Wherefore, lady, smell thou mayest of this, but taste thou wilt not. I know that both thy wanton eye, with all thy mincing brood that are intoxicated with thy cup and enchanted with thy fornications, will, at the sight of so homely and plain a dish as this, cry, Foh! will snuff, put the branch to the nose, and say, Contemptible! "But wisdom is justified of all her children.' The virgin-daughter of Zion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee;" yea, her God hath smitten his hands at thy dishonest gains and freaks. "Rejoice ye with Jerusalem and be glad with her, all ye that love her; rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her, that ye may suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory."

THE WOODEN CROSS.

Some have thought the altar to mean the cross on which the body of Christ was crucified when he gave himself an offering for sin; but they are greatly deceived, for he also himself was the altar through which he offered himself; and this is one of the treasures of wisdom which are hid in him, and of which the world and antichrist are utterly ignorant.

The altar is always greater than the gift, and since the gift was the body and soul of Christ-for so saith the scripture, "He gave himself for our sins"-the altar must be something else than a sorry bit of wood, or than the accursed tree.

Wherefore I will say to such, as one wiser than Solomon said to the Jews when they superstitiously magnified the gift, in counting it more honorable than the altar, "Ye fools and blind; for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?"

If the altar be greater than the gift, and yet the gift so great a thing as the very humanity of Christ, can it—I will now direct my speech to the greatest fool-can that greater

thing be the cross?

Was the cross, the wooden cross,

the

cursed tree that some worship, greater than the gift, to wit, the sacrifice which Christ offered, when he gave himself for our sins? O idolatry! O blasphemy!

But what then was the altar?

The divine nature of Christ, that eternal Spirit, by and in the assistance of which "he offered himself without spot to God." 'He through the eternal Spirit offered

himself."

And it must be this, because, as was said, the altar is greater than the gift; but there is nothing but Christ's divine nature greater than his human. To be sure, a sorry bit of wood, a tree, the stock of a tree, is not.

It must be this, because the Scripture says plainly, the altar sanctifies the gift, that is, puts worth and virtue into it. But was it the tree, or the godhead of Christ, that put virtue and efficacy into this sacrifice that he offered to God for us? If thou canst but count thy fingers, judge.

Let the tree then be the tree, the sacrifice the sacrifice, and the altar the altar; and let men have a care how, in their worship, they make altars upon which, as they pretend, they offer the body of Christ; and let them leave off foolishly to doat upon wood and the works of their hands.

XXIV. DEATH.

SEEING man was taken from the ground, he is neither God nor angel, but a poor earthen vessel, such as God can easily knock in pieces and cause to return to the ground again.

And the time of need is the day of death, when I am to pack up all to be gone from hence, the way of all the earth. Now the greatest trial is come, except that of the day of judgment. Now a man is to be stripped of all but that which cannot be shaken. Now a man grows near the borders of eternity. Now he begins to see into the skirts of the next world. Now death is death, and the grave the grave indeed. Now he begins to see what it is for soul and body to part, and what to go and appear before God. Now the dark entry and the thoughts of what is in the way from a death-bed to the gate of the holy heaven, come nearer the heart than when health and prosperity do compass a man about.

Some men are cut off like the tops of the ears of corn, and some are even nipped by death in the very bud of their spring; but the safety is when a man is ripe, and shall be gathered to his grave as a shock of corn to the barn in its

season.

DEATH OF THE SINNER.

Death is the axe which God often useth, therewith to take the barren fig-tree out of the vineyard, out of a profession, and also out of the world at once. But this axe is now new-ground; it cometh well edged to the roots of this barren fig-tree. It hath been whetted by sin, by the law, and by a formal profession, and therefore must and will make deep gashes, not only in the natural life, but in the

heart and conscience also of this professor. The wages of sin is death, the sting of death is sin. Wherefore, death comes not to this man as he doth to saints, muzzled, or without his sting, but with open mouth, in all his strength; yea, he sends his first-born, which is guilt, to devour his strength and to bring him to the king of terrors.

The dark entry which the barren professor is to go through will be a sore amazement to him, for "fears shall be in the way," yea, terrors will take hold on him when he shall see the yawning jaws of death gape upon him, and the doors of the shadow of death open to give him passage out of the world. Now, who will meet me in this dark entry? How shall I pass through this dark entry into another world?

There is no judgment to be made by a quiet death of the eternal state of him that so dieth. Suppose one man should die quietly, another should die suddenly, and a third should die under great consternation of spirit; no man can judge of their eternal condition by the manner of any of these kinds of death. He that dies quietly, suddenly, or under consternation of spirit, may go to heaven, or may go to hell; no man can tell whither a man goes by any such manner of death. The judgment, therefore, that we make of the eternal condition of man, must be gathered from another consideration, to wit, Did the man die in his sins? Did he die in unbelief? Did he die before he was born again? He that is a good man, a man that hath faith and holiness, a lover and worshipper of God by Christ, according to his word, may die in consternation of spirit; for Satan will not be wanting to assault good men upon their death-bed. But they are secured by the word and power of God, yea, and are also helped, though with much agony of spirit, to exercise themselves in faith and prayer; the which he that dieth in despair can by no means do.

DEATH OF THE CHRISTIAN.

Let dissolution come when it will, it can do the Christian no harm, for it will be but only a passage out of a prison into a palace; out of a sea of troubles into a haven of rest; out of a crowd of enemies to an innumerable company of true, loving, and faithful friends; out of shame, reproach, and contempt, into exceeding great and eternal glory..

Another improvement of Christ's death for us was this: by it he slew for us our infernal foes; by it he abolished death; by death he destroyed him that had the power of death; by death he took away the sting of death; by death he made death a pleasant sleep to saints, and the grave for a while an easy house and home for the body.

We change our drossy dust for gold,

From death to life we fly:

We let go shadows, and take hold
Of immortality.

Blood takes away the guilt; inherent grace weakens the filth; but the grave is the place, at the mouth of which sin and the saved must have a perfect and final parting. Not that the grave of itself is of a sin-purging quality, but God will follow Satan home to his own door, for the grave is the door or gate of hell, and will there, where the devil thought to have swallowed us up, even there by the power of his mercy, make us shine like the sun and look like angels.

THE CHRISTIAN WISHING TO DEPART.

"I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ." The strength of this desire is such that it is ready, so far forth as it can, to dissolve that sweet knot of union that is betwixt body and soul-a knot more dear to a reasonable