2.

IX.

SERMON says S. Jerome, had there not been something admirable in his countenance and presence, some heavenly beauty, nunquam secuturi essent apostoli, &c.; the apostles and the whole world, as the Pharisees themselves confess, would not so suddenly have gone after him. Fair (5) in his transfiguration; white as the light, or as the snow; his face glittering as the sun, even to the ravishing the very soul Matt. xvii. of S. Peter, that " he knew not what he said;" could let his eyes dwell upon that face for ever, and never come down the mount again. (6.) Fair in his passion: nihil indecorum, no uncomeliness, in his nakedness; his very wounds, and the bloody prints of the whips and scourges, drew an Ecce from the mouth of Pilate, "Behold the man!" The sweetness of his countenance and carriage, in the midst of filth and spittle, whips and buffets-his very comeliness upon the cross, and his giving up the ghost-made the centurion cry out he "was the Son of God;" there appeared so sweet a majesty, so heavenly a lustre in him, through that very darkness that encompassed him. (7.) Fair in his resurrection: so subtle a beauty, that mortal eyes, even the eyes of his own disciples, were not able to see or apprehend it, but when he veiled it for them. (8.) Fair in his ascension: made his disciples stand gazing after him so long, (as if they Acts i. 11. never could look long enough upon him,) till an angel is sent from heaven to rebuke them, to look home.

If you ask Eusebius, Evagrius, Nicephorus, Damascen,f and some others, how fair he was, they will tell you so fair, that the painter sent from Agbarus, king of Edessa, to draw his picture, could not look so steadfastly upon him as to do it, for the rays that darted from his face; and though the Scripture mention no such thing, it is no greater wonder to 2 Cor. iii. believe than what we read of Moses' face, which shone so glorious, that the children of Israel could not behold it. Lentulus, the Roman President, his epistle to the Emperor Antonius, describes him of very comely colour, shape, and

7.

IX.

figure; and so do others. Not such a beauty yet as that SERMON which darts from it wanton rays, or warms the blood or stirs the spirits to vain desires or secular respects and motions; but a sweetness without sensual daintiness, a lustre without lightness, a modest look without dejectedness, a grave countenance without severity, a fair face without fancy, eyes sparkling only heavenly flames, cheeks commanding holy modesty, lips distilling celestial sweetness, beauty without its faults, figure, and proportion, and all such as was most answerable and advantageous to the work he came about, every way fitted to the most perfect operations of the reasonable and immortal soul;—the most beautiful then, sure, when beauty is nothing else but an exact order and proportion of things, in relation to their nature and end, both to themselves and to each other.

- 16.

Take his description from the spouse's own mouth: "My Cant.v. 10. beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand; his head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy" (or curled)" and black as a raven; his eyes are as the eyes of doves, by the rivers of water, washed with water and fitly set," (that is, set in fulness, fitly placed, and as a precious stone in the foil of a ring); "his cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers; his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh; his hands are as gold rings set with beryl; his belly as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires; his legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold; his countenance like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars; his mouth is most sweet, yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem." This is our beloved too. Solomon indeed has poetically expressed it; yet something else there is in it besides a poetic phrase. Beautiful he thus supposes He is to be, who was to be this spouse; have the beauty of all beautiful things in the world conferred upon him; at least, to have the finest and subtilest part of all worldly beauties-those imperceptible yet powerful species of them, which make them really amiable and attractive: a head, and locks, and eyes, and hands, and feet-quantity, colour, and proportion—such as darted from them not only a resemblance, but the very spirit of heavenly beauty, innocence, purity, strength, and vigour. Poets,

IX.

SERMON when they commend beauty, call it divine and heavenly; this of his it was truly so, a kind of sensible divinity through all his parts.

Shall I give you his colour, to make up the beauty? He was white, pure white, in his nativity, ruddy in his passion, bright and glistering in his life, black in his death, azure-veined in his resurrection. No wonder, now, to see the spouse sit Cant. ii. 3. "down under his shadow with great delight;" we, sure, ourselves now can [not] do less, and yet this is but the shadow of his beauty. The true beauty is the soul's: the beauty of the soul, the very soul of beauty; the beauty of the body, but the body, nay the carcase of it. And this of the soul's he had (ii.) in its prime perfection.

ii. Now, beauty consists in three particulars: the perfection of the lineaments, the due proportion of them each to other, and the excellency and purity of the colour. They are all complete in the soul of Christ. The lineaments of the soul, are its faculties and powers; the proportion of them, is the due subordination of them to God and one another. The colours, are the virtues and graces that are in them.

