Eighty Sermons

SERM. L. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalms.

G OD imputes but one thing to David, but one sin; The matter of Uriah the Hittite: nor that neither, but by way of exception, not till he had first established an assurance, that David stood well with him. First he had said, David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from anything, that he had commanded him all the days of his life: Here was rectitude, He did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord; no obliquity, no departing into by-ways, upon collateral respects; Here was integrity to God's service, no serving of God and Mammon, He turned not from anything that God commanded him; And here was perpetuity, perseverance, constancy, All the days of his life: And then, and not till then, God makes that one, and but that one exception, Except the matter of Uriah the Hittite. When God was reconciled to him, he would not so much as name that sin; that had offended him:

And herein is the mercy of God, in the merits of Christ, a sea of mercy, that as the Sea retains no impression of the Ships that pass in it, (for Navies make no path in the Sea) so when we put out into the boundless Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus, by which only we have reconciliation to God, there remains no record against us; for God hath cancelled that record which he kept, and that which Satan kept God hath nailed to the Cross of his Son. That man which hath seen me at the sealing of my Pardon, and the seal of my Reconciliation, at the Sacrament, many times since, will yet in his passion, or in his ill nature, or in his uncharitableness, object to me the fins of my youth; whereas God himself, if I have repented today, knows not the sins that I did yesterday. God hath rased the Record of my sin, in Heaven; it offends not him, it grieves not his Saints nor Angels there; and he hath rased the Record in hell; it advances not their interest in me there, nor their triumph over me. And yet here, the uncharitable man will know more, and see more, and remember more, then my God, or his devil remembers, or knows, or sees: He will see a path in the Sea; he will see my sin, when it is drowned in the blood of my Savior. After the Kings pardon, perchance it will bear an action, to call a man by that infamous name, which that crime, which is pardoned, did justly cast upon him before the pardon: After God's reconciliation to David, he would not name David's sin in the particular.

But yet for all this, though God will be no example, of upbraiding or reproaching repented sins, when God hath so far expressed his love, as to bring that sinner to that repentance, and so to mercy, yet, that he may perfect his own care, he exercises that repentant sinner with such medicinal corrections, as may enable him to stand upright for the future. And to that purpose, was no man evermore exercised then David. David broke into another's family; he built upon another's ground; he planted in another's Seminary; and God broke into his family, his ground, his Seminary. In no story, can we find so much Domestic affliction, such rapes, and incests, and murders, and rebellions, from their own children, as in David's story. Under the heavy weight and oppression of some of those, is David, by all Expositors, conceived to have conceived, and uttered this Psalm. Some take it to have been occasioned by some of his temporal afflictions; either his persecution from Saul, or bodily sickness in himself, of which traditionally the Rabbins speak much, or Absolom's unnatural rebellion. Some others, with whom we find more reason to join, find more reason to interpret it, of a spiritual affliction; that David, in the apprehension, and under the sense of the wrath and indignation of God, came to this vehement exclamation, or deprecation, O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.

In which words we shall consider, first the person, upon whom David turned for his succor, and then what succor he seeks at his hands. First his word, and then his end; first to whom, and then for what he supplicates. And in the first of these, the Person, we shall make these three steps; first that he makes his first access to God only, O Lord rebuke me not; do not thou, and though I will not say, I care not, yet I care the less who do. And secondly, that it is to God by Name, not to any universal God, in general notions; so natural men come to God; but to God whom he considers in a particular name, in particular notions, and attributes, and manifestations of himself; a God whom he knows, by his former works done upon him. And then, that name in which he comes to him here, is the name of Jehovah; his radical, his fundamental, his primary, his essential name, the name of being, Jehovah. For, he that deliberately, and considerately believes himself to have his very being from God, believes certainly that he hath his well being from him too; He that acknowledges, that it is by God's providence that he breathes, believes that it is by his providence that he eats too. So his access is to God, and to God by name, that is by particular considerations, and then, to God in the name of Jehovah, to that God that hath done all, from his first beginning, from his Being. And in these three we shall determine our first part.

