Fifty Sermons

SERMON XXX.

Preached to the Countess of Bedford, then at Harrington house. January 7. 1620.

T He name, by which God notified himself, to all the world, at first, was, Qui sum, I am; this was his style, in the Commission, that he gave to Moses to Pharaoh; say, that he whose name is, I am, hath sent thee, forthere, God would have it made known, that all Essence, all Being, all things, that fall out, in any time, past, or present, or future, had their dependece upon him, their derivation from him, their subsistence in him. But then, when God contracts himself into a narrower consideration, not to be considered as God, which implies the whole Trinity, but as Christ, which is only the second Person, and when he does not so much notify himself to the whole world, as to the Christian Church, then he contracts his name too, from that spacious and extensive Qui sum, I am, which includes all time, to Alpha and Omega, first and last, which are pieces of time, as we see, in several places of the Revelation, he styles himself: when God speaks to the whole world, his name is, Qui sum, I am, that all the world may confess, that all that is, is nothing, but with relation to him; when he speaks to a Christian, his name is Alpha and Omega, first and last, that a Christian may, in the very name of God, fixe his thoughts upon his beginning, and upon his end, and ever remember, that as a few years since, in his Cradle, he had no sense of that honor, those riches, those pleasures, which possesses his time now, so, God knows how few days hence, in his grave, he shall have no sense, no memory of them. Our whole life is but a parenthesis, our receiving of our soul, and delivering it back again, makes up the perfect sentence; Christ is Alpha and Omega, and our Alpha and Omega is all we are to consider.

Now, for all the letters in this Alphabet of our life, that is, for all the various accidents in the course thereof, we cannot study a better book, then the person of Job. His first letter, his Alpha, we know not, we know not his Birth; His last letter, his Omega, we know not, we know not his Death: But all his other letters, His Children, and his riches, we read over and over again, How he had them, how he lost them, and how he recovered them. By which though it appear that those temporal things do also belong to the care and provision of a godly man, yet it appears too, that neither his first care, nor his last care appertains to the things of this world, but that there is a Primùm quaerite, something to be sought for before, The kingdom of God; And there is a Memorare novissima, something to be thought on after, The Ioyes of heaven; And then, Catera adjicientur, says Christ, All other cares are allowable by way of Accessary, but not as principal. And therefore, though this History of Job, may seem to spend it self, upon the relation of Job's temporal passages, of his wealth, and poverty, of his sickness, and recovery, yet, if we consider the Alpha and Omega of the book it self, the first beginning, and the later end thereof, we shall see in both places, a care of the Holy ghost, to show us first Job's righteousness, and then his riches, first his Goodness, and then his Goods; in both places, there is a Catechism, a Confession of his faith before, and then an Inventory, and Catalogue of his wealth; for, in the first place, it is said, He was an upright and just man, and feared God, and eschewed evil, and then, his Children, and his substance follow; And in the last place, it is said, That Job was accepted by God, and that he prayed for those friends, which had vext him, and then it is, that his former substance was doubled unto him.

This world then is but an Occasionall world, a world only to be used; and that but so, as though we used it not: The next world is the world to be enjoyed, and that so, as that we may joy in nothing by the way, but as it directs and conduces to that end; Nay, though we have no Joy at all, though God deny us all conveniencies here, Etiamsi occiderit, though he end a weary life, with a painful death, as there is no other hope, but in him, so there needs no other, for that alone is both abundant, and infallible in it self.

Now, as no History is more various, then Job's fortune, so is no phrase, no style, more ambiguous, then that in which Job's history is written; very many words so expressed, very many phrases so conceived, as that they admit a diverse, a contrary sense; for such an ambiguity in a single word, there is an example in the beginning, in Job's wife; we know not (from the word it self) whether it be Benedicas, or maledicas, whether she said Bless God, and die or Curse God: And for such an ambiguity, in an entire sentence, the words of this text are a pregnant, and evident example, for they may be directly, and properly thus rendered out of the Hebrew, Behold he will kill me, I will not hope; and this seems to differ much from our reading, Behold, though he kill me, yet will I trust in him. And therefore to make up that sense, which our translation hath, (which is truly the true sense of the place) we must first make this paraphrase, Behold he will kill me, I make account he will kill me, I look not for life at his hands, his will be done upon me for that; And then, the rest of the sentence (I will not hope) (as we read it in the Hebrew,) must be supplied, or rectified rather, with an Interrogation, which that language wants, and the translators use to add it, where they see the sense require it: And so reading it with an Interrogation, the Original, and our translation will constitute one and the same thing; It will be all one sense to say, with the Original, Behold he will kill me, (that is, let him kill me) yet shall not I hope in him? and to say with our translation, Behold though he kill me, yet will I hope in him: And this sense of the words, both the Chaldee paraphrase, and all translations ( excepting only the Septuagint ) do unanimously establish.

So then, the sense of the words being thus fixed, we shall not distract your understandings, or load your memories, with more then two parts: Those, for your ease, and to make the better impression, we will call propositum, and praepositum; first, the purpose, the resolution of a godly man, which is, to rely upon God; and then the consideration, the inducement, the debatement of this beforehand, That no Danger can present it self, which he had not thought of before, He hath carried his thoughts to the last period, he hath stirred the potion to the last scruple of Rheuharb, and Wormewod, which is in it, he hath digested the worst, he hath considered Death it self, and therefore his resolution stands unshak'd, Etiamsi occiderit, Though he dy for it, yet he will trust in God.

In the first then, The Resolution, the purpose it self, we shall consider, Quem, and Quid; The Person, and the Affection: To whom Job will bear so great, and so reverent a respect; and then, what this respect is, I will trust in him. I would not stay you, upon the first branch, upon the person, as upon a particular consideration (though even that, The person upon whom, in all cases, we are to rely, be entertainment sufficient for the meditation of our whole life) but that there arises an useful observation, out of that name, by which Job delivers that person, to us, in this place: Job says, though He kill me, yet he will trust in him; but he tells us not in this verse, who this He is. And though we know, by the frame, and context, that this is God, yet we must have recourse to the third verse, to see, in what apprehension, and what notion, in what Character, and what Contemplation, in what name, and what nature, what Attribute, and what Capacity, Job conceived and proposed God to himself, when he fixed his resolution so entirely to rely upon him; for, as God is a jealous God, I am sure I have given him occasion of jealousy, and suspicion, I have multiplied my fornications, and yet am not satisfied, as the prophet speaks: As God is a Consuming fire, I have made myself fuel for the fire, and I have brought the fires of lust, and of ambition, to kindle that fire: As God visits the sins of fathers upon Children, I know not what sins my fathers and grandfathers have laid up in the treasure of God's indignation: As God comes to my notion, in these forms, Horrendum, it were a fearful thing to flesh and blood, to deliver ones self over to him, as he is a jealous God, and a Consuming fire; But in that third verse, Job sets before him, that God, whom he conceives to be Shaddai, that is, Omnipotens, Almighty; I will speak to the Almighty, and I desire to dispute with God. Now, if we propose God to ourselves, in that name, as he is Shaddai, we shall find that word in so many significations in the scriptures, as that no misery or calamity, no prosperity or happiness can fall upon us, but we shall still see it (of what kind so ever it be) descend from God, in this acceptation, as God is Shaddai. For, first, this word signifies Dishoner, as the Septuagint translate it in the Proverbs, He that Dishonoreth his parents, is a shameless child; There's this word; Shaddai is the name of God, and yet Shaddai signifies Dishonor. In the prophet Isaiah it signifies Depredation, a forcible and violent taking away of our goods; vae praedanti, says God in that place, woe to thee that spoyledst, and wast not spoiled; Shaddai is the name of God, and yet Shaddai is spoil, and violence and depredation. In the prophet Jeremiah, the word is carried farther, there it signifies Destruction, and an utter D • vastation; D • vastati sumus, says he, we unto us, for we are Destroy'd; The word is Shaddai, and is Destruction, though Shaddai be the name of God: yea, the word reaches to a more spiritual affection, it extends to the understanding, and error in that, and to the Conscience, and sin in that; for so the Septuagint makes use of this word in the Proverbs, To deceive, and to lie; and in one place of the Psalms, they interpret the word, of the Devil himself. So that, (recollecting all these heavy significations of the word) Dishonor and Disreputation, force and Depredation, Ruin and Devastation, Error and Illusion, the Devil and his Tentations, are presented to us, in the same word, as the name and power of God is, that, when so ever any of these do fall upon us, in the same instant when we see and consider the name and quality of this calamity that falls, we may see and consider the power and the purpose of God which inflicts that Calamity; I cannot call the calamity by a name, but in that name, I name God; I cannot feel an affliction, but in that very affliction I feel the hand (and, if I will, the medicinal hand) of my God. If therefore our Honor and Reputation decay, all honor was a beam of him, and if he have sucked that beam into himself, let us follow it home, let us labor to be honorable in him, glorified in him, and our honor is not extinguished in this world, but grown too glorious for this world to comprehend. If spoil and Depredation come upon us, that we be covered with wrath, and persecuted, slain and not spared, That those that fed delicately perish in the streets, and they that were brought up in scarlet embrace the Dunghill, and that the hands of pitiful women have sodden their own children, as the prophet complains in the Lamentations; if there be such an irreparable Devastation upon us, as that we be broken as an Earthern vessel, in the breaking whereof there remains not a sheard to fetch fire from the hearth, nor water from the pit, That our estate be ruined so, as that there is nothing left, not only for future posterity, but not for the present family, yet still God and the calamity are together; God does not send it, but bring it, he is there as soon as the calamity is there, and calling that calamity by his own name, Shaddai, he would make that very calamity a candle to thee, by which thou mightest see him; that, if thou wert not so puffed up before, as that thou forgotst to say, Dominus dedit, It was the Lord that gave all, thou shouldst not be so dejected, so rebellious now, as not to say Dominus tulit, It is the Lord that hath taken, and committed to some better steward, those treasures of his, which he saw, thou dost employ to thine own danger.

Yea, if those spiritual afflictions, which reach to the understanding, and are intimated and involved in this word, in this name of God, do fall upon us, That we call for our lovers, and they deceive us (as we told you, the word did signify deceit ) that is, we come to see how much we mistook the matter, when we fell in love with worldly things, (as certainly, once in our lives, though it be but upon our Death beds, we do come to discover that deceit ) yea, when the deceit is so spiritual, as that it reaches not only to the understanding, but to the Conscience, that that have been deceived either with security at one time, or with anxieties, and unnecessary scruples, and impertinent perplexities at another; if this spiritual deceit have gone so high, as that we came to think our selves to be amongst them, of whom the prophet says, Ah Lord God, surely thou hast deceived thy people, and Jerusalem, that we come to suspect, that God hath misled us in a false religion all this while, and that there is a better then this, if we would look to it; if God to punish our negligence, and surfeit of his word, should suffer the prophet to prophecy lies, That the prophet should be a fool, and the spiritual man mad, (that is, as Saint Jerome reads that place, Arreptitius, possessed, possessed with the spirit of ambition, and flattery, and temporizing, to preach to their appetites, who govern the times, and not to his instructions, who sent them to preach) yea, where this word is carried the highest of all, that this word, which is the name of God, is used for the Devil, (as we noted before, out of the Psalms) That Satan was let loose, and polluted the kingdom, and the princes thereof, with false worships, yet to what height to ever, this violence, or this deceit, or this temptation should come, God comes with it; and, with God, there is strength and wisdom, He discerns our Distresses, and is able to succor us in them; And, (as it is added there) He that is deceived, and he that deceives are his; The deceiver is his, because he catcheth the crafty in their own nets, and the deceived are his, that he may rectify and unbeguile them. So then the children of God, are the Marble, and the Ivory, upon which he works; In them his purpose is, to re-engrave, and restore his Image; and affliction, and the malignity of man, and the deceits of Heretics, and the temptations of the Devil him self, are but his instruments, his tools, to make his Image more discernible, and more dnrable in us. Job will speak to God, he will dispute with God, he will trust in God, therefore, because he is Shaddai, because neither dishonor, nor Devastation, of fortune, or understanding, or Conscience, by deceit of treacherous friends, by backsliding of false teachers, by illusion of the Devil himself, can be presented him, but the name and power of God accompanies that calamity, and he sees that they came from God, and therefore he should be patient in them, and how impatient so ever he be, he sees he must bear them, because they came from him.

