Commentary on 2 Peter

IT pleased God to make use of two Instruments, for the calling together of the assemblies of the Saints; Bells and Trumpets. In the foundation of his militant Church, his first institution was Trumpets by his appointment the Congregation was called into the Tabernacle by Trumpets: and when they were in, he gave them also the sound of Bells, from the garment of his Priest. In the Christian church, we have the use of Bells, but not of Trumpets: yet if we distinguish this Church, as it hath a Militant, and as it hath a Triumphant part, we have both Bells and Trumpets employed, but with an inverted Order. A Bell calls us to the Temple, and a Bell calls us to the Tribunal▪ For as the Sermon-bell calls us to the Church material, so our Passing-bell calls 〈◊〉 to the Church celestial. The Bell toules, and we come into the mil •• an • Assembly: the Bell toules again when we die, and then we go out unto that triumphant Company. And when we shall receive our further Consummation, the re-uniting of Bodies and Souls at the Resurrection; it shall be done by the sound • f Trumpets. In a spiritual sense, we have both these, Bels and Trumpets, i •••• ting us to the way of Goodness: Every Sermon we do h •• re, is as one of Aaron's bells, that rings us to repentance and a holy life: But every Sermon upon such an argument as this, the presentation of the Day of Judgment to our Souls, whereof the Day of Judgment will call for a presentation: this is a loud Trumpet, thundering in our ears the necessity of that Preparation, which may save us from eternal destruction. Hear therefore these lower Trumpets to your pro •• t, that you may then hear that last Trumpet to your Comfort.

Looking for, and hastening unto, &c.] Wherein we have two general parts; The Object requiring some exercise; The Comming of the Lord's Day: And the Exercise concerning that Object; Looking for it; hastening to it. The Object hath two appendances; The fiering of the Heavens, and The melting of the Elements. The Exercise consists in two actions; Expectation and Expedition; the one of Hope, the other of Desire: the former is Patient, Looking for: the other is Properant, Hastering to. Both these affections of the Soul, are resembled to two actions of the Body: Looking for, that is work for the eye: hastening to, that is the business of the foot: The one is an Organ of Vision, the other of Motion: Hope must keep the eye open to Look; and Desire teach the foot to mend his pace, and to hasten. The Object hath the last place in the Text, but it shall have the first in my discourse: the journey being known, we set forwards.

The Comming of the Day of the Lord.] God is no Judge Dormant, nor Demurrant, nor Rampant. Not Dormant, none of those Judges that fall asleep on the Bench; that like those Idol-gods, hath ears, and hears not. Not like him that would not right the poor widow, till her importunity had wakened him. Not Demurrant, like Felix, that put off Paul to a longer day, I will hear thee another time. Nor Rampant, like those in the Prophet, that slay off the skins of the poor, and grind their faces. He is uncorrupt, no bribe can tempt him: not dilatory, no business doth detain him: Inflexible, no power can-sway him. This Supreme Judge hath set the day of his Assise, and all men must appear before him. All eyes shall see him, but with a different aspect: which is strange; that the same Object should be so acceptable to some, to others so terrible. They shall see the Son of man coming in a Cloud: but with no comfort. Not that the Excellencie and Splendor of his glory shall be hidden, but there is an indisposition in their fight to receive it. They shall know him to be the Son of God, by the Claritie of his person, the Majesty of his Word, the obsequious • e • dinesse, of the Angels to serve him, and by divers other perspicuous and evident demonstrations. But as a weak eye is offended with a shining light, so this Glory shall amaze, not cheer them. The good man's honor is the envious man's torment. If Joseph's sheaf stand, the brethren repine. If the fat Calf be killed, the Elder brother is angry: Saul finds not so much pleasure in his Kingdom, as vexation in the prosperity of David. The Glory of Christ shall add to the Reprobates confusion, when they are driven to confess, This is he whom we had in derision. They will rather choose to endure the horrors of hell, than to stand in so glorious a presence. Christ says of the wicked, that they shall see him no more. If we understand this of the Godhead, they never saw it at all. If of the manhood, they shall see it again, Videbunt quem soderunt. Indeed they shall see him no more as a Redeemer; that time is past: but as a Judge they shall, to their endless discomfort.

But these are Scarabees and Beetles, and this Day of the Lord is to them a Rose; so sweet that it kills them. The breath of a man hath this property, that at the same instant it can warm that which is near it, and cool another thing somewhat removed. It is no otherwise with the breath of God: Doth any man fear him? Then is he near him; For his Salvation is nigh to all them that fear him: and this breath of the Lord, the Promise of his second Comming, lights warm upon him, and is a cordial reviving his heart. But if a man be far off from God, through the vast gulf and separation of his sins; then comes this breath very cold and bleak to his heart; and the mere mention of the day of Judgment sends a shivering through all his bones. It was the Son of man, whom the high Priest was promised to see one day in the Clouds. The Father hath given him the Commission of Judgment, and that by this Title, as he is The Son of man. Which consideration makes us bold to take Paul's speech out of his mouth; and what he said to Agrippa, to apply better to Christ: I think myself happy, O King Jesus, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee, touching all the things whereof Satan accuseth me. Especially because thou hast knowledge of all customs; whether they be the adversaries, who is busy in assaulting; or the Fleshes, who is false in betraying; or my poor souls, which is weak in resisting. Thy own temptations have given thee experience of my frailty. I see the wounds yet bleed, which were taken for my sins: yea, and mine own nature is assistant in Judgment, to assure me I shall be partaker in Glory. Is my brother Joseph thus great? Then shall not his brother Benjamin be forgotten. If Hester be so dear to Ahasuerus, her kinsman Mordecai shall be advanced: there is in store for him, a robe, and a ring, and a horse, and a crown, and a train to proclaim his favor, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the King will honor.

Wherein the Heavens being on fire, &c. Concerning the Conflagration of the Heavens, liquefaction of the Elements, and dissolution of the World, sufficient hath been spoken before. My Meditations now are directed only to such profitable Uses, which if we devoutly practice, our soul shall escape in that Day of Vengeance.

1. Let there be an holy Fire within us, which will be an antidote against the rage of this Fire about us. The Word of God is Fire; an holy Fire from the Altar of Heaven: Sin is also like Fire; but one heat doth avocate another; the greater Fire extinguisheth the less. The Word is compared to Fire. First, It doth calefacere, warm the heart: more extensive of beams than the Sun; Nihil occultatur à calore ejus; Nothing is hid from the heat thereof. The most frossen breast will thaw, when God shall lay this Fire unto it. Secondly, It can illuminare, give light to the ignorant, if it be not mis-placed. The Fowler that carries the light on the top of his head, lights others plainly, himself sees not so well: Some carry this light only for the good of others, not of themselves; while they teach well, and walk ill: such men, when they go abroad, leave their lamp at home. Some keep this Fire to themselves, and grudge it to others: their light is kept within doors, and shall do no good to their neighbors: they have knowledge, but they will part with none of it. Others rake up this Fire under the embers, as Christ calls it putting the light under a bushel; so that neither others nor themselves shall be the better for it. Thirdly, Fire can purgare, search, try, examine, and purge away the dross from the metal: This operation if the Word had in us, we should be presented pure Gold to the Treasury of Christ. Sins are rust, and rust will not be gotten out but by fire. When we find our affections so drossy, rusty, foul, we must remember that this Fire hath not been made on our harthes; the Word hath not been admitted into our hearts. Fourthly, Fire can assimilare, make the matter it enters into, like it self: as Iron in the fire becomes fire. The soul that humbly entertains the Word, is made pure and holy, like the Word. If we see an uncharitable man, like a cold unformed lump of metal; know that his conscience, hath not yet taken Fire. Fifthly, It will permanere, last long in fit matter: as a mark made in a board by fire, will last as long as the board. If the Word have once thoroughly taken bold of our hearts, that gracious Fire will never out. God's Word, and man's Eare are like the Steele and the Flint: they quickly strike out fire; but to no purpose, unless our heart be as Tinders to receive the sparks. If we have this fire, let it not go out for want of fuel: Hearing and Meditation are like oil to the Lamp, and fuel to the Fire; My heart was hot within me, and while I was musing, the fire burned. If we maintain this holy Fire in our hearts, we shall not be hurt by the burning of the Heavens.

2. The Heavens shall burn, and the Elements shall melt, both with one Fire. Our Affections are our Elements: under the command of the Heart, as the Elements are under the rule of Heaven: By the Creation, the Elements were pure, and so were our Affections: now both of them are corrupt, feculent, and drossy. Therefore let this same holy Fire melt our Elements, new cast our Affections. Hast thou a covetous affection, greedy of those baser things? Melt it. How? Dissolve it into charitable contributions; like molten Lead, that runs into empty corners. Melt thy riches into alms, thy rapacity into mercy. Thy money was congealed in thy chests; put the Fire of Charity to it: were it frozzen to a stone, and bound with iron bars, as with the bonds of Orion; this Fire would thaw it; Charity would set it a running into the bellies of the poor, the fittest receptacles for all our wealthy superfluities. When an ill gotten estate is left to a prodigal Heir, We say proverbially, yea prophetically; It will melt like snow in the Sun. The father, like a Constable, kept in the stocks; but the gallant son will let it loose, and set it a running. The penurious father did clippe the wings of his riches; but the son will open the cage, and make them fly. This is a melting without thanks, without reward. But that which is molten in Charity, runs into a blessed Treasury: it is but put over by a Bill of Exchange, to be paid an hundred fold in Heaven. This is an holy, an happy Fire: but alas, we may say of this virtue in special, as the Poet doth of virtue in general; Virtus laudatur, & alget: Charity is so cold, as if these many Winters it had seen no fire. A man had need blow strong and long upon this pile of Charity; for it is green wood, and hard to kindle: But if this fire cannot melt our hearts into beneficence, the last Fire will more than terrify them with vengeance. Stones will lie long in the fire, and before they melt, they fly in pieces: and such will be the meed of all stony hearts. Hast thou a proud Affection? Melt it into Humility; Lay thy ambitious desire of Honor in the dust. Hast thou an Affection of Revenge? Melt it into Forgiveness, without which thou shalt never be forgiven. Art thou transported with a lascivious affection, troubled with the Itch of Wantonness? Melt it by Mortification: Do not feed this fire, least it burn thee to cinders; but withdraw the fuel, and it will out of it self. Is thy Desire set upon Wine? Doest thou long after the cups of Excess? Melt it, or it will melt thee. The Drunkard indeed can melt his estate into drink, his body into Surfeits, his time into vanity: but he cannot melt his sin into sorrow, his inordinate lust into sobriety. These Elements of our corrupt nature must be molten by repentance, that when the Elements of the world shall melt with fervent heat, we may be found pure and refined Oare in the eyes of JESUS CHRIST.

Looking for, and hastening unto.] The one is the work of Hope, the other of desire: the former commends Tolerancie, the latter Diligence. Looking for: this eye of expectation hath three beams: Vigilancie, Hope, and Patience. Without Watchfulness we cannot look, without Hope we will not look, and without Patience we should not look for the coming of the Lord.

1 Vigilancie is required in this Expectation, even a continual waking. The Prophets of God were called both Seers, and Watchmen: not only Seers, endued with a power of seeing, able to see: but Watchmen, evermore in the act of seeing. Sleep, in the Scriptures, hath so heavy a sense sometimes, as not only to be taken for sin it self, Awake thou that sleepest: but even for the punishment of sin: The most fearful and irrevocable malediction is presented to us in a perpetual sleep: They shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake. Sleep is as often taken for natural death, as for natural rest. There is a privation of Motion in both: in sleep an interruption, in death a cessation. Sleep is a short death, death a long sleep. Spiritual slumber is a very death. The Romists compare the state of nature but only to sleep, or to a man fallen into a deep ditch: he can hear thee call, give him a rope, and pull; he will take hold and be drawn out: this is false, for he is dead. A man may struggle out of natural sleep, of Edormire crapulam: but it is not in our power to awake from sin: we must have a continual grace, or we cannot stand. I stand at the door and knock: st • , not stet • , not stabo, but sto stance; he is ever there. Yet we must add our own endeavors, and with waking eyes be always looking for our Deliverance.

There be signs before sleep natural, and spiritual. First, heaviness of the head and temples, by reason of the rising up of fumes and vapors: Worldly desires induce such a drowsiness upon the soul: these hinder the contemplation of heavenly things: the bodies of such men be at Church, while their minds are at home. O that they could remember to rub their temples with holy thoughts: this would keep them waking. Secondly, Yawning is another sign of sleep invading the body: answerable whereunto there is a torpour or laziness of the soul. O that this Sermon were done! When will he make an end of prating? Shall I go to my prayers? I care not if I do: yet 'tis no matter: let it alone till another time. Is this man awake? Doth he look for the Day of the Lord? No, but the Day of the Lord may take him napping.

There be Symptoms of sleep: First, Snorting; everyone that sleeps, does not snort; but everyone that snorts, does sleep. This is a profound sleep; when the whole Parish rings of a man's vicious acts, yet still he shorts in the room. This man speaks of his greediness, that of his frowardness, one of folly, another of his baseness; he hears all this, yet snorts, laughs at it; Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo. Do we know none such? I would there were none such to be known. Secondly, Dreaming: there be many fancies in both sleeps, of body and mind. One while he dreams that he is on a mountain, and sees the glory of kingdoms: an ambitious Dream! Another while, that he hath found a great treasure, hid in the earth: a covetous Dream! Another time he eats and drinks plentifully; and yet, alas, wakens hungry: a voluptuous Dream! All the pleasure, all the bravery, all the money of the world, is but a waking Dream. Such men will not be persuaded that they are a-sleep: indeed it is hard for a sleeping man to know that he does sleep: yet by his Dreams, he may in some measure find it. The head hath often very frightful Dreams in sleep: Lions and Bears seem to assault us, Gulfes of water to drown us, fire to consume our houses, Thieves and Murderers to rob and kill us. The sleeping soul hath such dreams too: one thinks, If I be honest, and keep a good conscience, I must needs be poor: it is but a Dream. Another, If I do not collogue and flatter, I shall be despised: it is but a Dream. A third thinks, If I do not bribe, I shall lose my cause: it is but a Dream. Another, If I put up this injury without revenge, I shall be held a coward: it is but a Dream. Another thinks, If I be every day giving to the poor, I shall be poor myself: it is but a dream. A thousand of these fond Dreams surprise us in our sleep: if our hearts were awake, we would detest them. We have slept enough, it is high time to rise. Carnal fancies are but Bug-bears to hinder us from good works: when we awake, we will count all things loss for Jesus Christ.

But suppose that such sensual souls be possessed with the spirit of slumber, What say you to them that put on a zealous form of godliness, and overunne the common professors more than Ahimaaz did Cushi, till they are quite out of breath: Are these men a-sleep? Yes, too many of them that think themselves waking. You shall have a Pharisee that walks from Church to Church, till he hath heard three Sermons in a day, What? Doth he sleep? Why not? Did you never hear of men that walk in their sleep? They that think the whole duty of a Christian consists in visiting the Temple, and hearing the Preacher, do (in effect) but walk in their sleep. But they can tell you some notes of the Sermon, repeat the Doctrines and Uses to their Family. It may be so, but did you never hear of men that talk in their sleep? If this be all that they learn by those Doctrines, if this be all the use they make of those Uses, only for matter of discourse; they do no more but talk in their sleep. But they can conceive long extemporal prayers in their private houses, and cut out large pieces of devotion: and are they still a-sleep? The Pharisees had their long-winded Orisons; petitions made up tedious with repetitions: yet under the color of long prayers they devoured widows houses: I hope you will not say, These men were awake. As the sensual man falls a-sleep at his prayers, so the Hypocrite doth but pray in his sleep. It is a bastard devotion that is not begotten in the heart: without the heart, all the labor of the lips and lungs, is but a stinking sacrifice. Christ's Spouse acknowledgeth; I sleep, but my heart waketh: the dissembling Professor inverts the words; I wake, but mine heart sleepeth. Add to all this, that such a man is industrious in his calling, he follows his business close, and thrives in this world: Is he yet a-sleep? He may be for all that? Are there none that pull up the clothes about them, and wrap themselves warm in the coverings, even whiles they are fast a-sleep? Even the sleeping man may be sensible of cold, and catch at something to hill him: the scraping together of worldly wealth is no more argument of a man's being awake, than coldness and breathlessness is that he is alive; or the absence of the Sun proveth it to be day. Far is it from my intent to censure those holy actions in any man: Hear that you may learn to pray, and pray that you may hear to learn: Spend the Sabbath in those holy exercises, and woe unto you if you do not. But let me tell you, that if you have a false and unfruitful heart, a dishonest and unconscionable life; for all this hurry and precipitation of outward zeal, you are still fast a-sleep.

