For the First; We are sold under sin; saith our Apostle. No slave in Algiers is more truly sold in the market under a Turkish pirate, than we are naturally sold under the tyranny of sin: by whom we are bound hand and foot, and can stir neither of them towards God; and dungeoned up in the darkness of our ignorance, without any glimpse of the vision of God.

For the Second; the very nature of captivity implies misery enough. What outward evil is incident into a man, which bondage doth not bring with it? Woe is me! there was never so much captivity in this land since it was a nation, nor so woeful a captivity as this, of brethren to brethren. Complaints there are good store, on both sides; of restraint, want, ill-lodging, hard and scant diet, irons, insultations, scorns, and extremities of ill-usage of all kinds: and what other is to be found in the whole course of this wretched life of ours, the best whereof is vanity, and the worst infinite vexations?

But, Thirdly, if some men have been so externally happy, as to avoid some of these miseries; for all men smart not alike: yet never man did or can avoid the third; which is obnoxiousness to death: By the offence of one, saith the Apostle, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; Rom. v. 18. Sin hath reigned unto death; verse 21. It is more than an ordinance; a statute law, in heaven: Statutum est, &c. It is enacted to all men once to die; Heb. ix. 27.

2. This then is our Bondage or Captivity: now comes our REDEMPTION from all these at once; when, upon our happy dissolution, we are freed from Sin, from Misery, from Death; and enter into the possession of glory. Thus our Saviour; Lift up your heads, for the day of your redemption draweth nigh. Thus saith St. Paul; The creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, unto the glorious liberty of the sons of God; Rom. viii.

21.

It is the same condition of the members of Christ, which was of the head; that they overcome death by dying: when, therefore, the bands of death are loosed; and we are fully freed from the dominion of the first death, and danger of the second; and, therein, from all the capacity, not only of the rule and power of sin, but of the life and in-dwelling of it, and from all the miseries both bodily and spiritual that attend it; and when, in the same instant, our soul takes possession of that glory, which shall once, in the consociation of its glorious partner, the body, be perfectly consummated: then, and not till then, is the Day of our Redemption.

Is there any of us, therefore, that complains of his sad and hard condition here in the world; pains of body, grief of mind, agonies of soul, crosses in estate, discontentments in his family, suffering in his good name? let him bethink himself where he is: this is the time of his captivity; and what other can be expected in this case? Can we think there is no difference betwixt liberty and bondage? Can the slave think to be as free as his patron? Ease, rest, liberty must be looked for elsewhere; but, while we are here, we must

make no account of other than these varieties of misery. Our Redemption shall free us from them all.

But now, perhaps, some of you are ready to say of the Redemption, as they did of the Resurrection, That it is past already: and so indeed it is, one way; in respect of the price laid out by the Son of God; the invaluable price of his blood for the redemption of man: but so, that it must be taken out by, and applied to, every soul in particular, if we will have the benefit redound to us. It is His redemption, before: it is now only Our redemption, when it is brought home to us.

Oh then, the dear and happy day of this our final redemption; wherein we shall be absolutely freed from all the miserable sorrows, pains, cares, fears, vexations which we meet withal here below: and, which is yet more, from all the danger of sinning, which now every day adds to the fearfulness of our account: and, lastly, from the woeful wages of sin; Death, bodily, spiritual, eternal! Here is a Redemption worth our longing for; worth our joying in.

When Joseph was fetched out of Pharaoh's gaol, and changed the nasty rags of his prison for pure linen vestures, and his iron fetters for a chain of gold, and his wooden stocks for Pharaoh's second chariot Gen. xli. 42, do we not think he must needs be joyfully affected with it? When Peter was called up from betwixt his Leopards, as that Father terms them; and had his shackles taken off, and was brought through the iron gates into the free and open street: or, when Daniel was called out of the lion's den to the embracements of Darius; could he choose but rejoice in the change? when Lazarus was called, after three days' entombing, out of his grave; and saluted his mourning sisters, and walked home with his friends; could there be ought, but the voice of joy and gladness among them? But, alas, all these are but slight resemblances of the Blessed Redemption which is purchased for us, who are thus ransomed from sin and death.

Rather, if we could imagine the soul of a Trajan, fetched out of hell by the prayers of Gregory; or of a Falconella, by Tecla; according to the bold legends of lying fablers; and now freed from those intolerable and unconceiveable torments; we might apprehend, in some measure, what it is, that is wrought for our souls, in this merciful redemption; and what is the favour of that deliverance, which we must long to have fully perfected.