But Job hath another hold too, another assurance, for his Confidence in God, from this name Shaddai; It is not only because all Calamity comes from him, and therefore should be borne, or therefore must be borne; but all Restitution, all Reparation of temporal, or spiritual detriment, is included in that name too, for Shaddai is Omnipotens, Almighty, He can do all things; And the consolation is brought nearer then so, in one place, it is Omnia faciens, That, not only for the future he can, but for the present, he does study, and he does accomplish my good; even then, when his hand is upon me, in a calamity, his hand is under me, to raise me up again; as he that flings a ball to the ground, or to a wall, intends in that action, that that ball should return back, so even now, when God does throw me down, it is the way that he hath chosen to return me to himself. Since therefore this name Shaddai assured Job, that all which we call Good; and all which we call Evil, that is, prosperity, and adversity, proceed from God; that God (who in the signification of this name) is able to shatter, and scatter, to devastate and depopulate, not only our estate, but our Conscience, in an instant, with the horror of his Judgments; and then is able to bind up, and consolidate all this again, with his temporal, and spiritual Comforts, since he can destroy in an instant that Temple, which was so long in building, that is, overthrow that fortune, which employed the industry of man, the favor of princes, and the ruin and supplantations of other men, for many years, to the making thereof, and then can raise this ruined Temple, this overthrown man, in three days, or hours, or minutes, as it pleaseth him, to measure his own purposes since good and bad, peace and anguish, life and death proceed from him, who is Shaddai, the Almighty God, Job had good reasons, to trust in him, in that God, though he, that God, should kill him; which Emphaticall, and appliable significations of the name, hath occasioned me (though it be obvious and present to every apprehension, that God is the person, who in this text, is to be relied upon) to insist upon this, as a particular part of branch; And so we pass to that, which we proposed for a second branch, from the person, (God, and God in this notion, Shaddai, Almighty) to the respect, which he promises, Trust, Though he kill me, yet will I trust in him.

It is a higher degree of Reverence and Confidence, to trust in one, then to trust one. we see it so expressed in the Articles of our Creed; Credimus in Deum, we believe in God, and in Christ, and in the Holy Ghost; And then Credimus Ecclesiam Catholicam, we believe the Catholic Church. We will believe a honest man, that he will do as he says, we believe God much more, that he will perform his promises; we will trust God, that he will do as he says; But then, Job will trust in God, That though God have not spoken to his soul as yet, though he have not interested him in his promises, and in his Covenant, (for Job is not conceived to be within the Covenant made by God to his people) yet he will trust in him, that in his due time, he will visit him, and will apply him those mercies, and those means, which no man, that had interest in them, can doubt, or distrust. And therefore Job professes his trust in God, in that word, which hath in the use thereof in Scriptures, ordinarily three acceptations; The word is Iakal, and Iakal signifies Expectavit Deum, his eye, his expectation was upon nothing but God; And then it signifies speravit, he Hoped for him, As he looked for nothing else, so he doubted not of him; And then it is Moratus est, As he was sure of him, so he prescribed him not a time, but humbly attended his Ieasure, and received his temporal, or spiritual blessings thankfully, whensoever it should be his pleasure to afford them.

First then, Expectavit, He trusted in him, that is, he trusted in nothing but him. For, beloved, as we have in the Schools, a short and a round way, to prove that the world was made of nothing, which is, only to ask that man, who will need deny the world to be made of nothing, of what it was made; and, if he could find a preexistent matter, of which he thought the world was made, yet we must ask him again, of what, that preexistent matter was made, and so upwards still, till at last it must necessarily come to nothing: so we must ask that man, that will not be of Job's mind, to trust in God, in what he would trust; would he trust in his riches? who shall preserve them to him? The Law? Then he trusts in the Law. But who shall preserve the Law? The King? Then his trust is in him. And who shall preserve him? Almighty God; and therefore his trust must be at last in him. To what nation is their God come so near to them as the Lord our God is come near unto us? what nation hath laws, and ordinances, so righteous as we have? Moses said this historically of the Jew, and prophetically of us; It is true, we are governed by a peaceable, and a just law; Moses his prophecy is fulfilled upon us, and so is Esays too, Reges nutricii, Kings shall be thy nursing fathers; It is true to us, The law is preserved to us, by a just, and a peaceful prince; but how often have the sins of the people, and their unthankfulness especially, induced new laws, and new princes? The prince, and the law, are the two most reverend, and most safe things, that man can rely upon; but yet (in other nations at least) sacred, and secular story declares, that for the iniquity of the people the law hath been perverted by princes, and for the sin of the people, the prince hath been subverted by God. Howsoever there may be some collateral, and transitory trust in by things, the radical, the fundamental trust, is only in God.

Job trusted in him, that is, in nothing but him: but then, speravit, he hoped for something at his hands; none can give but God; but God will give to none that do not hope for it, and that do not express their hope, by asking, by prayer; God scatters not his blessings, as Princes do money, in Donatives at Coronations or Triumphes, without respect upon whom they shall fall. God rained down Manna and Quails, plentifully, abundantly; but he knew to what hand every bird, and every grain belonged. To trust in nothing else, is but half way; it is but a stupid neglecting of all; It is an ill affection to say, I look for nothing at the worlds hands, nor at God's neither. God only hath all, and God hath made us capable of all his gifts; and therefore we must neither hope for them, anywhere else, nor give over our hope of them, from him, by intermitting our prayers, or our industry in a lawful calling; for we are bound to suck at those breasts which God puts out to us, and to draw at those springs, which flow from him to us; and prayer, and industry, are these breasts, and these springs; and whatsoever we have by them, we have from him. Expectavit, Job trusted not in the means, as in the fountain, but yet speravit, he doubted not, but God, who is the fountain, would, by those means, derive his blessings, temporal and spiritual, upon him.

He Hoped; now Hope is only, or principally of invisible things, for Hope that is seen, is not hope, says the Apostle. And therefore, though we may hope for temporal things, for health, wealth, strength, and liberty, and victory where God's enemies oppress the Church, and for execution of laws, where God's enemies undermine the Church; (for, whatsoever we may pray for, we may hope for, and all those temporal blessings are prayed for, by Christ's appointment, in that petition, Give us this day our daily bread) yet our Hope is principally directed upon the invisible part, and invisible office of those visible and temporal things; which is, that by them, we may be the better able to perform religious duties to God, and duties of assistance to the world. When I expect a friend, I may go up to a window, and wish I might see a Coach; or up to a Cliffe, and wish I might see a ship, but it is because I hope, that that friend is in that Coach, or that ship: so I wish, and pray, and labor for temporal things • because I hope that my soul shall be edified, and my salvation established, and God glorified by my having them: And therefore every Christian hope being especially upon spiritual things, is properly, and purposely grounded, upon these stones; that it be spes veniae, a hope of pardon, for that which is past, and then spes gratiae, a hope of Grace, to establish me in that state with God, in which, his pardon hath placed me, and lastly spes gloriae, a hope that this pardon, and this grace, shall lead me to that everlasting glory, which shall admit no night, no eclipse, no cloud.

First, for the first object of this hope, pardon, we are to consider sin, in two aspects, two apprehensions; as sin is an injury, a treason; yea a wound to God; And then as sin is a Calamity, a misery fallen inevitably upon man. Consider it the first way, and there is no hope of pardon, Nectalem Deum tuum putes, qualis nec tu debes esse, is excellently said by Saint Augustine: never imagine any other quality to be in Christ, then such, as thou, as a Christian, art bound to have in thyself. And, if a Snake have stung me, must I take up that Snake, and put it into my bosom? If so poor a snake, so poor a worm as I, have stung my Maker, have crucified my Redeemer, shall he therefore, therefore take me into his bosom, into his wounds, and save me, and glorify me? No, if I look upon sin, in that line, in that angle, as it is a wound to God, I shall come to that of Cain, Major iniquitas, my sin is greater, then can be forgiven, and to that of Judas, Peccavi tradens, I have sinned in betraying the innocent blood, that is, in Crucifying him again, who was crucified for me, in betraying his righteous blood, as much, by my unworthy receiving, as Judas did, in an unjust delivering of it. But if I look upon sin, as sin is now, the misery and calamity of man, the greater the misery appears, the more hope of pardon I have; Abyssus Abyssum, as David speaks, One Depth calls upon another; Infinite sins call for infinite mercy; and where sin did abound, grace, and mercy shall much more. First David presents the greatness of his sins, and then follows the Miserere mei, have mercy upon me, according to the greatness of thy mercy. Is there any little mercy in God? Is not all his mercy infinite, that pardons a sin done against an infinite majesty? yes; but herein the greatness appears to us, that it delivers us from a great calamity. Quia infirmus, Because I am weak, (borne weak, and subject to continual infirmities) Quia oss a conturbata, Because my bones are troubled, (my best repentances, and resolutions are shaked) Quia vexata anima, because my soul is in anguish, when after such resolutions, and repentances; and vows, I relapse into those sins, these miseries of his, were David's inducements why God should pardon him, because it is thus with me, have mercy upon me. And so God himself seems to have had a diverse, a twofold apprehension of our sins, when he says, that because all the imaginations of the thoughts of man's heart, were only evil continually, therefore he would spare none, he would destroy all, and after he says, that because the imaginations of the thoughts of man's heart, were evil from his youth, he would no more smite all things living, as he had done; for sin, he would destroy them, and yet for sin, he would spare them: when we examine our sins, and find them to be out of infirmity, and not out of rebellion, we may conclude God's corrections, to be by way of Medicin, and not of poison, to be for our amendment, and not for our annihilation, and in that case, there is spes veniae, just hope of pardon.

Another degree of hope is, spes gratiae, hope of subsequent grace; for, as Saint Paul builds his argument, If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life: in like manner, every sinner may build his trust, and hope in God, He that hath pardoned us, the sins we have done, will much more assist us with his grace, that we may be able to stand in that state with him, to which he hath brought us. He that succoured us, when there was nothing in us, but his enemies, will much more send new supplies, when the town is held for him, and by his friends. And this hope of pardon, for that which is past, and of grace for the present, continues to the hope of glory to come: of which glory we apprehend strong and effectual beams here, by conforming ourselves, to that Gospel, which the Apostle calls the glorious Gospel of the blessed God; and for the consummation of this glory, we do with patience abide for it, says the Apostle: which is the last of those three senses, in which we noted, this word, in which Job expresses his trust in God, to be used in the Scriptures, Iakal, moratus est; he did trust in nothing else, did trust in him, and then, he stayed his leisure.

Jacob makes a solemn prayer to God, in Genesis, 32. O God of my Fathers, Abraham, and Isaac, then he remembers God of his promise, (Thou saydst unto me return, and I will do thee good) he tells him his danger, (I fear my brother Esau, will come and smite me) he makes his petition, (Deliver me from the hand of my brother) And yet, for all this, though he trusted in God, yet God infuses not that confidence into him, as to go on: He sent his present to his brother, but himself tarried there all night, says the text. Yea, God was so far, from giving him present means of deliverance, that he made him worse able to deliver himself, he wrestled with him, and lam'd him: but after all, in God's appointed time, he and his brother were reconciled. If thou pray to Almighty God, in temporal, in spiritual calamities, if God do not presently enlighten thine understanding in every controversy of Religion, in every scruple of Conscience, if he do not rectify thine estate, when it is decayed, thy reputation, when thou art reproached, yea if he wrestle with thee, and lame thee, that is, bring all to a greater impotency, and improbability of amendment then before, yet thou hast thy Rule from Job, thou hast thy example from Jacob, that to trust in God, is not only to trust in nothing else, nor only to hope particularly, for pardon, for grace, for glory from him, but it is to stay his leisure, for the outward, and inward seals of all his mercies, and his benefits, which he shall, in his time, bestow upon thee. The ambitious man must stay, till he, whose office he expects, be dead: the Covetous man must stay, till the six months be run, before his use come in. Though thou have a religious ambition, a holy covetousness even at God's graces, thou must stay his time. Os aperui, & attraxi, says David, I opened my mouth, and panted, because I loved thy Commandments; He loved them, and he longed for them, yet he had not presently a full satisfaction. Domine labia mea aperies, says he also first it must be the Lord that must open our lips, in all our petitions; It must not be the anguish of the calamity only, nor the desire of that which thou prayest for only, that must open thy lips, but the Lord, that is, the glory of God: when the Lord hath opened thy lips in a rectified prayer, then follows the Aperuit manus, the eyes of all things wait upon him, & he gives them their meat in due season; he opens his hand, & fills every living thing, at his good pleasure: Here's plentiful opening, and filling, and filling every thing, but still in due season, & that due season expressed, At his pleasure: for, as that is the Nature of everything, which God hath imprinted in it, so that is the season of every thing, which God hath appointed for it. Thou wouldest not pray for harvest at Christmas; seek not unseasonable comforts, out of Musique, or Comedies, or Conversation, or Wine in thy distresses, but seek it at the hand of God, and stay his leisure, for else thou doest not trust in him.

