A Key Opening Mysterious Texts of Scripture

THE GENERALL HIS COMMISSION. A Sermon preached at S. Jones's before the right honorable the Earls of Oxford, Exeter, and Southampton; and divers other Captains and Commanders ready to take their journeys into the Low-Countries, in the year 1621. THE EIGHTEENTH SERMON.

I Find this Aphorism in the prime Writers of our common laws, Gladius gladium juvat, the one sword steeds the other: whereby is meant that the Ecclesiastical and Temporal powers mutually aid and assist each other; that Canons improve laws, and laws corroborate canons; that where the arm of the secular Magistrate is short in civil punishments, the ecclesiastical lengtheneth it by inflicting Church censures; and again, where the ecclesiastical arm is weak, the secular strengtheneth it by executing corporal punishments upon such delinquents as stand out in contempt of spiritual. The like may be said of the spiritual and military sword, Gladius gladium exacuit, the one whets & sharpens the other. For the word of God, which is the sword of the spirit, by divine exhortations and promises sets such an edge upon the material, that God's men of war therewith easily cut in pieces the armor, and put to flight or death the armies of the Aliens. The Jews never acquitted themselves so worthily, nor fought so victoriously, as when they received their armor out of the Temple from the Priests hands: and after Constantine the great having seen a vision in the air, and heard a voice from Heaven, In hoc signo vinces, set the cross upon the Eagle in his Ensign, his Christian soldiers marched on so courageously, and drave with such speed before them the bloody enemies of their faith, that they might seem to be carried by the wings of an Eagle. The ancient Laced aemonians also before they put themselves in the field, had a certain Poem of Tyrtaeus read unto them; but no Verses or Sonnets of Tyrtaeus, Pindarus, or Homer, are comparable in this respect to the Songs of Zion: no Cornets, Fifes, or Drums in the campe sound so shrill in a Christian soldiers ears, as the silver Trumpets of the Sanctuary: no speech or oration like to a Sermon to rouse up their spirits, and put courage and valor into their hearts, who fight the Lord's battles. None putteth on so resolutely, as he who hath God's command for his warrant, and his presence for his encouragement, and his Angels for his guard, and a certain expectation of a crown of life after death for his reward. He cannot but be such as Joshua is here willed to be, that is strong, and of a good courage, afraid of no adverse power, dismayed with no preparations on the contrary part, appaled at no colors, no not at the wan and ghastly colors of death it self: For if God be for us, who can be against us; or if they be against us, hurt us?

Have not I commanded thee? be strong therefore, &c. As God at the first, by breathing into man the spirit of life, made him a man; so here by breathing into Joshua the spirit of courage, he made him a man of war. Reason is the form and specifical difference of a man; and fortitude and valor of a soldier: Be strong therefore, and of a good courage. This courage cannot be well grounded, unless it have God's command, or at least warrant for the service (Have not I commanded thee?) and his presence for our aide and assistance (The Lord thy good is with thee.) If we have God's command or allowance for the service we undertake, if we fight under his Banner, and follow his Colours, we may well be strong, and of a good courage. The Heathen Poet could say, that those who have Religion and Justice on their side, may promise themselves happy success. A good cause maketh a good courage, as wholesome meat breeds good blood (Have not I commanded thee?) be strong, &c. A good courage in a good quarrel cannot want God's assistance, The Lord thy God is with thee.

Behold here then, noble Commanders and Soldiers in the Lord's battles,

• 1. Your commission: Have not I commanded?
• 2. Your duty: Be strong.
• 3. Your comfort, and ground of confidence: The Lord is with you.

Have not I commanded thee? As Moses was a lively and living type of the Law, so was Joshua of the Gospel. Moses commendeth God's people to Joshua; the Law sendeth us to the Gospel. Moses led the people through the Wilderness, and discovered the Land of promise from Mount Nebo, and died; but Joshua brought the people into it, and put them in possession thereof. The Law leadeth us in the way, and giveth us a glimpse of the celestial Canaan; but the Gospel, by our Joshua Christ Jesus, bringeth us into it, and possesseth us of it. That which the Hebrew pronounce Joshua, Saint Luke and the 70. Interpreters write Jesus. And Drusius, in his Commentary upon the Hebrew words of the New Testament, out of Baal Aruch, and Elias, proveth, that Joshua and Jesus are all one name. Joshua is Jesus in the history, and Jesus is Joshua in the mystery. Joshua is typical Jesus, and Jesus is mystical Joshua. Here then adamas insculpitur adamante, one diamond cuts and points another. Jesus Christ instructeth and encourageth Jesus Nave, the substance forms the shadow, the face draws the picture, the truth fitteth and accommodateth the type. As those who deal in curious stuffs that are wrought on both sides, view the flowers as well in the in-side as the out; so in the sacred context of this book, we are as well to handle and take special notice of the in-side as well as the outside: the mystical reference, as well as the historical relation. When we read of Joshua, let the eye of our faith be upon Jesus: when we read of his passing over Jordan, before he gained his greatest victories, we must think of Jesus passing the river Cedron before his passion: when we read of Josuahs placing 12. stones for a memorial to the children of Israel forever, let us think of Jesus his setting 12. precious stones in the foundation of the heavenly Jerusalem: when we read of Josuahs slaying, or driving out of all the old Inhabitants of Canaan, let us think of Jesus his destroying the old man in us, and driving out all the native, and (if I may so speak) aboriginall sins out of our consciences: when we read of Josuahs vanquishing 31. Kings, let us think on Jesus his victories over sin, hell, and death, his leading captivity captive, and subduing all principalities, and powers, and thrones, and dominions, and whatsoever lifteth it self up against his Cross: when we read of the Sun standing still in Joshua his battle against the Amorites, let us think of the Suns vailing himself, and the Heavens mourning in sables at the passion of our Savior. Lastly, when we read of Josuahs forcible entry, and taking possession of the earthly, let us meditate upon Jesus his victorious entry into the celestial Canaan.

Thus briefly of the person commanding, and the person commanded, both literally and mystically. The command it self is to be a valiant Commander and Leader of God's people against the Amorites, Amalekites, Jebusites, and all the several sorts of the Canaanites. For the clearing of which commission of Joshua, two questions are to be debated:

• 1. Whether war in general can stand with Religion.
• 2. Whether this war in particular could stand with Justice.

Both are briefly resolved in one word, I: God commandeth Joshua to fight; therefore war is lawful: he appointeth Joshua to command in chief in this war against the Canaanites; this war therefore was just. Yet to remove all scruples out of weak consciences, I crave leave to bring out before you, and break in pieces those weak and dull weapons wherewith some fight against all war and fighting in general, and this war in special.

First, they allege that Christ our Lord is styled the Prince of peace, that his Spouse, the Church, is said to have nothing red about her but her lips; which are described to be ruddy, because all her discourse is of Christ's bloody passion.

Secondly, by the Christian law, say they, we must rather die than kill, rather patiently suffer our own blood to be spilled, than spill any others: if we must render to no man evil for evil, nor rebuke for rebuke, much less blows for blows: they that smite with a sword, shall perish with a sword.

Thirdly, they labor also to make the ancient Fathers on their parts, and by name Lactantius, and Cyprian. Lactantius argueth thus: If any man cut the throat of one man alone, he is taken for a nefarious malefactor and bloody murderer, and shut out of the house of God on earth: and shall he who hath been the death of many millions, who hath coloured the rivers with man's blood, and made an inundation thereof in many pitched fields, not only be admitted into the Temple, but into Heaven? And Saint Cyprian pursueth the same argument: The world, saith he, swimmeth with man's blood, and murder, if it be committed by single men, or one by one, is a heinous crime; but an heroical virtue, when by public authority thousands of men are miserably slaughtered. Can he be a good Warriour, who is taught to seek peace and ensue it; if his enemies strike him on the right hand, to turn the left; if he compel him to follow him one mile, to accompany him two?

With these weapons certain cowardly Heretics war against all war, and sharpen their pens against the sword: but they are easily beat back. As Christ is styled the Prince of peace, so God is in holy Scripture everywhere honored with the title of the Lord of hosts; and the Spouse of Christ is described to be terrible as an Army with banners. It followeth not, that because Christian Religion persuadeth patience, that therefore it abates courage: that because it forbiddeth private revenge, therefore public justice: because it condemneth bloody cruelty, therefore martial prowess. He which striketh with a sword, unless lawful authority put it into his hand, shall perish with a sword; but where God and his Vicegerent putteth a sword into our hands, we must smite with it, or we deserve to be smitten with it. We must seek peace, and ensue it by all means; whereof one, and that a most powerful one, and sometimes the only one, is by managing a just war. And therefore, as Saint Jerome, though otherwise he seem partial for virginity against marriage, yet in this respect he preferreth marriage, because it begets virgins: in like manner those who are most averse from war, must yet hold with it in this respect, because oftentimes nothing but a good sword can make a sure and settled peace. And therefore though in the first building of the Temple there were no noise of any iron tool, yet in the second they built with their tools in one hand and their sword in the other. And do we not read, that the servants of God by faith have subdued Kingdoms? Was it not fore-told of them, that they should bind Kings in chains, and Nobles in links of iron, to execute upon them the judgment written, This honor have all his Saints? Doth not the Kingly Prophet David by the spirit give them the word, Arm, arm: Let the high praises of God be in their mouths, and a two edged sword in their hands? If Saint John Baptist had judged the profession of a soldier incompatible with the calling of a Christian, when his soldiers came unto him, and demanded of him what they should do, he would have returned them this short answer, Quit your calling, and throw away your armor, and undertake another profession: but on the contrary, he allowing their calling, directeth them how to demean themselves in it, saying, Do violence to no man, nor accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages. Christian Religion is purest of all religions from all stain of blood. A Christian Commander would more heartily wish than ever Antonius did, Utinam possem multos ab inferis revocare; I would it were in my power to restore those to life, whom the sword hath devoured: but when the only means to save the life-blood about the heart, is to let out some of the corrupt blood in other parts, he is a cruel Physician that will n •• prick a vein. When the right of a Crown, when the honor of the St •• e, when the Common-wealth, and every man's private fortunes, when R •• i •• ion and our Faith lieth on bleeding, not to use the speediest means that •• y be to drive away Usurpers, Invaders, Rebells, Traitors, and other blood-suckers, is bloody cruelty, and which is worst of all, cruelty to ourselves and our own bowels. To conclude, if any upon what pretext soeve • shall cast a blur upon the noble & honorable profession of a soldier, he goeth about not only to take off the Garland from the heads of all David's Worthies, but also the Crown from David himself, and Constantine the great, and Theodosius, and many other the most glorious Princes that ever swayed mortal Scepters. All that Christianity requireth in waging war, is comprised in that golden sentence of Saint Austin, Esto bellando pacificus; Be thou a peace-maker even in warring, war with peace, war for peace. War with peace, being persuaded in thy conscience of the lawfulness of the quarrel, and bear no private malice, nor bloody mind towards thine enemy: conquer him as fairly as thou canst; and let this be the end of taking up arms, that arms may be safely laid down on all hands And that wars especially thus managed are lawful and warrantable even among Christians, none but brain-sick Anabaptists doubt: But what kind of wars are lawful, is a point not so soon determined. Some are merely for defensive wars,

And that such wars are lawful Nature her self teacheth: This is a law written in the heart of all men, to repel force with force, and beat back arms with arms; therefore defensive arms need no apology or defense. Offensive arms are allowed by the Orator in two cases, only pro fide & salute, when the safety, or honor of the State requires either to right or to save ourselves. Christian Religion is not so strait-laced, But maintaineth all wars to be just, when they are necessary; and to judge when they are necessary, belongeth to the sovereign power of the State, in whomsoever it resideth, either in the Prince, as in all free Monarchies; or in the Senate and prime men, as in an Aristocratie; or the major part of the people, as in a Democracy. It may be said that no necessity can be pretended to invade a foreign country, and root out all the natives and inhabitants, and settle ourselves in their places, which was Joshua and Israel's case: How then was this war lawful?

The answer hereunto is twofold.

First, that the Israelites title was good to the Land of Canaan by the donation of God himself, for more than four hundred years before this time.

Secondly, Joshua had a special command from God himself, to root out the Canaanites, and to plant God's people in their room. Therefore as he had good warrant to undertake this war, so he had great reason to pursue & manage it valiantly. For where God giveth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 he giveth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; where God giveth authority to do a thing lawfully, there he giveth power to do it effectually.

Be strong, and of a good courage. In these words the Lord of hosts inspireth Joshua the General of his Army with the spirit of fortitude and courage, to perform this noble service, to settle his people in their long promised inheritance: he exhorteth them to put on a resolution to adventure upon all dangers, to break through all difficulties, and contemn all terrors in the accomplishment of this honorable work. Be strong, and of a good courage, there are the positive acts; Be not afraid, nor dismayed, there are the privative acts of Christian fortitude: strength taketh away fear, courage dismayednesse; be strong in body, and of good courage in mind; or be strong in thyself, and courageous against thy enemies: be not surprised with any inward fear, nor dismayed with any outward terror. For I am the Lord, and can; I am thy God, and will be thy guard and convoy in all thy ways whithersoever thou shalt go. Fortitude and magnanimity is one of the cardinal virtues consisting in a mediocrity, or middle temper of the mind, between audacious temerity, and timorous cowardice. It is usually divided into two kinds:

• 1. Fortitudinem in ferendo: Fortitude in bearing.
• 2. Fortitudinem in feriendo: Fortitude in attempting, or assailing.