But, alas, what shall I say to us? We are enslaved and fettered, and we are loth to be free: we are in love with our bonds, with our miseries, with our sins; and, when death comes, like a good Ebedmelech, to drag us up out of our dungeon, we are unwilling to put the rags under our arm-pits, and to lay hold of that our sure and happy conveyance to the light and liberty of the saints. Oh our wretched unbelief, that is guilty of this slackness of our desires; whereas, if we were what we profess ourselves, we would think the time long till it be accomplished; and say, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly; even so, come Lord Jesus, come quickly; and make up our

full redemption from misery, from sin, from death; and bring us into that glorious liberty of the sons of God.

II. This, for the Day of our Redemption: now, secondly, let us see what this SEALING is to the Day of Redemption.

1. I find in God's book THREE USES OF A SEAL: for Secrecy; for Peculiar Designation; for Certainty and Assurance.

(1.) For Secrecy first. So God, speaking of the condition of Israel, Deut. xxxii. 34. Is not this laid up in store, and sealed up among my treasures? So Isaiah, speaking of a vision of his; It shall be as a letter of a book sealed; whereof one shall say, Read this, the other shall answer, I cannot, for it is sealed; Isaiah xxix. 11. Yea, this sealing argues a long reservation and closeness: Go thy way, Daniel; for the words are closed up, and sealed to the time of the end; Dan. xii. 9: and, thereupon it is, that John is forbidden to seal up the book of his prophecy; Rev. xxii. 10. for the time is nigh at hand. So we are wont to do, in ordinary practice: that closet, which we would have nobody go into, we seal up: that bag, which we would not have opened; and that letter, which we would not have seen by others; we seal up, and think it a great violation of civility to have it opened. Hence is that sigillum confessionis, "the seal of confession," amongst the Romish Casuists, held so sacred; that it may not, in any case whatsoever, be broken up: insomuch as their great doctor, Martinus Alphonsus Vivaldus, goes so far as to say, Si penderet salus vel liberatio totius mundi ex revelatione unius peccati, non esset revelandum, etiamsi totus mundus esset perdendus; "That if the safety of the whole world should depend upon the revealing of one sin, it is not to be revealed, though all the world should be destroyed:" and adds, Imo propter liberationem omnium animarum totius mundi, non est revelandum; "Though it were for the freeing of all the souls of the whole world, it is not to be revealed;" in his Candelabrum aureum: De sigillo; number the 11th. A strange height of expression, to give the world assurance of the close carriage of their Auricular Confession! and that not without need; for, were it not for this persuasion, their hearths might cool, and men would keep their own counsel. And, surely, not to meddle with their tyrannical impositions upon the conscience, in their forced confessions, which we do justly call carnificinum conscientiæ; I should hold and profess, that if a man should come in the anguish of his soul for some sin, to unload his heart secretly to the bosom of his Minister, of whom he looks for counsel and comfort, if in such a case that Minister should reveal that sin to any other whoso ever, no death were torment enough for such a spiritual perfidiousness all secrets are at the least sub sigillo fidei, "under the seal of fidelity;" and, therefore, not to be revealed.

(2.) For Peculiar Designation. Thus our blessed Saviour, speaking of himself, the Son of Man, adds, For him hath God the Fa ther sealed; John vi. 27: that is, hath designed him to the special office of his mediatorship. So Rev. vii. 5. Of the tribe of Judah were sealed twelve thousand; and so the same number of the several VOL. V.

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tribes, to the whole sum of a hundred forty four thousand, wer designed to Salvation.

(3.) But the chief use of the seal is for Certainty and Assurance. So Jezebel, to make sure work with the elders of Jezreel for the dispatch of Naboth, sealed it with Ahab's scal; 1 Kings xxi. 8. So the Jewish Princes, Priests, and Levites, when they had made their covenant, sealed it with their seals; Neh. ix. 38. Hence Haman's order for the destruction of the Jews was sealed with the king's seal; Esth. iii. 12: and the countermand for their preservation so sealed also; Esth. viii. 8. So Jeremiah, for his land at Anathoth, wrote and sealed, Jer. xxxii. 10. So the gravestone of Christ's tomb was sealed; Matth. xxvii, 66. And still this is our practice: that, which we would make sure and past all question, we give not under our hand only, but our seal also.

2. In ALL THESE THREE REGARDS of Secrecy, Peculiar Designa tion, and Certainty, THE CHURCH IS FONS OBSIGNATUS, a well sealed up; Cant. iv. 12: and she justly prays, Set me as a Seal upon thine heart, and a Seal upon thine arm; Cant. viii. 6.