First, in this first branch of this part, David comes to God, but without any confidence in himself. Here is Reus ad rostra sine patrono, here is the prisoner at the Barre, and no Counsel allowed him. He confesses Indictments, faster then they can be read: If he hear himself indicted, that he looked upon Bathsheba, that he lusted after Bathsheba, he cries, Alas, I have done that, and more; dishonored her, and myself, and our God; and more then that, I have continued the act into a habit; and more then that, I have drowned that sin in blood, lest it should rise up to my sight; and more then all that, I have caused the Name of God to be blasphemed; and lest his Majesty, and his greatness should be a terror to me, I have occasioned the enemy to undervalue him, and speak despitefully of God himself. And when he hath confessed all, all that he remembers, he must come to his Ab occultis meis, Lord cleanse me from my secret sins; for there are sins, which we have labored so long to hide from the world, that at last, they are hidden from ourselves, from our own memories, our own consciences. As much as David stands in fear of this Judge, he must entreat this Judge, to remember his sins; Remember them, O Lord, for else they will not fall into my pardon; but remember them in mercy, and not in anger; for so they will not fall into my pardon neither.

Whatsoever the affliction then was, temporal, or spiritual, (we take it rather to be spiritual) David's recourse is presently to God. He doth not, as his predecessor Saul did, when he was afflicted, send for one that was cunning upon the Harp, to divert sorrow so. If his Subjects rebel, he doth not say, Let them alone, let them go on, I shall have the juster cause, by their rebellion, of confiscations upon their Estates, of executions upon their persons, of revocations of their laws, and customs, and privileges, which they carry themselves so high upon. If his son lift up his hand against him, he doth not place his hope in that, that that occasion will cut off his son, and that then the people's hearts which were bent upon his son, will return to him again. David knew he could not retire himself from God in his bedchamber; Guards and Ushers could not keep him out. He knew he could not defend himself from God in his Army; for the Lord of Hosts is Lord of his Hosts. If he fled to Sea, to Heaven, to Hell, he was sure to meet God there; and there thou shalt meet him too, if thou fly from God, to the relief of outward comforts, of music, of mirth, of drink, of cordials, of Comedies, of conversation. Not that such recreations are unlawful; the mind hath her physic as well as the body; but when thy sadness proceeds from a sense of thy sins, (which is God's key to the door of his mercy, put into thy hand) it is a new, and a greater sin, to go about to overcome that holy sadness, with these profane diversions; to fly Ad consolatiunculas creaturulae (as that elegant man Luther expresses it, according to his natural delight in that elegancy of Diminutives, with which he abounds above all Authors) to the little and contemptible comforts of little and contemptible creatures. And as Luther uses the physic, Job useth the Physician; Luther calls the comforts, Miserable comforts; and Job calls them that minister them, Onerosos consolatores, Miserable comforters are you all. David could not drown his adultery in blood; never think thou to drown thine in wine. The Ministers of God are Sons of Thunder, they are falls of waters, trampling of horses, and runnings of Chariots; and if these voices of these Ministers, cannot overcome thy music, thy security, yet the Angels trumpet will; That Surgite qui dermitis, Arise ye that sleep in the dust, in the dust of the grave, is a Treble that over-reaches all; That Ite maledicti, Go ye accursed into Hell fire, is a Base that drowns all. There is no recourse but to God, no relief but in God; and therefore David applied himself to the right method, to make his first access to God.