The former is the glory of the Martyrs, the later the crown of Christian soldiers; both are requisite to make up the perfect entire virtue of Christian fortitude, which must have as well a back of patience to endure all hardness, as an edge of valor or courage, to set upon all difficulties, and go through all dangers, not sticking at death it self, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the king of all fears. This virtue is called in Greek, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , from a word signifying a man, as manhood in our Language, to intimate, that it is the most proper virtue of a man; and that he is not a man, who is not manly and courageous in God's cause, and his Countries. Degeneres animos timor arguit, Fearfulness is an argument of a base mind, but valor is the proper ornament of a generous spirit; which hath been always held in that esteem in the world, that all trophees, triumphs, obeliskes, coats of arms, and other ensigns of honor have been appropriated to this virtue, and that deservedly. For all other arts and professions whatsoever, lie under the safe protection of it. In which regard Fulvius removed the images of the nine Muses out of a Chapel in Ambracion, and placed them in Hercules Temple at Rome; to show that as arms need the commendation of arts, so all arts stand in need of the defense of arms. To this virtue we owe our liberty, our honor, our wealth, our state: upon which premisses the Orator inferreth this conclusion; Let therefore the pen give place to the sword, arts to arms, the shade to the sun, and let that virtue have the preeminency in the State, by which the State it self getteth the precedency of all other; let that rule in the city, by which the city hath obtained the rule of the whole world. The great Philosopher Aristotle seemeth to subscribe to this conclusion: for in martialling moral virtues in their order, he giveth magnanimity the first place: and he yieldeth this reason for it; the more difficult and dreadful the subject, the more excellent the virtue which regulates the affection about it: now death is the chief of all fears, magnanimity therefore which conquereth this fear is the Prince of all virtues. As the strength of a blade is tried by the hardness of the matter which it cutteth, be it wood, stone, or metal: so the excellency of virtue is seen in the difficulty of the object about which it is conversant; and what so difficult as willingly to hazard our life, & contemn death? If reason can work this in a moral man, shall not religion much more in a Christian? If fame, & a garland of flowers, and a small donative can produce noble thoughts & resolutions in heathen, shall not immortal glory, and an incorruptible garland, and hope of an immarcessible crown breed more generous resolutions in those who have given their names to the Lord of Hosts, to fight his battles? especially considering that valor and courage, as it is more honorable, so it is safer than base fear. For it strikes a terror in the hearts of the enemies, and often times wins a victory without striking a blow. And as our courage maketh the enemies fearful, so our timorousness maketh them valorous; our trembling at danger bringeth more danger upon us, by making us unable to resist. For this cowardly affection worketh not only upon the soul, but upon the body also; and as it dejecteth and dis-armeth the one, so it dis-ableth and weakeneth the other. But the strongest motive to fortitude, and most effectual incentive to courage, and surest ground of confidence, is that which now followeth in the last place.

The Lord thy God is with thee whither soever thou goest. The Lord, whose command is universal; God, whose power is invincible; The Lord thy God, whose mercies are incomprehensible, is with thee whither soever thou goest. If the Lord thy God be with thee, his wisdom is with thee to direct thee, his power to protect thee, his strength to support thee, his goodness to maintain thee, his bounty to reward thee, his word to encourage thee, and, if thou die under his banner, his Angels presently to carry thee into heaven. Where the Israelites lamentably deplore their ill success in war, they attribute it to God's absence, Thou goest not forth, say they, with our armies. And to the end that they might be more assured of God's presence with them in their battles, they carried the Ark of God with them, and were wont to ask counsel of him before hand, touching the success of their war; and in ancienter times the Priests gave answer from God by the Ephod: but in the latter, if we may believe Josephus, they guessed at the event by the glaring or duskinesse of the Diamond on the Priests breast-plate. For if it shined brightly and clearly, it foreshowed certain victory; but if it changed the color, or lost anything of the luster, it portended ill success. The Lacedaemonians being overtaken by the Persian horse, and overwhelmed with great flights of arrows, did notwithstanding quietly sit still, without making any resistance at all, or defense, till the sacrifices for victory were happily ended; yea though many were sore hurt, and some slain out right before any good sign appeared in the entrails: but as soon as their General Pausanias had found good tokens of victory, and persuaded his soldiers of the divine approbation of their war, they arose, and with excellent courage first received the charge of the Barbarians, and after charged them afresh, and slew Mardonius the Persian General, and many thousands of the rest, and got the day. If the conjectural hope of the aide and assistance of a feigned deity put such courage and resolution into the Lacedaemonians, shall not faith in the true God, and confidence in his help, breed better blood, and infuse nobler spirits into the hearts of God's warriors, and Christian soldiers? God can save his, and overcome the enemy, as well with small forces as with great; but all the forces in the world without him have no force at all. Therefore though Captains have many employments, yet they must look especially to hoc unum necessarium, this one thing most needful, That they have God on their side, that they make him sure for them. You will say, I know, How may this be done? How may he be wrought and made thorough for us? He showeth at the 7. & 8. verses. Observe to do according to all the Law which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous: and then thou shalt have good success.

First, the Lord's Joshua's must look strictly to their life and conversation, so much the rather by how much in battle they are nearer death; which points to them in every sword and spear, and giveth them a summons at the report of every Cannon, and discharging of every Piece.

Secondly, they must look to their companies and troupes, and see that there be never an Achan among them, never a sacrilegious, profane, or abominable person, whose horrible crimes, if they be not discovered and punished, may prove the loss of many a battle, and the ruin of a whole army. The Barbarians hands, saith Saint Jerome, are made strong against us by our grievous transgressions; our infirmities are our enemies greatest strength, our distractions their security, our crying sins their thundering ordnance. Salvianus acknowledgeth that it was just with God to strengthen the armies of the Goths and Vandals, though they were heretics, against the right believing Romans, because those barbarous nations observed most strict discipline, and lived more chastely and temperately than the Roman soldiers.

Lastly, when you put on your corporal armor, forget not to put on the spiritual, laid out for you by the Apostle, and gilt by his divine eloquence; I mean, The breast-plate of righteousness, the shoes of preparation, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit. Learn of that fortunate Commander of the Goths, who, like lightning, in a moment appeared from one part of the earth to the other, and nothing was able to withstand him. This Emperor never put himself into the field to fight with his enemy, before at home he had made his peace with God. Salvianus, who lived at the same time, and accurately observed his demeanour, attributeth his miraculous victories to nothing more than to his extraordinary and admirable devotion. The King that warreth against us, to the very day in which he draweth out his forces to fight, lieth on the ground at his devotion in sackcloth and ashes; before he goeth into the battle he is at his prayer in private, and never riseth but from his knees to fight. Wrestle you in like manner with God, that you may be Israel's; keep his Law as strictly as your Martial discipline, and I will be bold to give you now at your parting the benediction of the Psalmist: Gird your swords upon your thighs, O ye mighty, with glory, ride on with honor, because of truth, meekness, and righteousness, and your right hand shall teach you terrible things; your arrows shall be sharp in the heart of the Kings enemies, whereby the people shall fall under you. Hath not the Lord by his Vice-gerent commanded you to help and assist your brethren? Be strong therefore, and of a good courage, and the Lord God shall be with you whithersoever you go. To whom, &c.

THE CROWNE OF HUMILITY. A Sermon preached in Wooll-Church, April 10. 1624. THE NINETEENTH SERMON.

THey who desire to abide in the Tabernacle of the Almighty, and rest upon his holy Hill, had need to get by heart, and con without book by continual practice this Sermon of Christ upon the Mount: which hath more ravishing strains of Eloquence, more divine a phorismes of Wisdom, more powerful motives to Holiness, more certain directions to Happiness treasured up in it, than are found in all the parenetiques of Orators, all the diatribes of Philosophers, all the apophthegmes of Sages, all the emblems of Poets, all the hieroglyphicks of Egyptian Priests, all the tables of Laws, all the pandects of Constitutions, all the digests of Imperial Sanctions, all the bodies and systemes of Canons, all acts of Parliament, all rules of Perfection ever published to the worlds view. I dare confidently affirm, that which all the ancient and later Commentatours upon it will make good, that this one Sermon in Monte surmounts them all. Ubi desinit Philosophus, ibi incipit Medicus; Where the Philosophers left and could go no further, the Physician of our soul goes on, at the health and eternal salvation of our immortal spirit: where they made an end of their discourses, which yet came far short of their mark, there he begins, at blessedness it self. And doubtless, if there be any happiness in knowledge, it is in the knowledge of happiness; which the proper owner thereof in himself, and gracious doner to his creatures capable thereof, bestoweth here as a dowry, and shareth between eight divine virtues.

• 1. Humility: poor in spirit.
• 2. Repentance: mourning for sin.
• 3. Compassion: ever meek.
• 4. Devotion: hungering and thirsting for righteousness.
• 5. Piety: always merciful.
• 6. Sincerity: pure in heart.
• 7. Brotherly love: making peace.
• 8. Patience: enduring all for righteousness sake:

There are no strains in Music so delightful, as those in which discords are artificially bound in with concords; nor dishes so dainty, as those in which sweet things, and tart or sour are seasonably mingled: nor pictures so beautiful, as those in which bright colors with dark shadows are curiously tempered: nor sentences so rhetorical, as those in which contraries are fitly opposed, and set one against the other. Such are almost all the strains of this sweet Lesson pricked by our Savior, such are all the dishes placed in this heavenly Banquet, such are the pictures set in this Gallery, such are the sentences skillfully contrived into the Proem of this Sermon; wherein blessing is opposed to cursing, laughing to weeping, reward to punishments, satisfaction to hungering and thirsting, gain to losses, glory to shame, and (in my Text) heavenly riches to earthly poverty.

• 1. Blessed poverty, because to be enriched.
• 2. Blessed mourning, because to be comforted.
• 3. Blessed hungering, because to be satisfied.
• 4. Blessed enduring punishment, because to be rewarded.

Blessed are the poor, &c. In these words our blessed Savior, the hope of our blessedness here, and blessedness of our hope hereafter, teacheth us,

• 1. Whom we are to call blessed.
• 2. Why.

1. Whom, the humble in heart, here termed poor in spirit.

2. Why, because their lowliness of mind entituleth them to the highest top of honor, glory, and happiness, a Kingdom, and that in Heaven. Blessed, not in fruition, but in hope, are the poor, not simply in estate, but in spirit: and these are also blessed, not for anything they have on earth, but for that they shall have in heaven, an incorruptible Crown of glory.

1. There are some to be held for blessed even in this life.

2. These blessed are the poor.

3. These poor are poor in spirit.

Or if you like better of a Logical division, than a Theological partition, observe in this speech of our Savior,

• 1. An affirmation, Blessed are the poor.
• 2. A confirmation, For theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

The affirmation is strange, and may be called a divine Paradox: for the world accounteth blessedness to consist in wealth and abundance; not in poverty. A good man, in the language of the City, is a wealthy man. Poverty above all things is despised:

And of all poor men we have the meanest opinion of those that are poor in spirit, we account not them worth the earth they tread upon; yet for these Christ plats the Garland of blessedness. Because the affirmation is strange, the confirmation ought to be strong; and so indeed it is: For, saith he, theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Whether we take the Kingdom of Heaven for the Kingdom of grace, or the Kingdom of glory, they have best right to both. For the Kingdom of grace is in them, according to the words of our Savior, The Kingdom of God is with you: and they shall be in the Kingdom of glory when they enter into their Masters joy; & therefore they are doubly happy:

• 1. Re.
• 2. Spe.

1. Re, in the present possession of the Kingdom of grace: and

2. Spe, in the certain expectation of the Kingdom of glory.

O how is the world out in her accompt! She esteemeth them the only miserable, who indeed are the only happy: she deemeth them the off-scouring of all things, who shall shine as stars in the Firmament: she accounteth them beggars and forlorn men, who are Kings to God, and so assured of a celestial Crown, that Christ saith not theirs shall be, but theirs is the kingdom of Heaven, as if they now ware it. When one of Apelles his scholars had drawn Helena in costly and gorgeous apparel, hung all over with orient pearl, and resplendent stones; O young man, saith he, because thou couldest not paint Helena fair, her natural feature being above thy art, thou hast drawn her rich: in like manner may we say truly, that because the Heathen Philosophers (whose several opinions amount unto the number of some hundreds, as Saint Austin relateth in his books of the City of God, and striketh a dash of his pen through them all) could not describe their summum bonum, or chief happiness beautiful; because they wanted the eye of faith to descry the beauty of the hidden man of the heart, they like the young man thought to make amends by painting her rich, abounding with all outward comforts and contentments, houses, possessions, treasures, attendants, pleasures, honors: but our blessed Savior contrariwise, because he could not set her forth rich in estate here (for he had not himself to lay his head upon ) he describeth her most fair and beautiful, like Solomon's Queen, all glorious within. Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, to be heirs of his Kingdom? Yes certainly: for Christ not only affirmeth them to be blessed, saying, Blessed are the poor; but also confirms it with a most forcible reason, For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Upon which Scripture all my observations for the present shall level at three points:

• 1. Blessedness.
• 2. Poverty in spirit.
• 3. Kingdom of Heaven.

First I will demonstrate, that the Saints of God enjoy a kind of blessedness in this life. Secondly, that this blessedness consisteth especially in their right to a crown in heaven. Thirdly, that this right is in the poor in spirit.

Blessed are. They who observe the changings and turnings of this mortal life, and in them consider how wretched man, like a Tennis-ball, is beat from wall to wall, & as it were racketted from one trouble to another, from one care to another, from one exigent to another, may easily guess at the reason why the ancient Sages termed him ludum deorum, the gods game or sport. For as Tiberus Constantine in the year of our Lord 577. commanding a golden cross set in Marble to be digged up, that it might not be trod upon, found under it a second, and under the second a third, and under the third a fourth; so the dearest servants of God in this world digging for the hidden treasure of the Gospel, find cross under cross, and loss upon loss, & sorrows after sorrows. Look how the waves in the sea ride one upon the neck of the other, and like as Jobs messengers trod one upon the heels of another; so miseries, and calamities, and vexations in the course of this life follow close one upon the other. The vanity of youth presseth upon the folly of childhood, and the ambition of ripe years immediately succeedeth the folly of youth, and infirmities of old age seize on the ambition of perfect age, and the terrors of death make haste after all. We run in the race of our life as it were in a ring of misery, from inward evils to outward, and from outward to inward, from diseases of body to maladies of mind, and from those to these; from fears to cares, and from cares to fears, from temporal losses to spiritual, and from spiritual back again to temporal, which are so many and so grievous, that whosoever is sensible of them, cannot but acknowledge this present life to be miserable: and if he be not sensible of them, he is to be accounted so much the more miserable, because he hath lost common sense, as Saint Austin nimbly wieldeth this two-edged sword against the Heathen Philosophers that doted upon worldly happiness. Polycrates, who would not seal the truth concerning the vanity and uncertainty of worldly happiness with his ring, which he purposely threw in the sea, that he might lose it, but regained it again out of the mouth of a fish sold in the Market, and brought into his Kitchen: yet afterwards he signed it with his blood, when the date of his happy fortunes were out, and the cross fell in the end to be his lot. And Croesus, who derided Solon, preaching to him this doctrine, as he sat upon his throne at Sardis, afterwards taken prisoner by Cyrus, and condemned to the fire, proclaimed it upon the pile now ready to be kindled, crying out upon Solon, O Solon, Solon, I find thy words to be Oracles, and thy Paradox to be an Axiom:

that no man ought to be entered in the Kalendar of the Blessed, before we see what end he maketh, whether the glorious light of his temporal prosperity go not out in an obscure and stinking snuff of a miserable and infamous death. Reason easily persuadeth, but Religion compelleth our assent to this truth. For Christianity is a mere matter of faith and hope: We walk here by faith, and not by sight, our life is hid with Christ in God: when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory. By hope we are saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why should he hope for it? If this hope were confined to this life, then were the best Christians of all men the most miserable. How then doth our Savior here crown eight sorts of Christians with a title of Blessedness, and those who make least show of it (viz.) the poor in spirit, mourners, hungry, thirsty, persecuted, reviled, cursed persons?

