Commentary on 2 Peter

WHERE is the Promise of his Comming? that was their Challenge: God hath not forgot his Promise; this is their satisfaction. He is not slack in any business he undertakes; much less in that which so nearly concerns his honor, as the making good of his word, the justification of his truth, the performance of his Promise. He will not put off those that depend upon his Covenant, with dilatory excuses: but meets our zealous Prayers at the door, as they are coming forth to solicit his merciful remembrance. That which seems dullness and slackness to our impatient desires, is rather an argument of his goodness; for the intent of his longsuffering is to bring us to Repentance. Thus while the afflicted Righteous think God forgets them; wandering sinners shall find that God remembers them: And it is fit, that the guests bidden to the same Feast should stay for their fellows. Is God content to tarry for their conversion? and dost thou think much to tarry for thy reward? The consideration of the Divine Patience is a bridle to our preposterous hastiness: therefore doth Christ defer his coming, to invite mankind to Salvation: Therefore he forbears to accelerate the last day, that the world might have space to provide for their last account at that day. When we perceive that he doth accommodate the respect of times to our safety, and means only our good in this forbearance, we have no cause to complain of his slackness. Oppressors presume that God hath no more regard of his Servants, than of themselves, because they are not visibly delivered: as the Jews thought he did not own Christ, because he did not save him out of their clutches. But they reckon one way, and God another; and the event will declare which of them was deceived. The Lord is not slack, &c.

The Text moves upon two Poles. First, what God is not; He is not slack concerning his Promise. Secondly, what He is; He is longsuffering toward us. The former is a Removall of a suspicion, the other is a Proof of a gracious Indulgence. In the negative Proposition, we have three Particulars. First, Quid non sit; The Lord is not slack. Secondly, In quo non sit, Concerning his Promise. Thirdly, Quomodo non sit, as some men count slackenesse. The affirmative Proposition appears to me like Rachel with her two Children, Joseph and Benjamin. First, the Patience of God is the Mother,: and the two fruits are, that none perish, but all come to repentance.

1. The Lord is not slack. Tarditas or Slacknesse is here usurped for a Vice: for otherwise it is laudable, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Festina lente: which is the golden mean between those two extremes, of Sluggishness, and Precipitancy. Gellius well expresseth it by the word maturare: according to that of the Poet; Maturate fugam. To Agamemnon was objected 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , to Achilles 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : Medium tenuit cunctator Fabius; using neither more delay, nor more hast, than might consist with good speed. Certain coin of Vespasian did seem to hieroglyphicke this; wherein was figured a Dolphin upon the middle of an Anchor. He is Tardy, who negligently pretermits his occasion: not he that comes not suddenly, but that comes not so soon as he should. As Tobias excused himself; My father counteth the days, and if I tarry long (that is, one day beyond the limited time) he will be very sory. In this sense must those precepts be understood, Thou shalt not delay to offer thy Tithes and first Fruits; that is statuto tempore, in due time: for until then, there is no Slackenesse. Thou shalt not slack to pay thy Vowes; in thy prefixed times. That is then Slackenesse, when we defer to do what we ought, when we ought. Let us take a short view of both these extremes.

The first is a precipitant overhastinesse; which so flies Slackenesse, that it runs into rashness; and is so greedy of doing, that it omittes to deliberate, either what is to be done, or how it may best be done. This is like that which the Physicians call Predigestion; which doth rather fill the body with crudities and secret seeds of diseases, than conduce to sound nourishment. There be some that care only to come off speedily, to contrive some false periods of business, and to dispatch things in a hurry. But it is one thing to contract that which is tedious, by reducing it to a method: another thing, to abridge or huddle up that which is necessary and essential, by an abrupt cutting it off. That which is made shorter in the several pieces, is commonly made longer in the whole. Let no man so run into action, that he leaves deliberation behind him. They are too hasty, that will mount into the Pulpit before their wings be grown: not unlike to Ahimaaz, who would needs be running, though he had no errand to deliver: Let me also run, I pray thee. But wherefore wilt thou run, my son, seeing thou hast no tidings ready? saith Joab. Howsoever let me run. And what will he say when he comes into the Pulpit? I saw a great tumult, but I knew not what it was: a confusion or tumult of words is all they can deliver. Suddaine and rash attemps, if they meet not with sudden destruction, retreit with sorrow and shame. If we be put out of our way in the beginning of our journey, we wander all the day.

We cannot charge God with this overhastinesse; for if He should be angry so often as we sin, and strike so often as he is angry, what man could escape? It was a big word which Caesar spoke to Metellus, Tribune of the people, when he violently resisted his entrance into the sacred Treasury; knowing he meant to seize upon the monies, there stored: Presume no further, or I will lay thee dead. And when he saw Metellus something daunted with these words, he added; Young man, it had been easier for me to do this, than to speak it. This was but a bravado in Caesar: the powerful truth of it only belongs to God's; with whom it is as easy to kill, as to say the word. But our merciful God is not so hasty: men are long in making anything, quick in destroying: A city, which the succession of many years hath brought to her beauty, may soon be razed and demolished by the enemies fire. Only God is quick in making, but pauzeth upon destroying. When he came to question apostate Adam, it was in the cool of the day, not in the heat of his anger. He that made the World in six days, and could have done it in six hours, spared it above a thousand years, before the flood came. He allowed Nineveh the respite of forty days: but who can number the days, months, and years, that licentious Nineveh had enjoyed in former times? Yet, as if God were content to sustain the loss and profusion of all this forbearance, there is an addition of forty days. Not longer, lest they should grow wanton by his patience: nor shorter, lest they should become desperate by the suddenness: But a convenient space; both to preclude all presumption of impunity, and despair of mercy. His patience hath enlarged it self toward us: that if We should plead with our mother, and she with her children, and God with both, we were even speechless. Our unthankfulness hath striven with his Goodness for the Victory, as Absalom strove with David; whether the Father should be more kind to the Son, or the son more unkind to the Father: we have been fatted with his blessings, and then spurned at his precepts. Could he brook the innumerable adulteries of this land, the desperate homicides, the continual violation of his holy Sabbaths, if he were hasty? Could he endure our presumptuous oaths, if he were hasty? We cannot walk in the streets or fields, but our ears are full of such dreadful blasphemies, sworn even by them that have scarce a good rag to their backs, as if they would send up defiance to Heaven, and challenge the Almighty to meet them in warlike arms. With these weapons we fight against Christ, and ourselves: these have scattered our regiments, and strawed the ground with our slaughtered corpses: these were the Ordnance, that have played upon our own ships: these have crossed our designs: not Dunkirke, not Spain, not Rome, not Hell, have done us so much mischief, as our own mouths. It is true that the State may in some measure clear it self, by making good laws, against such wicked lips: but the want of execution frustrates all hope of reformation. That the profane swearer is ever suffered again to open his mouth, dischargeth God from all imputation of hastiness: praised be his Patience for evermore.

The other extreme slackness, is not incident to the Lord. Though the vision tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come; Yet a little while, and he that shall come, will come, and will not tarry. He that believeth, will not make haste, but wait the Lord's leisure. There be men placed high, in the eminent seats of Authority, that cannot vindicate themselves from slackenesse, when the poor have repaired unto them for succor. Some of them will give, will pardon, will do Justice, but it shall be when they list; according to their own humor, not the others necessity: and the oppressed Client, that knows not the Great-ones fits, and moods, and seasons; may starve before that gift comes, and ruin before the Justice right him, and die before the pardon save him. Some trees will bear no fruit, except much dung be laid about them: and Justice comes not from some men, till they be manured with bribes. Some trees require much watering, and some Magistrates will yield no fruits of equity, except they be haunted with assidual importunity. Some trees require incision, and pruning, and lopping: and some men must be threatened, and intimidated, before they will deliver the fruits of Justice. Some trees require the early and often access of the Sun: and some men will not be won to do good without Court-mediation. Some trees must be housed and kept within doors: and some will not open their Favor and Compassion, till the solicitation of a wife, or a Son, or a friend, or a servant turn the key. Reward is the motive of one man, and importunity of another: Fear the incentive of one man, and favor of another: Friendship is prevalent with one man, and natural affection with another: And till a persuasion is fitted to their dispositions, they are culpable of Slacknesse, and regardless of doing any good. They will hear with others ears, and determine by the report of others. But the poor may well answer, as that great soldier did to Caesar, when he was put off in the like manner: I fought for Caesar in mine own person, not by my Lieutenants? therefore I expect that Caesar should hear my cause in his own person, and not by deputies.

But who can challenge God of such retardation? He is indeed Slow to wrath, but he runs to show mercy. No sooner doth the penitent sinner turn his face toward Heaven, but the Divine compassion meets him at the first step, and entertains him with peace. He did not stay to leavy, arm, train, muster, and present Troupes of Soldiers to overthrow Sennacherib: but he took a nearer way, and in one night, by the hand of an Angel, slew almost two hundred thousand of his Army: Here was no Slackenesse. Dorham is besieged, the Prophets servant distressed: a very apparition in the Clouds shall secure him: not a squadron shall be raised, and yet the enemy is surprised: here was no Slackenesse. The Midianites invade Israel, and are suddenly confounded by a dream: Here was no Slacknesse. Full often hath this Island been endangered by foreign invasions, by intestine treasons: when even in the Article and point of our enemies hope, and of our peril; our gracious God hath stepd in with his wonderful deliverance: I hope here was no Slackenesse. If we may believe our own Chronicles, in the reign of Richard the first, before that great famine and pestilence; there appeared two Suns in the Firmament: which apparition hath eternized that day to all posterity, nor is the fame of it yet dead. Our times have yielded as great a wonder; when instead of two Suns, two Moons were seen in our Hemisphere at once; the one in the Sky, the other on the Sea: a fatal prodigious Crescent, whose horns like the horns of that Ram in the vision, so pushed Westward, Northward and Southward, that they supposed none could stand before him: therefore they antichristened it, The invincible Armado: yet the Moon above laughed at the Moon below: and as the one hath dominion over the Sea, the Sea got dominion over the other: and that daring Crescent, like a meteor, waned, and went out. A meteor indeed, made up of squalid matter and corruption drawn out by pride and presumption, dissolved by the wind in derision, and so scattered in pieces, that nothing but the shame and ruins were left to testify, there had been such a Navy. When they made themselves so sure of our destruction, that they shared our Possessions by lots, and threw dice for our patrimonies, the Lord presented our unexpected deliverance; here was no Slackenesse.

God needs not the tongue of Men nor Angels to justify his goodness, yet he graciously accepts it. Let me therefore give you some other sensible demonstrations, to clear him from all suspicion of Slackenesse. What an artificial Hell had those desperate Traitors devised, to blow up the head and representative body of the land? How closely did they conspire, how securely proceed, with what sacramental forms did they adjure secrecy? Catiline bound his conspirators with a drink of human blood: but these wretches sealed up their Treason with the precious blood of the Son of God. The night was theirs, the vault was theirs, the opportunity was theirs, silence was theirs, the Pope was theirs, the Devil was theirs: who could discover this project but themselves? Yet even when Faux was giving fire to the Match, that should have given fire to the powder, which should have blown up Men and Monuments, even the whole State together; our never sleeping Father prevents him, and discloseth the whole design: here was no Slackenesse. Let that day the fifth of November, be ever branded with a black cool of mischief. It hath been observed a fatal inauspicious day in History. Among the Grecians it was kept with sad solemnity for the loss of noble Aratus, the often preserver of his country. Among the Jews it was famous for the slaughter of Zacharias the Priest, who was that day butchered between the Porch and the Altar, which fact Christ upbraided many years after. Among us, let it never be forgotten; but inserted with a Rubric or capital letter in every Kalendar; for the Pow-der-treason hath added everlasting infamy to it. It was a danger ever to be thought upon with horror and sadness; and a deliverance ever to be remembered with joy and thankfulness Blessed be our God, who without Slacknesse, did turn our intended funeral into a festival. The Jews were wont once a year to celebrate a Feast unto Sorrow, wherein they went barefoot, and with bitter imprecations they cursed Titus and Vespatian, for the destruction of their Citty and Temple. I am persuaded that the Jesuits, Priests, and Papists, that have evil will at our Zion, do still upon every fifth of November keep a feast to Sadness, and shut up themselves in their melancholy cells; if not for grief that this their hopeful plot miscarried; yet for shame (unless they be past shame) that ever it was attempted. Let their sorrow increase our joy, let our joy increase our thankfulness, to Him that was not slack to deliver us.

We cannot forget our clear deliverance from that late woeful judgment of the Pestilence. How sorrowful were those times, when every month swept away thousands from among us? When a man could not set forth his foot but into the jaws of death: when piles of Carcases were carried to their pittes, as dung to the fields: when it was cruelty in the sick to admit visitation, and love was little better than murderous. The more sad and horrible the face of those times looked, so much greater cause have we to proclaim the mercy of God in our present freedom. All the land was afraid of this Citty, now this Citty is clearer than many places of the land. We may now throng together into God's House without fear, and breath in one another's face without danger. How gracious was this deliverance! yea how speedy! To abate so fast, as in three months to decrease from a thousand a week to ten, yea to none: certainly it was little less than miraculous: when we consider this, O Heavenly Father, who can accuse thee of Slacknesse?

As some men count slackenesse.] It is the madness of vain man to take the length of God's foot by his own Last; and to interpret that for a slow pace, which is the precise opportunity he hath determined for his coming. We must be passive in receiving God's secret mysteries not active in contriving his ways. Too many are ready to suspect God's Power or Purpose, to succor those, who in foreign parts groan under heavy pressures in matter of religion, or are devested of their ancient possessions, and the inheritance of their Fathers; And because he hath not yet restorcd them, nor yet raised up such means, as in their apprehension are likely to effect it: therefore they think that God likes not the cause, and begin to stagger in their own religion at home, as if God neglected it abroad. We have attempted some designs against our enemies, to redress our manifold wrongs, by an invasive war, the warrant of vindicative justice; and have come to the worst: Shall we therefore challenge God of Slackenesse? or our religion of weakness? God will do all in due time, that is, in his time, not in ours. The land to which he brought his people of Israel, was their own land before: they were the right heirs to it, lineally descended from him, who was the first possessor of it after the Flood: but so long were they out of possession of it, that they were not able to set there Title on foot, nay, they did scarce know their own Title. Why were they so long kept from it? was there any slackenesse in him that should give it? At the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the self same day, they went out from the land of Egypt. That was the precise time appointed, and the self same day it was accomplished: If it had been deferred a day longer, than they might have accused him of slackenesse. If at any time the Lord delivers us, it is more than he owes us. Let him choose his own opportunity, that so freely grants the mercy. Let us tremble to challenge God for that, the fault whereof lies wholly in ourselves. Let us seriously examine the causes, why that wonted providence seemeth now so slow to help us.

1 The principal cause is our own sins: those are the Remor'as, the obstacles that retard the mercy of God. The Israelites assault little Ai, and are beaten: what was the reason? was Ai, too strong for Israel? No, but the sin of Israel made them too weak for Ai. Dunkirke is a greater scourge to us, than Ai, was to Israel: what is their strength greater than ours? No, but our wickedness is greater than theirs. When we are crossed in just and lawful quarrels, we may well think there is some secret sin unrepented of in us: This though we see not, yet God so hates, that he will rather be wanting to his own cause, than not punish it. If before we had put to Sea, about our warlike attempts, we had penitently cleansed our hearts, then we might have expected better success. Joshua sees this, rends his clothes, lies upon the Earth, and mourns, yea expostulates, What wilt thou do to thy mighty Name? The Lord replies, Wherefore liest thou upon thy face? That he might see, God took no pleasure to let the Israelites lie dead upon the Earth, before their enemies, himself is taxed for lying all day before the Ark, Get the up Israel hath sinned: he does not say, lie still and mourn for the sin of Israel. It is to no purpose to pray against punishment, until the cause be removed. Though God loves to be sued to, yet he holds our requests, unseasonable, till there be care had of satisfaction. When we have risen and reformed sin, then we may fall down for pardon. Victory is ever in the free hand of God, to dispose where he will: and it is no marvel to see the dice of war run with hazard on both sides: yet he tells us plainly the cause of all our discomfitures; We have sinned.

