This man is sent with the rest to the priests. He well knew this duty a branch of the law of ceremonies, which he meant not to neglect; but his heart told him, there was a moral duty of professing thankfulness to his benefactor, which called for his first attendance. First, therefore, he turns back, ere he will stir forward. Reason taught this Samaritan, and us in him, that ceremony must yield to substance; and that main points of obedience must take place of all ritual compliments.

It is not for nothing, that note is made of the country of this thankful Leper; He was a Samaritan. The place is known and branded, with the infamy of a Paganish misreligion. Outward disadvantage of place or parentage, cannot block up the way of God's grace and free election; as, contrarily, the privileges of birth and nature, avail us nothing in spiritual occasions.

How sensible wert thou, O Saviour, of thine own beneficence ! Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? The trooping of these Lepers together did not hinder thy reckoning. It is both justice and wisdom in thee, to keep a strict account of thy favours. There is a wholesome and useful art of forgetfulness in us men, both of benefits done, and of wrongs offered. It is not so with God. Our injuries, indeed, he soon puts over; making it no small part of his style, that he forgives iniquities: but for his mercies, there is no reason he should forget them; they are worthy of more than our memory. His favours are universal over all his works; there is no creature that tastes not of his bounty; his sun and rain are for others, besides his friends: but none of his good turns escapes either his knowledge or record. Why should not we, O God, keep a book of our receipts from thee; which, agreeing with thine, may declare thee bounteous, and us thankful?

Our Saviour doth not ask this by way of doubt, but of exprobration. Full well did he count the steps of those absent Lepers. He knew where they were. He upbraids their ingratitude, that they were not where they should have been. It was thy just quarrel, O Saviour, that, while one Samaritan returned, nine Israelites were healed and returned not. Had they been all Samaritans, this had been faulty; but now they were Israelites, their ingratitude was more foul than their leprosy. The more we are bound to God, the more shameful is our unthankfulness. There is scarce one in ten, that is careful to give God his own: this neglect is not more general, than displeasing. Christ had never missed their presence, if their absence had not been hateful and injurious. Luke xvii.

THE POOL OF BETHESDA :

Meditated on in a Sermon, preached at the Court, before King James, of Blessed memory.

TO THE READER.

THE Reader may be pleased to understand, that my manner hath still been, first to pass through all these Divine Histories by way of Sermons; and then after, to gather the quintessence of those larger discourses into these forms of Meditations, which he sees: only, I have thought good, upon these two following heads, for some good reasons, to publish the Sermons in their own shape, as they were delivered without alteration. It seemed not amiss, that some of those metals should be shewn in the ore, whereof so great a quantity was presented in the wedge.

THE POOL OF BETHESDA.

OTHERWHERE, ye may look long, and see no miracle; but here, behold two miracles in one view: the former, of the angel curing diseases; the latter, of the God of angels, Christ Jesus, preventing the angel in his cure. Even the first, Christ wrought by the angel; the second, immediately by himself. The first is incomparable; for, as Montanus truly observes, there is no one miraculum perpetuum, but this one, in the whole Book of God.

Be content to spend this hour with me, in the porches of Bethesda, and consider with me the TOPOGRAPHY, the AITIOLOGY, the CHRONOGRAPHY of this miracle. These three limit our speech and your patient attention.

I. The CHRONOGRAPHY, which is first in place and time, offers us two heads: 1. A FEAST OF THE JEWS; 2. CHRIST GOING

UP TO THE FEAST.

1. The Jews were full of holy-days, both of God's institution and the Church's.

Of God's ;-both weekly, monthly, anniversary.-Weekly; that one of seven, which I would to God we had learned of them to keep better. In this regard it was, that Seneca said, the Jews did Septimam ætatis partem perdere, "lose the seventh part of their life."-Monthly; the new moons, Numb. xxviii.—Anniversary; Easter, Pentecost, and the September feasts.

The Church's;-both the Purim, by Mardocheus; and the Encænia, by Judas Maccabæus, which yet Christ honoured by his solemnization, John x.

