Eighty Sermons

SERMON V. Preached at Paul's, upon Christmas Day. 1627.

I T hath been suspiciously doubted, more then that, freely disputed, more then that too, absolutely denied, that Christ was born the five and twentieth of December, that this is Christmas-day: yet for all these doubts, and disputations, and denials, we forbear not, with the whole Church of God, constantly and confidently to celebrate this for his Day. It hath been doubted, and disputed, and denied too, that this Text, O my Lord, send I pray thee, by the hand of him, whom thou wilt send, hath any relation to the sending of the Messiah, to the coming of Christ, to Christmas-day; yet we forbear not to wait upon the ancient Fathers, and as they said, to say, that Moses having received a commandment from God, to undertake that great employment of delivering the children of Israel from the oppressions of Pharaoh in Egypt, and having excused himself by some other modest and pious pretences, at last, when God pressed the employment still upon him, he determines all in this, O my Lord, send I pray thee, by the hand of him, whom thou wilt send, or, (as it is in our Margin) when thou shouldest send. It is a work, next to the great work of the redemption of the whole world, to redeem Israel out of Egypt; And therefore do both works at once, put both into one hand, and mitte quem missurus es, send him, whom I know, thou wilt send, him, whom pursuing thine own decree, thou shouldest send, send Christ, send him now, to redeem Israel from Egypt.

These words then (though some have made that interpretation of them, and truly, not without a fair apparance, and probability, and verisimilitude) do not necessarily imply a slackness in Moses zeal, that he desired not affectionately, and earnestly the deliverance of his Nation from the pressures of Egypt; nor do they imply any diffidence, or distrust, that God could not, or would not endow him with faculties fit for that employment; But, as a thoughtful man, a pensive, a considerative man, that stands still for a while, with his eyes fixed upon the ground, before his feet, when he casts up his head, hath presently, instantly the Sun, or the heavens for his object, he sees not a tree, nor a house, nor a steeple by the way, but as soon as his eye is departed from the earth where it was long fixed, the next thing he sees is the Sun or the heavens; so when Moses had fixed himself long upon the consideration of his own insufficiency for this service, when he took his eye from that low piece of ground, Himself, considered as he was then, he fell upon no tree, no house, no steeple, no such consideration as this, God may endow me, improve me, exalt me, enable me, qualify me with faculties fit for this service, but his first object was that which presented an infallibility with it, Christ Jesus himself, the Messias himself, and the first petition that he offers to God is this, O my Lord send I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. For me, as I am, I am altogether unfit; when thou shalt be pleased to work upon me, thou wilt find me but stone, hard to receive thy holy impressions, and then but snow, easy to melt, and lose those holy forms again: There must be labor laid, and perchance labor lost upon me; but put the business into a safe had, and under an infallible instrument, and Mitte quem missurus es, send him whom, I know, thou wilt send, him, whom, pursuing thine own decree, thou shouldest send, send him, send Christ now.

As much as Paradise exceeded all the places of the earth, do the Scriptures of God exceed Paradise. In the midst of Paradise grew the Tree of knowledge, and the tree of life: In this Paradise, the Scripture, every word is both those Trees; there is Life and Knowledge in every word of the Word of God. That Germen Iehovae, as the Prophet Isaiah calls Christ, that Off-spring of Jehovah, that Bud, that Blossome, that fruit of God himself, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Redeemer, Christ Jesus, grows upon every tree in this Paradise, the Scripture; for Christ was the occasion before, and is the consummation after, of all Scripture. This have I written (says S. John, ) and so say all the Pen-men of the holy Ghost, in all that they have written, This have we written, that ye may know that ye have eternal life. Knowledge and life grows upon every tree in this Paradise, upon every word in this Book, because upon every Tree here, upon every word, grows Christ himself, in some relation.

From this Branch, this Text, O my Lord send, I pray thee by the hand of him, whom thou wilt send, we shall not so much stand, to gather here and there an Apple, that is, to consider some particular words of the Text it self, as endeavor to shake the whole tree, that is, the Context, and coherence and dependence of the words: for, since all that passed between God and Moses in this affaire, and negotiation, God's employing of Moses, and Moses presenting his excuses to God, and God's taking of all those excuses, determines in our Text, in our Text is the whole story, virtually and radically implied; And therefore, by just occasion thereof, we shall consider first, That though for the ordinary duties of our callings, arising out of the evidence of express Scriptures, we are allowed no hesitation, no disputation, whether we will do them or no; but they require a present, and an exact execution thereof: yet in extraordinary cases, and in such actions as are not laid upon us, by any former and permanent notification thereof in Scripture, such as was Moses case here, to undertake the deliverance of Israel from Egypt; in such cases, not only some hesitation, some deliberation, some consultation in ourselves, but some expostulation with God himself, may be excusable in us. We shall therefore see, that Moses did excuse himself four ways; And how God was pleased to join issue with him in all four, and to cast him, and overcome him in them all: And when we come to consider his fifth, which is rather a Diversion upon another, then an Excuse in himself, and yet, is that, which is most literally in our Text, O my Lord send, I pray thee, by the hand of him, whom thou wilt send, because this was a thing which God had reserved wholly to himself, The sending of Christ: we shall see, that God would not have been pressed for that, but, (as it follows immediately, and is also a bough of this tree, that is, grows out of this Text) God was angry; But yet (as we shall see in the due place) it was but such an anger, as ended in an Instruction, rather then in an Increpation; and in an Encouragement, rather then in a Desertion, for he established Moses in a resolution to undertake the work, by joining his brother Aaron in commission with him. So then, we have shak'd the tree, that is, resolved and analyz'd the Context, of all which, the Text it self is the root, and the seal. And, as we have presented to your sight, we shall farther offer to your taste, and digestion, and rumination, these particular fruits; First, that ordinary Duties require a present execution; Secondly, that in Extraordinary, God allows a Deliberation, and requires not an implicit, a blind obedience: And in a third place, we shall give you those four circumstances, that accompanied, or constituted Moses deliberation, and God's removing of those four impediments: And in a fourth • oome, that Consultation or Diversion, The sending of Christ: And in that, How God was affected with it, He was angry: angry that Moses would offer to look into those things, which he had locked up in his secret counsels, such as that sending of Christ, which he intended: But yet, not angry so, as that he left Moses unsatisfied, or un-accommodated for the main business, but settled him in a holy and cheerful readiness to obey his commandment. And through all these particulars, we shall pass, with as much clearness, as the weight, and as much shortness, as the number will permit.

First then, our first Consideration constitutes that Proposition, Ordinary Duties, arising out of the Evidence of God's Word, require a present Execution. There are Duties that bind us semper, and Adsemper, as our Casuists speak; we are Always bound to do them, and bound to do them Always; that is, Always to produce Actus elicitos, Determinate acts, Successive and Consecutive acts, conformable to those Duties; whereas in some other Duties, we are only bound to an Habitual disposition, to do them in such and such necessary cases; And those Actions of the later sort, fall in Genere Deliberativo, we may consider Circumstances, before we fall under a necessity of doing them; that is, of doing them Then, or doing them Thus: Of which kind, even those great duties of Praying, and Fasting are; for we are always bound to Pray, and always bound to Fast; but not bound to fast always, nor always to pray. But for Actions of the first kind, such as are the worshipping of God, and the not worshipping of Images; such as are the sanctifying of God's Sabbaths, and the not blaspheming of his Name, which arise out of clear and evident commands of God; they admit no Deliberation, but require a present Execution. Therefore as S. Stephen saw Christ, standing at the right hand of his Father, (a posture that denotes first a readiness to survey, and take knowledge of our distresses, and then a readiness to proceed, and come forth to our assistance) so in our Liturgy, in our Service, in the Congregation, we stand up at the profession of the Creed, at the rehearsing the Articles of our Faith, thereby to declare to God, and his Church, our readiness to stand to, and our readiness to proceed in that Profession. The commendation which is given of Andrew, and Peter for obeying Christ's call, lies not so much in the Reliquerunt retia, that they left their nets, as in the Protinus reliquerunt, that forthwith, immediately, without farther deliberation, they left their nets, the means of their livelihood, and followed Christ. The Lord and his Spirit hath anointed us to preach, says the Prophet Isaiah: To preach what? Acceptabilem annum, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. All the year long the Lord stands with his arms open to embrace you, and all the year long we pray you in Christ's stead, that you would be reconciled to God. But yet, God would fain reduce it to a narrower compass of time, H • die si vocem ejus audieritis, that you would hear his voice today, and not harden your hearts today: And to a narrower compass then that, Dabitur in illa hora, says Christ, The holy Ghost shall teach you in that hour: In this hour the holy Ghost offers himself unto you: And to a narrower compass then an hour, Beati qui nunc esuritis, qui nunc fletis, Blessed are ye that hunger now, and that mourn now, that put not off years, nor days, nor hours, but come to a sense of your sins, and of the means of reconciliation to God, now, this minute. And therefore, when ye read, Iusta pondera, just weights, and Just balances, and just measures, a just Hin, and a just Ephah shall ye have, I am the Lord your God, Do not you say, so I will hereafter, I will come to just weights and measures, and to deal uprightly in the world, as soon as I have made a fortune, established a state, raised a competency for wife and children, but yet I must do as other men do; when you read Remember that you keep holy the Sabbath day, (and by the way, remember that God hath called his other holy days, and holy convocations, Sabbaths too) remember that you celebrate his Sabbaths by your presence here, do not you say, so I will if I can rise time enough, if I can dine soon enough; when you read, swear not at all, do not you say, no more I would but that I live amongst men that will not believe me without swearing, and laugh at me if I did not swear; for duties of this kind, permanent and constant duties arising out of the evidence of God's word, such as just and true dealing with men, such as keeping God's Sabbaths, such as not blaspheming his name, have no latitude about them, no conditions in them; they have no circumstance, but are all substance, no apparel, but are all body, nobody, but are all soul, no matter, but are all form; They are not in Genere deliberativo, they admit no deliberation, but require an immediate, and an exact execution.

But then, for extraordinary things, things that have not their evidence in the word of God formerly revealed unto us, whether we consider matters of Doctrine, and new opinions, or matter of Practice, and new commands, from what depth of learning soever that new opinion seem to us to rise, or from heighth of Power soever that new-Command seem to fall, it is still in genere deliberativo, still we are allowed, nay still we are commanded to deliberate, to doubt, to consider, before we execute. As a good Author in the Roman Church, says, Perniciosius est Ecclesiae, It is more dangerous to the Church, to accept an Apocryphal book for Canonical, then to reject a Canonical book for Apocryphal: so may it be more dangerous, to do some things, which to a distempered man may seem to be commanded by God, then to forbear some things, which are truly commanded by him. God had rather that himself should be suspected, then that a false god should be admitted. The easiness of admitting Revelations, and Visions, and Apparitions of spirits, and Purgatory souls in the Roman Church; And then, the overbending, and super-exaltation of zeal, and the captivity to the private spirit, which some have fallen into, that have not been content to consist in moderate, and middle ways in the Reformed Church; this easiness of admitting imaginary apparitions of spirits in the Papist, and this easiness of submitting to the private spirit, in the Schismatike, hath produced effects equally mischievous: Melancholy being made the seat of Religion on the one side, by the Papist, and Frenzy on the other side, by the Schismatic. Multi, prae studio immoderato intendi in contrarium aberrarunt à medio, was the observation and the complaint of that Father in his time, and his prophecy of ours; That many times, an over-vehement bending into some way of our own choosing, does not only withdraw us from the left hand way, the way of superstition, and Idolatry, from which we should all draw, but from the middle way too, in which we should stand, and walk. And then, the danger is thus great, facile in omnia flagitia impulit, quos religione decepit diabolus; As God doth, the devil also doth make Zeal and Religion his instrument. And in other temptations, the devil is but a serpent; but in this, when he makes zeal and religion his instrument, he is a Lyon. As long as the devil doth but say, Do this, or thou wilt live a fool, and die a beggar; Do this, or thou canst not live in this world, the devil is but a devil, he plays but a devils part, a liar, a seducer; But when the devil comes to say, Do this, or thou canst not live in the next world, thou canst not be saved, here the devil pretends to be God, here he acts God's part, and so prevails the more powerfully upon us. And then, when men are so mis-transported, either in opinions, or in actions, with this private spirit, and inordinate zeal, Quibus non potest auferre fidem, aufert charitatem, says the same Father, Though the devil hath not quenched faith in that man himself, yet he hath quenched that man's charity towards other men; Though that man might be saved, in that opinion which he holds, because (perchance) that opinion destroys no fundamental point, yet his salvation is shrewdly shaked, and endangered, in his uncharitable thinking, that nobody can be saved that thinks otherwise. And as it works thus to an uncharitableness in private, so doth it to turbulency, and sedition in the public. Of which, we have a pregnant, and an aplyable example in the life of Constantine the Emperor; In his time, there arose some new questions, and new opinions in some points of Religion; the Emperor writ alike to both parties, thus: De rebus ejusmodi, nec omnino rogetis, nec rogati respondeatis: Do you move no questions, in such things, yourselves; and if any other do, yet be not you too forward, to write, so much as against them. What questions doth he mean? That is expressed, Quas nulla lex, Canonve Ecclesiasticus necessario praescribit; Such questions, as are not evidently declared, and more then evidently declared, necessarily enjoined by some law, some rule, some Canon of the Church: Disturbe not the peace of the Church, upon Inferences, and Consequences, but deal only upon those things, which are evidently declared in the Articles, and necessarily enjoined by the Church. And yet, though that Emperor declared himself on neither side, nor did any act in favor of either side, yet because he did not declare himself on their side, those promovers of these new opinions, Eo pervenere, (says that Author) ut imagines Imperatoris violarint, They came as far as they could, to violate the person of the Emperor, for they violated and defaced his statues, his images, his pictures, the ensigns of his power and honor; And in this insolency they continued (says that Author) even after the Emperor had silenced both parties; when he, by his express Edict, had forbidden both sides to write, the promovers of the new opinions would write. Still such men think, that whatsoever they think, is not only true in it self, but necessary for salvation to every man; whereas new opinions, that may vary from the Scriptures; new commands, that may vary from the Church, are still in Genere deliberativo, they admit, they require Deliberation. Blind and implicit faith shall not save us in matter of Doctrine, nor blind and implicit obedience, in matter of practice; neither is there any faith so blind, and implicit, as to believe those imaginary apparitions of spirits, nor any obedience so blind and implicit, as to obey our own private spirit, and distempered zeal. Truly, I should hope better of their salvation, who in the first darker times, doubted of the Revelations of St. John, then of theirs, who in these clear and evident times, accept, and enjoin, and magnify, so much as they do in the Roman Church, the Revelations of St. Brigid: And I should rather accompany them, who out of their charitable moderation, do believe, that some Christians, though possessed with some errors, may be saved, then them, who out of their passionate severity, first call every difference from themselves, an error; and then every error, damnable; and do not only pronounce, that none that holds any such error, can be saved, but that no man, though he hold none of those errors himself, can be saved, if he think any man can be saved, that holds them. And so we have done with those two propofitions, which are the walls upon which our whole frame is to be laid; That ordinary duties require a present execution, that was our first: but extraordinary admit deliberation, that was our second Consideration; And now our third is, to confider Moses case in particular, as it was an example of both.