We have now passed over all those branches, which constituted our first part, that which we called Propositum, what is the purpose and resolution of a godly man, in Job: that he would not scatter his thoughts in trusting upon Creatures, and yet he would not suffer his thoughts to vanish and evaporate, he would rest them upon something, and not leave all to fortune, he would rest upon God, and yet stay his time for the execution of his gracious purposes. There remains yet, that which we called praepositum, in which we intended, the foundation, and ground of that purpose and resolution; which seems in Job, to have been, a debatement in himself, a contemplation of all dangers, the worst was death, and yet, Si occiderit, if I die for it, and die at his hands, Though he kill me, yes will I trust in him. For when the children of God take that resolution, to suffer any affliction, which God shall lay upon them, patiently, and cheerfully, it must not be a sudden, a rash, an undebated resolution, but they must consider why they undertake it, and in whose strength, they shall be able to do it: They must consider what they have done for God, before they promise themselves the glory of suffering for him. When they which enterprised the building of Babel, did no more but say to one another, Come let us make brick, go to, let us build a tower, whose top may reach to heaven, how quickly they were scattered over the earth? The way is, if you mind to build, to sit down and count the cost; if you purpose to suffer for Christ, to look to your stock, your strength, and from whence it comes. The King that intends a war, in that Gospel, takes counsel, whether he be able with his ten thousand to meet the enemy with twenty thousand. We are too weak for our enemy; the world, the flesh, and the Devil, are mustered against us; but yet, with our ten thousand, we may meet their twenty thousand, if we have put on Christ, and be armed with him, and his holy patience, and constancy; but from whom may we derive an assurance, that we shall have that armor, that patience, that constancy? First, a Christian must purpose to Do, and then in cases of necessity, to suffer: And give me leave to make this short note by the way, no man shall suffer like a Christian, that hath done nothing like a Christian: God shall thank no man, for dying for him, and his glory, that contributed nothing to his glory, in the actions of his life: very hardly shall that man be a Martyr in a persecution, that did not what he could, to keep off persecution.

Thus then Job comes first, to the Si occiderit; If he should kill me; If God's anger should proceed so far, as so far, it may proceed. Let no man say in a sickness, or in any temporal calamity, this is the worst; for a worse thing then that may fall: five and thirty years sickness may fall upon thee; and, (as it is in that Gospel) a worse thing then that; Distraction, and desperation may fall upon thee: let no Church, no State, in any distress say, this is the worst, for only God knows, what is the worst, that God can do to us. Job does not deny here, but that this Si occiderit, if it come to a matter of life, it were another manner of trial, then either the si irruerent Sabaei, if the Sabaeans should come, and drive his Cattle, and slay his servants; more, then the si ignis caderet; if the fire of God should fall from heaven, and devoute all; more, then the si ventus concuteret, if the wind of the wilderness, should shake down his house, and kill and all his children. The Devil in his malice saw, that if it came to matter of life, Job was like enough to be shaked in his faith; Skin for skin, and all that ever a man hath will he give for his life. God foresaw that, in his gracious providence too; and therefore he took that clause out of Satan's Commission, and inserted his veruntamen animam ejus servae, medle not with his life. The love of this life, which is natural to us, and imprinted by God in us, is not sinful: Few and evil have the days of my pilgrimage been, says lacob to Pharaeoh: though they had been evil, (which makes our days seem long) and though he were no young man, when he said so, yet the days which he had past, he thought few, and desired more. When Elijah was fled into the wilderness, and that in passion, and vehemence he said to God, Sufficit Domine, tolle animam meam, It is enough O Lord, now take away my life, if he had been heartily, thoroughly weary of his life, he needed not to have fled from Jezebel, for he fled but to save his life. The Apostle had a Cupie dissolvi, a desire to be dissolved; but yet a love to his brethren corrected that desire, and made him find that it was far better for him to live. Our Savior himself, when it came to the pinch, and to the agony, had a Transeat Calix, a natural declining of death. The natural love of our natural life is not ill: It is ill, in many cases, not to love this life: to expose it to unnecessary dangers, is always ill; and there are overtures to as great sins, in hating this life, as in loving it; and therefore Job's first consideration is, si occideret, if he should kill me, if I thought he would kill me, this were enough to put me from trusting in any.

But Job's consideration went farther, then to the si occideret, Though he should kill me, for it comes to an absolute assurance that God will kill him; for so it is in the Original, Ecce occidet, Behold, I see he will kill me; I have, I can have no hope of life, at his hands. It is all our cases; Adam might have lived, if he would, but I cannot. God hath placed an Ecce, a mark of my death, upon everything living, that I can set mine eye upon; everything is a remembrancer, everything is a Judge upon me, and pronounces, I must die. The whole frame of the world is mortal, Heaven and Earth pass away: and upon us all, there is an irrecoverable Decree past, statutum est, It is appointed to all men, that they shall once die. But when? quickly; If thou look up into the air, remember that thy life is but a wind; If thou see a cloud in the air, ask St. James his question, what is your life? and give St. James his answer, It is a vapor that appeareth and vanisheth away. If thou behold a Tree, then Job gives thee a comparison of thy self; A Tree is an emblem of thyself; nay a Tree is the original, thou art but the copy, thou art not so good as it: for, There is hope of a tree (as you read there) if the root wax old, if the stock be dead, if it be cut down, yet by the sent of the waters, it will bud, but man is sick, and dieth, and where is he? he shall not wake again, till heaven be no more. Look upon the water, and we are as that, and as that spilled upon the ground: Look to the earth, and we are not like that, but we are earth itself: At our Tables we feed upon the dead, and in the Temple we tread upon the dead: and when we meet in a Church, God hath made many echoes, many testimonies of our death, in the walls, and in the windows, and he only knows, whether he will not make another testimony of our mortality, of the youngest amongst us, before we part, and make the very place of our burial, our deathbed. Job's contemplation went so far; not only to a Si occideret, to a possibility that he might die, but to an Ecce occidet, to an assurance that he must die; I know there is an infalliblenesse in the Decree, an inevitablenesse in nature, an inexorableness in God, I must die. And the word bears a third interpretation beyond this; for si occiderit, is not only, if he should kill me, as he ma • , if he will, and it may be he will; nor only, that I am sure he will kill me, I know I must die, but the word may very well be also, though he have killed me. So that Job's resolution that he will trust in God, is grounded upon all these considerations, That there is exercise of our hope in God, before death, in the agony of death, and after death. First, in our good days, and in the time of health, Memorare novissima, says the wise man, we must remember our end, our death. But that we cannot forget, everything presents that to us; But his counsel there, is, in omnibus operibus, In all thine undertakings, in all thine actions, remember thine end; when thou art in any worldly work, for advancing thy state, remember thy natural death, but especially when thou art in a sinful work, for satisfying thy lusts, remember thy spiritual death: Be afraid of this death, and thou wilt never fear the other: Thou wilt rather sigh with David, My soul hath too long dwelt with him that hateth peace: Thou wilt be glad when a bodily death may deliver thee from all farther danger of a spiritual death: And thou wilt be ashamed of that imputation, which is laid upon worldly men, by St. Cyprian, Ad nostros navigamus, & ventos contrarios optamus, we pretend to be sailing homewards, and yet we desire to have the wind against us; we are travelling to the heavenly Jerusalem, and yet we are loath to come thither. Here then is the use of our hope before death, that this life shall be a gallery into a better room, and deliver us over to a better Country: for, if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most miserable.

Secondly, in the agony of death; when the Sessions are come, and that as a prisoner may look from that Tower, and see the Judge that must condemn him tomorrow, come in to night; so we lie upon our death-bed, and apprehend a present judgment to be given upon us, when, if we will not plead to the Indictment, if we will stand mute, and have nothing to say to God, we are condemned already, condemned in our silence; and if we do plead, we have no plea, but guilty; nothing to say, but to confess all the Indictment against ourselves; when the flesh is too weak, as that it can perform no office, and yet would fain stay here, when the soul is laden with more sins then she can bear, and yet would fain contract more; in this agony, there is this use of our hope, that as God shall then, when our bodily ears are deaf, whisper to our souls, and say, Memento homo, Remember, consider man, that thou art but dust, and art now returning into dust, so we, in our hearts, when our bodily tongues are speechless, may then say to God, as it is in Job, Memento quaeso, Remember thou also, I beseech thee, O God, that it is thou that hast made me as clay, and that it is thou that bringest me to that state again; and therefore come thou, and look to thine own work; come and let thy servant depart in peace, in having seen his salvation. My hope before death is, that this life is the way; my hope at death is, that my death shall be a door into a better state.

Lastly, the use of our hope, is after death, that God by his promise, hath made himself my debtor, till he restore my body to me again, in the resurrection: My body hath sinned, and he hath not redeemed a sinner, he hath not saved a sinner, except he have redeemed and saved my body, as well as my soul. To those souls that lie under the Altar, and solicit God, for the resurrection, in the Revelation, God says, That they should rest for a little season, until their fellow-servants, and their brethren, that should be killed, even as they were, were fulfilled. All that while, while that number is fulfilling, is our hopes exercised after our death. And therefore the bodies of the Saints of God, which have been Temples of the Holy Ghost, when the soul is gone out of them, are not to be neglected, as a sheath that had lost the knife, as a shell that had spent the kernel; but as the Godhead did not depart from the dead body of Christ Jesus, then when that body lay dead in the grave, so the power of God, and the merit of Christ Jesus, doth not depart from the body of man, but his blood lives in our ashes, and shall in his appointed time, awaken this body again, to an everlasting glory.

Since therefore Job had, and we have this assurance before we die, when we die, after we are dead, it is upon good reason, that he did, and we do trust in God, though he should kill us, when he doth kill us, after he hath killed us. Especially since it is Ille, He who is spoken of before, he that kills, and gives life, he that wounds, and makes whole again. God executes by what way it pleases him; condemned persons cannot choose the manner of their death; whether God kill by sickness, by age, by the hand of the law, by the malice of man, si ill, as long as we can see that it is he, he that is Shaddai, Vastator, & Restaurator, the destroyer, and the repairer, howsoever he kill, yet he gives life too, howsoever he wound, yet he heals too, howsoever he lock us into our graves now, yet he hath the keys of hell, and death, and shall in his time, extend that voice to us all, Lazare veni for as, come forth of your putrefaction, to incorruptible glory. Amen.

SERMON XXXI.

Preached at Hanworth, to my Lord of Carlisle, and his company, being the Earls of Northumberland, and Buckingham, &c. Aug. 25. 1622.

T He words are the words of Elihu; Elihu was one of Job's friends, and a mere natural man: a man not captivated, not fettered, not enthralled, in any particular form of Religion, as the Jews were; a man not macerated with the fear of God; not infatuated with any preconceptions, which Nurses, or Godfathers, or Parents, or Church, or State had infused into him; not dejected, not suppled, not matured, not entendred, with crosses in this world, and so made apt to receive any impressions, or follow any opinions of other men, a mere natural man; and in the mere use of mere natural reason, this man says of God in his works, Every man may see it, Man may behold it afar off. It is the word of a natural man; and the holy Ghost having canonized it, sanctified it, by inserting it into the book of God, it is the word of God too. Saint Paul cites sometimes the words of secular Poets; and approves them; and then the words of those Poets, become the word of God; Elihu speaks, a natural man, and God speaks, in canonizing his words; and therefore when we speak to godly men, we are sure to be believed, for God says it; if we were to speak to natural men only, we might be believed, for Elihu, a natural man, and wise in his generation, says it, that for God in his works, Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off.