It is to God only, and to God by name, and not in general notions; for it implies a nearer, a more familiar, and more presentiall knowledge of God, a more cheerful acquaintance, and a more assiduous conversation with God, when we know how to call God by a Name, a Creator, a Redeemer, a Comforter, then when we consider him only as a diffused power, that spreads it self over all creatures; when we come to him in Affirmatives, and Confessions, This thou hast done for me, then when we come to him only in Negatives, and say, That that is God, which is nothing else. God is come nearer to us then to others, when we know his Name. For though it be truly said in the School, that no name can be given to God, Ejus essentiam adequate repraesentans, No one name can reach to the expressing of all that God is; And though Trismegistus do humbly, and modestly, and reverently say, Non spere, it never fell into my thought, nor into my hope, that the maker and founder of all Majesty, could be circumscribed, or imprisoned by any one name, though a name compounded and complicated of many names, as the Rabbins have made one name of God, of all his names in the Scriptures; Though Jacob seem to have been rebuked for asking God's name, when he wrestled with him; And so also the Angel which was to do a miraculous work, a work appertaining only to God, to give a Child to the barren, because he represented God, and had the person of God upon him, would not permit Manoah to inquire after his name, Because, as he says there, that name was secret and wonderful; And though God himself, to dignify and authorize that Angel, which he made his Commissioner, and the Tutelar and National Guide of his people, says of that Angel, to that people, Fear him, provoke him not, for my Name is in him, and yet did not tell them, what that name was; Yet certainly, we could not so much as say, God cannot be named, except we could name God by some name; we could not say, God hath no name, except God had a name; for that very word, God, is his name. God calls upon us often in the Scriptures, To call upon his Name; and in the Scriptures, he hath manifested to us divers names, by which we may call upon him. Doest thou know what name to call him by, when thou callest him to bear false witness, to aver a falsehood? Hath God a name to swear by? Doest thou know what name to call him by, when thou wouldest make him thy servant, thy instrument, thy executioner, to plague others, upon thy bitter curses and imprecations? Hath God a name to curse by? Canst thou wound his body, exhaust his blood, tear off his flesh, break his bones, excruciate his soul; and all this by his right name? Hath God a name to blaspheme by? and hath God no name to pray by? is he such a stranger to thee? Dost thou know every fair house in thy way, as thou travellest, whose that is; and dost thou not know, in whose house thou standest now?

Beloved, to know God by name, and to come to him by name, is to consider his particular blessings to thee; to consider him in his power, and how he hath protected thee there; and in his wisdom, and how he hath directed thee there; and in his love, and how he hath affected thee there; and expressed all, in particular mercies. He is but a dark, but a narrow, a shallow, a lazy man in nature, that knows no more, but that there is a heaven, and an earth, and a sea; He that will be of use in this world, comes to know the influences of the heavens, the virtue of the plants, and mines of the earth, the course and divisions of the Sea. To the natural man, God gives general notions of himself; a God that spreads over all as the heavens; a God that sustains all as the earth; a God that transports, and communicates all to all as the sea: But to the Christian Church, God applies himself in more particular notions; as a Father, as a Son, as a holy Ghost; And to every Christian soul, as a Creator, a Redeemer, a Benefactor; that I may say, This I was not born to, and yet this I have from my God; this a potent adversary sought to evict from me, but this I have recovered by my God; sickness had enfeebled my body, but I have a convalescence; calumny had defamed my reputation, but I have a reparation; malice in other men, or improvidence in myself, had ruined my fortune, but I have a redintegration from my God. And then by these, which are indeed but Cognomina Dei, his sir-names, names of distinction, names of the exercise of some particular properties, and attributes of his, to come to the root of all, to my very Being, that my present Being in this world, and my eternal Being in the next, is made known to me by his name of Jehovah, which is his Essentiall name, to which David had recourse in this exinanition; when his affliction had even annihilated, and brought him to nothing, he fled to Jehovah, the God of all Being, which is the foundation of all his other Attributes, and includes all his other names, and is our next and last branch in this first Part.

This name then of Jehovah that is here translated Lord, is agreed by all to be the greatest name by which God hath declared and manifested himself to man. This is that name which the Jews falsely, but peremptorily, (for falsehood lives by peremptoriousness, and feeds and arms it self with peremptoriousness) deny ever to have been attributed to the Messias, in the Scriptures. This is that name, in the virtue and use whereof, those Calumniators of our Savior's miracles do say, that he did his miracles, according to a direction, and schedule, for the true and right pronouncing of that name, which Solomon in his time had made, and Christ in his time had found, and by which, say they, any other man might have done those miracles, if he had had Solomon's directions for the right sounding of this name, Jehovah. This is that name, which out of a superstitious reverence the Jews always forbore to found, or utter, but ever pronounced some other name, either Adonai, or Elohim, in the place thereof, wheresoever they found Jehovah. But now their Rabbins will not so much as write that name, but still express it in four other letters. So that they dare not, not only not sound it, not say it, but not see it.