One Achan is enough to trouble all Israel: a lewd man is a pernicious creature: That he damns his own soul, is the least part of his mischief: he commonly draws vengeance upon a thousand, either by the desert of his sin, or by the infection. The same God, who for ten righteous men would have spared five wicked Cities, sometimes will not be content to drown one sin in the obedience of many righteous. But so venomous is sin, that one dram of it is able to infect the whole mass. How much more dangerous is it, when it is common. God usually measures the state of any people by the most: and though there be some righteous, yet the greater part carries both the name and censure. Sins are so much the greater, as they are universal; so far is evil from being extenuated by the multitude of the guilty, that nothing can more aggravate it. With Men, commonness may plead for favor; with GOD it pleads for judgment. Many hands draw the Cable with more violence, than few: The leaprosie of the whole body is more loathsome than that of a part. We are all still looking outward upon someone eminent and notorious sinner; concluding that he is the plague of our Nation, and the sole cause of our ruin: But O vain man look inwards, and find an Achan in thine own bosom: apprehend, condemn, execute thine own sin. If a Mote be in our brothers eye, our eye is still upon that Mote. We all complain, and yet add to the common heap. Redresse stands not in words; let each man amend one and we all live. If everyone pull a brand from this flame, the fire will go out alone. A multitude is but an heap of unities: the more we take away, the fewer we leave. Begin at home, and take thine own conscience to task: there thou shalt find work enough: whiles everyone censures, and none amends, we all grow worse. If we could deduct our own evils from the evils of these days; God, the land, and our own conscience shall find the less. It is better for us to complain on Earth, that others offend our Maker, than to howl in Hell, because we have been of that number. Though we cannot turn the stream, yet let us swim against it: It is glorious to have resisted, though we cannot prevail. Insensible sinners deny that the days are evil: but themselves are the greatest part of this evil; and but for them we had not such cause to complain. Their own conscience shall one day rack from their lips that sad confession, which Aeneas made of the Trojane miseries; Et quorum pars magna fui: we have been no small part of these calamities. Sin makes a Country like Jezebel; whereof nothing will be left but the feet, and palms of their hands. Invisible persecutions be ever the worst; when Satan persecutes us by pride, by oppression, by malice, by profaneness. Alas, what hope of success can there be, while sins are the ballast of our ships, oaths the Ordnance, Pride the Tackling, and security steeres the Helme? Our springtides bring in our Merchandise, and the Spring-tide of our sins will bring in God's judgments. We cannot complain that God is slack to succor us, it is well that he is not hasty to confound us. He made man, and yet man so degenerated from his creation, that He repented that he made him. He hath crowned this Island with many blessings, yet we may so far provoke him, as to repent him of all his favors. No, but let us with speed turn unto him, and he will make haste to help us: If we be not slack in our conversion, he will not be slack to give us salvation.

2 The next cause is our slackness to concur with the means of our recovery. For though God made all things of nothing, and can do all things with nothing; yet he will have something from us. Do we fit still in our sins and sorrows, and complain of his slackenesse? Would we have him help us altogether without our selves? Christ was able to have done as the Devil bad him, even to have made bread of stones, when he had so great a number to feed in the Wilderness, but he does not so. He asks his Disciples, How many loaves have ye? Though they were but five, yet since they were some, he multiplies them, and satisfies five thousand with them. Though he foresaw, that the augmentation of Gideon's Army, would be the diminution of his honor, and therefore disquantitied his forces, from thirty two thousand to three hundred; yet a remnant he will have to fight his battles: a remnant of believers in Israel to make up his Kingdom: a remnant of thy soul▪ his seed wrapped up somewhere, to save thy soul: a remnant of thy mind, of thy purse, of thyself, to deliver thyself. God is a good Steward of men's contributions, but contributions he will have: he requires a concurrence and cooperation of persons. He goes low, and accepts of small sacrifices, a Pigeon, a handful of Flower, a few ears of Corn: but a sacrifice he will have. If Christians do not assist Christians, if neither our Neighbors of the same faith confederate with us, nor we with them; if we fight for none, and none fight for us: at last, neither we nor they shall fight for Christ, nor Christ for them nor us; but all become a prey to the general enemy of the Name of Christ. Though he be infinitely able to avenge his own cause, yet he requires our assistance; and when we have done our best, still we pray with that humble clause of acknowledgement; Give peace in our time O Lord, because there is none other that fighteth for us. The honor of this Nation in noble achievements, hath been the terror of enemies, and matter of envy and admiration to the Christian world: what is become of this valor? Is it dead in the heads, hands or hearts of men? In their heads that they know not; or in their hands, that they cannot; or in their hearts, that they dare not, to do as they were wont? Of that I cannot determine: but this I dare speak, Fidenter, quia fideliter; wheresoever the fruit appears, the tree is rooted in our sins. The Philosopher could say, A ship is a ship forever, if you repair it, and honor is honor forever, if you repair it. But Aliquid fama addendum ne putrescat: Honor will putrefy, if it be not repaired. The reparation of our honor must begin at the reformation of our lives: Till we have put our sins to the worse, we shall never get the better of our enemies. God will not be wanting to us, if we be not wanting to him, and ourselves. Do we expect a forward God, while we are a backward people? I may not meddle with persons, but generally conclude this: It is our slackenesse to repent of our sins, our slackness to amend our lives, our slackness to render God service, and the Church her dues, our slackenesse to comfort the poor in their miseries, our slackenesse to guard our own selves, which makes our God so slack to help us.

3. Another cause of the Lord's seeming Slackenesse to deliver us for the present, is our slackenesse to praise Him for the Deliverances past. Unthankfulness; this is the Witch, the Sorceresse, whose drowsy Enchantments have made us even forget God Himself. If we forget Him, can He be blamed for Slackenesse to remember us? Christ chargeth us to to remember his Words, what He hath said unto us: but how shall we remember that, when we forget the good He hath done for us? What is become of all God's Wonders? Whither is the memory of all his Deliuerances fled? We may ask after them as of the Sculpture on Monuments almost worn out, or as that insulting Tyrant did of the Kings of the Nations which he had destroyed? where is the king of Hamath, and the King of Arphad? Where is the Memory of 88. or of 605? Neither of these have worn out the age of a man, and yet they are almost worn out themselves. Is the Chronicle of that invincible Fleet written in the same Element, that the Deliverance was wrought on, Water; so that no Tract of the story, nor Character of the divine Hand remains to be read? Sure, that Wonder might even fill a Volume, and give life to a story that should outlast the World; if our hearts were not drowned in unthankfulness, as that Navy was in the Ocean. What is become of the Gun-powder plot? Hath three and twenty years quite extinguished it? Is the Memory of it buried in the same womb where it was begotten, the Vault under the Parliament-house? Or is the Record blown up, though the matter escaped? Those Pioners failed in their plot to blow up us, but the Devil still goes on with his plot, to blow it out of our memories. Is the remembrance of our woeful Dearths, choked with our present Fullness of Bread? Hath our Health and Iollity put to silence all those dying Grones, which the dreadful Pestilence rang in our affrighted Ears? Have we forgot the language, which our very Doors did speak; Lord have mercy upon us? These Deliverances abide with us, and is their memory vanished? The grave of Pompey had not so much as an Inscription, to distinguish the dust of his victorious body from ignoble stains and cowards; or to signify, Here lies Pompey. And have these times, these once glorious times, no difference in our remembrance or estimation; Shall they lie promiscuously raked up in the dust of time, without any monument set over them, to tell they once were?

When Saint Paul reprehended the Galatians, for observing days and months, and times, and years: when he forbade the Colossians all critical, Indicatory days: Let no man judge you in respect of a holy day, or of a new moon, or of a Sabbath: he did not intend to take away all consideration, all distinction of days: though he remove them from being of the essence of our salvation: yet he leaves them for assistances, and for the exaltation of our devotion: to fixe our selves at certain periodicall and stationary times, upon the consideration of those benefits, which in those days the Lord hath bestowed upon us. When in such a day we consider such a Deliverance, and upon another solemn day are occasioned to remember such a Blessing; we may the better judge ourselves, how these things have wrought upon us, and disposed us to a spiritual convalescence. Out of the common heap God hath chosen some, and made them high days and hallowed them. The several companies in this City have (at least) their annual Feasts; which want no ceremonious forms to set them forth: especially the Pulpit must do them grace, and the first dish is a Sermon. I censure not that, but this I would have; that those times, whose memory should be precious, might be better observed. Those two great Feasts, Easter and Whitsuntide, may have some observance: But one day is not enough to celebrate either of these inestimable benefits, the Resurrection of Christ, and the Mission of the holy Ghost: therefore the Church thought good to join with each of them two others; and of what estimation are they among us? Even of such, as if they were ordained to play in, not to pray in. Can we meditate too much on those blessings, that give so little honor to that double pair of attendants, ordained to wait upon those solemn Feasts? There be divers other, instituted upon particular occasions, which we pass by, and scarce give them so much as the courtesy of the day: we mind no annuals or yearly Feasts to keep them up; but instead of a mention, there is a blank; and a solemn silence, instead of an Anniverse. But why should the main Deliverances of the Land, not be distinguished from the common heap of days piled up in the Almanac? Certainly, he hath neither zeal to Religion, nor love to his Country, who doth not on those days bind the Sacrifice with cords to the Horns of the Altar, and send up to Heaven some Incense of thanks. Why should God remember us for the future, that have forgot the former? Can nothing but new misery put us in mind of our old Preserver? When a stubborn Delinquent, being committed, was no whit mollified with his durance, but grew more perverse than he was before, one of the Senators said to the rest; Let us forget him a while, and then he will remember himself. If our God should deal so with us, if he should forget us a little, our own calamities would teach us to remember both Him, and ourselves. He that dwelleth in the Heavens, looked down upon us, let us look up to Him: Since by his Mercy we live and breath, let us live to breath praise and thanksgiving to his blessed Name.

4. The last Cause, is our Slacknesse to repent of our iniquities; and why then should God hasten our Deliverance? Nineveh upon the first summons, did not only fast, and mourn, and humble themselves, and turn from their wickedness; but they did all this presently, without delay: It is our duty to turn first; Do we defer this, and complain of God Slacknesse? Would we bind God to our times, and have ourselves free? All times are his, there is not a moment we can call ours: Though it be not given to us to know the times and seasons: yet we know there is a time and season given us; which if we neglect, we forsake our own Mercy.

Concerning his Promise] The Promise here meant, is the second Comming of Christ: and because this is not done suddenly, and so soon as they brag, they would have it: they arm themselves either with Infidelity, that there is no such matter, that He will never come at all: or at least, admit of a wanton security, that it will be long enough ere He do come. But whither they wrangle, or dream, Christ is not slack concerning his Promise, and he will come soon enough to their cost; when they shall see Him with fear, whom they would not receive with Faith. But to leave them in their desperate unbelief, it it satisfy us, that all the Promises of God are Yea and Amen: He is faithful that hath promised: He hath commanded his Covenant forever; holy and reverend is his Name. Men are not so faithful: first, some will promise what they cannot do; as the Devil proffered kingdoms to Christ, when he had none upon Earth, only one in Hell. Secondly, some promise what they can, but mean not to do; as the Shechemites did to the sons of Jacob, and the sons of Jacob to the Shechemites; when they meant on both sides to deceive one another. Thirdly, some promise what they meant for the time, and afterwards recant; as Laban promised Rachel to Jacob, and gave him Leah. Fourthly, some promise what they do give, but unwillingly; as Herod did not deny John's head, but he was loath to grant it. Fifthly, some promise, and willingly perform; yet together with truth of performance, they are sorry for their promise; as Joshua dealt with the cunning Giheonites. But these infirmities are strangers to the nature of God, who will remember his Covenant to a thousand generations even forever.

1. Here is matter of imitation; if we be the children of our heavenly Father, we must (after his Example) make good our promises, or we cannot assure ourselves that we are no Bastards. Though we perform with our loss and prejudice, there may be no retraction of a lawful promise. Peter in effect, so pleaded to Ananias; The inheritance was thine, thou needest not have sold it: being sold, the money was thine, thou needest not have parted with it: but promising all, and retaining part, thou hast lied to the Holy Ghost. Israel enters into a league with Gibeon, and binds it with an oath: within three days they find the deceit: may they not now violate their promise? Fraudulent conventions oblige not; God hath forbidden all league with the natives; and Israel had put in a direct caveat of their vicinity: why then does Joshua hold himself bound to his covenant? There is no trusting to shifts for the eluding of promises: we must faithfully perform, what we have rashly promised.

2 Here is matter of faith; shall we not believe the promise of God? Hath the Maker spoke it, and will not the creature believe it? The Almighty hates to be distrusted, and accounts infidelity so much a greater sin than others, as he magnifies his mercy above all his works. He that will not take his Word for good, shall feel his sword for evil. Impotent man holds it a disgrace, not to be credited; and will he that is eternal truth, put up such an indignity? So near is unbelief to Atheism, as the Word of God is to the nobleness of his own Majesty. It was a sweet ditty of the Psalmist, Bonum est confidere in Domino, It is good to trust in the Lord: Good in respect of him, and good for us. First, it is our own good, and that we are enabled to trust him, is more of his mercy, than that we do trust him, can be merit in our fidelity. Our goodness reacheth not up to him, but his goodness reaches down to us, in filling our hearts with confidence in him. There is nothing in all the world that can work our hearts to so comfortable and unconquerable a resolution, as our reposall upon God. They that put their trust in the Lord, are as Mount Zion that cannot be moved. Faith can remove mountains, but the mountains that are raised on faith, can never be removed. Secondly, it is good in respect of God: for it is one of the best pieces of his glory, to be trusted unto: as Joseph held, when Potiphar trusted him with all, that he could not do him a greater honor. The glory of God is so precious to him, that he will not part with it to any other. What other things does not he impart willingly? Being, Life, Knowledge, Happiness and such blessings, are originally, eminently, essentially in God: yet Being, he gives to all things; Life, to many things; Knowledge to some kinds of creatures, and Happiness to some of those kinds: only his Glory he reserves to himself. Riches he gives to his very enemies, and so gives them to others, that he keeps them not at all to himself: but he will not endure his Glory to be communicated to Man or Angel; not to the best guest in Heaven, much less to the worst dross on Earth. Our belief is a part of his glory, and shall we nor do him that justice, as to give him his own? Him let us esteem above all, to him let us look up in all, on him let us depend for all, from his goodness and mercy let us acknowledge all, in him let us delight with contempt of all; and this is the confidence we owe our Maker.

3 Here is the ground of hope, even in the midst of delay. The deferring of our desires must not discourage our Faith: it may be God hath long granted our request, ere we shall know of his grant. When God shall find patience mixed with faith in his Clients, the Cause shall go well with them. In the fervor of their expectation, he may hold them off: but when they least think of it, and have forgotten their own Suite, he graciously condescends. Zacharias a long time failed of a son, for all his prayer; but when he had even forgotten that prayer, he had a son. The Angel brings him good news; Thy prayer is heard. When did he make this prayer? He was grown old, and h • d given over all hope of a child; so that this request was past over many years since. Yet God had laid it up all this while; and when Zacharias least looks for it, brings it forth to effect. The Word of that God must needs be sure, who is so often better than his Word. God is infinitely free, yet his own promise binds him: He can owe us nothing, except he engage himself, and that engagement is debt: Can we distrust him to give us that he haht promised, who gives us ten thousand blessings which he never promised? The favors of God, though they be most free, have a price set on them, and require a rent to be paid for them. Faith is the price, and the rent is thankfulness. Crede, & fruere that is the price. Gratus esto, & beatus esto; that is the rent. There can be nothing easier than he requireth; there can be nothing richer, than he giveth. O God, that undeserving man should grudge, to return thee so little, for so much!