Be pleased to admit, and charge your memories with this distribution of the words; Let the parts be but two, so you will be pleased to stoop, and gather, or at least to open your hands to receive some more (I must not say flowers, for things of sweetness, and of delight grow not in my ground) but simples rather, and medicinal herbs; of which as there enter many into good cordials, so in this supreme cordial, of bringing God into the eyes of man, that every man may see it, men may behold it afar off, there must necessarily arise many particulars to your consideration. I threaten you but with two parts; no farther tediousness; but I ask room for divers branches; I can promise no more shortness. The first part is a discovery, a manifestation of God to man; though that be undeniably true, Posuit tenebra s latibulum, God hath made darkness his secret place, yet it is as true, which proceeds from the same mouth, and the same pen, Amictus tanquam pallio, God covers himself with light as with a garment, he will be seen through his works: As we shall stand naked to one another, and not be ashamed of our scars, or morphews, in the sight of God, so God stands naked to the eyes of man, and is not ashamed of that humiliation, Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off. This proposition, this discovery, will be the first part; and the other will be a tacit answer, to a likely objection, is not God far off, and can man see at that distance? yes, he may. Man may behold that afar off. Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off.

God is the subject of both parts; God alone; one God. But in both parts there is a Trinity too; three branches in each part; for in each, there is an object, something to be apprehended; there is a means of apprehending it, it is to be seen; there is a person enabled to see it, Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off. But these three are not alike in each part; for in the first, that object is determined, limited; it is illud; it; God in his works. In the second, there is no object limited, for it is not illud, but there is more left to be seen; not only God in his works, as here below, but God in his glory above; Man may behold, but he does not offer to tell us what; there is an object, but another object. In the second there is a difference too, in the means of apprehending: It is but Casah in the first, it is Nibbat in the second; in that, every man may see, in the other, man may behold. And in the third, there is also a difference, the man, that may see God, is Adam; Adam is a man, made of earth, the weakest man, even in nature may see God; but the man that must behold afar off, is Enoch, and Enoch is homo aeger, a miserable man, a man that hath tasted affliction, and calamity, for that man looks after God in the next world, and as he feels God with a rod in his hand here, so he beholds God with a crown in his hand there. And of those sticks of sweet wood, of those drops of sweet gums, shall we make up this present sacrifice.

In our first part, the manifestation of God to man, the first branch is the object, the limited object, illud, Every man may see it; what is that? That which was proposed in the verse immediately before, Remember that thou magnify his work which men behold; First, it is a work, and therefore it is made, it hath an author, a creator; and then it is his work, the work of God, and therefore manifests him. It is a work, a deliberate, not a casual matter, this frame, this world. It is a work, it was begun, and made up, not an eternal matter, this frame, this world. Epiphanius says well, Omnis error à caecitate ad vanitatem; that's the progress of error; every error begins in blindness, and ignorance, but proceeds, and ends, in absurdity, in frivolousnesse. If men had not put out the light of nature, they might discern a creation in the world, that that was made, it is a work; but when they do put out that light, and deny a creation, into what frivolous opinions they scatter themselves; what contradictory things, men that seem constant, say; what childish, what ridiculous things, men that seem grave, and sober fathers in Philosophy, say of this world? when they have said all, this one thing will destroy all, if the world be eternal, it is God; for whatsoever had no beginning, whatsoever needed nothing to give it a being, whatsoever was always of it self, is God. So that to build up their opinions in one part, they destroy it in another; and to overthrow our Hall, they build up our Chapel; by denying that the world was made, they imply, they confess a God; for if it had no Creator, it is no Creature, it is God; so that they lose more then they gain, and they seek damnation, unthriftily, and perish prodigally; they deny the Creation, left by the Creation, we should prove God, and their very denial of a Creation, their making of the world eternal, constitutes it to be God. They deny any God, and then make a worse God.

This world then is a work, a limited, a determined, a circumscribed work; and it is Opus ejus, his work, says Elihu there. But whose? Will you lay hold upon that? upon that, that Elihu only says, Remember his work, but names none? But two verses before, (with which this verse hath connection) he does name God. But let the work be whose it will, whosoever be this He, this He must be God, whosoever gave the first being to Creatures, must be the Creator. If you will think, that Chance did it, and fortune, then fortune must be your God; and destiny must be your God, if you think destiny did it; and therefore you were as good attribute it to the right God, for a God it must have; if it be a work, it was made, if it be a Creature, there is a Creator; and if it be his work, that He, must be God, and there are no more God's, but one. Every man hath a delight, and complacency in knowledge, and is ashamed of ignorance, even in booklearning: a man would have a Library pro supellectile; even for a part of furniture, a man would read for Ornament: His house is not well furnished, he is not well furnished, without books. Many a man, who lets the Bible dust, and rust, because the Bible hath a kind of majesty and prerogative, and command over a man; it will not be jested withal, it will not be disputed against; a man can very hardly devest the reverence, that appertains to that book, and therefore he had rather deal with his fellows, more human Authors, that will hear reason, and not bind his faith; many a man can let the Fathers stand, because they write out of a pious credulity, and such anticipations, and preconceptions, as the Bible hath submitted them under, and captivated them to; But if thou let the Bible, and Fathers alone, and yet love books, what book (what kind of book) canst thou take into thy hand, that proves not this world to be Opus, a work, made, and opus ejus, his work made by him, by God? Dost thou love learning, as it is expounded, dilated, by Orators? The Father of Orators testifies, Nihil tam perspicuum, there is nothing so evident, as that there is a sovereign power, that made, and governs all. Dost thou love learning, as it is contracted, brought to a quintessence, wrought to a spirit, by Philosophers? the eldest of all them in that whole book, Quod Deus latens, simul & patens est, testifies all that, and nothing but that, that as there is nothing so dark, so there is nothing so clear, nothing so remote, nothing so near us, as God. Dost thou love learning, as it is sweetened and set to music by Poets? the King of the Poets testifies the same, Men's agitat molem, & magno se corpore miscet; that is, a great, an universal spirit, that moves, a general soul, that inanimates, and agitates every piece of this world. But Saint Paul is a more powerful Orator, then Cicero, and he says, The invisible things of God, are seen by things which are made; and thereby man is made inexcusable: Moses is an ancienter Philosopher, then Trismegistus; and his picture of God, is the Creation of the world. David is a better Poet then Virgil; and with David, Coeli enarrant, the heavens declare the glory of God; The power of oratory, in the force of pe • suasion, the strength of conclusions, in the pressing of Philosophy, the harmony of Poetry, in the sweetness of composition, never met in any man, so fully as in the Prophet Isaiah, nor in the Prophet Isaiah more, then where he says, Levate Oculos, Lift up your eyes, on high, and behold who hath created these things; behold them, therefore, to know that they are created, and to know who is their creator. All other authors we distinguish by tomes, by parts, by volumes; but who knows the volumes of this Author; how many volumes of Spheres involve one another, how many tomes of God's Creatures there are? Hast thou not room, hast thou not money, hast thou not understanding, hast thou not leisure, for great volumes, for the books of heaven, (for the Mathematiques ) nor for the books of Courts, (the Politics ) take but the Georgiques, the consideration of the Earth, a farm, a garden, nay seven foot of earth, a grave, and that will be book enough. Goel lower; every worm in the grave, lower, every weed upon the grave, is an abridgement of all; nay lock up all doors and windows see nothing but thyself; nay let thyself be locked up in a close prison, that thou canst not see thyself, and do but feel thy pulse; let thy pulse be intermitted, or stupefied, that thou feel not that, & do but think, and a worm, a weed, thy self, thy pulse, thy thought, are all testimonies, that All, this All and all the parts thereof, are opus, a work made, and opus ejus, his work, made by God. He that made a Clock or an Organ, will be sure to engrave his Me fecit, such a man made me; he that builds a fair house, takes it ill, if a passenger will not ask, whose house is it; he that bred up his Son to a capacity of noble employments, looks that the world should say, he had a wise and an honorable Father; Can any man look upon the frame of this world, and not say, there is a powerful, upon the administration of this world, and not say, there is a wise and a just hand over it? Thus is the object, 'tis but Illud, the world; but such a world, as may well justify Saint Jerome's translation, who renders it Illum; not only that every man may see it, the work, the world; but may see him; God in that work.

That's the object, not only the work, but the workman, God in the work; and the means is, that man may see it; that is, by that spectacle, he may see God; what of God? how much of God? Is it his essence? For that, the resolution of the School is sufficient; Nulla visio naturalis in terris; no man can see God in this world, and live, but no man can see God in the next world, and die, there visio is beatitudo, sight is salvation. Yet, Nulla visio corporalis in Coelis: These bodily eyes, even then, when they are glorified, shall not see the Essence of God: our mortal eyes do not see bodies here; they see no substance, they see only quantities, and dimensions; our glorified bodily eyes, shall see the glory shed out of God, but the very essence of God, those glorified bodily eyes shall not see: but the eyes of our soul, shall be so enlightened, as that they shall see God Sicuti est, even in his essence, which the best illumined & most sanctified men are very far from in this life. Now the sight of God in this text, is the knowledge of God, to see God, is but to know, that there is a God. And can man as a natural man, do that? See God so, as to know that there is a God? Can he do it? Nay can he choose but do it? The question hath divided the School; those two great, and well known families of the School, whom we call, Thomists, and Scotists: the first say, that this proposition, Deus est, is per se nota, evident in it self, and the others deny that. But yet they differ, but thus far, that Thomas thinks that it is so evident, that man cannot choose but know it, though he resist it; The other thinks, in it self, it is but so evident, as that a man may know it, if he employ his natural faculties, without going any farther; thus much, indeed, thus little, they differ. Now the holy Ghost is the God of Peace, and doth so far reconcile these two, in this text, as that first in our reading, it is, That man may see God; and that Scotus does not deny; but in the Original, in the Hebrew, it is Casu, and Casu is, viderunt: not, every man may, but every man hath seen God: Though it go not absolutely, so far, as Thomas, every man must, no man can choose but see God, yet it goes so far further then Scotus, (who ends in every man may ) as that it says, every man hath seen God. So that our labor never lies in this, to prove to any man, that he may see God, but only to remember him that he hath seen God: not to make him believe that there is a God, but to make him see, that he does believe it. Quid habes, quod non accepisti? And hast thou received any thing and not seen, not known him that gave it? Who hath infused comfort into thee, into thy distresses? Thine own Moral constancy? Who infused that? Who hath imprinted terrors in thee? A damp in thine own heart? Who imprinted it? Swear to me now that thou believest not in God, and before midnight, thou wilt tell God, that thou dost; Miserable distemper! not to see God in the light, and see him in the dark: not to see him at noon, and see him fearfully at midnight: not to see, where we all see him, in the Congregation, and to see him with terror, in the Suburbs of despair, in the solitary chamber.

Man may, says Scotus, man must, he cannot choose, says Thomas, man hath seen God, says the holy Ghost. Man, that is, every man; and that's our last branch in this first part. The inexcusableness goes over man, over all men: Because they would not see invisible things in visible, they are inexcusable, all. Death passed upon all men, for all have sinned. All sinners, all dead. Is God's right hand shorter then his left? his mercy shrunk, and his justice stretched? no certainly; certainly every man may see him. Man cannot hide himself from God; God does not hide himself from man: not from any man. Col-Adam, Omnis home; even in that low name, that lowest acceptation of man, as he is but derived from earth, as he is but earth, he may see God. We have divers names for man in Hebrew, at least four; This that makes him but earth, Adam, is the meanest, and yet Col-Adam, Every man may see God. David calls us to the contemplation of the heavens, Coeli enarrant, and Job to the contemplation of the firmament, of the Pleiades, and Orion, and Arcturus, and the ordinances of heaven; but it is not only the Mathematician, that sees God, Demini terra, the earth is the Lord's, and all that dwell therein; all, in all corners of the earth, may see him. David tells us, They that go down to the sea, in ships, they see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep: but it is not only the Mariner, the discoverer, that discovers God: but he that puts his hand to the plough, and looks not back, may see God there. Let him be filius terra, the son of the earth, without noble extraction, without known place, of uncertain parents, (even Melchizedek was so) Let him be filius percussionis, the son of affliction, a man that hath inward heavy sentences, and heavy executions of the law; Let him be filius mortis, the son of death (as Saul said to Jonathan of David) a man designed to die; nay let him be filius Belial, the son of iniquity, and of everlasting perdition, there is no lowness, no natural, no spiritual dejection so low, but that that low man may see God. Let him be filius terrae, the son of the earth, and of nobody else, let him be Dominus terrae, Lord of the earth, busied upon the earth, and nothing else, let him be hospes terrae, a guest, a tenant, an inmate of the earth, half of him in the earth, and the rest nowhere else, this poor man, this worldly man, this dying man, may see God. To end this, you can place the sphere in no position, in no station, in which the earth can eclipse the Sun; you can place this clod of earth, man, in no ignorance, in no melancholy, in no oppression, in no sin, but that he may, but that he does see God. The Marrigold opens to the Sun, though it have no tongue to say so, the Atheist does see God, though he have not grace to confess it.

