A sermon preached at the christening of a certain Jew at LondonA sermon preached at the christening of a certaine Iew at London

whom the Scribes and Pharisees and Elders of our people delivered into the hands of Pontius Pilate to be put to death, being before betrayed into their hands by one of his own disciples that son of perdition Judas Iscariot. As our forefathers then pronounced against them selves, Let his blood be upon our heads and upon our children: so it is come to pass by the righteous judgement of that mighty & dreadful God. For even from those days unto this present the whole house of Israel, that is, we that come of the stock of Abraham after the flesh, is & are strangers out of the land of Israel our own country without Law or Prophets, without all exercise of his statutes and ordinances concerning his worship prescribed unto us by the hand of his servant Moseh. This long and wearisome captivity hath consumed a great number of our forefathers, •nd hath caused some of us from time to time, ⟨image 109⟩through the grace and love of God wherewith he loveth us for the promise sake, to think upon our promised Messiah: conferring these days of sorrow & calamity with our former captivities of our fathers, which were nothing so many in number of years, nor so grievous for want of our Prophets. These fifteen hundred years have we been strangers, & these fifteen hundred years have we lacked our Prophets: a thing not seen at any time before when we & our fathers were carried into a strange land. For in Egypt they had Mosheh & Aaron: and in Babylon they had Jeremiah & Daniel, besides Ezra, Nehemiah, and many other: only in this captivity is Israel left desolate and our Prophets clean gone. Whereof when it pleased God I should have consideration, I was lead to think that our Messiah is come, and that our long looking for an other was but in vain: And that rather, for that I see the words of Jacob our father accomplished where he sayeth,¹ The Sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come: and the people shall be gathered unto him. For the Sceptre and government was continued in the house of ⟨image 109⟩Judah, as our fathers accord, until the coming of this man Jesus: in whom if it were not continued according to the words of our scriptures, it hath failed and wanted ever since. For since the days of that just man there hath been no Sceptre amongest us, neither have we or do we run for judgements unto Jerusalem: