Fifty Sermons

SERMON XIX.

Preached at Lincolns Inn.

A Lmost every man hath his Appetite, and his taste disposed to some kind of meats rather then others; He knows what dish he would choose, for his first, and for his second course. We have often the same disposition in our spiritual Diet; a man may have a particular love towards such or such a book of Scripture, and in such an affection, I acknowledge, that my spiritual appetite carries me still, upon the Psalms of David, for a first course, for the Scriptures of the Old Testament: and upon the Epistles of Saint Paul, for a second course, for the New, and my meditations even for these public exercises to God's Church, return oftnest to these two. For, as a hearty entertainer offers to others, the meat which he loves best himself, so do I oftnest present to God's people, in these Congregations, the meditations which I feed upon at home, in those two Scriptures. If a man be asked a reason why he loves one meat better then another, where all are equally good, (as the books of Scripture are) he will at least, find a reason in some good example, that he sees some man of good taste, and temperate withal, so do: And for my Diet, I have Saint Augustine's protestation, that he loved the Book of Psalms, and Saint Chrysostom's, that he loved Saint Paul's Epistles; with a particular devotion, I may have another more particular reason, because they are Scriptures, written in such forms, as I have been most accustomed to; Saint Paul's being Letters, and David's being Poems: for, God gives us, not only that which is merely necessary, but that which is convenient too; He does not only feed us, but feed us with marrow, and with fatness; he gives us our instruction in cheerful forms, not in a sour, and sullen, and angry, and unacceptable way, but cheerfully, in Psalms, which is also a limited, and a restrained form; Not in an Oration, not in Prose, but in Psalms; which is such a from as is both curious, and requires diligence in the making, and then when it is made, can have nothing, no syllable taken from it, nor added to it: Therefore is God's will delivered to us in Psalms, that we might have it the more cheerfully, and that we might have it the more certainly, because where all the words are numbered, and measured, and weighed, the whole work is the less subject to falsification, either by subtraction or addition. God speaks to us in or atione strictâ, in a limited, in a diligent form; Let us speak to him in or atione solutâ; not pray, not preach, not hear, flackly, suddenly, unadvisedly, extemporally, occasionally, indiligently; but let all our speech to him, be weighed, and measured in the weights of the Sanctuary, let us be content to preach, and to hear within the compass of our Articles, and content to pray in those forms which the Church hath meditated for us, and recommended to us.

This whole Psalm is a Prayer, and recommended by David to the Church; And a Prayer grounded upon Reasons. The Reasons are multiplied, and dilated from the second to the 20. verse. But as the Prayer is made to him that is Alpha, and Omega, first, and last; so the Prayer is the Alpha and Omega of the Psalm; the Prayer possesses the first and the last verse thereof; and though the Reasons be not left out, (Christ himself settles that Prayer, which he recommended to our daily use, upon a Reason, Quia tuum est Regnum, for thine is the Kingdom,) yet David makes up his Circle, he begins, and ends in prayer. But our text falls within his Reasons; He prays in the first verse that God would forbear him, upon the Reasons that follow; of which some are extrinsical, some arising out of the power, some out of the malice, some out of the scorn of other men; And some are intrinsical, arising out of himself, and of his sense of God's Judgments upon him; and our Text begins the Reasons of that last kind, which because David enters, with that particle, not only of Connection, but of Argumentation too, For, (Rebuke me not O Lord, for it stands thus and thus with me) we shall make it a first short part, to consider, how it may become a godly man, to limit God so far, as to present and oppose Reasons against his declared purpose, and proceedings. And then in those calamities which he presents for his Reasons in this Text, For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore, we shall pass by these steps, first, we shall see in what respect, in what allusion, in what notification he calls them arrows: And therein first, that they are alienae, they are shot from others, they are not in his own power; a man shoots not an arrow at himself; And then, that they are Veloces, swift in coming, he cannot give them their time; And again, they are Vix visibiles, though they be not altogether invisible in their coming, yet there is required a quick eye, and an express diligence, and watchfulness to discern and avoid them; so they are arrows in the hand of another; not his own; and swift as they come, and invisible before they come. And secondly, they are many arrows; The victory lies not in scaping one or two; And thirdly, they stick in him; they find not David so good proof, as to rebound back again, and imprint no sense; And they stick fast; Though the blow be felt, and the wound discerned, yet there is not a present cure, he cannot shake them off; Infixae sunt; And then, with all this, they stick fast in him; that is, in all him; in his body, and soul; in him, in his thoughts, and actions; in him, in his sins and in his good works too; Infixae mihi, there is no part of him, no faculty in him, in which they stick not: for, (which may well be another consideration) That hand, which shot them, presses him: follows the blow, and presses him sore, that is, vehemently. But yet, (which will be our conclusion) Sagittaetuae, and manus tua, These arrows that are shot, and this hand that presses them so sore, are the arrows, and is the hand of God; and therefore, first, they must have their Effect, they cannot be dis-appointed; But yet they bring their comfort with them, because they are his, because no arrows from him, no pressing with his hand, comes without that Balsamum of mercy, to heal as fast as he wounds. and of so many pieces will this exercise consist, this exercise of your Devotion, and perchance Patience.

First then, this particle of connection and argumentation, For, which begins our text, occasions us, in a first part, to consider, that such an impatience in affliction, as brings us toward a murmuring at God's proceedings, and almost to a calling of God to an account, in inordinate expostulations, is a leaven so kneaded into the nature of man, so innate a tartar, so inherent a sting, so inseparable a venom in man, as that the holiest of men have scarce avoided it in all degrees thereof. Job had God's testimony of being an upright man; and yet Job bent that way, O that I might have my request, says Job, and that God would grant me the thing that I long for. Well, if God would, what would, Job ask? That God would destroy me, and cut me off. Had it not been as easy, and as ready, and as useful a prayer, That God would deliver him? Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh of brass? says he, in his impatience. What though it be not? Not stones, not brass; is there no remedy, but to wish it dust? Moses had God's testimonies of a remarkable and exemplar man, for meekness. But did God always find it so? was it a meek behavior towards God, to say, Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? Have I conceived all this people, have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom? Elias had had testimonies of God's care and providence in his behalf; and God was not weary of preserving him, and he was weary of being preserved; He desired that he might die, and said, Sufficit Domine, It is enough O Lord, now take my soul. Io • as, even then, when God was expressing an act of mercy, takes occasion to be angry, and to be angry at God, and to be angry at the mercy of God. we may see his fluctuation and distemper, and irresolution in that case, and his transportation; He was a • gry, says the text; very angry; And yet, the text says, He prayed, but he prayed angerly; O Lord take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die, then to live. Better for him, that was all he considered; not what was best for the service and glory of God, but best for him. God asks him, If he do well to be angry? And he will not tell him there; God gives him time to vent his passion, and he asks him again • after: Doest thou well to be angry? And he answers more angerly, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Jeremiah was under this temptation too. Jonah was angry because his Prophesy was not performed; because God would not second his Prophesy in the destruction of Nineveh. Jeremiah was angry because his Prophesy was like to be performed; he preached heavy Doctrine, and therefore his Auditory hated him; Woe is me, my Mother, says he, that thou hast born me a man of strife, and a man of contention to the whole earth! I preach but the messages of God; and (vae mihi si non, woe be unto me if I preach not them) I preach but the sense of God's indignation upon mine own soul, in a conscience of mine own sins, I impute nothing to another, that I confess not of myself, I call none of you to confession to me, I do but confess myself to God, and you, I rack no man's memory, what he did last year, last week, last night, I only gather into my memory, and pour out in the presence of my God, and his Church, the sinful history of mine own youth, and yet I am a contentious man, says Jeremiah, a worm, and a burden to every tender conscience, says he, and I strive with the whole earth, I am a bitter, and satyricall preacher; This is that that wearies me, says he, I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent me on usury, yet, as though I were an oppressing lender, or a fraudulent borrower, everyone of them doth curse me.

This is a natural infirmity, which the strongest men, being but men, cannot devest, that if their purposes prosper not, they are weary of their industry, weary of their life's; But this is Summa ingratitude in Deum, m • lle non esse, quàm miserum esse: There cannot be a greater unthankfulness to God then to desire to be Nothing at all, rather then to be that, that God would have thee to be; To desire to be out of the world, rather then to glorify him, by thy patience in it. But when this infirmity overtakes God's children, Patiuntur ut homtines, sustinent ut Dei amici; They are under calamities, as they are r • en, but yet they come to recollect themselves and to beat those calamities, as the valiant Soldiers, as the faithful servants, as the bosom friends of almighty God: Si vis discere, qualis esse debi • s, disce post gratiam, says the same Father; Learn patience, not from the stupidity of Philosophers, who are but their own statues, men of stone, without sense, without affections, and who placed all their glory, in a Non facies ut te dicam analum, that no pain should make them say they were in pain; nor from the per • i • acy of Heretics, how to bear a calamity, who gave their bodies to the fire, for the establishing of their Disciples, but take out a new lesson in the times of Grace; Consider the Apostles there, Gaudentes & Gloriantes, They departed from the Council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy, to suffer rebuke for his name. It was Joy, and all Joy, says S. James; It was Glory, and all Glory, says S. Paul, Absit mihi, God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; And if I can glory in that, (to glory in that, is to have a conscience testifying to me, that God receives glory by my use of his correction) I may come to God, reason with God, plead with God, wrestle with God, and be received and sustained by him. This was David's case in our Text: therefore he doth not stray into the infirmities of these great, and good Men, Moses, Job, Elias, Jeremiah, and Jonah; whose errors, it is labor better bestowed carefully to avoid, then absolutely to excuse, for that cannot be done. But David presents only to God the sense of his corrections, and implies in that, that since the cure is wrought, since God's purpose, which is, by corrections, to bring a sinner to himself, and so to God, is effected in him, God would now be pleased to remember all his other gracious promises too; and to admit such a zealous prayer as as he doth from Isaiah after, Be not angry, O Lord, above measure; (that is, above the measure of thy promises to repentant souls, or the measure of the strength of our bodies) Neither remember iniquities forever; But, loe, we beseech thee, Behold, we are thy people. To end this first part, (because the other extends it self in many branches.) Then when we are come to a sense of God's purpose, by his corrections, it is a seasonable time to fly to his mercy, and to pray, that he would remove them from us; and to present our Reasons, to spare us, for thy corrections have wrought upon us; Give us this day, our daily bread, for thou hast given us stones, and scorpions, tribulations and afflictions, and we have fed upon them, found nourishment even in those tribulations and afflictions, and said thee grace for them, blessed and glorified thy name, for those tribulations, and afflictions; Give us our Cordials now, and our Restoratives, for thy physic hath evacuated all the peccant humor, and all our natural strength; shine out in the light of thy countenance now, for this long cold night hath benumbed us; since the dr • sse is now evaporated, now withdraw thy fire; since thy hand hath anew cast us, now imprint in us anew thine Image; since we have not disputed against thy corrections, all this while, O Lord open thou our lips now, and accept our remembering of thee, that we have not done so; Accept our Petition, and the Reason of our Petition, for thine Arrows stick fast in us, and thy hand presseth us sore.

David in a rectified conscience finds that he may be admitted to present reasons against farther corrections, And that this may be received as a reason, That God's Arrows are upon him; for this is phrase or a Metaphor, in which God's indignation is often expressed in the Scripture. He sent out his Arrows, and scattered them; says David; magnifying God's goodness in his behalf, against his enemies. And so again, God will ordain his Arrrowes for them that persecute me. Complebo sagittas, says God, I will heap mischiefs upon them, and I will spend mine arrows upon them: yea, Inebriabo sanguine, I will make mine Arrows drunk in their blood. It is Idiotismus Spiritus sancti, a peculiar character of the holy Ghosts expressing God's anger, in that Metaphor of shooting Arrows. In this place, some understand by these Arrows, foul and infectious diseases, in his body, derived by his incontinence. Others, the sting of Conscience, and that fearful choice, which the Prophet offered him, war, famine, and pestilence. Others, his passionate sorrow in the death of Bathsheba's first child; or in the Incest of Amnon upon his sister, or in the murder upon Amnon by Absalom; or in the death of Absolen by Joab; or in many other occasions of sorrow, that surrounded David and his family, more, perchance, then any such family in the body of story. But these Psalms were made, not only to vent David's present holy passion, but to serve the Church of God, to the worlds end. And therefore, change the person, and we shall find a whole quiver of arrows. Extend this Man, to all Mankind; carry David's History up to Adams History, and consider us in that state, which we inherit from him, and we shall see arrows fly about our ears, A Deo prosequente, the anger of God hanging over our heads, in a cloud of arrows; and à conscientia remordente, our own consciences shooting poisoned arrows of desperation into our souls; and ab Homine Contemnente, Men multiplying arrows of Detraction, and Calumny, and Contumely upon our good name, and estimation. Briefly, in that wound, as we were all shot in Adam, we bled out Impassibilitatem, and we sucked in Impossibilitatem; There we lost our Immortality, our Impassibility, our assurance of Paradise, and then we lost Possibilitatem boni, says S. August: all possibility of recovering any of this by ourselves. So that these arrows which are lamented here, are all those miseries, which sin hath cast upon us; Labor, and the child of that, Sickness, and the offspring of that, Death; And the security of conscience, and the terror of conscience; the searing of the conscience, and the over-tenderness of the conscience; God's quiver, and the Devils quiver, and our own quiver, and our neighbors quiver, afford, and furnish arrows to gall, and wound us. These arrows then in our Text, proceeding from sin, and sin proceeding from temptations, and inducing tribulations, it shall advance your spiritual edification most, to fixe your consideration upon those fiery darts, as they are temptations, and as they are tribulations. Origen says, he would wish no more, for the recovery of any soul, but that she were able to see Cicatrices suas, those scars which these fiery darts have left in her, the deformity which every sin imprints upon the soul, and Contritiones suas, the attenuating and wearing out, and consumption of the soul, by a continual succession of more, and men wound, • upon the same place. An ugly thing in a Consumption, were a fearful spectacle, And such Origen imagines a soul to be, if she could see Cicatrices, and Contritiones, her ill-favourednesse, and her leanness in the deformity, and consumption of sin. How provident, how diligent a patience did our blessed Savior bring to his Passion, who foreseeing that that would be our case, our sickness, to be first wounded with single temptations, and then to have even the wounds of our soul wounded again, by a daily reiterating of temptations in the same kind, would provide us physic agreeable to our Disease, Chyrurgery conformable to our wound, first to be scourged so, as that his holy body was torn with wounds, and then to have those wounded again, and often, with more violatings. So then these arrows, are those temptations and those tribulations, which are accompanied with these qualities of arrows shot at us, that they are alienae, shot from others, not in our power; And veloces, swift and sudden, soon upon us; And vix visibiles, not discernible in their coming, but by an exact diligence.

