A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons at their late solemn fast…A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons at their late solemne fast…

Now if you ask, how the several particulars in the vision may be particularly expounded, and applied to the Church of Christ? I answer, the Word of God, the River that makes glad the City of God, though it have many easy and known Fords, where ⟨p. 5⟩any of Christs Lambs may pass through, yet in this Vision and other places of this kind, it is a great deep, where the greatest Elephant (as he said) may swim. I shall not say with the Jews, that one should not read the last nine Chapters of Ezekiel, before he be thirty years old: Surely a man may be twice thirty years old, and a good Divine too, and yet not able to understand this Vision. Some tell us, that no man can understand it without skill in Geometry, which cannot be denied: but there is greater need of Ecclesiometry, if I may so speak, to measure the Church in her length or continuance through many generations; in her breadth or spreading through many Nations; her depth of humiliation, sorrows, and sufferings: her height of faith, hope, joy, and comfort, and to measure each part according to this pattern here set before us.

Now if you aske, how the severall particulars in the vision may be particularly expounded, and applyed to the Church of Christ? I answer, the Word of God, the River that makes glad the Citie of God, though it have many easie and knowne Foords, where ⟨p. 5⟩any of Christs Lambs may passe thorow, yet in this Vision and other places of this kind, it is a great deep, where the greatest Elephant (as he said) may swim. I shall not say with the Jewes, that one should not read the last nine Chapters of Ezekiel, before he be thirty yeers old: Surely a man may be twice thirty yeers old, and a good Divine too, and yet not able to understand this Vision. Some tell us, that no man can understand it without skill in Geometry, which cannot be denyed: but there is greater need of Ecclesiometry, if I may so speak, to measure the Church in her length or continuance through many generations; in her breadth or spreading through many Nations; her depth of humiliation, sorrowes, and sufferings: her height of faith, hope, joy, and comfort, and to measure each part according to this pattern here set before us.