As Moses was an example of the present performance of an evident duty, we carry you back, to the former chapter, where this root, this Text is first laid, that is, this employment first begun to be notified. There ver. 4. God calls Moses, and he calls him by name, and by name twice, Moses, Moses. Of this, Moses could not be ignorant; and therefore he comes to a present discharge of this duty to a present answer, ecce adsum, Lord, here I am. This is the advantage of innocence above guiltiness; God called Adam in Paradise, and he called him by name, and with a particular inquisition, Adam, ubies? Adam, where art thou? And Adam hid himself; God calls Moses, and Moses answers. He that is used to hear God, at home, in his conscience, and in his ears, at Church; and used to answer God, in both places, at home in his private meditations, and in public devotions at Church; he that is used to hear, and used to answer God thus, shall be glad to hear him, in his last voice, in his Angels Trumpets, and to that voice, Surgite qui dormitis, Arise thou that sleepest in the dust, and stand up to Judgment, as he shall have invested the righteousness of Christ Jesus, he shall answer in the very words of Christ Jesus; I am he that liveth, and was dead, and behold I am alive, for evermore, Amen. In this evident duty then, Moses permitted himself no liberty; God called, and he answered instantly; He answered in action, as well as in words; and, indeed, that is our loudest, and most musical answer, to answer God, in deed, in action. So Moses did; He came, he hastened to the place, where God spake. It is one good argument of piety, to love the place where God speaks, the house of his presence. But yet Moses received an inhibition from God there, a ne appropies, Come not too near, too close to this place. God loves that we should come to him here, in his house; but God would not have us press too close upon him here; we must not be too familiar, too fellowly, too homely with God, here at home, in his house, nor loath to uncover our head, or bow our knee at his name. When God proceeded farther with Moses, and comes to say, descendi ut liberem, I am come down to deliver Israel from Egypt, (which was the first intimation that God gave of that purpose) Moses likes that well enough, opposes nothing to that, that God would be pleased to think of some course for delivering of Israel, and enable some Instrument for that work; for that is, for the most part God's descending, and his coming down, to put his power instrumentally, ministerially, into the hand of another; General things, and remote things do not much affect us; Moses says nothing to God's general proposition; That he was come down to deliver Israel, but when God comes to that particular, veni erg • ut mittamte, Come therefore that I may send thee, him into Egypt, Moses to Pharaoh, this was a Rock in his Sea, and a Remora upon his Ship, a Hill in his way, and a Snake in his path. Some light, that this was about the time, when Israel should be delivered, there was before. Moses takes knowledge, that God had promised Abraham, that after four generations, they should come back; and the four generations were come about. Some light, that Moses should be the man, by whom they should be delivered, it seems there was before; for upon that history which is in the second chapter of this book, that Moses flew an Egyptian who oppressed one of his Countrymen, St. Stephen, in his own Funeral Sermon, says, That Moses, in that act supposed, his brethren would have understood, how that God, by his hand would deliver them, but they understood it not. So that it seems some such thing had gone out in voice, some revelation, some intimation, some emanation of some kind of light there had been, by which they might have understood it, though they did not. But when Moses remembers now, that that succeeded not, that they apprehended not the offer of his service then, and that he was now grown to be eighty years old, and that forty of that eighty had been spent in an obscure, in a Shepherds life, and that he must now be sent, not only to work upon that people, who shown no forwardness towards him then, and might absolutely have forgotten him now, but upon Pharaoh himself, this created in Moses this hesitation, this deliberation; perchance not without some tincture of infirmity, but far from any degree of impiety; perchance not without some expostulation with God, but far from any reluctance against God. Consider Abraham; Abraham the Father of the faithful; of whom, as the Apostle says, that he hoped beyond hope, we may say, that he believed beyond faith, for, (as he says) he followed God, not knowing whither he led him; Abraham came to another manner of expostulation with God, in the behalf of Sodom; He says to God, wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked? Absit, be that far from thee; and he repeats it Absit, be that far from thee; and he pleads it with God, Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Now as St. Paul says of Isaiah, Isaiah was bold when he said thus and thus; so we may say of Abraham, Abraham was bold, when he could conceive such an imagination, that God would destroy the righteous with the wicked, or that the Judge of all the earth should not do right; yet Abraham is not blamed for this. Consider St. Peters proceeding with Christ; he comes to a rebuking of Christ, and to a more vehement absit, Lord be this far from thee, this shall not be unto thee, speaking of his going up to Jerusalem, upon which journey dependeth the whole work of our redemption. And though S. Peter incurred an increpation from Christ, yet that which he did, was rooted in love, and piety, though it were mixed with inconsideration. S. Peter went farther then Abraham, but Abraham farthen then Moses; As therefore that first Revelation, which Moses may seem to have received, when he was forty years before this, in Egypt, did not so bind him, to a present prosecution of that work of their deliverance, but that, upon occasion he did withdraw himself from Egypt, and continue from thence, in a forty years absence; so neither did this intimation, which he received from God now, so bind him up, but that he might piously present his own unfitness for that employment; for it does not so much imply a denial to undertake the service, as a petition, that God would super-endow him, with parts, and faculties, fit for that service; It is far from that stubborn sons non ibo, I will not go to work in that Vineyard; But it is only this, except God do somewhat for me before Lgoe, I shall be very unfit to go: And that any Ambassador may say to his Prince, any Minister of State to his Master, any Messenger of God to God himself. And therefore good occasion of doctrines of edification offering it self from that consideration, we shall insist a little, upon each of his excuses, though they be four.

His first prospect that he looks upon in himself, his first object, that by way of objection he makes to God, is himself, and his own unworthiness. To consider others, is but to travail: to be at home, is to consider ourselves: upon others we can look, but in oblique lines; only upon ourselves, in direct. Man is but earth; It is true; but earth is the center. That man who dwells upon himself, who is always conversant in himself, rests in his true center. Man is a celestial creature too, a heavenly creature; and that man that dwells upon himself, that hath his conversation in himself, hath his conversation in heaven, If you weigh anything in a scale, the greater it is, the lower it sinks; as you grow greater and greater in the eyes of the world, sink lower and lower in your own. If thou ask thyself Quis ego, what am I? and beest able to answer thyself, why now I am a man of title, of honor, of place, of power, of possessions, a man fit for a Chronicle, a man considerable in the Heralds Office, go to the Heralds Office, the sphere and element of Honor, and thou shalt find those men as busy there, about the consideration of Funerals, as about the consideration of Creations; thou shalt find that office to be as well the Grave, as the Cradle of Honor; And thou shalt find in that Office as many Records of attainted families, and escheated families, and empoverished and forgotten, and obliterate families, as of families newly erected and presently celebrated. In what heighth soever, any of you that sit here, stand at home, there is some other in some higher station then yours, that weighs you down: And he that stands in the highest of subordinate heighths, nay in the highest supreme heighth in this world, is weighed down, by that, which is nothing; for what is any Monarch to the whole world? and the whole world is but that; but what? but nothing. What man amongst us looks Moses way, first upon himself; perchance enow do so; but who looks Moses way, and by Moses light? first upon himself, and in himself, first upon his own insufficiencies; what man amongst us, that is named to any place, by the good opinion of others, or that calls upon others, and begs, and buys their good opinion for that place, begins at Moses, Quis ego? What am I? where have I studied and practiced sufficiently before, that I should fill such or such a place of Judicature? Quis ego? What am I? where have I served, and labored, and preached in inferior places of the Church, that I should fill fuch or a such a place of Dignity or prelacy there? Quis ego? What am I? where have I seen and encountered, and discomfited the enemy, that I should fill such or such a place of Command in an army? There is not an Abraham left to say, Pulvis & Cinis, O my Lord, I am but dust and ashes; not a Jacob left to say, Non sum dignus, O my Lord I am not worthy of the least of these preferments; not a David left to say, Canis mortuies, & pulex, O my Lord I am but a dead dog, and a flea; But every man is vapor'd up into air; and, as the air can, he thinks he can fill any place: Every man is under that complicated disease, and that ridling distemper, not to be content with the most, and yet to be proud of the least thing he hath; that when he looks upon men, he dispises them, because he is some kind of Officer, and when he looks upon God, he murmurs at him, because he made him not a King. But if man will not come to his Quis ego? who am I? to a due consideration of himself, God will come to his Quis tu? who art thou? and to his Amice quomodo intrasti? friend how came you in? To every man that comes in by undue means, God shall say, as first to us, in our profession, what hadst thou to do, to take my word into thy mouth? so to others in theirs, what hadst thou to do, to take my sword into thy hand? Only to those who are little in their own eyes, shall God say, as Christ said to his Church, Noli timere, fear not little flock, for it is your Fathers good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. It is not called a Kingdom, but the Kingdom; that Kingdom, which alone, is worth all the kingdoms that the devil shown Christ, The Kingdom of Heaven. Be but a worm and no man, as David speaks even in the person of Christ; find thyself trodden underfoot, and under thine own foot, that is, depressed in thine own estimation, and God shall raise thee with that supportation, Fear not thou worm of Jacob, ye men of Israel. Be but worms and no more, in your own eyes, and God shall make you men, be but men and no more in your own eyes, and GOD shall make you the men of his Israel. This was Moses way; not a running away from God, but a turning into himself; not a reluctance against God, but a consideration of himself. For, though the lazy man's Quis ego, shall not profit him, when he shall say, what am I? I am but one man, I can do nothing alone, and so leave all reformation un-attempted in his place, because others will ••• orme nothing in theirs; (for, that which David says, If thou sawest a thief, Currebas, thou didst rise and run with him, is not much worse, then when thou seest a lazy man, to lie down and sleep with him) Though this man's Quis ego, what am I? shall not profit him, for it is but the voice of prevarication, in the ordinary duties of his calling, yet in Moses case, in every undertaking of a new action, this examination, this exinanition of ourselves is acceptable in the fight of God. And therefore Calvin says justly of this particular, in Moses case, Non modo culpa vacare, sed laude dignum puto, that Moses in this his proceeding with God, was so far from deserving blame, that he deserved much praise. And so it seems, God himself interpreted it, and accepted it; for first, for his way, he gives him that assurance, Certainly I will be with thee; and then for the end, and the effect too, he directs him thus, when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt (as, certainly this people thou shalt bring from thence) then shall they serve God upon this Mountain. And further we may not carry the consideration of Moses first excuse, arising out of the contemplation of his own insufficiency, in general.

The second doubt and difficulty that Moses makes to himself, and presents to God, is this, that he was not able to tell them to whom he was sent, his name that sent him. When I am come to them, says Moses to God, and shall say, thou hast sent me, and they shall say, what is his Name, what shall I say unto them? In Eusebius his history, A Tyran, a persecutor, asks a martyr, Artalus, in the midst of his torments, in scorn and contempt, What is your God's name? you pretend a necessity of worshipping a new God, your God, but what shall we call your God, what is your God's name? And the Martyr answered, Qui plures sunt, nominibus decernuntur, qui unus est, nomine non indiget: You who worship many God's, need many names to distinguish your God's by; we, who know but one God, need no other name of God, but God; we who worship the only true God, need not the semi-gods, nor the sesqui-gods of the Roman Church; not their semi-gods, their half-gods, men beatified, but not sanctified; made private gods, but not public gods; chamber-gods, but not Church-gods; nor any sesqui-god, any that must be more then God, and receive appeals from God, and reverse the decrees of God, which they make the office of the Virgin Mary, whom no man can honor too much, that makes her not God, and they dishonor most, that make her so much more. But yet, some names, some notifications of God, no doubt the Jews had: Moses says here, that he would tell them, that the God of their Fathers had sent him; which was a name of specification, and distinction of this GOD, from all the gods of the Gentiles. But in this place, Moses desires such a name of God, as might not only intimate to them to whom he was sent, a great power in that Prince that sent him, but might also intimate a great privacy, and confidence in him that was sent; A name, by which he might be known, to know more of that God, then other men knew; for, nothing advances a business more, then when he that is employed, is believed to know the mind, and to have the heart of him, that sends him. Therefore God gives Moses a cyphar; God declares to Moses, his bosom name, his viscerall name, his radical, his fundamental name, the name of his Essence, Qui sum, I am; Go, and tell them, that he whose name is I am, hath sent thee. It is true, that literally in the Original, this name is conceived in the future; it is there, Qui ero, I that shall be. But this present acceptation, I am, hath passed through all Translators, and all Commentors, and Fathers, and Councils, and Schools, and the whole Church of God rests in it. And I know but one, (who is of the Reformation, and of the most rigid sub-division in the Reformation, and who hath many other singularities besides this) that will needs translate this name, Qui eram, I was. Howsoever, all intend, that this is a name that denotes Essence, Being: Being is the name of God, and of God only: for, of every other creature, Plato says well, Ejus nomen est potius non esse; The name of the Creator is, I am, but of every creature rather, I am not, I am nothing. He considers it, and concludes it, in the best, and noblest of creatures, Man; for, he, as well as the rest, plus habet non entis, quam entis; Man hath more privatives, then positives in him; Man hath but his own being; Man hath not the being of an Angel, nor the being of a lyon; God hath all in a kind of eminence more excellently then the kinds themselves, only his name is I am. Plato pursues this consideration usefully; Habuit ante aeternum non esse, Man had an eternal not being before; that is, before the creation; for those infinite millions of millions of generations before the Creation, there was a God, whose name was I am; but till within these six thousand years, Man was not, there was no man. And so says Plato, Haberet aeternum non esse, 〈◊〉 Man had an eternal not being before the Creation; so he would have another eternal not-being after his dissolution by death, in soul, as well as in body, if God did not preserve that being, which he hath imprinted in both, in both. And jam dum est, says he, As man had one eternal not being before, and would have another after, so for that being which he seems to have here now, it is a continual declination into a not being, because he is in continual change, and mutation, quae desinit in non esse, as he says well; Every change and mutation bends to a not being, because in every change, it comes to a not being that which it was before; only the name of God is I am.

In which name, God gave Moses, and does give us who are also his Ambassadors, so much knowledge of himself, as that we may tell you, though not what God is, yet, that God is; God, in the notification of this name, sends us sufficiently instructed, to establish you in the assurance of an everlasting, and an ever-ready God, but not to scatter you with unnecessary speculations, and impertinencies concerning this God. He is no fit messenger between God and his Church, that knows not God's name; that is, how God hath notified, and manifested himself to man. God hath manifested himself to man in Christ; and manifested Christ in the Scriptures; and manifested the Scriptures in the Church; the name of God is the notification of God; how God will be called by man, and that is, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; and how God will be called upon by man, that is, that all our prayers to God be directed in, and through, and by, and for Christ Jesus. If we know the name of God, Qui sum, I am, that is, believe Christ Jesus, whom we worship to have been from all eternity, to be God; and then for more particular points, believe those Doctrines, quae sunt, which are, that is, Quae sunt ubique, & semper, as Lyrinensis says, which have been always believed, and always believed to have been necessary to be believed as articles of Faith, through the whole Catholic Church, if we know the name of God thus, we have our Commission, and our qualification in that Gospel, Go, and teach all Nations, and baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Ghost; that is the name of God to a Christian, the Trinity. And least that Commission so delivered in the general and fundamental manner, professing the Trinity, should not seem enough, it is repeated and paraphrased in the verse following, Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. First there is a Teaching; good life itself is but a commentary, an exposition upon our preaching; that which is first laid upon us is preaching; and then teach them to observe, that is, to practice; breed them not in an opinion that such a faith as is without works is enough; and teach them to observe All; For, for matter of practice, He that breaks one Law is guilty of all, and he that thinks to serve God by way of compensation, that is, to recompense God by doing one duty, for the omission of another, sins even in that, in which he thinks he serves God; and for matter of belief, he that believes not all, solvit Iesum, as S. John speaks, he takes Jesus in pieces, and after the Jews have crucified him, he dissects him, and makes him an Anatomy. We must therefore teach all; but then it is but all, which Christ hath commanded us; additional and traditional doctrines of the Papist, speculative and dazzling, riddling and entangling perplexities of the School, passionate, and uncharitable wranglings of Controverters, these fall not in Moses Commission, nor ours, who participate of his; we are to deliver to you by the Ordinance of God, Preaching, The name of God, that is, how God hath manifested himself to man, and how God will be called upon by man, That God is your God in Christ, if you receive Christ in the Scriptures, applied in the Church. And farther we carry not our consideration upon this second excuse of Moses, in which (as in the former, he considered his insufficiency in the general) he considers it in this, that he had not studied, he had not acquired, he had not sought the knowledge of those Mysteries which appertained to that calling, implied in that, that he did not know God's name.

His third excuse, which induces a great discouragement, arises out of a defect in nature, whereas the former is rather of art, and study, and consideration; and to be naturally defective in those faculties, which are essential and necessary to that work, which is under our hand, is a great discouragement. Lameness is not always an insupportable calamity; but for Mephibosheth to have been hindered by lameness then, when he should have received favor from the King, and settled his inheritance, this was a heavy affliction. Lownesse of stature is no insupportable thing; but when Zacchaeus came with such a desire to see Christ, then to be disappointed by reason of his lowness, this might affect him. It is not always insupportable to lack the assistance of a servant, or a friend; But when the Angel hath troubled the water, and made it medicinal for him that is first put in and no more, then to have lain many years in expectation, and still to lack a servant, or a friend to do that office, this is a misery. And this was Moses case; God will send him upon a service, that consisted much in persuasion, and good speech, and he says, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken to thy servant. Where we see, there is some degree of eloquence required in the delivery of God's Messages. There are not so eloquent Books in the world, as the Scriptures; neither should a man come to any kind of handling of them with uncircumcised lips, as Moses speaks, or with an extemporal and irreverent, or over-homely and vulgar language. The preparation of the heart is of the Lord, says Solomon; but it is not only that; The preparation of the heart, and the answer of the tongue is of the Lord. To conceive good things for the glory of God, and to express them to the edification of God's people, is a double blessing of God. Therefore does Hester form and institute her prayer to God so, Give me boldness, O Lord of all power; but she extends her prayer farther, And give me eloquent speech in my mouth. And the want of this in a natural defect, and unreadinesse of speech discouraged Moses. And when God recompenses, and supplies this defect in Moses, he does it but thus, I will be with thy mouth, and I will teach thee what thou shalt say. Still it is Moses that must say it; still Moses mouth that must utter it. Beloved, it is the general Ordinance of God, of whom, as we have received mercy, we have received the Ministry, and it is the particular grace of God that inanimates our labors, and makes them effectual upon you; All that is not of our planting, nor watering, but of God that gives the increase; But yet we must labor to get, and labor to improve such learning, and such language, and such other abilities as may best become that service; for the natural want of one of these, retarded Moses from a present acceptation of God's employment. And so truly, should put any man, that puts himself, or puts his son upon this profession, upon that consideration, whether he have such natural parts as will admit acquisitions, and superedifications fit for that calling. And farther we carry not Moses third excuse, raised out of a natural defect, non sum eloquens, I am not eloquent enough.

The fourth is a shrewd discouragement: In the first verse of this Chapter, He answered and said, but behold, they will not believe me; when I have told them thy name, how thou hast manifested thyself to them, and in what name they must call upon thee, Behold, they will not believe me; And this is the saddest discouragement that can fall upon the Minister and Messenger of God, not to be believed. God found this, and complained of it at first, Quous{que} non credent? how long will it be ere this people believe? they will never believe. The Prophet Isaiah foresaw this; Quis credidit? Lord who hath believed our report? No man doth, no man will believe us. S. John found this prophecy of Isaiah fulfilled even then, when Christ in person was preaching, and working of Miracles; then says that Evangelist, was that of Isaiah fulfilled, They believed not his report. And S. Paul saw it performed amongst the Gentiles, as well as S. John amongst the Jews, Lord who hath believed our report? Christ hath said himself, and Christ hath bidden us say, Qui non crediderit, damnabitur, He that believes not, shall be damned: And yet, Lord who hath believed our report? There cannot fall a sadder discouragement upon the Messenger of God, then not to be believed.

How loath we find the blessed Fathers of the Primitive Church, to lack company at their Sermons? How earnestly Leo, in one of his Anniversary Sermons, complains of multitudes, and thrusts at Plays, and Masks, and of a thinness, and scarcity, and solitude at Church? How glad they were to draw men thither? And then how much they endeavored, to hold them in a disposition of hearkening unto them, when they had them? Sometimes with observing them with phrases of humiliation; So Damascene professes himself Minimum servum Ecclesiae, the meanest and unworthiest servant to that Congregation. So Leo presents himself, Ad vestra paratus obsequia, Ready to do all obsequious service to that Congregation: And so S. Augustine, In hoc vobis servimus, we shall do this congregation the best service, in handling this point thus. Sometimes they did it so, by submitting themselves to the Congregation, in phrases of humiliation; and sometimes, by taking knowledge of the pious, and devout behavior of the congregation, even in their Sermons, and thanking them for it; As Leo does too, Quod non tacito honorastis affectu, That they did countenance that which was said, with a holy murmur, with a religious whispering, and with an ocular applause, with fixing their eyes upon the Preacher, and with turning their eyes upon one another; for those outward declarations were much, very much in use in those times. And though in the excess of such outward declarations, S. Chrysost: complain of them, Non Theatrum Ecclesia, My masters, what mean you, the Church is not a Theater, Quae mihi istorū plausuum utilitas? what get I by these plaudites, & acclamations? I had rather have one soul, then all these hands and eyes: yet it is easy to observe, in the general proceeding of those blessed Fathers, that they had a holy delight to be heard, and to be heard with delight. For, Nemo flectitur, qui moleste audit; No man profits by a Sermon, that hears with pain, or weariness. Therefore S. Chrysoslome awakes his drouzie Auditory with that alarm, His quae jam dicuntur, &c. Hearken, I pray you now, says he; for, Non rem vulgarem pollicemur, It is no ordinary matter that I shall tell you: and having so awakened them, he keeps them awake, with such Doctrines as he thought fittest for their edification. And to the same purpose, S. Augustine does not only profess of himself, Non praetermitto istos numeros clausularum, That he studied at home, to make his language sweet, and harmonious, and acceptable to God's people, but he believes also, that S. Paul himself, and all the Apostles, had a delight, and a complacency, and a holy melting of the bowels, when the congregation liked their preaching: The Fathers were glad to be heard, glad to be liked, and glad to be understood too; for, therefore doth Damascene repeat, almost verbatim, that great Sermon of his De Imaginibus, a second time, because (as he assigns the reason) he was not thoroughly understood, in the first preaching thereof; And therefore doth Ezra extend himself so far, as to preach from morning (as it is in the Original, from the light) till noon, that by giving himself that compass, he might carry every point in a clearness, as he went. Now if these blessed Fathers, these Angels of the Church, these Archangels of the Primitive Church, were thus affected, if they were not frequented, but neglected for other entertainments; or if they were not hearkened to, when they were heard, but heard perfunctorily, fragmentarily, here and there a rag, a piece of a sentence; Or if they were not understood, because they that heard were scattered, and distracted with other thoughts, and so withdrawn from their observation; or if they were not liked, because the Auditory had some pre-contracts upon other Preachers, that they liked better; how may we think, that those holy and blessed spirits were troubled, if they were not believed? This destroys and demolishes the whole body of our building; this evacuates the whole function of our Ministry, if we lose our credibility; if we may not be believed; if the Church conceive a jealousy, that we preach to serve turns; And therefore vae per quem, and vae per quos; woe unto that man (if any such man there should ever be) that gives just occasion of such a jealousy, that he preaches to serve turns; And woe to them (who abound everywhere) who entertain such jealousies, where no just occasion is offered, but mis-interpret the faithful labors of God's true servants, and think everything done to serve turns, that doth not agree with their distemper, in the likeness of zeal. The Fathers were sorry if they were not heard, if they were not understood, if they were not liked; But the saddest discouragement of all, is the Non credent, if we be not believed. And farther we carry not our Consideration upon Moses four excuses; of which the first was, in Contemplation of his own insufficiency in general; The second, in that particular, of not having furnished himself with additions necessary for that service; The third, because he had a defect in natural faculties; and the last, for the indisposition of them, to whom he was to go.

But then the fifth, which is not so much an excuse, as a petition, (O my Lord, send I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send) tastes of most vehemence, and, as it may seem, of some passion in Moses. He says first, Quis ego? I am not worthy of this employment; That's true; but thou art able to qualify me for it; and that objection is taken away. Quod nomen? I know not thy name, how thou wilt be called, and how thou wilt be called upon by men; I have not studied that: But thou hast revealed unto me the knowledge of fundamental doctrines, necessary for salvation, and that objection is removed. Non facundus, I am not eloquent, not of ready speech, defective in those natural faculties; But the spirit of eloquence, and the irresistibleness of persuasion is in that mouth, in which thou speakest: and that excuse is taken away too. Non credent; I know their stubbornness, to whom I go, they will not believe me; But thou hast put the power of Miracles into my hands, as well as knowledge into my heart; God makes sometimes a plain and simple man's good life, as powerful, as the eloquentest Sermon. All this I acknowledge, says Moses; But yet, O Lord, when thou shalt have done all this, in me, and in them, made me worthy by thy power, taught me thy Name by thy grace, infused a perswasibility into them, and a perswasivenesse into me, by thy Spirit, yet there is One who is to be sent, One whom I know thou wilt send, One, whom, pursuing thine own Decree, thou shouldst send, One, whose shoe-latchet I shall not be worthy to untie then, when thou shalt have multiplied all these qualifications upon me, and therefore, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by his hand, send him, send Christ now. So then, with the ancient Fathers, with Justin Martyr, with S. Basil, with Tertullian, with more, many, very many more, we may safely take this to be a supplication, That God would be pleased to hasten the coming of the Messias.

Of our later writers, Calvin departs from the Ancients herein, so far, as to say, nimis coacta, it seems somewhat a forced, somewhat an unnatural sense, to interpret these words of the coming of Christ; but he proceeds no farther. But another, of the same sub-division, is, (as he uses to be) more assured, more confident; and he says, est omnimoda & praecisa recusatio; It is an absolute refusal in Moses, to obey the commandment of God: And that truly, needed not to have been said. Now, when we consider the exposition in the Roman Church, when their great Bishop, (I mean their great writing Bishop) departs from the Ancients, & does not understand these words of the coming of Christ, a Jesuit is so bold with that Bishop, (their order forbids them to be Bishops, but not to be Controllers over Bishops) as to tell him, levis objectio, that he departs from a good foundation, the Fathers, and that upon a light reason. And when another Author in that Church proceeds farther, to so much vehemence, so much violence, as to say, that it is not only an incommodious, but a superstitious sense, to interpret these words of the coming of Christ, two Jesuits correct him, almost in the same words, (for in the ways of contumely and defamation, they agree well) and say, audacter obstrepit, he does but saucily bark, and kick against the ancient Fathers, quibus ipse, says Pererius, to whom himself is not to be compared, neither for learning in himself, nor for place and dignity in the Church, nor for sanctity and holiness of life in the world. They may be as bold with one another, as they please; Indeed they are so used to uncharitable phrases towards all others, as sometimes they cannot spare one another. For our part, we lay no such imputations upon any of our later men, that accept not that sense of these words, but yet, we cannot doubt of leave to accompany the Fathers in that Exposition, that these words, O my Lord, send I pray thee, by the hand of him, whom thou wilt send, are a petition, and not a reluctance against God. And that, not as Lyra takes them; Lyra takes them to be a petition, and not a reluctance; but a petition of Moses, that he would send Aaron; That, if he would send any, he should send a man of better parts, and abilities, then himself; and this is a rare modesty, when a man is named for any place, to become suitor for another to that place; Moses was the meekest man upon earth; but this was not his meaning here. Nor as Rabbi Solomon takes it; he takes it for a Petition, and no reluctance; but, a Petition, that God would send Joshua; For, (says that Rabbi ) Moses had had a Revelation, that Joshua, and not he, should be the man, that should bring that People into the Land of Promise; and therefore, since Joshua was to have the honor of the action, Moses would have laid the burden upon him too; but this makes Moses a more fashionall, a more particular, a more self-considering man, for his own estimation, then he was. But, with the Ancients, and later devout men, we piously believe Moses in these words to have extended his Devotion towards his Nation, and the whole world together, as far, as one of them hath extended the Exposition; quid prodest ex Egypto exire, & in peccatis manere, says he; what shall they be the better, for coming out of the pressures of Egypt, if they must remain still, under the oppression of a sinful conscience? And that must be their case, if thou send but a Moses, and not a Christ to their succor. Quid Pharaonem essugere, & non Diabolum, says he; what shall they get, in being delivered from Pharaoh, if they be not delivered from the Devil? Intrare in terram promissam, & non in coelum? What preferment is it, to dwell in a good Land, and to be banished out of heaven? And this will be their case, if thou send but a Moses, and not a Christ, for their deliverance. He carries it from them, to God himself: Quid unum populum e servitute temporali liberare, & totum genus humanum relinquere sub potestate Diaboli? What glory will it be to thee, O God, who studiest thine own glory, to deliver one Nation from a temporal bondage, and leave all Mankind under everlasting condemnation? And that must be the case of all, if thou send but a Moses, and not a Christ; Moses, may, by thine abundant goodness, do some good; but there is one, one appointed to be sent, that will do all which Moses should do, better then Moses, and infinitely more then Moses can do, or, of himself, so much as wish to be done; and therefore send him, send him now, to do all together: And so these words are a Petition, and no Reluctation, though some men have taken them so; and a Petition for the sending of Christ, and no Aaron, no Joshua, no other man; though some have taken so too.

Yet we do not deliver Moses from all infirmity herein; no nor from all error, and mistaking; no more then we do in that other prayer of his, dele me, pardon this people, or blot my name out of thy Book, where Moses capitulated too narrrowly, and upon too strict conditions with God. Therefore, in this place, it follows presently upon this prayer, That God was angry with him. Unseasonable prayers, though because they may be rooted in piety, they may be, in some sort, excusable in him that makes them, yet may be unacceptable to God. S. August. prayed for a dead Mother, Monica; and S. Ambrose prayed for a dead Master, Theodesi • s; God forbid we should condemn Augustine or Ambrose of impiety in doing so; But God forbid we should make Augustine or Ambrose his example, our rule to do so still. This sending of Christ, which Moses solicits here, was de Arcanit Dei; It was one of the secrets of his State, and of his government; It was one of his bosom Counsels, and Cabinet Decrees: One of those reserved cases, which he had communicated to no man; as the day of Christ's second coming, his coming to Judgment, is now; which God hath communicated to no man; as the clear understanding of the state of the dead, who are departed this life, God hath imparted to no man; nor some circumstances of time, and place, and person in Antichrist; God hath revealed these to no man, not to his whole Church; These are acts of his Regality, and of his Prerogative; and as Princes say of their Prerogative, nolumus disputari, we will not have it disputed, nor called into question, so for these Reserved cases, and unrevealed Counsels of God, such as was the first coming of Christ in Moses time, and such as is the second coming of Christ, now in our time, God would not be importuned. God meant to give the children of Israel a King, from the beginning; we presume he meant it, because it is the best blessing of all forms of government: And we see he meant it, because long before, he established Laws, by which, they should govern themselves, in their choosing their King, and by which, their King should govern them, when he was chosen; yet God was angry, when they importuned him for a King, at such a time, and upon such terms, as he intended not to do it. But now, because in Moses case, though there were not a present obedience, yet there was no disobedience, the fault being no greater, the anger was not great neither; and therefore we may safely say with Rupertus, that the iratus fuit, was but non propitius fuit; God was so angry, as that he did not grant, nor accept Moses petition, nor entertain any farther discourse with him, concerning the sending of Christ; In Abraham's solicitation, in the behalf of Sodom, it is said, that God went not away, as long as Abraham had anything to say; But here, God was so far angry, as to break off Moses discourse: But his anger was not so much an Increpation, that he had said anything, as an Instruction that he should say no more of God's unrevealed purposes.

Therefore God does not continue his anger, so as to discontinue his work. It was but a Catechisticall anger, such an anger as S. Bernard begs at God's hands, Irascaris mihi Domine, O Lord, be angry with me, and leave me not to myself; thou hast an anger, that instructs in the way; but thou hast a heavy indignation, that confounds, and exterminates in the end. Therefore our prayer in the Litany, is not, O Lord be never angry with us; but, O Lord, be not angry with us, forever. David was a man according to God's heart; yet, no doubt, but God was angry with David, for the matter of Uriah, as himself calls it. God was not angry with Moses so, as that he gave over his purpose of delivering Israel, or of delivering Israel by him, and him established in a cheerful assurance to undertake it; for in the same breath, in the same words, in the same verse, wherein his anger is expressed, his Benignity, and his Benevolence is expressed also; for there he says, Is not Aaron thy Brother; I know he can speak well; and also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: God had laid it so, that Moses should be settled this way, by having so able a man, and then, a man in whom he might be so confident, as a brother, joined in commission with him. Slide we in this note by the way; God loves not singularity: God binds us to nothing, that was never said but by one: As God loves Sympathy, God loves Symphony; God loves a compassion and fellow-feeling of others miseries, that is Sympathy, and God loves Harmony, and fellow believing of others Doctrines, that is Symphony: No one man alone makes a Church; no one Church alone makes a Catholic Church. Christ sent his own Disciples by couples, two and two: And Aquinas says out of his observation, Monachus solus est Daemon solitarius: Though naturally a Monk must love retiredness, yet a single Monk, a Monk always alone, says he, is plotting some singular mischief. Deus qui habitat in nobis, etiam nos custodiet ex nobis, is excellently said by that excellent Father: God that dwells in us, will sustain the building, and repair the building out of ourselves; that is, he will make us Tutelar Angels to one another; and a holy, and reverential respect to one another, in good conversation, shall keep us from many sinful actions, which we would commit if we were alone. So then, God was not so angry, nor angry so with Moses, as that he did not pursue his first purpose upon him, of sending him, & sending him so, as might best speed, & advance his Negotiation. And therefore, as Moses praying for Christ's first coming, which was one of God's reserved cases, and an act of his regality, and Prerogative, though he had not that prayer granted, yet was not left unsatisfied, nor unaccommodated by God, so, (which is the end, that we drive all to) when the calamities; and distresses of this life oppress us, and we pray for the second coming of Christ, in the consummation of all, in glory, though, because this second coming of Christ, is one of God's Reserved cases, and an act of his Regality, and Prerogative, he do not grant that, that Christ do not come so; yet, in his blessed Spirit, he will come to us, in an assurance, that when he shall come so, in judgment, we in his right, shall stand upright even in that Judgment: And, if in extraordinary distresses, we pray for extraordinary reliefes, though extraordinary helps, and miracles be Reserved cases, and acts of his Regality, and Prerogative; yet, as he remembers his mercies, of old, he will remember his miracles of old too, (and as his mercies are new every morning, his miracles shall be new every morning too; and all that he did in eighty eight, in the last Centutry, he shall do (if we need it) in twenty eight, in this Century;) And though he may be angry with our prayers, as they are but verbal prayers, and not accompanied with actions of obedience, yet he will not be angry with us forever, but re-establish at home, zeal to our present Religion, and good correspondence, and affections of all parts to one another, and our power, and our honor, in foreign Nations. Amen.

SERMON VI. Preached at S. Paul's, upon Christmas Day. 1628.