First then, these temptations are dangerous arrows, as they are alienae, shot from others, and not in our own power. It was the Emblem, and Inscription, which Darius took for his coin, Insculpere sagittarium, to show his greatness, that he could wound afar off, as an Archer does. And it was the way, by which God declared the deliverance of Israel from Syria; Elisha bids the King open the window East-ward, and shoot an arrow out. The King does shoot: And the Prophet says, Sagitta salutis Domini, The arrow of the Lord's deliverance: He would deliver Israel, by shooting vengeance into Syria. One danger in our arrows, as they are temptations, is, that they come unsuspectedly; they come, we know not, from whence; from others; that's a danger; But in our temptations, there is a greater danger then that, for a man cannot shoot an arrow at himself; but we can direct temptations upon ourselves; If we were in a wilderness, we could sin; and where we are, we tempt temptations, and wake the Devil, when for anything that appears, he would sleep. A certain man drew a bow at a venture, says that story; He had no determinate mark, no express aim, upon any one man; He drew his bow at a venture, and he hit, and he flew the King Ahab. A woman of temptation, Tendit areum in incertum, as that story speaks; she paints, she curls, she sings, she gazes, and is gazed upon; There's an arrow shot at randon; she aimed at no particular mark; And thou puttest thyself within shot, and meetest the arrow; Thou soughtest the temptation, the temptation sought not thee. A man is able to oppress others; Et gl • riatur in mal • quia potens, He boasts himself because he is able to do mischief; and tendit arcum in incertum, he shoots his arrow at randon, he lets it be known, that he can prefer them, that second his purposes, and thou putt'st thyself within shot, and meet'st the arrow, and makest thyself his instrument; Thou sought'st the temptation, the temptation sought not thee; when we expose ourselves to temptations, temptations hit us, that were not expressly directed, nor meant to us. And even then, when we begin to fly from temptations, the arrow overtakes us. Jehoram fled from Jehu, and Jehu shot after him, and shot him through the heart. But this was after Jehoram had talked with him. After we have par • ed with a temptation, debated whether we should embrace it or no, and entertained some discourse with it, though some tenderness, some remorse, make us turn our back upon it, and depart a little from it, yet the arrow overtakes us; some reclinations, some retrospects we have, a little of Lots wife is in us, a little sociableness, and conversation, a little point of honor, not to be false to former promises, a little false gratitude, and thankfulness, in respect of former obligations, a little of the compassion and charity of Hell, that another should not be miserable, for want of us, a little of this, which is but the good nature of the Devil, arrests us, stops us, fixes us, till the arrow, the temptation shoot us in the back, even when we had a purpose of departing from that sin, and kills us over again. Thus it is, when we meet a temptation, and put ourselves in the arrows way; And thus it is when we fly not fast enough, nor far enough from a temptation. But when we do all that, and provide as safely as we can to get, and do get quickly out of distance, yet, The wicked bend their bows, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart; In occulto; It is a work of Darkness, Detraction; and they can shoot in the dark; they can wound, and not be known. They can whisper Thunder, and pass an arrow through another man's ear, into mine heart; Let a man be zealous, and fervent in reprehension of sin, and there flies out an arrow, that gives him the wound of a Puritan. Let a man be zealous of the house of God, and say anything by way of moderation, for the repairing of the ruins of that house, and making up the differences of the Church of God, and there flies out an arrow, that gives him the wound of a Papist. One shoots East, and another West, but both these arrows meet in him, that means well, to defame him. And this is the first misery in these arrows, these temptations, Quia alienae, they are shot from others, they are not in our own quiver, not in our own government.

Another quality that temptations receive from the holy Ghosts Metaphor of arrows is, Quia veloces, because this captivity to sin, comes so swiftly, so impetuously upon us. Consider it first in our making; In the generation of our parents, we were conceived in sin; that is, they sin'd in that action; so we were conceived in sin; in their sin. And in ourselves, we were submitted to sin, in that very act of generation, because then we became in part the subject of Original sin. Yet, there was no arrow shot into us then; there was no sin in that substance of which we were made; for if there had been sin in that substance, that substance might be damned, though God should never infuse a soul into it; and that cannot be said well then; God, whose goodness, and wisdom will have that substance to become a Man, he creates a soul for it, or creates a soul in it, (I dispute not that ) he sends a light, or he kindles a light, in that lanthorn; and here's no arrow shot neither; here's no sin in that soul, that God creates; for there God should create something that were evil; and that cannot be said; Here's no arrow shot from the body, no sin in the body alone; None from the soul, no sin in the soul alone; And yet, the union of this soul and body is so accompanied with God's malediction for our first transgression, that in the instant of that union of life, as certainly as that body must die, so certainly the whole Man must be guilty of Original sin. No man can tell me out of what Quiver, yet here is an arrow comes so swiftly, as that in the very first minute of our life, in our quickening in our mothers womb, we become guilty of Adams sin done 6000 years before, and subject to all those arrows, Hunger, Labor, Grief, Sickness, and Death, which have been shot after it. This is the fearful swiftness of this arrow, that God himself cannot get before it. In the first minute that my soul is infused, the Image of God is imprinted in my soul; so forward is God in my behalf, and so early does he visit me. But yet Original sin is there, as soon as that Image of God is there. My soul is capable of God, as soon as it is capable of sin; and though sin do not get the start of God, God does not get the start of sin neither. Powers, that dwell so far asunder, as Heaven, and Hell, God and the Devil, meet in an instant in my soul, in the minute of my quickening, and the Image of God, and the Image of Adam, Original sin, enter into me at once, in one, and the same act. So swift is this arrow, Original sin, from which, all arrows of subsequent temptations, are shot, as that God, who comes to my first minute of life, cannot come before death.

And then, a third, and last danger, which we noted in our temptations, as they are represented by the holy Ghost, in this Metaphor of arrows, is, that they are vix visibiles, hardly discernible. 'It is true, that temptations do not light upon us, as bullets, that we cannot see them, till we feel them. An arrow comes not altogether so: but an arrow comes so, as that it is not discerned, except we consider which way it comes, and watch it all the way. An arrow, that finds a man asleep, does not wake him first, and wound him after; A temptation that finds a man negligent, possesses him, before be sees it. In gravtssimis criminibus, confinia virtutum ladunt; This is it that undoes us, that virtues and vices are contiguous, and borderers upon one another; and very often, we can hardly tell, to which action the name of vice, and to which the name of virtue appertains. Many times, that which comes within an inch of a noble action, falls under the infamy of an odious treason; At many executions, half the company will call a man an Heretic, and half, a Martyr. How often, an excess, makes a natural affection, an unnatural disorder? Vtinam aut sororem non amasset, Hamon, aut non vindicasset Absalom; Hamon loved his sister Tamar; but a little too well; Absalom hated his brothers incest, but a little too ill. Though love be good, and hate be good, respectively, yet, says S. Ambrose, I would neither that love, nor that hate had gone so far. The contract between Jonathan and David, was, If I say, The arrow on this side of thee, all is well; If I say, The arrow is beyond thee, thou art in an ill case. If the arrow, the temptation, be yet on this side of thee, if it have not lighted upon thee, thou art well; God hath directed thy face to it, and thou mayest, if thou wilt, continue thy diligence, watch it, and avoid it. But if the arrow be beyond thee, and thou have cast it at thy back, in a forgetfulness, in a security of thy sin, thy case is dangerous. In all these respects, are these arrows, these infirmities, derived from the sin of Adam, dangerous, as they are alienae, in the hand of others, as they are veloces, swift in seising us, and as they are vix visibiles, hardly discerned to be such; And these considerations fell within this first branch of this second part, Thine arrows, temptations, as they are arrows, stick fast in me.

These dangers are in them, as they are sagittae, arrows; and would be so, if they were but single arrows; any one temptation would endanger us, any one tribulation would encumber us; but they are plural, arrows, and many arrows. A man is not safe, because one arrow hath mist him; nor though he be free from one sin. In the execution of Achan, all Israel threw stones at him, and stoned him. If Achan had had some brother, or cousin amongst them, that would have flung over, or short, or weakly, what good had that done him, when he must stand the mark for all the rest? All Israel must stone him. A little disposition towards someone virtue, may keep thee from someone temptation; Thou mayst think it pity to corrupt a chaste soul, and forbear soliciting her; pity to oppress a submitting wretch, and forbear to vex him; and yet practice, and that with hunger and thirst, other sins, or those sins upon other persons. But all Israel stones thee; arrows fly from every corner; and thy measure is not, to thank God, that thou art not as the Publican, as some other man, but thy measure is, to be pure and holy, as thy father in heaven is pure, and holy, and to conform thyself in some measure, to thy pattern, Christ Jesus. Against him it is noted, that the Jews took up stones twice to stone him. Once, whē they did it, He went away and hid himself. Our way to scape these arrows, these temptations, is to go out of the way, to abandon all occasions, and conversation, that may lead into temptation. In the other place, Christ stands to it, and disputes it out with them, and puts them from it by the scriptum est; and that's our safe shield, since we must necessarily live in the way of temptations, (for coluber in via, there is a snake in every path, temptation in every calling) still to receive all these arrows, upon the shield of faith, still to oppose the scriptum est, the faithful promises of God, that he will give us the issue with the temptation, when we cannot avoid the temptation itself. Otherwise, these arrows are so many, as would tire, and wear out, all the diligence, and all the constancy of the best moral man. We find many mentions in the Scriptures of filling of quivers, and emptying of quivers, and arrows, and arrows, still in the plural, many arrows. But in all the Bible, I think, we find not this word, (as it signifies temptation, or tribulation) in the singular, one arrow, anywhere, but once, where David calls it, The arrow that flies by day; And is seen, that is, known by every man; for, for that, the Fathers, and Ancients run upon that Exposition, that that one arrow common to all, that day-arrow visible to all, is the natural death; (so the Chaldee paraphrase calls it there expressly, Sagitta m • rtis, The arrow of death) which every man knows to belong to every man; (for, as clearly as he sees the Sun set, he sees his death before his eyes.) Therefore it is such an arrow, as the Prophet does not say, Thou shalt not feel, but, Thou shalt not fear the arrow that flies by day. The arrow, the singular arrow that flies by day, is that arrow that falls upon every man, death. But everywhere in the Scriptures, but this one place, they are plural, many, so many, as that we know not whence, nor what they are. Nor ever does any man receive one arrow alone, any one temptation, but that he receives another temptation, to hide that, though with another, and another sin. And the use of arrows in the war, was not so much to kill, as to rout, and disorder a battle; and upon that routing, followed execution. Every temptation, every tribulation is not deadly. But their multiplicity disorders us, discomposes us, unse •• les us, and so hazards us. Not only every periodicall variation of our years, youth and age, but every day hath a divers arrow, every hour of the day, a divers temptation. An old man wonders then, how an arrow from an eye could wound him, when he was young, and how love could make him do those things which he did then; And an arrow from the tongue of inferior people, that which we make shift to call honor, wounds him deeper now; and ambition makes him do as strange things now, as love did then; A fair day shoots arrows of visits, and comedies, and conversation, and so we go abroad: and a foul day shoots arrows of gaming, or chambering, and wantonness, and so we stay at home. Nay, the same sin shoots arrows of presumption in God, before it be committed, and of distrust and diffidence in God after; we do not fear before, and we cannot hope after: And this is that misery from this plurality, and multiplacity of these arrows, these manifold temptations, which David intends here, and as often as he speaks in the same phrase of plurality, vituli multi, many bulls, canes multi, many dogs, and bellantes multi, many warlike enemies, and aquae • multae, many deep waters compass me. For as it is said of the spirit of wisdom, that it is unicus multiplex, manifoldly one, plurally singular: so the spirit of temptation in every soul is unicus multiplex, singularly plural, rooted in some one beloved sin, but derived into infinite branches of temptation.