Let us take them severally into our thoughts: and

(1.) For the Secrecy. It is a sure word, which the Spirit of God hath, 2 Tim. ii. 19. The foundation of God remaineth sure, having this seal; The Lord knoweth who are his. The Lord knoweth, and none but he; neither man, nor angel: it is sealed, on purpose that it may be concealed, and reserved only in the counsel of the Most High. It is, therefore, a most high and dangerous presumption in any man, to pass a judgment upon the fir.al estate of another, especially to the worse part. This is no other, than to rush into the closet of the Highest; and to break open his cabinet; and to tear up the Privy Seal of Heaven: an insolence, that God will not pass over unrevenged.

It was a good answer, that the servant gave in the story, who, carrying a covered dish through the street, and being asked what it was, answered, "It is therefore covered that thou mayest not know:" and so it is here; the final estate of every soul is sealed, that it may be known only to the God of Heaven; and, if any man dare to pry into this Ark of God, with the men of Bethshemesh, let him fear to be struck dead as they were; 1 Sam. vi. 19.

The Romanists have taken too much boldness this way. There is one of their Saints, St. Matilda, or St. Maude, a prophetess of theirs, which, in her revelations, professeth that she would needs know of God what became of the souls of four men; Sampson, Solomon, (whom I must tell you the greatest part of the Romish Doctors give out for a cast-away; very injuriously and uncharitably, since that, besides his being a type of Christ and a penman of some part of Holy Scripture, his Ecclesiastes is a plain publication to all the world, of his penance for his former miscarriages,) Origen, and Trajan: and received this answer; "What my pity hath done with Sampson, I will not have known; that men may not be encouraged to take revenge on their enemies: what my mercy hath done with Solomon, I will not have known; lest men should take too much

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liberty to carnal sins: what my bounty hath done with Origen, I would not have known; lest men should put too much confidence in their knowledge: what my liberality hath done with Trajan, I would not have known; for the advancement of the Catholic Faith, lest men should slight the Sacrament of Baptism." A presumptuous question, and an answer answerable. So they have not stuck to tell us, that the same day that their St. Thomas Becket died, there died in all the world three thousand thirty and three: whereof three thousand went to hell; thirty to purgatory; and three, whereof their Saint was one, to heaven: sure I think much alike. I will not weary you with their frenzies of this kind. They have bragged of some of their Saints, who have had this deep insight into the hearts of men and counsels of God, that they could tell, by the view, who should be saved, who condemned: and some fanatic spirits in our Church have gone so far, as to take upon them (as some vain Palmesters by the sight of the hand to judge of fortunes) by the face, and words, and garb, and carriage of men to pass sentence of reprobation upon other men's souls.

What a horrible insolence is this in any creature under heaven, or in it! There may be, perhaps, grounds to judge of a man's present condition. God doth not call any man to stupidity, or unreasouableness. If I see a man live debauchedly, in drunkenness, in whoring, in professed profaneness; if I hear him, in his ordinary speeches, to tear God's name in pieces with oaths and blasphemies; I may safely say that man is in a damnable condition, and must demean myself to him accordingly; forbearing an entire conversation with him; with such a one eat not, saith the Apostle: but, if I shall presume to judge of his final estate, I may incur my own condemnation, in pronouncing his. Judge not, that ye be not judged. Perhaps that man, whom thou sentencest, is, in the secret counsel of God, sealed to life; and shall go before thee to heaven.

Who, that had seen Manasseh revelling in his idolatry, magic, murder; worshipping all the host of heaven; polluting the house of God, with his abominable altars; using sorceries and enchantments; filling the streets of Jerusalem with innocent blood; 2 Kings xxi: would not have said, There is a cast-away? Yet, howsoever the history of the Kings leaves him in his sin and dishonour; yet, in the 2 Chron. xxxiii. you find his conversion, his acceptation, his prayer, and how God was entreated of him; verse 19. So as, for ought we know, he lived a Devil and died a Saint.

Who, that had seen and heard Saul breathing out threatenings, and executing his bloody cruelties upon the Church of God; dragging poor Christians to their judgments and executions; would not have given him for a man branded for hell? yet behold him a Chosen Vessel: the most glorious instrument of God's name, that hath been since Christ left the earth.

As thou lovest thy soul therefore, meddle not with God's seal: leave that to himself. Thou mayest read the superscription of a man, if thou wilt; and judge of his outside: but take heed of going deeper. Look well to the seal, that God hath set upon thine own soul: look for that new name, which none can read, but he, that