To clear the meaning of our Savior, it will be requisite briefly to declare, first, how man is capable of blessedness at all: secondly, how far in this life, truly termed by St. Austin the region of death.

Blessedness is a sovereign attribute of God, and as Nyssen teacheth, primarily, and absolutely, and eternally belongeth to him only. Creatures are blessed but in part, derivatively, and at the most from the term of their creation. Beauty first shineth in the living face and countenance; that which is resembled in the image or picture, is but a secondary, or relative beauty: in like manner, saith he, the primary blessedness is in God, or to speak more properly, is God himself; the blessedness which is in man made after God's image, is but a secondary blessedness. For as the image is, such is his beauty and blessedness; but the image of God in man since his fall is much soiled and defaced, and consequently, his blessedness is very imperfect and obscure. Yet they that rub off the dust of earthly cares, and dirt of sin, and by spiritual exercises brighten the graces of God in their soul, as they are truly, though not perfectly beautiful within; so they may be truly, though not absolutely styled blessed even in this life.

1. First, because they are assured of God's love, and they see his countenance shine upon them, which putteth more gladness into their heart, than is or can be in the heart of them whose corn and wine is increased. For if it be deservedly accounted the greatest happiness of a subject to be in continual grace with his Prince, what is it to be a Favorite of the King of kings?

2. Secondly, because they have an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in the heavens for them. A great heir, though he may sometimes pinch for maintenance, and be driven to hard exigence; yet he still solaceth himself with this hope, it will be better with me, and I shall one day come to my lands: and such comfort have all God's Saints in their greatest perplexities and extremities.

3. Thirdly, because they enjoy the peace of a good conscience, which Solomon calleth a continual feast. And Saint Paul a cause of triumph and joy.

4. Fourthly, because all things work together for their good, and tend to their eternal happiness. The joys of the wicked are grievous, their pleasures are pain unto them: but on the contrary, the sorrows of the righteous are joyous, and the pains which they endure for Christ are pleasures unto them. The gains of the worldly are indeed losses unto them, because they help on their damnation; whereas the losses of the godly are gain and advantage unto them, because they further their salvation.

5. Fifthly, because they enjoy God (wherein consisteth the happiness of a man) in some measure and degree even in this life. For it cannot be denied, but that devout Christians, even whilst the soul resides in the body, have a comfortable fruition of the Deity (whose favor is better than life) by faith in the heart, by knowledge in the understanding, by charity in the will, by desire in the affections, by sight in the creatures, by hearing in the Word, by taste in the Sacraments, by feeling in the inward motions and operations of God's Spirit, which fill them with exceeding and unspeakable joy and comfort.

Saint John setting forth the blessedness of the triumphant Church, and depainting the joys of Heaven in golden colors, describeth a City situate in Heaven, whose temple is God, and light the Lamb, and walls Salvation, and courts praise, and streets gold, and foundations gems, and gates pearls, twelve in number, in a relation to the Lambes twelve Apostles. Answerable to the gates in price, though not in number, are the steps up to them, which our Savior (who is the way) directeth us unto: they are eight in number, made of so many whole pearls, that is, divine Virtues.

1. The first step is humility, poor in spirit, upon which when we stand, we may easily get upon the next, godly sorrow, mourning for sin: none so apt to mourn for their sins, and humble themselves under the mighty hand of God in sackcloth and ashes, as the poor in spirit.

2. When we are upon this step, we readily get up upon the next, which is tender compassion and meekness: none so compassionate and meek towards others, when they slip into the mire of sin, as those who continually bewail their fowl falls, and wash their defiled souls with their tears.

3. When we are upon this third step, we may soon get up the fourth, which is hungering and thirsting for righteousness: for those who are most sensible of their own wants, and continually bewail their corruptions, and are compassionately affected towards others when they are overtaken with any temptation, must needs hunger and thirst for righteousness both in themselves and others.

4. When we are upon this fourth step, we may soon climb up to the other three; Mercy the fifth, Purity the sixth, and Peace the seventh: for they who eagerly pursue righteousness, shall certainly meet with these three her companions.

Lastly, they who have attained unto righteousness, and are enamored with her three companions, Mercy, Purity, and Peace, will suffer anything for their sake, and so ascend up the highest step of Christian perfection, which is constant patience, and zealous striving for the truth, even unto blood, which is not only saved, but cleansed also by being spilled for Christ's sake. The lowest greece or stair, and the first step to Heaven is poverty in spirit, that is, as the Fathers generally interpret, Humility: which is the ground-color of the souls beautiful images the graces of the spirit. The ground-colors are dark and obscure, yet except they be first laid, the wool or stuff will not receive, much less retain the brighter and more beautiful. Such is lowliness of mind, of no great luster and appearance in itself; yet without it no grace or virtue will long keep color, and its beauty: and therefore Christ first lays it, saying, Blessed are the

Poor in spirit. These poor in spirit are not to be understood poor in spiritual graces, such cannot come near the price of the Kingdom of Heaven: and therefore the spirit adviseth them under the type of the Church of Laodicea, to buy of him gold tried in the fire, that they may be rich, &c. nor are they necessarily poor in state, much less such as are poor in state only: for bare poverty, yea though it be voluntary, is but a weak plea, and giveth a man but a poor title to a Kingdom in Heaven. We hear indeed in the Gospel of Lazarus the Beggar in Heaven, but we find him there in the bosom of rich Abraham, to teach us, as Saint Augustine noteth, that neither the poverty of the one brought him thither, nor the wealth of the other kept him from thence. In my Fathers house, saith our Savior, there are many mansions; some for the rich, some for the poor, some for noble, some for ignoble, some for kings, some for beggars: and it is hard to say, whethers crown in Heaven shall be more massy, and be set with more orient jewels, the rich man's, who is also rich in God, or the poor man's, who is poor for God: the wealthy, who hath given much to Christ, or the needy, who hath lost all for his sake: the noble and honorable man, who by his birth and place hath innobled the Christian faith, or the ignoble, who hath preferred the ignominy of Christ's cross to all the honors of this world: the King, who layeth down his scepter at the foot of Christ's cross, or the Beggar, who taketh up his cross, and readily followeth Christ. It is true which Saint Cyprian chargeth many of the rich in his time with, that their great patrimonies, and large revenues of their lands, with the weight thereof pressed them down to the earth, nay, some to hell. But the fault was in their mind, not in their means; in their desires, not in their fortunes or estates. For as when a man taketh a heavy Trunke full of plate or money upon his shoulders, it crooketh his back, and boweth him down toward the earth; but if the same weight be put under his feet, it lifteth him above ground: in like manner if we put our wealth and riches above us, preferring them to our salvation, they will press us down to the ground, if not to hell with their weight; but if we put them under our feet, and tread upon them as slaves to us, and quite contemn them in respect of heavenly treasure, they will raise us up towards heaven. As they did Job, who made so many friends of unrighteous Mammon, that every eye that saw him blessed him. As they did Mary Magdalene, whose name is and shall be like an ointment poured out to the end of the world, because she brake an Alabaster box of most costly ointment upon the head of our Savior. As they did Cornelius, whose alms-deeds were a forcible means to carry up his prayers into Heaven, Acts 10.31. Thy prayer is heard, and thine alms-deeds are had in remembrance. As they did Dorcas, whom the clothes which she made for the widows and poor orphants kept warm in her death bed ( The widows stood by her weeping, and showing the coats and garments which Dorcas made whilst she was with them ) and were motives to Saint Peter by miracle to restore her to life. As they did Constantine the great, who made his crown the basis of Christ's cross. As they did Ludovicus, who by continual largesse turned all his state into obligations. The meaning then is not, that none are blessed but poor: for Godliness hath the promises of this life, and the life to come. But to make up the harmony of the Evangelical doctrine in this place, we must take one note from the words as they are related by Saint Luke, and another from the words, as they are recorded by Saint Matthew in my Text. The note from Saint Luke is, That the worlds miserable man is for the most part Christ's blessed man. Christ's words in Saint Luke are these;

Vicibus res disposita est, Happiness goes by turns. Dives shall be Lazarus hereafter, and Lazarus on earth shall be Dives in Heaven: those who laugh here, shall weep there; and those who weep here, shall laugh there: those who feast continually, and riot in pleasures in this world, shall fast in the other; and those who fast upon earth, shall feast with the Lamb in Heaven.

But the note which we are to take from Saint Matthew is, That affliction and penury, unless it be sanctified to us by God, no way maketh us happy: Blessed are the poor, not simply, but with an addition, in spirit. The poor are blessed, if poor in spirit, that is, humble. Blessed are they that mourn, if their mourning be a godly mourning, either out of sense of their own sin, or compassion of their brethren's miseries. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of; but the sorrow of the world worketh death. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst, if it be for righteousness; for there are that hunger for the flesh-pots of Egypt, and there are that thirst after blood, or after stolen waters, which are sweet in the mouth, but poison in the belly, and rottenness in the bones. And neither of these are blessed. All that are in want are not Christ's poor, neither are all that wear blacks his mourners. Saint Luke saith in effect, not many rich are blessed: Saint Matthew addeth, nor all poor, but the poor in spirit only, that is, such as are of an humble spirit, or a contrite spirit. Those who by any affliction outward or inward are so thoroughly tamed and subdued, that they humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, wholly relying upon his providence for their estate, and upon his mercy for their salvation. None is poor in spirit, saith Calvin, but he who being brought to nothing in himself, casteth himself wholly upon God's mercy. For he who groweth into desperate fits, and murmureth against the most High, must needs be of an impatient and proud spirit. Crosses work not alike upon all: some are bettered by them, some are made worse; some are bowed down by them, others rise up against them. As under the same flail the stubble is bruised, and the corn purged; and in the same fire gold shineth, and chaff smoaketh: so the same affliction which trieth the faith of the godly like gold, and maketh it more precious, consumeth the temporary belief of hypocrites like dross. We read in the Apocalypse, that after the fifth Angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the Beast, that his kingdom was full of darkness: and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of Heaven, because of their pains, and sores, and repented not of their deeds: these turned medicines into poisons, whereas on the contrary the true servants of God make medicines even of poisons; like silver Bells, they ring sweetest when they are struck hardest. Of those who are smitten by the hand of God, some like solid bones are hardened by his stroke, some like tender flesh are softened thereby, some turn to him that strikes them, others fly away from him: the former are blessed, not the latter; theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven, not theses. Here some may cast in a scruple, Why should Christ preach poverty in spirit to his Disciples, who had nothing to be proud of, being poor, illiterate, despicable men? Saint Chrysostom answereth:

First, that the greater part of the multitude, to whom Christ directed his speech, were not Disciples, but men of another condition, who bare themselves upon their wealth, or place of authority; and in that regard much needed a Lecture of Humility to be read unto them.

Secondly, he addeth, that this admonition was very seasonable, even to his Disciples, lest they should be puffed up with their miraculous gifts of casting out Devils, and healing all manner of diseases.

Thirdly, it may be thought also, that our Savior used this Preface to his Sermon, not so much to instruct his Disciples, as to vindicate them and his doctrine from scorn and dis-esteem. For if you draw out at length this rich piece of Arras, you shall find in it the heads and lineaments of this exhortation, or the like.

And so I have done with the assertion or affirmation, Blessed are the poor in spirit; and am now to examine the reason or confirmation.

For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. What Synesius spake concerning his preferment to his disadvantage,

Now, saith he, ascend downward: for before thou diddest descend upward (his meaning was, that now he gained in honor, but lost in profit; but before lost in honor, and gained in wealth) may fitly be applied to all mankind, who fell by rising in our own conceits, and can no otherwise rise again, but by falling in ourselves. We ascended downward in Adam, when we would be like unto God in knowledge; but we descend upward when we strive to be like the son of man, and learn of Christ to be meek and lowly in heart. The first precipice or down fall to Hell both in Angel and Man was by pride: therefore humility must needs be the first step to Heaven. For the rule holds both in the physic of soul and body, Contraria curantur contrariis. As the disease is contrary to health, so the remedy is always contrary to the disease. He that means to build high, must lay his foundation low: he that setteth any choice plant, diggeth the earth deep to put in the root. All those precious and resplendent stones reckoned up in the Apocalypse, were placed in the foundation of the heavenly City, to teach us, that all Christian virtues are grounded in humility. If a vessel be full, it will receive no more liquor, be it never so sovereign and precious. The proud and high minded man is full of his own gifts and perfections; and therefore letteth not into his soul the wholesome dew of God's grace. What is the reason so few great, and mighty, and noble, and wise, and learned enter into Christ's school, or very late? because the gate is low, and they will not stoop. Holy Austin confesseth with tears, that his swelling greatness or tumour of pride would not suffer him for a long time to enter in at the narrow gate that leadeth unto life. In whose tears many of our noble Sparkes, or lusty Gallants, and high Spirits may read the cause why they are so usually poor, and naked, and blind in the inward man, and though ofttimes nearest to the Court of Princes, yet are furthest off from the Kingdom of God. They will not confess their wants, either because they suppose they have none, or they cannot endure the shame of acknowledging them: they will not beg, because they are rich in their own conceits: they will not subject their reason to faith, because they value their reason above faith: but those that are poor in spirit are ever begging and asking at God's hands; and therefore always on the taking hand. The soul that feeleth her self empty, hungereth and thirsteth for righteousness; and therefore is satisfied. The modest man hath no opinion of his own wit or wisdom: and therefore willingly bringeth every thought into captivity, and every affection to the obedience of the Gospel. The lowly in heart esteemeth more vilely of himself than the world can: and therefore he cheerfully taketh up his cross and followeth Christ.