4 Here is matter of Obligation to us; for if we expect God should perform his promises to us, we must be careful to keep touch with him. Our promise in Baptism obligeth us to his Service; have we never broken this holy Covenant? If there be any so profane, as to pretend that that promise was only made by proxey: and a contract made by a Virgin in her childhood, doth not bind her to the betrothed husband: yet what beggars daughter, espoused to a hopeful young Prince in her nonage, will refuse that match when she comes to years? shall the miserable soul of man disdain marriage with the glorious Son of God? But didst thou ever receive that other Sacrament. There was thy voluntary consent to that former vow: a repetition, a consummation of thy plighted faith. Sinners that we are, have we kept this promise? Have we done all for God, and nothing for Satan? Did we never confederate with the flesh. nor take part with the world? See have three enemies, and against them we have sworn resistance: we have but one King, and to him we have sworn allegiance. If we keep faith with our King, he will save us: if we revolt to those enemies, they will confound us. Yet for one act of duty performed to our King, we have done three thousand services for those three enemies: Is this to keep our promise? Christ died to give us life, these live to give us death; and yet shall we cast of loyalty to our Sovereign, and desperately put ourselves upon the mercy of Traitors? Is this to perform our promise? The flesh works upon the world, the Devil works upon the flesh, the conscience works upon all three, and God works upon all four: If we leave Christ, and cleave to these abjured rebels, all these shall convince us of forsworn apostasy. Forsake thee O Savior, the most graceless sinner denies it: But as a cowardly Ancient, that ran away from the battle; afterward perceiving the victory to fall on his side, when he had returned home and there boasted: I bore colorus for my King and Country; another replied, but you never stroke blow for your King and Country: So many bear the colors of Christ, that will not stand one stroke for Christ.

Nor is this fidelity only due to God, but to our Neighbor. He that is not faithful to God, will never be true to man: and he that is not faithful to man, was never true to God. Promises fly up and down like chaff, rais • d with every breath of wind: but performance is the good grain that lies close in the floor. The tongue is a nimble member, and good words are cheap; but performance is an action, and it troubles a man to do. He may lie in bed and promise, but he must rise up to do. One Son plainly told his Father, I will not go, but he went: the other promised to go, but he went not. Some do and say not, but a thousand for one say and do not. Promises are like some Princes servants; when a stranger comes to the Court, he shall see abundance of them: but performance is like the Prince himself, who keeps state, and seldom comes into the public eye. Nor unlike some great man's policy, who had two chests; the one he called Promise, the other performance: the former was easily opened, the other was lockd and barred: to the one he sent all his Clients and Sutors, and there they found Hope: Betwixt his Promise, and their Hope, being long deluded; they resolved to surprise that other chest, and break it open, but he told them plainly, that that chest could never be unlocked without one singular key, which he called Necessity: implying that men promise with facility, but they will not perform except it be for necessity. It is reported of Antigonus, that he never denied any suite that was asked; but withal he never did perform anything that he granted. In promising the Beggar may be as rich as the King: and without performing, the King may be as poor as the Beggar. The one is willing and not able, the other is able and not willing: the former is in want, but the latter is in fault. Cujusquam est promittere, honesti solius praestare. Failing of promises, of friends makes enemies: he that held thee his friend for thy fair grant, for illuding his trust becomes thine enemy. Let no man so demean himself, as by his own desert to procure hatred. Every lawful promise made to God or man, is written in Heaven; while we perform not, our score runs on: and what we do not pay while we live, we shall be forced to pay forever when we are dead. O then let us mend our pace, and God will mend his: if we be not slack concerning our promise, to serve him; he will not be slack concerning his Promise to save us.

But is long suffering to us ward.] I know not whether I should more wonder at man's perverseness, or at God's patience. The more that Divine goodness suffers, the more this wickedness of dust and ashes presumes: and it is long before▪ the fury of the one, can provoke the lenity of the other. I stand at the door and knock. He stands at a mortal door, whose seat is in the Heavens: and knocks at the gate of sinful dust, to whom the everlasting gates of glory willingly open. He stands calling, while we sleep unregarding: he knocks in love, while we are ready to return him knocks for his love. He is worthy to come under our roof, but our roof is not worthy to receive him, and do we not open? If we knock in prayer, he opens in pity; and when he knocks in compassion, shall not we open in duty? He stands, yea how long hath he stood? How many grievances of attendance hath he digested, without withdrawing his foot? Me tuo long as pereunte noctes, Lydia dormis. As if that immortal lover did court the soul of a sinner: In medi • pace quid armatimes, quid faceres hosti, quae sic excludis amantem? Tempora noctis eunt, excute post seram. What mean thy barred gates in the time of peace? what courtesy wouldst thou afford an enemy, that showest so little kindness to a friend? The night passeth away, and My locks are wet with the dew of Heaven. Open unto me, my fair one: Behold thy King cometh unto thee: A King, no common person: Thy King, no foreign Prince: cometh to thee, not against thee: meek and humble, not with troupes of armed soldiers: alone unaccompanied, save with his inseparable love. How unspeakable is this patience? when he is angry, doth he presently strike? No, but like some noble warrior, that hath laid siege to a renowned Citty, viewing the goodly buildings, considering the number of infants and innocents, having no delight in blood; out of his own heroical disposition, sends a Herald with the proffer and conditions of peace. All courses are to be tried in war, before the sword be bloodied. Theodosius never smote a city till after ten days siege, with the offers of mercy: but God allowed Nineveh forty days to make their peace It was the rule of his law, when they had beleaguered a City, first to proclaim peace unto it. It was the order and practice of his Gospel, when they approached any house, first to say, Peace be to this house. Great works were wrought in Chorazin, before the ruin came. He spared his rebellious people forty years: but how long hath he spared us? He lent not our forefathers so much time before us: his mercy strained it self for six years, and then persecution and superstition broke in among them. We have had Evangelium pacis, and pacem Evangelij, The Gospel of peace, and peace with the Gospel, continued amongst us through the reigns of three gracious Sovereigns, threescore and ten years: yet as if the commonness hath quite taken away the sense of the blessing, we esteem it like the Air, cheap, because there is enough of it, whereas nothing is more precious and nearer to life. He is long suffering towards us.

But that it may not seem lost time to rove in generals, let me point at particulars: God is longsuffering toward thee, and me, and everyone. How often, and how justly, might He have taken thee away in the midst of thy sins? Why is not the Adulterer with his Harlot, like Zimri in the arms of Cozbi smitten in the act of their Lust? Why are not their souls sent coupled to the fire of torment, as their bodies were undivided in the flame of uncleanness? While the mouth is opened to swear and blaspheme, Why is it not instantly filled with Fire and Brimstone? While the Homicide is killing another, Why is not Satan permitted to kill him? When the Drunkard falls into his dead sleep, Why is he suffered to wake again alive? Why doth not the extorted Bread of the poor, choke the Oppressor? And the House fall upon the head of the Traitor? Why is not he carried quick into Hell, that is the Plague of all Christendom? There is no answer to be given but this; The Patience of God is greater than the Wickedness of man. Yet let not sinners presume: Sera venit, sed certa venit vindicta: the silent Judge will at last speak home: Tuli, nunquid semper feram? The higher the Axe is lifted up, the deeper it cuts: a water-course stopped and repelled, breaks forth at the opening with greater violence. The Elephant suffers many injuries of the inferior beasts; but ware patientia laesa; being too far provoked, his revenge is more extreme, than his Patience was remiss. God is not easily provoked by our sins, He is easily pacified by our repentance. Christ suffered infinite much, yet He was not long in suffering: but for that short suffering of his Son, God is longsuffering towards us, all that be in the smae Jesus.

How well may this unmatchable Precedent teach us all the Doctrine of Patience! It is the peculiar of Christians: in others Miranda, potiùs quàm laudanda: as Saint Augustine speaks of Rasis killing himself: it was Magne, potius quàm been factum: It was bravely done, it was not well done. There be some that suffer against their wills; which we call Patience perforce: they would revenge, if they could. Saint John calls it, The Patience of the Saints: they are sure to suffer: the richest Vessel is in most danger of the Pirate, the full Barn of the Thief: Of all men, Christians have most need of Patience: and they bear injuries, not robore Socratico, sed Christiano. There be three Exercisers of our Patience; God, Man, Satan: A proximo damna, ab adversario tentamenta, a Deo flagella sustinemus. Patience for these returns, to Satan hate and resistance, to Man love and blessings, to God humility and thanks. In respect of God; it kisseth the striking Hand: there can be no more forcible motive to Patience, than the acknowledgment of a divine Hand in our sufferings. It is fearful to be in the hand of an Adversary, but Who would not be confident of a Father? Yet in our frail Humanity, Choler may transport us from the remembrance of Nature: but when we feel ourselves under the Discipline of a wise God, that can temper our afflictions to our strength, to our benefit, who would not rather murmur at himself for swerving toward Impatience? Israel cries out for water; Moses seeks to quench their thirst with this contentment; God hath led us hither. If the ignorance of their guide had misled them, or they had fallen by chance upon those dry Desarts; though this were no remedy of their grief, yet it might have been some ground of their complaint. But now they see, that the Providence of God hath brought them into this want; and shall not he as easily find the way out? Yet those sturdy Israelites murmur, and will not have their thirst quenched with faith, but with water. But Non merebitur miseridiam, qui irascitur ad poenam: Be patient, this is the way ad pristiuum statum revocari: In respect of man, Patience concludes; that Bonus non fuit, qui malos tolerare recusavit. If thou wouldst have all nocent creatures destroyed, Quid fiet de te, What would become of thyself? Bear with them, their Maker bears with thee? For the Devil, Carnem macerarepotest, non patientiam: he may hurt the Saints, but not the Patience of the Saints. Saint Gregory says of Job; Quot patientiae voces in divinam Laudem percussus reddidit, tot in Diabolum jacula intersit; & multo graviora, quàm sustinuit, inflixit. Satan cannot so much vex us with sufferings, as we vex him by our Patience.

Let Patience have her perfect work] She must have opus, some work to do: this must be Opus suum, her own work, proper to her nature and office: and it must be opus perfectum, without imperfection. First, Patience is not idle, but ever working: operatur patiendo, and patitur operando: an active passion, or a passive action; whereby she worketh, not so much her own extrication out of troubles, as equanimity of soul to their easier portage. Secondly, she hath opus suum; for she lives as an Hebrew with Canaanites in her company, that will be pricks in her sides, and thorns in her eyes. No neighbourhood is able to make the Serpent and the Woman, the cursed seed of the one, and the blessed Seed of the other, ever to agree. One blood, one belly, one house, one education, could never make Cain and Abel accord, Jacob and Esau, Isaac and Ishmael at one. Here is then work for Patience, Let us see the work of Patience. Temperance hath her work; that the indulgence of the throat may not bring mischief upon the soul. Prudence hath her work; that perils may be prevented by foresight. Fortitude hath her work; that a good cause be not lost by a base fear. Justice hath her work; that neither injuries done by ourselves, nor the want of relieving the poor from injuries done by others, stand up against us at the last Audit. Chastity hath her work, that the bodily uncleanness may not defile the conscience. Charity hath her work, to feed the hungry, and comfort the miserable. Repentance hath her work, to wash the soul from sins in a bath of tears. Innocence hath her work, that no wrong be offered: And Patience hath her work: that much wrong be quietly s • ff red. This is her work, to turn necessity into a virtue; for she only can put evil to good use. She will not dance attendance to the humors of sinful greatness: b • t waits at the gate of Heaven without weariness; and is still knocking at that door, which she never saw opened. Tanto omnibus faelicior, quanto se ferre potest patientibus miseriorem. Thirdly, this work of Patience must be perfect, and that. First, Respectu conditionis; hearty and sound. Integrity is the perfection of all graces, so of patience. I dare not commend the soundness of that which invites sorrow, and prostitutes it self to unnecessary troubles. It is not patience, to off • r thyself into bondage when thou mayest be free. That is right Patience, Pate contra quod libeat, non praeter quod liceat. Secondly, Respectu durationis; to quit the field, before we have got the victory, is to lose all the former benefit of Patie • ce. He that endureth patiently to the end, shall be saved. Thirdly, R spectu extentionis; it must be of a great latitude, for many are the troubles of the righteous. It is bootless to vanquish one cross, and sink under another. Patience must be universal, enduring all things, and going with the same mind to the shambles as to the fold. Our approbation is in much Patience. Those are counterfeit graces, that higgle with their duties; that stint themselves, and make their own matches with God. It is not Faith which says, Thus much I will believe, and no more: Sound Faith believes the whole Word of God. It is not Charity which says, I will love one man, and not another: True Charity loves all in Jesus Christ. It is not Repentance that says, I will be sorry for this sin, and not for that: Hearty Repentance doth mourn for all sins. It is not Obedience that says, I will keep this Commandment, and not that: Right Obedience hath respect to all the Commandments. It is not Patience that says, I will bear this sorrow, and not that: I will endure so much and nor more. Perfect Patience resolves to suffer anything for Jesus Christ.

Virtus sine patientia vidua est; All virtue is a widow without Patience. The Apostle in the behalf of God, promiseth eternal life, to them that by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory: As if we could not come to Heaven by well doing, without Patience in well doing. Faith without Patience is but precipitancie: Zeal without Patience is but fury: Hope without Patience is presumption: Humility without Patience is dejection: Charity without Patience, fills the vessel with Milk from her breasts, and then kicks it down with her heels. Patience to the Soul is as Bread to the body, the staff of either the natural or spiritual life: we eat bread with all our meats, both for health and relish; bread with flesh, bread with fish, bread with brothes and fruits: Such is Patience to every Virtue, we must hope with Patience, and pray in Patience, and love with Patience, and whatsoever good thing we do, let it be done in Patience. When our eyes be wearied with any other colors, we seek to refresh them with green: in all our troubles we refresh our souls with Patience. Virtue is fair, rich, and lovely; but beset with many difficulties; we can n ••• er get nor keep her without much Patience. Saint Paul would never have gloried in his tribulations, but for his Patience. The devil implied so much in his challenge to Job: God commends him for a perfect and upright man, fearing the Lord, and eschewing evil: Satan grants all this, but questions his Patience: therefore he doth good, because nothing but good is done to him: but do thou cross him a little, and he will curse thee to thy face. Strip him of his Robes, and clothe him with ulcers; and see what he will do then. This was the forest trial: had Job kept his Righteousness, his Innocence, his Integrity, his Fidelitie, and fear to sin, and lost his Patience, he had lost the day: but keeping that sound, the old Serpent stinks away with shame, confessing a feeble man too hard for him. It was not so much what Christ suffered, as with what Patience he suffered, that did nobilitate the merit of his sufferings. Admit an Apologue: Four Graces were walking together, Zeal, Justice, Temperance, and Patience: three other Virtues meet with them, Innocence, Hospitalitie, and Meekness: while Patience went aside some little way, the other six conferred about the super-eminence of their own worth. The argument grew so hot, that words were ready to beget blows: Zeal out-faceth Innocence, Justice trampls upon Meekness, and Temperance threatens to turn Hospitalitie out of doors. But on the sudden steps in Patience, and there ends the quarrel. If the virtuous may fall out, much more sinners: but the matter will soon be compounded, if both sides admit of Patience. This is one of those Graces, that is never seen but in distress: Valour and Fortitude is not known, while there is no enemy: Repentance appears not, till we have sinned: nor is Patience visible to others, or sensible to ourselves, till we are exercised with sufferings. These virtues in the time of miseries and exigence shine brightest, as the stars do in a dark night. But it is time to shut up this point: My argument is Patience; make me the first Object of it: if I have been tedious, digest it with your Patience.