And then, these arrows stick in us; the rain falls, but that cold sweat hangs not upon us; Hail beats us, but it leaves no pock-holes in our skin. These arrows do not so fall about us, as that they miss us; nor so hit us, as they rebound back without hurting us: But we complain with Jeremiah, The sons of his quiver are entered into our reins. The Roman Translation reads that filias, The daughters of his quiver; If it were but so, daughters, we might limit these arrows in the signification of temptations, by the many occasions of temptation; arising from that sex. But the Original hath it filios, the sons of his quiver, and therefore we consider these arrows in a stronger signification, tribulations, as well as temptations; They stick in us; Consider it but in one kind, diseases, sicknesses. They stick to us so, as that we are not sure, that any old diseases mentioned in Physicians books are worn out, but that every year produces new, of which they have no mention, we are sure. We can scarce express the number, scarce sound the names of the diseases of man's body; 6000 year hath scarce taught us what they are, how they affect us, how they shall be cured in us, nothing, on this side the Resurrection, can teach us. They stick to us so, as that they pass by inheritance, and last more generations in families, then the inheritance itself does; and when no land, no Manor, when no title, no honor descends upon the heir, the stone, or the gout descends upon him. And as though our bodies had not naturally diseases, and infirmities enow, we contract more, inflict more, (and that, out of necessity too) in mortifications, and macerations, and Disciplines of this rebellious flesh. I must have this body with me to heaven, or else salvation itself is not perfect; And yet I cannot have this body thither, except as S. Paul did his, I beat down this body, attenuate this body by mortification; Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? I have not body enough for my body, and I have too much body for my soul; not body enough, not blood enough, not strength enough, to sustain myself in health, and yet body enough to destroy my soul, and frustrate the grace of God in that miserable, perplexed, riddling condition of man; sin makes the body of man miserable, and the remedy of sin, mortification, makes it miserable too; If we enjoy the good things of this world, Duriorem carcerem praeparamus, we do but carry another wall about our prison, another story of unwieldy flesh about our souls; and if we give ourselves as much mortification as our body needs, we live a life of fridays, and see no Sabbath, we make up our years of Lents, and see no other Easters, and whereas God meant us Paradise, we make all the world a wilderness. Sin hath cast a curse upon all the creatures of the world, they are all worse then they were at first, and yet we dare not receive so much blessing, as is left in the creature, we dare not eat or drink, and enjoy them. The daughters of God's quiver, and the sons of his quiver, the arrows of temptation, and the arrows of tribulation, do so stick in us, that as he lives miserably, that lives in sickness, and he as miserably, that lives in physic: so plenty is a misery, and morti • ication is a misery too; plenty, if we consider it in the effects, is a disease, a continual sickness, for it breeds diseases; And mortification, if we should consider it without the effects, is a disease too, a continual hunger, and fasting; and if we consider it at best, and in the effects, mortification is but a continual physic, which is misery enough.

They stick, and they stick fast; alte infixae; every syllable aggravates our misery. Now for the most part, experimentally, we know not whether they stick fast or no, for we never go about to pull them out: these arrows, these temptations, come, and welcome: we are so far from offering to pull them out, that we fix them faster and faster in us; we assist our temptations: yea, we take preparatives and fomentations, we supple ourselves by provocations, lest our flesh should be of proof against these arrows, that death may enter the surer, and the deeper into us by them. And he that does in some measure, soberly and religiously, go about to draw out these arrows, yet never consummates, never perfects his own work; He pulls back the arrow a little way, and he sees blood, and he feels spirit to go out with it, and he lets it alone: He forbears his sinful companions, a little while, and he feels a melancholy take hold of him, the spirit and life of his life decays, and he falls to those companions again. Perchance he rushes out the arrow with a sudden, and a resolved vehemence, and he leaves the head in his body: He forces a divorce from that sin, he removes himself out of distance of that temptation; and yet he surfeits upon cold meat, upon the sinful remembrance of former sins, which is a dangerous rumination, and an unwholesome chawing of the cud; It is not an ill derivation of repentance, that poenitere is poenam tenere; that's true repentance, when we continue in those means, which may advance our repentance. When Joash the King of Israel came to visit Elisha upon his sick bed, and to consult with him about his war, Elisha bids the King smite the ground, and he smites it thrice, and ceases: Then the man of God was angry, and said, Thou shouldst have smitten five or six times, and so thou shouldst have smitten thine enemies, till thou hadst consumed them. Now, how much hast thou to do, that hast not pulled at this arrow at all yet? Thou must pull thrice and more, before thou get it out; Thou must do, and leave undone many things, before thou deliver thyself of that arrow, that sin that transports thee. One of these arrows was shot into Saint Paul himself, and it stuck, and stuck fast; whether an arrow of temptation, or an arrow of tribulation, the Fathers cannot tell; And therefore, we do now, (not inconveniently) all our way, in this exercise, mingle these two considerations, of temptation, and tribulation. Howsoever Saint Paul pulled thrice at this arrow, and could not get it out; I besought the Lord thrice, says he, that it might depart from me. But yet, Joash his thrice striking of the ground, brought him some victory; Saint Paul's thrice praying, brought him in that provision of Grace, which God calls sufficient for him. Once pulling at these arrows, a slight consideration of thy sins will do no good. Do it thrice; testify some true desire by such a diligence; Do it now as thou sit'st, do it again at the Table, do it again in thy bed; Do it thrice, do it in thy purpose, do it in thine actions, do it in thy constancy; Do it thrice, within the walls of thy flesh, in thyself, within the walls of thy house in thy family, and in a holy and exemplar conversation abroad, and God will accomplish thy work, which is his work in thee; And though the arrow be not utterly pulled out, yet it shall not fester, it shall not gangrene; Thou shalt not be cut off from the body of Christ, in his Church here, nor in the Triumphant Church hereafter, how fast soever these arrows did stick upon thee before. God did not refuse Israel for her wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores, though from the sole of the foot, to the crown of the head, but because those wounds were not closed, nor bound up, nor suppled with ointments, therefore he refused her. God shall not refuse any soul, because it hath been shot with these arrows; Alas, God himself hath set us up for a mark, says Job, and so says Jeremiah, against these arrows. But that soul that can pour out floods of tears, for the loss, or for the absence, or for the unkindness, or imagination of an unkindness of a friend, mis-beloved, beloved a wrong way, and not afford one drop, one tear, to wash the wounds of these arrows, that soul that can squeaze the wound of Christ Jesus, and spit out his blood in these blasphemous execrations, & shed no drop of this blood upon the wounds of these arrows, that soul, and only that soul, that refuses a cure, does God refuse; not because they fell upon it, and stook, and stook fast, and stook long, but because they never, never went about to pull them out; never resisted a temptation, never lamented a transgression, never repented a recidivation.

Now this is more put home to us in the next addition, Infixae mihi, they stick, and stick fast, in me, that is, in all me. That that sin must be saved or damned; That's not the soul alone, nor body alone, but all, the whole man. God is the God of Abraham, as he is the God of the living; Therefore Abraham is alive; And Abraham is not alive, if his body be not alive; Alive actually in the person of Christ; alive in an infallible assurance of a particular resurrection. Whatsoever belongs to thee, belongs to thy body and soul; and these arrows stick fast in thee; In both. Consider it in both; in things belonging to the body and to the soul; We need clothing; Baptism is God's Wardrobe; there Induimur Christo; In Baptism we put on Christ; there we are invested, apparel'd in Christ; And there comes an arrow, that cuts off half our garment, (as Hammon did David's servants) A temptation that makes us think, it is enough to be baptized, to profess the name of Christ; for Papist, or Protestant, it is but the train of the garment, matter of civility, and policy, and government, and may be cut off, and the garment remain still. So we need meat, sustenance, and then an arrow comes, a temptation meets us, Edite, & bibite, Eat and drink, tomorrow you shall die; That there is no life, but this life, no blessedness but in worldly abundances. If we need physic, and God offer us his physic, medicinal corrections, there flies an arrow, a temptation, Medice cura teipsum, that he whom we make our Physician, died himself, of an infamous disease, that Christ Jesus from whom we attend our salvation, could not save himself. In our clothing, in our diet, in our physic, things which carry our consideration upon the body, these arrows stick fast in us, in that part of us. So in the more spiritual actions of our souls too. In our alms there are trumpets blown, there's an arrow of vain-glory; In our fastings, there are disfigurings, there's an arrow of Hypocrisy; In our purity, there is contempt of others; there's an arrow of pride; In our coming to Church, there is custom and formality; In hearing Sermons, there is affection to the parts of the Preacher. In our sinful actions these arrows abound; In our best actions they lie hid; And as thy soul is in every part of thy body, so these arrows are in every part of thee, body, and soul; they stick, and stick fast, in thee, in all thee.

And yet there is another weight upon us, in the Text, there is still a Hand that follows the blow, and press it, Thy hand presses me sore; so the Vulgat read it, Confirmasti super me manum tuam, Thy hand is settled upon me; and the Chaldee paraphrase carries it farther then to man, Sit super me vulnus manus tua; Thy hand hath wounded me, and that hand keeps the wound open. And in this sense the Apostle says, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. But as God leaves not his children without correction, so he leaves them not without comfort, and therefore it behooves us to consider his hand upon these arrows, more then one way.

First, because his hand is upon the arrow, it shall certainly hit the mark; God's purpose cannot be disappointed. If men, and such men, left-handed men, and so many 700 left-handed men, and so many of one Tribe, 700 Benjamites, could sling stones at a hairs breadth, and not fail, God is a better Mark-man then the left-handed Benjamites; his arrows always hit as he intends them. Take them then for tribulation, his hand is upon them; Though they come from the malice of men, his hand is upon them. S. Ambrose observes, that in afflictions, God's hand, and the Devils are but one hand. Stretch out thy hand, says Satan to God, concerning Job; And, all that he hath is in thy hand, says God to Satan. Stretch out thy hand, and touch his bones, says Satan again to God; And again, God to Satan, He is in thy hand, but touch not his life. A difference may be, that when God's purpose is but to punish, as he did Pharaoh, in those several verall premonitory plagues, there it is Digitus Dei; It was but a finger, and God's finger. When Balshazzar was absolutely to be destroyed, there were Digiti, and Manus hominis, men's fingers, and upon a man's hand. The arrows of men are ordinary, more venomous, and more piercing, then the arrows of God. But as it is in that story of Elisha, and Joash, The Prophet bade the King shoot, but Elisha laid his hand upon the Kings hand; So from what instrument of Satan soever, thy affliction come, God's hand is upon their hand that shoot it, and though it may hit the mark according to their purpose, yet it hath the effect, and it works according to his.

Yea, let this arrow be considered as a temptation, yet his hand is upon it; at least God sees the shooting of it, and yet lets it fly. Either he tries us by these arrows, what proof we are; Or he punishes us by those arrows of new sins, for our former sins; and so, when he hath lost one arrow, he shoots another. He shoots a sermon, and that arrow is lost; He shoots a sickness, and that arrow is lost; He shoots a sin; not that he is author of any sin, as sin; but as sin is a punishment of sin, he concurs with it. And so he shoots arrow after arrow, permits sin after sin, that at last some sin, that draws affliction with it, might bring us to understanding; for that word, in which the Prophet here expresses this sticking, and this fast sticking of these arrows, which is Nachath, is here, (as the Grammarians in that language call it) in Niphal, figere factae, they were made to stick; God's hand is upon them, the work is his, the arrows are his, and the sticking of them is his, whatsoever, and whosesoever they be.

His hand shoots the arrow, as it is a tribulation, he limits it, whosoever inflict it. His hand shoots it, as it is a temptation; He permits it, & he orders it, whosoever offer it. But it is especially from his hand, as it hath a medicinal nature in it; for in every temptation, and every tribulation, there is a Catechism, and Instruction; nay, there is a Canticle, a love-song, an Epithalamion, a marriage song of God, to our souls, wrapped up, if we would open it, and read it, and learn that new tune, that music of God; So when thou hear • st Nathan's words to David, The child that is born unto thee, shall surely die, (let that signify, the children of thy labor, and industry, thy fortune, thy state shall perish) so when thou hear'st God's word to David, Choose famine, or war, or pestilence, for the people, (let that signify, those that depend upon thee, shall perish) so when thou hear'st Esays words to Hezekiah, Put thy house in order, for thou shalt die; (let that signify, thou thyself in person shalt perish) so when thou hear'st all the judgments of God, as they lie in the body of the Scriptures, so the applications of those judgments, by God's Ministers, in these services, upon emergent occasions, all these are arrows shot by the hand of God, and that child of God, that is accustomed to the voice, and to the ear of God, to speak with him in prayer, when God speaks to him, in any such voice here, as that to David, or Hezekiah, though this be a shooting of arrows, Non sugabit eum vir sagittarius, The arrow, (as we read it) The Archer, (as the Roman Edition reads it) cannot make that child of God afraid, afraid with a distrustful fear, or make him loath to come hither again to hear more, how close soever God's arrow, and God's archer, that is, his word in his servants mouth, come to that Conscience now, nor make him mis-interpret that which he does hear, or call that passion in the Preacher, in which the Preacher is but sagittarius Dei, the deliverer of God's arrows; for God's arrows, are sagitta Compunctionis, arrows that draw blood from the eyes; Tears of repentance from Mary Magdalene, and from Peter; And when from thee? There is a probatum est in S. Aug. Sagittaveras cor meum, Thou hast shot at my heart; and how wrought that? To the withdrawing of his tongue, à nundinis loquacitatis, from that market in which I sold myself, (for S. Aug. at that time taught Rhetoric) to turn the stream of his eloquence, and all his other good parts, upon the service of God in his Church. You may have read, or heard that answer of a General, who was threatened with that danger; that his enemies arrows were so many, as that they would cover the Sun from him; In umbra pugnabimus; All the better, says he, for then we shall fight in the shadow. Consider all the arrows of tribulation, even of temptation, to be directed by the hand of God, and never doubt to fight it out with God, to lay violent hands upon heaven, to wrestle with God for a blessing, to charge and press God upon his contracts and promises, for in umbra pugnabis, though the clouds of these arrows may hide all suns of worldly comforts from thee, yet thou art still under the shadow of his wings. Nay, thou art still, for all this shadow, in the light of his countenance. To which purpose there is an excellent use of this Metaphor of arrows, H • back. 3. 11. where it is said, that God's servants shall have the light of his arrows, and the •• ining of his glittering spear: that is, the light of his presence, in all the instruments, and actions of his corrections.