Security and expectation are opposites: the servant that looks for his masters coming, is afraid to fall a-sleep. There be four ways to waken men from their slumbers. First, some loud and sudden noise, as the beating up of drummes, or the sound of trumpets; especially the claps of thunder. We hear the rumors of wars on every side: the Bulls of Rome, worse than those Bulls of Basan, bellow and roar against us: How many horns of that seven-headed Beast threaten to gore us? If they once get the power, we too well know their malice. Can none of these noises waken us? If we could be safe at home, yet shall we not pity our distressed brethren beyond the seas, because we are not within the hearing of their groans? Shall we not rather say with Uriah; Is the Ark of the Lord, and Israel, and Judah in danger, and can we sleep in security? The tolling of a bell will waken a man at midnight; especially if it go for a friend. We have heard the fatal knell of that ever to be lamented Palatinate, the dying groan of long afflicted Rochelle, with the expiring gasps of innumerable Christians in other places; and are we still a-sleep? We have heard the honor of those unhappy conquests, given away from God to Idols and Images; and are we still a-sleep? Secondly, if noise will not waken us, me thinks pain should. We have felt the loss of estate, the loss of honor, the loss of our blood, like so many mortal wounds in our sides; and can we still sleep? Ill success abroad, worse distractions at home, the fear of our enemies, the fear of our friends hath touched us: and cannot all this awake us to fear our God? Thirdly, there is yet another way of rousing the sleeper: Pull off the clothes, lay him naked, expose him to the cold, and try what that will do. Disgrace strips us of honor, trouble strips us of peace, bondage strips us of liberty, sickness strips us of health, poverty strips us of wealth, persecution strips us of friends, death strips us of all. Will not some of these, Will not all of these waken us? Fourthly, Well yet there is one thing that will not fail to effect it; even that summons which shall be given at the coming of this day of the Lord: the last trump shall raise us. O then let us look up in time, and look for that Day when time shall be no more. It is comfort for a man, when he wakes to see the light. Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

2 Hope must not be excluded from this expectation: Evil is the object of fear, and that we suspect: The object of hope is good, and this we expect. None but the gracious can be said to look for this day: Iusti expectant, & expetunt? They love his appearing. They pray for it; Thy Kingdom come. They cry for it, Come Lord Jesus. All this argues their Hope; yea, They have boldness in the day of judgment. We confess with Saint Augustine, Gaudere judicandum qui timmerit judicaturum. What chaste and loving Spouse will not earnestly look for the coming of her Bridegroom? What Princely heir does not long for the day of his Coronation? In Heaven is the perfection of all good things: Fullness is the perfection of measure: Everlastingnesse is the perfection of time: Infiniteness is the perfection of number: Immutability is the perfection of state: Immensity is the perfection of place: Immortality is the perfection of life: God is the perfection of all. We have nothing but what is imperfect below, why then do we not long for that universal perfection above? If we hope for it, we cannot but look for it: and if we look for it, there is some comfort to our conscience that we hope for it. But many are mistaken in their hope The righteous man hath hope in his death. Diverse have hope in morte aliena; they hope for the death of others, that they may get by them: some reversion or legacy runs in their minds: whereof they are not seldom frustrated; for, Dum sperant, expirant. But the good man hath hope in his own death; that death it self, like some more gentle Jailor, shall but unlock the door of his prison, and set him at everlasting liberty. Simple people cannot discern hope from desire: they think that they hope to be saved; whereas indeed they only desire it, and do not truly hope for it. We may desire many things which we cannot hope for; as to raise the dead; but there is nothing that we hope for, which we may not desire. As diverse have fidem, faith; that have not fiduciam, constancy. So there may be Desiderium, a desire of blessedness; where there is not Spes, a well grounded hope to be blessed.

But the soul that knows herself redeemed by Christ, is never thoroughly contented, till either she returns to Christ, or Christ returns to her. The waters do not more naturally run back to the Sea, nor heavy substances incline to their center, than the pious soul desires to ascend to her Maker. The converted unthrift can never rest, till he returns to his Father. A bladder blown full of wind, and held under the water, will still be rising upwards; because that is not the place of the Air. My soul cleaveth to the Pavement; as some read that of the Psalm. Throw dirte on the pavement, and it sticks there: but cast down a ball, and it rebounds; it comes back again to the thrower. The body is but Earth, and when that is thrown to the Earth, there it remains: but the righteous soul, when it is cast down by humiliation, or dejected by the afflicting hand of God, it still rebounds to him: The spirit returns to him that gave it. Hope then should make us look up, and desire enflame us to look for the coming of Jesus Christ.

3 Patience must not be left out; as we look for the Bridegroom's presence, so the Bridegroom looks for our patience. We are unworthy of his honor, if we cannot endure to tarry his leisure. The nobleness of a Christian is seen in his patience: Magnanimity is patient; like the flint which hath fire in it, but it appears not till it be stricken. How contrary is the opinion of the world, to the judgment of God, concerning valor? They think it consists in a brave revenge: God stateth it in an humble patience. What greater courage can there be, than to suffer? What victory so great, as to conquer a man's self? Our expectation may be charged with too much violence, if it be not qualified, and corrected by patience. The fond Alchemist projects much, and extracts nothing but poverty and shame. Patience is the best Chemist, for out of course Earth she can draw pure gold, out of trouble peace, out of sorrow joy, out of persecution profit, out of affliction comfort, She teacheth the bondman, in a narrow prison to enjoy all liberty. He hath within those strict limits, his galleries, his walks, his orchyards: though he be alone, he never wants company: though his diet be penury, his sauce is content: all his miseries cannot make him sick, because they are digested by patience. It makes the poor beggar rich: though he goes for his drink to the Well, for his bread to another's Cupboard, for his garments to the refuse of a cast Wardrobe: yet he looks with as cheerful a countenance, as he that was clothed in Purple, and fared sumptuously every day: Or he that said to his soul, Eate, drink and be merry: for this man had but a purpose to be merry, but the patient man is merry indeed. A superiors unjust frowns are all one to him with his flattering smiles: and causeless aspersions do but rub his glory the brighter. The Iailors that watch him, are but his Pages of honor, and his very Dungeon, but the lower side of the vault of Heaven. He kisseth the wheel that must kill him: and thinks the stairs of the Scaffold of his martyrdom, but so many degrees of his ascent to glory. The tormentors are weary of him, the beholders have pity on him, all men wonder at him: and whiles he seems below all men, below himself, he is above nature. He hath so overcome himself, that nothing can conquer him. As it was said of Demosthenes, that other Lawyers got not so much by their speaking, as he did by holding his peace: so suffering sinners find not so much ease in their complaints and murmurs, as the patient man doth by his humble silence. If with such eyes we look for our Lord's coming, we shall Through Faith and Patience, inherit the promises. Jacob thought not his service tedious, because his beloved Rachel was in his eye: the sight of glory future, mitigates the sense of misery present. The best example teacheth us, To run with patience the race that is set before us: As we look for Jesus, so let us look unto Jesus, who for the proposed joy, endured the cross, and despised the shame: and then we shall dwell with him, That sits at the right hand of the Throne of God.

But doth our Apostle write this only for the comfort of the righteous? would he not also (through the use of this expectation ) win sinners to repentance? what can sooner break off a servants dissoluteness, than every day looking for his masters presence? Fear and hope are opposites: but in this day, Men's hearts shall fail them for fear, when the powers of Heaven shall be shaken. Shew me the man that says, he doth not fear that terrible day of the Lord. When the Master of the house perisheth, all the Family is troubled: the servants look sad, and all things are out of order. No marvel, if there be such a combustion in the Elements, such a commotion in the Heavens; no marvel, if the stars fall, and the Seas roar; when man, the vsu-fructuary Lord of all these, is brought to his judgment. Though fear and hope have their opposition; yet it is not in diametrall terms, but in terms remiss. There is no hope on Earth, without some fear: no fear in a righteous heart, that is quite destitute of hope. There may be a fear without faith: but who will say, that he hath a faith without all fear? Both may consist in the same subject: the holy heart believeth his salvation with confident trusting: and yet that holy heart Worketh out his salvation with fear and trembling. The ground of our faith is God's infallible promise: the cause of our fear, is our own sinful weakness. Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? They had some faith, but the best part of it was lost in their fear: the more faith, the less fear: and consequently, the more fear, the less faith. Yet not only may fear and hope consist together, but even fear and joy: The women departed from the Sepulcher with fear and joy. The women who were made supernumerary Apostles, Apostles to the Apostles, the Mothers of the Fathers of the Church, Angels of the Resurrection; they did run, and they ran upon two legs, Fear and Joy. Those joy in the Lord, that fear Him: and they only fear Him, that feel joy in Him. The fear of God and the love of God are inseparable: innumerable are the places, wherein we are called upon, to fear the Lord: and yet the greatest Commandment, which is the root of all, is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. He doth neither, that doth not both: he omits neither, that does one. Well therefore may we fear the last Day, when we consider our own desert: yet hope and long for it, when we remember the Covenant in JESUS CHRIST.

Let Unbeleevers, and impenitent sinners tremble: let such fear to die, as have no hope to live: let them wish for the shelter of rocks, that have not built upon the Rock of salvation: as the Devils believe and tremble, expecting the full measure of their torment. But if we have made our peace through the blood of Him, that reconciled God and man, and led a life worthy of that noble Privilege; Let us look for that Day with joy, which shall begin our glory. Blasphemers do not look for this Judge; for then they would not offer to swear Him out of his Throne. Worldlings do not look for this breaking of all asunder, for then they would not be busy in scraping all together. Dissolute sinners do not look for this Day, but this Day shall come upon them unlooked for. The Lord of that evil servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not ware of. He that looks for his Masters return, after a long absence, will be sure to have the house in a readiness; cleansed and furnished for his entertainment: they whose consciences lie sluttish, and full of sordid lusts surely do not look for the coming of their Lord: but he is not bound to their times: When they cry, Peace, Peace, then comes that fatal trouble unlooked for. Only the faithful look for Christ: as before his first Comming He was the Expectation of Nations: so until his second Comming He is the Expectation of all good Christians. And this long looked for comes at last; to deliver our eyes from tears, our soul from death, and our feet from falling, that we may walk before God in the light of the living.

Hasting unto] It is not enough to hope that this Day will come toward us, but we must approach towards it. We may pray earnestly, Come Lord, come quickly: yet He will come never the sooner. For He hath appointed the Day wherein He will judge the world: He will come in his own determined time, not when we would have Him. We cannot accelerare Diem, we may accelerare ad Diem: though we cannot hasten it, we may hasten to it. There be certain degrees of Preparation, preceding this Properation. Hasting is in effect the same, that Saint Paul calls Running: Let us run the Race. A man that is down on the ground, must arise, and stand, and be able to go, before he can run. First, a Sinner is laid, and must arise. Up Elias, thou hast a great journey to go: first, he must Up, and then Go, Repentance is the only Angel that raiseth a Sinner: and we may to as much purpose call a dead man out of his grave, as an ungracious soul from sin without repentance. Secondly, when he is risen, let him •• y if he can stand. If a Sinner thinks to stand alone: he falls faster than he rose. In • estas, & non stas: he that stands upon his own feet, shall soon feel them double under him. It is because, like children, we will presume to go of ourselves, that we get so many knocks. The same hand that lifted us up, must hold us up: if either God let go us, or we let go Him, down we • opple. But being strengthened by his might, Let us stand. Standing up is a sign that a m • n purposes to be going. It is an erection of body, an elevation of it towards heaven: not creeping upon the earth, but bearing upwards: it is a disposition of motion: be 〈◊〉 standeth, hath put himself into a posture of going▪ Thirdly, that is the the next degree: let him try how he can go. He that hath lain long bedrid, and at the first loose sets a running, will soon be out of breath. When we are helped up, and enabled to stand; yet without the same supportation we cannot go. Vphold thou my goings, O Lord, that my footsteps slide not. As an Infant learns to go by the hand of the mother, so we by the manu-tenencie of God. But being thus upholden, let us be going. It is a shame for them to stand still, that have so long a journey and so strong a convoy. Fourthly, when we have learned to go well, let us try to run: the same power will strengthen us in any pace, so long as we keep the way of goodness. Our journey requires hast, let us make as few lets as may be. In many things, the more haste, the worse speed: but he can never speed amiss, that runs the way of God's Commandments. Not seldom we shall stumble; but a trip in the way sets a man somewhat the more forward, if he does not fall. When we do fall, let us remember, that either we have gone out of the way, or neglected our Upholder. It is our prayer, O God make speed to save us, O Lord make haste to help us: And it is God's Charge to us, O man make speed to be helped, make haste to be saved.

Haste makes waste, is a true proverb in the precipitant carriage of businesses: Faire and soft goes far: Not to fast for falling: Stay a little, and we shall have done the sooner. These be the sayings of moderation, to correct the rashness of undertakings. But in spiritual proceedings, Delay is more dangerous than Celerity. If salvation be, we cannot work it out too fast. I speak not for a flashy zeal, that runs upon a line like a fireworke, and ends with a crack: but for an holy and hearty desire to do God all possible service; and to make the best improvement of our time to his honor. This Apostolical charge condemneth two defects in sinful men; The Neglect of Resolution, and the Delay of Inception to be good: it riseth in full strength against those, that neither begin to resolve, nor resolve to begin, the amendment of their lives.

1. The Neglect of Resolution to enter into the way of Righteousness, is the forlorn estate of a sinner? What hope can there be of him, that hath not so much as a purpose to be holy? Sloth hath been reproved in the very Market, How much worse is it in the Vineyard? Time is the measure of business, as money is of wares: and what thrifty husband will lose his Market? Yet business in the world, is no better than idleness in the sight of the Lord. As David saith, that he kept silence, though he roared all the day long: or as Jerusalem is said to be a solitary City, though she was then full of people. As the wisdom of the world is foolishness before God: so all carnal negotiation is but a more serious kind of play. Children think themselves very busy, when they are riding upon Reeds, or making of Puppets: men do not think so. What time soever is spent out of the service of God, or our own calling, is but lost in vanity. Idleness it self is damnable; not is it sufficient excuse to say, We do none ill: for it is ill, to do nothing. Thou hast a servant, which neither is Thief, nor Drunkard, nor Swearer, nor taxed with any vice: but because he sits all the day with his hand in his bosom, thou correctest him: Why? What harm hath he done? Thou canst charge him with nothing, but the not doing of something; yet he deserves chastisement. Saint Augustine confesseth, that in his unconverted estate, he returned to God's call, Verba lenta & somnolenta: Anon Lord, Anon. But Lex non dormi •• tibus scripta est, say the Lawyers: nor is heaven open to the lazy. Saint Augustine calls idleness vivi homin • s sepulturam.

When thy heavenly Master calls thee, O evil Servant, Why doest thou loiter? Zacchaeus made haste, and ca •• down: the Shepherd came with haste, to find the Child Jesus. Today let 〈◊〉 hear his voice: To day, that is God's note; To morrow, is the voice of the Tempter. Licentious sinners Hodie sibi reservant, & Cràs Deo 〈◊〉 t •• t: they will be their own now, and the Lord's another time. This is truly the Deceitfulness of sin; the persuasion of that pestilent spirit. Da mihi nunc, futurum Deo: mihi aetatis florem, Deo senectutem. But gods today, allows no morrow: and man's Day is not sure of a morrow. Out of a whole piece of cloth we may cut any kind of garment: but when a garment is made of one fashion, it will be hard to translate it into another: either we shall spoil the stuff, or deform the garb. When we have been long fashioned to this ill-favored World; to reform us to goodness, or to conform us to Christ, is an alteration that requires much difficulty. When we lend money, we call for security; and color the suspicion of our want of trust, with mortality: Men are mortal, we have no lease of our life. But for the matter of conversion, and in the business of our salvation, we promise ourselves Nestor's years; and so live, as if we never looked to die. Some have been called into the vineyard at the eleventh hour: but if God call thee at the third, fail not to come even then, for thou art not sure to live unto the fourth. A snow-ball grows bigger by rolling, and sin multiplies by time. A ship of never so great burden, may be overladen till it sink again. He that shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, Hath not lift up his soul unto vanity: the vulgar reads it, qui non accepit in vanum animam suam; that hath not taken his soul in vain. Surely, he that hath a soul, and doth not use it well, nor seek to save it, hath taken it in vain: as he that buys a garment, and never wears it: or that farms good land, and never tills it. We desire to have all good that belongs unto us: Abraham would have a good son, David a good servant, Jacob a good wife, we would have our beds good, our garments good; not so much as our very beasts, but we would have them good too: and do we not wish to have good souls: If but our shoes be fowl, we will have them made clean; and have we no care to cleanse our souls? Be not so unkind to thyself, as to esteem thy shoe above thy soul. What earthly business hath the worldling, which he doth not most diligently prosecute? If he be in law, how duly doth he frequent the chamber of his Advocate? If sick, what running is there for the Physician? If he have a hundred things to do, not one of them shall be neglected. His land shall be husbanded, his house highted, his garments brushed; the very hairs of his head pass not untrimmed: he thinks of everything in due place and order: But for his soul, when it comes in his mind: he lays that by till another time For the mending of that, for the cleansing of that, it is the least and last thing he thinks on. No wonder, if that man never come to the end, that hath not so much as attempted to begin. Here is no hast.

2 Delay is dangerous, even when we have resolved. If ever we mean to be good, why not now? There is but one month in the year called May: if some flowers do not spring up then, we look for none afterwards. Purpose and performance are like Jacob and Esau: our good purpose, as Esau, is the first borne: but our good performance, as Jacob; carries away the blessing. The holy soul, like that virtuous woman, doth not only meddle with the distaff, but She layeth her hands to the spindle. Purpose is but the Distaffe, actual obedience is the Spindle. The raw Flaxe is upon the Distaffe, the spun yarne or thread upon the Spindle. Ask the harlot, the swearer, or the oppressor, if they ever intend to change their lives: yes, one day: O they will do good works apace, when they once fall to it. These put their fingers to the Distaffe, not to the Spindle: they have some raw thoughts of repentance upon the rock; but they do not spin it into thread, not work it into actual obedience. They trust to the good works they mean to do, but who knows when? Mariners in a storm, if they see but one fire upon their sails, look for an unlucky voyage; but if two fires appear to them, they take it for a good Omen, and promise themselves safety. The purpose of amendment is but one fire, and many have had that, who are sunk into the bottomless gulf of Hell: But if the other fire be present, a real conversion to righteousness, prosperous success will not fail to follow, and the end of our voyage shall be salvation. What servant that looks for his Master every hour, will have the house to sweep, the fire to kindle, the bed to make, when he knocks at the door? yet alas, neither are our affections swept by repentance, nor is the fire of charity kindled in our hearts, nor have we prepared the bed of our conscience, though we may well look for our Lord every moment. We are so far from hastening toward this day, that we cannot endure to hear of this days hastening toward us. Kind servants, that love their master, will be ever and anon talking of his coming: this night, say they, he lies in such a city, so many leagues off, tomorrow at night in such a city, nearer; the third night he will be at home: what shall we prepare for his entertainment? How shall we welcome him? Be these our thoughts, or is this our discourse, concerning our Lord's? No but rather falsehood, hypocrisy, contumely, scurrility, blasphemy dwells in our lips, as if we talked of the Devil, not of Christ. When Birds are ready to fly, they spread their wings: if we did make hast toward our Savior, we would dilate our affections, enlarge our desires, and like the Cherubims spread the wings of our souls to be with him. Abraham sat in the door of his tent, when he entertained the Angels: Elijah stood in the door of the Cave, when he had that vision of God: so let us stand in the door of our life, by a continual meditation of death, that we may be ready to entertain our dear Lord JESUS CHRIST.