How this name which we call Jehovah, is truly to be sounded, because in that language it is expressed in four Consonants only, without Vowels, is a perplexed question; we may well be content to be ignorant therein, since our Savior Christ himself, in all those places which he cited out of the Old Testament, never sounded it; he never said, Jehovah. Nor the Apostles after him, nor Origen, nor Jerome; all persons very intelligent in the propriety of language; they never sounded this name Jehovah. For though in S. Jerome's Exposition upon the 8. Psalm, we find that word Jehovah, in some Editions which we have now, yet it is a clear case, that in the old Copies it is not so; in Jerome's mouth it was not so; from Jerome's hand it came not so. Neither doth it appear to me, that ever the name of Jehovah was so pronounced, till so late, as in our Fathers time; for I think Petrus Gallatinus was the first that ever called it so. But howsoever this name be to be sounded, that which falls in our consideration at this time, is, That David in his distresses fled presently to God, and to God by name, that is, in consideration and commemoration of his particular blessings; and to a God that had that name, the name of Jehovah, the name of Essence, and Being, which name carried a confession, that all our well-being, and the very first being it self, was, and was to be derived from him.

David therefore comes to God In nomine totali; in nomine integrali; He considers God totally, entirely, altogether; Not altogether, that is, confusedly; but altogether, that is, in such a Name as comprehends all his Attributes, all his Power upon the world, and all his benefits upon him. The Gentiles were not able to consider God so; not so entirely, not altogether; but broke God in pieces, and changed God into single money, and made a fragmentarie God of every Power, and Attribute in God, of every blessing from God, nay of every malediction, and judgment of God. A clap of thunder made a Jupiter, a tempest at sea made a Neptune, an earthquake made a Pluto; Fear came to be a God, and a Fever came to be a God; Every thing that they were in love with, or afraid of, came to be canonized, and made a God amongst them. David considered God as a center, into which & from which all lines flowed. Neither as the Gentiles did, nor as some ignorants of the Roman Church do, that there must be a stormy god, S. Nicholas, and a plaguie god, S. Rook, and a sheepshearing god, & a swineherd god, a god for every Parish, a god for every occupation, God forbid. Acknowledg God to be the Author of thy Being; find him so at the spring-head, & then thou shalt easily trace him, by the branches, to all that belongs to thy well-being. The Lord of Hosts, and the God of peace, the God of the mountains, and the God of the valleys, the God of noon, and of midnight, of all times, the God of East & West, of all places, the God of Princes, and of Subjects, of all persons, is all one and the same God; and that which we intend, when we say Jehovah, is all He.

And therefore hath S. Bernard a pathetical and useful meditation to this purpose: Every thing in the world, says he, can say, Creator meus es tu, Lord thou hast made me; All things that have life, and growth, can say, Pastor meus es tu, Lord thou hast fed me, increased me; All men can say, Redemptor meus es tu, Lord I was sold to death through original sin, by one Adam, and thou hast redeemed me by another; All that have fallen by infirmity, and risen again by grace, can say, Susceptor meus es tu, Lord I was fallen, but thou hast undertaken me, and dost sustain me; But he that comes to God in the name of Jehovah, he means all this, and all other things, in this one Petition, Let me have a Being, and then I am safe, for In him we live, and move, and have our Being. If we solicit God as the Lord of Hosts, that he would deliver us from our enemies, perchance he may see it fitter for us to be delivered to our enemies: If we solicit him as Proprietarie of all the world, as the beasts upon a thousand mountains are his, as all the gold and silver in the earth is his, perchance he sees that poverty is fitter for us: If we solicit him for health, or long life, he gives life, but he kills too, he heals, but he wounds too; and we may be ignorant which of these, life or death, sickness or health, is for our advantage. But solicit him as Jehovah, for a Being, that Being which flows from his purpose, that Being which he knows fittest for us, and then we follow his own Instructions, Fiat voluntas tua, thy will be done upon us, and we are safe.