We have past through our first part, and the three branches of that; The object, God in his works, and the faculty that apprehends, seeing, that is knowing, and the person endued with the faculty, every man, even Adam. In our second part, which is a tacit answer to a likely objection, (Is not God in the highest heaven, afar off? yes; but man may see afar off ) we have the same three branches too, and yet not the same; the same object, God, but in another manifestation, then in his work, in glory; the same faculty, seeing, but with other manner of eyes, glorified eyes; the same person, man, but not man, as he is Adam, a mere natural and earthly man, but man, as he is Enoch, who by having tasted God's corrections, or by having considered the miseries of this world, is prepared for the joy and glory of the next. And in this part we will begin with the person, man; Man may behold it afar off.

How different are the ways of God, from the ways of man? the eyes of God from the eyes of man? and the ways, and eyes of a godly man, from the eyes, and ways of a man of this world? We look still upon high persons, and after high places, and from those heights, we think, we see far; but he that will see this object, must lie low; it is best discerned in the dark, in a heavy, and a calamitous fortune. The natural way is upward; I can better know a man upon the top of a steeple, then if he were half that depth in a well; but yet for higher objects, I can better see the stars of heaven, in the bottom of a well, then if I stood upon the highest steeple upon earth. If I twist a cable of infinite fadomes in length, if there be no ship to ride by it, nor anchor to hold by it, what use is there of it? If Manor thrust Manor, and title flow into title, and bags pour out into chests, if I have no anchor, (faith in Christ) if I have not a ship to carry to a haven, (a soul to save) what's my long cable to me? If I add number to number, a span, a mile long, if at the end of all that long line of numbers, there be nothing that notes, pounds, or crowns, or shillings, what's that long number, but so many millions of millions of nothing? If my span of life become a mile of life, my penny a pound, my pint a gallon, my acre a sheere; yet if there be nothing of the next world at the end, so much peace of conscience, so much joy, so much glory, still all is but nothing multiplied, and that is still nothing at all. 'It is the end that qualifies all; and what kind of man I shall be at my end, upon my death-bed, what trembling hands, and what lost legs, what deaf ears, and what gummy eyes, I shall have then, I know; and the nearer I come to that disposition, in my life, (the more mortified I am) the better I am disposed to see this object, future glory. God made the Sun, and Moon, and Stars, glorious lights for man to see by; but man's infirmity requires spectacles; and affliction does that office. God's meaning was, that by the sun-shine of prosperity, and by the beams of honor, and temporal blessings, a man should see far into him; but I know not how he is come to need spectacles; scarce any man sees much in this matter, till affliction show it him. God made the balance even; riches may show God, and poverty may show God; let the two Testaments, the old and the new, be the balance, and so they are even; the blessedness of the Old Testament runs all upon temporal blessings, and worldly riches; Blessed in the city, and in the field; blessed in the fruit of thy cattle, and of thy womb; In the New Testament utterly otherwise; Blessed are the poor, Blessed are they that mourn, Blessed are they that are persecuted, and reviled; but the blessedness of the Old Testament, temporal blessings, are temporary, as the Old Testament was; that's expired. The blessedness of the Gospel, is as the Gospel, everlasting: and therefore the low way is the best way; adversity will be the best way to see God by. I speak not of mere beggary, of having nothing; but of having less then we had; the loss of some of that possession, or honor, or wealth, or health, which we had, conduces more to this sight of God, then the additions of any of these. Extreme want may put a man out of his way to God, as far as abundance and superfluity; as we say in civil things, the midde men aise the Subsidy, not the great men, nor the beggars; so the middle men see farthest into God, and serve him best; not the abounding, not the wanting man. Solomon prays against both; against riches, and against poverty too; but yet not as though the danger were equal, if the words be well considered; the danger of his poverty is, lest he steal, and take the Name of God in vain; that is, forswear the theft; a great fault, two great faults; but these two amount not to that one, which arises out of abundance, Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? And that Proverb, that Solomon speaks of, Saint Jerome calls not, paupertatem, but mendicitatem; and that is often indeed, the mother and nurse of many enormous mischiefs. Saint Bernard takes the word, poverty, in that place, but he multiplies it, Paupertates ne dederis, Give me not, O Lord, a double poverty; poverty indeed, and poverty in opinion; poverty, and a murmurning with my poverty; for that also is the mother, and nurse of many enormous mischiefs. I know how to abound, and how to want; It is the harder work, ferre abundantiam; abundance is a burden, want is but a weakness; and it is a greater torment, to be pressed under a great weight, then to lie bed-rid. To end this, the person in our Text is Enoch, man; but not every man, as before, Adam; but that man upon whom God's hand hath been in the loss of something, that he had before. As the body of man is mellowed in the grave, and made fit for glory in the resurrection, so the mind of man by suffering is suppled; Adam is made Enoch; and he may see.

The person is the same, and yet changed; man, but another kind of man; The means of apprehending is the same, and yet changed too, seeing, but another kind of seeing. This man, thus disposed, thus matured, thus mellowed, thus suppled, thus entendred by God's easy corrections, he whom God hath not left to himself, nor yet put him beyond himself, not fulfilled all, but yet not frustrated all his desires neither, laid his hand upon him, so as to keep him down from swelling up against him, but yet so too, as to keep him up, from sinking, or falling from him, that man, that Enoch may see the hand of God, and take God by the hand, and bid him welcome, and find a rich, and a sweet advantage in that correction; it is a seeing of God, not as before, in his works abroad, but in his working upon himself, at home. Such a man God strikes so, as that when he strikes, he strikes fire, and lights him a candle, to see his presence by; we do not find that Job came to his Dominus dedit, to his confession, The Lord giveth, till he came to the Dominus abstulit; to the sense of God's taking away, not to express his sense of God's blessings to him, till he felt his corrections upon him; and then they came together, Dominus dedit, and abstulit, The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Darkness is that, by which the holy Ghost himself hath chosen to express hell; hell is darkness; and the way to it, to hell, is Excacation in this life, blindness in our spiritual eyes. Eternal life hereafter is Visio Dei, the sight of God, and the way to that here, is to see God here: and the eye-salve for that is, to be crossed in our desires in this world, by the hand of God. When Christ presents things necessary for his service, he proposes them thus; this is his Inventary; Gold against poverty, white clothes against nakedness, and collyrium, eye-salve to see by. Now for the two first he bids us buy them; buy-gold, buy clothes, that is, labor, endeavor to get thm; he does not say, buy the eye-salve, that is, affliction; no man is to thrust himself into unnecessary dangers, or persecutions, and call his indiscretion Martyrdom; It is to be presumed, that every man, how high or how abundant soever, hath eye salve enough, affliction and crosses enough, if he do apply them: and therefore Christ does not say, buy them; hunt after them, expose thyself to them; but he says only, Anoynt thy eyes with them, I will give thee the physic, (crosses and calamities here) do thou apply them according to the nature of the medicine, and to the purpose of the phycisian, and by them thou shalt see God.

Our translation carries this word no farther in this part of the Text, then the other in the former; There it was, every man may see; here it is, man, that is, this man may behold. But as we showed you, that the former was in the original Casu, viderunt, every man, (let him say what he will to the contrary) yet he hath seen God, so in this part, the word in the original, is Iabbit, and that is videbit, in the future, he shall see, This sight of God is not in him, naturally, that we can be sure he hath seen him, but it is reserved to the future; let him be thus wrought upon by God's hand, and videbit, in the future, he shall see. Now, you remember what designs the future; he shall see; is a note of the future, and so is, he will see. This man, this Enoch, thus molded, thus kneaded, by the hand of God, he shall see God, he shall (in a manner) whether he will or no, a holy, and a heavenly violence shall be offered him, it shall not be in the power of the world, the flesh or the devil, to blind him, he shall see God; and then he will see God, his will shall be inclined, and disposed to it, and every first beam of God's grace, every influence of the Spirit of God, shall open his eyes; God shall be so jealous of him, as that he shall see God, he shall be so watchful upon God, and his motions, as that he will see him.

And more then see him; for Iabbit, is Intuebitur, he will behold him, contemplate God, ruminate, meditate upon God. Man sees best in the light, but meditates best in the dark; for our sight of God, it is enough, that God gives the light of nature; to behold him so, as to fixe upon him in meditation, God benights us, or eclipses us, or casts a cloud of medicinal afflictions, and wholesome corrections upon us. Naturally we dwell longer upon the consideration of God, when we see the Sun eclipsed, then when we see it rise, we pass by that as an ordinary thing; and so in our afflictions we stand, and look upon God, and we behold him. A man may see God, and forget that ever he saw him; When saw we thee hungry, or naked, or sick, or in prison, say those merciless men; they forgot; but Christ remembers that they did see him, but not behold him, see him, and look off, see him so as aggravated their sin, more then if they had never seen him. But that man, who through his own red glass, can see Christ, in that color too, through his own miseries, can see Christ Jesus in his blood, that through the calumnies that have been put upon himself, can see the revilings that were multiplied upon Christ, that in his own imprisonment, can see Christ in the grave, and in his own enlargement, Christ in his resurrection, this man, this Enoch, beholds God, and he beholds him e longinquo, which is another step in this branch, he sees him afar off.

Now this seeing afar off, is not a phrase of diminution, a circumstance of extenuation, as though it were less, to see God afar off, and more to see him nearer. This far off, is far from that; it is a power of seeing him so, as wheresoever I am, or wheresoever God is, I can see him at any distance. Being established in my foundation upon God, being built up by faith, in that notion of God, in which he hath manifested himself to me in his Son, being mounted, and raised by dwelling in his Church, being made like unto him, in suffering, as he suffered, I can see round about me, even to the Horizon, and beyond it, I can see both Hemispheres at once, God in this, and God in the next world too. I can see him, in the Zenith, in the highest point, and see how he works upon Pharaoh, on the Throne, and I can see him in the Nadir, in the lowest dejection, and see how he works upon Joseph in the prison; I can see him in the East, see how mercifully he brought the Christian Religion amongst us, and see him in the West, see how justly he might remove that again, and leave us to our own inventions; I can see him in the South, in a warm, and in the North, in a frosty fortune: I can see him in all angles, in all postures; Abraham saw God coming to him, as he fate at the door of his Tent; and though (as the Text says there) God stood by him, (yet says the Text too) Abraham ran to meet God; I can see God in the visitation of his Spirit come to me; and when he is so, he is already in me; but I must run out to meet him; that is, labor to hold him there, and to advance that manifestation of himself in me. Abraham saw God coming; Moses saw God going, his glory passing by; he saw posteriora, his hinder parts; so I can see God in the memory of his blessings formerly conferred upon me; And Moses saw him too, in a burning bush, in thorns and fire: And had I no other light, but the fire of a pile of faggots, in that light I could see his light, I could see himself. Let me be the man of this Text, this Enoch, to say with Jeremiah, I am the man that hath seen affliction, by the rod of his wrath, Let me have had this third concoction, that as I am Adam, a man of earth, (wrought upon that wheel) and, as I am a Christian, a vessel in his house, a member of his Church (wrought upon that wheel) so let me be vir dolorum, a man of affliction, a vessel baked in that furnace, fitted by God's proportion, and dosis of his corrections, to make a right use of his corrections, and I can see God, E longinquo, afar off, I can see him writing down my name in the book of life, before I was borne, and I can see him giving his Angels, The Angel of the great Counsel, Christ Jesus himself, and his spirit, charge of my preservation, all the way, and of my transmigration upon my death-bed, and that is E longinquo, from before I was, to after I shall be no more.

