and enjoy everlasting salvation, must have and enjoy it by Christ, and by none other. Therefore ought we all to lay hand on him with a strong and unshaken faith. But he that will not receive him as his one only, alone, and allsufficient Saviour, but will cleave to his own works and righteousness, without fail shall be damned. For to this end we have Christ given us of God the Father, to be our Saviour, that by him we should have power to be made the sons of God, I mean all such as believe in his name, deny and forsake themselves and their works, and only joy, rejoice, and glory in the name of Christ, wishing and desiring only, by that name to be made holy and acceptable before the presence of God's majesty.

When we have thus, through faith and confidence in Christ, challenged unto us Christ and all his merits, with all the fruits, advantages, and profits that he got, either by his life or by his death, as our own and proper goods, then let us also endeavour ourselves to set Christ before us as an example, whose life and conversation, whose acts and deeds, we ought to follow. For although, as we heard before, we deserve nothing by our works, yet may we not be without good works in this life. Therefore let us frame all our lives, and all that ever we do, after the example of Christ, whom the Scripture sets forth unto us two manner of ways. First, as a Saviour, and this is the principal part of our righteousness. Secondly, as an example; that with him we should mortify and slay old Adam; as St. Paul saith, So many of us as are baptized in Christ, are baptized into his death, that is to say, that we should crucify with him our flesh and wicked lusts, suppress them, and give no place to the wicked appetites of the flesh. So do we declare ourselves to be true Christians, as the apostle saith, They that belong unto Christ, have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts thereof. For he that truly knows sin, and the wrath of God against sin, and how dearly Christ bought us, and paid our ransom that we might be delivered from it, will undoubtedly hate sin from the very bottom of his heart. And when he shall not be able to resist, he will be inwardly sorry, and study all means possible how he may repress that sin, and be able to tame and restrain that wicked flesh. Again, if he truly believe how loving, merciful, and gentle, God has shown himself toward him through Christ our Saviour, and how God has pleasured him freely and without deserving, he shall greatly be stirred

up to serve and please God, and for his sake love his neighbour, whom God hath commended unto him, not only if he be his friend, but also though he be his very enemy. For Christ received him, and by his passion and death saved him, even then when he was his enemy.

Thus the true, diligent, and earnest consideration of the passion of Christ, works in us true fruits and good works, that is to say, the mortifying and crucifying of old Adam; as Paul saith, They that have put on Christ, he meaneth by faith, or they that are of Christ, have crucified their flesh, with all her concupiscences; yea, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; so that we, in the passion, cross, and death of the old man, should be made like to Christ, to his passion and death. For so hath God ordained.

Thus briefly have we declared how we ought truly to consider the passion of Christ, with the fruits and causes thereof; by the which passion and death we are delivered from Satan, from sin, from the curse of the law, from desperation, from death, from hell, from the wrath of God, and from everlasting damnation; and are translated and removed into the heavenly country, that glorious kingdom of the most glorious God. Last of all, we opened unto you how we ought by faith to take and challenge unto us those most singular and inestimable benefits, and so form and frame our conversation and life after the example of Christ, that it may outwardly appear, that we are the thankful disciples of Christ, and the faithful and loving children of the heavenly Father. And forasmuch as we cannot do this of our own strength and power, let us most humbly pray unto God, that he, for Christ Jesus' sake, may give us his strength and Spirit, that we may live before him in pure faith and unfeigned love, and in the great day of the Lord appear faultless among the dear and well-beloved children of God, and so hear out of his mouth who suffered and died for us, this most sweet and comfortable saying: Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom which was prepared for you from the beginning of the world. To this Lord Christ, our only Saviour and most perfect Redeemer, with God the Father, and the Holy Ghost, our most sweet Comforter, be all honour, glory, and praise, for ever. Amen.

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.

The Gospel for Easter Day.

The first day of (after) the Sabbath came Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, &c.—John xx. 1-10.

INASMUCH as on this day, according to the ancient and commendable custom of Christ's church, we celebrate the laudable feast, and worthy memory of the most noble and victorious resurrection of our Saviour Jesus Christ; it is meet and convenient that we speak and treat of the same at this present. For the true sanctifying and hallowing of festival days consists in the true worshipping of God, which is none other thing (prayers and thanksgiving being once done,) than to exercise the word, both in preaching and reading. We therefore will confer according to the season, of the glorious resurrection of our most loving Lord and sweet Saviour Christ Jesus. And we will first of all consider, what manner of resurrection the rising again of Christ from death unto life was. After that we will in the second place declare what utility and profit, what fruit and goodness, the most victorious and triumphant resurrection of Christ hath brought unto us, as we have before showed of his passion and death.