I Have named to you no book, no chapter, no verse, where these words are written: But I forbore not out of forgetfulness, nor out of singularity, but out of perplexity rather, because these words are written, in more then one, in more then two places of the Bible. In your ordinary conversation, and communication with other men, I am sure you have all observed, that many men have certain forms of speech, certain interjections, certain suppletory phrases, which fall often upon their tongue, and which they repeat almost in every sentence; and; for the most part, impertinently; and then, when that phrase conduces nothing to that which they would say; but rather disorders and discomposes the sentence, and confounds, or troubles the hearer. And this, which some do out of slackness, and in-observance, and infirmity, many men, God knows, do out of impiety; many men have certain suppletory Oaths, with which they fill up their Discourse, then, when they are not only not the better believed, but the worse understood for those blasphemous interjections. Now, this, which you may thus observe, in men, sometimes out of infirmity, sometimes out of impiety, out of an accommodation and communicablenesse of himself to man, out of desire, and a study, to shed himself the more familiarly, and to infuse himself the more powerfully into man, you may observe even in the holy Ghost in himself, in the Scriptures, which are the discourse and communication of God with man; There are certain idioms, certain forms of speech, certain propositions, which the holy Ghost repeats several times, upon several occasions in the Scriptures. It is so in the instrumental Authors of the particular Books of the Bible; There are certain forms of speech, certain characters, upon which I would pronounce, That's Moses, and not David, that's Job, and not Solomon, that's Isaiah and not Jeremiah. How often does Moses repeat his Vivit Dominus, and Ego vivo, As the Lord liveth, and As I live, saith the Lord? How often does Solomon repeat his vanitas vanitatum, All is vanity? How often does our blessed Savior repeat his Amen, Amen? and, in another sense, then others had used that word before him; so often, as that you may reckon it thirty times, in one Evangelist; so often, as that that may not inconveniently be thought some reason, why S. John called Christ by that name, Amen, Thus saith Amen, He whose name is Amen. How often does S. Paul, (especiallly in his Epistles to Timothy, and to Titus ) repeat that phrase Fidelis Sermo, This is a true, and faithful saying? And how often, his juratory caution, Coram Domino, before the Lord; As God is my witness? And as it is thus for particular persons, and particular phrases, that they are often repeated; so are there certain whole sentences, certain entire propositions, which the holy Ghost does often repeat in the Scripture. And, except we except that proposition, of which S. Peick makes his use, That God is no accepter of persons, (for that is repeated in very many places, that everywhere, upō every occasiō, every man might be remembered of that, that God is no accepter of persons; Take heed how you presume upon your own knowledge, or your actions, for God is no accepter of persons; Take heed how you condemn another man for an Heretic, because he believes not just as you believe; or for a Reprobate, because he lives not just as you live, for God is no accepter of persons; Take heed how you rely wholly upon the outward means, that you are wrapped in the covenant, that you are bred in a reformed Church, for God is no accepter of persons) except you will except this proposition, I scarce remember any other that is so often repeated in the Scriptures, as this which is our Text, Lord, who hath believed our report? For, it is first in the Prophet Isaiah. There the Prophet is in holy throws, and pangs, and agonies, till he be delivered of that prophecy, the coming of the Messiah; the incarnation of Christ Jesus, and yet is put to this exclamation, Domine, quis credidit? Lord who hath believed our report? And then you have these words in the Gospel of S. John; where we are not put upon the consideration of a future Christ in prophecy, but the Evangelist exhibits Christ in person, actually, really, visibly, evidently, doing great works, executing great judgments, multiplying great Miracles; and yet put to the application of this exclamation, Domine, quis credidit? Lord, who hath believed this report? And then you have these words also in S. Paul, where we do not consider a prophecy of a future Christ, nor a history of a present Christ, but an application of that whole Christ to every soul, in the fetling of a Church, in that concatenation of means for the infusion of faith expressed in that Chapter, sending, and preaching, and hearing; and yet for all these powerful and familiar assistances, Domine, quis crodidit? Lord, who hath believed that report? So that now beloved, you cannot say that you have a Text without a place; for you have three places for this Text: you have it in the great Prophet, in Isaiah, in the great Evangelist, in S. John; and in the great Apostle, in S. Paul. And because in all three places, the words minister useful doctrine of edification, we shall, by yours and the times leave, consider the words in all three places.

In all three, the words are a sad and a serious expostulation of the Minister of God, with God himself, that his Means and his Ordinances powerfully committed to him, being faithfully transmitted by him to the people, were nevertheless fruitless, and ineffectual. I do Lord as thou biddest me, says the Prophet Isaiah; I prophecy, I foretell the coming of the Messiah, the incarnation of thy Son for the salvation of the world, and I know that none of them that hear me, can imagine or conceive any other way for the redemption of the world, by fatisfaction to thy Justice, but this, and yet, Domine quis credidit? Lord who hath believed my report? I do Lord as thou biddest me, says Christ himself in S. John; I come in person, I glorify thy name, I do thy will, I preach thy Gospel, I confirm my doctrine with evident Miracles, and I seal those Seals, I confirm those Miracles with my Blood; and yet, Quis credidit? Lord who hath believed my report? I do Lord as thou biddest me, says everyone of us, who, as we have received mercy, have received the Ministry; I obey the inward calling of the Spirit, I accept the outward calling of the Church; furnished, and established with both these, I come into the world, I preach absolution of sins to every repentant Soul, I offer the seals of reconciliation to every contrite spirit; and yet, Domine quis credidit? Lord who hath believed my report? Indeed it is a sad contemplation, and must necessarily produce a serious and a vehement expostulation, when the predictions of God's future judgments (so we shall find the case to have been in the words in Isaiah ) when the execution of God's present judgments, (so we shall find the case to have been in the words in S. John ) when the Ordinances of God, for the relief of any soul, in any judgment, in his Church, are not believed. To say I believe you not, amounts to a lie; Not to believe God's warnings before, not to believe God's present judgments, not to believe that God hath established a way to come to him in all distresses, this is to give God the lie; and with this is the world charged in this Text, Lord who hath believed our report?

First then, where we find these words first, the Prophet reproaches their unbelief, and hardness of heart, in this, that they did not believe future things, future calamities, future judgments; for that is intended in that place. For, though this 53. of Isaiah be the continuation, and the consummation of that doctrine which the Prophet began to propose in the Chapter immediately preceding, which is, the coming of the Messiah (in general, the comfortablest doctrine that could be proposed) though this Chapter be especially that place, upon which S. Jerome grounds that Eulogy of Isaiah, that Isaiah was rather an Evangelist then a Prophet, because of his particular declaration of Christ in this Chapter; though upon this Chapter our Expositors sometimes say, that as we cite the Gospel according to S. Matthew, and the Gospel according to S. John, so here we may say, the Gospel according to the Prophet Isaiah; yet though this be a prophecy of the coming of Christ, and so, the comfortablest doctrine that can be proposed in the general, and in the end, and fruit of that coming, yet it is a prophecy of the exinanition of Christ, of the evacuation of Christ, of the inglorious and ignominious estate, the calamitous, and contumelious estate of Christ: Their Messias they should have; but that Messias should be reputed a Malefactor, and as a Malefactor crucified; Which miseries, and calamities being to fall upon him, for them, they ought to have been as sensible, and as much affected with those miseries to be endured for them, as if they had been to have fallen upon themselves. The later Jews and their Rabbins since the dispersion, do not, will not believe this prophecy of miseries, and calamities to belong to their Messias. They do not, they will not believe, that that which is said, That there is no form, no beauty, no comeliness in him, so that men should long for him before, or desire to look upon him after, should have any reference to their Messiah, whom they expect in all outward splendor and glory; Nor that that which is added there, That he should be despised, and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs, should belong to him, in whose proceedings in this world, they look for continual Victories and Triumphs. But they will needs understand these miseries, and calamities prophesied here, to be those calamities, and those miseries, which have fallen, and dwelt upon their Nation, ever since their dispersion after Christ's death. Now let it be but such a prophecy as that; take it either way; The Christian way, a prophecy of calamities upon the Messiah for them; or the Jews way, of calamities upon them for the Messiah; still it is a prophecy of future calamities, future judgments, of which they ought to have been sensible, and with which they ought to have been affected, and were not: And so that's their charge, they did not believe the Prophets report, they were not moved with God's judgments denounced upon them, by those Prophets. Now, was this so heinous, not to believe a Prophet?

The office and function of a Prophet, in the time of the Law, was not so evident, nor so ordinary an office, as the office of the Priest and Minister in the Gospel now is; There was not a constant, an ordinary, a visible calling in the Church, to the office of a Prophet. Neither the high-priest, nor the Ecclesiastical Consistory, the Synedrium, did by any imposition of hands, or other Collation, or Declaration, give Orders to any man so, as that thereby that man was made a Prophet. I know some men, of much industry, and perspicacy too, in searching into those Scriptures, the sense whereof is not obvious to every man, have thought that the Prophets had an outward and a constant declaration of their Calling. And they think it proved, by that which is said to Elijah, when God commands him to anoint Hazael K. of Syria, & to anoint Jehu K. of Israel, & to anoint Elisha Prophet in his own room: Therefore, say they, the Prophet had as much evidence of his Calling, as the Minister hath, for that unction was as evident a thing, as our Imposition of hands is. And it is true, it was so, where it was actually, and really executed. But then, nothing is more evident, then that this word Meshiach, which signifies Anointing, is not restrained to that very action, a real unction, but frequently transferred, & communicated in a Scripture use, to every kind of Declaration of any Election, any Institution, any Inauguration, any Investiture of any person to any place; And, less then that, of any appropriation, any applicatiō of anything to any particular use. Any appointing was an anointing; As in particular (for many other places) where S. Jerome reads, Arripite clypeos, buckle your shields; To you, which was an alarm to them, to arm, the original hath it, and so hath our translation, Anoint your shields; to apply them to their right use, was called an Anointing. And when God calls Cyrus, the King of Persia, Vnctum suum, his Anointed; it were weakly, and improperly argued from that word, that Cyrus King of Persia, was literally, actually, anointed; for that unction was peculiar to the Kings of Israel; but Cyrus was the anointed of the Lord, that is, declared and avowed by the Lord, to be his chosen Instrument. Neither could Elijah, literally execute this commandment, for anointing Hasael King of Syria; for Hasael the King of Syria could not be anointed by the Prophet of the Lord, for such unction was peculiar to the Kings of Israel. And for the Kings of Israel themselves, their own Rabbins tell us, that they were not ordinarily anointed, but only in those cases, where there arose some question, and difference, about the succession; as in Solomon's case; there, because Adonijah pretended to the succession; to make all the more sure, David proceeded with a solemnity, and appointed an anointing of Solomon, which, otherwise, say their Rabbins, had not been done. But howsoever it may have been for their Kings, there seems to be a plain distinction between them, and the Prophets in the Psalm, for this evidence of unction; Touch not mine Anointed, says God there: They, they that were Anointed, constitute one rank, one classis; and then follows, And do my Prophets no harm: They, they who were not Anointed, the Prophets, constitute another classis, another rank. So that then an internal, a spiritual unction the Prophets had, that is, an application, an appropriation to that office from God, but a constant, an evident calling to that function, by any external act of the Church, they had not, but it was an extraordinary office, and imposed immediately by God; and therefore the people might seem the more excusable, if they did not believe a Prophet presently, because the office of the Prophet did not carry with it, such a manifestation by anything evidently done upon him, and visible to them, that by that, that man must be a Prophet. But, as God clothes himself with light, as with a garment; so God clothes, and apparells his works with light too: for, frustra fecisset, says S. Ambrose, God had made creatures to no purpose, if he had not made light to see them by. Therefore when God does any extraordinary work, he accompanies that work with anextraordinary light, by which, he for whose instruction God does that work, may know that work to be his. So when he sent his Prophets to his people, he accompanied their mission, with an effectual light, and evidence, by which, that people did acknowledge in their own hearts, that that man was sent by God to them. Therefore they called that man at first, Roeh, videntem, a Seer, one whom they acknowledged to have been admitted to the sight of God, in the declaration of his will to them: for so we have it in Samuel, He that is now called a Prophet, was before time called a Seer. And then that addition of the name of a Prophet, gave them a farther qualification; for, Nabi, which is a Prophet, is from Niba; and Niba, is venire facio, to cause, to make a thing to come to pass. So that a Prophet was not only praefator, but praefactor; He did not only presage, but preordain; that is, there was such an infallibility, such an inevitablenesse in that which he had said, as that his very saying of it, seemed to them some kind of cause of the accomplishing thereof. For, hence it is, that we have that phrase so often in the New Testament, This and this was thus and thus done, that such and such a Prophecy might be fulfilled: They never went to that heighth, that such or such a secret purpose, or unrevealed Decree of God might be fulfilled; but they rested in the Declaration which God had made in his Church, and were satisfied in the execution of his Decrees, in his visible Ordinances. Therefore the increpation which the Prophet lays upon the people here, (Lord, who hath believed our report) is not, that they did not believe those Prophets to be Prophets, (for though that were an extraordinary office, yet it was accompanied with an extraordinary light) neither was it, that they did not believe that those things which were prophesied by them, should come to pass, (for they believed that man to be Roeh, a Seer, one that had seen the Counsels of God concerning them; And they believed him to be Nabi, venire facientem, one upon whose word they might as infallibly rely, as upon a cause, for an effect;) But this was the sin of this people, this was the sorrow of this Prophet, that they did not believe these predictions to belong to them, they did not believe that these judgments would fall out in their time. In one word, present security was their sin. And was that so heinous?

So heinous, as that that is it, with which God was so highly incensed, and with which he meant so deeply to affect his people, in that considerable passage, in that remarkable, and vehement place, where he expostulates thus with them; Hear ye scornful men, (ye that make a jest, a scorn of future judgments) Hear ye scornful men, that rule this people, (says God there) (you that have a power over the affections of the people in the Pulpit, and can persuade what you will, or a power over the wills of the people in your place, and can command what you will) you that tell them (says the Prophet there) we have made a covenant with death, and are at an agreement with hell, (fear you nothing, let us alone; ambitious Princes shall turn their forces another way, antichristian plots shall be practiced in other nations) you that tell them (says he) when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come to you, (howsoever superstition be established in other places, howsoever prevailing armies be multiplied else-where, yet you shall have your religion, & your peace still; for we have made a covenant with death, & with hell, we are at an agreement) Hear ye scornful men, (says God) you that put this scorn upon my predictions, your covenant with death shall be disanulled, and your agreement with death shall not stand, (the fair promises of others to you, your own promises to yourselves shall deceive you) and the overflowing scourge shall pass thorough, thorough you all, for, you, (you scornful men) shall be trodden down by it; and, (as it follows there, in an elegant, and a vehement expression) it shall be a vexation, only to understand the report: You that would not believe the report of the Prophet, that for these and these sins, such and such Judgments should fall upon you, shall be confounded even with the report, the noise, the news, how this overslowing scourge hath passed thorough your neighbors round about you; how much more with the sense, when you yourselves shall be trodden down by it? There is scarce any of the Prophets, in which, God does not drive home this increpation of their security, and insensibleness of future calamities. As in Isaiah, so in Ezekiel God says, what is that Proverb which ye have in the Land of Israel? (it was, it seems, in every man's mouth, proverbially spoken by all) what was it? This, The days are prolonged, and every vision fails; The vision which he says, is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times afar off. But, (says God there) In your days, O rebellious house, will I say the word, and perform it: Not say it in our days, and perform it upon our children; but God will speak, and strike together, we shall hear him, and feel him at once, if we be not seriously affected with his predictions.

The same way God goes in Jeremiah, as in Isaiah, and in Ezekiel. I have sent unto you all my servants, the Prophets, (says God there) God hath no other servants, to this purpose, but his Prophets: If your dangers have been, by God's appointment, preached to you, God hath done. You must not, as Dives did, in the behalf of his brethren, look for. Messengers from the state of the dead; you must not stay for instruction, nor for amendment, till you be Pro mortuis, (as the Apostle speaks) as good as dead, ready to die; you must not stay till a Judgment fall, and then presume of understanding by that vexation, or of repentance by that affliction; for, this is to hearken after Messengers, from the state of the dead, to think of nothing till we be ready to join with them; But as Abraham says there to Dives, Thy brethren have the Law, and the Prophets, and that is enough, that is all, so God says here, I have sent them all my servants, the Prophets; that is enough, that is all: especially, when, (as God adds there) He hath risen early, and sent his Prophets, that is, given us warning time enough, before the calamity come near our own gates. But when they rejected, and despised all his Prophesies, and denunciations of future Judgments, then follows the sentence, the final, and fearful sentence. The Lord hath forsaken, and rejected them; Them; whom? as it follows in the sentence, The Lord hath forsaken, and rejected the generation of his wrath; The generation of his wrath? There is more horror, more consternation in that manner of expressing that rejection, then in the rejection it self; There is an insupportable weight, in that word. His wrath; but even that is infinitely aggravated in the other, The generation of his wrath. God hath forgot that Israel is his Son, and his first borne; So he avowed him to be in Moses commission to Pharaoh. God hath forgot that He rebuked Kings for his sake; that he testifies to have done in his behalf, in David; God hath forgot that they were heirs according to the promise; that is their dignification in the Apostle; forgot that they were the apple of his own eye, that they were as the signet upon his own hand; forgot that Ephraim is his dear Son, that he is a pleasing child, a child for whom his bowels were troubled; God hath forgot all these paternities, all these filiations, all these incorporatings, all these inviscerations of Israel into his own bosom, and Israel is become the generation of his wrath. Not the subject of his wrath; A people upon whom God would exercise someone act of indignation, in a temporal calamity, as captivity, or so; or multiply acts of indignation, in one kind, as adding of penury or sickness to their captivity; nor is it only a multiplying of the kinds of calamity, as the aggravating of temporal calamities with spiritual, oppression of body and state, with sadness of heart, and dejection of spirit; for all these, as many as they are, are determined in this life; but that which God threatens, is, that he will for their grievous sins, multiply life's upon them, and make them immortal for immortal torments; They shall be a generation of his wrath; they shall die in this world, in his displeasure, and receive a new birth, a new generation in the world to come, in a new capacity of new miseries; they shall die in the next world, every minute, in the privation of the sight of God, and every minute receive a new generation, a new birth, a new capacity of real and sensible torments. When God hath sent all his servants, the Prophets, and so done all that is necessary for premonition, and risen early to send those Prophets, warned them time enough, to avoid the danger, and they are not affected with the sense of these predictions, God shall make them, us, any State, any Church, the generation of his wrath, God shall forget his former paternities, and our former filiations; forget his mercies exhibited to us in the reformation of Religion, in the preservation of our State, in the augmenting and adorning of our Church, and after all this, make us the generation of his wrath. And this may well be conceived to be the lamentable state deplored in this text, as the words are considered in their first place, the Prophet Isaiah, Lord, who hath believed our report. But this is brought nearer to us, in the second place, as we have the words in S. John; where we do not consider things in a remote distance, but Christ was in a personal and actual exercise of his works of power, and sovereignty, and yet the Evangelist comes to this, Lord, who hath believed this report?