There remains a word more; 'It is scarce well said; for there remains not a word more. There is not another word, and yet there is another branch in the Text. This man, (not every man, as before) this Enoch, (not every Adam as before) he sees not only as before, but he beholds afar off; and so far we are gone; but what beholds he afar off? That the Text tells us not. Before there was an illud, Every man may see that, ask what is that, and I can tell you, I have told you out of the coherence of the Text, It is God's works, manifesting himself even to the natural man. But this man, this Enoch, raised by his dejection, rectified by humiliation, may behold, what? here is no illud, no such word as that, no object limited, and therefore it is that which no eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived, it is God in the glory, and assembly of his immortal Saints in heaven. How many times go we to Comedies, to Masques, to places of great and noble resort, nay even to Church only to see the company? If I had no other errand to heaven, but the communion of Saints, the fellowship of the faithful, Lo see that flock of Lambs, Innocent, unbaptized children, recompensed with the twice-baptized Martyrs, (baptized in water, and baptized in their own blood ) and that middle sort, the children baptized in blood, and not in the water, that rescued Christ Jesus, by their death, under Herod; to see the Prophets and the Evangelists, and not know one from the other, by their writings, for they all write the same things (for prophecy is but antidated Gospel, and Gospel but postdated prophecy; ) to see holy Matrons saved by the bearing, and bringing up of children, and holy Virgins, saved by restoring their bodies in the integrity, that they received them, sit all upon one seat; to see Princes, and Subjects crowned all with one crown, and rich and poor inherit one portion; to see this scene, this Court, this Church, this Catholic Church, not only Eastern and Western, but Militant and Triumphant Church, all in one room together, to see this Communion of Saints, this fellowship of the faithful, is worth all the pains, that that sight costs us in this world.

But then to see the head of this Church, the Sun, that shed all these beams, the God of glory face to face, to see him sicuti est, as he is, to know him, at cognitus, as I am known, what dark, and inglorious fortune would I not pass thorough, to come to that light, and that glory? How then hath God doubled his mercies upon those persons to whom he hath afforded two great lights, a Sun to rule their day, honor and prosperity, and a Moon to rule their night, humiliation and adversity, to whom he hath given both Types, in themselves, to see this future glory by, that is, Titles and places of honor in this world, and spectacles in themselves to see this glory by afflictions, and crosses in this world. And therefore since God gives both these nowhere so plentifully, as in Courts the place of Honor, and the place of Crosses too, the place of rising and the place of falling too, you, you especially, who by having your station there, in the Court it self, are in the Court exemplified, and copied in your own noble house, you that have seen God characterized in his Types, in titles of greatness, you that have beheld God presented in his spectacle of Crosses and afflictions, the daily bread of Courts, Bless ye the Lord; praise him, and magnify him forever, and declare the wondrous works that he hath done for the Sons of men; for certainly many woes, and invincible darkness attend those, to whom neither the hand of God in his works, nor the hand of God upon themselves, neither the greatness of this world, nor the cr • sses of this world, can manifest God; for what picture of God would they have, that will neither have him in great, nor little?

SERMON XXXII.

Preached to the Earl of Exeter, and his company, in his Chapel at Saint John's; 13. Iun. 1624.

W E shall have occasion by and by, to say something of the danger of Curiosity, and something of the danger of the broad way, in which, too many walk: we will not therefore fall into either of these faults, at first, we will not be over curious, nor we will not stray, nor cast ourselves into that broad, and boundless way, by entering into those various, and manifold senses, which Expositors have multiplied, in the handling of this place, and this part of this book; but we take the plainest way, and that in which, the best meet, and concur, that these words are spoken of the Ioyes, and Glory, reserved for them, who overcome the fraud, and the fury, the allurements, and the violences of Antichrist; in whom, in that name, and person of Antichrist, we consider all supplanters, and all seducers, all opposers of the kingdom of Christ, in us; for, as every man hath spontaneum daemonem, (as S. Chrysostom speaks) a devil of his own making, (which is, some customary, and habitual sin in him) so every man hath spontaneū Antichristum, an Antichrist of his own making, some objections in the weakness of his faith, some oppositions in the perverseness of his manners, against the kingdom of Christ in himself; & as, if God would suspend the devil, or slumber the devil a day, I am afraid we should be as ill that day, as if the devil were awake, and in action, so if those disputed, & problematical Antichrists, Eastern & Western Antichrist, Antichrist of Rome, and Antichrist of Constantinople, Turk and Pope, were removed out of the world, we should not for all that be delivered of Antichrist, that is, of that opposition to the kingdom of Christ, which is in our selves. This part of the book of the Revelation, is literally, and primarily, the glorious victory of them, who, in the later end of the world, having stood out the persecutions of the Antichrist, enter into the triumph of heaven: And it extends itself to all, by way of fair accommodation, who after a battle with their own Antichrists, and victory over their own enemies, are also made partakers of those triumphs, those joys, those glories, of which S. John, in this prophetical glass, in this perspective of visions, saw A great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations &c.

We are then upon the contemplation of the joys of heaven, which are everlasting, & must we wring them into the discourse of an hour? of the glory of heaven which is entire, and must we divide it into parts? we must; we will; we do; into two parts; first, the number, the great number of those that shall be saved; And then, the glorious qualities, which shall be imprinted on them, who are saved: first, that salvation is a more extensive thing, & more communicable, then sullen cloystrall, that have walled salvation in a monastery, or in an ermitage, take it to be; or then the over-valuers of their own purity, and righteousness, which have determined salvation in themselves, take it to be; for, It is a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations &c. And then, in the second place, salvation is the possession of such endowments, as naturally invite all, to the prosecution of that, which is exposed and offered to all; that we all labor here, that we may all stand hereafter, before the Throne, and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes &c.

In the first of these, we shall pass by these steps; first, we shall consider the sociableness, the communicablenesse of God himself, who gives us the earth, and offers us heaven, and desires to have his kingdom well peopled; he would have many, he would have all, he would have everyone of them have all. And then, the first word of the text, (After this) will carry us to the consideration of that which was done before; which was, first, that they which were of this number, were sealed, and then they which were so sealed before, were a great number, one hundred forty four thousand; but they who were made partakers of all this after, were innumerable, After this I beheld a great multitude, which no man could number; And therefore we shall shut up that first part with this consideration, what sense, what interpretation may belong unto those places, where Christ says, that the way to heaven is narrow, and the gate straight: of these pieces we shall make up our first part; And for the particulars belonging to the second, we shall fitliest open them, then, when we come to the handling of them.

Our first step then in this first part, is, the sociableness, the communicablenesse of God; He loves holy meetings, he loves the communion of Saints, the household of the faithful: Deliciae ejus, says Solomon, his delight is to be with the Sons of men, and that the Sons of men should be with him: Religion is not a melancholy; the spirit of God is not a damp; the Church is not a grave: it is a fold, it is an Ark, it is a net, it is a city, it is a kingdom, not only a house, but a house that hath many mansions in it: still it is a plural thing, consisting of many: and very good grammarians amongst the Hebrews, have thought, and said, that that name, by which God notifies himself to the world, in the very beginning of Genesis, which is Elohim, as it is a plural word there, so it hath no singular: they say we cannot name God, but plurally: so sociable, so communicable, so extensive, so derivative of himself, is God, and so manifold are the beams, and the emanations that flow out from him.

It is a garden worthy of your walking in it: Come into it, but by the gate of nature: The natural man had much to do, to conceive God: a God that should be but one God: and therefore scattered his thoughts upon a multiplicity of God's: and he found it, (as he thought) reasonable, to think, that there should be a God of Justice, a God of Wisdom, a God of Power, and so made the several Attributes of God, several God's, and thought that one God might have enough to do, with the matters of Justice, another with the causes that belonged to power, and so also, with the courts of Wisdom: the natural man, as he cannot conceive a vacuity, that anything should be empty, so he cannot conceive that any one thing, though that be a God, should fill all things: and therefore strays upon a pluralty of God's, upon many God's, though, in truth, (as Athanasius expresses it) ex multitudine numinum, nullitas numinum, he that constitutes many God's destroys all God; for no God can be God, if he be not all-sufficient; yet naturally, (I mean in such nature, as our nature is) a man does not easily conceive God to be alone, to be but one; he thinks there should be company in the Godhead.

Bring it farther then so. A man that lies in the dregs of obscured, and vitiated nature, does not easily discern, unicum Deum, a God that should be alone, a God that should be but one God. Reason rectified, (rectified by the word of God) can discern this, this one God. But when by that means of the Scripture, he does apprehend Deum unicum, one God; does he find that God alone? are there not three Persons, though there be but one God? 'It is true the Romans mis-took infinitely, in making 300 Jupiter's; Varro mis-took infinitely, in making, Deos terrestres, and Deos c • les • es, sub-lunary, and super-lunary, heavenly, and earthly God's, and Deus marinos, and fluviatiles, Sea God's, and River God's, salt, and freshwater God's, and Deos mares, and faeminas, he God's, and she God's, and (that he might be sure to take in all) Deos certos & incertos, God's, which they were sure were God's, & God's w ^ch might be God's, for anything they knew to the contrary. There is but one God; but yet was that one God ever alone? There were more generations (infinitely infinite) before the world was made, then there have been minutes, since it was made: all that while; there were no creasures; but yet was God alone, any one minute of all this? was there not always a Father and a Son, & a holy Ghost? And had not they, always an acquiescence in one another, an exercise of Affection, (as we may so say) a love, a delight, and a complacency towards one another? So, as that the Father could not be without the Son and the holy Ghost, so as neither Son, nor holy Ghost could be without the Father, nor without one another; God was from all eternity collected into one God, yet from all eternity he derived himself into three persons: God could not be so alone, but that there have been three persons, as long as there hath been one God.

Had God company enough of himself; was he satisfied in the three Persons? We see he proceeded further; he came to a Creation; And as soon as he had made light, (which was his first Creature) he took a pleasure in it; he said it was good; he was glad of it; glad of the Sea, glad of the Earth, glad of the Sun, and Moon, and Stars, and he said of everyone, It is good; But when he had made All, peopled the whole world, brought all creatures together, then he was very glad, and then he said, not only, that it was good, but that it was very good: God was so far from being alone, as that he found not the fullness of being well, till all was made, till all Creatures met together, in an Host, as Moses calls it, then the good was extended into very good.

Did God satisfy himself with this visible and discernible world; with all on earth, and all between that, and him? were those four Monarchies, the four Elements, and all the subjects of those four Monarchies, (if all the four Elements have Creatures) company enough for God? was that Heptarchie, the seven kingdoms of the seven Planets, conversation enough for him? Let every Star in the firmament, be (so some take them to be) a several world, was all this enough? we see, God drew persons nearer to him, then Sun, or Moon, or Stars, or anything, which is visible, and discernible to us, he created Angels; How many, how great? Arithmetique lacks numbers to to express them, proportion lacks Dimensions to figure them; so far was God from being alone.

And yet God had not shed himself far enough; he had the Leviathan, the Whale in the Sea, and Behemoth and the Elephant upon the land; and all these great heavenly bodies in the way, and Angels in their infinite numbers, and manifold offices, in heaven; But, because Angels, could not propagate, nor make more Angels, he enlarged his love, in making man, that so he might enjoy all natures at once, and have the nature of Angels, and the nature of earthly Creatures, in one Person. God would not be without man, nor he would not come single, not alone to the making of man; but it is Faciamas hominem, Let us, us, make man; God, in his whole counsel, in his whole College, in his whole society, in the whole Trinity, makes man, in whom the whole nature of all the world should meet.

And still our large, and our Communicable God, affected this association so, as that having three Persons in himself, and having Creatures of divers natures, and having collected all natures in man, who consisted of a spiritual nature, as well as a bodily, he would have one liker himself, then man was; And therefore he made Christ, God and Man, in one person, Creature and Creator together; One greater then the Seraphim, and yet less then a worm; Sovereign to all nature, and yet subject to natural infirmities; Lord of life, life, it self, and yet prisoner to Death; Before, and beyond all measures of Time, & Born at so many months, yet Circumcised at so many days, Crucified at so many years, Rose again at so many Houres; How sure did God make himself of a companion in Christ, who united himself, in his godhead, so inseparably to him, as that that godhead left not that body, then when it lay dead in the grave, but staid with it then, as closely, as when he wrought his greatest miracles.

Beyond all this, God having thus married soul and body in one man, and man and God, in one Christ, he maries this Christ to the Church. Now, consider this Church in the Type and figure of the Church, the Ark; in the Ark there were more of every sort of clean Creatures reserved, then of the unclean; seven of those, for two of these: why should we fear, but that in the Church, there are more reserved for salvation then for destruction? And into that room (which was not a Type of the Church, but the very Church it self) in which they all met upon whitsunday, the holy Ghost came so as that they were enabled, by the gift of tongues, to convey, and propagate, and derive God, (as they did) to every nation under heaven: so much does God delight in man, so much does God desire to unite and associate man unto him; and then, what shall disappoint, or frustrate God's desires and intentions so far, as that they should come to him, but singly, one by one, whom he calls, and woos, and draws by thousands, and by whole Congregations?