I. As touching the first, let us not think that the resurrection of Christ was a common resurrection from death, as the resurrection of Lazarus; but besides that Christ rose again in the flesh and corporeally, he also spiritually became the Lord of death and overcame it, and brought with him everlasting life, so that all who believe are risen again with him, and have overcome death. And by this his resurrection he hath not only obtained a temporal life, but also a spiritual life. For as he before by the temporal death of the cross, did slay and utterly abolish the spiritual death of sin and hell; so likewise by his resurrection, he hath not only recovered and brought again the temporal life and quietness, but also everlasting life and perpetual joy. Whereof we may learn that Christ is risen again two manner of ways. First, after the flesh, by which resurrection he made his dead body alive again, his despised

body glorious, his weak and feeble body mighty and strong, his natural body supernatural and spiritual.

Of this resurrection we read in many places of the Scripture. Among them Paul has these words in the chronicle of the apostles' acts, where he speaks on this manner; And we show unto you that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled to their children, even unto us, in that he raised up Jesus; as it is written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. And in his first epistle to the Corinthians, he saith that Christ after his resurrection, was seen of more than five hundred brethren at once. And moreover that he showed himself before to the twelve, and to many other brethren, as we may see plainly written in the evangelists.

Secondly, there was in Christ also an inward and spiritual resurrection, in that he escaped from the horror of death, hell, sin, and the wrath of God, and came unto everlasting joy, tife, health, peace, and gladness. Of this he glories, and speaks by the mouth of that prince-like prophet, saying, Thou hast made the ways of life known to me; thou shalt fill me full of gladness with thy countenance. Again, Thou hast turned my heaviness into joy; thou hast put off my sackloth, and girded me with gladness. All these are gratulations, rejoicings, and thanksgivings, that God the heavenly Father hath delivered his Son Christ from the horror of hell and death; and not him only, but also with him and through him, all faithful Christians. Whereof we shall speak more largely hereafter. How the resurrection of Christ was done, how he rose again on Easter-day in the morning before the sun, and how the women found the sepulchre empty; again, how they were comforted of the angel and admonished of his resurrection-these with divers other things are written by the four evangelists, and ye yourselves have heretofore both heard and read them. Therefore at this time we will rather declare and set forth unto you, the profits and fruits which Christ hath gotten for us, by his glorious and royal resurrection; and open to you how we ought to enter into a new life with Christ.

But before we come unto this matter, let us speak somewhat of the innocency and Godhead of Christ, by which he mightily broke the jaws of hell, and burst in pieces the body of death, and so valiantly, victoriously, and triumphantly rose again from death. Now forasmuch

as Christ was in all points pure and innocent, and utterly without all sin; death and hell could by no means overcome him. For seeing that death is the reward of sin, as the apostle saith, and Christ had no sin at all, so it right well follows, that death had no power over Christ, and that it assaulted him without cause; and therefore death lost his right, because without cause he abused Christ, who was innocent and free from all sin. The innocency of Christ was the cause that death and hell (they only have power over sinners, for by sin entered death into the world,) could not retain, hold, and devour him, but that he must needs return unto life, and rise again from death.

Besides this innocency, Christ also had this, that he was the true and natural Son of God, and therefore he could not be retained and holden of death, nor yet of hell, nor of any other kind of misery; as he himself glories and rejoices of this power, saying, That he hath power to give over his life, and also to take it again. And that no man taketh his life from him, but he giveth it over of himself. Which is nothing else than if he should say, I am God, and the Lord both of death and of life, and I handle them as I myself list. Therefore St. Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, writeth, that by this he was declared to be the Son of God, when he rose again from death. For no man can escape death; as David saith, What man is he that shall live and not see death? And St. Paul to the Hebrews saith, that all men must needs once die, and after that cometh the judgment. Seeing then that Christ was not only man, but also very God, the Creator and life-giver of all creatures, yea, the Life itself, as he himself testifies in the gospel of St. John, it was not possible for death and hell to retain and overcome him; as St. Peter records in the Acts of the Apostles, saying, Whom, (he meaneth Christ,) God hath raised up, and loosed the sorrows of death, because it was impossible that he should be holden of it. For seeing he was the Holy One of God, he could not abide in hell, neither could his flesh see corruption; as St. Peter strongly proved out of David. By this it is easy to answer how this may be, that the passion and death of Christ, and the sight of the infernal condemnation, could be a sufficient satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, which notwithstanding, after the severe judgment of God, ought to have been punished with everlasting pain and endless damnation? I answer, this satisfaction is of