That's true in a great part, which Irenaeus says, Prophetiae antequam effectum habent, aenigmata sunt, & ambiguitates hominibus, That prophecies till they come to be fulfilled, are but clouds in the eyes, and riddles in the understanding of men. So, many particulars, concerning the calling of the Jews, concerning the time, and place, and person, and duration, and actions of Antichrist, concerning the general Judgment, and other things, that lie yet, as an Embryon, as a child in the mothers womb, embowelled in the womb of prophecy, are yet but as clouds in the eyes, as riddles in the understandings of the learnedst men. Daniel himself, found that which he found in the Prophet Jeremiah, concerning the deliverance of Israel from Babylon, to be wrapped up in such a cloud, as that it is fairly collected by some, that Daniel himself at that time, did not clearly understand the Prophet Jeremiah. But these clouds, for the most part, arise in us, out of our curiosity, that we will needs know the time, when these prophecies shall be fulfilled; when the Jews shall be called, when Antichrist shall be fully manifested, when the day of Judgment shall be: And so, for such questions as these, Christ enwraps not only his Apostles, but himself in a cloud; for, that cloud which he casts upon them, Non est vestrum, It belongs not to you, to know times, and seasons, he spreads upon himself also, Non est meum, It belongs not to me, not to me, as the Son of man, to know when the day of Judgment shall be. But for that use of a prophecy, that the prediction of a future Judgment should induce a present repentance, that was never an enigmaticall, a cloudy doctrine, but manifest to all, in all prophecies of that kind. But this, this commination of future judgments, for present repentance, wrought not upon these men; but, because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God: And, because sentence against an evil work, is not executed speedily, therefore their hearts are fully set in them, to do evil. But now, in the manifestation of Christ, they saw evident changes; changes, and revolutions in the highest sphere; they saw a new King, and they heard strangers proclaim him; foreign Kings do not send Ambassadors to congratulate, but come in person, to do their homage, and ask their audience in that style, Where is he that is borne King of the Jews? not an elective, not an arbitrary, not a conditional, a provisionall King, but an hereditary, a natural King, Borne King of the Jews. They hear strangers proclaim him, and they proclaim him themselves, in that act of Recognition, in that acclamatory Hosanna, in this Chapter, Blessed is the King of Israel, that cometh in the name of the Lord. They saw changes; changes with which Herod was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And they saw sentence executed; for, as soon as Christ manifested himself, John the Baptist says, Now, now that Christ declares himself, the axe is laid unto the root of the tree, and now, says he, His fan is in his hand, and he will purge his floor. And this sentence he executed, this regal power he exercised, not only after that Recognition of his subjects, in their Hosannaes in this chapter, (for, upon that, he did go into the Temple, and cast out the buyers, and sellers) but some years before that, at his first manifestation of himself, and soon after John Baptists Now, now is the axe laid to the root of the Tree, did Christ execute this sentence, not only to drive, but to scourge them out, that profaned the Temple; which was the second miracle, that we ascribe to Christ. Indeed all his miracles were so many acts, not only of his regal power over some men, but of his absolute prerogative, over the whole frame, and body of nature. Nor can we conceive how the beholders of those miracles, could argue to themselves, otherwise then thus; The winds and seas obey this man, for when he suffers them, the winds roar, and when he whispers a silence to them, they are silenced; The Devils and unclean spirits obey him; for when he suffers it, they preach his glory, and when he refuses honor from so dishonorable mouths, they are silent. Death it self obeys him; for, when he will, death withholds his hand from closing that man's eye, that lies upon his last gasp, and the last stroke of his bell, and he does not die; and, when he will, death withdraws his hand from him, who had been four days in his possession, and redelivers Lazarus to a new life. This they saw; and could they choose but say, the wind, and the sea, the devil, and unclean spirits, and death it self obeys this man, how shall we stand before this man, this King, this God? yet for all this voice, this loud voice of miracles, (for when S. Chrysostom says, Omni tuba clarior per opera demonstratio, Every good work hath the voice of a trumpet, every miracle hath the voice of thunder,) for all this loud voice, (as it is said in the verse before the text, Though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him ) it is fain to come to that, Quis credidit, Lord who hath believed this report? The first of those great names which were given to Christ, in the Prophet Isaiah, was Mirabilis, The wonderful, The supernatural man, the man that works miracles; for, of the Apostles it is said, by them, great miracles were wrought, but God wrought those miracles, by them. Christ wrought his miracles himself; And his Birth, and his Life, and Death, and Refurrection, and Ascension, were all complicated, and elemented of miracles. If he fasted himself, he did that miraculously; and it was with a miracle, when he feasted others. He healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many Devils, says S. Mark; And S. Matthew carries it a great deal farther, He went about all the Cities, and villages, healing every sickness, and every disease among the people. Therefore Christ makes that, (the evidence of his miracles) the issue between them, If these mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, Tyre and Sidon would have repented; And therefore he places their inexcusableness in that, If I had not come, and spoken to them, they had had no sin; Nay, if I had not spoken to them, in this loud voice, the voice of miracles, they might have had some cloak for their sin, but now they have none, says Christ in that place; And, beloved, are not we inexcusable in that degree? Have not we seen changes, and seen judgments executed, and seen miraculous deliverances, and yet Domine quis credidit? Lord who hath believed these reports?

I would we could but take aright a mis-taken translation, and make that use that is offered us in others error. The vulgar Edition, the translation of the Roman Church, reads that place, in the 77. Psalm and 11. verse thus, Nunc caepi, says David, Now I have taken out my lesson the right way, now I have laid hold upon God by the right handle, Nunc caepi, Now I have all that I need to have; what is it? This; Haec mutatio dextrae Dei, this is to take out my lesson aright, to understand God truly, and to know, & acknowledge, that this change which I see, is an act of the right hand of God, and that it is a judgment, and not an accident. O, beloved, that we would not be afraid of giving God too much glory; not afraid of putting God into too much heart; or of making God too imperious over us, by acknowledging, that Haec mutatio dextrae Dei, that all our changes are acts of the right hand of God, and come from him. But we are not only subject to the Prophets increpation, Quis credit, that we do not believe God's warnings of future judgments, but to the Evangelists increpation, in the person of Christ, Quis credidit? we do not believe present judgments to be judgments. An invincible navy hath been sent against us, and defeated, and we sacrifice to a casual storm for that; we say the winds delivered us. A powder treason hath been plotted, and discovered, and we sacrifice to a casual letter for that; we say, the letter delivered us. A devouring plague hath reigned, and gone out again, and we sacrifice to an early frost for that; we say, the cold weather delivered us. Domestic encumbrances, personal infirmities, sadness of heart, dejection of spirit oppresses us, and then wears out, and passes over, and we sacrifice for that, to wine, and strong drink, to music, to Comedies, to conversation, and to all Job's miserable comforters; we say, it was but a melancholique fit, and good company hath delivered us of it. But when God himself says, There is no evil done in the City, but I do it, we may be bold to say, there is no good done in the world but he does it. The very calamities are from him; the deliverance from those calamities much more. All comes from God's hand; and from his hand, by way of hand-writing, by way of letter, and instruction to us. And therefore to ascribe things wholly to nature, to fortune, to power, to second causes, this is to mistake the hand, not to know God's hand; But to acknowledge it to be God's hand, and not to read it, to say that it is God's doing, and not to consider, what God intends in it, is as much a slighting of God, as the other. Now, in every such letter, in every judgment, God writes to the King; but it becomes not me to open the Kings letter, nor to prescribe the King his interpretation of that judgment. In every such letter, in every judgment God writes to the State; but I will not open their letter, nor prescribe them their interpretation of that judgment; God, who of his goodness hath vouchsafed to write unto them in these letters, of his abundant goodness interprets himself to their religious hearts. But then, in every such letter in every judgment, God writes to me too; and that letter I will open, and read that letter; I will take knowledge that it is God's hand to me, and I will study the will of God to me in that letter; and I will write back again to my God and return him an answer, in the amendment of my life, and give him my reformation for his information. Else I am fallen lower then under the Prophets increpation, non credidi, I have not believed comminations of future judgments, under Christ's increpation too, non credidi, I do not believe judgments to be judgments, or (which is as dangerous an ignorance) not to be instructive judgments, medicinal and catechisticall judgments to me. And this may well be the explication, at least, the application and accommodation of these words, Lord who hath believed our report, in those places, the Prophet Isaiah, and the Evangelist S. John. There remains only the third place, where we have these words in the Apostle S. Paul, and in them, there, do not consider, a prophecy of a future Christ, as in Isaiah, nor a history of a present Christ, as in S. John, but we consider an application of all, prophecy, and history, all that was foretold of Christ, all that was done and suffered by Christ, in this, that there is a Church instituted by Christ, endowed with means of reconciling us to God, what judgments soever our sins have drawn God to threaten against us, or to inflict upon us; and yet for all these offers, of all these helps, the Minister is put to this sad expostulation, Domine, quis credidit? Lord, who hath believed our report?

Here then the Apostles expostulation with God, and increpation upon the people, may usefully be conceived to be thus carried; from the light and notification of God, which we have in nature, to a clearer light, which we have in the Law and Prophets, and then a clearer then that in the Gospel, and a clearer, at least a nearer then that, in the Church. First then, even the natural man is inexcusable (says this Apostle) if he do not see the invisible God in the visible creature; inexcusable, if he do not read the law written in his own heart. But then, Quis credidit auditui suo? who hath believed his own report? who does read the Law written in his own heart? who does come home to Church to himself, or hearken to the motions of his own spirit, what he should do, or what will become of him, if he do still as he hath done? or who reads the history of his own conscience, what he hath done, and the judgments that belong to those former actions? Therefore we have a clearer light then this; Firmiorem propheticum sermonem, says S. Peter, We have a more sure word of the Prophets; that is, as S. Augustine reads that place, clariorem, a more manifest, a more evident declaration in the Prophets, then in nature, of the will of God towards man, and his rewarding the obedient, and rejecting the disobedient to that will. But then, Quis credidit auditui prophetico, who hath believed the report of the Prophet, so far, as to be so moved and affected with a prophecy, as to suspect himself, and apply that prophecy to himself, and to say this judgment of his belongs to this sin of mine? Therefore we have a clearer light then this; God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake to the Fathers by the Prophets, hath in these last days spoke to us by his Son, says the Apostle; He spake personally, and he spake aloud, in the declaration of Miracles; But, Quis credidit auditui filii? who believed even his report? did they not call his preaching sedition, and call his Miracles conjuring? Therefore we have a clearer, that is, a nearer light then the written Gospel, that is, the Church. For, the principal intention in Christ's Miracles, even in the purpose of God, was but thereby to create and constitute, and establish an assurance, that he that did those Miracles, was the right man, the true Messias, that Son of God, who was made man for the redemption and ransom of the whole world. But then, that which was to give them their best assistance, that that was to supply all, by that way, to apply this general redemption to every particular soul, that was the establishing of a Church, of a visible and constant, and permanent means of salvation, by his Ordinances there, us{que} ad consummationem, till the end of the world. And this is done, says this Apostle here; Christ is come, and gone, and come again; Born, and dead, and risen again; Ascended, and sat at the right hand of his Father in our nature, and descended again in his Spirit, the Holy Ghost; that Holy Ghost hath sent us, us the Apostles; we have made Bishops; they have made Priests and Deacons; and so that body, that family, that household of the faithful, by their Ministry is made up. 'It is true, says the Apostle here, Men cannot be saved without calling upon God; nor call upon him acceptably without Faith; nor believe truly without Hearing; nor hear profitably without Preaching; nor preach avowably, and with a blessing, without sending; All this is true says our Apostle in this place; but all this is done; such a sending, such a preaching, such a hearing is established; For, I ask but this, says he, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the end of the world; And, for myself, says he, I have strived to preach the Gospel, where Christ was not named; that is, to carry the Church farther then the rest had carried it, and now all is done, says the Apostle. So that here is the case, if the natural man say, alas they are but dark notions of God which I have in nature; if the Jew say, alas they are but remote and ambiguous things which I have of Christ in the Prophets; If the slack and historical Christian say, alas they are but general things, done for the whole world indifferently, and not applied to me, which I read in the Gospel, to this natural man, to this Jew, to this slack Christian, we present an established Church, a Church endowed with a power, to open the wounds of Christ Jesus to receive every wounded soul, to spread the balm of his blood upon every bleeding heart; A Church that makes this general Christ particular to every Christian, that makes the Savior of the world, thy Savior, and my Savior; that offers the original sinner Baptism for that; and the actual sinner, the body and blood of Christ Jesus for that; a Church that mollifies, and entenders, and shivers the presumptuous sinner with denouncing the judgments of God, and then, consolidates and establishes the diffident soul with the promises of his Gospel; a Church, in contemplation whereof, God may say, Quid potui Vineae, what could I do more for my people then I have done? first to send mine only Son to die for the whole world, and then to spread a Church over the whole world, by which that death of his might be life to every soul. This we preach, this we propose, according to that commission put into our hands, Ite, predicate, Go, and preach the Gospel to every creature, and yet, Domine, quis credidit? Lord, who hath believed our report?

In this then, the Apostle and this Text, places the inflexible, the incorrigible stiffness of man's disobedience, in this he seals up his inexcusableness, his irrecoverablenesse, first, that he is not afraid of future judgments, because they are remote; then, that he does not believe present judgments to be judgments, because he can make shift to call them by a milder name, accidents, and not judgments, and can assign some natural, or moral, or casual reason for them. But especially in this, that he does not believe a perpetual presence of Christ in his Church, he does not believe an Ordinance of means, by which, all burdens of bodily infirmities, of crosses in fortune, of dejection of spirit, and of the primary cause of all these, that is, sin it self may be taken off, or made easy unto him; he does not believe a Church.

Now, as in our former part we were bound to know God's hand, and then bound to read it, to acknowledge a judgment to be a judgment, and then to consider what God intended in that judgment, so here we are bound to know the true Church, and then to know what the true Church proposes to us. The true Church is that, where the word is truly preached, and the Sacraments duly administered. But it is the Word, the Word inspired by the holy Ghost; not Apocryphal, not Decretal, not Traditionall, not Additionall supplements; and it is the Sacraments, Sacraments instituted by Christ himself, and not those super-numerary sacraments, those posthume, post-nati sacraments, that have been multiplied after: and then, that which the true Church proposes, is, all that is truly necessary to salvation, and nothing but that, in that quality, as necessary. So that Problematical points, of which, either side may be true, & in which, neither side is fundamentally necessary to salvation, those marginal & interlineary notes, that are not of the body of the text, opinions raised out of singularity, in someone man, and then maintained out of partiality, and affection to that man, these problematicall things should not be called the Doctrine of the Church, nor lay obligations upon men's consciences; They should not disturb the general peace, they should not extinguish particular charity towards one another.