When we expect the coming of our best beloved friend, we often run to the door, and give many a look out at the window; and not seldom a sigh steals from our hearts, and forceth a sound out of our lips; Oh when will he come? If we did love Christ so well as we ought to do, or but so well as we say we do; we would give more frequent looks towards him: and though our eyes cannot carry up our souls, yet our souls would send up our eyes, to the place where his Honor dwelleth. The Father ran to meet his returning child, and shall not we hasten to meet our returning Father? The cunning Serpent does not at first dash bid us utterly forsake God; but he persuades to delay: what need you make so much hast? God is never to seek; you know where to find him: At what time soever a sinner repents, His mercy is at hand: you may take your pleasure yet a great while: you shall be saved at last, I will warrant you. Hath not that soul a goodly security for her salvation, that hath the Devils warrant? Do not bad debtors, by deferring of payment, grow more unable for the discharge? when a ruinous building is suffered to run into further decay, will it not require the more charges to be repaired? One knotte or two may be soon undone, but when we have tied ten thousand knots upon our souls, by multiplying sin all the days of our life; can we think to untie them all at once in the hour of our death? If we cannot pass over the foord, when the waters are low, how shall we do in a flood? If sin while it is a twig, be not easily plucked up, how shall we eradicate it when custom hath grown it to a sturdy tree? The coals, the sparks of sin be not lightly quenched; how then shall we put out the flame? There is trouble in curing green wounds, much more old festered sores. Try thy strength in combating with one sin; see if it does not put thee hard toit: thou must pant, and blow, and sweat, and bleed too, ere thou gettest the victory. If it be so hard to wrestle with one devil, how wilt thou encounter a legion? Youth is vigorous and hath nimble feet: old age is resty, and fitter for the couch, than the race. Let us cast away delay, lest it cast us away: and with all present speed make haste toward salvation. If you ask me how you should hasten to this Day?

1 By sending up your hearts to Heaven, as an earnest that you would have your souls there. Let our desires be above, though our bodies are below. The sign that we are risen, is the object we have chosen: there we are, where our delight is; Neither can we go from our hearts, nor will our hearts go from our treasure. Would you know where this object is? First tell me where your joy is. Would you hear where your joy is? Shew me where your mind is. You are young and witty, and your mind is upon that. You are old and wealthy, and your mind is upon that. Are you ambitious, and have your mind set upon honor? Are you effeminate, and have your mind set upon beauty? Are you proud, and pitch your hearts upon envy? Then heers your mind, for here's your treasure; and here's your treasure, for here's your heart; and here's your heart, for here's your joy. You may cry with the Lapwing till you be hoarse; There, There, above: but you are here, even here, below. Heaven is a great way from Earth, and, if you do not make more hast, you will never come there. It is not enough to be righteous, but we must be zealous in righteousness: not enough to do some good works, but we must abound in all good works; and this is to hast to the coming of the Day of the Lord.

2 By soliciting God with our constant devotions; still praying, Thy kingdom come: That Christ may have the consummation of his dignity, by entering into his last office, the office of a Judge; and may have the society of human bodies in Heaven, as well as he had ever of souls: That as he hateth sin it self, so his hatred to sin may be expressed, in the abolishing of all the instruments of sin; the allurements of this world, and the world it self: and all the temporary punishments of sin, the stings of sickness and death: and all the Castles, Prisons and Monuments of sin, in the grave: That time may be swallowed up in Eternity: and Hope swallowed in Possession, and Ends swallowed in Infiniteness: That all men ordained to salvation, may both in body and soul become one entire and everlasting sacrifice to God, he receiving delight from them, and they glory from him, for evermore through Jesus Christ Amen.

THere is no comfort that sticks longer to a man than Hope; none that more unwillingly leaves him: nay it never forsakes, unless it be forsaken. Non •• icit, nisi cùm reijciatur. And when it is desperately cast of, it leaves us desolate and destirute of all comfort. But for Hope, the heart would break: and and when it departs, the heart is broken. Not broken by remorse; a fracture which the hand of mercy hath promised to heal: but broken by despair; such a breach as will not suffer it self ever to be made up again. Our souls are anguished with the sense of our sins: we lie under that unsupportable lode, pa •• ing, and groaning, and afflicting ourselves with inconceivable • angs; yet there is hope: A pardon from our offended king revives us, and we • look up with comfort. Our bodies are sick; they languish away in faint sweats, and painful distempers: yet there is Hope. For God hath created both medicines to heal us, and Physicians to apply them: And there is something in the great world to help the little one: something in nature, to relieve man, if they can light upon it. Or if these fail, yet he hath prescribed us another method of Physic: Pray unto the Lord, and he will make thee whole. But go we further: Our friends die, our children die, ourselves die: where is our hope now? yes; death may kill our life, not our hope. Still we hope to find those in Heaven, that have left us upon Earth: and we patiently resign our own bodies to the grave, in the hope of a better resurrection. Still hope cleaves to the Soul, as Ruth to Naomi; Whither so ever thou goest, I will go with thee. When we consider this goodly fabric, the magnificent structure of Heaven and Earth; of so spacious a capacity, and of so specious a form and beauty: it cannot but wonderfully astonish us, to think that this glorious All should be reduced to nothing. If that were so doleful a lamentation, I am seges ubì Troja; corn grows in the streets of Troy. Or if the foresight of Jerusalem's downfall, drew tears from the Son of God: certainly, the thought of the worlds abolition, may justly confound the hearts of the Sons of men.

But blessed be our God, that hath not left us without hope; even the clear hope of a better renovation. This world shall perish, a more perfect one shall succeed. These Heavens, and this Earth shall pass away; but Hope hath comforted us with a restitution. For we look for new Heavens, and a new Earth. Neither have we a groundless or unwarranted expectation of this; but a confident hope; built on so sure a foundation, as the infallible promise of God: According to his promise. Nor shall there be a blended confusion or mixture of good and bad, of order and disorder, of holiness and sin, in this new place: but justitia habitat; Righteousness dwelleth there; only righteousness, and that forever.

Conceive the whole Verse to be one entire building; and therein we have

• 1. The foundation of it; The Promise of God.
• 2. The material parts of it; Heaven and Earth.
• 3. The quality of those parts; They are New: new Heaven, &c.
• 4. The inhabitant that dwells there; Righteousness.
• 5. The hope of it; for it is a reversion, a future inheritance: therefore there is a looking for it: and it is a thing worth our looking after: We look for.
• 6. The heirs that expect it: not all the world; for hell is ordained for some: but we; all those that serve the Lord in all holy conversation and godliness. Before we come to these particulars, I intend to set down certain Theses, grounds, and positions in general; to give the better light to the ensuing discourse.

1. There is a certain infallible end and consummation determined to the world. Aristotle thus scoffed this opinion in his days: I was once afraid, says he, that either tempest or time would overthrow my house: but now I have great cause to fear the ruin of my house, and of myself too: for the •• be some, that, in words, go about to pull down the world. But to be ser •• us, there is a twofold end, the one of corruption, the other of annihilation. The end of annihilation is, when a thing so loseth its present being, that no part of it, whether matter or form, remains in nature, but as of nothing it was framed, so it is turned into nothing: and such an end the world shall not have. The end of corruption is, when a thing is changed, not simply from a being to a not being, as if it altogether ceased to exist in nature; but into another being, which before it had not. As when fire hath turned wood into ashes, we say there is a corruption of the wood; for it ceaseth to be wood, and is become ashes: But we cannot say, there is an annihilation of it; for there is a substance remaining: and the matter, which was under the form of wood, hath now put on the form of ashes. Of wood corrupted are ashes generated: according to that worn axiom; Corruptio unius generatio alterius: And such an end the world shall have.

2. Creatures, of their natural disposition, infused by God, do not desire their own corruption, much less annihilation: but rather they have a natural love to be, and an innated hatred of destruction. Why else is there such a Sympathy, and Antipathy, even in things destitute of reason? The Lamb, though it never had experience of the Wolves cruelty, yet at the very first sight of him, doth tremble and fly for fear. Scaliger tells us of a tree, that at a man's approaching, draws in her large shoots and branches; and at his departure, spreads them out again; which is therefore called the shame-faced tree. But this is not so much shame, as a natural divination of some present or imminent danger, and and an uniting of the dispersed forces, for the stronger resistance. That same groaning of the whole creation, and fervent expectation of the creature, must not be understood of any intent it hath to corruption, but to perfection: not being contented with the inherent form, it affecteth a better. As the militant Saints, though they groan under their burden, do not desire to be unclothed, but to be clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life. Like the child, that cries to put off the old coat; not that it would go naked, but put on a new garment. The basest degree of being, is better than not to be at all. It is perfection therefore, not abolition, which is in the natural appetite of Heaven and Earth.

3. It must be some higher power than nature, that can effect this renovation. For as Nature cannot make something of nothing; so neither can She bring any matter from being to a not being; because She hath a finite and limited power. A natural agent may change a form, whether substantial or accidental; but never work an utter extinction. We may turn a river, we cannot dry up the water. Tyrants may kill the living body of a man, and make it a carcase; they may burn it with fire, and bring it to ashes: and this is as near to nothing, as all their power can possibly reduce it: But let them spend a thousand thousand woods, in the burning of one poor carcase; yet still ashes are ashes; the elements are elements: and they shall never bring this body to nothing. Much less can any natural power annihilate the heavens. Yet an end they shall have; but such a one as man hath: whose body in death is not lost, but changed into the first matter; whose soul is not extinct, but passeth from time to eternity. So the world is uncapable of Annihilation; but shall be changed into a more glorious condition, in the Day of the Lord.

4. Concerning the Incorruptibility of the Heavens, some questions would be moved, and some errors removed. It hath not only been the Tenet of Antiquity, but the observation of all ages, that there is an immutable estate of the heavenly bodies. In the sublunary Region of elementary bodies, we find great variety, and almost a circular alteration: but not so in the Heavens. And if the heavens were capable of corruption, How could the Sphere of the Moon, being situated so near to the Region of Fire, continue so long unconsumed? It is not right to say, that Ob previsum peccatum, by reason of sin foreknown, the Heavens were made corruptible: for, in propriety of speech, we cannot say so of any creature; much less of the Heavens. And when Job saith, The heavens are not clean in his sight; he does not mean that they were unclean; but that they have not so perfect a cleanness as in God; and what cleanness soever they have, is by the gift, and manutenency of his Providence. As Plato brings in the supreme God telling the inferior ones; that they were corr • ptibiles per se, and only kept from corruption by Him. The Truth is, that the Heavens are corruptible, for they shall be changed: unless we say, that this change shall be no more, but only the staying of the wheels of the clock; the clock still remaining the same: so there shall be a cessation of motions in the Heavens, the use whereof serves for the generation and corruption of mixed bodies. They shall depart as a scroll that is rolled together, and the host of heaven shall be dissolved; as we sh • t up a book when we have done reading it. The clear Sum is this; The Heavens are capable of corruption; and they are only kept so long in this constant and unchanged estate, by the same hand of God that shall hereafter change them. They shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed.

5. There is no impeachment of God's Justice, in this dissolving of the world. It was an old cavil; If God be infinitely good, and the world also good in its nature and degree, why should he destroy it? Shall one Good ruin another? If he destroy that which is good, how shall he continue good himself? If he pull it down, because it is evil, how shall he be free from evil, that made it so? The answer is plain and easy; The world in its original state was good, for all things were very good, so allowed upon the Makers review; but doth it therefore follow, that it is so now? Doth not a man pull down his house, when it is grown rotten and infected, that he may build up a new? But the Heavens were not infected, why should they perish? I answer; who can clearly prove, that the sin of man hath not also infected them? Or if they were granted to be clean, yet they were made for some other end, hereafter to be revealed, and not for themselves. Therefore must they be dissolved, that that end might appear for which they were ordained. An egg-shell is curiously framed, yet to manifest the end for which it was made, it must of necessity be broken. So the present state of this world must be dissolved, that the glorious Kingdom of Heaven may be manifested. This degenerated condition must be done away, that the state of incorruption and immortality may be restored. This world shall have an end then; not of annihilation, but of corruption: not a destructive, but rather a perfective end. The light of the Moon, shall be as the light of the Sun, and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days. Not that this greater light shall emane from the glorified bodies in Heaven: Nor that it shall be only by the removal of those fogs, clouds and vapors, which formerly did obscure those lights. But certainly, those Luminaries have lost much of that clearness and splendor, which they had in the Creation, and which at the worlds end shall be restored to them. Not that there shall be an augmentation of their heat, with their light: for as Heaven shall have no need of their light; (That City hath no need of the Sun, nor of the Moon to shine in it, for the glory of God doth enlighten it.) So nor Earth of their heat, when there is nothing to be generated by it. This permutation of the world therefore, doth nothing derogate from the Divine Justice.

6. Yea, it is the praise of his mercy and goodness, to place perfection in the stead of imperfection; or for a less perfection, to give us a greater. Heaven and Earth shall pass away, that better may succeed: Perituri, & veterandi sunt; they shall wax old, and perish: Qua formula solam indicant accidentalem permutationem. The use of a garment is wearing: no wearing, no further use. when the number of the Elect is complete; and that there is no need of the Heavens for more generation; they shall be no longer for garment, they may be for ornament. Thus in a familiar phrase of speech, the world is said to perish; as we say, a man is past his Infancy, an old man hath lost his youth: these vanish, but in neither of these did the man himself perish. If the world should be reduced to a Non esse; the Apostle would not have said, Novos caelos, new Heavens, but Alios caelos, other Heavens. But as in the resurrection, men's bodies shall be of the same substance, though of a purer disposition: Or as our imperfect knowledge in the after-world shall be abolished, that a more perfect knowledge of God may take place. So must the Scripture be understood, when it speaks of the worlds destruction: that it shall only suffer a permutation, and the same substance be endued with a more glorious condition. The Stoics glance at the means of this dissolution, concluding the instrument to be fire. They thought that the Stars and the very Skies were fire; and that they had a wasting action upon the inferior Elements: so that their nourishing moisture, by little and little, decaying; when as neither the Air can have power of procreation, nor the Earth receive further refection by the water; there should then remain nothing but fire, to consume all: from whose ashes should arise a new world. This their opinion was something consonant to our Apostles doctrine; saving that they differ in this: The Philosopher ascribes all to a natural necessity, the Apostle to a supernatural destiny; even to the purpose of God at the first, and to the hand of God at the last. Yet this dissolution shall not reach, either to the seat of the blessed souls in Heaven, nor to the dungeon of the damned spirits in Hell: neither the joys of the Saints, nor the torments of the damned, shall be interrupted by it.

These conclusions being laid in general, would not pass without some useful application to ourselves.

1. Let us never repine at any alteration of our being, which shall conduce to our better being. If the world must be dissolved, how shall man escape a dissolution? Location is inseparable to existence: therefore seeing the world, which is man's habitation and mansion-house, must be changed; the principal inhabitant must needs have a joint and fellow-dissolution. The Heavens shall cease, not from being, but from motion. The ordering of things below, the continuance of generation, the propagation of the Species in living creatures; is the end of their motion: this end being ended, there is also an end of their motion. So the labor and trouble of mortal man, shall cease together with this motion of the Heavens. Yea, there is an end put to the travel of the Earth, to the working of the Sea, to the procreation of those elementary, lifeless and under-bodies. Not that we attribute all this only to the quiet rest of the Heavens: For when at the prayer of Joshua, the Sun stood still in Gibeon, and the Moon in the valley of Aialon, and with them the rest of the celestial bodies; there was not a cessation of the natural actions of things below: for even then, the Israelites did fight, and their enemies did fly. But the true cause of all this rest from motion, is the will of the first cause; without whose adjuvant working, the second causes are not only suspended, but disabled to perform their functions. As therefore when the Firmament, and other inferior Spheres together with the Elements, put off these accidents and affections of corruption, fit for the continual generation of natural bodies; they do not then cease to be: but are endued with a far more excellent condition, and receive other qualities fit for that incorruptible estate of the future world: their substance remains, howsoever they alter or better their qualities; whereat nature does not repine, but rather incessantly desire it. So is death to man: it may change him, it cannot destroy him. Nay, that permutation is In melius; as Ambrose speaks of the greater world. We may call both these dissolutions, a perishing: Quia pereunt ab eo quod sunt, dum immutantur in melius. They perish from what they are, by being converted into better.

To die is gain: this is a paradox, which the world will not believe. They think wealth the only gain, and life the only time of this gain: and death, not only a loss of life, but of all things with it. But Death a gain? Let them take this gain, that have a mind to it: as for themselves, they will none of it. This some melancholy and miserable Christian may imagine a profit; who is so weary of his life, that he thinks it an advantage to die. But rich men that are wise enough to refuse no gains, would none of death by their wills. As Gueverra cites one of their Epitaphs.

But what do the Heavens lose by their changing, or men by their dying? Have we not Cedar for mulbery, and for Brick, marble? As it was said of the Temple, so is it true of the world after this destruction, and of man after his dissolution; The glory of the second House shall be much greater than the glory of the first. Death is the Sleep: In the morning, after sleep, the body riseth more fresh and full of vigor, than it was over night when it lay down. Our bodies lie down in weakness, dishonor, mortality: they are raised up again in power, in honor, and to immortality: and, I pray you, What loss can you find in this? But vivere damnum, to live is a loss; a double loss: Privative, because it hinders us from the joy and peace that is in Heaven: Positive, because it subjects us to miseries and judgments, and to, worse than all, sins. But in death there is a privative gain; it frees us from all ears and troubles: and a positive, for it helps us to all joys and comforts. If my Landlord pull down my sere, weather-beaten cottage; and build me up a stately palace for it, I have no cause to complain. Could the Physician turn my foul, crazy, rotten, aged body; into a vigorous and youthful one; in reason, I should rather reward him, than blame him. Death, which is the end of the little world, man; and the last Day, which is the death of that great man, the World; are not works of dissolution, so much as of absolution: The world shall be repolished, man immortalized, and in all God shall be glorified.