To end all, and to dismiss you with such a re-collection, as you may carry away with you; literally, primarily, this text concerns David: He by temptations to sin, by tribulations for sin, by comminations, and increpations upon sin, was bodily, and ghostly become a quiver of arrows of all sorts; they stook, and stook fast, and stook full in him, in all him. The Psalm hath a retrospect too, it looks back to Adam, and to every particular man in his loins, and so, David's case is our case, and all these arrows stick in all us. But the Psalm and the text hath also a prospect, and hath a prophetical relation from David to our Savior Christ Jesus. And of him, and of the multiplicity of these arrows upon him in the exinanition, and evacuation of himself, in this world for us, have many of the Ancients interpreted these words literally, and as in their first and primary signification; Turn we therefore to him, before we go, and he shall return home with us. How our first part of this text is appliable to him, that our prayers to God, for ease in afflictions, may be grounded upon reasons, out of the sense of those afflictions, Saint Basil tells us, that Christ therefore prays to his Father now in heaven, to spare mankind, because man had suffered so much, and drunk so deep of the bitter cup of his anger, in his person and passion before: It is an avoidable plea, from Christ in heaven, for us, Spare them O Lord in themselves, since thou didst not spare them in me. And how far he was from sparing thee, we see in all those several weights which have aggravated his hand, and these arrows upon us: If they be heavy upon us, much more was their weight upon thee, every dram upon us was a Talent upon thee, Non del • r sicut dolor tuus, take Rachel weeping for her children, Mary weeping for her brother Lazarus, Hezekiah for his health, Peter for his sins, Non est delor sicut dolor • uus. The arrows that were shot at thee, were Alienae, Afflictions that belonged to others; and did not only come from others, as ours do; but they were alienae so, as that they should have fallen upon others; And all that should have fallen upon all others, were shot at thee, and lighted upon thee. Lord, though we be not capable of sustaining that part, this passion for others, give us that, which we may receive, Compassion with others. They were veloces, these arrows met swiftly upon thee; from the sin of Adam that induced death, to the sin of the last man, that shall not sleep, but be changed, when thy hour came they came all upon thee, in that hour. Lord put this swiftness into our fins, that in this one minute, in which our eyes are open towards thee, and thine ears towards us, our sins, all our sins, even from the impertinent frowardness of our childhood, to the unsufferable frowardness of our age, may meet in our present confessions, and repentances, and never appear more. They were (as ours are too) Invisibiles; Those arrows which fell upon thee, were so invisible, so undiscernible, as that to this day, thy Church, thy School cannot see, what kind of arrow thou tookest into thy soul, what kind of affliction it was, that made thy soul heavy unto death, or dissolved thee into a gelly of blood in thine agony. Be thou O Lord, a Father of Lights unto us, in all our ways and works of darkness; manifest unto us, whatsoever is necessary for us to know, & be a light of understanding and grace before, and a light of comfort and mercy after any • in hath benighted us. These arrows were, as ours are also, plures, plural, many, infinite; they were the sins of some that shall never thank thee, never know that thou borest their sins, never know that they had any such sins to be horn. Lord teach us to number thy corrections upon us, so, as still to see thy torments suffered for us, and our own sins, to be infinitely more that occasioned those torments, then those corrections that thou layst upon us. Thine arrows stook and stook fast in thee; the weight of thy torments, thou wouldest not cast off, nor lessen, when at thy execution they offered thee, that stupesying drink, (which was the civil charity of those times to condemned persons, to give them an easier passage, in the agonies of death) thou wouldest not taste of that cup of ease. Deliver us, O Lord, in all our tribulations, from turning to the miserable comforters of this world, or from wishing or accepting any other deliverance, then may improve and make better our Resurrection. These arrows were in thee, in all thee: from thy Head torn with thorns, to thy feet pierced with nails; and in thy soul so as we know not how, so as to extorta Si possibile, If it be possible let this cup pass, and an Vt quid dereliquisti, My God, my God, why half thou forsaken me? Lord, whilst we remain entire here, in body and soul, make us, and receive us an entire sacrifice to thee, in directing body and soul to thy glory, and when thou shalt be pleased to take us in pieces by death, receive our souls to thee, and lay up our bodies for thee, in consecrated ground, and in a Christian burial. And lastly, thine arrows were followed, and pressed with the hand of God; The hand of God pressed upon thee, in that eternal decree, in that irrevocable contract, between thy Father and thee, in that Oportuit pati, That all that thou must suffer, and so enter into our glory. Establish us, O Lord, in all occasions of diffidences here; and when thy hand presses our arrows upon us, enable us to see, that that very hand, hath from all eternity written, and written in thine own blood, a decree of the issue, as well, and as soon, as of the temptation. In which confidence of which decree, as men, in the virtue thereof already in possession of heaven, we join with that Choir in that service, in that Anthem, Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God forever, and ever, Amen.

SERMON XX.

Preached at Lincolns Inn.

I N that which is often reported to you, out of Saint Jerome, Titulus clavis, that the title of the Psalm, is the key of the Psalm, there is this good use, That the book of Psalms is a mysterious book; and, if we had not a lock, every man would thrust in, and if we had not a key, we could not get in ourselves. Our lock is the analogy of the Christian faith; That we admit no other sense, of any place in any Psalm, then may consist with the articles of the Christian faith; for so, no Heretic, no Schismatic, shall get in by any countenance of any place in the Psalms; and then our key is, that intimation which we receive in the title of the Psalm, what duty that Psalm is principally directed upon; and so we get into the understanding of the Psalm, and profiting by the Psalm. Our key in this Psalm, given us in the title thereof, is, that it is Psalmus ad Recordationem, a Psalm of Remembrance; The faculty that is awakened here, is our Memory. That plural word nos, which was used by God, in the making of Man, when God said Faciamus, Let us, us make man, according to our image, as it intimates a plurality, a concurrence of all the Trinity in our making, so doth it also a plurality in that image of God, which was then imprinted in us; As God, one God created us, so we have a soul, one soul, that represents, and is some image of that one God; As the three Persons of the Trinity created us, so we have, in our one soul, a threefold impression of that image, and, as Saint Bernard calls it, A trinity from the Trinity, in those three faculties of the soul, the Understanding, the Will, and the Memory. God calls often upon the first faculty, O that this people would but understand; But understand? Inscrutabili • judicia tua; Thy judgments are unsearchable, and thy ways past finding out; And, oh that this people would not go about to understand those unreve • led decrees, and secrets of God. God calls often upon the other faculty, the Will too, and complains of the stiff perverseness, and opposition of that. Through all the Prophets runs that charge, Noluerunt, and Noluerunt, they would not, they refused me, Noluerun • audire, says God in Isaiah; They are rebellious children, that will not hear. Domus Israel noluit, says God to Ezekiel, The house of Israel will not hear thee; not Thee, not the minister; That's no marvel; it is added by God there, Noluit me, they will not hear me. Noluerunt erubescere, says God to Jeremiah, They will not be ashamed of their former ways, And therefore Noluerunt reverti, They will not return to better ways: He that is past shame of sin, is past recovery from sin. So Christ continues that practice, and that complaint in the Gospel too; He sends forth his servants, (us) to call them, that were bidden, Et noluerunt venire, and they would not come upon their call; He comes himself, and would gather them, as hen her chickens, and they would not; Their fault is not laid in this, that they had no such faculty, as a will, (for then their not coming were not their fault) but that they perverted that will. Of our perverseness in both faculties, understanding, and will, God may complain, but as much of our memory; for, for the rectifying of the will, the understanding must be rectified; and that implies great difficulty: But the memory is so familiar, and so present, and so ready a faculty, as will always answer, if we will but speak to it, and ask it, what God hath done for us, or for others. The art of salvation, is but the art of memory. When God gave his people the Law, he proposes nothing to them, but by that way, to their memory; I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt; Remember but that. And when we express God's mercy to us, we attribute but that faculty to God, that he remembers us; Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? And when God works so upon us, as that He makes his wonderful works to be had in remembrance, it is as great a mercy, as the very doing of those wonderful works was before. It was a seal upon a seal, a seal of confirmation, it was a sacrament upon a sacrament, when in instituting the sacrament of his body and his blood, Christ presented it so, Do this in remembrance of me. Memorare novissima, remember the last things, and fear will keep thee from sinning; Memorare praeterita, remember the first things, what God hath done for thee, and love, (love, which, mis-placed, hath transported thee upon many sins) love will keep thee from sinning. Plato placed all learning in the memory; we may place all Religion in the memory too: All knowledge, that seems new today, says Plato, is but a remembering of that, which your soul knew before. All instruction, which we can give you today, is but the remembering you of the mercies of God, which have been new every morning. Nay, he that hears no Sermons, he that reads no Scriptures, hath the Bible without book; He hath a Genesis in his memory; he cannot forget his Creation; he hath an Exodus in his memory; he cannot forget that God hath delivered him, from some kind of Egypt, from some oppression; He hath a Leviticus in his memory; he cannot forget, that God hath proposed to him some Law, some rules to be observed. He hath all in his memory, even to the Revelation; God hath revealed to him, even at midnight alone, what shall be his portion, in the next world; And if he dare but remember that nights communication between God and him, he is well-near learned enough. There may be enough in remembering ourselves; but sometimes, that's the hardest of all; many times we are farthest off from ourselves; most forgetful of ourselves. It was a narrow enlargement, it was an addition that diminish'd the sense, when our former Translators added that word, themselves; All the world shall remember themselves; there is no such particularity, as themselves, in that text; But it is only, as our later Translators have left it, All the world shall remember, and no more; Let them remember what they will, what they can, let them but remember thoroughly, and then as it follows there, They shall turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the Nations shall worship him. Therefore David makes that the key into this Psalm; Psalmus ad Recordationem, A Psalm for Remembrance. Being locked up in a close prison, of multiplied calamities, this turns the key, this opens the door, this restores him to liberty, if he can remember. Non est sanitas, there is no soundness, no health in my flesh; Doest thou wondet at that? Remember thyself, and thou wilt see, that thy case is worse then so; That there is no rest in thy bones. That's true too; But doest thou wonder at that? Remember thyself, and thou wilt see the cause of all that, The Lord is angry with thee; Find'st thou that true, and wonderest why the Lord should be angry with thee? Remember thyself well, and thou wilt see, it is because of thy sins, There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin. So have I let you in, into the whole Psalm, by this key, by awaking your memory, that it is a Psalm for Remembrance: And that that you are to remember, is, that all calamities, that fall upon you, fall not from the malice or power of man, but from the anger of God; And then, that God's anger falls not upon you, from his Hate, or his Decree, but from your sins, There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin.

Which words we shall first consider, as they are our present object, as they are historically, and literally to be understood of David; And secondly, in their retrospect, as they look back upon the first Adam, and so concern Mankind collectively, and so you, and I, and all have our portion in these calamities; And thirdly, we shall consider them in their prospect, in their future relation to the second Adam, in Christ Jesus, in whom also all mankind was collected, and the calamities of all men had their Ocean and their confluence, and the cause of them, the anger of God was more declared, and the cause of that anger, that is sin, did more abound; for the sins of all the world were his, by imputation, for this Psalm, some of our Expositors take to be a historical, and personal Psalm, determined in David; some, a Catholic, and universal Psalm, extended to the whole condition of man, and some a Prophetical, and Evangelical Psalm, directed upon Christ. None of them inconveniently; for we receive help and health, from everyone of these acceptations; first, Adam was the Patient, and so, his promise, the promise that he received of a Messiah, is our physic; And then David was the Patient, and there, his Example is our physic; And lastly, Christ Jesus was the Patient, and so, his blood is our physic. In Adam we shall find the Scriptum est, the medicine is in our books, an assurance of a Messiah there is; In David we shall find the Probatum est, that this medicine wrought upon David; and in Christ we find the deceit itself; Thus you may take this physic, thus you may apply it to yourselves. In every acceptation, as we consider it in David, in ourselves, in Christ, we shall consider first, That specification of human misery and calamity, expressed here, sickness, and an universal sickness; No soundness in the flesh: And more then that, trouble, and an universal trouble; No peace, no rest, not in the bones. And then in a second branch, we shall see, that those calamities proceed from the anger of God; we cannot discharge them, upon Nature, or Fortune, or Power, or Malice of Men or Times; They are from the anger of God, and they are, as the Original Text hath it, à facie irae Dei, from the face of the anger of God, from that anger of God that hath a face, that looks upon something in us, and grows not out of a hate in God, or decree of God against us. And then lastly, this that God's anger looks upon is sin; God is not angry till he see sin; nor with me, till it come to be my sin; and though Original sin be my sin, and sickness, and death would follow, though there were no more but Original sin, yet God comes not to this, Non sanitas, N • soundness in my flesh, nor to this, N • n pax, No rest in my bones, till I have made sin, my sin, by act, and habit too, by doing it, and using to do it. But then, though it be but Peccatum in the singular, (so the Text hath it) One sin, yet for that one beloved sin, especially when that my sin comes to have a face, (for so, the Original phrase is in this place too, à facie peccati, from the face of my sin) when my sin looks big, and justifies itself, then come these calamities, No soundness in the flesh, • o rest in the bones, to their heighth, because the anger of God which exals them, is in the exaltation: There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither any rest in my bones, because of my sin.