Be pleased to carry your considerations, upon another testimony of God's love to the society of man, which is, his dispatch in making this match, his speed in gathering and establishing this Church; for, forwardness is the best argument of love, and dilatory interruptions by the way, argue no great desire to the end; disguises before, are shrewd prophecies of jealousies after: But God made hast to the consummation of this Marriage, between Christ and the Church. Such words as those to the Colosrians, (and such words, that is, words to such purpose, there are divers) The Gospel is come unto you, as it is into all the world; And again; It bringeth forth fruit, as it doth in you also; And so likewise, The Gospel which is preached to every creature which is under heaven; such words, I say, a very great part of the Ancients have taken so literally, as thereupon to conclude, That in the life of the Apostles themselves, the Gospel was preached, and the Church established over all the world.

Now will you consider also, who did this, what persons? cunning and crafty persons are not the best instruments in great businesses, if those businesses be good, as well as great. Here God employed such persons, as would not have persuaded a man, that grass was green, that blood was red, if it had been denied unto them: Persons that could not have bound up your understanding, with a Syllogism, nor have entendred, or mollified it with a verse: Persons that had nothing but that which God himself calls the foolishness of preaching, to bring Philosophers that argued, Heretics that wrangled, Lucians, and Julian's, men that whet their tongues, and men that whet their swords against God, to God.

Unbend not this bow, blacken not these holy thoughts, till you have considered, as well, as how soon, and by what persons, so to what Doctrine, God brought them. We ask but St. Augustine's question, Quis tantam multitudinem, ad legem, carni & sanguini centrariam, induceret, nisi Deus? Who but God himself, would have drawn the world to a Religion so contrary to flesh and blood? Take but one piece of the Christian Religion, but one article of our faith, in the same Fathers mouth; Res incredibilis resurrectio; That this body should be eaten by fishes in the sea, and then those fishes eaten by other men, or that one man should be eaten by another man, and so become both one man, and then that for all this assimilation, and union, there should arise two men, at the resurrection, Res incredibilis, says he, this resurrection is an incredible thing, Sed magis incredibile, totum mundum credidisse rem tam incredibilem, That all the world should so soon believe a thing so incredible, is more incredible, then the thing it self. That any should believe any, is strange, but more that all such believe all, that appertains to Christianity. The Valentinians, and the Marcionites, pestilent Heretics, grew to a great number, Sed vix duo vel tres, de iisdem, eadem docebant, says Irenaeus, scarce any two or three amongst them, were of one opinion. The Acatians, the Eunomians, and the Macedonians, omnes Arium parentem agnoscunt, says the same Father, they all call themselves Arians, but they had as many opinions, not only as names, but as persons. And that one Sect of Mahomet, was quickly divided, and sub-divided into 70 sects. But so God loved the world, the society and company of good souls, ut quasi una Domus Mundus, the whole world was as one well governed house; similiter credunt quasi una anima, all believed the same things, as though they had all but one soul; Constanter praedicabant, quasi unum os, At the same hour there was a Sermon at Jerusalem, and a Sermon at Rome, and both so like, for fundamental things, as if they had been preached out of one mouth.

And as this Doctrine, so incredible in reason, was thus soon, and by these persons, thus uniformly preached over all the world, so shall it, as it doth, continue to the worlds end; which is another argument of God's love to our company, and of his loathsomeness to lose us. All Heresies, and the very names of the Heretics, are so utterly perished in the world, as that if their memories were not preserved in those Fathers which have written against them, we could find their names nowhere. Irenaeus, about one hundred and eighty years after Christ, may reckon about twenty heresies: Tertullian, twenty or thirty years after him, perchance twenty seven; and Epiphanius, some a hundred and fifty after him, sixty; and fifty year after that, St. Augustine some ninety: yet after all these, (and but a very few years, after Augustine ) Theodoret says, that in his time, there was no one man alive, that held any of those heresies: That all those heresies should rot, being upheld by the sword, and that only the Christian Religion should grow up, being mowed down by the sword, That one grain of Corn should be cast away, and many ears grow out of that, (as Leo makes the comparison) That one man should be executed, because he was a Christian, and all that saw him executed, and the Executioner himself, should thereupon become Christians, (a case that fell out more then once, in the primitive Church ) That as the flood threw down the Courts of Princes, and lifted up the Ark of God, so the effusion of Christian blood, should destroy heresies, and advance Christianity itself; this is argument abundantly enough, that God had a love to man, and a desire to draw man to his society, and in great numbers to bring them to salvation.

I will not dismiss you from this consideration, till you have brought it thus much nearer, as to remember a later testimony of God's love to our company, in the reformation of Religion; A miracle scarce less, then the first propagation thereof, in the primitive Church. In how few years, did God make the number of learned • riters, the number of persons of all qualities, the number of Kings, in whose Dominions the reformed Religion was exercised, equal to the number of them, who adhered to the Roman Church?

And yet, thou must not depart from this contemplation, till thou have made thy self an argument of all this; till thou have concluded out of this, that God hath made love to thy soul, thy weak soul, thy sick, and foul, and sinful soul, That he hath written to thee, in all his Scriptures, sent Ambassage to thee, in all his preachers, presented thee, in all his temporal, and spiritual blessings, That he hath come to thee, even in actions of uncle annesse, in actions of unfaithfulness towards men, in actions of distrustfulness towards God, and hath checked thy conscience, and delivered thee from some sins, even then when thou wast ready to commit them, as all the rest, (That that God, who is but one in himself, is yet three persons, That those three, who were all-sufficient to themselves, would yet make more, make Angels, make man, make a Christ, make him a Spouse, a Church, and first propagate that, by so weak men, in so hard a doctrine, and in so short a space, over all the world, and then reform that Church again, so soon, to such a heighth) as these, I say, are to all the world, so be thou thy self, and God's exceeding goodness to thee, an argument, That that God who hath shown himself so loath to lose thee, is certainly loath to lose any other soul; but as he communicates himself to us all here, so he would have us all partake of his joy, and glory hereafter; he that fills his Militant Church thus, would not have his Triumphant Church empty.

So far we consider the accessiblenesse, the communicablenesse, the conversation of our good, and gracious God to us, in the general. There is a more special manner intimated, even in the first word of our Text, After this; After what? After he had seen the servants of God sealed; sealed: This seal seals the contract between God and Man: And then consider how general this seal is: First, God sealed us, in imprinting his Image in our souls, and in the powers thereof, at our creation; and so, every man hath this seal, and he hath it, as soon as he hath a soul: The wax, the matter, is in his conception; the seal, the form, is in his quickening, in his inanimation; as, in Adam, the wax was that red earth, which he was made of, the seal was that soul, that breath of life, which God breathed into him. Where the Organs of the body are so indisposed, as that this soul cannot exercise her faculties, in that man, (as in natural Idiots, or otherwise) there, there is a curtain drawn over this Image, but yet there this Image is, the Image of God, is in the most natural Idiot, as well as in the wisest of men: worldly men draw other pictures over this picture, other images over this image: The wanton man may paint beauty, the ambitious may paint honor, the covetous wealth, and so deface this image, but yet there this image is, and even in hell it self it will be, in him that goes down into hell: uri potest in gehenna, non exuri, says St. Bernard, The image of God may burn in hell, but as long as the soul remains, that image remains there too; And then, thou who wouldest not burn their picture, that loved thee, wilt thou betray the picture of the Maker, thy Savior, thy Sanctifier, to the torments of hell? Amongst the manifold and perpetual interpretations of that article, He descended into hell, this is a new one, that thou sen • est him to hell in thy soul: Christ had his Consummatum est, from the Jews; he was able to say at last, All is finished, concerning them; shall he never have a Consummatum est from thee; never be at an end with thee? Never, if his Image must burn eternally in thy soul, when thou art dead, for everlasting generations.

Thus then we were sealed; all sealed; all had his image in our creation, in the faculties of our souls: But then we were all sealed again, sealed in our very flesh, our mortal flesh, when the image of the invisible God, Christ Jesus, the only Son of God, took our nature: for, as the Tyrant wished, that all mankind were but one body, that he might behead all mankind at a blow, so God took into his mercy, all mankind in one person: As entirely, as all mankind was in Adam, all mankind was in Christ; and as the seal of the Serpent is in all, by original sin, so the seal of God, Christ Jesus, is on us all, by his assuming our nature. Christ Jesus took our souls, and our bodies, our whole nature; and as no Leper, no person, how infectiously soever he be diseased in his body, can say, surely Christ never took this body, this Leprosy, this pestilence, this rottenness, so no Leprous soul must say, Christ never took this pride, this adultery, this murder upon himself; he sealed us all in soul and body, when he took both, and though both die, the soul in sin daily, the body, in sickness, perchance this day, yet he shall afford a resurrection to both, to the soul here, to the body hereafter, for his seal is upon both.

These two seals then hath God set upon us all, his Image in our souls, at our making, his Image, that is his Son, upon our bodies and souls, in his incarnation; And both these seals he hath set upon us, then when neither we ourselves, nor anybody else knew of it: He sets another seal upon us, when, though we know not of it, yet the world, the congregation does, in the Sacrament of Baptism, when the seal of his Cross, is a testimony, not that Christ was borne, (as the former seal was) but that also he died for us; there we receive that seal upon the forehead, that we should conform ourselves to him, who is so sealed to us. And after all these seals, he offers us another, and another seal, Set me as a seal upon thy heart, and as a seal upon thine arm, says Christ to all us, in the person of the spouse; in the Heart, by a constant faith, in the Arm, by a declaratory works; for then are we sealed, and delivered, and witnessed; that's our full evidence, then have we made sure our salvation, when the works of a holy life, do daily refresh the contract made with God there, at our Baptism, and testify to the Church, that we do carefully remember, what the Church promised in our behalf, at that time: for, otherwise beloved, without this seal upon the arm, that is, a steadfast proceeding in the works of a holy life, we may have received many of the other seals, and yet deface them all. Grieve not the holy Ghost, whereby you are sealed, unto the day of Redemption, says the Apostle: they were sealed, and yet might resist the Spirit, and grieve the Spirit, and quench the Spirit, if by a continual watchfulness over their particular actions, they did not refresh those seals (formerly received in their Creation, in Christ's incarnation, in their Baptism, and in their beginnings of faith ) to themselves, and plead them to the Church, and to the world, by such a declaration of a holy life. But these seals being so many, and so univesall, that argues still, that which we especially seek to establish, that is, the Accessiblenesse, the communicablenesse, the sociableness, the affection, (shall I say) the Ambition, that God hath, to have us all.