Not willing that any should perish.] There is no man that hates the Effect of his own worth: If the Painter have drawn a counterfeit, or limmed the resemblance of a Creature, he regards it as the Effect of his own curious art. If a man begets a Son, he is tied in Affection to him by the bond of Nature. If a Preacher convert a profligate, and beget a Soul unto Christ; he loves him in a higher degree of Relation, than those of Art or Nature; even of Grace. And will the most wise and good Creator of all things, hate the workmanship of his own hands? No, The Lord hateth nothing that he hath made. There is something in the Creatures he hath made, which he hateth: but the Creature it self, as it is a Creature, he loveth. Our weakness doth often fail to distinguish Inter virum & vitium; so we hate the man together with his vice, whereas we should hate the vice, and love the man. But God can distinguish betwixt the metal which is his, and the dross of the metal which is not his: he rejecteth the dross, but he wisheth well to the metal. If a man's wife be an adulteress, he puts her away, because she then ceaseth to be a wife: but if she repent, God doth not put her away, because she does not cease to be a woman. Adultery may make her no wife, Death it self cannot make her no Creature. Both God and her husband detest her sin; yet God doth, and her husband should love her Soul.

But if God be not willing that any should perish, how then do any come to perish? Can they perish against his will? Shall any be lost, whom he will save? I might answer this Objection, that the question here is not concerning God's secret will; but so much of it as is revealed to us in his holy Word, whereby he affords means of Salvation to all, declaring himself not willing that any should perish. But let us soberly examine this point: for Scripture seems to contradict Scripture. God will have all men saved, and come to the knowledge of the Truth: And here, he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to Repentance. On the contrary, Whom he will, he hardeneth: and, I will harden the heart of Pharaoh. Is the Spirit divided? If Truth be against Truth, how can it stand? Who will harden? That God which is rich in goodness, whose Mercy is above all his works, will he? He which is grieved for our offenses, and willeth not the death of a sinner, will he harden? And of all places, the Temple for his holy Spirit to repose in, the Exchequer and Store-house for all his Graces; will he harden the heart? He says, he will: yet dares the blasphemous sinner rub his filthiness on that immaculate purity of his Maker? Does he live by his Mercy, and yet charge him of injustice, making it the midwife of so foul a progeny? Evil could never be the child of goodness, nor can sin (so basely descended) lay claim to omnipotency. Doth pure water, and puddle, flow immediately from the self-same spring? or light and darkness from the same Sun? How then comes it to pass? Consider with me these Positions.

1. The Devil was Primitivus peccator, and sinned from the beginning. From him, sin first boiled up, as out of the main sea: being thence derived to Adam, it ariseth as out of a spring: from the spring, it is reserved in Nature, as in a Conduit: from Nature, it is conveyed to concupiscence, as by a Pipe: and from thence doth flow all the mischief and wickedness, that is in the life of man. Thy destruction is of thyself.

2. The Eternal Decree of God is unsearchable: To love his Children, and neglect his enemies, can neither impair his Mercy, nor impeach his Justice. But why he should love this as his Child, and neglect that as his enemy; Nec possibile est comprehendere, nec licitum investigare; is beyond the lawfulness of inquiry, and possibility of apprehension. That is a saucy and curious eye, which will be too nicely prying into the Closet of God's secrets. These should rather bring us on our knees, in the humble acknowledgement of his infinite wisdom and power, than prompt us to ransack his bosom, for the revealing of his intents. It is blessedness enough to be made God's Stewards, though we be none of his Secretaries. Will no Mansion in Heaven content us, but that which is the Throne and Chair for Omnipotencie to sit in? No Cabinet, but that which is the Treasury and Store-house of his own Counsels? If Angels fell for pride and emulation, what place can be low enough for such busy inquisitors? Though God from all Eternity, knew how to reward every man, either with bliss or pain; yet he never imposed upon any man either a necessity, or a will to sin. Far be it from us, to lay the buden of our sins on the shoulder of Predestinaion, and to make that the womb of our foul enormities.

3. God is the cause of Good, but in no respect of evil. By his Grace, Multi, ut laber ••• tur, Retenti; nulli, ut laberentur impulsi: He upholds many, he pusheth none down. He is said indeed to harden, but it is, because he does not soften. Impios cum non retrabit à malo culpae; dicitur dimittere. As the conferring of Grace is the effect of his Election, so the withholding of his Grace is the effect of reprobation. Fieri non potest, ut per quem à peccatis surgitur, per eum ad peccata decidatur. For one and the same goodness to be the rise and fall of the same sins, is impossible. Dei claudere, est clausis non aperire: God is then said to shut, when he does not open. Ab illo est quod statur, non ab illo quod ruitur. Our pravitie is the Reed that deceives us; God's Providence is the staff that supports us. If he hardens any, it is not Malum obijciendo, sed gratiam non concedendo; not by causing us to commit sin, but by not granting us the Grace to overcome sin. In a word, God never hateth, but where he is first hated. Nemo potest Christum tibi auferre, nisi te illi auferas: no man can take Christ from thee, unless thou first take thyself from Christ. Nemo eum amittit, nisi qui dimittit: we cannot lose him, but by putting him away.

4. GOD affords the means of Salvation to All, therefore He would have None to perish. He offers his Gospel, his Gospel offers CHRIST. CHRIST offers his Merits, his Merits offer Justification. If we bring Willingnesse, his Gospel is ours: if we bring Faith, CHRIST is ours: if we join with it Repentance, his Mercy and Merits are ours: if we add to all new obedience, salvation is ours. Why else are those affections attributed to God, which are properly and formally found in us, not in him? Sometime he will not be hindered from punishing: Let me alone, that I may destroy them: Why, what can hinder him? At another time, he desires to be hindered, and would have some stand in the gap, to save his people from his wrath: as a kind father being ready to correct his child, beckons to some neighbor to take him off. Othertimes he complains of his lost endeavors to bring them to repentance: I have labored in vain. What do all these signify, but his unwillingness to have any perish? Why then does he punish with perdition? No otherwise than as some just Judge, that would have all men live regularly, and free from disorders: but having transgressed the laws, Justice compels him, and that by a good and rectified will to punish them. Some would have this Will of God to be velleitatem rather than voluntatem; not so much an absolute will and resolution, as a willingness and desire: Not unlike a Merchants casting his Fraight overboord in a dangerous tempest: Vult efficaciter ease jactare, sed vellet efficaciter ease retinere: He would willingly save them, and yet he is willingly content to lose them.

But if God be willing that none should perish, why then are not some made partakers of his grace, as well as others? Saint Augustine answers, some men therefore want grace, Non quia Deus non dat, sed quia homo non accipit; not because God does not proffer it, but because they will not receive it. Peter walking on the Sea, and beginning to sink, cries out to his Master; and he took him by the hand, and saved him. This world wherein we walk, is a Sea, storms arise, and we are ready to perish: while we do not cry unto Christ for help, is it his fault if we be drowned? Thou liest sick, an excellent Physician comes to thy door with sovereign remedy, and knocks for admission: if neither thy will nor ability can let him in, blame thyself, not him for thy perishing. We are all mortally sick of sin; Christ our saving Physician proffers his help; but if either we want will to admit his presence, or power to take his medicines, or skill to follow his direction; we may die with the means of our salvation by us. Merito perit aegrotus qui medicum non vocat, sed ultro qui venientem respuit. The Patient is worthy to die, that will not invite the Physician to come; but more worthy he, that will not accept of his help when he is come.

5 The willingness of God that none should perish, is proved by innumerable evidences. He made us once; certainly he did not make us, because he would damn us. Yea, he hath often made us; when he redeemed us, that was a second making; when he renews us by his grace, that is, another making: everyone of his deliverances is a kind of faciamus hominem. If our sins have made us our Makers offenders, have they also made us that we are not his creatures? If the Devil hath bereaved us of our purity, hath he also bereaved God of his pity? Though justice might rightly damn us, cannot mercy possibly save us? If the Lord reject a sinner that cries to him for mercy; where is his willingness to have none perish? His Word is a Will, and his Will is a Power: He does promise nothing but what he does purpose, and he does purpose nothing but what he does perform. If he would have none perish, what necessity is there of our being damned? If he desire that a sinner should live, what difficulty is there of our being saved? What power of enemies, or number of sins, can either hinder what he would, or contstrain what he would not? He will not so look upon us sinful wretches, as not to see himself: nor so regard our wickedness, as not to behold his own goodness: nor so remember the sins that we have done, as to forget the creatures that he hath made.

He that lends the Sun of Light to all, would have none perish in darkness: and he that sends the Son of his Love unto all, intends the redemption of a many as will receive him. Why doth he not deny the knowledge of Christ? Why did he not hedge up that flower in some private Garden? Why not lock up that Jewel in one principal treasury? Certainly he would never have communicated it, if he did not purpose an universal benefit by it. Why is the Gospel forbidden to none, if any be debarred from the comforts of it? To whom doth not the bosom of the Church lie open? To what convert is the Baptismal water denied? To what confirmed Christian is the Sacramental communication of the body and blood of Christ not offered? We are not only admitted, but even invited to that blessed Table. To what end are those gracious invitations, Come ye that thirst, and drink Come ye that are heavy laden, and have ease: If any guest were excepted? He that bids all, forbids none. When a Prince proclaims free audience to all sorts of Clients, who can complain that his cause may not be heard? Those that seem such terrifying speeches, as The gate is narrow, Few are saved: be rather meant for spurs to our devotion, than bars to God's compassion: They do not contract his mercy which is so infinite, but they would enlarge our hearts which are so contracted. His nature is now as apt to forgive, as his Power will be seen hereafter able to punish. When did the distribution of his Treasure cease? When was the door shut to his faithful Clients? when we did sin, he did spare; when we did defer, he did expect; when we shall return, he will meet and embrace. He that doth all this, is not willing that any should perish.

6 There is no necessity that any man, any this or that man should perish. Some think they have gone far enough in the clearing of this point, to say, that God is no cause of our perishing, though we must perish: they determine it in this: It is true, your damnation is unavoidable, but you must blame yourselves. Others more fairly and comfortably carry it thus much farther, and conclude out of this Text, that there is no such unavoydablenesse, no such necessity of your damnation at all. The former only teach, that how desperate soever our case be, how irremediable soever our state, we ourselves, and not God, are the cause of this desperate irremediablenesse. The other say better; There is no such peremptory sentence, there is no such desperate irremediablenesse declared to any particular conscience; but whensoever we repent, the Lord will receive us. Once hath the Lord spoken, and twice do we hear him: we hear him once speaking for his own Honor. He does not damn us, if we be damned. And we hear him speaking a second time for our comfort, we need not be damned at all. Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee; and destruction is of thyself: this fully dischargeth God from being the Author of our ruin. But howsoever God be thus discharged, He does not kill me if I die; yet it is but poor comfort to me, if I must die, to be told that I have killed myself: therefore he gives us here a stronger consolation, by telling us, there is no such necessity, we need not die at all. What can make our case so desperate, that he hath not left us ways of returning to him? What can make our state so irrecoverable, that he hath not left himself ways of redeeming us?

It is not for us to dispute, what God of his absolute power may do, nor what by his unrevealed decree he hath done: but this we gather here, that he hath not allowed me, nor thee, nor any to conclude against ourselves, a necessity of perishing. Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me: But why will Zion say so? My Lord, and hath forgotten me? Can she remember that God is hers, and not think that she is his? Can she remember him, and think that he hath forgotten her? What contradictions are these? If he have forgotten her, how is he then her Lord? If he be her Lord, how hath he then forgotten her? Can Zion retain her bowels of Piety, and think that God is disembowelled of his? Every where in the Scriptures we meet with God's Venites; both the Testaments are full of invitations to come unto God. There is a venite non habentes, Come and buy, though you have no money, no merits of your own: yet come, and dilate your measures, and according to that dilatation, fill them with the Merits of Christ. There is a Venite & revertimini; Come, though your coming be but a returning: be not ashamed of your returning, though it be a Confession of your former running away: Come in a Repentance, though you cannot come in an innocence. There is a venite & consulite; if you find it hard to come, or though you know not the way to come, yet come, that you may know the way: Consult with God how you may come, and how you may stay when you are come. There is a venite & arguite, argue, plead, dispute, expostulate. Come, though you come to reason with God: come upon any conditions. There is a venite laborantes, how heavy soever the burden of your sins, or the pressure of God's Judgments lie upon you, yet come for your own ease; Come ye that labor, and I will give you rest. There is a venite sitientes, Come you that thirst for my Righteousness, and be satisfied with it, be justified by it. There is a Venite paupers; let the lame and the blind come, that my House may be filled: I have room enough for them all; Compel them to come. The Spirit and the Bride say, Come: And let him that heareth, say, Come: And let him that is athirst, Come: There is a world of venites, and the Gospel abounds with infinite invitations to come. And there is a Venite that closeth up all the rest; Come, ye blessed of my Father: you have obeyed my first venite, in coming to my Kingdom of Grace; you are now blessed with my last venite, Come into my Kingdom of Glory. But there is but one Discedite; that same Ite maledicti, Go, ye cursed, is but once heard from the mouth of God, and that not in this World neither; as long as we are in this world, we are safe from rejection; God doth not cast us off, for he is not willing that any should perish. But if thy tender Conscience, and thy startling soul, should mis-imagine the hearing of such a voice, or in thy melancholy distemper, dream of such a sound from God's lips, as Depart thou sinner; a voice of separation, a voice that bids thee go: Say thou with Peter, to his and thy Savior, Domine, quo ibimus? Lord, whither shall I go? Thou hast the Word of Eternal Life. And I believe and am sure, that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God. And that Christ, the Son of the living God will call thee back, and call back his own word, and entertain thee with Mercy and Peace.

For use and application of all this; here is matter of reprehension, of Instruction, of Consolation.

1. It reprehends those rigid and stoically-disposed Christians, that would contract the Mercy of God within their own limits, and make the gate of Heaven straighter than it is. Malicious fool, is thine eye evil, because God is good? Wilt thou confine the goodness of thy Maker, and set down what he shall do for his Creature? thus much, and no more? These Heirs of the old Caetharoi see men sin foully and fearfully, they do not see them repent visibly; therefore they infer upon them damnation. O uncharitable censure! I would not pronounce it of the greatest sinner that I should see die; though I perceived his sins to cover him like a cloud, as if they would keep him from looking up to God, and God from looking down upon him; the devil waiting for him, as for a certain prey; yet I would not pronounce it. The ways of thy Mercies, O God, are past finding out; more unknown than the way of a Ship in the sea, or of an Eagle in the Air. Let them show me how a flash of lightning melts the Sword, without making any impression in the scabbard: And I will show them as well, how at the instant of our death Mercy more sudden and more penetrating than the lightening, may melt our hearts into Repentance, though this be not visible to mortal eyes. Of the two, the Pope seems to me to off nd the less, because more charitably, in canonizing them for Saints, who for ought he knows are damned: than these men do in damning them, who for ought they know are Saints. But if I might advise them, they should bestow more time in saving of their own souls: less, in damning of the souls of others. I know how frivolous a tale it is, that S. Gregory drew Trajans soul out of hell: and how groundless an opinion is fathered upon Origen, that at last, the Devil shall be saved: But if they could persuade me the one half, that Trajan or the devil came to repentance in hell; I might be induced to believe the other half, that they might be delivered out of hell. Far be it from us to cut short the Mercy of God, or to weaken the credit of the merits of Christ, which so manifest his unwillingness that any should perish.