All these particulars will best arise to us in our second consideration, when we consider, Hamanitatem, not Hominem, our human condition, as we are all kneaded up in Adam, and not this one person David. But because we are in the consideration of health, and consequently of physic, (for the true and proper use of physic, is to preserve health, and, but by accident to restore it) we embra • e that Rule, Medio • rum theoria experientia est, Practice is a Physicians study; and he concludes out of events: for, says he, He that professes himself a Physician, without experience, Chronica de future scribit, He undertakes to write a Chronicle of things before they are done, which is an irregular, and a perverse way. Therefore, in this spiritual physic of the soul, we will deal upon Experience too, and see first, how this wrought upon this particular person, upon David.

David durst not presume, that God could not, or would not be angry. Anger is not always a Defect, nor an inordinateness in man; Be angry, and sin not: anger is not utterly to be rooted out of our ground, and cast away, but transplanted; A Gardener does well to grub up thorns in his garden; there they would hinder good herbs from growing; but he does well to plant those thorns in his hedges, there they keep bad neighbors from entering. In many cases, where there is no anger, there is not much zeal. David himself came to a high exaltation in this passion of anger. He was ordinarily so meek, as that that which we translate afflictions, the Vulgat Edition translates mecknesse, and patience in his afflictions. Remember David and all his afflictions, says our translation; and Memento David & omnis mansuetudinis ejus, say they, Remember David, and all his mildness. How mildly he endured Joab's insultation; Thou lovest, says Joab, thine enemies, and thou hatest thy friends. Bitterly spoken; Come out, and speak comfortably, says Joab, or, I swear by the Lord, there will not tarry a man with thee this night; Seditiously spoken; And David obeyed him. How mildly he endured Shimei's cursing? He cast stones at him and at all his servants; He charges him with murder; and, that which is heaviest of all, he calls Absalom's rebellion, a judgment of God; and David accepts it so, and says, The Lord hath bidden him to curse David. And yet this exemplar mild man, David himself, upon a scorn offered to him by Hanun in the abuse of his Ambassadors, goes himself in person, into a dangerous war, against the Ammonites, assisted with 32000 chariots of their neighbors the Aramites, and there he destroys those great numbers, which are mentioned in that story: and after this defeat, in cold blood, he goes out against them, that had assisted them; He takes the City Rabbah, and the people he cuts with Saws, and with Harrows of iron, and with Axes; David saw that a mild man can grow angry, and that a fire that is long kindling, burns most vehemently. That which is an Adage, and Proverb now, was ever true in substance, Ab inimico flegmatico libera me Domine; from him that is long before he be angry, for he is long before he be reconciled again. God's goodness hath that disposition, to be long suffering; man's ilnesse and abuse of that, is able to inflame God. So David's sin had inflamed him; and the fire of God's anger produced the calamities of this text upon him: which our Expositors ordinarily take to have been historically this, that when David had provoked God, with that sinful confidence in numbering his people, when God's anger was executed in that devouring plague, and David saw the persecuting Angel, then à facie irae Domini, from that face, that manifestation of God's anger, he fell into that damp, and dead cold, that howsoever they covered him, they could never get heat in him: And this was the sin, say our Expositors, and this was the anger, and this was the manifestation, and this was the disease that David complains of here. And be this enough of the personal acceptation of these words; There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there rest in my bones, because of my sin; for in their second acceptation as they are referred to the miserable condition of all mankind by sin, the particulars which we laid down before, will fall into more particular consideration.

In this second part, first we contemplate man, as the Receptacle, the Ocean of all misery. Fire and Air, Water and Earth, are not the Elements of man; Inward decay, and outward violence, bodily pain, and sorrow of heart may be rather styled his Elements; And though he be destroyed by these, yet he consists of nothing but these. As the good qualities of all creatures are not for their own use, (for the Sun sees not his own glory, nor the Rose smells not her own breath: but all their good is for man ) so the ill conditions of the creature, are not directed upon themselves, (the Toad poisons not it self, nor does the Viper bite itself) but all their ill powrs down upon man. As though man could be a Microcosm, a world in himself, no other way, except all the misery of the world fell upon him. Adam was able to decipher the nature of every Creature in the name thereof, and the Holy Ghost hath deciphered his in his name too; In all those names that the Holy Ghost hath given man, he hath declared him miserable, for, Adam, (by which name God calls him, and Eve too) signifies but Redness, but a Blushing: and whether we consider their low materials, as it was but earth, or the redness of that earth, as they stained it with their own blood, and the blood of all their posterity, and as they drew another more precious blood, the blood of the Messias upon it, every way both may be Adam, both may blush. So God called that pair, our first Parents, man in that root, Adam: But the first name, by which God called man in general, mankind, is Ish, Therefore shall a man leave his Father, &c. And Ish, is but à sonitu, à rugitu: Man hath his name from crying, and the occasion of crying, misery, testified in his entrance into the world, for he is born crying; and our very Laws presume, that if he be alive, he will cry, and if he be not heard cry, conclude him to be born dead. And where man is called Gheber, (as he is often) which is derived from Greatness, man is but great so, as that word signifies; It signifies a Giant, an oppressor, Great in power, and in a delight to do great mischiefs upon others, or Great, as he is a Great mark, and easily hit by others. But man hath a fourth name too in Scripture, Enoch, and that signifies nothing but misery. When David says, Put them in fear O Lord, that the Nations may know they are but men; there's that name Enoch, that they are but miserable things. Adam is Blushing, Ish is lamenting, Geber is oppressing, Enoch is all that; but especially that • which is especially notified for the misery in our Text, Enoch is Homo aeger, a man miserable, in particular, by the misery of sickness, which is our next step, Non sanitas, There is no soundness, no health in me.

God created man in health, but health continued but a few hours, and sickness hath had the Dominion 6000 years. But was man impassible before the fall? Had there been no sickness, if there had been no sin? Secundum passions perfectivas, we acknowledge in the School, man was passable before: Every alteration is in a degree a passion, a suffering; and so, in those things which conduced to his well-being, eating, and sleeping, and other such, man was passable: that is, subject to alteration, But, Secundum passions destructiv •• , to such sufferings, as might frustrate the end for which he was made, which was Immortality, he was not subject, and so, not to sickness. Now he is; and put all the miseries, that man is subject to, together, sickness is more then all. It is the immediate sword of God. Phalaris could invent a Bull, and others have invented Wheels and Racks; but no persecutor could ever invent a sickness or a way to inflict a sickness upon a condemned man: To a galley he can send him, and to the gallows, and command execution that hour; but to a quartane fever, or to a g • ut, he cannot condemn him. In poverty I lack but other things; In banishment I lack but other men; But in sickness, I lack my self. And, as the greatest misery of war, is, when our own Country is made the seat of the war; so is it of affliction, when mine own Body is made the subject thereof. How shall I put a just value upon God's great blessings of Wine, and Oil, and Milk, and Honey, when my cast is gone, or of Liberty, when the gout fetters my feet? The King may release me, and say, Let him go whither he will, but God says, He shall not go till I will. God hath wrapped up all misery, in that condemnation, Morte morietur, That the sinner shall die twice: But if the second death did not follow, the first death were an ease, and a blessing in many sicknesses. And no sickness can be worse, then that which is intended here, for it is all over, Non sanitas, no soundness, no health in any part.

This consideration arises not only from the Physicians Rule, that the best state of Mans body is but a Neutrality, neither well nor ill, but Nulla sanitas, a state of true and exquisite health, say they, no man hath. But not only out of this strictness of Art, but out of an acknowledgment of Nature, we must say, sanitas hujus vitae, b • ne intelligentibus, sanitas non est; It is but our mistaking, when we call anything Health. But why so? fames naturalis morbus est; Hunger is a sickness; And that's naturally in us all. Medicamentum famis cibus, & potus sitis, & fatigationis somnus; when I eat, I do but take Physique for Hunger, and for thirst, when I drink, and so is sleep my physique for weariness. Detrahe medicamentum, & interficient; for bear but these Physiques, and these diseases, Hunger, and thirst, and weariness, will kill thee. And as this sickness is upon us all, and so non sanitas, there is no Health, in none of us, so it is upon us all, at all times, and so Non sanitas, there is never any soundness in us: for, saemper deficimus; we are Borne in a Consumption, and as little as we are then, we grow less from that time. Vita cursus ad mortem, Before we can craule, we run to meet death; & urgemur owns pari passu: Though some are cast forward to death, by the use, which others have of their ruin, and so throw them, through Discontents, into desperate enterprises, and some are drawn forward to death, by false Markes, which they have set up to their own Ambitions, and some are spurred forward to death, by sharp Diseases contracted by their own intemperance and licentiousness; and some are whipped forward to death, by the Miseries, and pen • ries of this life, take away all these accidental furtherances to death, this drawing, and driving, and spurring, and whipping, pari paessu urgemur omnes, we bring all with us into the world, that which carries us out of the world, a natural, unnatural consuming of that radical virtue, which sustains our life. Non sanitas, there is no health in any, so universal is sickness, nor at any time in any, so universal; and so universal too, as that not in any part of any man, at any time. As the King was but sick in his feet, and yet it killed him: It was but in his fact, yet it flew up into his head, it affected his head; as our former translation observed it in their margin; that the disease did not only grow to a great height in the disease, but to the highest parts of the body: It was at first but in the feet, but it was presently all over. Josiah the King was shot with an arrow at the battle of Megiddo; One book that reports the story says he was carried out of the field alive & died at Jerusalem and another, that he was carried out of the field dead. Deadly wounds & deadly sicknesses spread themselves all over, so fast, as that the holy Ghost, in relating it, makes it all one, to tell the beginning, and the end thereof. If a man do but prick a finger, and bind it above that part, so that the Spirits, or that which they call the Balsamum of the body, cannot descend, by reason of that ligature, to that part, it will ga • grene; And, (which is an argument, and an evidence, that mischiefs are more operative, more insinuating, more penetrative, more diligent, then Remedies against misch • efes are) when the Spirits, and Balsamum of the body cannot pass by that ligature to that wound, yet the Gangrene will pass from that wound, by that ligature, to the body, to the Heart, and destroy. In every part of the body death can find a door, or make a breach; Mortall diseases breed in every part. But when every part at once is diseased, death does not bsie ge him, but inhabit him. In the day, when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall how themselves, and the grinders cease, because they are few, and those that look out at the windows, he darkened, when age of God's making, age grown by many years, or age of the Devils making, age grown by many sins, hath spread an universal debility upon me, that all sicknesses are in me, & have all lost their names, as all simples have in Triacle, I am sick of sickness, and not of a Fever, or any particular distemper, then is the misery of this Text fallen upon me, Non sanitas, no health, none at any time, none in any part, non in Carne, not in my flesh, not in my whole substance, which is also another circumstance of exaltation in human misery.

Take flesh in the largest extent and signification, that may be, as Moses calls God, The God of the spirits of all flesh, that is, of the Being of all Creatures, and take all these Creatures to be ours in that Donation, Subjicite & dominamini, subdue, and rule all Creatures, yet there is no soundness in our flesh, for, all these Creatures are corrupted, and become worse then they were, (to us) by the sin of Adam. Bring flesh to a nearer signification, to our own, there was Caro juxta naturam, and there is Caro juxta culpam. That flesh which was natural, to man, that which God gave man at first, that had health and soundness in it; but yet not such a degree of soundness, as that it needed no more, then it then had. That had been naturally enough, (if that had been preserved to carry that flesh it self to heaven, but even that flesh if it had not sinned, though it had an Immortality in itself, yet must have received a glorification in heaven; as well, (though in another measure) as those bodies, which shall be alive at the last day, and shall be but changed, and not dissolved in the dust, must receive a glorification there, besides that preservation from dissolution. Now this Caro juxta culpam, sinful flesh, is farther from that Glorification; Our natural flesh, when it was at best, had something to put on; but our sinful flesh hath also something to put off, before it can receive glory. So then, for flesh in general, the body of Creatures, though that flesh be our flesh, because all Creatures are ours, in that flesh there is no soundness, because they are become worse; for that flesh, which we call natural Adams first flesh, besides that it was never capable of glory in it self, but must have received that, by receiving the light of God's presence, there is none of that flesh remaining now; now universa caro, all flesh is corrupted; and that curse is gone upon it, The glory of Jacob shall be empoverished, and the fatness of his flesh shall be made lean. Quia elatum sumpsimus spiritum, because we have raised our spirits in pride, higher then God would, Ecce defluens quotidie portamus lutum, Behold God hath walled us with mud walls, and wet mud walls, that waste away faster, then God meant at first, they should. And by sins, this flesh, that is but the loame and plaster of thy Tabernacle, thy body, that, all, that, that in the entire substance is corrupted. Those Gummes, and spices, which should embalm thy flesh, when thou art dead, are spent upon that diseased body whilst thou art alive: Thou seemest, in the eye of the world, to walk in silks, and thou doest but walk in searcloth; Thou hast a desire to please some eyes, when thou hast much to do, not to displease every Nose; and thou wilt solicit an adulterous entrance into their beds, who, if they should but see thee go into thine own bed, would need no other mortification, nor answer to thy solicitation. Thou pursuest the works of the flesh, and hast none, for thy flesh is but dust held together by plasters; Dissolution and putrefaction is gone over thee alive; Thou hast over lived thine own death, and art become thine own ghost, and thine own hell; No soundness in all thy flesh; and yet beyond all these, beyond the general miserable condition of man, and the highest of human miseries, sickness, and sickness over all the parts, and so over them all, as that it hath putrefied them all, there is another degree, which follows in our Text, and David calls Trouble, There is no soundness in my flesh, nor rest in my bones.

