1. Why doth the same Hebrew word signify 4 Beast, and A com pany? Is it, because the multitude is bellua multorum capitum, "a beast of many heads?" Or is it, because of the sociable nature even of brute creatures, which still affect to herd and flock together? For, lest any man stumble at the word, that, which is here translated fera, is, by the same hand, turned pecus, verse 11.

Both the senses do well; A BEAST, or A COMPANY: the one implies the qualities of the Church's enemies, that they are of a fierce and beastial disposition; the other, their number and combination.

For the former: Who can express the savage cruelty of the enemies of the Gospel? Look into the ancient story of the infancy of Christianity, ye shall see how men set their wits on the rack to devise torments. To shew you that, in a painted table, which poor Christians felt, would be a spectacle of too much horror. What should I lay before you their gibbets, wheels, stakes, caldrons, furnaces, and all their fearful pomps of death? What should I tell you of men dressed every way, that meats were for the palate? Here was flaying, frying, boiling, broiling, roasting, baking, hashing, and all possible kinds of hideous forms of Murder. To forget all old immanities, what should I shew you the flames of our late Marian times? What should I bring you into the holy inquisition, and shew you there all the bloody engines of torture; a hell upon earth? What should I present you with the whips, halters and knives of Eighty Eight? or raise up your hair with the report of those Spanish cruelties, which were exercised upon our men in the Indies, during the late war? Death was but a sport, in respect of the torments in dying. Lo here, a Beast; yea, not Bestia, but Fera, a Savage Beast; yea, worse than either. Did ever man do thus to beast? If a Baptista Porta have devised a way to roast a fowl quick; or some Italian executioner of gluttony have beaten a swine dead with gentle blows, to make a Cardinal's morsel; every ingenuous man is ready to cry out of this barbarous tyranny; yea, the very Turks would punish it with no less than death: yea, if a Syracusan boy shall but pick out a crow's eyes, those pagans could mulct him with banishment. Nay, what beast did ever thus to man? nay, did ever one beast do thus to another? If they gore and grasp one another in their fury, or feed on each other in the rage of their hunger, that is all: they do not take pleasure, in saucing each other's death, with varieties or delays of pain. None but man doth thus to man; and in none lightly but the quarrel of religion. False zeal takes pleasure in surfeits of blood, and can enjoy others' torment. Hence are bloody massacres, treacherous assassinations, hellish powder-plots, and whatever stratagem of mischief can be devised by that ancient man-slayer; from whose malicious and secret machinations, Good Lord, deliver us!

As the enemies of the Church are Fera, A Beast; so they are COETUS, A COMPANY; yea, a Multitude. Well may they say, with the Devil in the possessed man, My name is Legion, for we are

many; a legion of many thousands: yea, Gad, for a host cometh; a host of many legions: yea, a combination of many hosts: Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek, the Philistines, with them that dwell at Tyre; Ashur also is joined to them. Here is exλnoía πovngevoμévwv, "The Church of the malignant:" a Church? yea, a Worid; mundus in maligno. Divide the world, with our learned Brerewood, into thirty parts, nineteen of them are Pagans; and they are enemies. Of those eleven that remain, six are Mahometans; and they are enemies. Of those other five that remain, there is an Antichristian faction, that challenges universality; and they are enemies. Stand now with me upon the hill, and take a survey of the enemies: see them lie scattered like grasshoppers in the valley; and tell me, whether the Church have not reason to say, Lord, how many are they that rise up against me! Yet, when all is done, that no man may be discouraged, if we have but our eyes opened with Elisha's servant, to see the host of heaven glittering about us, we shall boldly say, There are more with us than against us.

Yet, if these, that are against us, were many, and not united, it were nothing. A large shower loseth itself, while the drops are scattered in the sands; but many drops met make a torrent, yea, an ocean. Here is Catus: their heads, their hearts, their hands are laid together. And why do not we learn wit and will of those that hate us? Why are we several, while they are conjoined? Why should partial factions and private fancies distract us, when the main cause of God is on foot? Beleague yourselves, ye Christian Princes and Potentates; combine yourselves, ye true-hearted Christians, and be gathered by the voice of God's angel to a blessed and victorious Armageddon.

But why fera ARUNDINIS, the beast OF THE REEDS? I do not tell you of St. Jerome's descant upon bestia calami, "the beast of the quill;" that is, writers for falsehood: though these, these are the great Incendiaries of the world, and well worthy of the deepest increpation. Here, doubtless, either the beasts of the reeds are the beasts that lie among the reeds; as Cassiodorus hath given us a hint, Leones domestica canneta reliquerunt, "The lions have left the reedy thickets:" or else, the reed is here the spear, or dart. We know some regions yield groves of reeds: ye would think them so many saplings or samplars, at the least: arborescere solent calami, as Calvin. These were of use in war, for darts or spears. The van-guard therefore of David's enemies are spear-men, or darters: for they were wont to dart their spears, as you see in Saul, 1 Sam. xx. 33. And why this? in a sword-fight, we come to close hand-blows; such as a quick eye and nimble hand may perhaps avoid: but the and dart, strikes afar off; pierces where it strikes; smites unseen, unevitably. For the remoteness, violence, irresistibleness of the blow, are the enemies of the Church described by the spear and dart. Where they cannot come, they send dangerous emissaries; headed on purpose to wound the best State to death: felt, ere they can be seen; and, so soon as they are felt, killing. What do these