Thus have I cleared the title of the poor in spirit to the Kingdom of Heaven: which is so sure and unquestionable, that our Savior saith not, Theirs shall be in the future; but in the present tense, Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. And likewise, Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. As we say of such an one that hath the advowson of a Benefice, or reversion of an Office under seal: or of an heir to a wealthy father, such a Lordship, or such a Manor, or such an Office, or such a Benefice is his, either because he is as sure thereof as if he were possessed of it; or because he hath actually jus ad rem, though not in re, a right to it, though not in it: so in regard of the poor in spirit their undoubted right to, and their present interest in some of the privileges and profits of their heavenly Fathers Kingdom, that Kingdom is said here to be theirs already. When Cyneas the Ambassador of Pyrrhus, after his return from Rome, was asked by his Master what he thought of the City and State, he answered, that it seemed to him Respublica Regum, A State of none but great States-men, and a Common-wealth of Kings. Put the same question to Saint John concerning Jerusalem that descended from God, he will answer you in like manner, Videri rempublicam Regum, that it is no other than a Parliament of Emperors, or a Common-wealth of Kings. For in the Kingdom of grace upon earth all Kings are subjects; but in the Kingdom of glory in Heaven all subjects are Kings. Every humble and faithful soul is coheire with Christ, and hath a robe of honor, and a scepter of power, and a throne of majesty, and a crown of glory. If you peruse the records and evidences of Heaven exemplified in holy Scripture, you shall find no estates there but inheritances, no inheritances but kingdoms, no houses but palaces, no meals but feasts, no noise but music, no rods but scepters, no garments but robes, no seats but thrones, no head ornaments but crowns: these inheritances, these palaces, these feasts, these songs, these scepters, these thrones, these robes, these crowns God bring us unto, and possess us with through poverty in spirit, in the right and title purchased for us by our elder brother Christ Jesus. To whom, &c.

THE COGNISANCE OF A CHRISTIAN: OR CHRIST HIS NEW COMMANDEMENT. A Sermon preached in Wooll-Church. THE TWENTIETH SERMON.

ALL that by a Christian vocation are severed from the world, and cut as it were out of the common rock of mankind, and by faith rely upon Christ, are like so many hewn stones laid upon the chief corner stone rising to a spiritual building, reaching from the earth to heaven. The line by which they are built is the Word of God, & the cement wherewith they are held fast together is Christian charity, the solder of minds, the couple of dispositions, the glew of affections, and the bond of all perfection; which to fasten the more strongly, among all that gave their name to Christ, the Primitive Church in the days of the Apostles added a double tie:

• 1. Sacred.
• 2. Civil.

The sacred was the frequent receiving of the Lord's Supper: the civil was the celebrating their Agapae's, or keeping their love-feasts. Which though they were in after ages taken away, by reason of manifold abuses and disorders committed in them, even in the place of holy assemblies: yet it were to be wished, that all our feasts were truly love-feasts. I mean that the rich among us would imitate holy Job, and not eat their morsels alone, but invite those of the poorer sort to their Tables, whom Christ bids to his board: or at least that they would defaulke a great part of that charge, which is spent in furnishing these luxurious feasts, wherein this City exceedeth all in the Christian world, and convert it to the refreshing of the bowels of poor prisoners, or clothing the naked, or redeeming captives, or to some other pious and charitable use: so should your City and Company feasts be true Agapae, love-feasts; and you testify to all the world, what account you make of Christ his new commandment in my Text, Love one another.

Of all speeches we ought to give most heed to those of our Savior; of all speeches of our Savior, to his commands; of all commands, to this of Christian charity:

• 1. Because it is a rare and choice one: A new.
• 2. Because it is a sweet and easy one: To love.
• 3. Because it is a just and reasonable one: One another.
• 4. Because we have such a singular President for it: As I have loved you, &c.

We have all Athenian ears, thirsting after news: behold a new. We all profess obedience to Laws: behold a commandment. We all acknowledge Christ to be our supreme Lord, who hath absolute power of life and death; hearken then to his Proclamation, I give unto you. If he had laid a heavy burden and hard yoke upon us, we must have submitted our necks and shoulders to it, and we have all reason so to do. For he took upon him our infirmities, and bare our sorrows: how much more when he layeth so sweet a yoke upon us as to love? so light a burden as to love one another? Nothing more agreeable to our nature than to love, nothing more needful to our condition than to love one another. We all stand in need one of another, this need is supported by love, this love is commanded by Christ, this command of Christ is new.

As Tully spake of Thucydides his style, that in his Orations every word was a sentence. And as Saint Jerome observeth in the Apocalypse, Quot verba, tot sacramenta, that there are so many mysteries in it as words: so we may say of this Text, Quot verba, tot argumenta; so many words, so many arguments: so many notions, so many motions or motives to this duty of mutual love. To which we ought to have a special eye, and extraordinary regard:

First, because it is a new commandment.

Secondly, because it is Christ's commandment, I give unto you.

Thirdly, because it is an amiable and easy one: To love.

Fourthly, because it is a general and indifferent one: Everyone.

Fifthly, because it is so just and profitable a one: One another.

Lastly, because it is pressed by such a rare example as the world never had the like, As I have loved you.

You see the ears that stand above the rest, which by the example of the Apostles on the Sabbath, I will rub in the handling of them to stay your spiritual hunger a while.

A new. The first word in my Text is new; and even this may seem new and strange, that Christ calleth here this commandment of love a new commandment, which is as old as the Law of Moses, nay as the law of nature. For before Christ made love Gospel, Moses made it written Law; and before Moses made it written Law, God made it a branch, or rather the root of the law of nature: before the Evangelist wrote this precept in the Gospel, Moses wrote it in the Law, and before Moses wrote it in the Law, God wrote it with his own finger in tables of stone, and long before that in the fleshly tables of Adams heart. How then doth our Savior here term it a new commandment, which is so old, that Saint John himself commendeth it from the antiquity? As Saint Ambrose spake of the Cherubims in Ezekiel's vision, Si stabant, quomodo movebant? si movebant, quomodo stabant? If they stood still, how did they move? if they moved, how did they stand still? may not we likewise argue the case thus, If the duty of mutual love be a message received from the beginning, either of the promulgation of the Law, or the Creation it self; how is it here styled new? If it be so new in Saint Johns Gospel, how is it so old in his Epistle? Every answer shaped by the Interpreters to this question may serve for a several exposition of this Text, and a special motive to this duty of mutual love.

First, Maldonado resolveth it to be an Hebraism, in which language new, rare, and most excellent are synonimaes. A new name ( Apoc. 2.) is a most honorable name. A new song ( Psal. 69.) a most excellent song. New wine ( Matth. 26.29.) vinum praestantissimum alterius generis, the best wine; so here a new commandment is a rare, a choice, a special, a remarkable one: as if our Lord had said, Unum praeque omnibus unum, One above all other. Calvin varieth not much from Maldonado, paraphrasing thus, Christ would have us perpetually mindful of this his precept, as if it were a law newly enacted. For we know, saith he, that laws at the first making of them are carefully looked unto, and diligently observed; but by degrees wear out of men's memory, and in the end grow quite into dis-use: therefore Christ, the more to fasten love in the minds of his, commendeth it unto them as a new commandment. The most of the Ancients conceive this commandment to be termed new, because it is propounded here novâ formâ, in a new form. In the Law it runs thus, Love thy neighbor as thyself: but in the Gospel, Love one another as I have loved you, that is, in some case more than yourselves. For indeed so did Christ, laying down his life for us. Yet Saint Austin hath a new way by himself; he saith, that the commandment of love is here said to be NEW from the effect, because it renews us, and by it we put off the old man, and put on the new. Let us strike all these strings together, and make a chord of them: What account ought we to make of, how carefully to observe the commandment of our Savior, which is a rare and singular one, and so new: renewed and revived by Christ in the Gospel, and so new: delivered in a new manner, and after a new form, and so new: enforced by a new president, and so new: lastly, which maketh us new in our minds, in our inward and outward man, and so new? The most fluent and currant sense of the words seemeth to be this. Christ had before called his Disciples children, and fore-told them that he was shortly to leave them: therefore he giveth them here such counsels and precepts as fathers usually give their children when they are to take a long journey.

This cognizance was so bright to be seen in the livery of the Christians of the Primitive Church, that by their love-feasts and charitable contributions, and having all things in common, and visiting their sick in time of infection, and having recourse one to another in prisons, and dungeons, and dens, and caves of the earth, and accompanying one another to the rack, to the gibbet, to the block, to the fire, to all sorts of most exquisite tortures and torments, the Heathen knew a man to be a Christian. But this badge grew in after ages dimmer, and now it is in a manner quite worn out. Which that it might not come to pass, our Savior in Gorrhams judgment proposeth this precept of love in this form of words, A new commandment I give unto you, that is, such a one as ought to be always fresh in your mind and memory, and never to wax old, or be blotted out of your heart by any dis-use or negligence. To come yet nearer to the native and genuine sense of the words, a law may be said to be new out of a double consideration: [ 1] Either in respect of the thing commanded, if it be such a thing as before never fell under any law and this is the meaning of our Proverb, Novus rex, nova lex, New lords, new laws; because for the most part new governors and rulers bring in new customs, proclaim new edicts, and settle new orders in Church and Common-wealth: [ 2] Or in respect of the new act of commanding; so an old Statute, when it is revived may be called a new Statute, as an old book when it is re-printed, or an old fashion laid aside for a long time when it is again taken up, passeth for new. In both these respects this commandment in my Text may be said to be new.

1. First, in respect of the duty commanded. For though mutual love were long before this enjoined, yet not this love, whereby Christians are required to love one another as Disciples of one Master, nay as members of one mystical body, whereof Christ Jesus is the head.

2. Secondly, in respect of the new act of commanding, expressed in these words,

I give unto you. The promises of Christ in the Law, are the Gospel of the Law; as on the other side, the precepts of Christ in the Gospel, are the Law of the Gospel: there is one Law-giver, who is able to save and destroy; and this Law-giver is Christ, the Judge of quick and dead. It belongs to Kings to give Laws to their subjects, Masters to their servants, Parents to their children: Christ was their King, and their Master, and their Father; for he calleth them children, saying, Little children, yet a while I am with you. In which of these relations are we to God; as our King, or our Master, or our Father? are we subjects, servants, or children? If we are subjects, let us obey our King. If we are his servants, let us do our Masters will. If we are children, let us keep the commandments of our Father. Had the Prophet, saith Naaman's servant, bid thee to do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? How much more when he saith unto thee, Wash and be clean? so may I say unto you, If our Master, our Father, our King had laid a hard task upon us, we ought to have done it; how much more when he saith but Love as I have loved you, A new commandment I give unto you?

To love. To love is to bear good affection to another, and to be willing and ready to do him all the good we can for his own sake, without any eye to ourselves therein. Otherwise, if we love him for our pleasure, we love indeed our pleasure, and not him: if we love him for our profit, we love our profit, and not him: if we love him for any end of our own, we love ourselves, not him. The Fly loveth not the Apothecaries shop, but the sweet ointment there. Craterus loved not Alexander, but the Crown: and therefore was termed 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . The Jews loved not Christ, but the loaves which he multiplied by miracle: Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye seek me not because you saw the miracles; but because you did eat of the loaves, and were filled. The Schools therefore well distinguish of a double love,

• 1. Amor concupiscentiae.
• 2. Amor amicitiae.

A love of concupiscence, and a love of friendship. If the love of concupiscence exceed, it degenerateth into either lust, covetousness, or ambition. If it carry us inordinately to pleasure, it is lust or sensuality. If to gain, it is covetousness. If to honor, it is ambition. The love of friendship is of another nature, it loveth a person for himself, not for any by respect; or to speak more properly, it loveth Christ in our Christian brother, and may be well termed the natural heat of Christ's mystical body, which conveyeth nourishment into all parts, and performeth all vital functions. It is a spiritual grace, knitting the hearts of the faithful in affection one to another, melting them in compassion one of another, and dilating and enlarging them in delight and joy one in another.

