them, but yet I would not have them always to be allowed. They have handled many points of our faith very godly; and we may have a great stay in them in many things; we might not well lack them but yet I would not have men to be sworn to them; and so addict, as to take hand over head whatsoever they say: it were a great inconvenience so to do.

Well, let us go forward. He took Peter, James, and John, into this garden. And why did he take them with him, rather than other? Marry, those that he had taken before, to whom he had revealed in the hill the transfiguration, and declaration of his deity, to see the revelation of the majesty of his godhead, now in the garden he revealed to the same the infirmity of his manhood: because they had tasted of the sweet, he would they should taste also of the sour. He took these with him at both times for two or three is enough to bear witness. And he began to be heavy in his mind; He was greatly vexed within himself, he was sore afflicted, it was a great heaviness. He had been heavy many times before; and he had suffered great afflictions in his soul, as for the blindness of the Jews, and he was like to suffer more pangs of pain in his body. But this pang was greater than any he ever suffered: yea, it was a greater torment unto him, I think a greater pain than when he was hanged on the cross, than when the four nails were knocked

and driven through his hands and feet, than when the sharp crown of thorns was thrust on his head. This was the heaviness and pensiveness of his heart, the agony of the spirit. And as the soul is more precious than the body, even so are the pains of the soul more grievous than the pains of the body: Therefore there is another which writeth, Horror mortis gravior ipsa morte, "The horror and irksomeness of death, is sorer than death itself." This is the most grievous pain that ever Christ suffered, even this pang that he suffered in the garden. It is the most notable place, one of them in the whole story of the passion, when he said, Anima mea tristis est, usque ad mortem, "My soul is heavy to death." And cum cepisset expavescere, "when he began to quiver, to shake." The grievousness of it is declared by this prayer that he made, Pater, si possibile est, &c., "Father, if it be possible, away with this cup: rid me of it." He understood by this cup his pains of death; for he knew well enough, that his passion was at hand, that Judas was coming upon him with the Jews to take him.

There was offered unto him now the image of death, the image, the sense, the feeling of hell: for death and hell go both together. I will entreat of this image of hell, which is death. Truly no man can shew it perfectly, yet I will do the best I can, to make you understand the grievous pangs that our Saviour Christ was in, when he was in the garden. As man's power is not able to bear it, so no man's tongue is able to express it. Painters paint death like a man without skin, and a body having nothing but bones. And hell they paint with horrible flames of burning fire: they bungle somewhat at it, they come nothing near it. But this is no true painting. No painter can paint hell, unless he could paint the torment and condemnation both of body and soul; the possession and having of all infelicity. This is hell, this is the image of death: this is hell, such an evil-favoured face, such an ugly countenance, such an horrible visage our Saviour Christ saw of death and hell in the garden. There is no pleasure in beholding of it, but more pain than any tongue can tell. Death and hell took unto them this evil-favoured face of sin, and through sin. This sin is so highly hated of God, that he doth pronounce it worthy to be punished with lack of all felicity, with the feeling of infelicity. Death and hell be not only the wages, the

reward, the stipend of sin: but they are brought into the world by sin, Per peccatum mors, saith St. Paul, "through sin death entered into the world." Moses sheweth the first coming in of it into the world: whereas our first father Adam was set at liberty to live for ever, yet God inhibiting him from eating of the apple, told him: "If thou meddle with this fruit, thou and all thy, posterity shall fall into necessity of death, from ever living; Morte morieris, thou and all thy posterity shall be subject to death." Here came in death and hell; sin was their mother; therefore they must have such an image as their mother sin would give them.

An irksome thing and an horrible image, must it needs be that is brought in by such a thing so hated of God; yea, this face of death and hell is so terrible, that such as have been wicked men, had rather be hanged than abide it. As Achitophel, that traitor to David, like an ambitious wretch, thought to have come to higher promotion; and therefore conspired with Absalom against his master David. He, when he saw his counsel took no place, goes and hangs himself, in contemplation of this evil-favoured face of death. Judas also, when he came with ambushments to take his master Christ, in beholding this horrible face, hanged himself. Yea the elect people of God, the faithful, having the beholding of his face, (though God hath always preserved them, such a good God he is to them that believe in him, that "he will not suffer them to be tempted above that that they are able to bear;") yet for all that, there is nothing that they complain more sore than of this horror of death. Go to Job, what saith he? Pereat dies in quo natus sum, suspendium elegit anima mea, "Wo worth the day that I was born in, my soul would be hanged," saying in his pangs almost he wist not what. This was when with the eye of his conscience, and the inward man, he beheld the horror of death and hell; not for any bodily pain he suffered; for when he had boils, blotches, blains, and scabs, he suffered them patiently: he could say then, Si bona suscepi, de manu Domini, &c., "If we have received good things of God, why should we not suffer likewise evil ?"

It was not for any such thing, that he was so vexed: but the sight of this face of death and hell was offered to him so lively, that he would have been out of this world. It was this evil