spear,

but follow their General, whose spiritual weapons are fiery darts? Eph. vi. 16. Much and lamentable experience hath this State (if ever any) had of these mischievous engines of commotion, that have been hurled hither from beyond the Alps and Pyrenees. What is the remedy, but the same which is against the Devil, The shield of prevention? Stir up your vigilant care, O ye Great Leaders of Israel, by the strict execution of wholesome laws, to avoid the dint of these murderous subornations. And, when ye have done your best, it must be the Lord of Hosts, the great Protector of Israel, that must break the bow, and knap the spear in sunder; Psalm xlvi. 9.

2. Their second title is BULLS; for their ferocity, for their strength. The Lion is a more lordly beast; but the bull is stronger; and, when he is enraged, more impetuous.

Such are the Enemies of the Church. How furiously do they bellow out threats, and scrape up the earth, and advance their crest, and brandish their horns, and send out sparkles from their eyes, and snuff out flames from their nostrils, and think to bear down all before them! What should I tell you of the fierce assaults of the braving enemies of the Church, whose pride hath scorned all opposition, and thinks to push down all contrary powers, not of men only, but of God himself? Let us break their bonds, and cast their cords from us. Who is the Lord, that I should let Israel go? Where is the god of Hamath, and of Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who are they among the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? saith proud Rabshakeh; 2 Kings xviii. 34, 35.

Hark how this Assyrian Bull roars out blasphemy against the Lord of Hosts; and all the rest of that wild herd have no less grass on their horns: stay but a while, and ye shall see him withed, and haltered, and staked, and baited to death. Here only is the comfort of the poor menaced Church, that the Mighty God of Israel, who says to the raging sea, Here shalt thou stay thy proud waves, can tame at pleasure these violent beasts, or break their necks with their own fury. So let thine enemies perish, O Lord.

These bulls are seconded with their own brood, THE CALVES OF

THE PEOPLE.

Who are they, but those, which follow, and make up the herd? the credulous seduced multitude; which, not out of choice, but example, join in opposition to God. Silly calves, they go whither their dams lead them, to the field or to the slaughter-house! Blind obedience is their best guide. Are they bidden to adore a God, which they know the baker made? they fall down upon their knees, and thump their breasts; as beating the heart, that will not enough believe in that pastry-deity. Are they bidden to go on pilgrimage to a chapel, that is a greater pilgrim than themselves; that hath four several times removed itself, and changed stations, as Turselline confidently? they must go, and adore those wandering walls. Are they bidden to forswear their allegiance, and to take arms

against their lawful and native sovereign? they rush into the battle, without either fear or wit; though for the aid of a sure enemy, which would make them all, as he threatened in Eighty Eight, alike good Protestants. Very calves of the people, whose simplicity were a fitter subject for pity, than their fury can be of malice; were it not that their power is wont to be employed to the no small prejudice of the cause of God! And would it boot ought, to spend time in persuading these calves that they are such? to lay before them the shame of their ignorance and stupidity? Hear now this, O foolish people and without understanding, which have eyes and see not, which have ears and hear not; Jer. v. 21. How long will ye suffer yourselves to be befooled and beslaved with the tyranny of superstition? God hath made you men: why will ye abide men to make you vitulos populorum, the calves of the people? We must leave you as ye are; but we will not leave praying for your happy change; that God would consecrate you to himself, as the calves of his altar, that ye may be offered up to him a holy, lively, reasonable, acceptable sacrifice in your blessed conversion. Amen.

3. The last and worst title of these enemies is, THE PEOPLE THAT

DELIGHT IN WAR.

War is to the State as Ignis and Ferrum, the "Knife" and the "Searing-iron," to the body; the last and most desperate remedy: always evil, if sometimes necessary: it is not for pleasure; it is for need.

It must needs be a cruel heart, that delights in war. He, that well considers the fearful effects of war, the direption of goods, the vastation of countries, the sacking and burning of cities, the murdering of men, ravishing of women, weltering of the horse and rider in their mingled blood, the shrieks and horror of the dying, the ghastly rage of the killing, the hellish and tumultuous confusion of all things; and shall see the streets and fields strewed with carcases, the channels running with streams of blood, the houses and Churches flaming, and, in a word, all the woeful tyrannies of death; will think the heathen poets had reason to devise war sent up from hell, ushered and heralded by the most pestilent of all the Furies, every of whose hairs were so many snakes and adders to affright and sting the world withal. Little pleasure can there be in such a spectacle.

It is a true observation of St. Chrysostom, that war to any nation is as a tempest to the sea, tossing and clashing of the waves together. And fain would I hear of that mariner, that takes delight in a storm. The executioners of peaceable justice are wont to be hateful: no man abides to consort with a public headsman: and what metal then shall we think those men made of, who delight in cutting of throats, and joy to be the furious executioners of a martial vengeance; where, besides the horror of the act, the event is doubtful?

The dice of war run still upon hazard. David could send this message to Joab, The sword devours at random, so, and such; 2 Sam.