That which such a sick man most needs, this sick soul shall not have, Rest. The Physician goes out, and says, he hath left him to Rest, but he hath left no Rest to him. The anguish of the disease, nay, the officiousness of visitors, will not let him rest. Such send to see him as would fain hear he were dead, and such weep about his sick-bed, as would not weep at his grave. Mine enemies speak evil of me, (says David) and say, When shall he die, and his name perish? And yet these evil-speaking enemies come there to see him. They say, an evil disease cleaveth fast unto him; and that they say is true, but they say it not out of compassion, for they add, And now that he lieth, let him rise no more. He shall not get to that good trouble, to that holy disquiet of a conscientious consideration, how his state was got; and, it shall be a greater trouble then he can overcome, how to dispose it: He shall not only not make a religious restitution, but he shall not make a discreet Will. He shall suspect his wifes fidelity, and his children's frugality, and clog them with Executors, and them with Over-seers, and be, or be afraid he shall be over-seen in all. And yet a farther trouble then all this, is intended in the other word, which is the last and highest of these vexations, Non in ossibus, no rest in my bones.

Saint Basil will needs hav • us leave the obvious, and the natural signification of this, Bones; for, Habet & anima ossa sua, says he, The soul hath Bones, as well as the body, and there shall be no Rest in those Bones. Such a signification is appliable to the Flesh, as well as the Bones; The flesh may signify the lower faculties of the soul, or the weaker works of the higher faculties thereof; There may be a Carnality in the understanding; a concupiscence of disputation, and controversy in unnecessary points. Requirit quod sibi respondere nequit, The mind of a curious man delights to examine it self upon Interrogatories, which, upon the Racke, it cannot answer, and to vex it self with such doubts as it cannot resolve. Sub eo ignara deficit, quod prudenter requirit; We will needs show wit in moving subtle questions, and the more ignorance, in not being able to give our selves satisfaction. But not only seditions, and contentions, but Heresies too, are called works of the flesh; howsoever men think themselves witty, and subtle, and spiritual in these wranglings, yet they have carnal respects, they are of the flesh, and there is no soundness in them. But beyond this carnality in matters of Opinions, in points of a higher nature, this diseased man in our Text, comes to trouble in his Bones, S. Basils spiritual bones: He shall suspect his Religion, suspect his Repentance, suspect the Comforts of the Minister, suspect the efficacy of the Sacrament, suspect the mercy of God himself. Every fit of an Ague is an Earth-quake that swallows him, every fainting of the knee, is a step to Hell; every lying down at night is a funeral; & every quaking is a rising to judgment; every bell that distinguishes times, is a passing-bell, and every passing-bell, his own; every singing in the ear, is an Angels Trumpet; at every dimness of the candle, he hears that voice, Fool, this night they will fetch away thy soul; and in every judgment denounced against sin, he hears an lto maledicte upon himself, Go thou accursed into hell fire. And whereas such meditations as these, might sustain a rectified soul, as Bones in this sinner, despair shall have sucked out all the marrow of these Bones, and so there shall be no soundness in his flesh, no rest in his bones. And so have you this sick sinner dissected and anatomized; He hath not only his portion in misery that lies upon all mankind, which was our first branch, but in the heavyest of all, sickness, which was a second, and then a third sickness spread over all, no soundness, nor rest in that sickness, which was a fourth consideration, No soundness in his flesh, in his weaker faculties and operations, No rest in his bones, no acquiescence in his best actions, with which we end this first part. In which, we consider sinful man, in himself, and so all is desperate; But in the second, where we find him upon the consideration of the cause of all these distresses, That it is from the Contemplation of the anger of God, There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine Anger, there we shall find a way offered to him, that may, if he pursue it aright, bring him to a Reparation, to a Redintegration; for, if he look upon the Anger of God in a right line, it will show him, that as that Anger is the cause of his Calamities, so his sins are the cause of that Anger.

May we not piously apply that Proverbiall speech, Corruptio optimi pessima, (that when good things take in another nature then their own, they take it in the highest exaltation) thus, that when God, who is all mercy, grows angry, he becomes all anger? The Holy Ghost himself seems to have given us leave to make that application, when expressing God in the height of his anger, he calls God then, in that anger, a Dove; we read it the fierceness of an oppressor, but Saint Jerome reads it, The anger of a Dove. And truly there is no other word then that, in that tongue, (the word is Jonah, ) that signifies a Dove, and that word does signify a Dove, in many other places of Scripture; And that Prophet which made his flight from God, when he sent him to Nineveh, is called by that name, Jonah, a Dove; And the Fathers of the Latin Church, have read, and interpreted it so, of a Dove. Some of them take Nebuchadnezzar to be this angry Dove, because he left his own Dove-coat to feed abroad, to prey upon them; and some, because the Dove was the Arms and Ensign of the Assyrians from the time of Semiramis; But the rest take this Dove to be God himself, and that the sins of men had put a Gall into a Dove, Anger into God. And then, to what height that anger grows, is expressed in the Prophet Hosea; I will meet them, says God, (when he is pleased, he says, he will wait for them) as a Bear, (no longer a Dove) as a Bear robbed of her whelps, (sensible of his injuries) and I will rent the caul of their hearts, (shiver them in pieces with a dispersion, with a discerption) And I will devour them as with a Lyon, (nothing shall re-unite them again But I will break them as a Potters vessel, that cannot be made whole again.) Honor not the malice of thine enemy so much, as to say, thy misery comes from him: Dishonor not the complexion of the times so much, as to say, thy misery comes from them; justify not the Deity of Fortune so much, as to say, thy misery comes from her; Find God pleased with thee, and thou hast a hook in the nostrils of every Leviathan, power cannot shake thee, Thou hast a wood to cast into the waters of Marah, the bitterness of the times cannot hurt thee, thou hast a Rock to dwell upon, and the dream of a Fortunes wheel, can not overturn thee. But if the Lord be angry, he needs no Trumpets to call in Armies, if he do but sibilare muscam, hiss and whisper for the fly, and the Be, there is nothing so little in his hand, as cannot discomfort thee, discomfit thee, dissolve and powrout, attenuate and annihilate the very marrow of thy soul. Every thing is His, and therefore everything is He; thy sickness is his sword, and therefore it is He that strikes thee with it, still turn upon that consideration, the Lord is angry; But then look that anger in the • face, take it in the right • line, as the Original phrase in this text directs, à facieirae Dei, There is no soundness in my flesh, from the face of thine anger.

As there is a Manifestation of God's anger in this phrase, The face of God's anger, so there is a Multiplication, a plurality too, for it is indeed, Mippenei à faciebus, the faces, the divers manifestations of God's anger; for, the face of God, (and so of everything proceeding from God) is that, by which God, or that work of God is manifested to us. And therefore since God manifests his anger so many useful, and medicinal ways unto thee, take heed of looking upon his anger, where his anger hath no face, no manifestation; take heed of imagining an anger in God, amounting to thy Damnation, in any such Decree, as that God should be angry with thee in that height, without looking upon thy sins, or without any declaration why he is angry. He opens his face to thee in his Law, he manifests himself to thee in the Conditions, by which he hath made thy salvation possible, and till he see thee, in the transgression of them, he is not angry. And when he is angry so, be glad he shows it in his face, in his outward declarations; that fire smothered, would consume all God's anger reserved till the last day, will last as long as that day, as that undeterminable day, forever. When should we go about to quench that fire, that never bursts out, or to seek reconciliation, before a hostility be declared? Therefore Saint Bernard begs this anger at God's hands, Irascaris mihi Domine, O Lord, be angry with me; And therefore David thanks God, in the behalf of that people, for his anger, Thou forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance of their inventions. The fires of hell, in their place, in hell, have no light; But any degrees of the fires of Hell, that can break out in this life, have, in God's own purpose, so much light, as that through the darkest smother of obduration; or desperation, God would have us see him. Therefore Saint Jerome makes this milder use of this phrase, that God shows faciem irae, but non iram, that his face of anger is rather a telling us, that he will be angry, then that he is angry yet; the corrections that God inflicts to reduce us, if we profit not by them, were anger Ab initio, we shall suffer for the sins, from which those corrections should have reduced us, and for that particular sin, of not being reduced by them; but if they have their effect, there was not a drop of gall, there was not a dram of anger in the anger. Now that that God intends in them is, that as we apprehend our calamities to proceed from God's anger, and to discharge Destiny, and Fortune, so we apprehend that anger to proceed from our own sins, and so discharge God himself; There is no rest in my bones because of my sin.

As we are the sons of Dust, (worse, the sons of Death) we must say to Corruption, Thou art my Father, and to the worm, Thou art my Mother, so we may say to the anger of God, it is our grandfather, that begot these miseries, but we must say too, to our sin, Thou art my great-grandfather, that begot God's anger upon us: and here is our woeful pedigree, howsoever we be otherwise descended. 'It is true, there is no soundness, there is misery enough upon thee; and true, that God is angry, vehemently angry; But, Expone juststiam irae Dei, deal clearly with the world, and clear God, and confess it is because of thy sin. When Cain says, My sin is greater then can be forgiven, that word Gnavon is ambiguous, it may be sin, it may be punishment, and we know not whether his impatience grew out of the horror of his sin, or the weight of his punishment. But here we are directed by a word that hath no ambiguity; Kata signifies sin, and nothing but sin; Here the holy Ghost hath fixed thee upon a word, that will not suffer thee to consider the punishment, nor the cause of the punishment, the anger, but the cause of that anger, and all, the sin. We see that the bodily sickness, and the death of many is attributed to one kind of sin, to the negligent receiving of the Sacrament, For this cause many are weak and sick amongst you, and many sleep. Imaginem judicii ostenderat, God had given a representation of the day of Judgment in that proceeding of his, for then we shall see many men condemned for sins, for which we never suspected them: so we think men die of Fevers, whom we met lately at the Sacrament, and God hath cut them off perhaps for that sin of their unworthy receiving the Sacrament. My miseries are the fruits of this Tree; God's anger is the arms that spreads it; but the root is sin. My sin, which is another consideration.

We say of a Possession, Transit cum onere, It passes to me, with the burden that my Father laid upon it; his debt is my debt: so does it, with the sin too; his sin, by which he got that possession, is my sin, if I know it: and, perchance, the punishment mine, though I know not the sin. Adams sin, 6000 years ago, is my sin; and their sin, that shall sin by occasion of any wanton writings of mine, will be my sin, though they come after. Woeful riddle; sin is but a privation, and yet there is not such another positive possession: sin is nothing, and yet there is nothing else; I sinned in the first man that ever was; and, but for the mercy of God, in something that I have said or done, might sin, that is, occasion sin, in the last man that ever shall be. But that sin that is called my sin in this text, is that that is become mine by an habitual practice, or mine by a willful relapse into it. And so my sin may kindle the anger of God, though it be but a single sin, One sin, as it is delivered here in the singular, and no farther, Because of my sin.

Every man may find in himself, Peccatum complicatum, sin wrapped up in sin, a body of sin. We bring Elements of our own; earth of Covetousness, water of unsteadfastnesse, air of putrefaction, and fire of licentiousness; and of these elements we make a body of sin; as the Apostle says of the Natural body, There are many members, but one body, so we may say of our sin, it hath a wanton eye, a griping hand, an itching ear, an insatiable heart, and feet swift to shed blood, and yet it is but one body of sin; It is all, • and yet it is but One. But let it be simply, and singularly but One, (which is a miracle in sin, truly I think an impossibility in sin, to be single, to be but One) (for that unclean Spirit, which possessed the man that dwelt amongst the tombs, carried it at first, as though he had been a single Devil, and he alone in that man, I, I adjure thee, says he to Christ, and torment not me, not me, so far in the singular, but when Christ puts him to it, he confesses, we are many, and my name is legion: So though thy sin, slightly examined, may seem but One, yet if thou dare press it, it will confess a plurality, a legion) if it be but One, yet if that One be made thine, by an habitual love to it, as the plague needs not the help of a Consumption to kill thee, so neither does Adultery need the help of Murder to damn thee. For this making of any One sin, thine, thine, by an habitual love thereof, will grow up to the last and heaviest weight, intimated in that phrase, which is also in this clause of the Text, In facie paccati; that this sin will have a face, that is, a confidence, and a devesting of all 〈◊〉 or disguises.