2. Seeing that a Dissolution is determined upon the world, and all these lower things are condemned to the Fire; Let us set our affections on things above, not on things below: Let us seek heavenly things. Seek we will certainly, for something; and something there must be for the mind of man to rest upon. If we make this world our Center, that and our hopes must fail together: the Fire shall dispatch them both at once. Therefore it were wisdom for us, to seek for somewhat without the extent of this combustion, and there to repose our hearts. The sum of man's natural desire, is rest and glory: pleasure and riches, safety, health, and liberty, are but subordinate to them, and comprehended under them. Neither of them is to be found here. Not rest; what the Devil sought in envy, and Solomon in vanity, that all men seek in curiosity: Walking through these dry places, they seek rest, but find none. Here we all dwell in Mesek, and meet with nothing but disquietness. They that are tossed in a tempest, how do they long for a good Haven or Harbor of rest? And the more our pilgrimage is prolonged, the more we seek this rest, find it how we may. But now the Heavens move; they have no rest: the Earth fructifies; she hath no rest: the Waters, Winds, Clouds, and all work; they have no rest. Man least of all: no rest is allowed him, below. Let us not think to set up our rest here, in this tumultuous throng of troubles. Where envying and strife is, there is confusion, and every evil work. Upon this Wheel ever whirling about, we are no sooner set down, but some trouble or other rouseth us with a Surgite; Non habemus hîc requiem: Here we cannot have it; This is not our rest.

Nor glory: we love rest well enough; yet for glory we are content to disquiet ourselves. How many enter themselves into a restless course of life, for a little puff of honor; which the Princes breath blows up, and the people's breath blows away? This is not to be here, Loco pulicum & culicum: In the garden of our delight we find Wormes; and Spiders even in Kings Palaces: This is the Orbe of Wormes and Spiders; and can we find glory in dust and cobwebs? Yet if two such things, as Rest and Glory, might be had upon Earth; they can never be had together. The most honorable places afford not the quietest lives: and they that live in most quiet, are least glorious. Mortall rest is a thing inglorious, and secular glory a thing restless. Some men are of Issachar’s mind; Rest is good, though it be between a pair of panniers: They bow their shoulders to bear, and become servants to tribute. If we would live unmolested, we must live ungraced; more for ease, than for honor. For reputation, like that Strumpet in the Proverbs, is always gadding abroad, and meets with none but the stirring. But if we will be famous men, of place and credit, then farewell rest. The Fane is advanced above the house, but the wind will not let it be in quiet. The obscure man's door may stand safely open, but the Noble man's gate gets many a knock.

Well, though these are not to be had here, they are to be had somewhere; even both of them, and both together, and that forever. For rest; O that I bad wings like a Dove, then would I flee away, and be at rest. In Christ there is rest: and that not only for the body, which sleep may seem to afford; but you shall find rest unto your souls. The rest of the soul is the very life and soul of rest. The soul is from above, and above is this rest, and there only to be found. Return unto thy rest, O my soul: Where is that? In the land of the living. I, there, there's the joy of it. Would it not grieve a man, that hath toiled and turmoiled out his whole life in this world, at his dissolution, when he looks for rest, to hear the Lord swear, Non introibit in requiem meam: that he shall not enter into my rest? How unhappily have they spent their labors, that at the end of these temporary pains, must begin everlasting pains? And for their working without thanks, be rewarded with working without ease, where there is no rest day nor night? But it is blessedness and comfort, to be called from our holy labors, to enter into God's rest: for that is rest indeed. Glory also is his, and He gives it only, there. It is but folly to be ambitious of it below: it were to seek fresh water in the midst of the sea: or as the Angels said to the women; Why seek ye the living amongst the dead? After two years, Felix is gone, Festus succeeds: the wheel turns, places are changed: such is the case of all secular glory. Princes and Nobles are but great during their life, or at most the worlds life: then all those Titles and distinctions cease. Thus then for the rest and glory of Earth: either we seek and not find them; or find one separated from the other; or if both together, yet soon we lose them again: they are gone in a trice. But to them that by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, and honor and immortality, shall be eternal life. Only in Heaven let us seek them; there we shall be sure to find them, and to find them both together; and have good assurance to hold them both, and that unchangeably forever.

Nevertheless, we, according to his Promise] Of which, first, the material parts, the Heavens and Earth; next the quality of them, which is Novitas, or rather Renovatio; they are New: and then the manner or method of this Renovation, which is a purgation by Fire: Of these having formerly treated, I will now only give you the sum: and that for our plainer proceeding, by the resolving of of certain doubts or questions.

1 That the Apostle only mentions heaven and earth in this dissolution, or renovation, without those media Elementa, it is no otherwise than Moses in the creation; In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. But the first question is, why the heavens should be purged, that never were corrupted. The Angels sinned in the highest Heaven, the glorious Court of the Deity: yet this was never threatened, nor ever shall be punished with an Innovation. We answer, that the same reason holds not. First, because their abode in heaven was but short: Non steterunt in veritate: They abode not in the truth. And as they fell presently into sin, so they were presently cast out of heaven. But Man, and his sin continued long in the World: so that this infection did soke into the grain of nature, and stained it quite thorough; and that so •• ulely, that nothing can get it out but Fire. Secondly, that Heaven was the Presence-chamber of the omnipotent and most holy King; and his infinite Goodness was of force to keep the room from any contagion, which the sin of those ambitious spirits could br ••• he into it. For if in nature, these be antidotes and preservatives, to keep 〈◊〉 house or man from pestilent infection: much more could the immense Goodness of God preclude all access of contamination from his own dwelling. But the divine Majesty did not dwell in this world so presentially; nor was He pleased to exercise his Grace so powerfully and extensively to us: so that the world was defiled by man's transgression, and therefore must undergo this final Repurgation.

So there be some that exempt these Elements which have permission with other bodies and qualities, from this necessary Restauration: as the Fire under the Sphere of the Moon, and the Air in his highest Region. But in vain doth man dispute for the unnecessarinesse of that, which God hath decreed: whose Decree only doth make a thing necessary. Whether compound o • simple, whether Heaven or the Elements, the Maker and Owner of them all, hath determined them to a final Renovation.

2. There is a wondrous mutiny amongst Popish Writers, the Soldiers of error, What should become of those Infants that die without Baptism, at the last Day: Where should they dwell? They are uncapable (say they) of Heaven, by reason of original sin: and they have not deserved Hell, because they were never guilty of actual: What then shall become of them? Whither should they go? Lord, what a puzzling thing is error; and how many absurdities may be built upon the foundation of a false principle? Whether should they go? Let me ask them, Where are they now? If they can demonstrate to me, where they are for the present, I can certify them whether they shall go at the last. There they shall be then, in the same place wheresoever they are now. They point me to a Limbo Infantum: but where is that Limbo? Catharinus, Pighius, and divers other promise those unbaptized Children, a certain natural blessedness, and a pleasant abode in some Paradise: that they shall have knowledge of God, and of separated substances, and the Revelation of Angels. Bellarmine is as hot on the other side, and reproves Catharinus for such an opinion: Affirming them to be the Children of wrath, forsaken of God, under the power of the devil; and that then there shall be but one place of punishment: they that are not in Heaven, must be in Hell. Thus Bellarminus against Catharinus: Salmeron and Pineda differ from them both: Who will have them to be in the same state, that man was in puris naturalibus; yet not free from all Satan's molestations. Some say, this privilege shall not be to them at all: Others, that it shall be, but they know not where; and others allow it, but they cannot tell how. For if the Elements should be reduced to their first order; then Omnia pontus erat; The Waters covered the Earth, as being the lighter Element: and were restrained by God's immediate Hand, for the conveniency of man's habitation. Now if those Waters shall return to their first place, Where shall be their Paradise for those unchristen'd Infants? Pineda so expoundeth Job: He hath compassed the Waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end: and concludeth, that after this vicissitude of day and night, when time shall be no more, Antiquum locum obtinent, they shall return to their first being. What then? Shall their Paradise be under Water? That were a drowned conceit. Shall it be in the Orbe of the Moon? Or must the man in the Moon resign his place, and in his stead, there be shall children in Moon? These be the fancies of Moonesicke brains. The truth is plain, and needs no evasions or starting holes. Why may not the Children of Christians, being within the Covenant, though they die without the seal of the Covenant, be admitted through the blood of the Covenant, into the place promised by the Covenant, the Kingdom of Heaven? What should be against it, when the Scripture is for it? I will establish my Covenant the 〈◊〉 and thee, and thy • e • d after thee • nd I will be a God unto thee, and to thy se • d of h •• ••• e. Who shall hinder them, whom Christ will receive? Suffer th • se little •• es to c • me •• to Him, a •• d forbid 〈◊〉 not. In truth; neither is there to 〈◊〉 , ••• h shall be then, any third place • all men shall perish in Hell for their sins, that a • t 〈◊〉 •• ved in Heaven by the merits of JESUS CHRIST.

3. To what end shall these new Heavens and Earth serve in the next world? What use shall be of them? The answer must be partly negative, and partly affirmative. Negatively; the Sun and Moon shall not serve for times and seasons; to distinguish days, months and years; for then there shall be neither winter nor summer: Time it self shall be no more. Nor by their motions and influences to cause a fructifying power in the earth: for then there are no creatures for whose use the Earth should being forth: The Sun shall not come as a bridegroom out of his chamber, nor rejoice as a Giant to r ••• e his course: His circuit shall no more be from one end of Heaven to the other. But rather it shall be as in the days of Ioshau, when The S •• ne stood still in Gihean, and the Moon in the Valley of Aialon: there shall be an everlasting Sols •• e. Nor shall they serve to give light to the world, for then there shall be no darkness at all. Not that their light shall be diminished, much less extinguished; but septupled and multiplied. The Sun may be left without heat and motion, because these qualities tend to generation; yet still the light may continue: Many things are lightsome, that give no heat, as the glistering and shining precious stones: Nor shall the earth labor of fruits in her pregnant womb, waiting for the heat of the Sun, and moisture from the Clouds, her old midwives to deliver her of her burdens. The ministry and service of all things, such as it is now, shall cease: It shall be a time of rest, the great year of universal jubilee to all creatures. Neither yet shall the new Earth be without inhabitants. Bellarmine's conceit, that it shall be operta aquis, covered with the waters, and so unfit for habitation, may easily be refuted. First, The first Heavens and first Earth are passed away; and there was no more Sea. If we take this literally, there shall be no more Sea; much less shall all be one universal Sea. Secondly, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth. This promise is not performed here, therefore we look to have it fulfilled hereafter. Thirdly, The state of all things shall then be most perfect: not confused and mingled together, as it was in the first act of the creation: when the Earth was without form and void, darkness upon the face of the deep, and the deep covering the face of the Earth; until God made a distinction and separation of things, reducing all to order, beauty and harmony; which harmony and beauty shall be restored at the great day, and blessed with an unchangeable perfection.

Nor yet shall the Saints so inhabit the earth, as to live in terrene delights; eating, drinking and sporting after the old manner. This was the heresy of Cerinthus, and the dream of the carnal Jews concerning a terrestrial Paradise: and the damnable doctrine of that juggling prophet Mahomet. For in the Turkish Histories, we read of one Alahodinas, the founder of the Assassins; who with this strange imposture got many adherents, and made them the instruments of his bloody designs. He provided a garden most pleasantly situated; so secure, that there could be no looking over the sense. This abounded with all earthly delicacies; curious music, beauteous women, sumptuous cheare, delicious wines, fruits, junkets, and whatsoever might content a sensual appetite. By an intoxicating drink he would cast them into a dead sleep, whom he meant to practice on: in which sleep he conveyed them to his garden: where waking, they found themselves encompassed with variety of pleasures. Having there solaced themselves a while, by the help of the same drink, he reported them to their former place: and these at their next waking, would give out with noise and confidence, that they had been in Paradise. But corruptible pleasure is not for an incorruptible place. The eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor can any heart of flesh comprehend those delights which are given to the Saints and Angels. Our joys here, are mere toys and vanities, in regard of those that are laid up for us, in this new World, the blessed Kingdom of JESUS CHRIST.

Thus negatively; now for the affirmative part of the question: To what end shall they serve then? If not for these purposes, yet for some other, sure. What are those? First, it is for the glory of God, that they should remain. Praise the Lord, ye Heavens: that cannot praise him, that hath no being. But how should they praise him? Man is occasioned to praise God, by the Heavens, and for the Heavens. Not only now, but even then also: The Heavens shall declare the glory of God, and the Firmament show his handy work. The clear and perspicuous light of this new world, the perfect harmony, the glorious beauty, the wonderful contexture of Heaven and Earth, shall present us with continual occasion to magnify the Creator of all. This is one end; and that were enough: there can be no higher, no greater, than the glory of God. All ends are swallowed up in this, as all rivers run into the Sea. Secondly, the other end is for the use of man; not such an use as we have now: but as there is a new world, so a new use of that world. The first Heavens and the first Earth are passed away: and the first use of them is gone with them. Heaven and Earth shall be the seat of the blessed: not only Heaven; for that is granted. All that we stick at, is the Earth: How should the Earth be the habitation of the righteous? In the state of this question, I determine not: I speak nothing definitively, but by way of probability; and, I think, I have good reasons to prove what I say.

1. From the Text it self: Saint Peter speaks of both Heaven and Earth, and affirmeth that in them both dwelleth righteousness. What is this righteousness? It is a gracious quality: and every quality must have some subject to inhere in. This cannot be the matter of the Earth: for what righteousness can an insensible subject be capable of? We do not say, there is justice in Plants, or holiness in stones, or religion in Beasts. And for the righteousness of God; that indeed filleth all places, but properly dwelleth in himself. Therefore by righteousness, we understand the righteous: On Earth shall the righteous dwell, and in them dwelleth righteousness.

2. We may collect it from that promise of our Savior: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth. They do not now inherit it: they, of all men, have the lest share in it. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we, of all men, are the most miserable. Nimrods, and tyrants, and oppressors, men of rapine and violence; these now divide the Earth amongst them. Whereas men of a meek spirit are thrust Sedibus, aedibus, out of house and home. Innumerable are the places, where the godly are called Strangers, and Pilgrimes upon Earth: therefore they can have no inheritance there. Pilgrimage and Inheritance, are far different things. The meek have it not here, therefore they must have it hereafter; or how can they inherit the Earth? This old earth is a place for usurpers, and roarers, and those sons of violence; there is nothing but noise and disturbance in it. What Earth then should the meek inherit? Sure it must be mansuetorum terra: this is not to be found here, therefore to be expected hereafter. Besides, Christ ascribes Blessedness to the heirs of the Earth: but millions have fair inheritances upon this corrupt Earth, that are far from blessedness. Some have whole countries, large continents, yea, many kingdoms, yet without blessedness. How vast dominions hath the Turk, yet (I am sure, you will say that) he is not blessed. It must be the habitation of a new Earth, that affords blessedness: therefore this new Earth shall be inherited by the righteous.

3. As the Elements had corruptible qualities, fit for the generation of corruptible bodies: so, then, they shall be made answerable to the state of incorruption. But what needs this renovation and concord of the Elements, if the bodies of the Saints should not converse where this new Earth and Elements are? It is true that now Heaven is the receptacle of blessed souls; where Christ sits in his Throne: yet this hinders not, but that both the new Heavens and Earth may be the habitation of the Saints, after this life. Why may there not be such an intercourse between Heaven and Earth then, as hath been before? The Angels did often come from Heaven, and appear in human bodies upon the Earth. In the next world, the Elect shall be Sicut Angeli, as the Angels of God: even their bodies shall be made Spiritual: and by the supernatural property of a glorified body, may ascend and descend at their pleasure. Moses and Elias came down from Heaven, to talk with Christ on the mount. Our Savior himself, after his resurrection, was conversant with his Apostles upon the Earth 40. days. Why may there not still be such an intercourse between the circumference and the center, betwixt Heaven and Earth?

4. Further yet; The Saints shall be ever with the Lord, wheresoever He is. They shall follow the Lamb whither so ever He goeth. Now Christ is not bounded in Heaven: He hath liberty to go where he pleaseth; and certainly the Saints will wait upon him, with incomparably more diligence, than ever Courtiers did attend their King. The glorious presence of God can make a Heaven upon Earth: and wheresoever the Lamb is, the place is blessed, and all blessed with him.

5. Lastly, it is but reason, that God should be there glorified, where he was dishonored. The Earth was witness of the offenses done against him; let this new Earth bear witness of the praises given unto him. Besides this, all the combats and conflicts of the Saints were upon the Earth: therefore even there also let them wear their crowns. On Earth they were persecuted; give them leave in the same place to triumph. Here they suffered; here also let them be solaced: that the memory of their passed sorrows, may be an accidental variation of their infinite and essential joys. When they shall thus revolve with themselves; Here we were derided, there oppressed: in this place wounded, in that martyred. Now those old Monuments of our pains, shall turn to Trophies of joy And that Earth, which was the land of the dead, is become Terra viventium, the land of the living. How spacious shall be the Kingdom of the Saints, when Heaven and Earth is within their dition.

But it is not safe wading without a bottom: this is one of those secrets, which shall be revealed, when this old world is dissolved. How the Elect shall be disposed of; whither wholly to Heaven, or sometimes to Heaven, sometimes to Earth, at their own choice; or how otherwise it pleaseth God to place them, is a great mystery not yet opened unto us. But that the Saints shall have the liberty of coming to the Earth, seems very probable by good reason, gathered from the Scripture. And this is enough for us to believe, concerning this point. That there shall be new Heavens, and a new Earth, prepared for the righteous; and that GOD shall have a glorious Church, the new Jerusalem, both in Heaven and Earth; for in them both dwelleth Righteousness. Wheresoever God's glorified Children shall be, they shall never want the beatifical vision, the fullness of Joy, the brightness of Glory, the eternity of Peace, the society of Saints and Angels, and the blessed fruition of Jesus Christ.