In the delineation of this plant of Paradise I will imitate the Naturalists, and describe it by the root, the main stock, the branches, the blossoms, the leaves, the fruit. The root is the knowledge of God. For as the beams of the Sun reflected from thick glasses generate heat; so the light of divine knowledge incident upon the understanding, and reflected upon the will, produceth in it the ardent affection of the love of God, and from it, as the main arm of the tree, issue two branches, the love of our neighbor, and of ourselves. The blossoms on these branches are good meanings, desires, and purposes, to wish all good to our neighbor, to think well of him, to congratulate his felicity, and to condole his misery. The leaves are good speeches, counsels, and prayers. The fruit are good works and almsdeeds, to correct him in his errors, to comfort him in his troubles, to visit him in his sickness, and to relieve him in his necessities. And, to speak truth, to love in truth is to love in deed, and charitable deeds are the deeds and evidences that certainly prove a good conveighance of this affection. Let us love, saith the Apostle, not in word and in tongue, but indeed and verity. Deed and verity as you hear are all one: and therefore word only, and vanity and hypocrisy, must go together, as also the Latin phrase verba dare signifieth. True religion and undefiled before God even the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted of the world. I would all who profess religion were of this religion of Saint James. For the religion which is (I will not say professed) but practiced by most men, is aptly set forth unto us in the Wezel, quae aure concipit, parturit ore, which conceiveth at the ear, & bringeth forth at the mouth. It conceiveth in the ear in the frequent, if not perpetual hearing of Sermons; but bringeth forth only at the mouth by discourses of religion, pious counsels, good words, and liberal prayers, such as these, God help thee, God relieve thee, God comfort thee, Alas poor soul (alas poor comfort.) Words be they never so adorned, clothe not the naked: be they never so delicate, feed not the hungry: be they never so zealous, warm not him that is starved with cold: be they never so soft, cure not the wounded: be they never so free, set not free them that are bound, visit not the sick or imprisoned: in a word, perform not any of those duties which shall be vouchsafed the naming at the general day of retribution unto all men, which shall be according to their works, not according to their words. The witty Epigrammatist deservedly casteth a blur upon Candidus his fair name and debonaire carriage, because all the fruits of his friendship grew upon his tongue:

Thou sayst, my friend Candidus, that all things are common among friends, but it seems these words of thine are thy all things. For of all thy wealth and goods thou makest no friend thou hast a doite the better, thou givest nothing at all, and yet art most prodigal in thy language, and wearest out that Proverb thread-bare, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , All things are common amongst friends. The Naturalists observe, that the females of Bi • ds oftentimes lay eggs without cockes, but they are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ova subventanea, eggs filled up with wind, unfit to be hatched: such is the issue of most men's love now a days, it bringeth forth partus subventaneos, windy brats, that is, good words, fair promises, and happy wishes. But though in our gardens of pleasure we nourish many plants and trees for their beautiful blossoms and goodly flowers, yet it is manifest out of the 16. Verse of the second of Genesis, that there grew no tree in the terrestrial Paradise of God that bare not fruit, neither shall any but such as fructify be transplanted into the celestial. For, Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. We read in our Chronicles of King Oswald, that as he sat at table, when a fair silver dish full of regal delicacies was set before him, and he ready to fall to, hearing from his Amner that there were great store of poor at his gate piteously crying for some relief, commanded his Steward presently to take the dish off the table, and distribute the meat, and beat the dish all in pieces, & cast it among them: whereat the Bishop his Amner, taking hold of his hand, was heard to use these or the like speeches, Nunquam veterascet haec manus, the hand which beareth such fruit shall never wither or wax old; & in part he was a true Prophet: for afterwards in a battle where the King was slain, having his arm first cut off, the arm with the hand being found, were covered in silver, & kept as a holy Relique; and by this means endured many hundred of years after the whole body was consumed. That which quencheth Hell fire in the conscience is the blood of Christ, that which applieth this blood is faith, that which quickeneth this faith is love, that which demonstrateth this love are works of mercy and bounty, piety and pity, which are not so much offices to men, as sacrifices to God: faith crieth for these, as Rachel did for children, Give me fruit, or else I die. For, Faith without works is dead, as the body without breath. And can a man (think we) live by a dead faith? Give, saith our Savior, and it shall be given unto you. Which precept of his was so imprinted in the mind of that noble Matron Paula, that she accounted it a great loss and damage to her, if any prevented her charity in relieving any poor or distressed member of Christ; she was a like affected, as if one had taken a great bargain out of her hand: A great bargain indeed, to lay out money in earthly trash, and receive for it heavenly treasure; to bestow rags, and receive robes; to give a little broken meat that perisheth to the hungry, and for it to be bid with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to an everlasting banquet in Heaven. I should close with this sweet strain of Saint Cyprian, but that there remaineth another note pricked in the last words of my Text.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , One another. If any demand why Christ addeth this clause, enjoining mutual love: I answer, because gratitude, charity, and necessity enforceth it. Where love is not answered, there is no gratitude: where kindness is not requited, there is no justice: where offices of friendship are not mutually performed, there is no life. All human societies are like archt-building, in which, unless every stone hold up another, the whole frame suddenly falleth. Howbeit, though gratitude, justice and necessity plead for correspondency in Christian charity; yet the world is full of complaints of parents against their children, husbands against their wives, pastors against their flocks, tutours against their pupills, masters against their servants. that their providence, love, and care is not answered in the observance, love, gratitude, and obedience of their inferiors. Fathers upbraid their children, saying, Amor descendit, non ascendit; Love descendeth from us to our children, but ascendeth not from them to us. Husbands commence actions of unkindness against the wives of their bosom, that the kinder they are to them the more disloyal they find them. Pastors take up the Apostles complaint against his Corinthians, that the more he loved them, the less he was loved again. Tutours murmur, that their care to break their scholars of ill conditions is recompensed with hatred. And Masters, that their good usage of their servants is requited with contempt: whereby you see how needful it was that Christ should with his own mouth as it were heat the glew to join our affections together, with his own finger knit the knot to tie our hearts together, with his own hands to write a new bond to enwrap our souls one in another, and with his own press print anew in our mind the commandment of mutual love: the characters whereof were quite worn out of most men's memory. Seneca fitly resembleth the mutual and reciprocal duties of friendship, in giving and receiving benefits one from another, to a game at Tennis, wherein the ball is tossed backward and forward from one racket to another, and never falleth to the ground; or if it fall, it is his forfeit who mist his stroke: even so every kind office, wherewith our friend serveth us, ought to be returned back to him, that no courtesy fall to the ground. The Cherubims faces in the Ark were one to another:

And the wheels in Ezekiel's vision were one in the midst of the other; to teach us, that we ought not only to cast a benign aspect one upon another like Cherubims, but also to be inwardly knit one in another like the wheels: that we may be one in another as Christ is in the Father, and we in him; I in them, and they in me, that they may be made perfect in one. Wheresoever almost in holy Scripture this obligation of love is mentioned, the condition is expressed that it be mutual: as in affection, Be like one to another: in courtesy, to salute one another: in humility, to wash one another's feet: in love, to serve one another: in hospitality, to entertain one another: in patience, to forbear one another: in compassion, to bear one another's burdens: in devotion, to pray one for another: in holy communication, to edify one another. Here moral Philosophy goeth hand in hand with Divinity, demonstrating that true friendship cannot but be mutual, because the foundation of it is a similitude of manners and dispositions: which similitude being a relation, cannot but be in both. And daily experience teacheth us, that as fire in an apt subject generateth fire; so love begetteth love. I will tell thee, saith Seneca, how thou mayest make another love thee, without any love potion, spell or witchcraft: if thou desirest to be beloved, love thou first sincerely and entirely. This recipe is approved by Aristotle, who saith, that of all men they are the most lovely, that are most loving. And by the Poet, who adviseth him who desireth to endear the affections of another to himself, first to endear his affections to her, and to kindle fully that fire in his own breast, which he would have burn in hers.

Plato writeth under this his probatum est, and he instanceth in Socrates and Alcibiades; the one whereof had no sooner began a health of love, but the other pledged him in the same cup, atque ita mutuum imbiberunt amorem. He must needs be of a very ill disposition, qui amorem si nolit impendere, nolit rependere, who if he will not begin love, and provoke this affection in another, will not yet repay love, and answer love with love, and courtesy with courtesy, considering that as the affection is mutual, so the gain is reciprocal. As in a Hop-yard the poles sustain the Hops, and the Hops by embracing adorn the poles: and as in a building the walls bear up the roof, and the roof keepeth the walls and timber from wet; so it is among friends: the wise directeth the strong, and the strong defendeth the wise; the wealthy maintains the honorable, and the honorable supporteth the wealthy.

There is not only a re-action between natural, but also between moral agents. Philosophy demonstrateth omne agens repati, & omne patiens reagere, that every agent suffereth from his patient, and every patient worketh again upon the agent, either in the same or in a divers and contrary kind. In the same kind, as when the hammer and the anvil one harden the other: or when two Mill-stones grate one on the other, or two tools whet and sharpen one the other: In a divers and contrary kind, as when the warm hand heateth the cold, the cold hand cooleth the warm: the stone drieth the drop of rain, and the drop moisteneth the stone; And in physic, the corasives sharpen the lenitives, and the lenitives mitigate the corasives. In like manner everyone that doth good should receive, and everyone that receiveth from another should do good to the other, either in the same kind, as when two Preachers like lights kindle one the others knowledge, or two Physicians heal one the other, or two Bone-setters set one the others joints, or two Lawyers plead one for the other, or two Soldiers fight one for the other: Or in a divers and contrary kind, as when the confident Christian comforteth the weak, and the weak Christian by relating his conflicts and temptations, is a means to keep the strong and confident Christian from presumption; the zealous professor inflameth the moderate, and the moderate temperateth the zealous; the rich supplieth the want of the poor, and the poor taketh away from the superfluity of the rich. Thus in the same kind, or in a divers and contrary, everyone that is willing may hold correspondency and fair quarter in love. If no otherwise we can requite the kindness of our friends, yet in thankful acceptance we may; and the acknowledgement of the debt of love is a good part of the payment. The jewel which is illustrated by the Sun beams, coloureth the beams; and the earth which receiveth moisture from the sky, repayeth it back again in vapors and exhalations: yea the rocks and stones which receive a sound from the air before it be fully given, return it by an echo; only self-love and ingratitude return nothing back again. Self-love is a bad creditor, it will lay out nothing; and ingratitude is a bad debtor, it will repay nothing. The former resembleth the Pumish stone, from which no moisture at all can be extracted; the later is like the stone of Syphnos, which being steeped in oil becometh the harder by it: such is an ungrateful person, the better you are to him, the worse he demeaneth himself towards you.

Dearly beloved Christians, if any man could live of himself, he might have some color to live to himself only: but since all civil life and human society is maintained by giving and receiving, as the natural is by taking in and letting out breath; let us abandon those vices above all others, that stop the intercourse of courteous offices passing from one friend to another, and let us all embrace that Christian virtue, which joineth all men unto us, and us unto all men in the glew of affections and bond of perfection. Let us give, that we may receive: let us sow liberally, that we may reap plentifully: let us scatter abroad earthly, that we may gather heavenly treasure.

While we have time let us do good unto all, especially to the household of faith; and in this time of fullness think of the empty belly, and out of our superfluity supply their extreme want.

This Apologue shall serve for my Apology, if I press you at this time with all the interest I have in your love, nay with all the power that I have as a Minister of Christ Jesus, to contribute something to the necessity of your brethren. You know well the grapes I told you of, which send to you, as the grapes in Babel did to the vines in Judea, to impart unto them some of your sap, and to shade them under your well spread boughs, or else they will undoubtedly wither and perish. I beseech you in the bowels of Christ Jesus come not behind, but rather go before others in pious bounty and Christian charity. So the good will of him that dwelt in the bush make you all like the tree in the first Psalm, planted by the rivers of waters, that bringeth forth his fruit in due season, and his leaf shall not wither, and whatsoever he doth it shall prosper.

THE STEWARDS ACCOUNT. A Sermon preached in the Abbey Church at WESTMINSTER. THE XXI. SERMON.

THat I may give a better account of the mysteries of saving truth, and you of the blessings of this life, whereof God hath made us Stewards in different kinds, I have chosen for the subject of my serious meditations, and the object of your religious consideration, this parcel of sacred Scripture, which admonisheth us all to look to our several accounts, to examine and clear them, that we may have them ready and perfect when our Lord and Master shall call for them from every of us by name, and in particular, saying, Give an account of thy stewardship.

The words are part of a Parable, which resembleth the tents of Solomon, vile and black without, but full of precious things within. For on the outside we read nothing but a narration of an unjust Steward, or crafty Merchant, who being called to an account, and justly fearing to be turned out of his place upon it, in time provideth against the worst, and taketh a course to make himself whole by cheating his Master: but in the in-side there are many beautiful Images of divine doctrines, drawn by the pensill of the holy Ghost, which I purpose to set before you, after I have opened the veil of the letter, by showing you

• 1. What are the goods for which the Steward is to reckon.
• 2. Who is the Steward charged with these goods.
• 3. What manner of account he is to give.

Touching the first, the learned Interpreters of this mysterious Parable are at strife, and (if I may so speak) in law about the goods left in the hands of this unfaithful Steward. Some put temporal blessings only and worldly wealth in his account. Others by goods understand the Word and Sacraments principally, wherewith the Ministers of the Gospel are trusted. But Bonaventure lighting one candle by another, expoundeth this Parable by the other Parable of the five talents, and taketh the goods here committed to the Steward, to be those five talents delivered to every man to trade and negotiate withal for God his Master: and thus he telleth them, 1. Naturae, 2. fortunae, 3. potentiae, 4. scientiae, 5. gratiae: the first of nature, the second of wealth, the third of power, the fourth of knowledge, the fifth of grace. By nature he understandeth all the natural faculties of the mind, and organs and instruments of the body. By wealth, riches and possessions. By power, offices and authority. By knowledge, all arts and sciences. By grace, all the gifts of the spirit, and supernatural infused habits, such as are faith, hope, and charity, &c. whereunto if he had added a most precious Jewell, which if it be once lost can never be recovered, viz. our time, he had given a true and perfect Inventary of all the goods, for which the unfaithful Steward in my Text is called to an account.

Touching the second, about whom there is as great contestation and variety of opinions, as about the goods themselves. Gaudentius maketh a Steward of the Devil, who justly deserveth the name of an unjust servant, for wasting his lords substance, that is, spoiling his creatures, and robbing him of his chiefest treasure, the souls of men. But if the Devil be the Steward, who is the accuser of this Steward? doubtless he can be no other than the Devil, whose style is the Accuser of the brethren. The Devil therefore is not the Steward here meant, whom God never set over his family, nor trusted him with any of his goods since he became a Devil. Tertullian conceiveth the people of the Jews, to whom the Tables and Pots of Manna, and Oracles of God were committed, to be the Stewards called to an account in my Text for the abuse of these holy things. If we follow this Interpretation, neither the Parable nor the Text any way concerneth us Christians: therefore Saint Ambrose, Saint Chrysostom, Saint Augustine, Beda, Euthymius, and Theophylact enlarge the Stewards Patent, and put all rich men in the world in it, who are advised to make friends with the unrighteous Mammon they have in their hands, that when they fail their friends may receive them into everlasting habitations. Lastly, Saint Jerome and others put in hard for the Ministers of the Gospel, to whom they assign the first place in the Patent, as being Stewards in the most eminent kind, and so styled both by our Savior, and his Apostle.