The Act then, that God requires of us, is to believe: so the words carry it in all the three places: The Object, the next, the nearest Object of this Belief, is made the Church; that is, to believe that God hath established means for the application of Christ's death, to all, in all Christian Congregations. All things are possible to him that believeth, saith our Savior; In the Word, and Sacraments, there is Salvation to every soul, that believes there is so: As on the other side, we have from the same mouth, and the same pen, He that believeth not, is damned. Faith then being the root of all, and God having vouchsafed to plant this root, this faith, here in his terrestrial paradise, and not in heaven; in the manifest ministry of the Gospel, and not in a secret and unrevealed purpose, (for, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by preaching, which are things executed and transacted here in the Church) be thou content with those means which God hath ordained, and take thy faith in those means, and believe it to be influxus suasorius, that it is an influence from God, but an influence that works in thee by way of persuasion, and not of compulsion; It convinces thee, but it doth not contstrain thee: It is, as S. Augustine says excellently, Vocatio congrua, it is the voice of God to thee: but, his voice then, when thou art fit to hear, and answer that voice; not fitted by any exaltation of thine own natural faculties, before the coming of grace; nor fitted by a good husbanding of God's former grace, so as in rigor of justice to merit an increase of grace, but fitted by his preventing, his auxiliant, his concomitant grace, grace exhibited to thee, at that time when he calls thee: for, so says that Father, Sic eum vocat, quo modo seit ei congruere, ut vocantē non respuat: God calls him then, when he knows he will not resist his calling; But he doth not say, then, when he cannot resist; that needs not be said. But, as there is podus glcriae, as the Apostle speaks, an eternal weight of glory, which man's understanding cannot comprehend; so there is Pondus gratiae, a certain weight of grace, that God lays upon that soul, which shall be his, under which that soul shall not easily bend itself any way from God.

This then is the sum of this whole Catechism, which these words, in these three places do constitute: First, that we be truly affected with God's fore-warnings, and say there, Domine credo, Lord I believe that report, I believe that judgment to be denounced against my sin: And then, that we be duly affected with present changes, and say there, Domine credo, Lord I believe that report, I believe this judgment to come from thee, and to be a letter of thy hand; Lord enlighten others to interpret it aright, for thy more public glory, and me, for my particular reformation. And then, lastly, to be sincerely, and seriously affected with the Ordinances of his Church, and to rest in them, for the means of our salvation; and to say there, Domine credo, Lord I believe this report, I believe that I cannot be saved without believing, nor believe without hearing. And therefore, whatsoever thou hast decreed to thyself above in heaven, give me a holy assiduity of indevor, and peace of conscience, in the execution of thy Decrees here; And let thy Spirit bear witness with my spirit, that I am of the number of thine elect, because I love the beauty of thy house, because I captivate mine understanding to thine Ordinances, because I subdue my will to obey thine, because I find thy Son Christ Jesus made mine, in the preaching of thy word, and myself made his, in the administration of his Sacraments. And keep me ever in the arms, and bosom of that Church, which without any tincture, any mixture, any leaven of superstition, or Idolatry, affords me all that is necessary to salvation, and obtrudes nothing, enforces nothing to be believed, by any Determination, or Article of hers that is not so. And be this enough for the Explication, and Application, and Complication of these words, in all these three places.

SERMON VII. Preached upon Christmas day.

T He Church celebrates this day, the Birth of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, blessed forever; And though it fall amongst the shortest days in the year, yet of all the Festivals in the year, it is the longest: It is a day that consists of twelve days; A day not measured by the natural and ordinary motion of the Sun, but by a supernatural and extraordinary Star, which appeared to the Wisemen of the East, this day, and brought them to Christ, at Bethlehem, upon Twelfe day. That day, Twelfe day, the Church now calls the Epiphany; The ancient Church called this day (Christmas day) the Epiphany. Both days together, and all the days between, This day, when Christ was manifested to the Jews, in the Shepherds by the Angels, and Twelfe day, when Christ was manifested to the Gentiles in those Wisemen of the East, make up the Epiphany, that is, the manifestation of God to man. And as this day is in such a respect a longer day then others, so, if we make longer hours in this day, then in other days; if I extend this Sermon, if you extend your Devotion, or your Patience, beyond the ordinary time, it is but a due, and a just celebration of the Day, and some accommodation to the Text, for, I am come, as he, in whose Name and Power I came, came; and he tells you, that He came that you might have life, and might have it more abundantly.

God, who vouchsafed to be made Man for man, for man vouchsafes also to do all the offices of man toward man. He is our Father, for he made us: Of what? Of clay; So God is Figulus, so in the Prophet; so in the Apostle, God is our Potter. God stamped his Image upon us, and so God is Statuarius, our Minter, our Statuary. God clothed us, and so is vestiarius; he hath opened his wardrobe unto us. God gave us all the fruits of the earth to eat, and so is oeconomus, our Steward. God pours his oil, and his wine into our wounds, and so is Medicus, and Vicinus, that Physician, that Neighbor, that Samaritan intended in the Parable. God plants us, and waters, and weeds us, and gives the increase; and so God is Hortulanus, our Gardener. God builds us up into a Church, and so God is Architectus, our Architect, our Builder; God watches the City when it is built; and so God is Speculator, our Sentinel. God fishes for men, (for all his John's, and his Andrew's, and his Peters, are but the nets that he fishes withal) God is the fisher of men; And here, in this Chapter, God in Christ is our Shepherd. The book of Job is a representation of God, in a Tragique-Comedy, lamentable beginnings comfortably ended: The book of the Canticles is a representation of God in Christ, as a Bridegroom in a Marriage-song, in an Epithalamion: God in Christ is represented to us, in divers forms, in divers places, and this Chapter is his Pastoral. The Lord is our Shepherd, and so called, in more places, then by any other name; and in this Chapter, exhibits some of the offices of a good Shepherd. Be pleased to taste a few of them. First, he says, The good Shepherd comes in at the door, the right way. If he come in at the window, that is, always clamber after preferment; If he come in at vaults, and cellars, that is, by clandestin, and secret contracts with his Patron, he comes not the right way: When he is in the right way, His sheep hear his voice: first there is a voice, He is heard; Ignorance doth not silence him, nor laziness, nor abundance of preferment; nor indiscreet, and distempered zeal does not silence him; (for to induce, or occasion a silencing upon ourselves, is as ill as the ignorant, or the lazy silence) There is a voice, and (says that Text) is is his voice, not always another in his room; for (as it is added in the next verse) The sheep know his voice, which they could not do, if they heard it not often, if they were not used to it. And then, for the best testimony, and consummation of all, he says, The good Shepherd gives his life for his sheep. Every good Shepherd gives his life, that is, spends his life, wears out his life for his sheep: of which this may be one good argument, That there are not so many crazy, so many sickly men; men that so soon grow old in any profession, as in ours. But in this, Christ is our Shepherd in a more peculiar, and more incommunicable way, that he is Pastor humani generis, & esca; first, that he feeds not one Parish, nor one Diocese, but humanum genus, all Mankind, the whole world, and then feeds us so, as that he is both our Pastor, and our Pasture, he feeds us, and feeds us with himself, for, His flesh is meat indeed, and his blood is drink indeed. And therefore Honor telebratur totius gregis, per annua festa pastoris: As often as wecome to celebrate the coming of this Shepherd, in giving that honor, we receive an honor, because that is a declaration, that we are the sheep of that pasture, and the body of that head. And so much being not impertinently said, for the connection of the words, and their complication with the day, pass we now to the more particular distribution and explication thereof, I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

In these words, our parts will be three; for, first we must consider the Persons, The Shepherd and the sheep, God and Man, Him and Them, Them indefinitely, all them, all men, I came, says Christ, I alone, that they, all they might have life: And secondly we consider the action itself; as it is wrapped up in this word, veni, I came; for, that is first, that he who was always omnipresent, everywhere before, did yet study a new way of coming, & communicating himself with man, veni, I came, that is, novo modo veni, I came by a new way; And then, that he, who fed his former stock but with Prophesies, and promises, that he would come, feeds us now with actual performances, with his real presence, and the exhibition of himself. And lastly we shall consider the end, the purpose, the benefit of his coming, which is life: And first, ut daret, that he might give life, bring life, offer life to the world, (which is one mercy) and then, ut haberent, that we might have it, embrace it, possess it, (which is another) and, after both, a greater then both, that we might have this life abundantiùs, more abundantly; which is, first, abundantiùs illis, more abundantly then other men of this world, and then abundantiùs ipsis, more abundantly then we ourselves had it in this world, in the world to come; for, therefore he came, that we might have life, and might have it more abundantly.

First then, in our first part, we consider the Persons, The Shepherd and the Sheep, Him and Them, God and Man; of which Persons, the one for his Greatness, God, the other for his littleness, man, can scarce fall under any consideration. What eye can fixe itself upon East and West at once? And he must see more then East and West, that sees God, for God spreads infinitely beyond both: God alone is all; not only all that is, but all that is not, all that might be, if he would have it be. God is too large, too immense, and then man is too narrow, too little to be considered; for, who can fixe his eye upon an Atom? and he must see a less thing then an Atom, that sees man, for man is nothing. First, for the incomprehensiblenesse of God, the understanding of man, hath a limited, a determined latitude; it is an intelligence able to move that Sphere which it is fixed to, but could not move a greater: I can comprehend naturam naturatam, created nature, but for that natura naturans, God himself, the understanding of man cannot comprehend. I can see the Sun in a looking-glass, but the nature, and the whole working of the Sun I cannot see in that glass. I can see God in the creature, but the nature, the essence, the secret purposes of God, I cannot see there. There is defatigatio in intellectualibus, says the saddest and soundest of the Hebrew Rabbins, the soul may be tired, as well as the body, and the understanding dazzled, as well as the eye. It is a good note of the same Rabbi, upon those words of Solomon, fill not thyself with honey, lest thou vomit it, that it is not said, that if thou beest cloyd with it, thou mayest be distasted, disaffected towards it after, but thou mayest vomit it, and a vomit works so, as that it does not only bring up that which was then, but that also which was formerly taken. Curious men busy themselves so much upon speculative subtleties, as that they desert, and abandon the solid foundations of Religion, and that is a dangerous vomit; To search so far into the nature, and unrevealed purposes of God, as to forget the nature, and duties of man, this is a shrewd surfeit, though of honey, and a dangerous vomit. It is not needful for thee, to see the things that are in secret, says the wife man; nonindiges, thou needest not that knowledge: Thou mayest do well enough in this world, and be God's good servant, and do well enough in the next world, and be a glorious Saint, and yet never search into God's secrets. Te decet Hymnus, (so the vulgar reads that place) To thee, O Lord, belong our Hymns, our Psalms, our Prayses, our cheerful acclamations; and conformably to that, we translate it, Praise waiteth for thee, O God in Zion: But if we will take it according to the Original, it must be, Tibi silentium laus est, Thy praise, O Lord, consists in silence: That that man praises God best, that says least of him; of him, that is of his nature, of his essence, of his unrevealed will, and secret purposes. O that men would praise the Lord, is David's provocation to us all, but how? O that men would praise the Lord, and declare his wondrous works to the sons of men! but not to go about to declare his unrevealed Decrees, or secret purposes, is as good a way of praising him, as the other. And therefore, O that men would praise the Lord, so, forbear his Majesty, when he is retired into himself, in his Decrees, and magnify his Majesty, as he manifests himself to us, in the execution of those Decrees; of which, this in our Text is a great one, that he that is infinitely more then all, descended to him, that is infinitely less then nothing; which is the other person whom we are to consider in this part, ill illis, I to them, God to us.

The Hebrew Doctors almost everywhere repeat that adage of theirs, lex loquitur linguam filiorum hominum, God speaks men's language, that is, the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures descends to the capacity and understanding of man, and so presents God in the faculties of the mind of man, and in the lineaments of the body of man. But yet, say they, there is never brain, nor liver, nor spleen; nor any other inward part ascribed to God, but only the heart. God is all heart, and that whole heart, that inexhaustible fountain of love, is directed wholly upon man. And then, though in the Scriptures, those bodily lineaments, head and feet, and hands, and eyes, and ears be ascribed to God, God is never said to have shoulders; for, say they, shoulders are the subjects of burdens, and therein the figures of patience, and so God is all shoulder, all patience; he hears patiently, he sees patiently, he speaks patiently, he dies patiently: And is there a patience beyond that? In Christ there is, he suffers patiently a quotidian Crucifying; we kill the Lord of Life every day, every day we make a mock of Christ Jesus, and tread the blood of the Covenant under our feet every day: And as though all his passion, and blood, and wounds, and heart, were spent by our former oaths, and blasphemies, we crucify him daily by our daily sins, that we might have new blood, and heart, and wounds to swear by; and all this he suffers patiently, and after all this, ill illis, to this man, this God comes.

He to us, God to man; all to nothing: for upon that we insist first, as the first disproportion between us, and so the first exaltation of his mercy towards us. Man is, says the Prophet Isaiah, Quasi stilla situlae, As a drop upon the bucket. Man is not all that, not so much as that, as a drop upon the bucket, but quasi, something, some little thing towards it; and what is a drop upon the bucket, to a river, to a sea, to the waters above the firmament? Man to God? Man is, says the same Prophet in the same place, Quasi momenntum staterae; we translate it, As small dust upon the balance: Man is not all that, not that small grain of dust; but quasi, some little thing towards it: And what can a grain of dust work in governing the balance? What is man that God should be mindful of him? Vanity seems to be the lightest thing, that the Holy Ghost could name; and when he had named that, he says, and says, and says, often, very, very often, All is vanity. But when he comes to weigh man with vanity it self, he finds man lighter then vanity: Take, says he, great men, and mean men altogether, and altogether they are lighter then vanity. When that great Apostle says of himself, that he was in nothing behind the very chiefest of the Apostles, and yet, for all that, says he was nothing; who can think himself anything, for being a Giant in proportion, a Magistrate in power, a Rabbi in learning, an Oracle in Counsel? Let man be something; how poor, and inconsiderable a rag of this world, is man? Man, whom Paracelsus would have undertaken to have made, in a Limbeck, in a Furnace: Man, who, if they were altogether, all the men, that ever were, and are, and shall be, would not have the power of one Angel in them all, whereas all the Angels, (who, in the School are conceived to be more in number, then, not only all the Species, but all the individuals of this lower world) have not in them all, the power of one finger of God's hand: Man, of whom when David had said, (as the lowest diminution that he could put upon him) I am a worm and no man, He might have gone lower, and said, I am a man and no worm; for man is so much less then a worm, as that worms of his own production, shall feed upon his dead body in the grave, and an immortal worm gnaw his conscience in the torments of hell. And then, if that which God, and God in the counsel and concurrence, and cooperation of the whole Trinity hath made thee, Man, be nothing, canst thou be proud of that, or think that anything which the King hath made thee, a Lord, or which thy wife hath made thee, Rich, or which thy riches have made thee, an Officer? As Job says of impertinent comforters, miserable comforters, so I say of these Creations, miserable creations are they all. Only as thou mayest be a new creature in Christ Jesus, thou mayest be something; for that's a nobler, and a harder creation then the first; when God had a clod of red earth in his hand, to make me in Adam, he had more towards his end, then when he hath me, an unregenerate, and rebellious soul, to make a new creature in Christ Jesus. And yet Ille illis, to this man comes this God, God that is infinitely more then all, to man that is infinitely less then nothing, which was our first disproportion, and the first exaltation of his mercy; and the next is, Ille illis, Illis qui hosts, that this God came to this man, then when this man was a professed enemy to this God.

Si contrarium Deo quaeras nihilest, says S. Augustine. If thou ask me what is contrary to God, I cannot say, that anything is so; for, whatsoever is anything, hath a being, and whatsoever hath so, hath in that very being some affinity with God, some assimilation to God; so that nothing is contrary to God. If thou ask me, Quis hostis, who is an enemy to GOD, I cannot say that of anything in this World, but man. That viper that flew at Saint Paul, was not therein an enemy to GOD; that viper did not direct it self upon S. Paul, as S. Paul was a useful, and a necessary instrument of Christ; But S. Paul himself was a direct enemy to Christ himself, Tu me, thou persecutest me, says Christ himself unto him. And if we be not all enemies to God in such a direct opposition, as that we sin therefore because that sin violates the majesty of God, (and yet truly every habitual, and deliberated sin amounts to almost as much, because in every such sin, we seem to try conclusions, whether God can see a sin, or be affected with a sin, or can, or cares to punish a sin, as though we doubted whether God were a present God, or a pure God, or a powerful God, and so consequently whether there be any God or no) If we be not all enemies to God, in this kind, yet in adhering to the enemy we are enemies; In our prevarications, and easy betrayings, and surrendering of ourselves to the enemy of his kingdom, Satan, we are his enemies. For small wages, and ill paid pensions we serve him; and lest any man should flatter and delude himself, in saying, I have my wages, and my reward before hand, my pleasures in this life, the punishment, (if ever) not till the next, The Apostle destroys that dream, with that question of confusion, What fruit had you then in those things, of which you are now ashamed? Certainly sin is not a gainful way; without doubt more men are impoverished, and beggared by sinful courses, then enriched; what fruit had they? says the Apostle, and sin cannot be the way of honor, for we dare not avow our sins, but are ashamed of them, when they are done; fruitlessness, unprofitableness before, shame and dishonor after, and yet for these we are enemies to God; and yet for all this God comes to us; Ille illis, the Lord of Hosts, to naked and disarmed man, the God of peace to this enemy of God. Some men will continue kind, where they find a thankful reciver, but God is kind to the unthankful, says Christ himself. There may be found a man that will die for his friend, says he; but God died for his enemies: Then when ye were enemies, you were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. To come so in-gloriously, he that is infinitely more then all, to him that is infinitely less then nothing, (that was our first disproportion, and the first axaltatation of his mercy) to come, (shall we venture to say so) so self proditoriously, as to betray himself and deliver himself to his enemies, (that was our second) is equalled, at least, in a third, ill illis, he to them, that is unus omnibus, he alone for the salvation of all men, as it is expressly said, for this word in our Text, they, hath no limitation, I came, I alone, that they, all they might be the better.