4. The last question is, what Creatures shall be restored in the next World. In the clearest likelihood, though thereof we can deliver no certainty, no living creatures shall be restored, but only men. That the unreasonable creatures, as Beasts, Fishes, Fowls, shall cease, there be probable reasons.

Non sunt ad immortalitatem condita; as the rest, which shall remain, were: such are the Heavens, Earth, Sun and Moon. Neither yet were these later made by their constitution, apt to immortality: howsoever some Schoolmen have thought so, because they are a simple body, without qualities one repugnant to another. But immortality is the frank gift of God, and dependeth not à vi naturae: for naturally, as they had a beginning, so they must have an end. In the purpose of God, those creatures that shall remain, were created to immortality, so were not the Beasts.

[unspec 2] Those Creatures only, besides Man, shall be restored with Man, which immediately pass from their corruptible estate, into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of GOD. But the unreasonable Creatures, after they are dissolved, do not enter into Glory: nay, they fall into corruption; their Life and Spirit is extinguished with them. But the Heavens and Earth, in the same instant, shall both be freed from corruption, and receive a glorious liberty. And herein appears the Divine equity: The Heavens and Earth, for Mans cause, were subdued to vanity, almost from the beginning of the World, to the end. The other Creatures are but a while under this servitude of corruption: their time in the World is but short; and they are renewed and multiplied by continual Generation. Therefore it is just, that they who stood the whole term of Bondage, should at last be restored to Liberty: whereas they that for a time only suffered, vanish with time into nothing.

[unspec 3] If the unreasonable Creatures should be restored, then either the same that were before; (as the same individual bodies of Men shall rise again) or some other of the same kind newly Created. But not the former; for the parts of those Creatures die with them. Were it not absurd to think, that there shall be a Resurrrection of Beasts; as if Balaam's Ass, or Job's Oxen should rise again? Nor of the second; for in that day there shall be no new Creation. Acts 3.21. It is a time of Restitution, not of Creation.

No kind of Creatures shall remain, Nisi opus aliquod habiturae sint, unless they have something to do: For it is against nature, to constitute anything, Quod omnino sit otiosum. It is a trite axiom, that without necessity, we must not imagine a plurality in nature; for she abhorreth vanity. These irrational Creatures now serve for the profit or pleasure of Man: There shall be no such use of them, then; therefore, by consequence, no such Creatures. But in this point I confess, with the Master of the Sentences: Se nescire, quod in sacris Scriptures se non meminerit legisse. Doubtless, nothing shall be wanting, which may conduce to the perfecting of our joy in JESUS CHRIST.

For application of all: Seeing there shall be a new Earth and Heavens; why do not we become new, that hope to dwell in them? As we do not Put new wine into old bottles, Grace into corruption: so neither will God admit old Tennants into this new World, corruption into Glory. If he therefore will pull down Veterem mundum, the old World: shall not we mortify, destroy, and pull down Veterem hominem, the old Man? We must put off the old Mun, before we enter into that new Jerusalem. We have heard how the Heavens and Earth shall become new; by way of Purgation: the same must be our way too. There is a way of purging the body, by letting it blood. So that corrupt blood, with which the ill diet of wickedness hath filled the veins of the Soul, must be let out. Hebrews. 4.12. The Word of GOD, is that sacrificeing knife, which opens the Veine where this ill blood lies. The hearts of those Jews were fowl, subject to the Pleurisy of presumption, till Acts 2.37. Peter pricked them: that punction cured them. There is a Veine of Covetousness in thee: humbly desire GOD to open that Veine, though by the knife of Poverty; rather be content to lose thy wealth, than thy Soul. So could that Heathen conclude, when he was put to the choice: I had rather that poor Aristippus should lose his Wealth, than that rich Aristippus should loose his Life. Or indeed, save God the labor, and let thyself blood of thy redundant riches, by a charitable beneficence. Cast away thy superfluities, thy health will be the better for it. Hast thou a vein of pride? Breath it out by humiliation. What sinful affection soever hath distempered thy Soul; do not launce thy flesh, like a superstitious Priest of Baal; but rent thy heart, like a penitent Servant of Christ. If the Heavens cannot be made new without a purging, much less shall we enter into those Heavens, but by a gracious renovation.

This is principally the work of God upon us; even of the whole Trinity. The Father purgeth the branches of the Vine: the Son washeth all those that have part in him: The Holy Ghost reneweth us by regeneration. Yet doth not God so minister all the ingredients, that he leaves no Dos for ourselves to put in. Lord, do thou Purge me with Hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. So also man, purge thyself: Wash thy heart from iniquity, that thou mayest be saved. And everyone that hath this hope, Purifieth himself, even as He is pure. What be our ingredients, and where shall we find them? The Apothecaries shoppe, is the storehouse of Grace; the Physicians prescript, is the word of grace. There the good Samaritan hath both oil and wine: wine to search, and oil to supple: One handful of the Law to humble us, and another of the Gospel to revive us. Let Moses cast thee down, that Jesus may raise thee up. Physicians to swellings in the body, first apply fomentations, then cataplasms: the former gentle and lenitive, the other, purging and sanative. Eli put in too much oil, not wine enough; Do no more so my Sons. James and John put in too much wine, not oil enough; when they would have commands fire from Heaven upon the Samaritans. Thunder without Rain, is a sign of much wind: they that only thunder judgments, and never shower down mercies, are but windy Preachers. You never found us so doing, to build judgment on the ruins of mercy. Neithey yet dare we handle your so gently, as not to be felt. For whiles we are no further than in your dead flesh, you can be quiet: but if we once touch the quick, we shall quickly hear of it. If I might teach you to make a spiritual purge, it should be after this manner.

Take a bundle of Time, the consideration of the shortness of thy life: a scruple of the Law, to correct thy proud humor: a dram of the Gospel, for a cordial to thy fainting spirits: Take Humility, Temperance, Patience, of each a like quantity: Put in a great deal of Charity: and that Simple which is the carrier of all the rest, Faith; without which no Physic will work. Mingle all these in the liquor of thy own tears: be sure to steep them in repentance; That is a constant ingredient in all our compositions: no recipe, with us, without a resipisce: There is no Bill, that hath not this in it, to which we dare underwrite a Fiat Potio. After this cleansing, the Patient must keep a good diet; of holiness and obedience: otherwise he will relapse into the same sickness by a misordered life. He must keep himself unspotted of the world. But you will say; Heaven and Earth shall be purged with fire: why are not we put to such a purgation? We are, doubtless, not seldom. Therefore Think i • not strange concerning the fiery trial: Think it not strange; for it is an usual custom with GOD to bring his Children this way to Heaven. It is a fore trial; yet better this fire to purge us, than Hell fire to burn us. Any way to Christ, how sharp soever: Let me be saved, although it be through Fire.

To conclude; we look for a new Earth, and new Heavens; and those new Heavens and Earth look for new creatures. All men are greedy of news: Concerning, news abroad, or news at home, is the universal question. Scarcely, two of acquaintance meet; but after salutation, and a a little complement, the next word is, What news? Loe, my whole argument hath been of news; of new Heavens, of a new Earth, of a new World, and of new things in that world: from the first to the last, here hath been nothing but news. But there is yet one news wanting; our being made new creatures in Christ: What joy would it be for us to report, and for Heaven and Earth to hear this news; That we had left our old ways, our old works, our old customs and sins, and were become new men; new borne to that new World, wherein are those new delights forever.

According to his Promise] This is the foundation of the building. The foundation of our faith, the foundation of our hope, the foundation of our patience, the foundation of all our comfort, is the Promise of God.

1. But where shall we find this Promise? What Evidence, what Record can we show for it? Hugo and Catharinus cite for it; Revel. 21. I saw a new Heaven, and a new earth. But our Apostle could not well have relation to that testimony: for in all likelihood, Peters Epistle was written before John's Revelation. He speaks of a Promise which they then had, not of a future one which they hope to receive. and in nature, a Promise must go before the expectation of it. Thomas Anglicus refers us to Luk. 22.29. I appoint unto you a Kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me. There is a Promise indeed; and an effectual one, and that of a kingdom: but there is no mention of the place. Christ's glorious Kingdom is in the highest Heavens; But what is this to the Renovation of Heaven and Earth? Some clearer testimony therefore must be found out; and that we may do without much difficulty. Isaiah 65.17. Behold, I create new Heavens and a new Earth, and the former shall not be remembered. This is to purpose; What can be plainer? Neither does He speak of a future act, but de presenti; not I will create; but I do create; for the more certainty of it, as if He were now doing it. This is Promise and assurance enough, that He will do. Nor is this promise single: though one word from the mouth of God be sufficient: But Once hath God spoken; twice have I heard it: So that if it be not ex ore duorum, yet ex ore uno bis prolatum. As the new Heavens, and the new Earth which I will make, shall remain before me, so shall your seed and your name remain. The reason is drawn from the certainty: I will as surely save you, as I will make a new Heaven and Earth wherein you shall be saved. We may add that, Isaiah 64.4. I am not ignorant, that divers interpreters understand by all these places, that restitution of things which the first coming of Christ should bring with it. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And I make all things new. As if it were only meant, that there should be a new face and form of the Church: and to this purpose (they farther allege) Paul quotes that of Isaiah 64.4. in his 1 Cor. 2.9. Eye hath not seen, &c. But by their leaves, this exposition takes it off from the literal sense, and turns it into a mystery: Nor yet doth this applying it to the time of grace, hinder the referring of it also to the day of glory. So the Fathers understand that of Isaiah, concerning the beatifical vision; and those other places literally, of a new Heaven and Earth, and the Church triumphant in them. And indeed, if we make all this no Promise, Where shall we find it? Unless we shall add that Psalm. 102.26. They shall all wax old as a garment; but thou art the same. The Maker is unchangeable, but these shall be changed: now this mutation shall not be impejus, certainly.

2. This Promise then we have: the Prophet delivers it, the Apostle repeats it, we believe it, and Saint John in a vision sees it; I saw the new Jerusalem. The Heavens and the Earth, and the Elements between them, shall be restored into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. What the form and fashion of those new Heavens and Earth shall be, as it is not expressed, so it were curiosity for us to inquire. But that the Heavens and Earth shall be new, of this the Scripture makes us certain. It may be expressed by this similitude: As a Nurse that brings up a Kings son, is made Partaker of his preferment when that Prince comes to his kingdom. So the Heavens and Earth are now our Nurses, contributing their virtues to our preservation, and cherishing us with their best indulgence: therefore it is fit, that when Christ shall advance us to our glory, they should also be made glorious with us. When God was about to make man, he provided an excellent dwelling for him; a beautiful roof, and a fruitful pavement: so when he is pleased to remove man from this lower tenement, into an everlasting mansion: he will make a new Heaven, and a new Earth for him: and this is his Promise.

3. The foundation of our Faith, is the Promise of God: without a promise there can be no Faith. Orationis fundamentum & basis est fides, fidei fundamentum est Dei promissio. Man hath diverse ways or means of apprehending things. That which I know by sense, is my knowledge: that which I know by argument is my reason: that which I know by proof and trial, is my experience: that which I know by authority, is my Faith. The Sun shines, and I see it: I am pained with grief, and I feel it; this I know by my sense. The pillars of an house uphold it; take away those pillars, and it will fall: this I know by my reason. In my sickness or bodily distempers, I have found such and such things comfortable to me, and available to my recovery: therefore I conclude, they are good for me: this I know by experience. In my wantonness I have often flien out and sinned: affliction hath humbled me, and brought me home again by repentance: therefore experience makes me know, that it is good for me that I was afflicted. God hath promised eternal life to all them that are in Jesus Christ: this I know by authority, and it is my faith.

Now this faith is either Divine or Human. The object of Divine faith is the Promise and Word of God only: the object of human faith is the report of men. That Saint Peter was at Rome, and Bishop there, is not God's Word; therefore it does not bind my Divine faith. Yet see the wonder! Upon this supposed foundarion all Popery depends. For thereby the Pope challengeth to be his right Successor; and under that title, obligeth men upon pain of damnation, to believe and obey whatsoever he decrees. Thus the authority of Popish faith is only tradition, the report of men, and not the Word of God. Hence it comes that they have so much of their own stuff, and so little of Christ's: Five Ave-maries, for one Pater-noster; more of our Ladies Psalter, than of our Lord's. So they have seven Sacraments, whereas Christ ordained but two. As a grave Divine, expounding that miracle of the seven loaves, and two fishes, wherewith Christ fed so many thousands; and finding some of the Pontifician writers, by a stranger kind of miracle to turn them into their seven Sacraments; and so to make a flourish as if they had gotten Scripture for it: wittily observed; that there was indeed some proportion or resemblance between them. For saith he, here be seven things in all; five loaves, and two fishes: Two of them were of God's making, the two fishes; and the other five of man's making, the five loaves. So two of their seven Sacraments, Baptism and the holy Supper, are of Christ's institution; but the other five of man's invention. But other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. His Word is that we build upon: his Promise is the rock whereon we fixe the trust of our hearts, the life of our hope, and the dear salvation of our souls. To make this useful to us.

First, if God hath spoken it, this binds us all to believe it: Shall we call in question the truth of God, the God of Truth? Heaven and Earth shall fail, that his Word may stand: Heaven and Earth shall be restored, that his Word may not be infringed. Believe God's Word, who doth no • : You may speak this to Gentiles; but God is well known in Jury, and his Name a • gr ••• in Israel. But here is the misery of it; our hands give our tongues the lie. We say, we believe; and it may be, we believe what we say: But may we not be deceived in both? Faith is a thing not seen, and Faith is of things not seen: yet there is a Faith that may be seen: invisible in it self, visible in the fruits it produceth. In the City of our God, as we have heard, so have we seen. We have not only heard the profession of Faith, but seen the works of it. Faith is a spark, and a deluge of lusts may drown it. There is an historical Faith, which believes that there shall be new Heavens and Earth: but this comes short of true blessedness: And there is Fides salvifica, that believes our own part in that new glory: that we shall have a dwelling in those Heavens, prepared for us by Jesus Christ: and this is the Faith that shall do us good. It was small comfort for the old world to see Noah's Ark a building, whiles themselves had no hope of preservation in it. But Noah believed that it was built for his safety; and rejoiced. The want of our Faith shall not disannul or frustrate the Promise of God, nor make his Word of none effect: That shall stand, though we perish. Lord, thou wilt make this new World for us, make us new for it: that we in it, and thou by us may be glorified for evermore.

Next, let us always bear in mind the Promises of God: much good comfort is lost for want of memory. The troubles of a Christian heart be very great, for number, variety, and bitterness: only there is one Ingredient that sweetens them all; the Promise of God. I will be with thee in trouble; and Thou shalt not be tempted above thy strength: If we could but remember these Promises, when we feel such assaults or pangs, How could we want courage? Why should we fear poverty, the loss of a little rubbish; or death, the breaking of a brittle glass; that have God's infallible Promise, both for a new World and a new Life in that World, never to be taken from us? The memory is Aerarium animae, the souls Exchequer or Teasury, the safest hold in her Citadel. All the Promises of God are Jewels, more precious than Gold or Rubies: Where should those Jewels be stored up, but in this Cabinet, the memory? This place is not built of Brasse, but frail and brittle. Of all faculties in man it does first senescere, wax old: Beauty, which is but a flower, doth often outlast it. Of all powers in man, it is least at command: a man may be the Master of his Invention, of his elocution: but who could ever boast himself to be the Master of his memory, or promise himself that that should not fail? There is a Thief still lurking at the door of this Treasury: even he that robbed us of our first estate, the innocence of nature; and would also filch away our second, the happiness of Grace. Therefore look well to thy memory; keep that Closet full of the divine Promises: that in all thy spiritual distempers, thou mayest have a Cordial ready to revive thy fainting heart. But alas, our memory is more apt to lose, than to gain: there is both land and sea in it: the losing part, that's the sea: the keeping part is the land. Many hear the word, as a Tankard-bearer fetches water from the Conduit: all the way he hath it, carries it, feel • it: but at last he empties it into another's Ci • terne, and is never the better for it. We are ha • rowed with oppressions, hurried with persecutions; our estate is taken from us, death dissolves us: yet what can dishearten us, if we affie this Promise, that a new Heaven, new Earth, a new Life, and new Glory shall be provided for us, and everlastingly abide with us?

We lo • ke for new Heaven • ] When as God hath prepared this Inheritance, and promised it; built it, and given us the grant of it; it is fit we should do our part, and confidently expect to Expectation is the action of hope, a continual action • as hope a even ceaseth looking, Till it be stated in possession. Hope is taken three ways: first, for the Doctrine of Faith: Render a reason of the hope that i • in y •• . Next for the Object of Hope, the thing expected: We •• it for the hope of righteousness by f • ith, Lastly, for that holy affection of the mind, which looks for the promised blessedness. Faith and Hope differ three ways. First, Ordine; Faith goes before and begetteth Hope: Faith is the Hypostasis or foundation of things hoped for. Yet not Faith, but the Spirit of God is the efficient Cause of Hope. Faith may be the Mother, but the holy Ghost is the Father of all gracious Hope. He begets us again to a lively hope. There is Spes inflata, an Hope blown into us, and as soon blown from us: But this is Spes generata; and Generatio terminatur ad substantiam; it brings forth a substance. Secondly, Operatione; the proper office of Faith is to justify us; of Hope, to support us. Thirdly, Subjecto; and this differs three ways; Modo, gradu, tempore. In the manner; for Faith relieth on the Promise, Hope resteth in the thing promised. Fides respicit verbum rei, Spes autem rem verbi. In the measure; our salvation begins in Faith, is perfected and made complete by Hope. In the time: Faith apprehendeth the remission of sins and justification in present: Hope is exercised in the expectation of Life to come.