To reconcile these opinions, and make a perfect concord of seeming discords, I understand by the great husband or rich man in the Parable Almighty God, whose house is the whole world, & all things in it his wealth. Men endued with reason and understanding are his Stewards, whom he hath set over this great household, to govern the rest of his creatures, and employ the riches of his goodness to the advancement of his glory. These are all accountable unto him: the Jews peculiarly for such things as he bequeathed to his children by the Old Testament; the Christians for such things as he hath bequeathed to them by the New: the unregenerate are to reckon with him for the gifts of nature; the regenerate for the graces of the spirit: the rich for his wealth, the noble for his honor, the mighty for his power, the learned for his knowledge, every man for that he receiveth of the riches of his mercy in spiritual, temporal, or corporal blessings. In which regard we may rightly term Kings Stewards of their crowns, Lord's of their lands, Captains of their armies, Bishops of their diocese, Pastors of their parishes, Householders of their families, and every private man of the closet of his conscience, and treasury of his heart. For all Kings are God's subjects, all Captains are his soldiers, all Teachers are his scholars, all Masters are his servants, and consequently all Lord's his stewards. In a word, there is none of so high a calling in the world that is more, nor any of so low a calling or small reckoning that is less than a Steward of the King of kings, who shall one day call not only all men of sort, but even all sorts of men to a most strict and exact account; Kings for their scepters, Magistrates for their swords, Officers for their staves, Bishops for their crosiers, Soldiers for their weapons, Clerks for their pens, Landlords for their possessions, Patrons for their advowsons, Merchants for their trade, Tradesmen for their crafts, Husbandmen for their ploughes, calling to everyone in particular, Give an account of thy Stewardship.

Touching the third, some render the original 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , render a reason; others give an account: some actus tui, of thy Factorship, as Tertullian; others villicationis tuae, of thy Bailiwicke, as Saint Jerome; a third sort dispensationis tuae, of thy Stewardship, as the Kings Translators. A great difference in sound of words, but little or none at all in sense: for though a Factor in foreign parts, and a Steward at home, and a Bailey in the country are distinct offices, and different employments; yet to the meaning of this Parable they are all one. For they all deal with other men's money, rent, or goods, and are all liable to an account, and upon it dischargeable. And in this place, whether we translate 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , a reason, or a reckoning, all cometh to one reckoning: for upon the matter, to render a reason of monies disbursed by us, is to give an account. A careful Steward or Accomptant in any kind, besides the casting of the sums, setteth down a reason of every parcel of money laid out by him after this manner: Item in provision so much. Item in reparations. Item for workmens hire. Item for law suits, &c. thus much. Howbeit they that delight in tithing Mint and Cumin, and nicely distinguishing between words of very like, if not altogether the same signification, observe that in precise propriety of speech we are said to give an account how, but render a reason why we have disbursed such monies: and that our account must be of our Masters goods; but our reason of our own actions: and we are accountable only for that we have laid out; but we are answerable, or to yield a reason to our Master as well for that we have not laid out for his profit in due season, as for that we have laid out for his necessities. For he expecteth gain of every talent committed to us, and will not only accept his own without advantage. The things we are to account for are contained under these three heads:

• 1. Goods.
• 2. Gifts.
• 3. Graces.

By goods, I understand the blessings of this life, which the Philosopher calleth bona fortunae. By gifts, endowments of nature, which they call bona naturae. By graces, divine virtues, which the Schools call habitus infusos. In our book of account

Under the first head, viz. goods of this world, we must write, How bestowed.

Under the second, viz, gifts of nature, we must write, How employed.

Under the third, viz. graces of the spirit, we must write, How improved.

And if it appear upon our accounts, that we have well bestowed the first in holy, pious, and charitable uses; and well employed the second in carefully discharging the general duties of a good Christian, and diligently performing the particular works of our special calling; and have much increased the third, by our spiritual trade with God, by hearing, meditating, reading, conferring, praying, and the constant practice of piety, and exercise of every divine virtue and grace: then our Master will say unto us, Well done good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful in a little, be thou ruler over much, enter into thy Masters joy. But if we have kept unprofitably, or wasted riotously the first, the wealth of the world; and retchlesly abused the second, the dowry of nature, or by idleness let it rust; and rather diminished than increased the third, the treasury of spiritual graces; then we are to render a reason, & make answer for these defaults: and if our answer be not the better, to make satisfaction to our Lord to the uttermost farthing, after we are put out of our Stewardship, as the reason annexed to the command implieth, For thou mayest be no longer Steward.

Give then an account of thy Stewardship, that is, of thy life; whereof thou art not lord but steward, to spend it in thy Masters service, and lay it down for his honor. Cast up all the particulars of thy life, sum up thy thoughts, words, and deeds: red rationem

• 1. Mali commissi.
• 2. Boni omissi.
• 3. Temporis amissi.

Make answer for

• 1. The evil thou hast committed.
• 2. The good thou hast omitted.
• 3. The time thou hast pretermitted or mis-pent, either in
  • 1. Doing nothing at all.
  • 2. Or nothing to the purpose.
  • 3. Or that which is worse than nothing, tracing the endless mazes of worldly and sinful vanities.

Now to proceed from the exposition of the words, to the handling of the parts of this Scripture, which are evidently two:

• 1. A command, wherein I observe
  • 1. The person commanding, God, under the name of a rich man.
  • 2. The persons commanded, all men, under the name of Stewards.
  • 3. The thing commanded, to give an account.
  • 4. The office for which this account is to be given, a Stewardship.
  • 5. The propriety of this office, thine.
• 2. A reason, wherein I note
  • 1. The Stewards discharge, and quitting his office, thou mayest, &c.
  • 2. The time, now.

Which particular points of observation direct us to these doctrinal conclusions,

• 1. That God is Lord of all.
• 2. That all men are Stewards.
  • 1. Not Lord's.
  • 2. Not Treasurers.
• 3. That all Stewards shall be called to an account.
• 4. That the office for which they are to account is their own Stewardship, not another's.
• 5. That upon this account they shall be discharged.

These conclusions resemble the rings spoken of by St. Austin, whereof the first being touched by the Load-stone drew the second, the second the third, the third the fourth, and the fourth the fifth. For here the first point inferreth the second: If God be Lord of all, men can be but Stewards. The second inferreth the third: If all men are Stewards, all men are accountable. The third the fourth: If all men are accountable for a Stewardship, this Stewardship must needs be their own. The fourth the fifth: If they are to account for their own Stewardship, certainly either at the private audit, the day of their death, or at the public audit, the day of judgment, after which they shall be no longer Stewards, but either Lord's in Heaven, or Slaves in Hell.

That God is Lord of all, his claim unto all is a sufficient evidence to us. For he cannot pretend a false title, who is truth it self: neither can any question his right in any Court, who is author of all laws, as he is maker of all things: which are his by a threefold right,

• 1. Of Creation.
• 2. Purchase.
• 3. Possession.

1. Of Creation: for that which a man maketh is his own.

2. Of Purchase: for that which any one purchaseth is his own.

3. Of Possession: for that which any one is possessed of time out of mind is his own. By the first of these the Father may claim us, as all things else, who made all. By the second the Son, who redeemed the world. By the third the holy Ghost, who inhabiteth us, and after a special manner possesseth us. Heaven is my throne, saith God, and the earth is my footstool. You see then great reason why God should be compared to a rich man, with whom all the rich men in the world may not compare, neither in lands, nor in cattle, nor in money and treasure. Not in lands: for the bounds of the earth are his land-marks, and the Sun is his Surveyor. Nor in cattle: for every beast of the forest is his, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. Not in money or plate: for gold is mine, and silver is mine, saith the Lord. Nor lastly in goods: for that golden chain of the Apostle, All are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's, may be drawn backward by the same links thus: All are God's, and God is Christ's, and Christ is ours.

Yea, but it may be argued against this conclusion, that God hath small or no demaines, in as much as he holdeth nothing in his own hands, having let out (if I may so speak) the heaven to Saints and Angels, the air to Birds and Fowl, the water to Fish, the earth to Men and Beasts to dwell in it, and reap the fruits thereof. But the answer is easy: for though God make no benefit of anything to himself, yet he keepeth the right and propriety of all things in himself; and he must needs keep all things in his hands, who clincheth the Heavens with his fist. Moreover, he requireth homage of all his creatures, which are but his tenants at will, or to speak more properly, servants to be thrust out of office and state upon the least offense given, or dislike taken. Which condition is far worse than the former. For a tenant hath some kind of propriety and interest in that which he holdeth of his Landlord; and if he perform all covenants, provisoes, and conditions of his lease or agreement with his Lord, he may not without apparent wrong be suddenly turned out of house and home, much less may his Lord seize upon all his goods, and dispose of them at his pleasure. The case standeth far worse with a Steward, who hath nothing he may call his but his office, for which he may be always called to an account, and upon it discharged. Yet this is the state of the greatest States and Potentates of the world; they have no certainty in anything they possess or enjoy. For which cause Saint Chrysostom findeth great fault with the wills and testaments of great personages in his time, by which they bequeath lands, lordships, and inheritances in their own name and right, as if those things were absolutely in their power: they usurp, saith he, upon God's prerogative, who hath given unto them the use and profit of the things of this life, but not the dominion, no nor propriety in strict point of law, unless a man will account that to be his own, for which he is to give an account to another. The Steward is no whit the richer, because he hath more to account for; but in this regard more solicitous and obnoxious. Which observation we may crown with this corollary, That they who seem to have the greatest and best estates in this world, are in the worst condition of any, if their gifts be not eminent, and their care and industry extraordinary, to make the best advantage to their Master of the many talents committed to them. The reason hereof is easy to guess at, and was long ago yielded by Gregory the great, As their means and incomes, so their accounts grow. For to whom more is given, more shall be required of him. To speak nothing of the many employments and distractions of men in great place, which sacrilegiously rob them of their sacred hours devoted to prayer and meditation, and bereave them of themselves, I had almost said deprive them of their God, and the sweet fellowship of his holy Spirit: they must give so much audience to others, that they can give but little attendance on God. Public employments, and eminent places in Church and Common-wealth expose those that hold them to the view of all men, their good parts, whatsoever they have, are in sight, and their bad too: which men are more given to mark ( quis enim solemn fere intuetur, nisi cum deficit? when do men so gaze upon the Sun, as in the eclipse?) in so much that the very word Mark is commonly taken in the worst sense for some scar, blemish, or deformity. A small coal raked up in the ashes may live a great while, which if it be raked out and blown, soon dieth and turneth into ashes. They that were kept in close prison by Dionysius, enjoyed the benefit of their sight in those dark rooms, which they lost, when they were suddenly brought forth into the open air, by the over bright reflection of the Sun beams from a wall new white-limed. Which I speak not to detract from dignity, or obscure glory, or disparage nobility, or dishonor worldly preferments or honors in them, whose merits have been their raisers. For these honorable titles and dignities are the luster of eminent quality, the garland of true virtue, the crown of worldly happiness, and to the lowly, high favors of the Almighty. The mark I aim at is to give some content to them whose places are inferior to their virtues; and advice also to those whom God hath or shall raise to great places and high preferments. Let the former consider, that there can be no obscurity where the Sun shineth; that he is truly honorable not always, whom the Prince putteth in high places, but he, upon whom God lifteth the light of his countenance; that it is sufficient that he seeth their good parts, from whom they expect their reward; that the more retired their life is, the less exposed to envy, and more free from danger; that the fewer suitors or clients they have to them, the more liberty they have to be clients to God; the less troubles they have about their temporal estate, the better they may look to their spiritual, and secure their eternal: lastly, that the less they are trusted with, the easier their account shall be at the great audit. On the other side, let those who have degrees accumulated, and honors and preferments heaped upon them, seek rather to diminish their accounts, than to increase their receipts, and pray to God daily for less of his goods, and more of his grace, that they may make a better account at the last day, and then receive a Kingdom in Heaven for a Stewardship on earth.

Beloved brethren, you see your calling, you are Stewards not Lord's, think upon it seriously that you may be every day, you shall be one day, called to a strict account for all that you have or enjoy. This was the first point of special consideration I recommended to you from the nature of our office, which is here called a Stewardship. The second was, that we are not God's Treasurers, but his Stewards, and that our employment is not to gather up and keep, but to expend and distribute our Masters monies for the maintenance and relief of his poor servants, according to their several necessities. And look whatsoever we lay out in this kind, shall be allowed upon our accounts, and put upon our Masters score, who acknowledgeth it to be his own debt: Whatsoever you do unto any of these little ones, you do it unto me.

Thrice happy Stewards we, if we can so handle the matter, that we may bring our Master indebted to us for the interest of his own money. For he, who giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord, and that which he hath given will he pay it him again. So exceeding bountiful is he, that he giveth us abundantly to pay our fellow-servants, and payeth us double for giving it them. After our Savior had healed the man with a withered hand, to show that it was whole, he commanded him to stretch it forth: in like manner, if we desire to show and make a sensible proof that the sinews of our faith are not shrunk, that the hands of our charity are not withered, we must stretch them out, and reach our alms to the poor: which we will be more willing and ready to do, if we reflect often upon our office shadowed out under this Parable; which is to be Stewards, not Treasurers of God's manifold blessings. Secondly, if we consider that we lay out nothing of our own, but of our Masters purse; And thirdly, that whatsoever we lay out for him upon earth, we lay up for ourselves heaven: according to that rule of Saint Leo, He layeth up treasure in heaven, who feedeth Christ in the poor; the poor man's hand is Christ's box. This branch of our duties, which is to be always fruitful in good works, extendeth farther than the expending of monies or good usage of the blessings of this life. For all the members of our body; and faculties of our foul, and graces of the spirit are pa •• of our Masters goods, and must be employed in his service, and occupied for his profit. Besides all these we are accountable to him for our time, which we may not wastefully and prodigally lavish out in sports and pastimes; but so thriftily expend upon the necessary works of our calling, that we may save a good part to consecrate it to exercises of piety and devotion, whereby we may multiply the talent of grace committed unto us. There is no covetousness commendable but of time, of which yet most men and women are most prodigal spenders. Any jewel that is lost may be found, yea though it be cast in the sea, as Polycra • es his ring was, which a fish in his mouth brought back into his Kitchen. Yea, the treasure of grace and pearl of the word, which the rich Merchant sold all that he had to buy; yea God himself after we have lost him may be found, if we seek him in time: only lost time can never be recovered. Wherefore that we may not lose any moment of the time allotted, which is so precious, but put it to the best use for the increase of our talent of knowledge, I pass from the Stewardship of the things of this life, to the account we are to give of this Stewardship.

