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Moluccas, or to China, than by the promontory of Good Hope? Yet another way opened itself to Magellan; a strait, it is true; but yet a way thither; and who knows yet, whether there may not be a north-east, and a north-west way thither, besides? Go thou to heaven, in an humble thankfulness to God, and holy cheerfulness, in that way that God hath manifested to thee; and do not pronounce too bitterly, too desperately, that every man is in an error, that thinks not just as thou thinkest, or in no way, that is not in thy way. God found folly, weakness in his angels, yet more stood than fell; God finds weakness, wickedness in us, yet he came to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance: and who, that comes in that capacity, a repentant sinner can be shut out, or denied his part in this resurrection?

The key of David opens, and no man shuts. The Son of David, is the key of David, Christ Jesus; he hath opened heaven for us all let no man shut out himself, by diffidence in God's mercy, nor shut out any other man, by overvaluing his own purity, in respect of others. But forbearing all lacerations, and tearings, and woundings of one another, with bitter invectives, all exasperations by odious names of subdivision, let us all study, [first the redintegration of that body, of which Christ Jesus hath declared himself to be the head, the whole Christian church, and pray that he would, and hope that he will enlarge the means of salvation to those, who have not yet been made partakers of it. That so, he that called the gates of heaven strait, may say to those gates, Elecamini portæ æternales, Be ye lifted up, ye eternal gates, and be ye enlarged, that as the King of Glory himself is ⚫ entered into you, for the farther glory of the King of Glory, not only that hundred and four and forty thousand of the tribes of the children of Israel, but that multitude which is spoken of in that place, which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and friends, may enter with that acclamation, Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever. And unto this city of the living God, the heavenly Jeru salem, and to the innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly, and church of the first born, which are written in heaven, 22 Rev. vii. 19.

21 Psal. xxiv. 7.

and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel, blessed God bring us all, for thy Son's sake, and by the operation of thy Spirit. Amen.

SERMON XXIII.

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL'S, UPON EASTER DAY, 1630.

MATT. xxviii. 6.

He is not here, for he is risen, as he said; Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

THESE are words spoken by the angel of heaven, to certain devout women, who, not yet considering the resurrection of Christ, came with a pious intention to do an office of respect, and civil honour to the body of their Master, which they meant to embalm in the monument where they thought to find it. How great a compass God went in this act of the resurrection! Here was God, the God of life, dead in a grave, and here was a man, a dead man, risen out of the grave; here are angels of heaven employed in so low an office, as to catechise women, and women employed in so high an office, as to catechise the apostles. I chose this verse out of the body of the story of the resurrection, because in this verse the act of Christ's rising, (which we celebrate this day) is expressly mentioned, surrexit enim, for he is risen: which word stands as a candle, that shows itself, and all about it, and will minister occasion of illustrating your understanding, of establishing your faith, of exalting your devotion in some other things about the resurrection, than fall literally within the words of this verse. For, from this verse we must necessarily reflect, both upon the persons (they to whom, and they by whom the words were spoken) and upon the occasion given. I shall not therefore now stand to divide the words into their parts and branches, at

my first entering into them, but handle them, as I shall meet them again anon, springing out, and growing up from the body of the story; for the context is our text, and the whole resurrection is the work of the day, though it be virtually, implicitly contracted into this verse, He is not here, for he is risen, as he said; Come, and see the place where the Lord lay.

Our first consideration is upon the persons; and those we find to be angelical women, and evangelical angels: angels made evangelists, to preach the Gospel of the resurrection, and women made angels, (so as John Baptist is called an angel', and so as the seven bishops are called angels) that is, instructors of the church; and to recompense that observation, that never good angel appeared in the likeness of woman, here are good women made angels, that is, messengers, publishers of the greatest mysteries of our religion. For, howsoever some men out of a petulancy and wantonness of wit, and out of the extravagancy of paradoxes, and such singularities, have called the faculties, and abilities of women in question, even in the root thereof, in the reasonable and immortal soul, yet that one thing alone hath been enough to create a doubt, (almost an assurance in the negative) whether St. Ambrose's Commentaries upon the Epistles of St. Paul, be truly his or no, that in that book there is a doubt made, whether the woman were created according to God's image; therefore, because that doubt is made in that book, the book itself is suspected not to have had so great, so grave, so constant an author as St. Ambrose was; no author of gravity, of piety, of conversation in the Scriptures could admit that doubt, whether woman were created in the image of God, that is, in possession of a reasonable and an immortal soul.