We expect these things, we have them not yet. We are saved by hope: but hope [unspec 2] that is seen, is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? It may be said, we now see Heaven, Why then do we hope for it? There is one Heaven and Earth which we look upon; another which we look for: They be old we look upon, we look for new. But Stephen looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the Glory of God. Yes, he saw Dei gloriam, non suam: we look for the things which concern our se • ves. Stephen saw the glory which he should have; yet until his death he did not enjoy it, but in Hope. But a man running in a race, may set his eye upon the prize which he runs for, and hopes to obtain: so there is a an Hope seen. We answer, that there be two things in Hope; Material, the material part, which is the thing it self: and Formal, the formal part, which is the obtaining and fruition of it; The former may be seen, not the latter but in Hope.

The future estate of the militant Saints is an inheritance, and that is properly [unspec 3] a state of Expectancy, and so a fit Object for Hope. Our Hope is in this Life, our Inheritance in the Life to come. Hope we have here, in the state of Grace: Inheritance there, in the state of Glory. Vain is the Hope which looks no farther, than to the pleasure of a mortal condition: that hopes only to be rich, noble, happy here. The blame is not in Hope, but in our misplacing it. As that is we hope in, such is our Hope. We lean on a Reed, take hold by a Cobweb, catch at a Shadow: we put our hope in them that must die, and then our Hope must die with them. Hope not in Princes: for if we do, to dust they turn, and there lies our Hope in the dust with them. But a right Hope makes a man alive again, that was half dead: when he droopes, give him Hope, and his spirits will come a-fresh. As Jacob, when he was put in Hope to see Joseph alive, revixit spiritus, he revived. The other Hope is but vigilantis some •• ium, a waking dream: but this is the Helmet of hope, the Anchor of of hope: things of substance; that will hold, that have metal in them. When breath, life, and all fail, this Hope fails not: but even then puts life into us, when our life is going from us. When we must forgo our life, it bids, Let it go: when it is gone, it presents us with a better; even an eternal Mansion in the Heavens. My soul had fainted within me, but that I hoped to see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the living.

That there is an Expectamus, it is granted; But who are they to whom it is [unspec 4] granted? For as Saint James speaketh; If any man seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, that man's religion is in vain. So if any man hopes for this new Inheritance above, and does not first become a new creature below, that man's expectation is in vain. For shall a man engross this world, heap up riches, and glew his soul to them; and yet after all this present felicity, look for a new Heaven and a new earth, to boot? No, that rich man heard otherwise from Abraham; Son remember, thou in thy life time received it good things, and Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. To him that had all this plenty, all this pleasure; Post tantas divitias, post tantas delicias, is this spoken. But this expectation belongs to God's afflicted ones; they that suffer so much misery in this old world, to them is promised a new. For if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we of all men are most miserable. But we have a hope that can make us rich; and rich the poorest Christian may be, in three respects.

1. By propriety and right which he hath to an estate, though for the present it be out of his hands. The wealthy Merchant may be sometimes out of cash; because his wealth lies in traffic or commerce, or is entrusted out to others: yet in respect of the evidences and obligements he hath to assure him his own, he is still rich. Let a Saint be miserable, even to the want of bread, yet he hath a right and evidence to infinite riches; the treasure of blessedness laid up in this new world: confirmed to him under the hand and seal of God; a sure debtor, that never broke his Word. Yea, he hath already the earnest of this glorious estate; a heavenly peace in his heart: So that he may say to the richest worldling: Plus mihi in cord, quam tibi in arcâ. Wealthy Croesus had not so much riches in his coffers, as poor Job had in his conscience. So long as Heaven hath any treasure in it, and that Christ himself does not break, the believer cannot be poor. Well therefore may we look for these new Heavens, that have so little under the old. Here is one expectamus, of right it belongs to us.

2. By reversion. A man purchaseth a Lordship, endowed with fair revenues, to fall unto him after the decease of someone in present possession of it. During this expectation he cannot be called poor: for before the expiration his credit is good, and at the expiration his state is good. We prefer the reversion of some great Manor, before the present possession of a small Farm. This glorious new world is the militant Saints in reversion: though we tarry for it, we shall have it. Temporal reversions wait the end of another's life: for this we must wait until the end of our own life. This is another Expectamus for us, it is also ours by reversion.

3. By heritage. The heir, so long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a serservant, though he be Lord of all. The heir in his minority lives at his fathers finding; and must learn how to rule, by being first taught how to serve. We are heirs, but yet in our non-age. And as the Law provides in some Tenures, that men shall not come to their lands, before they come to their wits: so this inheritance is not given to us, till we be fitted for the inheritance. There is great difference betwixt a temporal, and this eternal heritage. Below, the inheritance comes not but by death of the party in possession: Above there is no prejudice to the Ancestor: he dies not, for the heir to succeed him. We need not fear to do God any wrong, from whom it comes, by our coming to it. Below, the father must be dead, and the son living: but above, the Father is ever living, and the Son cannot inherit till first he be dead. Here we come to inherit by the death of others: there we come to it by our own death. There is no Filius ante diem, patrios inquirit in annos. But rather Successio minorum, sine recessione majorum: a succession, as of lights: the second burns clear, yet the first goes not out, but burns as clear as it. Thus rich we are, though our purses be empty. Hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, to be heirs of the Kingdom, which he hath promised to them that love him? We say of a rich man's son, There goes a great heir, though for the time his means be short enough. We are now the sons of God, but it doth not yet appear what we shall be, We are now the Children of grace, we shall be the Sons of glory. We confute our own distrusting hearts, with what we are: and the disgracing world, with what we shall be. Let them devour this World, that have a mind to it: this rotten, perishing, troublesome habitation: We look for new heavens and a new earth, full of peace and pleasure, and that forever.

Wherein dwelleth righteousness.] A Heathen could say, M • llens virum sine pecucunia quam pecuniam sine viro: so a man without a house, or an house without an inhabitant, is an unhappy separation. To what purpose should God be at such cost in the reparation, at such trouble in the repurgation of this great building, if at last there should be none to dwell in it? But he that re-edifies the house, will be sure of a Tenant, and such a one as will pay him rent duly for it; even all he requires; Thankfulness and praises. But what do you call this Tenant? Righteousness: which is a gracious quality, or rather an habit: but what is this to an inhabitant? Shall we imagine a quality without a subject? Holiness dwells in God's material houses on Earth, as being consecrated to him, and hallowed by him: but yet doth any holiness that is inherent to the walls or seats, praise him? Do the stones set forth his glory? No, there must be some other nature, endued with life and understanding, that can be capable of this office. Righteousness alone cannot do it, nor can it be done without righteousness. To what purpose is the Suns shining into an empty house? It might be as well dark as light, if nobody ever comes into it. We must therefore seek out some capacities, wherein this righteousness may be resident. Of this there be divers interpretations: Vnusquisque abundat sensu suo.

1. Some understand by this righteousness, the clear justice of God, which shall pronounce a general sentence upon all the world; rewarding every man according to his works: Binding the ungodly with everlasting chains of darkness, and crowning the Saints with a glorious peace. Then shall his righteousness shine forth; and it shall be the universal acclamation of all creatures, The Lord is just. Here, men that live best, commonly speed worst: misery waits only at the door of Piety: None but Christians dwell at the sign of the Cross. Pleasure courts the rich, and the rich court pleasure: All their things are Res secundae, fortunate; and Res facundae, fruitful. They prosper with them, as if prosperity it self had sworn not to dwell without them. Is this thy righteousness, O Lord? (forgive our expostulation) Is this Justice? that thorns should flourish, vines languish? That thy friend should mourn, while thine enemies are jocund? Is this the God you have served all this while, says Job's wife to him? Curse him to his face, and die: But Loqueris ut stulta; she had that for her labor. When trouble comes to a good man, one would think that the messenger were mistaken; and should be told that he knocks at the wrong door. While the innocent suffer, and the guilty domineer, is this Justice? Yes the Righteousness of God is beyond exception: All men shall find it; they to their cost, that cavil against it. The Sun of that Divine Justice shines clear now: but there is a mist before our eyes; we do not so well perceive it. In this renovation of the world, it shall be perspicuous and manifest: All men and Angels shall take full notice of it in that final sentence of Come and Go: Come ye blessed, and Go ye cursed: And it shall be the acknowledgement of Heaven and Earth, and of all Creatures: Righteous art thou, O Lord, in all thy ways, and holy in all thy works.

2. But if we thus understand it; the Justice of God dwells everywhere: no place can exclude that which is infinite. Heaven is full of his Justice; crowning those souls there, that are justified by the Righteousness of Christ. Hell is full of his Justice; punishing those impenitent spirits with insufferable pains. The Earth is full of his Justice: the wicked are often met withal in their sins, and the innocent are delivered from their enemies. Michaiah is justified, Nabaoth is revenged, the Baalites confounded, and Ahab judged. Justice keeps her circuit: yea, without deferring all matters to the last Assizes; she walks her round, and does Martial law upon incorrigible offenders. Though the last day shall be honored with the full execution of God's Justice, yet it hath a dwelling in all places: in the highest Heavens, in the lowest Hell, and in the midst between both; Vbique habitat Iustitia. Therefore some make the opposition thus; in •• vo or be habitat Iustitia, in hoc misericordia. Now the mercy of God suffers evil men to live promiscuously among the good: in that new world there shall be a separation: the Goares shall be driven from the Sheep, the Tares w •• ded from the wheat, the Chaff sinned from the Corn, the dust and rubbish shall be swept into Hell, and this new house shall be filled with nothing but righteousness.

There is no hope beyond mercy; and this is the time of it; the next is of Justice. There is no hope of mercy without repentance, and this is the time of that too; the next is of judgment. All things are not in season at all times: Repentance is now in season: first, because there we weep for sin where we have done it: then because there we cease from sin, where we might still continue in it. If the heart be broken now, mercy is ready to heal it: but if that day find it obdurate, Justice shall fearfully break it. The tears we shed now, shall be dried up then: but if our eyes be dry till that day, they shall be set a running forever, without either ease or pity. Repentance now seeks sinners, and they will not entertain it: sinners shall then seek repentance, and not find it. If they could; yet in that world repentance shall do them as little good without mercy, as in this world mercy will do them without repentance. Now therefore let us embrace repentance for our sins, because here dwells mercy to pardon them: at that day it will be too late, for there dwells only Justice to punish them.

3. Others by this righteousness, conceive those new delights, and spiritual pleasures, which shall fill this new world. So they would have the opposition to stand between the sorrows of the old, and joys of the new. This is the vale of miseries, that the mount of blessedness. And why should not righteousness be taken for delight, as well as sin is put for anguish? Never did man find pleasure upon earth, like the sweet testimony of an appeased conscience; cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, and quieted by the presence of the holy Ghost. It is a continual feast: other feasts may be soon broken off, as was Adonjahs; or conclude in bitterness as did Belshazzar's: this is an everlasting banket.

What meet we with in this old world, but trouble and misery? If we travel into this little world man, we shall find new discoveries. Let him be a world, and himself will be the land, and misery the Sea. Misery, like the Sea, swells above all the hills, and reacheth to the remotest parts of this Earth, Man. We are but dust, coagulated and kneaded into earth by tears: our matter is earth, our form misery. We may have one day in seven a holy-day of happiness; but our whole week is misery. We may have a breathing of happiness; but our whole journey is misery. If there be one greenswarth or fair meadow to refresh us, yet the greater part of our pilgrimage is rough and dirty. There may be a dram of honey in the brim of the cup, but the main draught is bitterness. Few and evil are our days: few in number, and those few evil in nature; not one of them named for good. Few and evil below, many and good above. Misery is our familiar, happiness but a stranger to us. Of this worlds happiness, man is the Tenant, of misery the Landlord: of happiness the Farmer, of misery the Freeholder: of peace but the usu-fructuary, of trouble the proprietary. If we have one dish of comfort, once in many meals; yet our continual diet is sorrow: My tears are my meat day and night. The deluge of calamity overflows this human Earth, many cubits. Of this Earth, the highest ground, the loftiest hills are kings: and yet even they have not line enough to fathom this Sea, and to say, my misery is but thus deep. Hodie quoque su • m M • ssah habet, & s ••• Me •• ah: Bitter, bitter all. As the repining Jews said of the bread of Heaven, We see nothing but Manna: so we may justly say of the bread of Earth, the bread of affliction, we see nothing but misery. Misery in want, misery in abundance: in want, the misery of murmuring and impatience: in abundance, the misery of riot and unthankfulness. Misery in honor; pride and envy: misery in a low estate, nastinesse and drudgery. In health misery, misery in sickness: there wantonness, here painfulness: in the latter men cry, O their head: in the former they might cry, O their heart. The next world begins with happiness, and with a happiness that never ends. Therefore we look for new Heavens and a new Earth, Wherein dwelleth righteousness; that we might exchange our old woes, for new pleasures.

4. All these be fair expositions, and analogical to the truth: they all bear a good sense. But why should we not take righteousness here, in the literal acception? There dwelleth righteousness: that is, holiness, pureness, innocence, and the perfection of goodness. There dwelleth Christ, and he is righteousness: The Lord our righteousness. So here is the full Antithesis of this new world to the old. Righteousness dwells there, unrighteousness here: Here, sin and guiltiness; there grace and holiness: Below transgression, sanctification above. This world is the Orbe of sin, which corrupted all: that new one, the Orbe of righteousness which restoreth all. This is the winter wherein all things wither; that is the spring which revives them. The world was made good, only sin depraved it. Satan was honorable before sin, for an Angel: amiable before sin, for a celestial intelligence: His nature was good, his disposition good; but sin, when that came, marred all. Good was before evil; before malice charity. Decay entered by sin, dishonor by sin, death by sin. Call his name Ichabod, for the glory is departed. At the birth of Ichabod, sin; the glory is gone, the Ark of God is removed. This is a constant incumbent of the earth; never non-resident, never out of business. No place can be rid of him, no time exclude him, no action escape him. He crept into Heaven with an Angel, into Paradise with a Devil, into man's nature with the root of that nature. Where can we devise to keep it out? At home in our houses he is Famelicus, abroad Socius, in our Travels Conviator at our Feasts Conviva, in our Taverns Compotor, in our beds Consors, in our bosoms Tyrannus: ubique Inimicus. In God's Temple sin will not leave us: at our prayers it will be interrupting us: It insinuates it self into every action we do: even our best is not without some touch of sin, or at least some assault of sin. It may get into our beneficence, and he vain glory; Into our devotions, and be hypocrisy: Into our friendship, and be flattery: Into our hope, and make it smell of presumption: Into our humility, and turn it into base dejection: Into our repentance, and work it down to desperation: Into our best works, and there be an opinion of merit: which is a blow with the left heel that kicks down all our milk.

Sin is the epidemical disease of the world: as the Air is a common benefit, so sin is a common mischief. Other Elements know their own Lord's: for the Earth, this piece of ground is one man's, that another's: For the Water, this Well is mine, that my neighbors: for the Fire, every man sits by his own harth: But the Air is equally beneficial to all: the Tenant hath as much Air as the Landlord, the Fool as the Learned, the Beggar as the Prince. So sin is a common infection. In many things we sin all. One man languisheth of a consumption, another labors of a fever, a third is racked with the gowte, a fourth swollen with the dropsy: everyone hath a several disease, to bring him to the common end, death. But sin is the universal disease of all: Death passed upon all, for that all have sinned. The sin of the world, is indeed a world of sin.

As the assaults of sin are incessant for continuance of time, so also innumerable for choice of place. There is no faculty of the soul, no member of the body, but is a speeding place for sin; but especially it aims at the heart. Let us watch and ward everywhere; the one an ocular, the other a manual, martial, presidiary defense; but especially keep the heart. The tongue is an unruly member, yet it hath fewer bars: only the teeth and the lips are set to keep in the tongue. But for the heart, there is an omni custodià, and all little enough to keep the heart. Some men doth sin shoot in the eye, and here his arrow is uncleanness: thus he wounded David in the eye, by the beauty of Bathsheba: some in the hand, as Gehazi; and his shaft was bribery: Some in the tongue, as Ananias, by lying; and this is his common artillery for tradesmen: some in the gall, as Joab; and they are all for blood; turning their embraces into embrocadoes: some in their foreheads; and they will carry the mark of the beast to their graves: some in the foot, by profaneness; and they are not only swift to shed blood, but ready to trample upon all religion and goodness: others in the head, with the frenzy of dissimulation: others in the heart by covetousness; and Satan shall have more service of them for an ounce of gold, than God shall have for the Kingdom of Heaven. Thus standeth man in the midst of the assaults of sin, like the anatomized figure of him in the frontispice of an Almanac: where Aries is discharging at his head, Taurus at his neck, cowardly Leo at his back, Cancer is gnawing his stomach, Sagittarius is shooting at his thighs, and Pisces nibbling on his toes. By this time you perceive, that this present world is the region of sin: Sin will dwell in us, so long as we dwell in these Tabernacles: Let us now look upon the condition of the next.

There dwelleth righteousness:] no sin there, altogether righteousness. Here indeed we have some righteousness, but it is blended with sin: In the most regenerate Saint on Earth, there is flesh as well as spirit; and it is a question sometimes, which of them shall get the predominance. We have a righteousness that is perfect, now; but that dwells in Heaven, in the person of Christ, and is only imputed to us. This is a justifying righteousness, and it is absolute; but extra nos, without us. That same sanctifying righteousness, which is intra nos, inherent to our own persons, is so imperfect, that sin is joined tenant with it in our mortal body: and there is a perpetual contention between them, which shall have the superiority. They are like the land and sea within us: the one would keep, the other would gain, Michael and the Dragon, in one Heaven: Caesar and Pompey, in one Empire: Nehemiah and Samballat, in one city: Isaac and Ishmael, in one family: Jacob and Esau in one womb: the Ark and Dagon, in one Temple: Grace and corruption, in one Christian. Michael against the Dragon, Caesar against Pompey, Nehemiah against Samballat, Isaac against Ishmael, Jacob against Esau, the Ark against Dagon, Grace against corruption, shall prevail: but Nondum, not yet. The flesh is vulnerata, non victa; or victa, non mortua. We are still mortifying it so fast as we can: but it hath a Serpents trick, to keep the head and tail safe and whole. Often it bites us, and not seldom stings us: till we are full of Saint Paul's groan, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Nothing will rid it out of us, but that which riddes us out of the world, Death it self.