2. This teacheth us to understand the Scriptures aright. There be too many that press heavily to their own d • mnation, every sentence of Menace or terror: as, The wages of sin is death: The wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience: It is impossible for him that falls after Grace, to be renewed: with these, and the like, they affright their own Souls. On the other side, a great number flatter themselves with the Promises of Mercy; as Christ suffered for all: God would have all men saved: At what time soever a sinner repents, he shall be forgiven: and with these they batten their own wantonness. But let us know, that it is not a few mis-understood sentences out of God's Book that must try us, but the whole Book it self: the tenor and purpose, the scope and intention of God in his Scriptures. His Book is a Testament, and in the Testament the Testator is dead, and dead for us: and will he that died for us, suffer us to perish? His Book is Gospel, and Gospel is good Tydings, a gracious Message: and will God under the color of a Message of Grace and Life, send us the fatal Errand of death? The Scriptures may seem to jar in the weak apprehension of our brains: our best way is to reconcile them in our hearts. except ye repent, ye shall all perish; there is terror: God would have none at all perish▪ here is comfort: that threatening, and this Promise, are both reconciled in our Repentance. The soul that sinneth shall die; saith God by his Prophet: The soul that believeth shall live; saith the same God by his Apostle. He that hath sinned, may believe; therefore he should live: He that believeth, hath sinned; therefore he should die. How shall we atone those? how reconcile death and life? Yes, though we have sinned, and therefore deserve to die; yet if we believe in Christ, that died for our sins, and now forsake them, we shall live. Thus both the sentences of God shall stand, and we shall not fall. When thou art tempted to transgress, consider that part of God's Word which threateneth vengeance to sin: when thou art broken with remorse of sin, remember that part of his Word which promiseth Mercy to Repentance. Thus let us do our best to save ourselves, for God would not have us to perish. Why will you die, O ye house of Israel?

3. This pours Oile into the wounds of a contrite heart. Were our souls in such a straight, as Israel between the red sea and the Egyptians; the spirits of vengeance, like those enemies pursuing us behind; hell and death, like that red sea, ready to engulf us before: yet would I speak to you in the confidence of Moses, Stand still, and see the Salvation of the Lord. Thou that art oppressed with the violence and clamour of thy sins, and wantest an Advocate either to intercede or pity, hear the voice of the Lamb; Cry unto me, I will hear thee out of mine holy hill. Doth any Soul hunger after Righteousness? Behold, I am the bread of life: Take, eat, here is my body. Doth any thirst after the waters of Grace? Lo, I am a living Fountain; come, and drink; here is my blood. Art thou not yet quite dead in trespasses? are not thy ulcers past cure? are there any seeds of life remaining? Is there any motion of Repentance in thy Soul? Will thy pulse of remorse beat a little? Hast thou but a touch of sorrow? a spark of Hope? a grain of Faith? Be comforted; the God of Mercy will not have thee perish. Not a tear of Repentance drops from thee, either unpitied, or unpreserved: God puts it into his bottle. Qui seipsum excipit, seipsum decipit. Doth the Lord say, I would have none perish? And dost thou say, Nay, but he will have me to perish? Thee? why thee? He says, None: and dost thou except one? and that one, Thy self? What is this but to cross the Cross of Christ? He would have All men saved: and thou comest in with thy exceptive; All but me. What is this, but in Effect, and at a distance, to give the lie to Truth it self? There be many that flatter away their souls in sport: but that a man should cast away his soul in willful earnest, is a prodigious desperateness. Not so; but God would have none to perish, therefore not me: this is a safe and comfortable inference. We are all naturally given to favor ourselves where we should not: why then do we not favor ourselves where we should? Justice thinks on us in the heat of our rebellions, but then we think not on Justice: and in our sad remorse, when Mercy thinks on us, cannot we think on Mercy? If the greatness of thy sins, which is commonly heightened by thine own dejections, and exalted by thine own sinking, grow so strong against thee, that thou canst not quench the Jealousy, nor devest the scruple of God's desertion; do but consider who should occasion it; It must be God, or thyself. God it cannot be, for he is not willing that any should perish. It is then thyself, it is thy fault, if it be done: and if thou humbly acknowledge that fault, it is not done: For God doth never so irrevocably threaten Judgment for sin, but the penitent Confession of that sin cancels and avoids the sentence. If our clamorous Conscience, like some sharp-fang'd officer, arrest us at God's suite; Let us put in baile; two subsidy-virtues, Faith and Repentance, and so stand the trial. The Law is on our side, the Law of Grace is with us: and this Law is his that is our Advocate, and he is our Advocate that is our Judge, and he is our Judge that is our Savior, even the Head of ourselves, Jesus Christ.

But that all should come to Repentance.] The end of a thing is first in Intention, though it be last in execution. The Salvation of mankind was God's first end, next to his Glory, why he made man: and the accomplishment of that Salvation is that other end, whereunto in time he brings him. There is Finis propositus, the end propounded; as we build a house to dwell in: and Finis absolutus, the end accomplished, when that house is made fit for our dwelling. There is Finis terminans, the end of a man's life; when he dies: and Finis pradeterminans, the end fore-appointing his death, why he shall die then. There is Finis Cujus, and Finis Cui: the end of which, and the end for which? Finis Cujus, as we call that the end of a Dinner, when we have done eating. Finis Cui, as the end of eating our Dinner is for strength and health. There is Finis medius, and Finis supremus: The Physician persuades his Patient to walk: the end is to get him an appetite to his meat, that is Finis medius: But why does he seek to procure this appetite? that this appetite may procure health: Health then is Finis supremus. God calls all men to Repentance; the end is that they might amend their lives; that is Finis medius: But why would he have them amend their lives? that they might not perish, but have everlasting life: their Salvation then is Finis supremus. He is not willing that any should perish: How should they scape it? By coming to Repentance. The end of his Gospel is, that men might repent: the end of their Repentance is, that they might be converted: the end of their conversion is, that they might be saved.

This then is the point, the force of the argument, the sum and scope of the place: The intent of God's longsuffering towards us, is to bring us to Repentance. The principal End is, that we might be saved: the subordinate End is, that we might come to Repentance, the only Way to be saved. Thus we have all the passages of the Text: The Lord is not slack to help us; there we set out: much less is He slack to perform his Promise; that way we went: But He is longsuffering toward us; thither we came: and the purpose of this longsuffering is, that none should perish; so far we are gone: but that all should come to Repentance, and with this we conclude. For Method in our proceeding, these five conclusions will naturally arise from the words. First, that Repentance is the necessary Way to Salvation. Secondly, that it is the Will of God, we should repent. Thirdly, that this Will extends not to some, but to all. Fourthly, that we must come to Repentance, and npt expect that Repentance should come unto us. Fifthly, that the intent of God's longsuffering and forbearance, is our conversion and Repentance. Of these briefly in their Order.

1. Repentance is the necessary way to Salvation: It is the Will of God that none should perish: yet withal, it is his Will, that all, except we repent, shall perish. There was, in the Law, an Altar for Propitiation, and a Laver for Purgation: he that partooke of the Altar, must first wash in the Laver. So in the Gospel, John began to preach the Baptism of Repentance, for the Remission of sins: Before we can have Remission of our sins, we must wash our souls in the Fountain of Repentance. Tears must not only wash out our sins, but stand in the place of our sins. My tears are in thy Book: our sins were in God's Book before: but our tears coming, do both blot them out, and fill their place. If there were any other way to Heaven than sorrow, Vel faelix mundus, vel fallens Christus; the world happy, and Christ had mis-taught us: For He saith, Ye shall weep, but the World shall rejoice: but your sorrow shall be turned into joy, and their joy into sorrow. Ye shall mourn in this world; This is a perpetual Prognostication: the Wisdom of Heaven teacheth us what Weather we must look for; Wet and Rainie, to the End of our Journey. Saint Augustine asks the price of the Kingdom of Heaven: and answers himself, that it is Dignum aeterno labor, worthy of long labor: yet it is gotten Brevi dolore, with a short sorrow. God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes: but dry cheeks have no need of wiping. The Papists speak wonders of their holy Water: but the right holy Water is the tears of a sanctified heart: A repentant eye is the true Cistern of holy Water. Pro brevibus lachrymis, gaudia longa metent. The sights of our sorrowful spirits on Earth, makes the spirits joyful in Heaven. God that is grieved at our sinful joys, will rejoice to behold our penitent griefs. This is the happy Harvest that grows out of the holy seed of our tears: we plough groaning, but we shall reap our Croppe singing. The Ancients in their sorrows were used to rend their garments: the Prophet diverts us from that Custom, to the renting of our hearts. The Priests of Baal did lance their flesh, as their heirs, the Romists do now macerate their bodies: But there may be a broken heart under a whole skin, under a whole garment: as under torn clothes and hides, there may be untouched hearts. A whole garment is more handsome to men, than a broken one: but a broken heart is more pleasing to God than a whole one. We are wont to cut and slash our apparel, in pride: O that we would deal so with our hearts, in humility, and repentance! A robe that is thus artificially mangled, if the scissures and breaches be reconciled with borders of Gold and studdes of Silver; or knit together with the ties of Silke and precious stones; appears more glorious, than the former continuity could have made it. The contrite heart, which the remorse of sin hath cut out into pieces, after it is redintegrated with the Spirit of consolation, and made up with Grace, Peace, and Remission; Jewels so precious, that the Pride of Nature and Art are baseness to them: it is most lovely in the Eyes of God, and reserved for the Wardrobe of Heaven. The Israelites must cross the River Jordan, before they enter into Canaan: and necessarily, Repentance is our way to that blessed Jerusalem.

2. It is the Will of God, that we should repent: His commanding Will, we speak not of his decreeing Will: That Will of his which He tells us; we may not m • ddle with that part of his Will which He keeps to Himself. All Righteousness, all Happiness, is the Will of God to his Creature. This is the Will of God, your Sanctification: Holiness is the Daughter of Repentance. This is the Will of God, your Salvation: That is the end, whereunto Repentance is the means: we must go by the means unto, the end. It is my Fathers Will, that none of these little ones should perish: we must all perish, little and great, if we repent not. It is your Fathers Will, to give you a Kingdom: that Kingdom hath been opened to deplored Impiety, it is always barred against Impenitency. This is not only a declaratory Will, to all: but an efficacious Will, to all that embrace it. God affords many proofs of his Willingnesse to bring us to Repentance. First, his Word preached: Why doth He call us, but that He would have us come? Why is the Voice of the Turtle heard in our Land? But that as one Turtle echoes to another, in their mourning accents, so our sorrowful consideration of your sins in our Sermons, should be answered with a reciprocal Repentance in your hearts. Vox Turturis non dulce sonat, sed dulce signat: our voice is not always pleasing to our ears, but it is always profitable to our souls. This is the scope of all our Preaching, to bring you to Repentance: not to win your ears but your tears: we would not have you commend us, we would have you amend yourselves. This is the honor of a Sermon, when the Hearer goes weeping home: and instead of He said well; cries out to God in secret, I have done ill. Therefore is the word called Fire; that it might melt your hearts: Therefore is Christ compared to the Sun, and the holy Ghost to the Wind; that they may both dissolve your Clouds into tears. Secondly, the Sacraments, both which are the real Oracles of Repentance. Baptism is a Sacrament of Faith, the Lord's Supper a Sacrament of Love; both are Sacraments of Repentance. Baptism is a Key to let us in, the Lord's Supper a Locke to keep and seal us up: both are in effectual without Repentance. The former is precisely called The Baptism of Repentance: Baptism is a Sacramental Repentance, and Repentance is an allegorical Baptism. In the former we are Patients, Agents in the latter: There, another baptizeth us, here, we baptize ourselves: In Baptism we promise Repentance, by Repentance we perform our Vow in Baptism: That was Semel factum, we were but once baptized at the Font: this is Sape iteratum, yea quotidianum, we must daily baptize our souls in the fountain of our tears. That was one shower of grace falling from Heaven above us: this is a continual running Spring of compunction within us. To the other Sacrament, Who dares approach without Repentance? The Bread of life will choke him: and that sacred Wine, the Symbole of Christ's Blood; which is so sovereign and cordial to all Believers, will run like poison through his veins, without Repentance. Yea therefore, therein, and thereby, doth the Lord seal unto us the Remission of our sins, upon the fore-granted condition of our Repentance.

I might add to these, many other demonstrations: but, Pondere, non numero argumentorum, I had rather press you with weight, than oppress you with number of arguments. Wherefore doth the Spirit of Grace knock at our doors, with such infinite holy motions, but that He would come in? He will not come in till Repentance hath swept the House; therefore his first knock is for Repentance. All God's Blessings are like so many Sutors, that woo us to Repentance: yea, they put on even the forms of Clients, and petition us for Repentance. All his judgments are so many claps of Thunder, to waken us to Repentance. His afflictions are Ambassadors, that treat with us about a League; which cannot be had without Repentance. All the Creatures of God, ordained for our use, are so many silent Sermons, so many Trumpets, that summon us to Repentance. Nothing can be plainer, than that the Lord would have us come to Repentance. Is He willing, and are we unwilling? Is it not for our good? Why then do we not consent? We should continually beg this favor on our knees, though it were hard to be granted; and do we despise it, being so graciously offered? No, let us present ourselves to him, whom we have provoked▪ if not in innocence, yet in humility: if not with a clean, yet at least, with a broken heart: and seeing we cannot by our righteousness, let us endeavor to be saved by our repentance.

3 Neither doth he will this good to some, but to All: he would have All come to repentance: this is the infinite latitude of his Mercy. God looketh down from Heaven upon the Children of men, and There is none that doth good, no not one: And yet is his goodness so immense, that he would have none perish, no not one? All men have sinned, and yet would he have all men saved? All have come short of the glory of God; and yet would he have all come home to the glory of God. What, All? There be some, Lord, that mis-believe thy Truth, some that abuse thy Word, some that despise thy Name, some that blaspheme thine Honor; and yet doest thou except none. Wouldst thou have All come to repentance? That extreme malice, Satan, would have All perish: The infinite goodness, GOD, would have All blessed. How well be their names fitted to their natures, in our language; Good, and God: Evil, and Devil? In the Creation, when God had made all things, he reviewed them, and saw that All was good: And such is the goodness of his Love, such his Love of goodness, that he would have All good again. I will not diminish the mercies of God, by admitting here of any of these distinctions; of Sufficiency and Efficacy, of the Generalls and Individualls, all of every kind, or every kind of all: Let no man straighten, what God hath enlarged. Oppresse not thyself, with what God can do by his absolute Power, nor with what he hath done by his inscrutable decree; but comfort thy soul with what he reveals of his incomparable mercy. He tells thee, that he would not have thee perish; that he would have thee repent; when if thou doest, in a thousand places he hath told thee that he will save thee: but nowhere, at no time, hath he peremptorily told thee, that he will damn thee. Where is the bill of your mothers divorcement, whom I have put away? or to which of my creditors have I sold you? Though I might have done both, and left you without just cause of complaint; yet I have not done it. Vbi libellus? If I have forsaken you, If I have sold you, show me your bill of Divorce, show me your bill of Sale. Do I wish well unto all, and dost thou exclude thyself, ô thou wrangling soul? Upon what canst thou ground this jealousy and suspicion in thy Maker? If I have rejected thee, ubi libellus? Where is the Bill? show me if anywhere under my hand In the 66. books of both my Testaments, what one Chapter canst thou pick out, what one verse, what one sentence, wherein I have peremptorily and definitively condemned thee? every leaf abounds with the proffers of God's mercy to All; without limitation, to All that embrace it, But that he hath rejected thee, or me, or any name amongst us; this I am sure we never found. No Lord, thou willest good unto All; O that All would will good to themselves, and give all glory to thee, for thy tender mercies in Jesus Christ.

