III. Jesus Christ, to make his bounty and mercy fui-ther appear in this feast, he hath given his guests the ' bread of life,' and hath secured them from the fear of death. They need not fear. There is no 7nors in olid at thin feast. We may feast without fear. Jesus Christ by his ' tasting of death hath swallowed it up in victory,' 1 Cor. xv. 5-4. Christ doth not make his people such a feast as it is reported Dionysius the tyrant once made for his flatterer Damocles, who set him at a princely table, but hanged a drawn sword in a small thread over his head.* But Christ would have us triumph over the king of fears, who was slain by the death of Christ, and we thereby delivered from the bondage of the fear of death, Heb. ii. 14, 15.
At other feasts they were wont of old to have a death's head served in amongst other dishes, to mind them in the midst of all their mirth of their mortality (which practice of the heathens condemns the ranting jollity of some loose professors in these times). KarriXdsv iig ddvarov dddvarog, xal rui 6amTui KakTki ddvarov. But here, Christ serves in death's head, as David
* the head of GoHah,' 1 Sam. xxxi. 9, the head of a slain and conquered death. Our Sampson by his own death ' hath destroyed death, and hath thereby ransomed us from the hand of the grave, and hath redeemed us from death,' Hos. xiii. 14, and the slavish fear of it. All which is at large handled in these following sermons for thy comfort and joy, that thou mayest triumph in his love, through whom thou art more than conqueror.
* For this well-known anecdote, consult Cicero [Tusc. v. 21.), and Horace {Carm. iii., 1. 17).— G.
TO THE READER. 441
rV, Because ' it is a merry heart that makes a continual feast,' Prov. rv. 15, and that this feast might be a gaudy-day* indeed unto thy soul, Christ doth here promise, ' to wipe away all tears from off the faces of his people,' Isa. xxv. 8. The gospel hath comforts enough to make glad the hearts of the saints and people of God. The ' light of God's countenance' wiU refresh them with 'joy unspeakable and glorious,' 1 Pet. i. 8, in the midst ' of the vaUey of the shadow of death,' Psa. xxiii. 4. A truly godly person can weep for his sins, though the world smile never so much upon him ; and though he be never so much afflicted in the world, yet he can and will ' rejoice in the God of his salvation,' Hab. iii. 18. In these ser- mons thou hast this gospel-promise sweetly opened and applied ; wherein thou shalt find directions when, and for what, to mourn and weep, and the blessedness of all true mourners, ' whose sorrow shall be turned into joy,' John xvi. 20.
V. In these sermons you shall further find, that though Jesiis Christ respect his peoj^Ie highly, and entertain them bountifulhj, yet they have hut coarse usage in the iivrld, iiho ai'e wont to revile them as ' fools' and ' mad- men,' as ' seditious rebels,' ' troublers of Israel,' ' proud and hypocritical persons.' But blessed are they that do not ' stumble at this stone of oflence,' Rom. ix. 32, that wear the ' reproaches of Chi-ist as their crown,' and by * well-doing put to silence the ignorance of foolish men,' 1 Pet. ii. 15 ; for let the world load them with all their revihngs, yet ' the spirit of glory rests upon them,' 2 Cor. xii. 9, and in due time he will roll away their reproach, ' and bring forth their judgment as the light, and their righteous- ness as the noon-day,' Ps. xxxvii. 6.
VI. And because a Christian here hath more in hope than in hand, more in reversion than in possession, ' walks by faith' rather than sense, and ' lives by the word of God, and not by bread alone,' Mat. iv. 4, thou shalt have here, Christian reader, a sweet discoui'se of the precious promises of Christ which he hath left us here to stay the stomach of the soul, till we come to that feast of feasts in heaven ; that by this gHmpse we might in part know the ' greatness of that glorj' which shall be revealed,' 1 Peter v. 1 ; that the fu'st fiTiits might be a pawn of the hai'vest, and the ' earnest of the Spirit,' Ephes. i. 14, a pledge of that full reward we shall have in heaven, where we shall be brimful of those ' pleasures that are at God's right hand for ever,' Ps. xvi. 11. Christ hath given us promises to uphold oui" faith and hope, till faith be perfected in fi-uition, and hope end in vision, till Jesus Christ, who is here the object of our faith, be the reward of our faith for ever.
VII. Now because the comfort of the promises is grounded in the faith- fulness of him that hath promised, this godly and learned man, hath strongly asserted the divine authority of the holy Scriptures, proving that they are ^soVi/fuffro/, that they are the very word of God, that they are axiroztSToi and ago'cr/oro/, worthy of all acceptation, and behef, for their own sakes ; a tnith very seasonable for these times, to antidote thee against the poison- fuU errors of blasphemous anti-scripturists.