There cannot be a heavier punishment laid upon any sin, then Christ lays upon scandal: It were better for him a mil-stone were hanged about his neck, and he drowned in the Sea. If something worse, then such a death, belong to him, surely it is eternal Death. And this, this eternal death, is interminated by Christ, in cases, where there is not always sin, in the action which we do, but if we do any action, so, as that it may scandalize another, or occasion sin in him, we are bound to study, and favor the weakness of other men, and not to do such things, as they may think sins. We must prevent the mis-interpretation, yea the malice of other men; for though the fire be theirs, the fuel, or at least, the • ellows, is ours; The uncharitableness, the malice is in them, but the awaking, and the stirring thereof, is in our carelessness, who were not watchful upon our actions. But when an action comes to be sin indeed, and not only occasionally sin, because it scandalizes another, but really sin in it self, then even the Poet tells you, Maxima debetur pueris reverentia, si quid T • rpe paras, Take heed of doing any sin, in the sight of thy Child: for, if we break through that wall, we shall come quickly to that faci • m Sacerdotis non erubuerunt, they will not be afraid, nor ashamed in the presence of the Priest, they will look him in the face, nay receive at his hands, and yet sin their sin, that minute, in their hearts; and to that also, faciem seniorum non erubuerunt, they will not be afraid, nor ashamed of the Office of the Magistrate; but sin for nothing, or sin at a price, bear out, or buy out all their sins. They sin as Sodom, and bide it not, is the highest charge that the Holy Ghost could lay upon the sinner. When they come to say, Our lips are ours, who is Lord ever us? They will say so of their hands, and of all their bodies, They are ours, who shall forbid us, to do what we will with them? And what lack these open sinners of the last judgment, and the condemnation thereof? That judgment is, that men shall stand naked in the sight of one another, and all their sins shall be made manifest to all, and this open sinner, does so, and chooses to do so, even in this world. When David prays so devoutly, to be cleansed from his secret sins; and Saint Paul glories so devoutly, in having renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, how great a burden is there, in these open and avowed sins; sins that have put on so brazen a face, as to out-face the Minister, and out-face the Magistrate, and call the very Power, and Justice of God in question, whether he do hate or can punish a sin? for, they do what they can to remove that opinion out of men's hearts. Truly, as an Hypocrite at Church, may do more good, then a devout man in his Chamber at home, because the Hypocrites outward piety, though counterfeit, imprints a good example upon them, who do not know it to be counterfeit, and we cannot know, that he that is absent from Church now, is now at his prayers in his Chamber: so a lesser sin done with an open avowment, and confidence, may more prejudice the Kingdom of God, then greater in secret. And this is that which may be principally intended, or, atleast, usefully raised our of this phrase of the Holy Ghost in David, A facie peccati, that the habitual sinner comes to sin, not only with a negligence, who know it, but with a glorious desire, that all the world might know it; and with a shame, that any such Judge as feared not God nor regarded man, should be more feareless of God, or regardless of man, then he.

But now, beloved, when we have laid man thus low, Miserable, because Man, and then Diseased, and that all over, without any soundness, even in his whole substance, in his flesh, and in the height of this disease, Restlesse too, and Restlesse even in his bones, diffident in his strongest assurances; And when we have laid him lower then that, made him see the Cause of all this misery to be the Anger of God, the inevitable anger of an incensed God, and such an anger of God as hath a face, a manifestation, a reality, and not that God was angry with him in a Decree, before he shown man his face in the Law, and saw Mans face in the transgression of the law; And laid him lower then that too, made him see the cause of this anger, as it is sin, so to be his sin, sin made his by an habitual love thereof, which, though it may be but one, yet is become an out-facing sin, a sin in Contempt and confidence, when we have laid Man, laid you, thus low, in your own eyes, we return to the Canon and rule of that Physician whom they call Evangelist a •• medicinae, the Evangelist of Physique, Sit intentio prima in omni medicina comf • rtare, whether the physician purge, or lance, or sear, his principal care, and his end, is to comfort and strengthen: so though we have insisted upon Human misery, and the cause of that, the anger of God, and the cause of that anger, sin in that excess, yet we shall dismiss you with that Consolation, which was first in our intention, and shall be our conclusion, that as this Text hath a personal aspect upon David alone, and therefore we gave you hit case, and then a general retrospect upon Adam, and all in him, and therefore we gave you your own case, so it hath also an Evangelical prospect upon Christ, and therefore, for your comfort, and as a bundle of Myrrh in your bosoms, we shall give you his case too, to whom these words belong, as well as to Adam, or David, or you; There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin.

If you will see the miseries of Man, in their exaltation, and in their accumulation too, in their weight, and in their number, take them in the Ecce home, when Christ was presented from Pilate, scourged and scorned, Ecce home, behold man, in that man, in the Prophets; They have reproached the feetsteps of thine Anointed, says David, slandred his actions, and conversation; He hath no form, nor comliness, nor beauty, that we should desire to see him, says Isaiah; Despised, rejected of men; A man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs. And Ecce homo, behold man, in that man, in the whole history of the Gospel. That which is said of us, of sinful men, is true in him, the salvation of men, from the sole of the foot, even unto the Head, there is no soundness, but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores. That question will never receive answer, which Christ asks, Is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow? Never was, never will there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow, because there can never be such a person, to suffer sorrow. Affliction was upon him, and upon all him; for, His soul was heavy unto death; Even upon his Bones; fire was sent into his bones, and it prevailed against him. And the highest cause of this affliction was upon him, the anger of God; The Lord had afflicted him, in the day of his fierce anger. The height of God's anger, is Dereliction; and he was brought to his Vt quid dereliquisti, My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? We did esteem him stricken of the Lord, says Isaiah; And we were not deceived in it; Percutiam pastorem, says Christ himself of himself, out of the Prophet, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered; And then, the cause of this anger, sin, was so upon him, as that, though in one consideration, the rain was upon all the world, and only this fleece of Gideon dry, all the world surrounded with sin, and only He innocent, yet in another line we find all the world dry, and only Gideon's fleece wet, all the world innoce • , and only Christ guilty. But, as there is a Vere tulit, and a Vere portavit, surely he bore those griefs, and surely he carried those sorrows, so they were Vere nostri, surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, he was wounded for our transgressio •• and bruised for our iniquitles; The Chastisement of our peace was upon him; 〈◊〉 • efore it must necessarily follow, (as it does follow there) with his stripes we 〈◊〉 ; for, God will not exact a debt twice; of Christ for me, and of me too. 〈◊〉 therefore, Quare moriemini Domus Israel? since I have made ye of the household • of Israel, why will ye die? since ye are recovered of your former sicknesses, why will die of a new disease, of a suspicion, or jealousy, that this recovery, this redemption in Christ Jesus belongs not to you? Will ye say, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands, Dei viventis, of the living God? 'It is so; a fearful thing; But if De • s mortuus, the God of life be but dead for me, be fallen into my hands, applied to me, made mine, it is no fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Non sat is est medicum fecisse suum officium, nisi agrotus, & adstantes sua; It is not enough for Christ Jesus to have prepared you the balm of his blood, not enough for us, to minister it to you, except everyone of you help himself, in a faithful application, and help one another, in a holy and exemplar conversation. Quàm exacte, & accurate usus dictionibus? How exact and curious was the holy Ghost, in David, in choice of words? he does not say, Non sanitas mihi, sed non in car ne; not that there is no health for me, but none in me; non in carne mea, not in my flesh, but in carne ejus, in the flesh and blood of my Savior, there is health, and salvation. In ossibus ejus, in his bones, in the strength of his merits, there is rest, and peace, à facie peccati, what face soever my sin have had, in my former presumptions, or what face soever they put on now, in my declination to desperation. The Lord wait • th that he may have mercy upon you; He stays your leisure; and therefore will he be exalted, (says that Prophet there) that he may have mercy upon you; He hath chosen that for his way of honor, of exaltation, that he may have mercy upon you. And then, Quare moriemini? If God be so respective towards you, as to wait for you, if God be so a • bitions of you, as to affect a kingdom in you, why will ye die? since he will not let ye die of Covetousness, of adultery, of ambition, of profaneness in yourselves, why will ye die of jealousy, of suspicion in him? It was a merciful voice of David; Is there yet any man left of the house of Saul, that I may show mercy for Jonathan's sake? It is the voice of God to you all, Is there yet any man of the house of Adam, that I may show mercy for Christ Jesus sake? that takes Christ Jesus in his arms, and interposes him, between his sins, and mine indignation, and non morietur, that man shall not die. We have done; Est ars • anandorum morborum medicina, non rhetorica; Our physic is not eloquence, not directed upon your affections, but upon your conscien • os; To thus we present this for physic, The whole need not a Physician, but the sick do. If you mistake yourselves to be well, or think you have physic enough at home, knowledge enough, divinity enough, to save you without us, you need no Physician; that is, a Physician can do you no good; but then is this God's physic, and God's Physician welcome unto you, if you be come to a remorsefull sense, and to an humble, and penitent acknowledgement, that you are sick, and that there is no so • ndnesse in your flesh, because of his anger, nor any rest in your bones, because of your sins, till you turn upon him, in whom this anger is appeased, and in whom these sins are forgiven, the Son of his love, the Son of his right hand, at his right hand Christ Jesus. And to this glorious Son of God, &c.

SERMON XXI.

Preached at Lincolns Inn.

D Avid having in the former verses of this Psalm assigned a reason, why he was bound to pray, because he was in misery, (O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger, for thine arrows stick fast in me) And a reason why he should be in misery, because God was angry, (Thy hand presseth 〈◊〉 v. 2. And, there is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, 〈◊〉 And a reason, why God should be angry, because he had finn'd, (There is no 〈◊〉 my bones, because of my sin, in the same verse) He proceeds to a reason, why this prayer of his must be vehement, why these miseries of his are so violent, and why God's anger is permanent, and he finds all this to be, because in his sins, all these venomous qualities, vehemence, violence, and continuance, were complicated, and enwrapp'd; for, he had sin'd vehemently, in the rage of lust, and violently, in the effusion of blood, and permanently in a long, and senseless security. They are all contracted in this Text, into two kinds, which will be our two parts, in handling these words; first, the supergressa super, Mine iniquities are gone over my head, there's the multiplicity, the number, the succession, and so the continuation of his sin: and then, the Gravatae super, My sins are as a heavy burden, too heavy for me, there's the greatness, the weight, the insupportablenesse of his sin. S. Augustine calls these two distinctions, or considerations of sin, Ignorantiam, & Difficultatem; first, that David was ignorant, that he saw not the Tide, as it swelled up upon him, Abyssus Abyssum, Depth called upon Depth; and, all thy wat • rs, and all thy billows are gone ever me, (says he in another place) he perceived them not coming till they were over him, he discerned not his particular sins, then when he committed them, till they came to the supergressae super, to that height, that he was overflowed, surrounded, his iniquities were gone over his head, and in that S. Aug. notes Ignoranti • m, his in-observance, his inconsideration of his own case; and then he notes Difficultatem, the hardness of recovering, because he that is under water, hath no air to see by, no air to hear by, he hath nothing to reach to, he touches not ground, to push him up, he feels no bough to pull him up, and therein that Father notes Difficultatem, the hardness of recovering. Now Moses expresses these two miseries together, in the destruction of the Egyptians, in his song, after Israel's deliverance, and the Egyptians submersion, The Depths have covered them, (there's the supergressa super, their iniquities, in that punishment of their iniquities, were gone over their heads) And then, They sank into the bottom as a stone (says Moses) there's the gravata super, they depressed them, suppressed them, oppressed them, they were under them, and there they must lie.

The Egyptians had, David had, we have too many sins, to swim above water, and too great sins to get above water again, when we are sunk; The number of sins then, and the greatness of sin, will be our two parts; the dangers are equal, to multiply many lesser sins, or to commit a few, more heinous: except the danger be greater, (as indeed it may justly seem to be) in the multiplication, and custom, and habit of lesser sins; but how great is the danger then, how desperate is our state, when our sins are great in themselves, and multiplied too?

In his many sins, we shall touch thus many circumstances: First, they were pecca • a, sins, iniquities; and then peccata sua, his sins, his iniquities, which intimates actual sins; for though God inflict miseries for original sin, (death, and that, that induces it, sickn • sse, and the like) yet those are miseries common to all, because the sin is so too; But these, are his punishments, personal calamities, and the sins are his own sins; And then, (which is a third circumstance) they are sins in the plural, God is not thus angry for one sin; And again, they are such sins, as have been long in going, and are now got over, supergressae sunt, they are gone, gone over; And then lastly, for that first part, supergressae Caput, they are gone my head. In which exaltation, is intimated all this; first, sicut tectum, sicut fornix, they are over his head, as a roof, as a cieling, as an Arch, they have made a wall of separation, betwixt God and us, so they are above our head; And then sicut clamor, they are ascended as a noise, they are got up to heaven, and cry to God for vengeance, so they are above our head; And again sicut aquae, they are risen and swollen as waters, they compass us, they smother us, they blind us, they stupefie us, so they are above our head; But lastly and principally, sicut Dominus, they are got above us, as a Tyran, and an usurper, for so they are above our head too: And in these we shall determine our first part. When from thence we come to our second part, in which, (as in this we shall have done their number ) we shall consider their greatness, we find them first heavy sin is no light matter; And then, they are too heavy, a little weight would but ballast us, this sinks us; Too heavy for me, even for a man equal to David; and where is he? when is that man? for, says our text, they are as heavy, Burden; And the nature, and incovenience of a Burden is, first to Crooken, and bend us downward from our natural posture, which is erect, for this incurvation implies a declination in the inordinate love of the Creature, Incurvat. And then the nature of a burden is, to Tyre us; our very sin becomes fulsome, and wearisome to us, fatigat; and it hath this inconvenience too, ut retardet, it slackens our pace, in our right course though we be not tried, yet we cannot go so fast, as we should in any way towards godliness; and lastly, this is the inconvenience of a burden too, ut praecipitet, it makes us still apt and ready to stumble, and to fall under it: It crookens us, it deprives us of our rectitude; it tires us, extinguishes our alacrity; It slackens us, enfeebles and intepidates our zeal; It occasions our stumbling, opens and submits us, to every emergent temptation. And these be the dangers, and the mischievous inconveniences, notified to us, in those two Elegancies of the holy Ghost, the supergressae, the multiplicity of sins, They are gone over my head, and the gravatae, They are a heavy burden, too heavy for me.

