The staves of beauty & bands opened in a sermon preached at Yarmouth, August…The staves of beauty & bands opened in a sermon preached at Yarmovth, August…

In one word, the Ordinances are thus the Beauty of a Church, because in and by them Christ is spiritually present therein, and the Treasures of his Grace are unfolded unto it. He who is the^c chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely, who was the^d desire of all Nations, and the^e hope of Glory to his people, in comparison of whose^f Excellencies all other things are but loss and dung, whose very^g Afflictions and Reproaches are preferred before the Pleasure and Riches of the world, in whose very^h Sufferings there is joy, he is in his Ordinances^k evidently set forth before our eyes; his^l Righteousness the Robe wherewith his Church is clothed, his^m Comeliness the Beauty wherewith she is adorned, and madeⁿ high above ⟨p. 9⟩all the people in Praise, and in Name, and in Honour, by her interest in him, and relation unto him, she hath a new name given her,^o Hephzibah the Lords delight, who delighteth over her as the Bridegroom over the Bride, esteeming her^p his rest, his dwelling place, his desire, so that^q