In which that we may more readily and safely proceed, first I will set up a great light: secondly, remove some rubs out of the way. The light shall be a clear confirmation of the truth of the point out of the Scriptures, which are most evident and express, both for the unavoidable necessity and strict severity of the last judgment. We profess in our Creed, that Christ who now sitteth at the right hand of his Father in heaven, shall from thence come to judge the quick and the dead; and we have sure ground in Scripture to build this article upon. For there we read, that Christ is ordained of God to be Judge of the quick and the dead: and that we shall all stand before his judgment seat: nay, that we must all appear before his tribunal: which is so certain a thing to come to pass, that Saint John in a vision saw it as present; And I saw the dead small and great stand before God, and the books were opened, and they were judged according to the things wrote in those books. Now for the terror of that day, I tremble almost to rehearse how it is described in holy Scriptures, by S. John, I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away: and by Saint Peter, The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God, and if it begin there, what shall the end of them be that obey not the Gospel? and if the righteous shall scarce be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? It is hard to say, whether the antecedents are more direful, or the concomitants more doleful, or the consequents more dreadful. The antecedents are formidable: The Sun shall be darkened, and the Moon shall be turned into blood, and the stars shall fall from the skies, and the powers of heaven shall be sh •••• In the earth shall be distress of Nations, and perplexity, and the sea and t •• waters shall roar, and men's hearts shall fail them for fear, and for looking after those things that are coming on the earth. The concomitants are lamentable: Behold, he cometh in the clouds, and all eyes shall see him, and all kindreds of the earth shall mourn before him. And yet the conseque •• are more fearful than either the antecedants or concomitants. For the books of all men's consciences shall be spread abroad, and every man shall answer for all the works that he hath done, nay for every word he hath spoken, nay for every thought, purpose, and intent of the heart. For when the Lord cometh, he will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart.

Having set up a fair light, I will now take away some blocks and r ••• that lie in the way of my discourse. The first is, that God executeth judgment in this world; and therefore Salvianus hath written a book De ••••• senti Dei judicio, of God's providence over his Church, and present judgment. Doth he not open his treasures to the righteous, and pour down the vials of his wrath upon the wicked in this life? Doth not Saint Paul affirm, that those that believe are justified already? And Saint John, that those that believe not are condemned already. What place then remains for a future trial?

Secondly, immediately upon our death our soul is carried either by good Angels into Abraham's bosom, or by evil into the dungeon of hell: what then need they come to the general assizes who have received their doom at the quarter sessions?

Thirdly, if all men's consciences shall be ripped up, and all their secret sins be discovered in the face of the Sun at the day of judgment, that day cannot be but dreadful to the most righteous man on earth: yet Christ saith to his Disciples, When these things come to pass, lift you up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh: and they in this regard long for his second coming, and pray continually, Come Lord Jesu, come quickly.

The first rub is thus removed: though God's judgments overtake some, yet not all in this life. For the afflictions of the godly, and the prosperity of the wicked were a great eye-sore to David and Jeremy Moreover, God hath rewards both temporal and eternal; the former he dispenseth in this life, the later in that which is to come. He that believeth is justified already before God, and in the sense of his own conscience: for he hath peace with God. And in like manner he that believeth not is condemned already in God's decree, and he hath received also the sentence of condemnation within himself, as a fellon is hanged in the law, and may know what his sentence shall be before it be executed or pronounced against him. This hindereth not but that the public sentence shall pass upon both at the last day for eternal salvation or damnation.

The second is thus removed: Immediately upon death every soul knoweth what she is to trust to, but this it not known to the world. Besides, the body must be rewarded or punished as well as the soul: therefore partly to clear the justice of God in the sight of men and Angels; partly, to render to the body and soul that have been partners in evil and good their entire recompense, after the private session at our death, God hath appointed a public assizes at the day of judgment.

The third rub is thus taken away: The day of judgment is both terrible and comfortable to the godly; terrible in the beginning, comfortable in the end: terrible in the accusation by Satan, comfortable in the defense by Christ our Advocate: terrible in the examination, but comfortable in the sentence. Yea, but their sores are laid open, and they are fowl: their debts are exhibited, and they are very many: their rents in their conscience are shown, and they are great. It is true, their sores are laid open, but anointed with Balsamum: their debts are exhibited, but with a fair acquittance signed with Christ's blood: their rents in their conscience are seen, but mended and filled up with jewels of grace. It is far otherwise with the wicked; their sores appear without any salve; their debts appear, but no acquittance; their rent in their conscience appeareth, and remaineth as wide as ever it was, being never made up or mended by repentance: therefore they cry to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us from the presence of the Lord, and from the wrath of the Lamb.

This point of doctrine is not more evident in the proof, than profitable in the use, which is threefold:

• 1. To comfort the innocent.
• 2. To terrify the secure.
• 3. To instruct all.

First, to comfort the innocent. For many that have walked sincerely before God have been censured for hypocrites; many innocents have been falsely condemned, many just men have suffered for righteousness sake, and many faithful Christians have been adjudged to merciless flames for their most holy profession. To all these the day of judgment will be the brightest day that ever shone on them. For then their innocence shall break out as the light, and their righteous dealing as the noon day: then they shall have the hand of their false accusers, and judge their Judges: then they shall see him for whom they have stood all their life time, and strived even to blood. Every loss they have sustained for his sake shall be then their gain, every disgrace their honor: for every tear they have shed they shall receive a pearl, for every blew stripe a saphir, for every green wound an emerald, for every drop of blood a ruby to be set in their crown of glory.

Secondly, it serveth much for the terror of the wicked, who go on confidently in their lewd courses, and proceed from evil to worse, adding drunkenness to thirst: let these know, that they heap wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God: and that as the farther back the axe is fetched, the heavier is the stroke; so the longer their punishment is deferred, the heavier in the end it will fall upon them. Let them who fear not to do wrong, but carry their sin with a high hand, bearing themselves upon their wealth, or some potent friend at Court know that they shall be brought to Christ's bar ore tenus, and that none upon earth shall be able to rescue them. Let them who lay snares in the dark, and look for their prey in the twilight, and say in their hearts no eye seeth us, know, that God hath eyes like a flaming fire, enlightening the darkest corners of the inmost rooms: and that he will reprove them, and set their sins in order before their eyes: and that what they commit in secret, and would not for a world that any witnesses should be by, shall be brought to an open examination before men and Angels.

Thirdly, to instruct all so to live, that they may not fear to come before the face of God; so to clear their accounts here, that they need not to dread their examination there. To this use the holy Ghost pointeth, Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation? how diligent, that we may be found of him in peace without spot and blameless? When Alcibiades came to visit Pericles, and found him very busy about his accounts, Why (saith he) doest thou thus trouble thyself in seeking to make up thy accounts? thou shouldest rather use a means to put it off, and think of a course to free thee from this care, and take order that thou shouldest never be called to an account. I doubt not but that many Treasurers and Stewards of great Princes make good use of this advice, and by friends and money so bring it about, that they are never brought to an account. If we have any such thought we deceive ourselves; there is no dodging with God, no delay, no not for a moment, when he sendeth his Pursuivant for us from the high Court of Star-chamber in Heaven: as he (in Saint Gregory's days) found by woeful experience, who being summoned by death approaching to bring in his accounts before they were ready, cried out pitifully, Inducias vel ad horam, O reprivall but for a day, truce but for an hour, respite but for a minute: but could not obtain it, but was suddenly posted away to the judgment seat of Christ: and who of us knoweth whether he shall be the next to whom God will send a messenger to bring him before him to render an account of his Stewardship, saying to him in the words of my Text, Redde rationem dispensationis tuae, Give an account

Of thy Stewardship. (Thy.) I know not how it cometh to pass, that most men now a days are sick of Saint Peters disease, when Christ telleth them of their duty, or fore-showeth them their end, they are inquisitive about others, saying, What shall this man do? There are divers kinds of Stewards, some of powers, some of wealth, some of knowledge, some of the Word and Sacraments. Kings dominions, and Bishops diocesses, and Lord's lands, and Rich men's money, and Clerks writings, and Merchants trades, and Tradesmens shops, and Husbandmens ploughes are their Stewardship, of which they must give an account; and yet few there are that mind their own account to their Master for that wherewith they are trusted: but every man looketh to another's. The Ploughman censureth the Tradesman, the Tradesman the Merchant, the Merchant the country Gentleman, the country Gentleman the Courtier, and all the Ministers of God; as if to impeach others were to clear themselves. At the audit day they will find that it will little avail them to say, I am no tot quot, I am no joyner of house to house, or land to land, I am no usurer, oppressor, or extortioner like other men: when it will be replied unto them, but thou art like the Pharisee, a deep dissembler, a counterfeit saint, a secret hypocrite, a slanderous backbiter, a busy-body, an uncharitable censurer, a streigner of a gnat in others, when thyself eatest many a fly, nay swallowest many a camel. Plutarch rightly observeth, that they who delight to gad abroad, for the most part have smoky, nasty, or dankish houses, or at least ill rule, & no content at home; so when men range abroad, and play the spies and scouts, and pry into other men's actions, it is a sign that they have a foul house at home, and ill rule in their own conscience. Wherefore Stella, according to his name Star, well illustrateth this Text, Give an account of thy Stewardship, not of any other man's: Pry not into his life, set not his actions upon the rack, read not a lecture upon his manners; but meditate and comment upon the book of thine own conscience, that thou mayest make even reckonings there. It is an uncivil part to overlook other men's papers, especially bills of account, which no way concern us: yet there are those that take to themselves a liberty to look into, and examine the books of other men's conscience, not being able to read a letter in their own: herein resembling the crocodile, which seeth nothing in the water, which is his chiefest place of abode, yet is very quick and sharp sighted on the land out of his own element to do mischief. I will undertake that any man shall have work enough to cast up his own accounts, if he look into every particular for which he is to reckon, every stray thought, every idle word, every inconsiderate action & sudden passion. God is not herein like unto many great personages, who seldom or never call their Stewards to an account; or if they call them, they look over their books and bills but slightly, taking the visus in gross. For he will certainly call all men to a most strict and particular account of every moment of time they have spent, of every particular grace they have received, of every particular duty they have omitted, of every particular sin they have committed in deed, word, or thought, nay of the first motion and inclination to evil. The smallest atomi or motes that fly in the air are discerned in the Sun; so the smallest sins and offenses shall be discovered at the brightness of Christ's coming. And as the words that are written with the juice of a Lemmon, cannot be read when they are written, but may be plainly and distinctly if you hold the paper to the fire, and dry the letters; so the smallest letters in the book of our conscience, yea the least notes, and points, and scratches, which neither any other nor ourselves see well now, shall easily be discerned by the fire of the last judgment. The conceit whereof took such a deep impression in the render heart of Saint Jerome, that he professeth wheresoever he was, whatsoever he did, whether he ate or drank, or walked abroad, or sat in his study, or talked with any, he thought he heard the last Trump sound shrill in his ears, Awake ye that sleep in the dust, and come to judgment. At which time that you may be all more perfect, I would advise you to reckon before hand with yourselves, either at private fasts, or every evening. Among Pythagoras his golden Verses these seem to me to be most weighty: Before thou suffer thy temples to take any rest, resolve these three questions, Wherein have I transgressed? What have I done? What part of my duty have I left this day undone?

According to which rule Seneca recordeth it to the eternal praise of Sextius, that every evening he put these interrogatories to his soul, What wound hast thou healed this day? What vice hast thou withstood? Wherein art thou better than thou wert the day before? thus Pythagoras advised, thus Sextius did, and yet neither of them (for ought appeareth) thought of any other judge than their reason, nor accusers than their thoughts, nor tormentors than their vicious affections, nor hell than their own conscience. What suppose ye would they have done? what care would they have taken? how oft would they have revised their accounts, if they had thought they should have been brought to answer for all their actions, speeches, gestures, affections, nay thoughts, purposes, intentions, deliberations, and resolutions, before God and his holy Angels at the dreadful day of judgment? If the consideration of these things no whit affect you, you shall one day give an account among other your sins for the unprofitable hearing of this Sermon. His word which I have preached unto you this day, shall testify against you at that day. Give me leave therefore a little to rouse you up, and by applying the steel of my Text to your flinty hearts, to strike out of them the fire of zeal. I told you before of four sorts of Stewards, the sacred, the honorable, the wealthy, and the common and ordinary. I will begin with the sacred.

Next to the sacred Steward cometh in the minister of State and Magistrate to be rounded in the ear with the admonition in my Text.

After the Ministers of the Gospel and the Magistrate, come the rich of this world to be admonished to look to their accounts.

Here let not the prodigal spender vainly flatter himself, that his condition shall be easier at the day of judgment than that of the covetous; because he suffereth not his money to rust: but rather causeth it to glissen in his plate, glare in his jewels, glitter in his apparel, shine in his gilt rooms, cabbinets, furnitures and hangings. For all this luster shall be a clear evidence against him of his wasting his Masters substance; and if it shall go hard with the hard and covetous man, who layeth not out his Masters money, what may this exhauster expect? if the Miser shall suffer as a sacrilegious person, because he giveth not the poor their due, what punishment is he like to endure, who robbeth the Church, racketh his tenants, oppresseth the poor, extorteth from, or exacteth upon all, to maintain either his vain glorious pride, or delicate palate, or idle sports, or impure pleasures? How many hunger and cold starved poor will have an action against this Steward, for preferring his Hawkes and Hounds before them: and riotously expending that in one luxurious feast, which would have fed them for many years: and laying out that in one costly suit or rich jewel, wherewith hundreds of them might have been clothed in the bitterest winter season, and thereby their lives preserved? how will they be ashamed and confounded at the great audit day, to deliver in an account after this manner?

Are all dispensers of the Word and Sacraments? are all in authority? are all commanders? have all the wealth of the world? surely no: yet all are accountants; some for their trade and course of life, others for their natural parts and gifts, and all for their time. Few I persuade myself can give a good account of the first, fewer of the second, but fewest of all of the third. It was spoken by a Heathen of the Heathen, but I fear it may be truly said of many Christians in profession, that they spend a great part of their life in sinful actions, the greatest in idleness, the whole in impertinent business. The dearest loss of all is of time: because if we have imbezelled our estate by ill husbandry, we may repair it by thrift and industry; if we have pawned our plate, and household-stuff, & jewels, they may be redeemed again; if we have mortgaged our lands, the mortgage may be satisfied, and our lands restored: but the time that we have idly, or lewdly, or loosely spent can never be recovered. No man need Bellerophon like spurr a flying horse, time posteth of it self: yet many men not content to let time go from them in her swiftest motions, they drive her out, and devise how they may set her packing, and be soonest rid of her; like the Persian King, who proposed a great reward to any that could invent any new pastime, they highly value such companions with whom they may lavish out the flower and best of their time. The account of these brave Gallants, and noble Sparkes, as they are termed, is soon cast.