4 We are directed to come to repentance, and not to look that repentance should come unto us. Seek for wisdom as for silver, and as thou diggest for gold: we expect not that gold and silver should seek us out: if we do, our purses will be light, and our hearts heavy: and we may take up Saint Peters ditty, Silver and gold have I none. It is true that without Christ we can do nothing: but having Christ, will we do nothing, neither? we may say of coming to Repentance, as to that great Supper: Neither all they that were bidden were willing to come: nor they that came, could have come without calling. They that came, cannot ascribe merit to themselves, because they were called: they that came not, may well attribute blame to themselves, because they were called. But how should we come to repentance? Our feet are our desires: we are what we desire to be, and where we desire to be: Maria non erat, vbi erat: Mary was not where she was, but where her desire was, and that was with Christ. When we earnestly desire repentance, we are at it: There may be a faint languid wish of repentance; O that I were another man! this is a foot, but a lame foot; the soul cannot walk upon it. There may be an unwilling willingness to repent, which is a preposterous foot turned backward; Faine I would repent, but I am loath to lose the sweetness of my sin: so watermen look one way, and row another: they give a look toward repentance, but their actions move toward wickedness: they would arrive in the East, but they steer their course westward. We cannot go upon such stilts and crutches to Heaven. Hearty prayer and diligent endeavor; these are the two sound legs, whereon we must come to repentance.

5 The intent of God's long suffering towards us, is that we might not perish: His patience invites our penitence. Knowest thou not that God's goodness and forbearance leadeth thee to repentance? Why doth he spare us so long, but that our amendment might procure him to spare us forever? Repentance, thither he leads us, and by his Patience, so he leads us. O let us have ductile spirits, willing to follow so sweet a manuduction! I gave her space to repent of her fornications, but she repented not. The Lord struck Ahab, her husband, with a violent death, her elder Son Ahaziah perished, her younger son Joram, had twelve years unfortunate reign: will Jezebel take no warning by all this? No, for still she rep • nted not. God is offended, it is he that suffers the injury and proffers the mercy: yet still she repented not. While he stands waiting, she is painting her cheeks threatening his Prophets, renting his holy Name with blasphemies; but still she repented not. He doubles her days of forbearance, that might hasten her day of vengeance: he lets her breath out reproaches against him, whiles he allows her breath to repent and cool her torment: and yet she repented not. The Devil gapes to devour her, and solicits God that she might be turned over to him for punishment; who would use her worse than the Lions did the enemies of Daniel, breaking her bones before she could fall to the bottom of the Den: still the Lord puts of Satan, and enlargeth her term; but yet she repented not. May we not parallel this city with that woman? Those two daughters of the great king, have come hand in hand to woo us: Mercy and Truth have met together, Righteousness and Peace, have kissed each other: Mercy going before with Peace to you, if you embrace it, Justice following after with woe to you, if you refuse it: The one with an open bosom, ready to receive the penitent; the other with a drawn sword to devour the obstinate; and yet we repented not. One while Peace hath planted Laurells and Palme trees round about our Coasts, and Plenteousnesse hath kept her court within our borders: Another while, fire hath demolished our buildings, Plagues have emptied our walls, losses by Sea hath diminished our Estates, strange proceedings hath distracted our minds: in the mean time, the Prophets of GOD have told us the causes and the remedies of all these sorrows: yet as if our hearts were Sermon proof, were Shot-proof, were thunder-proof too, truly is it said of us, That we repented not.

God is patient, that we might be penitent: All men continue, but with what heart? Behold the aged worldling, that hath overlived all the teeth of his gums, the hairs of his head, the sight of his eyes, the taste of his palate: yet he is loath to die. Why? Either he hath not yet enough, and would live to get it; or he hath too much, and would live to spend it. Most men would neither die, nor be old, nor are yet content in being young: To whom it may be said, as the Vision spake to the shrinking professors of the primitive times: you would neither live to be old, nor die while you are young; What shall do with you? We see old age, an emblem of misery; a burden uxori, natis{que} sibique: yet being asked what year we would die, we still shuffle it off to the next; and rather than want excuses, we would live to repent. This were well if it were true. But does not the greater number rather ad to the heap of their sins by continuance, than diminish it by repentance? As if they coveted time, to swell the cup of their torment to the brim: or that Hell-fire could not be hot enough for them, unless they had more space allowed them to blow it? The sin which our birth brought with it into the world, though we had never done actual trespass, is work enough for us to repent of. Besides we sin too much actually every day, for that days repentance. Sufficient to the day is the sinful evil thereof. O that sufficient to the day were the godly sorrow thereof. yea, the sin of one hour may well task the repentance of many days. Lay all these together, and see if thy time be not rather of the shortest, for this great work of repentance. He that commits one sin, hath hath broken Totam legem, though not Totum legis: but we have broken everyone of God's ten Laws ten thousand times, and ten thousand ways. We have sinned, what shall we do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? What should you do, replies our gracious God? Make use of my patience; I allow you time; do you lay hold of repentance. Have we so many sins, and so few days; and shall we not set apart one hour of a day, one day of a week, for this weighty business? We sin enough in one day, to repent all our lives: and do we think, that for the sins of all our lives, we can sufficiently repent in one day? If we have seen many rising and setting Suns, and beheld the wheeling Heavens turn over forty years; they say, we have had a fair time; yes if we have repented: otherwise it may prove a foul time to us. Pleasure we have little need of, repentance is necessary: our time is too short for both, one of them can only possess it: Detur digniori, give it to the worthier. Before we came into the World, we had sin: after we are gone out of the world, (except Christ by his satisfaction clear the score) our sin remains in God's debt-book: in neither of these states is there place for repentance: only Tempus vitae, tempus poenitentiae. Time was when God did gently admonish men, Quid statis? why stand you all the day idle? The day shall come, when he will terrify their souls with a Quid stetistis? Why have you stood all the day idle? O then, let us not add to our other sins, this sin also; that we have lost the time of repentance. Let us humbly prostrate ourselves before the Throne of grace; and beg not only space for repentance, but the grace of repentance; that after God's allowance of time to repent, we may never be driven to repent that we had such an allowance. O let it never be said of us, as it was of that cursed Jezebel, that we repented not.

The use of all this teacheth us, not to abuse the Divine patience, but to take the first opportunity of repentance. If sin be fostered in youth, it will hardly be dispossessed in age. Quem juvenis admisisti socium, Senex habebis dominum. That which the young man took in for his play fellow, when he is aged he shall find his Master. Suppose that sickness surpriseth a man in the heat of his blood, and height of his jovialty; though he had rather live to enjoy his pleasant sins, yet he would repent if he must die: Poenitentiam dare possumus, non securitatem: we neither deny him mercy, nor afford him security. Vis ergo à dubio liberari? Tene certum, dimitte incertum. Wouldest thou be put out of doubt? lay hold on that which is certain, let go that which is uncertain. Repent presently, now in thy health; this is good: Quia eo tempore poenituisti, quo potuisti peccare: because in the time when thou mightest have sinned, thou hast repented. But then only to begin to be sorry, when thou hast no further stomach to sin; Peccata te dimiserunt, non tu illa: thy sins have cashered thee, not thou them. If we see no flowers in the Spring, we look for no fruits in Autumn. The Philosopher being asked near his end, why he had not married in all his life, answered thus: In youth I was too young, now I am too old, betwixt both these times I had other business. In like manner do we shuffle off repentance, as he did marriage. In youth we think ourselves too young, and ne • d not: in age too old, and cannot: in middle age we have other business and will not. But as the bloody Tyrants in the days of Queen Mary, gave our forefathers a round and peremptory choice; Either turn or burn: So we tremble to speak it, but we must: Let dissolute sinners either hasten their turning to repentance, or expect their burning in the fiery lake of vengeance.

Thus we have all the parts of this verse in every passage whereof we meet with Mercy: that as at the repairing of the Temple, the people shouted to Zerubbabel; Grace, Grace unto it; so let our thankful hearts acknowledge in every piece of this Holy building; Mercy, Mercy, there is nothing but Mercy in it. We may breath upon ev • ry word, as that Psalm closeth up every verse, with this bearing, For his mercy endureth forever. First, The Lord is not slack to save and deliver us, for his mercy endureth forever. Secondly, much less is he slack concerning his promise to do us good; for his mercy endureth forever. Thirdly, But he is long suffering toward us, full sweet is his patience, for his mercy endureth forever. Fourthly, He is not willing that any should perish, he desires not the death of a sinner, for his mercy endureth forever. Fifthly, But he would have all men come to repentance, and by repentance to forgiveness, and by forgiveness to salvation, for his mercy endureth forever, Amen.

WHen God made this lower World, he did not intend it for perpe • uitie; but subjected it to mutations, to alterations, to successions: albeit these changes may challenge sin for the cause, which G • d did foresee but not predetermine: yet after his fore-sight of sin, he did fore-appoint this mortality for punishment. One thing thrusts out another, this age hath dispossessed the former, and shall be dispossessed by the future. Adam resigns to Noah, Abraham to David, the Jews to the Babylonians, they to the Persians, the Persians to the Grecians, the Grecians to the Romans. As it is in the general, so in all particulars: How hath this little Island been usurped, mixed, metamorphosed, even to the utter extinction of her first natives? Kingdoms have their periods: yea, the earth it self, though it continually lie still, is not constant, because it continually changes, and melts in all parts thereof. Man is the noblest part of the earth, and he so melts and moulders away, as if he were a statue, not of earth, but of Snow. His own envy m • kes h •• , and he grows lean with that: another's beauty melts him, and h • languisheth away in the fruitless contemplation of that. But a sickness so melts him, as if lead were molten in a furnace: and death so melts him, that it c • lcin • s him, and reduceth him to Atoms and ashes. In the Nature of sensitive • ungs, Children out live their Parents; and so there is a su • cessive propag • tion, one begets another. But in some things, the Mother outlives the Children: the fruits of the Earth die yearly, the mother remains. We are also her Children, and daily doth she receive us back into her womb: One generation passeth, and another cometh; but the Earth abideth forever. Yet this old gran-dame must have her day: there is a funeral fire ordained for her aged bones. In the World one thing devours another; Fishes devour Fishes, and Beasts devour Beasts, yea and Men also devour Men, till they even become Monsters. We feed upon the Creatures, the Wormes shall feed upon us, the Earth shall consume those Wormes, time shall waste the Earth: but the day of the Lord shall consume even time; this shall put an end to all. This Mountain is bigger than that; this Cedar taller than that, this River longer than that; this Man nobler than that: yet all have one Earth for their foundation, and the same orbicular Heavens for their roof: But the day of the Lord, shall make all even; in the which, the Heavens shall pass away roaring, the Elements vanish melting, the Earth with her works stand burning; Hell shall open shrieking, and all mankind appear trembling, at the Archangels Trumpet summoning, no less than all the World to this last universal audit.

But the day of the Lord shall come, &c.] You may easily apprehend the parts; they are generally but two; An Advent, and an Event: a coming, and what shall happen in that coming. First, The day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night: there is the Advent. Secondly, In which the heavens shall pass away, &c. there is the Event. The fruit of the particular branches will be gathered in their due places. In the Advent, we have two considerations; The matter; and the manner: What shall come, and How. First, the matter is, The day of the Lord shall come. Secondly, the manner is, Like a thief in the night. To proceed in order.

[unspec 1] The day of the Lord.] Every day is the Lord's; all times are his: and he hath so Put them in his own Power, that he hath not communicated that Power, not imparted the knowledge of that disposition, to any Creature. The day is thine, O Lord, and the night is thine. But some days are the Lord's, by a more special right, and peculiar interest: such as he hath culled out of the common heap of days, and set his own royal stamp upon them. So the Sabbath is called The Lord's day; sanctified, and set apart by his own Ordinance, for his extraordinary worship. In no day must we forget him, on this day we must forget all things besides him. The same Sun enlightens other days, equally with this: but it hath a better light, by the rising of a nobler Sun; Jesus Christ doth enlighten it: this is the honor of it: For this cause, besides the moral Precept, it is called The Lord's day. Shall we think that this Day of the Lord shall fall upon The Lord's day? It was Christ's Caution to the Jews; Pray that your flight be not in the Winter, nor on the Sabbath day. We may not pray so, concerning this day of the Lord. But this we know, that as when God had made six day, and all the world in them, he deposited them in the hands of a Sabbath: so in this Day of the Lord, we that are in Christ, shall enter into that everlasting Sabbath, the glorious rest in Heaven. There be other days which God hath consecrated to himself, and commanded a solemn celebration of them to us, ennobled with the memory of some famous works of his Mercy: Concerning everyone of these we may say, This is the day that the Lord hath made: He made it, he made us happy by it, and he would have us remember him in it: This is also The day of the Lord. Potentates, and great Persons have their solemn days: Herod had his Birthday: and Kings do ceremoniously keep their Coronation-days. The Lord will also have His day: once the people would have crowned him, but he refused it: that was not his day. Now he will receive that glorious Crown at the hands of his Father; to the Comfort of his loyal Subjects, and the everlasting confusion of those rebels, That would not have him reign over them: this is The Lord's day. The Saints have their days of Commemoration; and so we call them; Saint John's day, Saint Peters day: Not that we dedicate these days to the worship of the Saints, like our superstitious adversaries: We honor the Saints more than they; Charitate, non servitute: with approbation, not adoration; with imitation of their lives, not invocation of their loves. On those days we remember their Graces, and the Benefits God hath done to his Church by their service: so that they are more properly The Lord's days, than theirs. But the Lord hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world with righteousness: This is emphatically, The Lord's day.

[unspec 2] First, we have our day, and then the Lord hath His. O Jerusalem, that thou hadst known these things, in this thy day. The ungodly have their day, wherein they may do their own pleasures, as it were without the controlment of the supreme Judge: The Adversaries of Christ had their day: when the State was incensed against Him, the Herodians came to tempt Him in the dangerous question of Tribute: that was their day. The Sadducees oppose Him about the Resurrection: that was their day. The Scribe, expert in the Law, that thought himself learneder than Herodian, Sadducee, or Pharisee; tempts Him about the Great Commandment, that was his day. Judas betrayed Him for money; that was his day: the Jews accuse Him for envy; that was their day: Pilate condemns Him for policy, that was his day: Herod dismisseth Him in mockery: the Soldiers put Him to death with cruelty: this was their day. But shall not Christ have also his Day, to be avenged for all these injuries? Must He suffer unjustly, and not be openly justified? Had Pilate a day for his Tribunal, and shall not the Maker and Judge of Pilate and all the world, have a Day to sit on his Throne? The Kings of the earth have their yearly Audits, and shall not the King of Heaven and Earth have one Day for his? Shall luxurious men riot, the covetous oppress the unclean wallow in their turpitudes, swearers rend that dreadful Name of God, and persecutors triumph in the sufferings of the innocent; and never be called to a Reckoning? Christ did put off divers Sutors; his kindred, his Mother, with this; My time is not yet come. He did put off his Opposers, his malicious Adversaries, with this; Mine hour is not yet come. But certainly, his time, his hour, his day will come. Those souls under the Altar cry with a loud voice. How long, O Lord, holy, and true? And are answered in effect, My day is not yet come.