Now how is this extensiveness declared here, in our text? It is declared in the great number of those who were sealed, both before, and after; to the consideration of both which, we are invited, by this phrase, which begins the text, After this: for, before that John saw this, there were one hundred forty four thousand sealed; Is that then, (that one hundred forty four thousand ) intended for a small number? If it had been so, it would rather have been said, of such a Tribe but twelve thousand, and but twelve thousand of such a Tribe; but God as expressing a joy, that there were so many, repeats his number of twelve thousand, twelve times over, of Judah twelve thousand, of Levi twelve thousand, and twelve thousand of every Tribe. So that then, we may justly take this number of twelve and twelve thousand, for an indefinite, and uncertain number; and as Saint Augustine does, wheresoever he finds that number of twelve, (as the twelve Thrones, where the Saints shall judge the world, and divers such ) we may take that number of twelve, and twelve, pro universitate salvandorum, that that number signifies, all those who shall be saved. If we should take the number to be a certain and exact number, so many, and no more, yet this number hath relation to the Jews only; And of the Jews, it is true, that there is so long a time of their exclusion, so few of them do come in, since Christ came into the world, as that we may, with Saint Augustine, interpret that place of Genesis, where Abraham's seed is compared both to the Stars of heaven, and to the dust of the earth, that the Stars of heaven signify those that shall be saved in heaven, and the dust of the earth, those that perish; and the dust of the earth may be more then the Stars of heaven; though (by the way) there are an infinite number of Stars more then we can distinguish, and so, by God's grace, there may be an infinite number of souls saved, more then those, of whose salvation, we discern the ways, and the means. Let us embrace the way which God hath given us, which is, the knowledge of his Son, Christ Jesus: what other way God may take with others, how he wtought upon Job, and Naaman, and such others as were not in the Covenant, let us not inquire too curiously, determine too peremptorily, pronounce too uncharitably: God be blessed, for his declaring his good-will towards us, & his will be done his way upon others. Truly, even those places, which are ordinarily understood of the pa • city of the Jews, that shall be saved, will receive a charitable interpretation, and extension. God says, in Jeremiah, I will take you, one out of a City, & two out of a family; yet he says, he will do this therefore, because he is married to them; so that this seems to be an act of his love; And therefore, I had rather take it, that God would take a particular care of them, one by one, then that he would take in but one and one: As it is in that place of Isaiah, In that day ye shall be gathered one by one, o ye children of Israel; that is, in the day of Christ, of his coming to and toward Judgment; Howsoever they come in but thinly yet, by the way, yet the Apostle pleads in their behalf thus, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. At this present, says he, there is a Remnant; then when they had newly crucified Christ, God had a care of them. God hath given them the spirit of slumber, says he also; it is but a slumber, not a death, not a dead sleep. Have they stumbled that they should fall? Fall utterly? God forbid. But says he, as concerning the Gospel, they are enemies, for your sakes; (that is, that room might be made for you the Gentiles ) but, as touching election, they are beloved for their Fathers sakes; that is, they have interest by an ancient title, which God will never disannul. And therefore a great part, of the ancient, and later men too, do interpret divers passages of Saint Paul, of a general salvation of the Jews, that all shall be effectually wrought upon, to salvation, before the second coming of Christ. I end this, concerning the Jews, with this note, that in all these Tribes, which yielded to this sealing, twelve thousand a piece, the Tribe of Dan is left out, it is not said, that any were sealed of the Tribe of Dan; many have inquired the reason, and satisfied themselves over easily with this, that because Antichrist was to come of that Tribe, that Tribe is forsaken. It is true, that very many of the Fathers, Irenaeus, Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory, (and more then these) have thought so, that Antichrist must be of that Tribe; but yet for all that profession, which they make in the Roman Church, of adhering to the Fathers, one amongst them, says, Incertum, be the Fathers as clear, and as unanimous as they will in it, it is a very uncertain, a very disputable thing; and another says, fabulosum est, be the Fathers as earnest, as they will, it is but a poetical and a fabulous thing, that Antichrist must come of the Tribe of Dan. But he that hath most of the works of Antichrist upon him, of any person in the world now, is thus far of the Tribe of Dan; Dan signifies Judgment; And he will needs be the Judge of all faith, and of all actions too, and so severe a Judge, as to give an irrevocable Judgment of Damnation, upon all that agree not with them, in all points. Certainly this Tribe of Dan, that is, of such uncharitable Judges of all other men, that will afford no salvation to any but themselves, are in the greatest danger to be left out, at this general seal; nothing hinders our own salvation more, then to deny salvation, to all but ourselves.

This then which was done before, though it concern but the Jews, was in a great number, and was a great argument, of God's sociable application of himself to man, but that which was after, was more, A great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations &c. God's mercy was not confined, nor determined upon the Jews; Other sheep have I, which are not of this fold, says Christ, them also I must bring in: I must; it is expressed, not only as an act of his good will, but of that eternal decree, to which, he had, at the making thereof, submitted himself: I must bring them; who are they? Many shall come from the east, and from the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isacc, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; from the Eastern Church, and from the WesterN Church too, from the Greek Church, and from the Latin too, and, (by God's grace) from them that pray not in Latin too, from every Church, (so it be truly, and fundamentally a Church) Many shall come; How many? a multitude that no man can number: For, the new Jerusalem, in the Revelation, (which is heaven) hath twelve gates, three to every corner of the world; so that no place can be a stranger, or lack access to it: Nay, it hath (says that Text) twelve foundations, Other foundation can no man lay, then that which is laid, Christ Jesus: But that first foundation-stone being kept, though it be not hewed, nor laid alike in every place, though Christ be not preached, nor presented in the same manner, for outward Ceremonies, or for problematicall opinions, yet the foundation may remain one, though it be, in such a sort, varied; and men may come in at any of the twelve gates, and rest upon any of the twelve foundations, for they are all gates, and foundations of one and the same Jerusalem; and they that enter, are a multitude that no man can number.

If then there be this sociable, this appliable nature in God, this large and open entrance for man, why does Christ call it a strait gate, and a narrow way? Not that it is strait in itself, but that we think it so, and, indeed, we make it so. Christ is the gate, and every wound of his admits the whole world. The Church is the gate; And in omnem terram, says David, she hath opened her mouth, and her voice is gone over all the world. His word is the gate; And, thy Commandment is exceeding broad, says David too; His word and his light reaches to all cases, and all distresses. Lata porta Diabolus; saith Saint Chrysostom, The Devil is a broad gate; but he tells us how he came to be so, Mon magnitudine potestatis extensus, sed superbiae licentia dilatatus; not that God put such a power into his hands, at first, as that we might not have resisted him, but that he hath usurped upon us, and we have given way to his usurpations: so, says that Father, Angusta porta Christus, Christ is a narrow gate, but he tells us also wherein, and in what respect, Non parvitate potestatis exiguus, sed humilitatis ration collectus; Christ is not a narrow gate, so as that the greatest man may not come in, but called narrow, because he fits himself to the least child, to the simplest soul, that will come in: not so strait, as that all may not enter, but so strait as that there can come in but one at once, for he that will not forsake Father and Mother, and wife, and children for him, cannot enter in. Therefore we call the Devils way broad, because men walk in that, with all their equipage, all their sumpters, all their state, all their sins; and therefore we call Christ's way strait, because a man must strip himself of all inordinate affections, of all desires of ill getting, and of all possessions that are ill gotten. In a word, it is not strait to a man's self, but if a man will carry his sinful company, his sinful affections with him, and his sinful possessions, it is strait, for then he hath made himself a Camel, and to a Camel Heaven gate is as a needles eye: But it is better coming into heaven with one eye, then into hell with two; Better coming into heaven without Master, or Mistress, then into hell for over-humouring of either. There, The gates are not shut all day; says the Prophet, and, there is no night there; And here, if we shut the door, yet Christ stands at the door and knocks; Be but content to open thy door, be but content to let him open it, and he will enter, and be but thou content to enter into his, content to be led in by his preaching, content to be drawn in by his benefits, content to be forced in by his corrections, and he will open his: since thy God would have died for thee, if there had been no man born but thou, never imagine, that he who lets in multitudes, which no man can number, of all Nations, &c. would ever shut out thee, but labor to enter there; ubi non intrat inimicus, ubi non exit amicus, where never any that hates thee, shall get to thee, nor any that loves thee, part from thee.

We have but ended our first part, The assurance which we have from God's manner of proceeding, that Religion is not a sullen, but a cheerful Philosophy, and salvation not cast into a corner, but displayed as the Sun, over all. That which we called at first, our second part, must not be a Part, admit it for a Conclusion; It is that, and beyond that; It is beyond our Conclusion, for it is our everlasting endowment in heaven: and if I had kept minutes enough for it, who should have given me words for it? I will but paraphrase the words of the Text, and so leave you in that, which, I hope, is your gallery to heaven, your own meditations: The words are, You shall stand before the Throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white Fobes, and palms in their hands.

First, stabitis, you shall stand; which is not, that you shall not sit, for the Saints shall sit & judge the world; & they shall sit at the right hand of God • It is not, that you shall not sit, nor that you shall not lie, for you shall lie in Abraham bosom: But yet you shall stand, that is, you shall stand sure, you shall never fall, you shall stand, but yet you shall but stand, that is, remain in a continual disposition and readiness to serve God, and to minister to him. And therefore account no abundance, no height, no birth, no place here, to exempt you from standing and laboring in the service of God, since even your glorious state in heaven is but a station, but a standing in readiness to do his will, and not a posture of idleness: you shall stand, that is, stand sure, but you shall but stand, that is, still be bound to the service of God.

Stabitis ante Thronum; you shall stand, and stand before the Throne; Here in the militant Church, you stand, but you stand in the porch, there, in the triumphant, you shall stand in Sancto sanctorum, in the Choir, and the Altar. Here you stand, but you stand upon Ice, perchance in high and therefore in slippery places; And at the judgment you shall stand, but stand at the bar; But when you stand before the Throne, you stand, (as it is also added in this place) before the Lamb: who having not opened his mouth, to save his own fleece, when he was in the shearers hand, nor to save his own life, when he was in the slaughterers hand, will much less open his mouth to any repentant sinners condemnation, or upbrayd you with your former crucifyings of him, in this world, after he hath nailed those sins to that cross, to which those sins nailed him.

You shall stand amicti stolis, (for so it follows) covered with Robes, that is, covered all over: not with Adams fragmentary rags of fig-leafes, nor with the half-garments of David's servants: Though you have often offered God half-confessions, and halferepentances, yet if you come at last, to stand before the Lamb, his fleece covers all; he shall not cover the sins of your youth, and leave the sins of your age open to his justice, nor cover your sinful actions, and leave your sinful words and thoughts open to justice, nor cover your own personal sins, and leave the sins of your Fathers before you, or the sins of others, whose sins your temptations produced and begot, open to justice; but as he hath enwrapped the whole world in one garment, the firmament, & so clothed that part of the earth, which is under our feet, as gloriously as this, which we live, and build upon: so those sins which we have hidden from the world, and from our own consciences, and utterly forgotten, either his grace shall enable us, to recollect, and to repent in particular, or (we having used that holy diligence, to examine our consciences so) he shall wrap up even those sins, which we have forgot, and cover all, with that garment of his own righteousness, which leaves no foulness, no nakedness open.

You shall be covered with Robes, All over; and with white Robes; That as the Angels wondered at Christ coming into heaven, in his Ascension, Wherefore art thou red in thine Apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth the wine fat? They wondered how innocence it self should become red, so shall those Angels wonder at thy coming thither, and say, Wherefore art thou white in thine apparel? they shall wonder how sin it self shall be clothed in innocence.

And in thy hand shall be a palm, which is the last of the endowments specifyed here. After the waters of bitterness, they came to seventy (to innumerable) palms; even the bitter waters were sweetened, with another wood cast in: The wood of the Cross of Christ Jesus, refreshes all tears, and sweetness all bitterness, even in this life: but after these bitter waters, which God shall wipe from all our eyes, we come, to the seventy, to the seventy thousand palms; infinite seals, infinite testimonies, infinite extensions, infinite durations of infinite glory: Go in, beloved, and raise your own contemplations, to a height worthy of this glory; and chide me for so lame an expressing of so perfect a state, and when the abundant spirit of God hath given you some measure, of conceiving that glory here, Almighty God give you, and me, and all, a real expressing of it, by making us actual possessors of that Kingdom, which his Son, our Savior Christ Jesus hath purchased for us, with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. Amen.

SERMON XXXIII.

Preached at Denmark house, some few days before the body of King James, was removed from thence, to his burial, Apr. 26. 1625.

I N the Creation of man, in that one word, Faciamus, let Vs make man, God gave such an intimation of the Trinity, as that we may well enlarge, and spread, and paraphrase that one word, so far, as to hear therein, a council of all the three Persons, agreeing in this gracious design upon Man, faciamus, let us make him; make and him, mend him, and make him sure: I, the Father, will make him by my power; if he should fall, Thou the Son shalt repair him, re-edify him, redeem him; if he should distrust, that this Redemption belonged not to him, Thou, the Holy Ghost, shalt apply to his particular soul, and conscience, this mercy of mine, and this merit of the Sons; and so let us make him. In our Text there is an intimation of another Trinity. The words are spoken but by one, but the persons in the text, are Three; For first, The speaker, the Director of all, is the Church, the spouse of Christ, she says, Go forth ye daughters of Zion; And then the persons that are called up, are, as you see, The Daughters of Zion, the obedient children of the Church, that hearken to her voice: And then lastly, the persons upon whom they are directed, is Solomon crowned, That is, Christ invested with the royal dignity of being Head of the Church; And in this, especially, is this appliable to the occasion of our present meeting (All our meetings now, are, to confess, to the glory of God, and the rectifying of our own consciences, and manners, the uncertainty of the prosperity, and the assurednesse of the adversity of this world) That this Crown of Solomon's in the text, will appear to be Christ's crown of Thorns, his Humiliation, his Passion; and so these words will dismiss us in this blessed consolation, That then we are nearest to our crown of Glory, when we are in tribulation in this world, and then enter into full possession of it, when we come to our dissolution and transmigration out of this world: And these three persons, The Church, that calls, The children that hearken, and Christ in his Humiliation, to whom they are sent, will be the three parts, in which we shall determine this Exercise.