(1.) His powers and faculties would not but be complete, which had nothing of old Adam in them. His understanding without ignorance, he knew all, the very hearts of all; Luke v. 22. thoughts as they rose, what they thought within themselves; thoughts before they rose, what the Pharisees with other would have done to him, had he committed himself unto them. Now, Tyre and Sidon would have repented, had they Luke x.13. had the mercy allowed to Chorazin and Bethsaida. His will without wilfulness or weakness, his passions without infirmity or extravagance, his inferior powers without defect or maim, his understanding clear, his will holy, his passions sweet, all his powers vigorous. Hear the Wise Man describe him under the name of Wisdom: "In her," that is in him, who is the Wisdom of the Father, "is an understanding spirit, holy, one only, manifold, subtle, lively, clear, undefiled, plain, not subject to hurt, loving the thing that is good, quick, which cannot be letted, ready to do good, kind to man, steadfast, sure, free from care, having all power, overseeing all things, and going through all understanding,

Wisd. vii. 22, 23.

IX.

pure, and most subtle spirits." "A pure influence flowing SERMON from the glory of the Almighty, the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and Ver. 25. 26. the image of his goodness."

The powers of his soul being thus pure, vigorous, and unspotted, they cannot (2) but be in order; the will following his understanding, the passions subordinate to them both, all the inferior powers obedient and ready at command and pleasure. He had no sooner expressed a kind of grievance in his sensitive powers, at the approach of those strange horrors of his death and sufferings, but presently comes out, Non mea sed tua, "Not my will but thine;" all in a moment at peace and in tranquillity. No rash or idle word, no unseemly passage, no sour look, nor gesture or expression unsuitable to his Divinity, throughout his life;. the very devils to their own confusion cannot but confess it, "We know thee, who thou art, the Holy One of God."

Mark i. 21.

(3.) To this, add those heavenly colours and glances of grace and virtues, and you have his soul completely beautiful: meekness, and innocence, and patience, and obedience, even to the death; mercy, and goodness, and piety, and what else is truly called by the name of good, are all in him: insomuch that the Apostle tells us, the very "fulness of the Col. ii. 9. Godhead" dwells in him "bodily." No Divine grace or virtue wanting in him. In him are all the "treasures of wisdom and Col. ii. 3. knowledge." In him all sanctity and holiness, not so much

as the least "guile in his mouth." So holy, that he is 1 Pet.ii.22. "made holiness and sanctification unto us." Sancti quasi 1 Cor. i. 30. sanguine uncti, we saints and holy become hallowed by the sprinkling of his blood. In him, lastly, is all the power and virtue, omnis virtus, that is, omnis potestas, "all the Matt. power in heaven and earth," fully given to him.

So that now we shall need to say little of the other particular of this first general point of Christ's perfect beauty, that he is not only formosus, but formosus præ, not only "fair," but "very fair;" for where there is so much as you have heard, exceeding and excellent it must needs bewhere the body is complete in all its parts, the soul exact in all its powers, the body without any ill inclination, natural or habitual, the soul without the least stain of

xxvii 18.

IX.

SERMON thought, or glance of irregularity, nothing to sully the soul or body, all wisdom, and holiness, and power, and virtue. We can say no less of him than the Psalmist of Jerusalem, "Very excellent things are spoken of thee, thou City of God," thou miraculous habitation of the Almighty, thou very dwelling, not of God only, but the very Godhead too. Nor shall I need to say much of the third, the præ filiis, that his beauty is more sweet and innocent than the newborn babe's. Alas! the sweetest, fairest child comes sullied into the world with Adam's guilt. Some of that dust that God cast upon him, when he told him, Dust he was, and into dust he should return, sticks so upon the face and body, the very soul and spirit too, of the prettiest infant, that it is nothing to this day's Child. In omnibus sine Heb. iv. 15. peccato: "In all without sin," says the Apostle; the very temptations he suffered were not from the sinfulness of his nature, any original concupiscence; non novit, says the 2 Cor. v. 21. Apostle in another place; he knew it not, " knew no sin" at all. In this he might use S. Peter's phrase, " Man, I know not what thou meanest ;" I know not what this condition of man so much as means. Præ filiis; he is as much purer than the child we call innocent, as much before it in purity. and innocence, as he is in time and being. Nay, yet again, though we see the sweetest beauty is commonly that of children whilst they are so, yet even that beauty must needs have some kind of stain, or mole, or some insensible kind of defect, though we know not what nor how to term it, which was not in him. The very natural inordination of our powers must needs give a kind of dull shadow to our exactest beauty, and silently speak the inward fault by some outward defect, though we are too dull, being of the same mould, to apprehend it: whilst there could be no such darkness in the face of Christ; no genius in it which was not perfectly attractive, and exactly fitted to its place and office.

This, perhaps, may seem a subtlety to our duller apprehensions; but it is plain that I shall tell you, though but briefly, in the fourth particular, that he is "fairer than the children of men," than men come to their perfect beauty. Alas! alas! before that time long, sin had so sullied