There is to every man a day of Salvation: we have not only the first days, wherein God sp • ke by his Prophets; but the last days, Wherein he hath spoken to us by his Son. There be some that are of the night; a night which they have sup •• duced upon themselves: but we are The Children of the day; and the Lord hath shined upon us in a full Noone. The Gospel is the day of G • ace, whereof the Word and Sacraments are the bright B • ames; In this day there any be some dark passages, to them that will entangle themselves in unnecessary disputations: But to our modest and humble Faith, the hours • re light enough, and we may easily go our whole journey. That Faith and Repentance shall bring us to Salvation by Jesus Christ: this is a clear light. That the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament, is not more assimilated to our body and blood, than the Body and Blood of Christ is communicated to us in that action: this is a clear light. There may be darkness in us, there is nothing but light in the Gospel. This is our day; let us walk in it? He that is he ancient of days, will call us to an account for our days: Why do we stand here idle all the day, that are n • t sure of more days to make up our Harvest? There are evil d • yes, and still the latter the worse: Temporum posteriora, deteriora: therefore let us put on th • Armor of God, That we may be able to stand in the evil day. But there is a m • r • fatal day than all the rest; The great day of his wrath, in which no man shall be able to stand. This is our day, the next is the Lord's: If we do not in this day provide for that: that day shall condemn us for the loss of this. When the Sun shines upon the Dial, it reflects a shadow, whereby we observe how the d • y passeth: for although the Sun, not the shadow, makes the day; yet we know not how the day goes, by the Sun, but by the shadow. The Son of Mercy shining upon our prepared hearts, refl cts a shadow, which is our pious conversation. The light of Grace makes the day: but the shadow, or answerable reflection of our holy Life, shows us how the day goes with ourselves; and in what forwardness we are toward the end of our journey, the consummation of our hopes, even the Salvation of our Souls.

This is The Lord's day, because he will then show himself in a more glorious [unspec 3] form, than ever the world before saw, or apprehended him. The day of • his birth was a day of humility Suscepta à majestate humilitas, à virtute infirmitas, ab aeternitate mortalitas. The day of his death was a day of sorrow; we cannot think of it without remorse: the whole frame of nature did put on mourning garments, to write upon the Funeral of their Maker: His resurrection was a day of triumph indeed; but because not visible, therefore not credible to the sinful and obstinate world. To us, it is a day of joy; and that traditional report of the Suns dancing, upon every Easter day morning, had more than a literal sense in the Authors meaning. But the Jews pretended the every; His Disciples stole him away. Him, what him alone. They were very favorable thieves, that would steal the body, and leave the clothes. I have heard of sacrilegious robbers, that have violated the monuments of the dead; stealing the clothes when they have left the body behind: But to filch the body, and refuse the booty, was a senseless kind of robbery. No, the Disciples did not steal his Body out of the Sepulcher; but the Devil hath stolen the belief of his resurrection out of those Jewish hearts. The day of his Ascension was a glorious day, but seen only by some few of his friends: His glory shall be the same at his coming down, that it was at his going up: but the manifestation of his glory at his going up, was far less than it shall be at his coming down. But in this day of the Lord, Every eye shall see him, even they that have pierced him through. In the plague of Egyptian darkness, there was light enough in Goshen: so in this terrible day of the Lord, when darkness shall overwhelm the reprobates, the faithful shall be in a shining light; they shall shine as the light. To these, The light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun, and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold. To the other, The Sun shall be darkened, and the Moon shall not give her light: Woe unto such that desire the day of the Lord: to what end is it for them? The day of the Lord is darkness and not light. How then shall they discern one another? Saint Chrysostom examines the reason, how the rich man could see Lazarus in Abraham's bosom; whereas it is not said, that Lazarus saw the rich man in hell-torments: and he answers it thus: A man that is in darkness, can easily see him that is in the light; but he that is in light, cannot so easily discern him that is in darkness: The light of Lazarus helped Dives to the sight of him; but the darkness of Dives hindered Lazarus from the sight of him. But this day shall make all manifest: the damnable darkness of the wicked shall be visible to the righteous: and the blessed glory of the righteous shall be apparent to the wicked. Everyone shall see another, and all shall behold the Lord: they that have rejected him, to their horror: they that have embraced him, to their everlasting comfort.

The Scripture abounds with expressions of the desperate fatality of this day. It is terrible, who can abide it? Happy is he that is bid in the day of the Lord's anger. Innumerable are the places, wherein it is called The day of the Lord Jesus. He was put to public disgrace before, and insulted upon by Men and Devils: Now his goodness shall be justified, and his glory published before Men and Angels. Then his attendants were poor fishers; now his Throne shall be waited upon by celestial spirits. Then he sprang from the low estate of his Mother; now he shall come in the glory of his Father. Then Herod had a fling at his Infancy, now he shall tremble to behold his Majesty. Then they cried, Crucify him, crucify him: Now they shall say, Glorify him, glorify him. Then they laughed at his sorrows, now they shall mourn at his sentence. Then they fastened him to the Cross, now they shall do homage to his Crown. Then he was a Lamb, bearing the sins of the world: now he shall be a Judge, condemning the world for sin. Then he was made a sacrifice for all men; now all men shall be made a sacrifice to him; either to his mercy in their salvation, or to his justice in their perdition. Then he rode to Jerusalem upon a beast; his cloth of state being the people's garments: now he shall come riding on the wings of the wind, and the Clouds shall be the dust of his feet. Then a little Star waited on his Nativity: now the Sun and Moon shall be drowned in his clarity. All honor shall be swallowed up in the honor of Christ: As Philosophers say of heat; that it does not only expel cold, but also avocate and call out a lesser heat: And light does not only expel darkness, but also extinguish a lesser light: Or as John the Baptist said of Christ; He must increase, and I must decrease: So that Matth. 3. almost in every verse, there is a mention, there is a repetition of John: John baptized, John preached, John was thus clothed; until Christ's Baptism is finished, and then there is no more mention of John. all is now referred to Jesus, and Jesus hath extinguished John. So now strong men have their powers, great men have their honors, Lord's have their Commands, and Kings have their Crowns: But in this day they shall all resign to this Almighty King: all honors shall be swallowed up in the honor of Christ: all dignities, all titles shall be concentred in him; as at the Creation, all that dispersed light was reduced to the one great luminary, and treasured up in the S • nne: all Crowns shall be cast at his feet: and all Glory and Praise shall be given to his blessed Name forever.

The Day of the Lord will come] For Iugdement, that is the intent of his Comming: [unspec 4] yet it is his especial Mercy, to give us warning. He might come, and never tell us so: yet He doth tell us of it, before He will come. The End of all things is at hand. What then? Therefore be sober, and watch unto Prayer. The Son of man comes in a Cloud, with Power and Glory: What of that? Therefore take heed to yourselves, that that Day may not come upon you unawares. Why doth He tell us that He will come, but that we might be in readiness to entertain Him? In all God's proceedings to Judgment, whither particular, or this universal; He ever leaves a latitude between his sentence and execution: and that Interim is Sphaera activitatis, the Sphere in which our Repentance and his Mercy move, and direct themselves in a benign aspect towards one another. God seldom comes to that dispatch; a word and a blow: but to a blow without a word, to an execution without a warning, never. Cain embrewes his hands in the blood of his own brother: God takes upon Him the quarrel; (and indeed it was for his sake that Abel suffered) He could have surprised and killed Cain: He does not, but only gives him warning: Why is thy Countenance cast down? If thou doest not well, sin lies at the Door: you may proceed, but if you will needs, you will lose by it at last. Saul persecutes Christians; Christ meets upon the way, speaks to him, strikes him to the ground tells him vocally, and tells him actually; that he had undertaken an ill business in opposing Him. This which God did to Saul, converts him: That which He did to Cain, wrought not upon him: but still God went his own way in both; to speak before He strikes, to lighten before He thunders, to warn before He wounds. Antequam vulneremur, monemur. In the case of Corah, God may seem to proceed apace towards execution, yet not without divers Reprieves. First, when Moses heard of their rebellious challenge, he falls not upon them, but falls upon his face before God for them; he laments and deprecates in their behalf. Secondly, He calls them to a fair Trial, the next day: To morrow the Lord will show who are his, and who are holy: Take your Censors, and come, that it may be examined: and they said, We will not come. Thirdly, it is likely that Moses cited them again, because again they peremptorily replied; We will not come. Fourthly, upon this contumacy, God resolves to consume them in a moment: but Moses and Aaron redouble their petitions; O God, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wrath with the whole Congregation? Fifthly, Moses went up to them again, and the Elders of Israel followed; and yet all prevailed not. Sixthly, He makes a separation of the people from them, Depart from the Tents of these wicked men: hoping that the sight of the rest running from them, as from monsters, would have made their hearts mis-give them. Seventhly, when they still impudently persisted to out-face God's vengeance, Moses comes to pronounce the Sentence; These men shall not die a common death. Eighthly, then after, and yet not instantly after this Judgment, Execution followeth; The earth opened and swallowed them. But God begun not there: God opened his mouth, and Moses his, and Aaron his, and the Elders theirs, before the Earth opened hers. All concludes in this; God's Judgments and Executions are not sudden, there is always room for Repentance and Mercy: but his Judgments and Executions are certain, there is no room for Presumption or Security. The day of the Lord will come; it is certain: and like a Thief in the night; it is sudden: yet He that gives us this premonition, intends our holy preparation, that we may find Mercy in that great Day of Retribution.

[unspec 5] Will come.] As no importunity can delay it, no secrecy avoid it, no policy corrupt it, so nothing but sanctification can give us comfort in it. The sudden beating up of a drumme may make a very valiant Soldier startle; and the sounding of the last Trump may strike a fear into the holiest body, that wakens out of his grave. It is some terror for a man to be awakened, when the whole world is on fire about his ears: though himself be Titio ereptus, a brand snatched out of the fire. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God: Which words a Christian considering, wished that he might fall into the hands of a dead God. He meant into the hands of that Person, who is both God and Man: who even whilst he was a dead man, was still a living God. In death, his hands were nailed to the Cross: then he could not strike us for our sins, because then he was stricken for our sins. As that prisoner appealed from Philip, to Philip: so let us appeal from Christ as he is a living Judge, to Christ as he was our dying Savior: that for his sake who once died for us, this living God may forever acquit us. But it is a sweet thing, when a man hath slept quietly all night, to be waked in the morning with music. The body that hath slept in Christ, shall be called up with Heavenly music at the resurrection: The testimony of our own conscience, the Hallelujahs of Saints, the Choir of Angels, yea the very sound of that Trumpet shall consent in this Anthem: And that which makes up the perfect harmony, as the voice of Christ himself; Come ye blessed.

Like a thief in the night.] Similitudes may illustrate the things which are to be proved; but they do not justify the things from which they are borrowed. Christ's coming like a thief, is no warrant for thieves; no more than his comparison taken from piping and dancing, is a license for fidlers and dancers. That God, who would be understood literally, according to the direct and plain sense of all that he saith; doth not refuse also to speak by figures and metaphores. The institution of his whole worship in the old law, was a continual allegory: types and figures overspread all, and figures flowed into figures, and poured themselves out into farther figures. Circumcision carried a figure of Baptism, and Baptism carries a figure of that purity, which we shall have in the perfection of glory. Nor did he only speak in this language by his Prophets, but even by his Son too. He calls himself a Way, and a Light, and a Gate, and a Vine, and Bread, oftener than the Son of God, or the Son of Man. But that he should liken himself to a Thief, is the wonder. He is the judge of thieves, and will that Judge assume any likeness unto thieves? Thieves will break into houses, violently take away other men's goods, and bloodily cut their throats: and will the righteous Judge of all do so? It was he that cut out men's several proprieties; for there can be no Theft, where is no distinction of ownages. And the state which had once allowed a community, found by experience quickly, that the common Ass was never well saddled; and therefore were driven to make laws for the designation of every ones proper portion: — Meus est his ager, ill tuus. Yea, the chief Lord of all, hath been no less careful of fencing in his Tenants possessions, than in the maintenance of his own homage and service: For he wrote with the self same hand: Thou shalt not steal, with which he wrote, Thou shalt have none other God's but me. He well knew the corrupt inclinations of men, and their itching desires to finger the peculiars of others: In whose judgment, Stollen waters are sweet: Aliena nobis, nostra plus alijs placent: And therefore made a law against it: and will he now so seem to favor it, as to admit a likeness to it? I might answer, that Nullum simile est idem. No like is the same: Similitude, and Identitie are different things: He that is like me, is not myself. When Christ resembles himself by some good thing, that good thing he calls himself. Bread is good; therefore he does not say, I am like to Bread, but I am Bread. The light is good, therefore he does not say, I am like unto light, but I am the Light. But when he fetcheth a comparison from some questionable or unwarrantable things, he sets it down with a Sicut: which imports a Similitude, not a Truth. A snare is hurtful; therefore his coming is not called a snare, but Tanquam laqueus, As a snare. A thief is mischievous; therefore it is not called a thief, but Sicut fur, like a thief. Christ cannot be a thief, for what is there for him to steal? The principal right of all things he hath reserved to himself: therefore the Israelites did not properly rob the Egyptians? Deo ministerium praebuerunt. God himself by a special commission, intitled them thereunto. Our goods are his, our bodies are his, our souls are his, the world is his; what then can he steal? yet I will tell you what he hath stolen, and wherein he hath played the thief: (let no profane misinterpreter abuse it to his diminution or dishonor, which I intend to the glory of his goodness.) He entered into the house of mortality, and stole from us our sins: He entered into the house of the grave, and stole from us the sting of death: He broke open the gates of Hell, and stole from us damnation: Of these sorrows He hath robbed us, and with these robberies He was clothed, even when he hung naked upon the Cross: If this be theft, it is so gracious a one, as merits praise to his holy Name for evermore.

Like a thief.] The master begun this comparison of himself, and the servants made bold to follow it; Paul, John and Peter, all concur in the same similitude. But why like a thief? that is now our Quaere. First, for the uncertainty of his coming. Secondly, for the suddenness of that uncertainty. Thirdly, for the peril of that suddenness. Fourthly, for the Fatality of that peril. Fifthly, For the Irremediablenesse of that Fatality.

1 For the uncertain time of his coming, he is Tanquam fur insidians. The thief doth not tell the master of the house what time he will come, for then he would prevent him, and fortify himself against his most subtle violence. Nor does the Lord impart to his Creatures, upon what day his Day shall fall. He hath not said when he will come, though he hath given us some precedent signs before the accomplishment whereof he will not come. Things quaerible, are in the number of things cognoscible. Why do we study that, which is impossible to learn? what kind of fruit soever that was, for which our first Parents sold their Birth-right in Paradise, I am sure there was not juice enough in it to quench that hot thirst of forbidden knowledge, which they derived to their posterity. But that which like a corn of Salt, only distempered Adams taste, is now become a salt hydopricall phlegm in mankind: that the more they do know, the more they desire; and the admitting them to one secret, doth but hearten them on to seek for another. We all take after our Grandmother, and setting our shoulders to the very Portall of GOD'S privy Chamber, inn we must, and be made acquainted with the Divine Counsel. The eye so itcheth after variety of sights, and the ear of sounds, that neither the one Is satisfied with seeing, nor the other with hearing.

There be two questions that much trouble such scrupulous brains: where and when, this judgment shall be. For the former; Christ speaks of a separation that should be made, between two in one bed, and two in one field, and two at one Mill; whereof the one shall be received, the other refused: unto this the Disciples presently reply, Where Lord? Some conceive two demands in that one word, because 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is taken in a twofold sense; which they gather from a verse of Sophocles, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. Importing both a place, where, and the motion to a place, whither. Where shall this place of separation be, and whither shall the separated pass? To what Barre shall they repair for their doom, and whither shall that doom send them? Christ accordingly answers them with a wheresoever, and a thither; including both locum and terminum. Duo quarentibus unum respondet: He gives them but one answer to their two questions; but such a one, as the Perspectives speak of a Sun-beam, which is made of two beams gathered into one: or as we say of two friends, which are one in heart, but two in strength. This answer may resolve them so far as their salvation needed, though not so fully as their humors desired. There can be no question moved by a creature, to which God is not able to make a sufficient answer. The Epitomizer of ten into two, the Digester of so large a volume, as the whole Law, into so brief a sum as Love; will be as plentiful in his satisfaction, as flesh and blood can be in a question. Do they ask, where they shall appear? He answers, wheresoever he shall keep his Court. Do they demand whither they shall be translated? He answers, whither he hath gone before to prepare the place. For the other, Christ spake of Jerusalem's downfall, and the Disciples came unto him privately: It was their boldness to press upon him; but that it was done privately, argued some modesty: Tell us, when shall these things be? What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? Our Savior, to leave a testimony, how ill he liked of this curiosity; gives them no directer than an indefinite answer: And as before he would not vouchsafe their where, so much as a Here, or There; but did put it by as a demand not pleasing to him, with an unresolving wheresoever: So here he doth not satisfy their when, with a Now, or Then: but clean discourageth such an inquiry; telling them, that though they were Apostles, and had the privilege to be made acquainted with the heavenly mysteries; yet they must not look to know that which is concealed from the very Angels. The Divine nature, as it is mercy it self, so it is wisdom it self. It is his mercy to impart unto us, that one day we shall be brought to judgment: but when this Day shall be, and where this judgment, his wisdom thought good to conceal. To be sure he will come, may well deter us from offending: but to be sure when he will come, would breed a security of sin upon the vain hope of timely repenting.

