an act passed" for the dissolution of these our earthly tabernacles. Loosed they shall be, spirit from flesh, flesh from bone, each bone from other-no avoiding it.

ral duty.

All our care to be this, how to come to a good excitabo. 2. Our moGood I say, for excitabo we shall never need to take thought for; we shall come to that, whether we care for it or no. But to a good excitabo, such an one as He, as Christ, as this Temple is come to, that is, to a joyful resurrection as we call it. That is worth our care, for in the end that will be worth all.

our bodies

That shall we come to, if we can take order that while we To make be here, before we go hence, our bodies, we get them tem- temples. plified as I may say, procure they be framed after the similitude of a Temple, this Temple in the text; for if it be solvite Templum, at the dissolution a Temple, a Temple it will rise again, there is no doubt of that.

Our bodies, as we use the matter-many of us, are far from Temples; rather prostibula than Templa, brothel-houses, brokers'-shops, wine-casks, or I wot not what, rather than Temples.' Or if Temples, Temples the wrong way, of Ceres, Bacchus, Venus; or, to keep the Scripture phrase, of Chemosh, Ashtoreth, Baal-peor, and not Domus Patris Mei, as this here He speaks of."

But if this be the fruit of our life, and we have no other but this, to fill and farce our bodies, to make them shrines of pride, and to maintain them in this excess, to make a moneychange of all besides, commonwealth, Church and all; I know not well what to say to it, I doubt at their rising they will rather make blocks for hell fire, than be made "pillars in Rev. 3. 12. the Temple of God," "in the holy places made without Heb. 9. 11. hands."

Otherwise, if they prove to be Temples here, let no man doubt then, let them be loosed when or how they will, He that raised this Temple, so they be Temples, will raise them likewise; and that, to the same glorious estate Himself was raised too.

solvite of

A course then must be taken, that while we are here, we do The moral solvere Templa hæc, 'dissolve these Temples' of Chemosh and them. Ashtoreth, and upon the dissolution of them we raise them up very Temples to the true and living God; that we down

X.

SERM. with Beth-aven, "this house or shop of vanity," as by nature they are, and up with Bethel, "God's house," as by grace they may be.

The moral.

Excitabo.

For a solvite and an excitabo we are to pass here in this life, and this, this excitabo, is the first resurrection here to be Rev. 20. 6. passed. "He that hath his part in this first, he shall not fail but have it in the second."

That they may be

If then Temples they would be, that we so make them, for to make them so is the excitabo of this life.

And so shall we make them, even Temples; and no way temples. sooner, than if we love this place, the Temple, well, and love to resort to it, and to be much in it. By being much in it, we shall even turn into it. And sure, if ever we have aliquid Templi, any thing of a Temple' in us, then it is when we are duly and devoutly occupied and employed, they and we, in His worship and service. Then are we Temples.

Temples. Corporis sui.

But to be Temples is not all, we are farther to be Templum hoc, "this Temple ;" and this was "the Temple of His Body." And that are we, if at any time, then certainly when as if we were Temples in very deed, we prepare to receive, not the Ark of His presence, but Himself, that He may come into us and be in us; which is at what time we present ourselves to receive His blessed Body and Blood; that Body and that Blood which for our sakes was dissolved, dissolved three days since when it suffered for our sins. And this day raised Rom.4. 25. again, when it "rose for our justification."

This feast

a fit time for it.

Which when we do, that is, receive this Body or this Temple, for Templum hoc and Hoc est Corpus Meum are now come to be one, for both Templum hoc and corpus hoc are in Templum corporis Sui; and when the temples of our body are in this Temple, and the Temple of His Body in the temples of ours, then are there three Temples in one, a Trinity, the perfectest number of all. Then if ever are we, not Temples only, but Templa corporis Sui, Temples of His Body,' and this Scripture fulfilled in us.

This are we when we receive. Now at no time is this act of receiving so proper, so in season, as this very day—so hath Christ's Church thought it, and so practised it ever—the very day of this His excitabo, the day of His rising, and by means of it, of our raising; our raising first, to the life of righteous

ness, to the estate of Temples here in this world, and after, of our raising again to the second, the life of glory and bliss, of glorious temples in the world to come, which is the excitabo when all is done. What time they and we shall be loosed as now from sin, so then from corruption; and raised and restored, as now to the estate of grace, so then to the state of glory, and glorious liberty of the sons of God. To which happy and blessed estate, may He raise us all in the end, That this day was raised for us, &c.!

A SERMON

PREACHED BEFORE THE

KING'S MAJESTY, AT WHITEHALL,

ON THE THIRTY-FIRST OF MARCH, A.D MDCXVI. BEING EASTER-DAY.

SERM.

XI.

The sum.

1 PETER i. 3, 4.

Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for you.

[Benedictus Deus et Pater Domini nostri Jesu Christi, Qui secundum misericordiam Suam magnam regeneravit nos in spem vivam, per resurrectionem Jesu Christi ex mortuis,

In hæreditatem incorruptibilem, et incontaminatam, et immarcescibilem,
conservatam in cælis in vobis. Latin Vulg.]

[Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Which
according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a
lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not
away, reserved in Heaven for you. Engl. Trans.]

THE sum of this text, and if ye will the name of it too, is set down in the very first word of it. It is a Benedictus; the first word is so. The first word Benedictus, and if you look, the last word is "for you." Give me leave to read it "for us," to put in ourselves, seeing to us and for us it was written. So a Benedictus it is, from us to God, for something coming from God to, or "for us."

Something? Nay many. Benedictus is but one word, but the first word; the rest of the words of both the verses, are "for us" all.

And many they are. We reduce them to three: 1. Our regeneration which is past; 2. Our hope, which is present; 3. and our inheritance, which is to come. 1. Regenerating or begetting, is of itself a benefit; we get life by it, if nothing else. 2. But to beget to an inheritance, is more than simply to beget. 3. And yet more than that, to beget to such an inheritance as this, of which so many excellent things are here spoken.

Three then, in this: 1. To be begotten; 2. To be begotten to inherit; 3. To be begotten to inherit such an inheritance.

But then, an inheritance is no present matter. All heirs be Tit. 3. 7. "heirs under hope," usque dum, "till the appointed time." So [Gal. 4.2] comes hope in. Therefore, first "to hope." After, to the thing hoped for, the "inheritance" itself. There is a resemblance of both these in the two seasons of the year.

At this time, the

time of Christ's resurrection, and of our celebrating it, "to hope," as to the blossom or blade, rising now in the spring; to the "inheritance"-that, as the crop or fruit to come after at harvest, and the "harvest" of this crop, saith our Saviour, Mat. 13.39. "is the end of the world."

We are not yet come to the point. "Regenerate" whereto? "to a lively hope." "Hope," whereof? of an "inheritance." "Inheritance," what manner one? Such as is here set down.

But all these whereby? Per resurrectionem, "by the resurrection of Christ." All by Him, all by that. This “by" is the main here. This Sia the Sià Taoŵr that runs through all this text. For all arise from Christ arising from the dead.

Now if from Christ rising, then from Christ at this feast. For this is the feast of Christ's rising, and so this the proper Benedictus for this feast. We had a Benedictus made by Lu. 1. 68. Zachary, St. John Baptist's Father, for His Birth, for Christmas-day, known by the name of Benedictus. We have here now another for His rising, for Easter-day, of St. Peter's setting. And this it is.

vision.

For the order, we will put the words in no other, for we The dican put them in no better than they stand; every one is in his due place, from the first to the last.