Neither can the other sex give an account much better, whose day after a ramisticall dichotomy being divided into forenoon and afternoon: the former part is usually taken up in dressing, trimming, and I fear in that for which they have no color in holy Scriptures, nor the example of the best times, painting; the later in idle visits, and seeking after the fashions. They allow themselves little time for the contemplation of anything save their face and dresses in their glasses, nor trouble they their heads with anything so much as their tiring. In sum, they spend all their time in a manner in beautifying and adorning their body to please their lovers, but in comparison none at all in beautifying and adorning their souls to please their Maker and Husband Christ Jesus. Of these Saint James long ago gave us the character, They live in pleasure in the earth, and wax wanton, and are fatted for the day of slaughter. I spare to rehearse other lavishing out of time, lest the rehearsing thereof might seem worthy to be numbered among the idle expenses thereof. And now it is time to set the foot to the account of my meditations on this Scripture, and draw near to that which we all every day draw nearer, unto an end. The end of all things is at hand: be sober therefore, & watch unto prayer. The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works thereof shall be burned up. This great Doomes-day cannot be far off, as we see by the fearful fore-runners thereof: howsoever the day of our death, which may be called little dooms-day, will soon overtake us; peradventure before the Sun yet set, or this glass be run. Wherefore, I beseech you all that hear me this day, in the fear of God, by occasion of the summons in my Text, to enter into a more strict examination of your life than ever heretofore: bring out all your thoughts, words, deeds, projects, councils and designs, and lay them to the rule of God's Law; and if they swerve never so little from it, reform and amend them: recount how you have bestowed the blessings of this life, how you have employed the gifts of nature, how you have increased your talents of grace, wherein the Church or Common-wealth hath been the better by you; consider how you have carried yourselves abroad in the world, how at home in your private families, but how especially in the closet of your own heart. You know out of the Gospel, that a man's house may be swept and garnished, that is, his outward conversation civil and fair, and yet harbor seven unclean spirits within. If lust, and covetousness, and pride, and envy, and malice, and rancor, and deceit, and hypocrisy, like so many serpents lie under the ground, gnawing at the root of the tree, be the leaves of your profession never so broad, and seem the fruits of your actions never so fair, the vine is the vine of Sodom, and the grape the grape of Gomorrah. There is nothing so easy, as to put a fresh color upon a rotten post, and to set a fair gloss upon the foulest matters, to pretend conscience for most unconscionable proceedings, and make religion it self a mask to hide the deformity of most irreligious practices. But when the secrets of all hearts shall be opened, and the intents and purposes of all our actions manifested, and the most hidden works of darkness brought to light. As it is to be hoped, that many that are infinitely wronged in the rash censures of men, shall be justified in the sight of God and his Angels; so it is to be feared, that very many whom the world justifieth and canonizeth also for Saints, shall be condemned at Christ's bar, and have their portion with hypocrites in hell: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Wherefore since we shall all one day come to such a public, such an impartial, such a particular trial of all that we have done in the body, either good or evil: let us look more narrowly to all our ways, and see that they be straight and even.

1. Let us search our heart with all diligence, let us look into all the corners thereof, and see there lurk no wickedness, nor filthiness, nor hypocrisy there: let us look to our thoughts, that they be pure: to our desires, that they be lawful: to our affections, that they be regular: to our passions, that they be moderate: to our ends, that they be good: to our purposes, that they be honest: to our intentions, that they be sincere: to our resolutions, that they be well grounded and firm.

2. Next, let us take our tongue to examination, and weigh all our words in the balance of the Sanctuary, and try whether they have not been light and idle, but grave and profitable: not crafty and deceitful, but simple and plain: not false and lying, but true and faithful: not outrageous, but sober: not filthy, but modest: not profane, but holy: not censorious, but charitable: not scurrilous, but ponderous: not insolent, but lowly and courteous: not any way offensive and unsavory, but such as might minister grace to the hearers.

3. Lastly, let us lay our hands upon our handy works, and examine our outward acts and deeds.

• 1. Whether they have been always justifiable in general by the Law of God, that is, either commanded by it, or at least warranted in it.
• 2. Whether they have been and are conformable to the orders of the Church, and laws of the Land. For we must obey lawful authority for conscience sake, in all things that are not repugnant to the divine Law, as Bernard piously resolveth, saying, Thou must yield obedience to him as to God, who is in the place of God, in those things that are not against God.
• 3. Whether they have been agreeable to our particular calling. For some things are justifiable by the Law of God and man in men of one state and calling, which are heinous sins in another: as we see in the cases of Uzzah and Uzziah.
• 4. Whether they have been answerable to our inward purposes, intentions and dispositions. For though they are otherwise lawful and agreeable, yet if they go against the hair, if they are done with grudging and repining, and not heartily, they are neither acceptable to God nor man.
• 5. Whether they have been (all things considered) most expedient. For as many things are profitable and expedient that are not lawful; so some things are lawful that are not expedient: and because they are not expedient, if necessity bear them not out, they become by consequent unlawful. For we are not only bound to eschew all the evil we know, but also at all times to do the best good we can: else we fulfill not the commandment of loving God with all our heart, and all our soul, and all our strength.

To sum up all. I have discoursed unto you, first, of the Stewardship of the things of this life: secondly, of the account of this Stewardship: thirdly, of the time of this account. The Stewardship most large, the account most strict, the time most uncertain. After the explication of these points, in the application I arraigned four Stewards before you: first, the sacred: secondly, the civil: thirdly, the wealthy: fourthly, the ordinary: and found them all very tardy and imperfect in their accounts: which that you might not be, I but even now delivered unto you the rule of three, or golden rule, as it is called in sacred algebray, whereby you may easily number your days, and cast up your accounts, and infallibly perfect the books of your conscience. What remaineth, but that at your first and best opportunity you fall on this work, cast your accounts privately in the chamber of your heart, peruse the book of your conscience, mend what is amiss by unfeigned and hearty repentance, fetch out all the blots and blurs there with the aqua fortis of your tears: and if yet there remain anything which you cannot well account for, to meet your Master before hand upon your knees, and beseech him to put it upon his Sons score, and to satisfy himself out of the infinite treasury of his merits, or to wipe it out with the spunge that was offered him on the Cross? This if ye practice daily, and make even with God every night; you shall be perfect and ready when your Master shall call for your accounts: and you shall be found of him in peace, and he shall then say unto you, Well done good and faithful Stewards, ye have been faithful in a little, I will set you over much: ye have been faithful in temporal, I will trust you with eternal goods: ye have been faithful in earthly, I will commit to you heavenly treasures: ye have been faithful in a Stewardship, I will give you a Kingdom: enter into your Masters joy. Into which God grant we may all enter, when we are passed out of this vale of tears, through the merits of Christ's death and passion, by the conduct of his holy Spirit. To whom, three persons and one God, &c.

PHILIP HIS MEMENTO MORI: OR, The Passing Bell. A Sermon preached in Mercers Chapel at the Funeral of Master Benet, Merchant. THE XXII. SERMON.

HEnoch lived by just computation so many years as there are days in the year, viz. 365. and he was the seventh man from Adam, and died in anno Sabbathico, the Sabbathick year, and thereby became a lively Emblem both of this life, and the life to come. For the labors of this life are governed by the course of the Sun, which is finished in that period of time; and the rest of the life to come is evidently prefigured in the Sabbath. It is farther written of him in the holy Records of eternity, that he walked with God, and was therefore translated that he should not see death, to teach us, that they who walk with God all the days of their life as he did, shall come into no condemnation, but immediately pass from death to life, from death temporal to life eternal, which was not obscurely disciphered unto us in the narration of the seventh days creation. After the mention of every day in the week, and the work thereof, we read, so the evening and the morning were the first day, and so the second, and the rest: but after the relation of the seventh days creation, on which God rested and blessed and sanctified it, the former clause is quite omitted. It is not added as in the rest, so the morning and the evening were the seventh day: because in Heaven, whereof the Sabbath was a type, there is no morning and evening, much less night; but as it were perpetual high-noon. For the Lamb is the light thereof, and this Lamb is the Sun of righteousness, which never riseth nor setteth, but keepeth still in the midst of the Empyreall Heaven and Throne of God: as on the contrary, in Hell there is nothing but continual midnight and everlasting darkness. Thus the wisdom of God justly, and the justice of God wisely hath proportioned the rewards in the life to come to the works of men in this life: they that cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, and walk in the light as children of the light here, shall hereafter possess the inheritance of the Saints in light; but they who love darkness more than light, and have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, and continually walk as in the dark, in gross and palpable ignorance, in gluttony and drunkenness, in chambering and wantonness, and the like sins of darkness here, shall hereafter inhabit the region of perpetual darkness, and never vanishing shadows of death. O that we were wise, then we would understand these things, and in the beginning of our race in this world think of our later end. For the beginning of wisdom is the consideration of our end; and a forcible means to bring us to everlasting life, is to meditate continually upon our death. To think what we shall be, stench and rottenness, and worse if we be not better, ashes and cinders of hell, will through the power of Christ's death make us what we should be, that is, dead to sin, dead to the world, dead in ourselves, but alive in God. How can he live in sin, who perpetually apprehendeth that he shall die eternally for his sin? how can he make a trade of iniquity, and a sport of religion, and a mock of God, and a god of his belly, who hath hell torments always before the eyes of his mind? Jerusalem remembered not her last end; therefore she came down fearfully: and because we put from us the evil day, it cometh fast upon us. It were unpossible to go on forward as we do in the ways of sin and paths of death, if we would dwell but a little while upon these or the like thoughts: After a few days, perhaps this very day, yea this hour, I shall be called to a strict account of my whole life, charged with all the sins open and secret that ever I have committed, accused by the Devil, convicted by mine own conscience, condemned by the dreadful Judge of quick and dead, to be cast into utter darkness in hell, there to endure such torments forever, as it would break the strongest heart, and conquer all human patience to feel but for an hour. Haec cogitare est vitiis omnibus renunciare, to enter into a serious consideration of these things, is to chase away all wanton and wicked thoughts and to send a bill of divorce to the world and all her minions, the mistresses of our carnal affections: but this is the mischief, as S. Cyprian pricking the right vein telleth us, it is a thing to be bewailed with tears of blood, that none almost mindeth everlasting torments. For did they mind them and believe them, they could not but fear them, and if they feared them ••• y would beware of them; and if they would beware of them, they might escape them. O that men therefore were wise, to think upon hell before they rushed on the brink of it, and enter into a serious consideration of God's fearful judgments upon obstinate and impenitent sinners before they were overtaken by them. This is the scope and effect of these words, and I pray God they may work this effect in us, that laying before our eyes the fearful ends of the wicked, and their damnation, we may learn from henceforth to be wise unto salvation.

The unum necessarium and chief point of all to be thought upon in this life is, what shall become of us after we go from hence: for here (God knows) we have but a short time to stay. We read in King Solomon's distribution of time, according to the several occasions of man's life, to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven, a time to be borne, and a time to die: but we read of no time to live, as if our death bordered upon our birth, and our cradle stood in our grave; yet upon this moment rather than time of our life dependeth eternity.

The greatest perfection attainable by man in this life is wisdom, and the most proper act of wisdom is consideration, and the chiefest point of consideration is our later end. First therefore the Spirit of God in this Text commendeth wisdom to their desires. Secondly, consideration to their wisdom. Thirdly, their later end to their consideration: and the more to stir up their affections and express his, he delivereth this his advice in a wish, and accompanieth it with a deep sigh, saying, O that they were wise, they would understand this, that it is not for their sakes that they might brag, but for their enemies sake that they might not brag, that I have thus long spared them. For I had long ere this scattered them abroad, and made their remembrance cease from amongst men, but that I knew their adversaries would take advantage thereat, and wax proud upon it, and say our high hand, and not the Lord hath done it. For they are a Nation void of council, neither is there any understanding in them. Which words bear a light before the words of my Text, and thus bring them in:

O that they were so wise. If those words wherewith Moses beginneth his Swan-like song immediately before his death, My doctrine shall drop as the rain, and my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass, were verified of any of his words, they are certainly of these in my Text, which drop like rain, or rather like ho • y from his mouth: whereby we may taste how sweet the Lord is in his speeches, how mild in his proceedings, how passionate in his persuasions, what force of art & eloquence he useth to draw us unto him, without force & violence. Are not sighs the very breath of love? are not sobs the accents of grief? are not groans fetched deep the long periods of sorrows ravishing eloquence? which Almighty God breathes out of the boiling heat of his affection both here and elsewhere: O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, how shall I entreat thee? for your righteousness is as a morning cloud, & your goodness as an earthly dew vanisheth away. O that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways. I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured forever. He should have fed them with the finest of the wheat, and with honey out of the rock would I have satisfied thee. And, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the Prophets, and stonest those that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, but ye would not? How can the affection more outwardly enlarge, or the heart open it self, than by opening the bosom, and stretching out the arms to embrace? Behold the arms of Almighty God stretched all the day long to a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts. What truer Ambassadors of a bleeding heart than weeping eyes? behold the tears of our Savior over Jerusalem, and reach your hand, and thrust it into the hole of his side, and you shall feel drops from his heart bleeding afresh for your ungrateful refusal of his love, and despite of his grace. If drops of rain pierce the stones, and drops of warm Goats blood crumble the Adamant into pieces; shall not Christ's tears sink into our affections, and the drops of his heart blood break our hearts with godly sorrow, and make them so thorougly contrite by unfeigned repentance, that they may be an acceptable sacrifice unto him? according to the words of the Psalmist, The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou shalt not despise. Were not that City very unwise, that would refuse any tolerable conditions of peace offered by a potent enemy, against wh • m she could not make her party good in war? Beloved, are we able to hold out war with Almighty God? to maintain a fight against his plagues and judgments? what are we but dead men, if he lay hold on his glittering sword? why then do we not come in whilst he holdeth out his golden Scepter of mercy? why sue we not to him for a treaty of peace? It can be no disparagement to us to seek to him first; yet we need not, he seeketh to us first, he maketh an overture of his desire for peace, he draweth conditions with his own hand, and offereth them to us, as we heard before out of the 81.