Only these new Heavens and Earth challenge this privilege, that there shall dwell righteousness without sin, life without pain, happiness without fear, and joy without sorrow. Darkness (we know) is compared to sin: Opera tenebrarum: now sin is as universally overspread this deformed world, as darkness was over that unformed world: until God said, Let there be light: and there was light, when as yet there was no Sun. Before the light was made, darkness was over all: afterwards, the light being formed, darkness was reduced to one place and season, the night. This light continued for three days unfixed: on the fourth day God created the Sun: and then it is likely that all the former dispersed light was gathered into that one body, and treasured up in that great luminary the Sun. So shall it be in the recreation of this world: now grace and sin are scattered all over, as light and darkness in the twilight is confused throughout the Air: it is twilight with us yet. But at the last day Christ shall make a separation; as the waters once were gathered into the sea, that the dry land might appear: All darkness, all sin and wickedness; shall be removed down into Hell, and there be confined, never to break out. All light, that is, all Righteousness and holiness shall be gathered into this new Heaven and Earth, and there be concentred forever. There dwelleth Righteousness, and happy they that dwell with it.

Wherein dwelleth Righteousness] As Travelers that have embarqued themselves for the discovery of some new land, unknown, but not undesired, purposing to make a plantation there; when they are once arrived in it, labor to satisfy themselves of the particular commodities it affordeth: pretermitting no occasion or convenience, but thoroughly examining the site, the air, the fertility, the strength and safety of it: no corner escapes unsearched, no pleasure unconsidered: and finding all according to their desire, they not only resolve themselves, but also invite their friends to dwell there. So these four Sabbaths together, our meditations have been busy in surveying this new World, the Land of Promise, the Inheritance of the Saints, and the Habitation of Righteousness. And yet all we have said is but e Theologiâ negativâ: and indeed, What other way is there to describe this future happiness, than by removing from it such defects, as fill all temporal things with encombrances? One days journey more let us add to our former discovery; that the glorious beauty of these new Heavens and Earth may both enflame our own hearts, and kindle an holy Fire in others, to desire it. This present world is troubled with three diseases; a Contagion, a Consumption, and a Palsy. The Righteousness that dwells in this new World, as it is out of the reach and danger of these distempers, so it is diametrally opposed to them. First, Contagion or Infection, as in the pestilent Fever, is full of spots: but Righteousness is most pure. Secondly, the Consumption is a pining away, and languishing into death: but Righteousness is immortal. Thirdly, the Palsy is a shaking grief; they that are troubled with it, can hold nothing steadily: but Righteousness is constant, inflexible, unalterable, and endures forever. Thus by the present sickness of the old world, we may guess of the death of the new

1. This world is infected, yea, infection it self. Take it metaphorically, and what find we in it but infection? Our evil deeds infect by their example: our evil words infect, by their persuasion: our looks infect, by their allurement: we breathe nothing but infection. Materially, this earth soils us: in Summer we are soiled with dust, in Winter with dirt. These be those Inquinamenta mundi, which we are evermore rubbing, or brushing, or washing, or wiping off. There is nothing in this lower region, but it is subject to soil: the very earth it self is a soil: our land we call the soil; How can it then but soil us? Nothing undefiled below: what ever it is, where ever it is, it must needs savor of the nature of the soil. All foul, all blemished here: but in that new World dwells Righteousness; a pure and sincere being, without any foreign mixture: an Inheritance undefiled, not capable of defilement. Nothing can come in to soil it. Into that City shall enter no unclean thing: all uncleanness shall be kept out forever. We would have all things clean here below; we cannot: we desire to have clean houses, clean ways, clean diet, and clean apparel. O how sweet will it be to dwell with Righteousness in those new Heavens, where all things are clean! Chrystals and Diamonds, nay the Firmament and Stars be not now so pure. That same Galaxie or milken way, a bright circle of the Sky, which the Poets imagined to be a walk for their gods and goddesses in Summer evenings; but Philosophy better says, is caused by the reflection of stars: it is but wan and duskish in comparison of the diaphanous clarity of all things in this new Kingdom.

2. This World is in a Consumption; the vital parts of it are corrupted. The best estate of things doth not hold long: and if the substance remains, yet the luster is gone: and the first symptom or degree to a Consumption in a man, is the losing of his color. The glory of all flesh is but as the flower of the grass: Grass, that's for the substance; Flower, that's the beauty of it. The Grass it self lasts not long, but the Flower of the Grass, nothing so long as the Grass it self. Helen outlived her fairness, David his strength. Let no blasting change the flower, no canker eat it, no beast tread it down with his foot; yet of it self will it fall off, and leave the stalk standing. The Rose will marcere, and the Violet livere, of themselves; though no violence be done to them: the one will fade, the other wax pale and wan. A flourishing estate is not kept long; either by the flowers that are worn, or by us that wear them. Were the things of this World clean, yet take them at their best, they are fading. Every year flowers and leaves too fall off; till the Spring comes and revives them. Of many things the substances themselves fade; and of this fading we all complain. Or if they fade not of themselves, to us they do. We are hungry, and we eat; yet even that fades; and we are as weary of our fullness, as we were of our fasting. We are weary, and we rest; yet even that fades; and we grow as weary of our rest, as ever we were of our weariness.

There is a melting tabe upon all temporary things: but Righteonesse, the housholdstuffe of this new Mansion, knows no Consumption. Decay and death are the effects of sin: Above there is no sin, therefore no decay: no decay, therefore no death. The Roses and flowers that make up the garland of Righteousness, never can wither: The Pearls and Diamonds, and stones more precious, set in that Crown of Righteousness, can never be fullied. The songs of that triumph never cease. There is an eternal Spring; and as the glory is new to us at first, so old it cannot wax: it shall be new forever. As the shows made for the glory and state of some solemn day, are first seen of vulgar eyes, before they arrive at their sight for whom they were ordained. So the honor and bravery of this Earth is more in the spectators, than in the spectacle; more in the lookers on, than in the persons that wear it. Say they are gallant shows, yet but shows, transient things, Pageants wherewith the eye is soon glutted. After three or four times beholding them, they grow old and stale, and we look upon them with an idle and careless eye. But the glory of these new Heavens, the splendor of Righteousness, those true and substantial honors, as they are ever permanent, so they are ever new: as they are never fading, so never cloying: there is infinite variety, satiety none at all. Of vanity we soon surfeit grow weary and loath it: but the joys of Righteousness will be as everlasting in our desires, as they are in their own sweetness.

3. The things of this World are taken with a Palsy; so shaking, that their joints cannot hold together. There is nothing certain, nothing steady: nor can we be more certain of anything among them, than of the uncertainty of them. They tumble daily from man to man: one man's inheritance shakes into another man's purchase. From them that have riches, to them that are covetous, there is a continual shaking. Much wealth is escheated for want of heirs; or confiscated for some offenses; or rioted and made away by unthriftiness; or consumed with Fire, or drowned with Water: many a fair patrimony falls to the ground. Seges ubi Troia; yea, ubi oppidum, aqua. Or if riches be not taken from us, yet we are taken from them; which comes all to one pass. The choice is not great, whether I lose my servant, or my servant loseth me: either way he may be masterless, and I without a servant. Such a Palsy possesseth all secular things! Do we not find it true by proof daily? When we feel the pulse of nature, by the hand of time, do we not complain that it is sick of a Palsy? Yet even in this unfaithfulness of the creatures, there is a kind of faithfulness to us: they are our friends, in telling us their own fickleness. As the Mechanicke that had a parcel of rich stuff delivered to him, to make up a curious garment; told his Customer plainly, that for a small matter given him in courtesy, he would save him a great deal of monie: Put it to another, quoth he, that hath more skill; for if you trust me with the making of it, I shall certainly spoil it. So when we are about to place our confidence in worldly things; they tell us really, experimentally, the down-right truth: We are fickle creatures, and have paralytic and trembling hands, that can hold nothing steadily for you: Set your minds upon heavenly things: they are constant to you. Trust us with nothing, but what you give for lost, and mean to be deceived of: This is plain dealing. Not unto us, say they, not unto us, but to the Lord give your hearts and confidence. Charge them that are rich in this world, that they put not their trust in uncertain riches. Not only doth God charge Paul, to charge Timothy to charge us; but even the creatures themselves do charge us, not to put our trust in their unstablenesse. They will not suffer us to set up our rest in them; not in anything below: but they force us upon the Creator of all; who hath provided an Inheritance for us, out of all danger; whereof we shall never be disseized: Gold that shall never be embased by any bad mixture: a Crown without cares, without rivals, without envy, without end: There is a Treasure worth our heatrs.

It is an Inheritance, and all shall inherit; yet without prejudice to the right Heir; Christ. There shall be no wrong done, by Him to us, or by us to Him. Earthly inheritances are divided oftentimes with much inequality: and the privilege of Primogeniture stretcheth farther in many places, than it did among the ancient Jews: so that Minor servit majori. One carries it from all, and the rest go without: or, if they have any share, the patrimony of the eldest by so much is the less. In this new World it is not so: all the sons of God are heirs, none underlings: and not heirs under wardship and hope, but possessive inheritors: and not inheritors of a small pittance of land, but of a Kingdom: and that not of a temporary kingdom, subject to domestical treasons, or foreign invasions: no murmuring, no conspiracy, no mutiny shall disturb this Kingdom. There may be dispar gloria singulorum, yet there is communis laetitia omnium. All shall have the same glory, though not the same degree of glory. It is of the nature of light, and such spiritual things; which he Omnibus una, and Singulis tota. So it is in sounds and smells: Let there be a thousand together, when the bells ring; and they hear all alike. Let there be multitudes in a garden of flowers, and everyone smells as much sweetness, as if there were no more but himself. There is but one Heaven, and what room soever we have in it, we shall find peace without trouble, joy without sorrow, glory without envy, and pleasure without end.

1. For the application! If we would dwell with Righteousness, first, let Righteousness dwell with us: if we with that in the new World, that with us in the old. Many would dwell in Heaven, but they have no mind to Righteousness. We have three lives: Vitae, here; Famae, when we are dead: and Gloriae, in Heaven: but there is a fourth, which is the life of all these lives; Iustitiae, the life of grace and Righteousness: without which, not only our bodies shall rot in the dust, but even our memories shall stink above ground, and our souls perish in the lowest pit. Righteousness is life indeed. But doth Righteousness dwell with us? Where, O where shall we find it? If we look for it in the county; there it is ignorance and superstition: If in the city, there it is fraud and oppression: If in the Court, there it is pride and affectation. But you will say, it dwells in our hearts: Who can tell that? In men's lives we do not see it; only in their lips we hear it. So then Righteousness is hard driven for habitation; when it can be admitted no farther than the mouth, and have no other dwelling than in the lips. Into the chamber of our hearts it may not come: in the hall of conversation it is not seen: only we allow it a little residence in the door of our lips: a lip-righteousness; that's all. It is in many men's courses or lives, as in some discourses or treatises: we can see no fruit for leaves, nor matter for words. But I remember what answer a Statesman made to a frivolous petition: I may divide, saith he, your petition into two parts; Matter and Words: now your matter is naught; and with me, assure yourself, your words shall not carry it. There be two things respectible in a Christian; his Life, and his Profession: and if his life be naught, let him never think that his profession shall carry it out with God.

Who shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart, &c. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. We must get Righteousness to dwell with us, or never look to dwell with Righteousness. If we do not entertain it here, it will reject us there. When Mercy and Truth have met together; and Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Then shall Truth spring out of the earth, and Righteousness shall look down from Heaven. But alas, Terras Astraea reliquit: those holy-days be gone: we are nothing less than righteous. When we read the Volumes of the Fathers, we would think they did nothing else but write: when we consider their devotions, we might think they did nothing else but pray. But coming to these our days, and marking the backs of men and women, we may well think they study nothing but pride: observing their full tables, that they mind nothing but excess and intemperance: looking upon their lives, that they regard nothing but sins: and mind no such thing as Righteousness.

2. The hope of this future life sweetens all the bitterness of the present. There is nothing that so troubles a good heart, as sin: To be rid of sin, it holds a great happiness. All the epithites and attributes of this world, cannot make up so full a grievance, as this one; that it is sinful. When we have called it, as it is, a vain world, a false world, an unquiet world, a miserable world; one would think we had said enough to disgrace it, and to make it loathed. But they all come short of this; a sinful world, a wicked world: when we have said that, we have indeed hit it right: that alone is sufficient to make it detestable. Let us examine our own hearts, if ever one drop of remorse hath entered into them; whether we would not have given all the world, yea, even our own life, to be sure of the forgiveness of one sin that troubles us. And yet that being forgiven, and our heavenly Father pacified by the blood of his Son, drying up our penitent tears with the beams of mercy; after all this, we are apt to fall into new sin, and again to trouble Heaven and Earth. O what peace can there be in the region of sin? But in this new World there shall dwell Righteousness; and her inseparable companions, Peace, Joy, Glory, Happiness, and eternal Life. Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you: The hearing of which words in the the end, shall make us blessed without end. Amen.

THere are two especial motives to bring us into the way of goodness: the bitterness of this life, which we feel; and the sweetness of the future life, which we expect. For the former, howsoever some besorted Earth-dwellers have deified this World, and call it by no meaner a title than their god, and their maker; yet they shall find it rather a destroyer. There be diverse kinds of makers, in an abusive sense: So drunkenness makes Beasts; that's a kind of maker: so pride makes Devils; that's another maker. The Devil made sin; he is a maker too: Sin made death; that is a maker too: Death made destruction; and hath a stroke in making also. But all these makers be properly unmakers, marrers; destroyers. So we use to say, that wealth makes a man: but what does it make him? It may make him proud, it may make him licentious, it may make him a fool, a sinner, sewell for the fire of Hell: it can never make him a man, much less a Saint. The way for a man to have the world his friend, is not to be friends with it. Men are naturally friends to their friends, and enemies to their enemies: But the cross humorous, and pevish world is his enemies friend, and his friends enemy. Insequeris? fugio: fugis? Insequor. Scorn it, and it will woo thee: love it, and it will undo thee. But is not the world kind to the covetous or voluptuous man, her darling, the worldling? Yes, as Dalilae was to Sampson, or Jael to Sisera: she will cut his throat in kindness, and for pure love send his soul to Hell. But to the poor man that despiseth it, it is indeed a friend, and a means to help him unto blessedness: in the same sense that the law is said to help a man to salvation, or righteousness. For the Law shows him that he hath no righteousness of his own; and so occasions him to seek it where it may be found, which is only in Christ. So the world shows him that it hath no happiness of its own; and therefore sends him to seek it in this new world; there he is sure to find it. And that is the other motive. In heaven there is a constant and eternal fullness of joy: therefore Sursum corda, thither let us lift up our hearts. Wherefore beloved, seeing that, &c.

Generally in the words, we have an insinuation, and an injunction; a matter granted, and a charge imposed. In the insinuation, there is a word of tender affection; Beloved: and a word of charitable persuasion: Ye do look for these things. upon this ground of encouragement is the rest of this Text and charge built: This is the Propter quod of all that follows. First let me dispatch these two, before I come to the distribution of the rest.

Beloved.] There is no better cognizance of Christ's servants than love: there is no love but wisheth good to the person loved: there is no such good to any person, as to be saved. Thus our Apostle expresseth his love to us, by persuading us to diligence in the great business of our salvation. All affections are radicated in love: there is a fear to lose, and that fear is grounded on love, there is a desire to enjoy, and that desire is love: there is a sorrow for parting, and that sorrow proceeds from love. Mary wept for their Abstulerunt Dominum; and this was a Dilexit multùm. Christ was all love: not a word he spake, not an action he did, not a passion he suffered, but was an argument, a character of his love. When he complained of the heaviness of his soul, Non hoc fecit stupor, sed amor: nec amissus erat animus, sed submissus. He opened the windows of his body, that through them we might see the love that was in his heart. He brought love, he bought love, he exercised love, he bequeathed love, he is love. As the Jews said of Esdras, that if knowledge had put out her candle, at his brain she might light it: so if all our love were extinguished, yet at the love of Christ we might easily re-kindle it. Here is the fire, but where is the victima, the sacrifice, our practiall charity? We say, charity begins at home, but Christ's charity began abroad: to show love to us, he neglected to love himself. But our love will neither begin at home, nor abroad: neither at his nor our own fire. Love is the fulfilling of the Law; and the want of it is the transgression of the Law. We complain that the Papists rob God of one commandment: but he that wants love, robs him of all; and so commits the worst sacrilege.

There is too little of this love in the world: Lustful love there is enough, too much, but charitable love is very scant. To that question, Lovest thou me? We answer readily with Peter, yes, Lord I love thee: But to that other question, If thou lovest me, what wilt thou do for me? we are dumb: or if our lips make a fair promise, yet our hands will fail in the performance. Some men indeed at sometimes will be beneficial; that at most times they may be injurious. Their love is like the laughter of Apollo, who was said to smile semel in anno. Such is most men's love to their Pastor, that they will spend ten times as much in law to maintain wrong, as they will give him by way of right. It was a byword; Love and a weapon will kill any man: the worlds love is joined with a weapon; it dwells at the swords point: you shall sooner feel it cold at your heart, than warm in your kitchen. Witness these bloody days, so full of desperate homicides; as if violence would leave nature nothing to do. The mercenary soldier can hardly be justified; for when he puts on his armor, he puts off his charity, and only fights for money. This is Vti robore contra eum qui dedit. When Moses saw the Egyptian smiting the Hebrew, he smote the Egyptian; we may smite our enemies to help our brethren; but when we find our brethren quarrelling, and say to one of them, Why smitest thou my brother? he is ready to reply, Who made thee a Judge? But for us that are tied together by so may bonds; of nature; nation, grace, neighbourhood; upon every flight occasion to be vexing and wounding one another; here is a love that fills the channells with blood: we may truly say, This love lies a bleeding. Miles ornatus, & cives armatus; a curious and spruce soldier, and a furious and rough Citisen, are two of the worst fights.