Some of the ancient Fathers, delivering the mercies of God, so, as the articles of our Church enjoin them to be delivered, that is, generally, as they are delivered in the Scriptures, have delivered them so over-generally, that they have seemed loath to think the devil himself excluded from all benefit of Christ's coming. Some of the later Authors in the Roman Church, (who, as pious as they pretend to be towards the Fathers, are apter to discover the nakedness of the Fathers, then we are) have noted in Justin Martyr, and in Epiphanius, and in Clement of Alexandria, and in Oecumenius, (and Oecumenius is no single Father, but Pater patratus, a manifold Father, a complicated father, a Father that collected Fathers) and even in S. Jerome himself, and S. Ambrose too, some inclinations towards that opinion, that the devil retaining still his faculty of free will, is therefore capable of repentance, and so of benefit by this coming of Christ; And those Authors of the Roman Church, that modifie the matter, and excuse the Fathers herein, excuse them no other way but this, that though that opinion and doctrine of those Fathers, be not true in it self, yet it was never condemned by any Council, nor by any ancient Father. So very far, did very many go in enlarging the mercies of God in Christ, to all. But waiving this over-large extension and profusion thereof, and directing it upon a more possible, and a more credible object, that is, Man; S. Cyril of Alexandria, speaking of the possibility of the salvation of all men, says, by way of objection to himself, Omnes non credunt, How can all be saved since all do not believe? but, says he, Because actually they do not believe, is it therefore impossible they should believe? And for actual belief, says he, though all do not, yet so many do, utfacile qui pereant, superent, that, by God's goodness, more are saved, then lost, says that Father of tender and large bowels, S. Cyril. And howsoever he may seem too tender, and too large herein, yet it is a good piece of counsel, which that Rabbi whom I named before, gives, Ne redarguas ca falsitatis, de quorum contrariis nulla est demonstratio, Be not aptto call any opinion false, or heretical, or damnable, the contrary whereof cannot be evidently proved. And for this particular, the general possibility of salvation, all agree that the merit of Christ Jesus is sufficient for all. Whether this all-sufficiency grow ex intrinseca ration formali, out of the very nature of the merit, the dignity of the person being considered, or grow ex pacto, & acceptatione, out of the acceptation of the Father, and the contract between him and the Son, for that, let the Thomists, and the Scotists, in the Roman Church wrangle. All agree, that there is enough done for all. And would God receive enough for all, and then, exclude some, of himself, without any relation, any consideration of sin? God forbid. Man is called by divers names, names of lowness enough, in the Scriptures; But, by the name of Enoch, Enoch that signifies mere misery, Man is never called in the Scriptures, till after the fall of Adam. Only sin after, and not any ill purpose in God before, made man miserable. The manner of expressing the mercy of God, in the frame and course of Scriptures, expresses evermore the largeness of that mercy. Very often, in the Scriptures, you shall find the person suddenly changed; and when God shall have said in the beginning of a sentence, I will show mercy unto them, them, as though he spoke of others, presently, in the same sentence, he will say, my loving kindness will I not draw from thee; not from thee, not from them, not from any; that so whensoever thou hearest of God's mercy proposed to them, to others, thou mightest believe that mercy to be meant to thee, and whensoever they, others hear that mercy proposed to thee, they might believe it to be meant to them. And so much may, to good purpose, be observed out of some other parts of this Chapter, in another translation. In the third verse it is said, His sheep hear his voice, In the Arabic tranflation it is Oves audit, His sheep in the plural, does hear, in the singular. God is a plural God, and offers himself to all, collectively; God is a singular God, and offers himself to every man, distributively. So also is it said there, Nominibus suo, He calls his sheep by their names; It is names in the plural, and theirs, in the singular: whatsoever God proposes to any, he intends to all. In which contemplation, S. Augustine breaks out into that holy exclamation, O bone omnipotence qui sic cur as unumquemque nostrûm, tanquam solum cures, & sic omnes tamquam singulos, O good and mighty God, who art as loving to every man, as to all mankind, and meanest as well to all mankind, as to any man. Be pleased to make your use of this note, for the better imprinting of this largeness of God's mercy. Moses desires of God, that he would show him Vias suas, His ways, his proceedings, his dealings with men; that which he calls after, Gloriam suam, His glory, how he glorifies himself upon man, God promises him in the next verse, that he will show him Omne bonum, All his goodness, God hath no way towards man but goodness, God glorifies himself in nothing upon man, but in his own goodness. And therefore when God comes to the performance of this promise, in the next Chapter, he shows him his way, and his glory, and his goodness, in showing him that he is a merciful God, a gracious God, a longsuffering God, a God that forgives sins and iniquities, and (as the Hebrew Doctors note) there are thirteen attributes, thirteen denotations of God specified in that place, and of all those thirteen, there is but one that tastes of judgment, (That he will punish the sins of Fathers upon Children.) All the other twelve are merely, wholly mercy; such a proportion hath his mercy above his justice, such a proportion, as that there is no cause in him, if all men be not partakers of it. Shall we say, (says S. Cyril ) Melius agriculturam non exerceri, si quae nocent tolli non possunt, It were better there were no tillage, then that weeds should grow, Melius non creasse, better that God had made no men, then that so many should be damned. God made none to be damned; And therefore though some would expunge out of our Litany, that Rogation, that Petition, That thou wouldst have mercy upon all men; as though it were contrary to God's purpose to have mercy upon all men; yet S. Augustine enlarges his charity too far, Libera nos Domine, qui jam invocamus te, deliver us O Lord, who do now call upon thee, Et libera eos qui nondum invocant, ut invocent te, & liberes eos, and deliver them who do not yet call upon thee, that they may call upon thee, and be farther delivered by thee. But it is time to pass from this first part, the consideration of the Persons, Ille Illis, that God who is infinitely more then All, would come to man who is infinitely less then nothing; that God who is the God of peace, would come to man his professed enemy; that God, the only Son of God, would come to the relief of man, of all men, to our second general part, the action itself, so far as it is enwrapped in this word, Veni, I came; I came that they might have life.

Through this second part, veni, I came, we must pass apace; because, upon the third, the end of his coming, (that they might have life) we must necessarily insist sometime. In this therefore, we make but two steps; And this the first, that that God who is omnipresent, always everywhere, in love to man, studied a new way of coming, of communicating himself to man; veni, I came, novo modo, so as I was never with man before. The rule is worth the repeating, lex loquitur linguam filiorum hominum, God speaks man's language, that is, so, as that he would be understood by man. Therefore to God, who always fills all places, are there divers Positions, and Motions, and Transitions ascribed in Scriptures. In divers places is God said to sit; Sedet Rex, The Lord sitteth King forever. Howsoever the Kings of the earth be troubled, and raised, and thrown down again, and troubled, and raised, and thrown down by him, yet the Lord sitteth King forever. Habitat in Coelis, says David, and yet sedet in circulis terrae, says Isaiah, The Lord dwelleth in the heavens, and yet he sits upon the compass of this earth: Where no earth-quake shakes his seat; for sedet in confusion (as one Translation reads that place, Psal. 29.10.) The Lord sitteth upon the flood, (so we read it) what confusions soever disorder the world, what floods soever surround and overflow the world, the Lord sits safe. Other phrases there are of like denotation. Exit de loco, Behold the Lord cometh out of his place; that is, he produces, and brings to light, things which he kept secret before. And so, Revertar ad locum, I will go, and return to my place; that is, I will withdraw the light of my countenance, my presence, my providence from them. So that heaven is his place, and then is he said to come to us, when he manifests himself unto us in any new manner of working. In such a sense was God come to us, when he said, I lift up my hands to heaven, and say, I live forever. Where was God when he lifted up his hands to heaven? Here, here upon earth, with us, in his Church, for our assurance, and our establishment, making that protestation (denoted in the lifting up of his hands to heaven) that he lived forever, that he was the everliving God, and that therefore we need fear nothing. God is so omnipresent, as that the Ubiquitary will needs have the body of God everywhere: so omnipresent, as that the Stancarist will needs have God not only to be in everything, but to be everything, that God is an Angelin an Angel, and a stone in a stone, and a straw in a straw. But God is truly so omnipresent, as that he is with us before he comes to us: Q • id peto ut venias in me, qui non essem, si non esses in me? why do I pray that thou wouldst come into me, who could not only not pray, but could not be, if thou wert not in me before? But his coming in this Text, is a new act of particular mercy, and therefore a new way of coming. What way? by assuming our nature in the blessed Virgin. That that Paradoxa virgo, (as Amelberga the wife of one of the Earls of Flanders, who lived continently even in marriage, and is therefore called Paradoxa virgo, a Virgin beyond opinion) that this most blessed Virgin Mary should not only have a Son, (for Manes, the Patriarch of that great Sect of Heretics, the Manichees, boasted himself to be the son of a Virgin, and some casuists in the Roman Church have ventured to say, that by the practice and intervention of the devil there may be a child, and yet both parents, father and mother remain Virgins) But that this Son of this blessed Virgin, should also be the Son of the eternal God, this is such a coming of him who was here before, as that if it had not arisen in his own goodness, no man would ever have thought of it, no man might ever have wished, or prayed for such a coming, that the only Son of God should come to die for all the sons of men. For Aliud est hîc esse, aliud hîc tibi esse; It is one thing for God to be here in the world, another thing to be come hither for thy sake, born of a woman for thy salvation. And this is the first act of his mercy wrapped up in this word, Veni, I came, I who was always present, studied a new way of coming, I who never went from thee, came again to thee.

The other act of his mercy enwrapped in this word, veni, I came, is this, that he that came to the old world but in promises, and prophecies, and figures, is actually, really, personally, and presentially come to us; of which difference, that man will have the best sense, who languishes under the heavy expectation of a reversion, in office, or inheritance, or hath felt the joy of coming to the actual possession of such a reversion. Christ was the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world; appointed for a Sacrifice from that first promise of a Messias in Paradise long before that; from all eternity. For, whensoever the election of the elect was, (date it when you will) Christ was at that election; and not only as the second person in the Trinity, as God, but Christ considered as man, and as the propitiation and sacrifice for man; for whosoever was elected, was elected in Christ. Christ was always come in God's purpose; and early come in God's promise; and continually coming in the succession of the Prophets; with such a confidence, as that one of them says, Puer datus, filius natus, A child is given unto us, a Son is born unto us; Born and given already; because the purpose of God, in which he was born, cannot be disappointed; the promise of God, by which he was given, cannot be frustrated; the Prophets of God, by whom he was presented, cannot be mistaken. But yet, still it was a future thing. Christ is often called the Expectation of the world; but it was all that while, but an Expectation, but a reversion of a future thing. So God fed that old world with expectation of future things, as that that very name by which God notified himself most to that people, in his commission by Moses to Pharaoh, was a future name; howsoever our Translations and Expositions run upon the present, as though God had said Qui sum, my name is I am, yet in truth it is Qui ero, my name is I shall be. They had evidences enow that God was; but God was pleased to establish in them an assurance that he would be so still; and not only be so still as he was then; but that he would be so with them hereafter as he was never yet, he would be Immanuel, God with us so, as that God and man should be one person. It was then a fair assurance, and a blessed comfort which the children of Israel had in that of Zechariah, Ecce venit rex, Rejoice ye daughters of Zion, and shout ye daughters of Jerusalem, Behold thy King cometh riding unto thee, upon an Ass. But yet this assurance, though delivered as in the present, produced not those acclamations, and recognitions, and Hosannaes, and Hosanna in the highest, to the Son of David, as his personal, and actual, and visible riding into Jerusalem upon Palme-Sunday did. Amougst the Jews there was light enough to discern this future blessing, this coming of Christ; but they durst not open it, nor publish it to others. We see the Jews would die in defense of any part of their Law, were it but the Ceremonial; were it but for the not eating of Swines flesh; what unsufferable torments suffered the seven brothers in the Maccabees, for that? But yet we never find that any of them died, or exposed themselves to the danger, or to the dignity of Martyrdom for this Doctrine of the Messias, this future coming of Christ. Nay, we find that the Septuagint, who first translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, for King Ptolemy, disguised divers places thereof, and departed from the Original, rather then propose this future coming of the Son of God to the interpretation of the world. A little Candle they had for themselves, but they durst not light another's Candle at it. So also some of the more speculative Philosophers had got some beams of this light, but because they saw it would not be believed, they let it alone, they said little of it. Hence is it that S. Augustine says, si Platonici reviviscerent, if Plato and his Disciples should rise from the dead, and come now into our streets, and see those great Congregations, which thrust and throng every Sabbath, and every day of holy convocation, to the worship of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, Hoc fortasse dicerent, This it is likely they would say, says he, Haec sunt, quae populis persuadere non ausi, consaetudini cessimus, This is that religion, which because it consisted so much in future things, we durst not propose to the people, but were fain to leave them to those present, and sensible, and visible things, to which they had been accustomed before, lest when we had shaked them in their old religion, we should not be able to settle, and establish them in the new; And, as in civil government, a Tyranny is better then an Anarchy, a hard King better then none, so when we consider religions, Idolatry is better then Atheism, and superstition better then profaneness. Not that the Idolater shall anymore be saved then the Atheist; but that the Idolater having been accustomed to some sense and worship of God (of God in his estimation) is therefore apter to receive religious impressions, then the Atheist is. In this then consists this second act of Christ's mercy to us in this word veni, I am actually, really, personally, presentially come, that those types and figures and sacrifices, which represented Christ to the old world, were not more visible to the eye, more palpable to the hand, more obvious to the very bodily senses, that Christ himself hath been since to us. Therefore S. John does not only rest in that, That which was from the beginning, (Christ was always in purpose, in prophecy, in promise) nor in that, That which we have heard, (the world heard of Christ long before they saw him) but he proceeds to that, That which we have seen, and looked upon with our eyes, and handled with our hands, that declare we unto you. So that we are now delivered from that jealousy that possessed those Septuagint, those Translators, that they durst not speak plain, and delivered from that suspicion that possessed Plato, and his disciples, that the people were incapable of that doctrine. We know that Christ is come, and we avow it, and we preach it, and we affirm, that it is not only as impious, and irreligious a thing, but as senseless, and as absurd a thing to deny that the Son of God hath redeemed the world, as to deny that God hath created the world; and that he is as formally, and as gloriously a Martyr that dies for this Article, The Son of God is come, as he that dies for this, There is a God. And these two acts of his mercy, enwrapped in this one word, veni, I came, (first, that he who is always present, out of an abundant love to man, studied a new way of coming, and then, that he who was but betrothed to the old world by way of promise, is married to us by an actual coming) will be farther explicated to us, in that, which only remains and constitutes our third, and last part, the end and purpose of his coming, That they might have life, and might have it more abundantly. And though this last part put forth many handles, we can but take them by the hand, and shake them by the hand, that is, open them, and so leave them.

First then in this last part, we consider the gift itself, the treasure, Life, That they might have life. Now life is the character by which Christ specificates and denominates himself; Life is his very name, and that name by which he consummates all his other names, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; And therefore does Peter justly and bitterly upbraid the Jews with that, Ye desired a murderer, (an enemy to life) to be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of Life. Acts 3.14. It is an honor to anything that it may be sworn by; by vulgar and trivial things men might not swear, How shall I pardon them this? says God, They have sworn by things that are not gods. And therefore God, who in so many places professes to swear by himself, and of whom the Apostle says, That because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself, because he could propose no greater thing in himself, no clearer notion of himself then life, (for his life is his eternity, and his eternity is himself) does therefore through all the Law and the Prophets still swear in that form, Vivo ego, vivit Dominus, As I live, saith the Lord, and as the Lord liveth; still he swears by his own life; As that solemn Oath which is mentioned in Daniel, is conceived in that form too, He lift up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by him that liveth forever; that is, by God, and God in that notion as he is life. All that the Queen and the Council could wish and apprecate to the King, was but that, Life, In sempiternum vive, vive in aeternum, O King live forever. God is life, and would not the death of any. We are not sure that stones have not life; stones may have life; neither (to speak humanely) is it unreasonably thought by them, that thought the whole world to be inanimated by one soul, and to be one entire living creature; and in that respect does S. Augustine prefer a fly before the Sun, because a fly hath life, and the Sun hath not. This is the worst that the Apostle says of the young wanton widow, That if she live in pleasure, she is dead whilst she lives. So is that Magistrate that studies nothing but his own honor, and dignity in his place, dead in his place; And that Priest that studies nothing but his own ease, and profit, dead in his living; And that Judge that dares not condemn a guilty person, And (which is the bolder transgression) dares condemn the innocent, deader upon the Bench, then the Prisoner at the Barre; God hath included all that is good, in the name of Life, and all that is ill in the name of Death, when he says, See, I have set before thee Vitam & Bonum, Life and Good, Mortem & Malum, Death and Evil. This is the reward proposed to our faith, Iustus fide sua vivit, To live by our faith: And this is the reward proposed to our works, Fac hoc & vives, to live by our works; All is life. And this fullness, this consummation of happiness, Life, and the life of life, spiritual life, and the exaltation of spiritual life, eternal life, is the end of Christ's coming, I came that they might have life.