Surely, God did this for the cheerfulness of his people in his service hence the Church hath laudably imitated this example. To have no feasts, is sullen: to have too many, is paganish and superstitious. Neither would God have cast the Christian Easter upon the just time of the Jewish Pasch, and their Whitsuntide upon the Jewish Pentecost; if he would not have had these feasts continued. And why should the Christian Church have less power, than the Jewish Synagogue?

Here was not a mere feriation, but a feasting: they must appear before God cum muneribus, with gifts. The tenth part of their increase must be spent upon the three solemn feasts, besides their former tithes to Levi, Deut. xiv. 23. There was no holy-day, wherein they feasted above six hours; and, in some of them, tradition urged them to their quantities of drink: and David, when he would keep holy-day to the ark, allows every Israelite a cake of bread, a piece of flesh, a bottle of wine; not a dry dinner, prandium caninum, not a mere drinking, of wine without meat, but to make up a perfect feast, bread, flesh, wine; 2 Sam. vi. 19.

The true Purims of this island are those two feasts of August and November. He is no true Israelite, that keeps them not; as the days, which the Lord hath made. When are joy and triumphs seasonable, if not at feasts? but not excess. Pardon me, I know not how feasts are kept at the court; but, as Job, when he thought of the banquets of his sons, says, It may be they have sinned; so let me speak at peradventures. If sensual immoderation should have set her foot into these Christian feasts, let me at least say with indulgent Eli, Non est bona fama, filii, It is no good report, my sons. Do ye think that St. Paul's rule, Non in comessationibus et ebrietate, not in surfeiting and drunkenness, was for work-days only? The Jews had a conceit, that on their sabbath and feastdays the devils fled from their cities ad montes umbrosos, "to the shady mountains." Let it not be said, that on our Christian feasts they should è montibus aulam petere, and that he seeks, and finds not, loca arida, but madida. God forbid, that Christians should sacrifice to Bacchus, instead of the everliving God; and that on the day, when you should have been blown up by treacherous fire from earth to heaven, you should fetch down the fire of God's anger from heaven upon you, by swilling and surfeits: God forbid. God's service is unum necessarium, one thing necessary, saith Christ. Homo ebrius, superflua creatura, "A drunken man is a superfluous creature," saith Ambrose. How ill do those two agree together! This I have been bold to say, out of caution, not of reproof.

Thus much, that there was a feast of the Jews. Now, what feast it was is questionable: whether the Pasch, as Irenæus, and Beza with him, thinks, upon the warrant of John iv. 35: where our Saviour had said, Yet four months, and then comes harvest; or whether Pentecost, which was fifty days from the shaking of the sheaf, (that was Easter Sunday,) as Cyril, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, and some later: or whether one of the Septem

ber feasts, as some others. The excellency of the feast makes for Easter, the feast war ; the number of interpreters, for Pentecost; the number of feasts, for September: for, as God delighted in the number of seven, the seventh day was holy, the seventh year, the seventh seventh year; so he shewed it in the seventh month, which reserves his number still, September; the first day whereof was the Sabbath of Trumpets, the tenth dies expiationum, and on the fifteenth began the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days.

It is an idleness, to seek that, which we are never the better, when we have found. What, if Easter? What, if Tabernacles? What, if Pentecost? What loss, what gain is this? Magná nos molestia Johannes liberasset, si unum adjecisset verbum, “John had eased us of much trouble, if he had added but one word," saith Maldonat. But for us, God give them sorrow which love it: this is one of St. Paul's diaria vain disputations, that be forbids his Timothy; yea, which is the subject thereof, one of them, which he calls μωρας και απαίδευτες ζητήσεις, foolish and unlearned questions, 2 Tim. ii. 23. Quantum mali facit nimia subtilitas? How much mischief is done by too much subtlety?" saith Seneca. These are for some idle cloisterers, that have nothing to do, but to pick straws in divinity: like to Appian the grammarian, that with long discourse would pick out of Homer's first verse of his Iliads, and the first word, wow, the number of the books of Iliads and Odysses; or like Didymus xxereOS, that spent some of his four thousand books about, which was Homer's country, who was Æneas's true mother, what the age of Hecuba, how long it was betwixt Homer and Orpheus; or those wise critics, of whom Seneca speaks, that spent whole volumes, whether Homer or Hesiod were the elder. Non profuturam scientiam tradunt," they vent an unprofitable skill," as he said. Let us be content with the learned ignorance of what God hath concealed; and know, that what he hath concealed, will not avail us to know.