There is store of love in the world, but it is naught. There is a love to other men's wives, and it is adultery or wantonness: a love to other men's goods, and it is rapacity or covetousness: a love to other men's bloods, and it is murder and revenge: a love to other men's honors and places, and it is envy and ambition. As the Pharisaical Jews had a gramatical devotion, so we have a bastard dilection. But for that love which is the true borne child of goodness; charity to men's persons, to their estates, to their lives, to their names, to their souls; alas it is an Individuum vagum: it is dead in the cold, and buried in the grave of uncharitableness. So that now to preach charity, or to persuade men to be in love with love, is but our oration at the end of a funeral Sermon; which is to go on a dead man's errand. As water is of divers colors in diverse places: in divers places: in the Sea it is green, in puddles black, against rocks foamy, among green herbs clear: So love is according to her different objects: when it affects carnal beauty, it is concupiscence; when riches, it is covetousness; when honor, it is ambition; when any sin, it is malice. It is discouloured according to those sensual things, upon which it reflects. But let it be set upon goodness, upon God himself, and such things as are in ordine ad Deum, in relation to him; as the welfare of the Church, of the state, of ourselves, of our neighbors; it is then clear and perfect: no crystal so diaphanous, no flower so sweet and lovely, as charity. Then in the heart it is compassion, in the eye pity, in the tongue comfort, in the hand beneficence.

If there be love in the Pastor, he will feed his people: if there be love in the people, they will not wrong their Pastor. There is indeed a kind of love in this City to Preachers; but generally it is shown to those voluntaries, that will content themselves with the pay of a benevolence, and graze on the commons. But if he once require his own several, and challenge a proper maintenance by right; though he were an Angel of God, they would abhor him. But it is not Quid dabis? what wilt thou give? But Quid debes, what didst thou owe? First, pay thy debts and just dues; then talk of a benevolence, and work of supererogation. It is far more fit that the Preacher should receive what God gives him, than stand to the people's courtesy: which as it is not honorable for the Priest, so nor is it safe for the people: for then he must square out his positions according to their dispositions; and not dare to speak to the full extent of his conscience: for fear least by displeasing his Auditory, he should loose his Salary; and where is he then? Most of our Patrons are worse; for they love a Divine, as the Usurer loves an unthrift heir; that he may suck his estate, and squeese him, and leave him nothing. The Church at first chose lay men for their Patrons; and now those Patrons have made Churchmen their slaves. In the council of Carthage, some eminent men were chosen to defend the Church against Pagans; they were ordained to oppose the tyranny of others: now they are the worst tyrants to it themselves. O where is charity? It is our prayer frequently, From envy, hatred and malice, and from all uncharitableness, good Lord deliver us. Surely there is more included than some men suddenly think on: we may thus enlarge it in our thoughts: From quarrelling swaggerers, from biting usurers, from litigious neighbors, from seditious lawyers, from corrupt justicers, from simonicall Patrons, from political Church-robbers, from costive engrossers, from all oppressors, and from all their uncharitableness, Good Lord deliver us. Let each one be the others Beloved, Let God be the Beloved of us all, that we all may be the Beloved of God in his only Beloved Son, JESUS CHRIST.

Seeing that ye look for such things. This is the second branch of the insinuation; wherein he presumes of their well disposedness towards it.

1. Expectation is an action of hope, and hope is not without some ground. Blessed be God, who hath begotten us again to a lively hope, and to an Inheritance incorruptible, reserved in Heaven for us. Generavit, He begat us once in the first Adam, to this life: but this being corrupted, Regeneravit, He begat us again in the second Adam, to the hope of a better. This act of regenerating is doubly determined: to hope first, then to the Inheritance: to hope in the state of grace, to inheritance in the state of glory. This is no dead hope, but lively: they that are begotten, are begotten to life; this is somewhat. Yea, to an Inheritance, which is more: for all that are begotten, are not begotten to inherit. Poor men's children, younger brothers, are begotten; but where is the Inheritance? Yet in Inheritances there is some odds: one may be better than another: this is the best of all. And if this were in our old world we would suspect some encombrances: but it is in the new, in Heaven, and there kept. Earth could not keep it: here it were in hazard to be lost every moment: It would go the same way, Paradise went: but there it is safe. These, and there be the things we should look for: But do we? Our wants, our wanton desires find us looking work enough all our lives long; but our looking fails us in the modo, and ubi. Seek the things that are above. So we do; but it is ambitious supra: we would be above one another, in honor, favor, and power. There be high places, which we would not have taken away; but offer in them, and offer for them too, rather than go without them. But such things are too low and base: our Expectation should be higher, above the hills; higher yet, above the clouds; yea, higher yet, beyond our sight, even above the Heavens: there we are right.

2. Expectation is a fervent desire of having. The earnest Expectation of the Creature waiteth for the manifestation of the Sons of God. Do we thus look for it, that we long to enjoy it? No, we are so taken up with worldly things, and with looking upon them, that we have no mind to heavenly things: no looking after them. The possession of the vanity we have, thrusts out the expectation of the felicity we might have. But who does not desire the glory of this new World? Some do not believe it, therefore never desire it: some believe it, but never mind it: others desire it, but not yet: they would have a large share of this world before it. Most men are content to embrace it, but they will take no pains for it, nor seek the way to it. We have fat desires, but lean endeavors: as C. Flaminius played upon Philoxomenes; that he had Pulchras manus, & pulchra crura; sed ventrem non habuit: he had goodly arms, and strong thighs, but he had no belly. He meant that Philoxomenes had brave and valiant Soldiers, fair Troupes of Horse and foot, but no money, to pay them. It may be inverted upon us: for we are all belly, full of appetite and desire to happiness; but we have neither hands nor feet; we will not move nor labor to attain this happiness. If death do but offer to prefer us to it, we will none we thank him: nay, we refuse him with deprecations, and fortify ourselves against him with antidotes and preservatives. Where is our desire of Heaven, when we rather die Necessitatis vinculo, quàm voluntatis obsequio? Instead of looking for it, we look from it: and then only pretend a faint desire to it, when we can make no other shift, but that we must needs venture on it.

3. There is an Expectation of fear. There remains a fearful looking for of Judgment. So the timorous Traveler looks for the Thief: so the conscious Malefactor looks for the coming of the Judge; but had rather he would never come. There is an Expectation of hope: I looked for thy saving health. So in the pangs and sickness of our bodies, we look for ease: so in the agonies and sorrows of our souls, we look for comfort. There is an Expectation of desire; My soul thirsteth for God, even for the living God. We give many a look toward the thing that we love: the chaste Spouse is still looking for her Bridegroom. There is an Expectation of Faith: So Abraham looked for a City which hath a foundation, whose Builder and Maker is God. Our conversation is in Heaven, Whence we look for the coming of our Lord Jesus. A Merchant in a foreign country, that hath wife and children at home, fixeth all his cares, employeth all his endeavors, to confirm an estate to himself, not where he is, but in the place whence he came, and where he desires to be. We make use of spectacles, to succor our eyes in reading: yet we take no pleasure in looking upon the spectacles, but upon the object which is presented through them, and which they help us more clearly to behold. All temporal things are but spectacles, through which we look at the joys of Heaven.

Lastly, besides all these, the expectation of our eyes, of our desires of our hearts, there is also an expectation of our hands: when our profession and our conversation speak all one language; that we earnestly endeavor to be saved. This is the right looking for it; and when either of these part, we take the wrong way, and our souls will miss of their desired end. It is well, quando ea petimus, quae appetimus: prayer is good and necessary; and without this constant devotion, we shall never see the glory of these new Heavens. But if we do not join Orationem and Operationem, prayer and endeavor together, we shall no more get to the new Jerusalem, than our bodies can from one place to another without motion or transportation. There is an heresy in faith, which believes a lie: and there is an heresy in manners, which causeth a lie to be believed. The Devil persuades men, that Christ's death shall save them, though they live not such a life as he hath commanded them. This is a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: and that is a lie which sensual men believe. Hypocrites with their fair profession, make a show of going to Heaven, though Hell it self be in their hearts: and this is a lie which ignorant men believe. Either of these lies, passive or active, the one which sinners receive, the other which they make is enough to send them to the father of lies. But as we look for that we would have, so let us strive to have that we look for: our eyes, hands, hearts, and all must be employed about this weighty business. Then have we Correctum, when Cor erectum; then pure eyes, when they rest upon none but pure objects; then clean hands, when they meddle only with clean actions. Then indeed are our souls in the way to glory, when they are set forwards by the works of grace. Then may we look for these new Heavens, then do these new Heavens look for us; and the blessed renewer and purchaser of both bring us all together.

Wherefore seeing that, &c.] This is Axis & Cardo: the very point upon which the whole Text turneth. It is as it were a Copula between Heaven and Earth; an argument to win us, a ligament to unite us. We look for a glorious place, wherefore let us be gracious men. Joy and honor is our expectation, wherefore let holiness and innocence take up our conversation. We hope to have an inheritance in that world, wherein dwelleth righteousness: wherefore righteousness looks to have her habitation in us, while we dwell here. This is the sum of all; which I should press in general, before I come to express in particular.

Let Righteousness dwell in us; that is the substance of this verse: Oh that it were granted in all our hearts. If you ask, what is righteousness? you have it here described to be undefilednesse, unblameablenesse, and peaceableness. In these consist righteousness, and that righteousness must now dwell in us, if we look to dwell in those Heavens, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Indeed Christ is The Lord our righteousness: let him dwell in us, and then we shall be sure of righteousness. Let us hear the end of all: Through this righteous and holy life, without spot and blameless, God will be won to dwell with us, which is the perfection of this life: and we shall be admitted to dwell with him, which is the last and highest perfection of the life to come. For with whomsoever Christ vouchsafes to dwell here, they shall dwell with him there. He sends down his grace to us, that he may dwell with us below: he will advance us to his glory, that we may dwell with him above.

I have done with the general scope of the Text; which persuades us to a pious and sanctified life here, by the hope and expectation we have of dwelling in the new Heavens hereafter. I come now to the particulars; in the handling whereof, I shall desire pardon for the prolixity: the profit (I hope) will make amends for the length of my discourse. If I have not run over things with a brief dexterity; yet (I am confident) with an honest sincerity. Nor would the ampleness of the argument bear with a quick dispatch. The Scripture is like a house of many rooms, that hath many doors; and those doors have their several locks, and those locks require their own proper keys, to let in our understandings to the view of those hidden treasures. So therefore I would, if I were able, distribute a Text, as our blessed Savior did the loaves, when he commanded the broken remainder to be gathered up; that not a syllable might be lost. All places of holy writ are not only to be examined secundum sonum, according to the literal word; but secundum sensum, according to the mystical sense.

Be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless. This the Apostle makes the use of his former doctrine, the application of all. Wherein we have four dependencies, like so many links of one chain. First, here is an industry required; Be diligent. Secondly, the object of that industry, which is innocence or holiness: without spot and blameless. Thirdly, the end of that object, that we may so be found of the Judge in that day. Fourthly, the blessedness of that end, to be found of him in peace; that is in his love and favor. First, there is no remedy, but we must be found. Secondly, there is no comfort for us, if we be not found in peace. Thirdly, we cannot be found in peace without an unspotted innocence. Fourthly, and we shall never be without spot and blameless, unless we be very diligent so to keep ourselves.

[unspec 1] Be diligent: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : this some render, Satagite: which they would have to signify more than a sufficiency of doing; even a vehemency of action. As Quintilian relates of Manlius Sura; who was so nimble and expedite in a design, that Afer said of him; non agere, sed satagere. They take it for some anxiety and distraction about the difficulty of an enterprise: Cum non solummodo agerentur, sed & angerentur sollicitudine. They stretch it very far, and for my part, I would not shorten or restrain the acception of it, in this place, and in this matter: being a business of such consequence, that our eternal life lies upon it. Be as careful as you can; and all little enough: we can never be too diligent in the work of our salvation. Morally we may be Over-just, and press justice so hard, till it grow rank rigor. We may be over-zealous, till our anger against the errors and infirmities of others, become cruelty to their persons. We may be over-patient, till injury grows insolent, and oppressors make use of our insensibleness. We may be over-merciful, and wrong many innocents by favoring one malefactor. But we can never be over-good, nor over-holy, nor over- diligent in our care to be saved. We will never say of such men, with that Heathen: Non amo nimium diligentes, Though we strive never so hard to enter, we shall find the gate of Heaven strait enough. Run we never so fast; we are in danger of being cast behind, or coming short.

[unspec 2] Be diligent. The other reddition is Studete: the former makes it a work of the hand, this of the head: there it is labor, here affection: in both an earnest endeavor. Study is a busy intention of the mind, a searching of the spirit. Scopebam spiritum meum: I communed with mine own heart, and my spirit made diligent search. So that one referreth to action; Satagite: the other to affection, Studete. There be two works that argue spirit and life to be in us; motion and sense. In the Agite, there is motion; in the Studete, sense. There is motus laesus in them that labor not, and Sensus laesus in them that mind not. We must both Satagenda studere, and Studenda satagere; mind what we are to do, and do what we mind. Both together; one is little worth without the other. There be many that will Satagere, find themselves work enough, though they have no thanks for their labor. So Martha was troubled about many things, but she neglected the necessary one. So Peter undertook enough to save his Master, though thereby he had lost himself. Here was Satagere, too much; but without a Studere; no knowledge to guide it right.

There be others that have their Studere, their knowledge in some good measure; but at the Satagere they are quite out. Sapiunt quae caeli, rapiunt quae terra. They have competent science, but are the worst doers in a Country. Less of their study, and more of their practice would do better. Pariter intelligent nobiscum, pariter non diligunt. They understand something of this future blessedness, but they are coldly affected with it. But Studete and Satagite would be kept together. For as in a natural body, it fares between the head and the stomach: a rheumatic head spoils the stomach with distillations; and a distempered crude stomach fills the head with raw vapors: in vicem laedunt. So an erring mind misguides the endeavor, and a wrong endeavor puts the mind out of frame. If there want a Studeie, a mind to Heaven; our Satagere or endeavor will tend to the worse: If there want a Satagere, the endeavor of a good life to come thither, our Studere or contemplation of it is to no purpose. The Studere of the head, without the Agere of the hand, will not stir a foot: The Agere of the hand without the Studere of the head and heart, will move, but out of the way: better sit still. Put them both together in their joint offices, and then give them as much diligence as may be.

But herein alas, our diligence flagges. A runagate son, leaving his father, and living in foreign Countries, was brought to want: and finding little charity among strangers, he was driven to work for sustenance. Industry brought in gains, and the sweetness of gains whetted on industry: soon he grew rich, became a Merchant, and dealt in traffic with diverse Nations: and, among the rest, with some of that Nation wherein his father lived. Hearing news how potent and opulent his father was grown; of his wealth and authority in the city, he resolves to steer his course thitherward. Four businesses he puts in his head: One was to congratulate with his friends and allies, another to be merry with his old companions, the third, to gather up his debts, the last and principal, to be reconciled to his father. Being arrived there, he follows his three former employments close; he fails in none of them: but these did so wholly take up his time, that he quite forgot the main, the reconciliation to his father. The Mariners on a sudden call a-bord, the Tide tarries no man; presently he must take ship, and so leaves that business utterly undone. We are all strangers upon Earth, our Father is the Almighty King of Heaven: we are charged but with four businesses here. First, Honestly to provide for ourselves and our families. Secondly, To perform all just duties to our neighbors. Thirdly, to solace our hearts with the sober and thankful use of God's Creatures. Fourthly, chiefly of all, to serve our Maker in all holy obedience, to acknowledge our sins with humble penitence, to get his pardon through the merits of his Son Jesus, and to make sure our inheritance in these new Heavens. We are diligent in the rest; we heap up riches, we sat ourselves with pleasures, we are indulgent to our bodies: But for the matter of most moment, the pleasing of our God, and the salvation of our souls, we are as negligent, as if they were things not concerning us. Death calls us a-bord, carries us away in his deep bottom; and the main business we came for, is left uneffected. when we truly examine our life, the whole course of it to this day, do we not find this true? We cannot but confess it, let us also amend it: and what ever become of our riches, of our pleasures, of our bodies, let us be diligent to save our souls.

Be diligent: to make up the composition of diligence there must go three ingredients; vigilancy, laboriousnesse, and speed: where either of these is wanting, there is no true diligence.

1 There is no right study without some watchfulness: be diligent, must needs include, be vigilant. Awake thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light. They that be called into Christ, and yet live in sin, are sleepers. They that sleep, sleep in the night. But our day is broken, why then do we sleep? When the Sun is once up, all good husbands think of rising. The slumber of the body and soul are not much unlike. First, when the body is a-sleep, the senses have done working: the eyes are closed, and suspend the act of seeing. In this spiritual slumber, sinners do not hear God's Word, nor see his Sacraments, nor feel his grace and comforts. We do not say they cannot; but we are sure they do not. Secondly, in sleep there is an interruption of the working of the animal faculties: So there is a suspension of graces powerful operation in the soul, during this spiritual slumber. Charity is cold, Faith benumbed, Zeal obstupefied; neither Patience, nor Temperance awake. Thirdly, the ascending of vapors from the stomach, causeth sleep: so worldly thoughts in a covetous heart, hinder the influences of God's Spirit. Spiritual sleep is more dangerous than corporal: this only hinders some actions of mortal life: that robs us of our prayers, meditations, repentance, and things that conduce to our salvation, it borders upon death: when the Divine should preach, he sleeps: when the Magistrate should do justice, he sleeps: when the rich man should show mercy, and hear the complaints of the poor, widows and Orphans, he is fast a-sleep. Call you this diligence? Indeed it is so in one acception, even a diligent course to perdition.

2. The endeavor to be saved, is no easy task: it will require some labor. It is not wickedness glossed over with a fair pretence or profession, as Popery is, but Atheism dipt in the colors of religion. It is not like the trade of usury, to sit still and receive money. Nor a walking in some pleasant Gallery; where that Epicure spent his time, as if he had been hired to do errands from picture to picture. It is not a tumbling upon Roses and Violets, Like the old Sibarites,