First then, all these things are literally spoken of David; By application, of us; and by figure, of Christ. Historically, David; morally, we; Typically, Christ is the subject of this text. In David's person, we shall insist no longer upon them, but only to look upon the two general parts, the multiplicity of his sin, and the weight and greatness thereof: And that only in the matter of Uriah, as the Holy Ghost, (without reproaching the adultery or the murder, after David's repentance) vouchsafes to mollify his manifold, and his heinous sin. First, he did wrong to a loyal and a faithful servant; and who can hope to be well served, that does so? He corrupted that woman, who for ought appearing to the contrary, had otherwise preserved her honor, and her Conscience entire; It is a sin, To run with a thief when thou seest him, or to have thy p • rtion with them that are adulterers already; to accompany them in their sin, who have an inclination to that sin before, is a sin; but to solicit them, who have no such inclination, nor, but for thy solicitation, would have had, is much more inexcusable. In David's sin, there was thus much more, he defrauded some, to whom his love was due, in dividing himself with a strange woman. To steal from another man, though it be to give to the poor, and to such poor, as would otherwise starve, if that had not been stolen, is injustice, is a sin. To divide that heart, which is entirely given to a wife, in marriage, with another woman, is a sin, though she, to whom it is so given, pretend, or might truly suffer much torment and anguish if it were not done. David's sin flew up to a higher sphere; He drew the enemy to blaspheme the name of God, in the victory over Israel, where Uriah was slain: God hates nothing more in great persons, then that prevarication, to pretend to assist his cause, and promove his Religion, and yet underhand give the enemies of that Religion, way to grow greater. His sins, indeed, were too many to be numbered; too great too, to be weighed in comparison with others. Uriah was innocent towards him, and faithful in his employment, and, at that time, in an actual, and in a dangerous service, for his person, for the State, for the Church. Him David betrays in his letter to Joab; Him David makes the instrument of his own death, by carrying those letters, the warrants of his own execution; And he makes Joab, a man of honor, his instrument for a murder to cover an adultery. Thus many sins, and these heavy degrees of sin, were in this one; and how many, and how weighty, were in that, of numbering of his people, we know not. We know, that Satan provoked him to do it; and we know, that Joab, who seconded and accomplished his desire in the murder of Uriah, did yet dissuade, and dis-counsel this numbering of the people, and not out of reason of State, but as an express sin. Put all together, and less then all, we are sure David belied not himself, His iniquities were gone over his head, and as a heavy burden, they were too heavy for him; Though this will be a good rule, for the most part, in all David's confessions and lamentations, that though that be always literally true of himself, for the sin, or for the punishment, which he says, personally David did suffer, that which he complains of in the Psalms, in a great measure, yet David speaks prophetically, as well as personally, and to us, who exceed him in his sins, the exaltation of those miseries, which we find so often in this book, are especially intended; That which David relates to have been his own case, he foresees will be ours too, in a higher degree. And that's our second, and our principal object of all those circumstances, in the multiplicity, and in the heinousness of sin; And therefore, to that second part, these considerations in ourselves, we make thus much hast.

First then, they were peccata, sins, iniquities. And we must not think to ease our selves in that subtlety of the School, Peccatum nihil; That sin is nothing, because sin 〈1 page〉

We are not all David's, amabiles, lovely and beloved in that measure that David was, men according to God's heart: But we are all Adams, terrestres, and lutosi, earth, and dirty earth, red, and bloody earth, and therefore in ourselves, as derived from him, let us find, and lament all these numbers, and all these weights of sin. Here we are all born to a patrimony, to an inheritance; an inheritance, a patrimony of sin; and we are all good husbands, and thrive too fast upon that stock, upon the increase of sin, even to the treasuring up of sin, and the wrath of God for sin. How naked soever we came out of our mothers womb, otherwise, thus we came all apparel'd, apparel'd and invested in sin; And we multiply this wardrobe, with new habits, habits of customary sins, every day. Every man hath an answer to that question of the Apostle, What hast thou, that thou hast not received from God? Every man must say, I have pride in my heart, wantonness in mine eyes, oppression in my hands; and that I never received from God. Our sins are our own; and we have a covetousness of more; a way, to make other men's sins ours too, by drawing them to a fellowship in our sins. I must be beholden to the loyalty and honesty of my wife, whether my children be mine own, or no; for, he whose eye waiteth for the evening, the adulterer, may rob me of that propriety. I must be beholden to the protection of the Law, whether my goods shall be mine, or no; A potent adversary, a corrupt Judge may rob me of that propriety. I must be beholden to my Physician, whether my health, and strength shall be mine, or no; A garment negligently left off, a disorderly meal may rob me of that propri • ty. But without asking any man leave, my sins will be mine own. When the presumptuous men say, Our lips are our own, and our tongues are our own, the Lord threatens to cut off those lips, and those tongues. But except we do come to say, Our sins are our own, God will never cut up that root in us, God will never blot out the memory in himself, of those sins. Nothing can make them none of ours, but the avowing of them, the confessing of them to be ours. Only in this way, I am a holy liar, and in this the God of truth will reward my lie; for, if I say my sins are mine own, they are none of mine, but, by that confessing and appropriating of those sins to myself, they are made the sins of him, who hath suffered enough for all, my blessed Lord, and Savior Christ Ies • s. Therefore that servant of God, S. August. confesses those sins, which he never did, to be his sins, and to have been forgiven him: Peccata mihi dimissa a fate • r & quae med sponte feci, & quae te duce non feci; Those sins which I have done, and those, which, but for thy grace, I should have done, are all, my sins. Alas, I may die here, and die under an everlasting condemnation of fornication with that woman, that lives, and dies a Virgin, and be damned for a murderer of that man, that out-lives me, and for a robbery, and oppression, where no man is damnified, nor any penny lost. The sin that I have done, the sin that I would have done, is my sin. We must not therefore transfer our sins upon any other. We must not think to discharge ourselves upon a Peccata Patris; To come to say, My father thriv'd well in this course, why should not I proceed in it? My father was of this Religion, why should not I continue in it? How often is it said in the Scriptures, of evil Kings, he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in via Patris, in the way of his father? father in the singular; It is never said plurally, In via Patrum; in the way of his fathers. God's blessings in this world, are expressed so, in the plural, thou gavest this land patribus, to their fathers, says Solomon, in the dedication of the Temple; And, thou broughtest Patres, our Fathers out of Egypt; And again, Be with us, Lord, as thou wast with our Fathers; So; in Ezekiel, where your Fathers dwelt, you, their children, shall dwell too, and your children, and their children's children forever. His blessings upon his Saints, his holy ones in this world, are expressed so, plurally, and so is the transmigration of his Saints out of this world also; Thou shalt sleep cum patribus, with thy fathers, says God to Moses; And David slept cum patribus, with his fathers; And Jacob had that care of himself, as of that in which consisted, or in which, was testified the blessing of God, I will lie cum patribus, with my fathers, and be buried in their burying place, says Jacob to his son Joseph Good ways, and good ends are in the plural, and have many examples; else they are not good, but sins are in the singular, He walked in the way of his father, is in an ill way: But carry our manners, or carry our Religion high enough, and we shall find a good rule in our fathers: Stand in the way, says God in Jeremiah, and ask for the old way, which is the good way. We must put off veterem hominem, but not antiq •• m; We may put off that Religion, which we think old, because it is a little elder then ourselves, and not rely upon that, it was the Religion of my Father. But Antiquissimum die • um, Him, whose name is, He that is, and was, and is forever, and so involves, and enwraps in himself all the Fathers, him we must put on. Be that our issue with our adversaries at Rome, By the Fathers, the Fathers in the plural, when those fathers unanimely deliver anything dogmatically, for matter of faith, we are content to be tried by the Fathers, the Fathers in that plural. But by that 〈◊〉 Father, who begers his children, not upon the true mother, the Church, but upon the Court, and so produces articles of faith, according as State businesses, and civil occasions invite him, by that father we must refuse to be tried: for, to limit it in particular, to my father, we must say with Nehemiah, Ege & domus patris mei, If I make my fathers house my Church, my father my Bishop, I, and my fathers house have sinned, says he; and with Mordecai to Esther, Thou, and thy fathers house shall be destroyed.

They are not 〈◊〉 a patris, I cannot excuse my sins, upon the example of my father: nor are they 〈◊〉 Temp • ris, I cannot discharge my sins upon the Times, and upon the present ill disposition that reigns in men now, and do ill, because everybody else does so. To say, there is a rot, and therefore the sheep must perish, Corruptions in Religion are crept in, and work in every cornet, and therefore God's sheep, simple souls, must be content to admit the infection of this rot. That there is a murrain, and therefore cattle must die, superstition practice'd in many places and therefore the strong servants of God, must come to sacrifice their obedience to it, or their blood for it. Then no such rot, no such murrain, no such corruption of times, as can lay a necessity, or can afford in excuse so them who are corrupted with the times. As it is not pax temporis, such a State-peace, us takes away honor, that secures a Nation, nor such a Church-peace, as takes away ze • l, that secures a conscience, so neither is it peccatum temporis, an observation what other men incline to, but what truth, what integrity thou declin'st from, that appertains to thy consideration.

It is not peccatum •• atis; not the sin of thy father, not the sin of the times, not the sin of thine own years. That thou shouldest say in thy old age, in excuse of thy Covet •• snesse, All these things have I observed from my youth, I have lived temperately, continently all my life, and therefore may be allowed one sin for mine case in mine age. Or, that thou shouldest say in thy youth, I will re • re myself in mine age, and live contentedly with a little then, but now, how vain were it to go about to keep out a tide, or to quench the heats, and imperuous violence of youth? But • uge • venilis defideria 〈◊〉 also youthful lusts; And left God hear not thee at last, when thou comost with that petition, Remember not the sins of my youth, Remember thou thy Creator, now in the days of thy youth: for, if thou think it enough to say, I have but lived as other men have lived, wantonly, thou wilt find some examples to die by too, and die, as other old men, old in years, and old in sins, have died too, negligently, or fearfully; without any sense at all, or all their sense turned into fearful apprehensions, and desperation.

They are not peccata et atis, such sins, as men of that age must needs commit, nor pec •• ar • tis, such sins as men of thy calling, or thy profession, cannot avoid; that thou shouldest say, I shall not be believed to understand my profession, as well as other men, if I live not by it, as well as other men do. Is there no being a Carp • nter, but that after he hath warmed him by the chips, and baked, and roasted by it, he must needs make an idol of his wood, & worship it? Is there no being a Silver-smith, but he must needs make shrines for Dia • a of the Ephesians, as Demetrius did? No being a Lawyer, without serving the passion of the Client? no being a Divine, without sowing pillows under great men's elbows? It is not the sin of thy Calling that oppresses thee; As a man may commit a massacre, in a single murder and kill many in one man, if he kill one, upon whom many depended, so is that man a general libeller, that defames a lawful Calling, by his abusing thereof; that lives so scandalously in the Ministry, as to defame the Ministry itself, or so imperiously in the Magistracy, as to defame the Magistracy itself, as though it were but an engine, and instrument of oppression, or so unjustly in any Calling, as his abuse dishno • rs the Calling itself. God hath institured Calling, for the conservation of order in general, not for the justification of disorders in any particular. For he that justifies his faults by his calling, hath not yet received that calling from above, whereby he must be justified, and sanctified in the way, and glorified in the end. There is no lawful calling, in which, a man may not be an honest man.

It is not peccatum Magistratus, thou canst not excuse thyself upon the unjust command of thy superior; that's the blind and implicit obedience practiced in the Church of Rome; Nor peccatum Pastoris, the ill example of thy Pastor, whose life counter-preaches his doctrine, for, that shall aggravate his, but not excuse thy sin; Nor Peccata Coeli, the influence of Stars, concluding a fatality, amongst the Gentiles, or such a working of a necessary, and inevitable, and unconditioned Decree of God, as may shut up the ways of a Religious walking in this life, or a happy resting in the life to come; It is none of these, not the sin of thy Father, not the sin of the present times, not the sin of thy years, and age, nor of thy calling, nor of the Magistrate, nor of thy Pastor, nor of Destiny, nor of decrees, but it is peccatum tuum, thy sin, thy own sin. And not only thy sin so, as Adams sin is communicated to thee, by propagation of Original sin; for, so thou mightest have some color to discharge thyself upon him, as he did upon Eve, and Eve upon the Serpent; Though in truth it make no difference, in this spiritual debt, of that sin, who is first in the bond: Adam may stand first, but yet thou art no surety but a Principal, and for thyself; and he, and thou are equally subject to the penalty. For though Saint Augustine confess, that there are many things concerning Original sin, of which he is utterly ignorant, yet of this he would have no man ignorant, that to the guiltiness of original sin, our own wills concur as well as to any actual sin: An involuntary act, cannot be a sinful act; and though our will work not now, in the admitting of original sin, which enters with our soul in our conception, or in our inanimation and quickening, yet, at first, Sicut ominium natura, ita omnium voluntates erant in Adam, as every man was in Adam, so every faculty of every man, and consequently the will of every man concurred to that sin, which therefore lies upon every man now: So that that debt, Original sin, is as much thine as his; And for the other debts, which grow out of this debt, (as nothing is so generative, so multiplying, as debts are, especially spiritual debts, sins) for actual sins, they are thine, out of thine own choice; Thou mightest have left them undone, and wouldest needs do them; for God never induces any man into a perplexity, that is, into a necessity of doing any particular sin. Thou couldest have dissuaded a Son, or a friend, or a servant, from that sin, which thou hast embraced thyself: Thou hast been so far from having been forced to those sins, which thou hast done, as that thou hast been sorry, thou couldest not do them, in a greater measure. They are thine, thine own, so, as that thou canst not discharge thyself upon the Devil; but art, by the habit of sin, become Spontaneus Damon, a Devil to thyself, and wouldest minister temptations to thyself, though there were no other Devil. And this is our