In other things, knowledge is better than ignorance: but in this, ignorance is better than knowledge. Scholers that know their master will not return before such a day, are apt to play the truants: but when they are not sure where he is, nor how soon he will come, fear will make them ply their books. Give over thy proud inquiry, that may do thee hurt: fall to penitent humility, this will do thee good. Expect him every day, that may come any day. Let God's secret alone, it is too high for thee: but be wise, and look unto the secret withwithin thee. Thou hast a secret pride, root up that: thou hast a secret infidelity, cast out that. Let it not be our business, to know where or when we shall be judged: but how we may answer for ourselves when the judgment comes. Did we know the place and time, we could not hide ourselves; appear we must. But knowing what will be said against us, and what may be pleaded for us, and how well the cause shall go with us, we rest in peace. If were bound over to answer for some pretended crime, at a human bar, would we spend the time in hearkening after the day of Session, or place of execution? Were it not more wisdom, to furnish ourselves with friends and answers for that trial? There be three questions, Vbi, Quando, Quomodo? Where, when and how? The two former, in this argument, be idle: the last is necessary. When shall this Audit come, and where shall it be kept? be quaeres of foolish presumption. But how, how shall we provide for our account at that Audit? this is the quare of wise devotion. Martha thought, when she had set herself on work, that Christ would pay her her wages, or at least con her thanks: she puts herself to many troubles, and looks for many commendations. But expecting the reward of her cookery, all the fat was in the fire: Mary's break-fast was better than Martha's dinner. Let us mind that one thing which is necessary; and then one of the Three which bear Witness in Heaven, shall give us the testimony of so much discretion, as to choose that good part, which shall never be taken from us. Thy impertinent questions like thy Savior as ill, as that of Peters did, What should become of John? Propose it when thou list, thou shalt hear the same Reply: Busi-body, What is that to thee? Follow thou me. This is the uncertainty.

2. As it is uncertain for the time, so it is sudden for the event. The Thief does not give a signal to the house, before his irruption: he is entered as soon as he is heard: his violence and his noise come both in an instant. The Trumpet shall sound, the Judge shall appear, the Graves shall open, the Dead shall rise, the Sentence shall be given, the World shall burn; all in an instant. The Summons, and the Sentence, though they differ in Order and Number, shall seem in regard of Time but one Act. Saint Augustine spends two Chapters in the Manifestation of this sudden Proceeding. The great Buildings of Nature, like the walls of Jericho, shall fall together. If only one breach had been made in that City, as it uses in other sieges, for the entrance of the enemy: perhaps new supplies might have made it up by their forces; or for want of materials, they might have stop'd it with slaughtered carcases: But now, that at once Jericho is turned into a plain field, every Israelite without resistance might run to the next booty: and the throats of their enemies seemed to invite their swords, to a dispatch. Such a destitution of succor, and denudation of all refuge, shall, in this Day, befall the Reprobates, that they shall have neither means nor will to resist. Some men are sick of a preposterous desire of the last Day: and would have the Lord come presently. Others are lethargiz'd with a drowsy dullness: and they care not how long it be ere He comes. As the Apostle hath (in the former Verse) corrected the fervor of the one, by commending the divine Patience: so here He rouseth the torpour of the other, by threatening the last Daies Suddennesse. These require the spurr, as the former need a bridle: both are instructed, directed, here.

When Christ compared his second Comming in Fire, to that former Judgment of Water: Did He mean there should be the same pauses and degrees in burning this World, that there were in drowning that? Shall this hot element be as long a dispatching the one, as that cold element was a destroying the other? No, the similitude intends not the same speed of execution, but the same dullness of expectation: the World shall be as secure now, as it was then. When the Apostle says, It shall come upon them, as travel upon a woman with child: Does He mean, with the same proportion of haste? A woman reckons out her nine months, and can guess near to the day of her coming; and says, that at such a time she looks her: but can we by any probable conjecture, aim at the Day of the Lord? Saint Paul • purpose there, is not so much to express the Suddennesse, as the inevitable •• sse: Sinful men can no more escape their trial, than pregnant women can avoid their travel. The Day of doom shall come as unavoidably, but more unexpectedly. When they least look for it, then they shall find it; or rather; it shall find them. When they say, Peace, Peace and safety; Then shall they be overtaken with this extremity. As the Thief watcheth his advantages, and when he finds the weakest prevention, gives the fiercest invasion. If the Master be a-sleep, the Servants abroad, the doors unbarred, or the house unguarded; there is the opportunity he looks for. When the Servants of man, his Affections be wandering abroad: when his Senses, his Sentinels, be stupefied: when the Mistress, Conscience, is commanded silence: when the Master, Reason, is rock'd into a slumber: and especially above all the rest, when Religion is put out of her lodging: then is the season of this woeful surprisal. Christ hath not promised sinners, to come at their fittest times: this Day of the Lord commonly takes them at the worst. Cain was not in so bad a case when he was borne of his mother, as after he had murdered his brother. Saul was pious, and begun his reign with God: but his proceeding was bloody; and the farther he went, the worse he was; till even the night before he died, he consulted with a Witch, and ended his reign with the Devil. Absalom begun with Pride, but shut up his life with Treason. Pharaoh was never good: but never so bad as at his drowning. Judas had been long a secret Robber; then he became a prodigious Traitor, and yet his Catastrophe must be in a desperate self murder. Such is the fatal suddenness of this day, to come upon men at their worst. The greatest sinner hath some remission, some intermission of his wickedness: Oftentimes Satan caught the Demoniacke: Oft-times He caught him; therefore sometimes, in that violence, he caught him not. He had his lightsome respites; not ever tortured, not ever furious: betwixt whiles he might look soberly, talk sensibly, move regularly. It is a woeful comfort, that we are not always sinning. If God were bound to accommodate his respect of times to those Lucida intervalla, those distances and short vacations of sin, there were hope; but who can look that the Divine Justice should wait upon the pleasure of man? I am going to sin, Lord spare me now: there is mickle pleasure or benefit in it, call me not away at this time: Whose voice is this? A mortal man's? Presumptuous Fool, in vain dost thou appoint God, for God can disappoint thee. At all times fear to sin, if ever thou fearest to die to die thy sin. Thou canst not be so quick to dispatch thy sin, as God can be to dispatch thy soul. The Thief watches all night to break in: if at any hour thou take liberty to sleep, he will hardly be kept out. Give no place to the Devil. What, not in Youth? Not in the heat of blood? Not in the height of pleasure? No. Give no place, at no time. There is a time for all things: A time to be burn, and a time to die: a time to kill, and a time to heal: a time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to get, and a time to lose: a time to rent, and a time to sow: a time to love, and a time to hate: a time of war, and a time of peace: a time to sigh, and a time to sing: a time to marry, and a time to bury: But of all these times, and many moe, There is no time to sin. Of all the exhibitions and allowances of God to man, He hath allowed no time for sin. We commonly kill our beasts, when they are at the fattest: but Judgment surpriseth sinners, when they are at the leanest; in that point of their life, which is of the remotest distance from goodness.

God is slow to wrath until the last Day, and then He is quickest. Before, if we pray, He hears us: if we repent, He pardons us: when we amend our life, He saves us. But in this Day of the Lord, there is no time for petition, no place for conversion, no means of pacification. If we have done these things before, well and good; our salvation is sure: but if they be then to do, they are debarred forever. As the lightning flasheth from one part of Heaven to the other, So shall the Son of man be in his Day. He compares his Comming to the Lightening. First, for Manifestation; His first Comming was privately; some few acknowledged Him: this last shall be public and apparent; Every eye shall see Him. Secondly, for terror, the Sun gives a greater light than the Lightning; but He is welcome to all eyes, as the Messenger of joy, health, and comfort: He does not affright us with his Beams, but cherish us with his Influence. But the Lightening is terrible, and makes the stoutest heart to shudder, especially when it is accompanied with Thunder. Christ's first Comming was in soft silence, like the gentle Dew upon the tender Grass: but his second Comming will be with a dreadful noise; the Trumpet sounding, the Earth trembling, the Seas roaring, the Angels showting, the Wicked shrieking, and the Judge thundering out his final Sentence. For that extraordinary terror at the Law-giving, was a little image of this which shall be at the Law-requiring. Thirdly, especially for the Suddennesse: the Sun compasseth the world by degrees; He keeps a certain course, his wonted motion: But the Lightening, though it move through the Air, does not appear successively, or by gradual approaches: but suddenly, instantly, it flies from East to West, and darts through the Hemisphere, wherein it is begotten. So sudden will the Lord be in his Day: Time was when He stayed for the first World an hundred and twenty years; He stayed for a rebellious nation forty years; He stayed for a dissolute City forty days: now He will not tarry a Yeare, a Weeke, a Day, an Houre, a Minute for any man. He was not wont to come in Whirlewindes, or Earthquakes; or violent fires, but in a still Voice, in a soft and gentle Air. Now, no imagination of man can conceive the Terror, the suddenesse of his Appearance. He will make his Processe and his Decree; his Citation and his Judgment, but one Act: His Summons, his Battle, his Victory, and his Triumph, shall seem all but one thing. He will lead sinners captive, and deliver them captive to Hell, as soon as He hath decla- them to be Enemies; and cut them off, as it were, without drawing his Sword out of the scabbard. A Disease may make haste, and Death be quick of dispatch, in dissolving the body: But much more haste, and quicker dispatch, will God use, in recollecting and reuniting the dust of that body at the Resurrection? Then shall we all hear his Angels proclaim the Surgite mortui, Rise ye dead: Though we be dead, we shall hear the Voice: the sound of the Voice, and the working of the Voice shall be all one; and all shall rise in a less minute there, than any one dies here.

They vainly flatter themselves, that think it is enough to do good sometimes: if they serve God on the Sabbath, it is no matter for all the Weeke. As if they might not die upon a worky-day; as if God were bound to wait their times; till the good mood came on them. Those Levites, which once drew their swords, for God and Moses, against the Idolaters; and for that deed, won both praise and blessing; become afterward the forwardest in a rebellion against them. There is no assurance of a man for one act: whom one sin cannot fasten upon, another may. Yea, the same sin may find a repulse one while, from the same hand, which another time gives it entertainment: and that yielding loseth all the thanks of the former resistance. It is no praise to have done once well, unless we continue. If a man turn from his righteousness, all that righteousness shall be forgotten: and in the sin that he hath sinned, he shall die. If we knew what hour the Lord would come, How easy were it, think we, to repent the hour before? If we were sure what day, what month, what year; we would not grudge that days, that months, that years preparation. Yet, now we wantonize, as if the Judge were an hundred leagues off; Who, it may be, stands at the very door. Suppose a man hath seven breaches or holes in his house, and knows the Thief will enter at one of them: Will he guard this, and not that? Will he watch at six of them, and neglect the seventh? Thou hast seven days in the week, like so may in-lets for this Judgment: Wilt thou watch only on the Sabbath, the seventh day, and leave the other six unregarded? Or be sober one day, and drunk another? Then, at the breach which thou mindest not, on the day thou least suspectest, this great Judge will come upon thee, and then, What shall become of thee? Thy particular Judgment follows immediately upon thy death: Is there no Impostume, no Apoplexy within thee? No Sword, no Instrument within thee? No Thunder, no Judgment above thee? No Element, no Fiend under thee, that may in a moment dispatch thee? God's Door is ever open to let in our Repentance, and our Door is ever open to let in his Vengeance: The only way to escape future malediction, is by present humiliation: now let us be converted, and we are sure to be saved.

3. The peril by this Suddennesse is very dreadful, for our everlasting state lies upon it. Thou hast a trial at the Law, and knowest a famous and gracious Advocate, who if he undertake thy cause, will carry it for thee: but flattering thyself that the day of hearing is far off, thou forbearest to acquaint him with it, or solicit his council and assistance: In the mean time, the king prefers this Advocate to the place of a Judge. The Session is come, and then thou humbly prostratest thyself before him, beseeching him to favor thy cause. But he answereth, That request comes too late, I am not now an Advocate to plead for my Clients, but a Judge to give righteous Sentence. If we sin, we may Now have an Advocate, to propitiate for us: But in this last Assizes, at the trial of all the world, that Advocate is turned into a Judge: and then they that have not formerly ••• ne him to be their Mediator, can have small hope to find him their Savior. The thief does not break into the house, and so come his way, forbearing to touch the goods: no, but all that is precious and portable becomes his bootie, and he looks for thanks if he spare the blood of the family. If this impartial day did only ransack our Wardrobes, empty our Chests and Cabinets, fire our cottages, strip our bodies of their garments, or our souls of our bodies, and do us no more harm; it were very favorable: Death it self, which is but God's Under-sheriffe, can do all this, by virtue of his Office and Commission: Let but the Soul escape, suffer not that to bleed or perish, and sacilis Iactura, all were but an easy loss. But this thief (like the Robbers in some Countries, who break both the Commandments together) never steals without killing. When a Passenger complained to a Captain, that some of his soldiers had robbed him of all that he had: the Captain asked him, Whether he had those clothes on when they robbed him: He answered, Yes: Then says the Captain, I am sure they are none of my Soldiers that did it: for had they been mine, they would not have left you a rag to your back. This day shall rob the wicked of all that ever they had, and leave them not so much as a rag to cover their shameful nakedness. They shall speed worse, than he did among those high-way cutters: for they shall be left robbed, and naked, and wounded, and more than half dead: without hope of any charitable Samaritan, to cure or comfort them. The Danite -thieves stole away Micah's idols: the goods of a worldling are his gods: Ye have taken away my gods, and what have I more to lose? What more? Yes, thou mistaken Idolater, This Thief shall steal away thyself: as Micah was there threatened; Let not thy voice be heard, lest they take away thy Life with thy gods. I might parallel the the every of those Danites, with the avarice of many Christians: As those Images appeared to those Israelites, so do riches to these worldlings; in their Imagination no less than gods: and they will have them, though they steal them. A superstitious Levite was the Priest to those, a covetous heart is the Priest to these. There, because the gods without the Priest could do them less service, than the Priest without the gods, therefore they steal the Priest with the gods. Here, the Priest steals the gods, and the gods steal the Priest: the heart purloineth riches, and those riches filch the heart; and both are contented with this mutual the every. O miserable Danites, that could esteem that a God, which might be stolen: that could look for protection from that, which could not keep it self from stealing: which was won by their theft, not by their devotion! Could they worship those idols more devoutely, than Micah that made them? If they could not protect their Maker from robbery, how shall they protect their thieves? yet their superstition hath made them mad upon a god, and have him they must, by what means they care not; though they offend the true God, by stealing a false. Riches are the gods of the world, men's hearts are the thieves; they make no Conscience from whom they steal them, so they have them. Still one thief robs another, till this last Thief comes, and he robs all of all. The oppressor robs the innocent, the Lawyer robs the oppressor, the Tyrant robs the Lawyer, death robs the tyrant, and the Day of Judgment