2. Rather let us inquire, why Christ would go up to the feast. I find two silken cords that drew him up thither. (1.) His Obedience. (2.) His desire of Manifesting his Glory.

(1.) It was a general law, All males must appear thrice a year before the Lord. Behold, he was the God, whom they went up to worship at the feast; yet he goes up to worship. He began his life in obedience, when he came in his mother's belly to Bethlehem, at the taxation of Augustus; and so he continues it. He knew his due. Of whom do the kings of the earth receive tribute; of their own, or of strangers? Then, their sons are free. Yet, he, that would pay tribute to Cæsar, will also pay this tribute of Obedience to his Father. He, that was above the Law, yields to the Law: Legi satisfacere voluit, etsi non sub lege, "He would satisfy the Law, though he were not under the Law." The Spirit of God says, He learned obedience, in that he suffered surely also he taught obedience in that he did. This was his wpewov ECT to

John Baptist, It becomes us to fulfil all righteousness. He will not abate his Father one ceremony. It was dangerous, to go up to that Jerusalem, which he had left before for their malice; yet now he will up again. His Obedience drew him up to that bloody feast, wherein himself was sacrificed; how much more now, that he might sacrifice! What can we plead to have learned of Christ, if not his first lesson, Obedience? The same proclamation that Gideon made to Israel, He makes still to us, As ye see me do, so do

Whatsoever therefore God enjoins us, either immediately by himself, or mediately by his deputies, if we will be Christians, we must so observe; as those, that know themselves bound to tread in his steps, that said, In the volume of thy book, it is written of me, I desired to do thy will, O God, Psalm xl. 6. I will have obedience, saith God, and not sacrifice. But where sacrifice is obedience, he will have obedience in sacrificing. Therefore, Christ went up to the feast.

(2.) The Second Motive was, the Manifestation of his Glory. If we be the light of the world, which are so much snuff, what is he, that is the Father of Lights? It was not for him, to be set under the bushel of Nazareth, but upon the table of Jerusalem. Thither, and then, was the confluence of all the tribes. Many a time, had Christ passed by this man before, when the streets were empty; for there he lay many years; yet heals him not, till now. He, that, sometimes, modestly steals a miracle with a Vide ne cui dixeris, See thou tell no man, that no man might know it; at other times, does wonders upon the scaffold of the world, that no man might be ignorant, and bids proclaim it on the house-tops. It was fit, the world should be thus publicly convinced; and either won by belief, or lost by inexcusableness. Good, the more common it is, the better. I will praise thee, saith David, in ecclesiá magná, in the great congregation. Glory is not got in corners. No man, say the envious kinsmen of Christ, keeps close, and would be famous: no, nor that would have God celebrated. The best opportunities must be taken in glorifying him. He, that would be crucified at the feast, that his death and resurrection might be more famous; will at the feast do miracles, that his Divine power might be approved openly. Christ is flos campi, non horti, "the flower of the field, not of the garden," saith Bernard. God cannot abide, to have his graces smothered in us: I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart, saith the Psalmist. Absalom, when he would be insigniter improbus, "notoriously wicked," does his villany publicly, in the eyes of the Sun, under no curtain but Heaven. He, that would do notable service to God, must do it conspicuously. Nicodemus gained well by Christ, but Christ got nothing by him; so long as, like a night bird, he never came to him, but with owls and bats. Then he began to be a profitable disciple, when he durst oppose the Pharisees in their condemnation of Christ, though indefinitely; but most, when, in the night of his death, the light of his faith brought him openly, to take down the Sacred