And first, ut daret, that he might give life, bring life into the world, that there might be life to be had, that the world might be redeemed from that loss, which S. Augustine says it was fallen into, Perdidimus possibilitatem boni, That we had all lost all possibility of life. For, the heaven and the earth, and all that the Poet would call Chaos, was not a deader lump before the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, then Mankind was, before the influence of Christ's coming wrought upon it. But now that God so loved the world, as that he gave his Son, now that the Son so loved the world, as that he gave himself, as David says of the Sun of the firmament, the father of nature, Nihit absconditum, there is nothing hid from the heat thereof; so we say of this Son of God, the Father of the faithful in a far higher sense, then Abraham was called so, Nihilabsconditum, there is nothing hid from him, no place, no person excluded from the benefit of his coming. The Son hath paid, the Father hath received enough for all; not in fingle money, for the discharge of thy lesser debts, thy idle words, thy wanton thoughts, thy unchaste looks, but in massy talents, to discharge thy crying debts, the clamors of those poor whom thou hast oppressed, and thy thundering debts, those blasphemies by which thou hast torn that Father that made thee, that Son that redeemed thee, that boly Ghost that would comfort thee. There is enough given; but then, as Hiram sent materials sufficient for the building of the Temple, but there was something else to be done, for the fitting, and placing thereof; so there is life enough brought into the world, for all the world, by the death of Christ, but then there is something else to be done for the application of this life to particular persons, intended in this word in our Text, ut haberent, I came that they might have life.

There is Air enough in the world, to give breath to everything, though everything do not breath. If a tree, or a stone do not breathe, it is not because it wants air, but because it wants means to receive it, or to return it. All eggs are not hatched that the hen sits upon; neither could Christ himself get all the chickens that were hatched, to come, and to stay under his wings. That man that is blind, or that will wink, shall see no more sun upon S. Barnabies day, then upon S. Lucies; no more in the summer, then in the winter solstice. And therefore as there is copiosa redemptio, a plentiful redemption brought into the world by the death of Christ, so (as S. Paul found it in his particular conversion) there is copiosa lux, a great & a powerful light exhibited to us, that we might see, and lay hold of this life, in the Ordinances of the Church, in the Confessions, and Absolutions, and Services, and Sermons, and Sacraments of the Church: Christ came ut daret, that he might bring life into the world, by his death, and then he instituted his Church, ut haberent, that by the means thereof this life might be infused into us, and infused so, as the last word of our Text delivers it, Abundantiùs, I came, that they might have life more abundantly.

Dignaris Domine, ut eis, quibus debita dimittis, te, promissionibus tuis, debitorem facias; This, O Lord, is thine abundant proceeding; First thou forgivest me my debt to thee, and then thou makest thyself a debtor to me by thy large promises; and after all, performest those promises more largely then thou madest them. Indeed, God can do nothing scantly, penuriously, singly. Even his maledictions, (to which God is ever loath to come) his first commination was plural, it was death, and death upon death, Morte morieris. Death may be plural; but this benediction of life cannot admit a singular; Chajim, which is the word for life, hath no singular number. This is the difference between God's Mercy, and his Judgments, that sometimes his Judgments may be plural, complicated, enwrapped in one another, but his Mercies are always so, and cannot be otherwise; he gives them abundantiùs, more abundantly.

More abundantly then to whom? The natural man hath the Image of God imprinted in his soul; eternity is God himself, man hath not that, not eternity; but the Image of eternity, that is Immortality, a post eternity there is in the soul of man. And then, man is all soul in Moses expression; For, he does not say that man had, but that man was a living soul. So that the natural man hath life more abundantly then any other creature, (howsoever Oaks, and Crowes, and Harts may be said to out-live him) because he hath a life after this life. But Christ came to give life more abundantly then this.

That he did, when he came to the Jews in promises, in Types, and Figures, and Sacrifices: He gave life more abundantly to the Jew, then to the Gentile, because he gave him better means to preserve that life, better means to illustrate that Image of God in his soul, that is, to make his Immortality Immortal happiness, (for otherwise our Immortality were our greatest curse) better means to conform himself to God, by having a particular Law for the direction of all his actions, which the Gentiles had not. For, therein especially consisted the abundant favor of God to the Jews, as it is expressed by Moses, Unto what Nation are their gods come so near unto them, as the Lord our God is come unto us? And in what consisted this nearness? In this, What Nation hath Laws and Statutes so righteous as we have? God gave man life more abundantly then other creatures, because he gave him Immortality; God gave the Jews life more abundantly then other men, by giving them a Law to make their Immortality Immortal happiness, and yet there is a further abundantiùs, Christ came to give us, us Christians, life more abundantly then Gentile, or Jew.

Justin Martyr denies, that ever any understood the true God, till Christ came. He goes upon the same ground that S. Paul does, Whilst you were without Christ, you were without God; that is, without such an evidence, such a manifestation, such an assurance of God, as faith requires, or as produces faith. For, the Ceremonial Laws of the Jews cast as many shadows as it did lights, and burdened them in easing them. Whereas the Christian Religion, is; as Greg. Nazianz. says, Simplex & nuda, nisi prave in artem difficilimam converteretur: It is a plain, an easy, a perspicuous truth, but that the perverse and uncharitable wranglings of passionate and froward men, have made Religion a hard, an intricate, and a perplexed art; so that now, that Religion, which carnal and worldly men, have, by an ill life, discredited, and made hard to be believed, the passion, and perverseness of School-men, by Controversies, hath made hard to be understood. Whereas the Christian Religion, is of it self Iugumsuave, a sweet, and an easy yoke, and verbum abbreviatum, an abridgement and a contracted doctrine; for, where the Jews had all abridged in decem verba (as Moses calls the ten Commandments, ten words ) the Christian hath all abridged in duo verba, into two words, love God, love thy neighbor. So Christ hath given us, us Christians life abundantiùs, more abundantly then to the Gen tile, or to the Jew; but there is a farther abundance yet; all this is but abundantiùs illis, more abundantly then to others, but Christ hath given us life abundantiùs ipsis, more abundantly then to ourselves.

That is, in the Christian Church, he hath given us means to be better today then yesterday, and tomorrow then today. That grace which God offers us in the Church, does not only fill that capacity, which we have, but give us a greater capacity then we had: And it is an abuse of God's grace, not to improve it, or not to procure such farther grace, as that present grace makes us capable of. As it is an improvident, and dangerous thing to spend upon the stock, so is it to rely upon that portion of grace, which I think I had in my election, or that measure of Sanctification, which I came to in my last sickness. Christ gives us life abundantiùs illis, better means of eternal life then to Gentile or Jew, and abundantiùs ipsis; better, that is, nearer assurance, in our growth of grace, and increase of Sanctification every day, then in the consideration of anything done by God, in our behalf, heretofore.

Now, with these abundances (in which, we exceed illos, and ipsos, others and ourselves) Christ comes to us, in this, that he hath constituted, and established a Church; and therefore we consider his abundant proceeding in that work. From this day, in which, the first stone of that building, the Church, was laid, (for, though the foundations of the Church were laid in Eternity, yet, that was under ground, the first stone above ground, that is, the manifestation of God's purpose to the world was laid this day, in Christ's birth) from this day, the Incarnation of Christ, (for, of all those names, by which the ancients design this day, Christmas day, Athanasius calling it the Substantiation of Christ; Tertullian, the Incorporation of Christ; Damascene, the Humanation of Christ; Of all those fifty names, which are collected out of the Fathers, for this day, most concur in that name, The Incarnation of Christ) from this day, God proceeded so abundantly in enlarging his Church, as that, within two hundred years, Tertullian was able to say, Ipsa hospitalia aegrorum, The very hospitals of the Christians are more and more sumptuously built, and more richly endowed, then the very Temples of the Idols, or then the Palaces of Idolatrous Princes. And still abundantiùs, not to compare only with Idolaters, but with the Jews themselves, and with them, in that wherein they magnified themselves most, their Temple. That Church, which Justinian the Emperor built at Constantinople, and dedicated to Sophia, to the wisdom of God, (and the wisdom of God is Christ, Christ is the Power of God, and the Wisdom of God, 1 Cor. 1.24) is found by them, who have written that story, in bigness, and in beauty, to have exceeded Solomon's Temple: Though in that, there were employed for many years, thirty thousand Carpenters, and forty thousand Masons, and (other endowments of rich vessel being proportionable to it) more then twenty thousand Bowls, and Goblets of gold, and silver, yet Iustinians Church at Constantinople exceeded that: Unto the riches of this wisdom of God, Christ Jesus, flowed all the treasure of the World, and upon this Wisdom of God, Christ Jesus, waited all the wisdom of the World. For, at that time, when Christ came into the world, was learning at that heighth, as that accounting from Cicero and Virgil, (two great Masters in two great kinds) to the two Pliny's, (which may shut up one age) we may reckon in that one state, under whose government Christ was born, Rome, seven or eight score Authors, more then ever they had before or after. This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice, and be glad in it. And as Constantine ordained, that upon this day, the Church should burn no Oil, but Balsamum in her Lamps, so let us ever celebrate this day, with a thankful acknowledgment, that Christ, who is unctus Domini, The Anointed of the Lord, hath anointed us with the Oil of gladness above our fellows, and given us life more abundantly then others, in making us partakers of these means of salvation in his Church.

But I bring it closer then so; now, and here, within these walls, and at this hour, comes Christ unto you, in the offer of this abundance; and with what penuriousnesse, penuriousnesse of devotion, penuriousnesse of reverence do you meet him here? Deus stetit, says David, God standeth in the Congregation; does God stand there, and wilt thou sit? sit, and never kneel? I would speak so, as the congregation should not know whom I mean; but so, as that they whom it concerns, might know I mean them; I would speak: for, I must say, that there come some persons to this Church, and persons of example to many that come with them, of whom, (excepting some few, who must therefore have their praise from us, as, no doubt, they have their thanks and blessings from God) I never saw Master nor servant kneel, at his coming into this Church, or at any part of divine service. David had such a zeal to God's service, as that he was content to be thought a fool, for his humility towards the Ark. S. Paul was content to be thought mad; so was our blessed Savior himself, not only by his enemies, but by his own friends and kinsfolk. Indeed, the root of that word Tehillim, which is the name of the Psalms, and of all cheerful and hearty service of God, is Halal, and Halal is Insanire, To fall mad; And, if humility in the service of God here, be madness, I would more of us were more out of our wits, then we are; I would all our Churches were, to that purpose, Bedlams. S. Jerome's rule is not only frequenter orandum, to come often to prayers, but Flexo corpore orandum, to declare an inward humiliation by an outward. As our coming to Church is a testification, a profession of our religion, to testify our fall in Adam, the Church appoints us to fall upon our knees; and to testify our Resurrection in Christ Jesus, the Church hath appointed certain times, to stand: But no man is so left to his liberty, as never to kneel. Genuflexio est peccatorum, kneeling is the sinners posture; if thou come hither in the quality of a sinner, (and, if thou do not so, what doest thou here, the whole need not the Physician) put thyself into the posture of a sinner, kneel. We are very far from enjoining any one constant form to be always observed by all men; we only direct you, by that good rule of S. Bernard, Habe reverentiam Deo, ut quod pluris est ei tribuas. Do but remember, with what reverence thou camest into thy Masters presence, when thou wast a servant, with what reverence thou camest to the Council table, or to the Kings presence, if thou have been called occasionally to those high places; and Quod plur is est, such reverence, as thou gavest to them there, be content to afford to God here. That Sacrifice that struggled at the Altar, the Ancients would not accept for a Sacrifice; But Caesar would not forbear a sacrifice for struggling, but sacrificed it for all that. He that struggles, and murmurs at this instruction, this increpation, is the less fit for a sacrifice to God, for that; But the zeal that I bear to God's house, puts so much of Caesar's courage into me, as, for all that struggling, to say now, and to repeat as often as I see that irreverence continued, to the most impatient struggler, Deus stetit, God stands in the Congregation, and wilt thou sit; sit, and never kneel? Venite, says David, Let us come hither, let us be here; what to do? Venite adoremus, Let us come and worship; How? will not the heart serve? no; Adoremus & procidamus, Let us fall down, and kneel before the Lord our Maker. Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification; and as without this, without holiness, no man shall see God, though he pore whole nights upon the Bible; so without that, without humility, no man shall hear God speak to his soul, though he hear three two-hours Sermons every day. But if God bring thee to that humiliation of soul and body here, he will improve, and advance thy sanctification abundantiùs, more abundantly, and when he hath brought it to the best perfection, that this life is capable of, he will provide another abundantiùs, another manner of abundance in the life to come; which is the last beating of the pulse of this text, the last panting of the breath thereof, our anhelation, and panting after the joys, and glory, and eternity of the kingdom of Heaven; of which, though, for the most part, I use to dismiss you, with saying something, yet it is always little that I can say thereof; at this time, but this, that if all the joys of all the Martyrs, from Abel t • him that groans now in the Inquisition, were condensed into one body of joy, (and certainly the joys that the Martyrs felt at their deaths, would make up a far greater body, then their sorrows would do,) (for though it be said of our great Martyr, or great Witness, (as S. John calls Christ Jesus) to whom, all other Martyrs are but sub-martyrs, witnesses that testify his testimony, Non dolor sicut dolor ejus, there was never sorrow like unto his sorrow, it is also true, Non gaudium sicut gaudium ejus, There was never joy like unto that joy which was set before him, when he endured the cross;) If I had all this joy of all these Martyrs, (which would, no doubt, be such a joy, as would work a liquefaction, a melting of my bowels) yet I shall have it abundantiùs, a joy more abundant, then even this superlative joy, in the world to come. What a dim vespers of a glorious festival, what a poor half-holyday, is Methusalems nine hundred years, to eternity? what a poor account hath that man made, that says, this land hath been in my name, and in my Ancestors from the Conquest? what a yesterday is that? not six hundred years. If I could believe the transmigration of souls, and think that my soul had been successively in some creature or other, since the Creation, what a yesterday is that? not six thousand years. What a yesterday for the past, what a tomorrow for the future, is any term, that can be comprehendred in Cyphar or Counters? But as, how abundant a life soever any man hath in this world for temporal abundances, I have life more abundantly then he, if I have the spiritual life of grace, so what measure soever I have of this spiritual life of grace, in this world, I shall have that more abundantly in Heaven, for there, my term shall be a term for three lives; for those three, that as long as the Father, and the Son, and the holy Ghost live, I shall not die. And to this glorious Son of God, and the most almighty Father, &c.

SERMON VIII. Preached upon Candlemas Day.

E Ither of the names of this day, were Text enough for a Sermon, Purification, or Candlemas. Joyne we them together, and raise we only this one note from both, that all true purification is in the light; corner purity, clandestine purity, conventicle purity is not purity. Christ gave himself for us, says the Apostle, that he might purify to himself a peculiar people. How shall this purification appear? It follows; They shall be zealous of good works; They shall not wrangle about faith and works, but be actually zealous of goods works. For, purification was accompanied with an oblation, something was to be given; A Lamb, a Dove, a Turtle; All, emblems of mildness; true purity is mild, meek, humble, and to despise and undervalue others, is an inseparable mark of false purity. The oblation of this days purification is light: so the day names it, Candlemas-day, so your custom celebrates it, with many lights. Now, when God received lights into his Tabernacle, he received none of Tallow, (the Ox hath horns) he received none of Wax, (the Be hath his sting) but he received only lamps of oil. And, though from many fruits and berries they pressed oil, yet God admitted no oil into the service of the Church, but only of the Olive; the Olive, the emblem of peace. Our purification is with an oblation, our oblation is light, our light is good works; our peace is rather to exhort you to them, then to institute any solemn, or other then occasional comparison between faith and them. Every good work hath faith for the root; but every faith hath not good works for the fruit thereof. And it is observable, that in all this great Sermon of our Savior's in the Mount, (which possesseth this, and the two next Chapters) there is no mention of faith, by way of persuasion or exhortation thereunto, but the whole Sermon is spent upon good works. For, good works presuppose faith; and therefore he concludes that they had but little faith, because they were so solicitous about the things of this world, O ye of little faith. And as Christ concludes an unstedfastnesse in their faith, out of their solicitude for this world, so may the world justly conclude an establishment in their faith, if they see them exercise themselves in the works of mercy, and so let their light shine before men, that they may see their good works, and glorify their Father which is in heaven.

These are words spoken by our Savior to his Disciples in the Mount; a treasure deposited in those disciples, but in those disciples, as depositaries for us; an Oracle uttered to those disciples, but through those disciples to us; Paradise conveyed to those disciples, but to those disciples, as feoffees in trust for us; to everyone of us, in them (from him, that rides with his hundreds of Torches, to him that crawles with his rush-candle) our Savior says, Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, &c. The words have two parts; so must our explication of them; first a precept, Sic luceat, (Let your light so shine before men)