The faculties and abilities of the soul appear best in affairs of state, and in ecclesiastical affairs; in matter of government, and in matter of religion; and in neither of these are we without examples of able women. For, for state affairs, and matter of government, our age hath given us such a queen, as scarce any former king hath equalled; and in the Venetian story, I remember, that certain matrons of that city were sent by commission, in quality of ambassadors, to an empress with whom that state

had occasion to treat; and in the stories of the Eastern parts of the world, it is said to be in ordinary practice to send women for ambassadors. And then, in matters of religion, women have evermore had a great hand, though sometimes on the left, as well as on the right hand. Sometimes their abundant wealth, sometimes their personal affections to some church-men, sometimes their irregular and indiscreet zeal hath made them great assistants of great heretics; as St. Hierome tells us of Helena to Simon Magus, and so was Lucilia to Donatus, so another to Mahomet, and others to others. But so have they been also great instruments for the advancing of true religion, as St. Paul testifies in their behalf, at Thessalonica, Of the chief women, not a few3; great, and many. For many times women have the proxies of greater persons than themselves, in their bosoms; many times women have voices, where they should have none; many times the voices of great men, in the greatest of civil, or ecclesiastical assemblies, have been in the power and disposition of women.

Hence is it, that in the old epistles of the bishops of Rome, when they needed the court, (as, at first they needed courts as much, as they brought courts to need them at last) we find as many letters of those popes to the emperors' wives, and the emperors' mothers, and sisters, and women of other names, and interests in the emperors' favours and affections, as to the emperors themselves. St. Hierome writ many letters to divers holy ladies; for the most part, all of one stock and kindred; and a stock and kindred so religious, as that I remember, the good old man says, That if Jupiter were their cousin, of their kindred, he believes Jupiter would be a Christian; he would leave being such a god as he was, to be their fellow-servant to the true God.

Now if women were brought up according to St. Hierome's instructions in those letters, that by seven years of age, they should be able to say the Psalms without book; that as they grew in years, they should proceed in the knowledge of Scriptures, that they should love the service of God at church, but not sine matre, not go to church when they would, but when their mother could go with them, Nec quærerent celebritatem ecclesiarum, They should not always go to the greatest churches, and

VOL. I.

3 Acts xvii. 4.

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where the most famous preachers drew most company; if women have submitted themselves to as good an education as men, God forbid their sex should prejudice them, for being examples to others. Their sex no, nor their sins neither: for, it is St. Hierome's note, That of all those women, that are named in Christ's pedigree in the Gospel, there is not one, (his only blessed Virgin Mother excepted) upon whom there is not some suspicious note of incontinency. Of such women did Christ vouchsafe to come; He came of woman so, as that he came of nothing but woman; of woman, and not of man. Neither do we read of any woman in the Gospel, that assisted the persecutors of Christ, or furthered his afflictions; even Pilate's wife dissuaded it. Woman, as well as man, was made after the image of God, in the creation; and in the resurrection, when we shall rise such as we were here, her sex shall not diminish her glory: of which, she receives one fair beam, and inchoation in this text, that the purpose of God, is, even by the ministry of angels, communicated to women. But what women? for their preparation, their disposition is in this text too; such women, as were not only devout, but sedulous, diligent, constant, perseverant in their devotion; to such women God communicated himself; which is another consideration in these persons.

As our Saviour Christ was pleased, that one of these women should be celebrated by name, for another act upon him, Mary Magdalen, and that wheresoever his Gospel was preached, her act should be remembered, so the rest, with her, are worthy to be known and celebrated by their names; therefore we consider, Quæ, and quales; first who they were, and then what they were, their names first, and then their conditions. There is an historical relation, and observation, That though there be divers kingdoms in Europe, in which the crowns may fall upon women, yet, for some ages, they did not, and when they did, it was much at one time, and all upon women of one name, Mary. It was so with us in England, and in Scotland it was so; so in Denmark, and in Hungary it was so too; all four, Marys. Though regularly women should not preach, yet when these legati a latere, these angels from heaven did give orders to women, and made them

Bodin de repub. 1. 6. c. 4.