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…

There is a third application, which I intend for the Ministry, ¹who ought to go before the people of God in the example of Repentance and humiliation. You know the old observation, Rarò vidi Clericum poenitentem, I have seldom seen a Clergy man penitent. As Christ ^csaith of rich men, I may say of learned men, it is easier for a Camel to go through the eye of a needle, then for a man that trusts in his Learning to enter into the Kingdom of heaven. He will needs maintain the lawfulness of all which he hath done, and will not be (as this Text would have him) ashamed of all that he hath done. Yet it is not impossible with God to make such a one deny himself, and that ^dwhatsoever in him exalts it self against Christ, should be brought in captivity to the obedience of Christ. Among all that were converted by the Ministry of the Apostles, I wonder most at the conversion of a great company of Priests, Acts 6. 7. I do not suspect (as ^etwo learned men have done) that the Text is corrupted in that place, and that it ⟨p. 23⟩should be otherwise read. I am the rather satisfied, because there is nothing there mentioned of the Conversion of the high Priest, or of the chief Priests, the heads of the four and twenty Orders, which were upon the Council, and had condemned Christ: the place cannot be understood, but of a multitude of common or inferior Priests: Even as by proportion in Hezekiah's Reformation, ^fthe Levites were more upright in heart than the Priests.

There is a third application, which I intend for the Ministerie, ¹who ought to goe before the people of God in the example of Repe•tance and humiliation. You know the old observation, Rarò vidi Clericum poenitentem, I have seldome seen a Clergie man penitent. As Christ