Now that which Jehovah was to David, Jesus is to us. Man in general hath relation to God, as he is Jehovah, Being; We have relation to Christ, as he is Jesus, our Salvation; Salvation is our Being, Jesus is our Jehovah. And therefore as David delights himself with that name Jehovah, for he repeats it eight or nine times in this one short Psalm, and though he ask things of a diverse nature at God's hands, though he suffer afflictions, of a diverse nature, from God's hands, yet still he retains that one name, he speaks to God in no other name in all this Psalm but in the name of Jehovah: So in the New Testament, he which may be compared with David, because he was under great sins, and yet in great favor with God, S. Paul, he delights himself with that name of Jesus so much, as that S. Jerome says, Quē superflue diligebat, extraordinary nominavit, As he loved him excessively, so he named him superabundantly. It is the name that cost God most, and therefore he loves it best; it cost him his life to be a Jesus, a Savior. The name of Christ, which is Anointed, he had by office; he was anointed as King, as Priest, as Prophet. All those names which he had in Isaiah, The Counselor, The Wonderful, The Prince of Peace, and the name of Jehovah itself, which the Jews deny ever to be given to him, and is evidently given to him in that place, Christ had by nature; But his name of Jesus, a Savior, he had by purchase, & that purchase cost him his blood. And therefore, as Jacob preferred his name of Israel, before his former name of Jacob, because he had that name upon his wrestling with God, and it cost him a lameness; so is the name of Jesus so precious to him who bought it so dearly, that not only every knee bows at the name of Jesus here, but Jesus himself, and the whole Trinity, bow down towards us, to give us all those things which we ask in that name. For even of a devout use of that veryname, do some of the Fathers interpret that, Oleū effusum Nomen tuu, That the name of Jesus should be spread as an ointment, breathed as perfume, diffused as a soul over all the petitions of our prayers; As the Church concludes for the most part, all her Collects so, Grant this O Lord, for our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus sake. And so much does S. Paul abound in the use of this name, as that he repeats it thrice, in the superscription of one of his Letters the title of one of his Epistles, his first to Timothy. And with the same devotion, S. August. says, even of the name, Melius est mihi non esse, quā sine Jesus esse, I were better have no being, then be without Jesus; Melius est non vivere, quam vivere sine vita, I were better have no life, then any life without him. For as David could find no being without Jehovah, a Christian finds no life without Jesus. Both these names imply that which is in this Text, in our Translation, The Lord, Dominus; to whom only, and entirely we appertain; his we are. And therefore whether we take Dominus, to be Do minas, to threaten, to afflict us, or to be Do manus, to succor, and relieve us, (as some have pleased themselves with those obvious derivations) as David did still, we must make our recourse to him, from whom, as he is Jehovah, Being, or being our well-being, our eternal being, our Creation, Preservation, and Salvation is derived; all is from him.

Now when he hath his access to the Lord, to this Lord, the Lord that hath all, and gives all, and is all, the first part of David's prayer, and all his prayer which falls into our Text, is but Deprecatory; he does but pray that God would forbear him. He pretends no error, he enterprises no Reversing of Judgment; no at first, he dares not sue for pardon; he only desires a Reprieve, a respite of execution, and that not absolutely neither; but he would not be executed in hot blood; Ne in ira, ne in furore, not in God's anger, not in his hot displeasure.

First then, Deprecari, is not Refragari, to Deprecate, is not to Contend against a Judge, nor to defend ones self against an Officer, but it is only in the quality, and in the humility of a Petitioner, and Suppliant, to beg a forbearance. The Martyrs in the Primitive Church would not do that. Nihil de causa sua deprecatur, qui nihil de conditione sua miratur, says Tertullian; and in that he describes a patience of Steele, and an invincible temper. He means that the Christians in those times of Persecution, did never entreat the Judge for favor, because it was not strange to them, to see themselves, whose conversation was in heaven, despised, and contemned, and condemned upon earth: Nihil mirantur de conditione, They wondered not at their misery, they thought it a part of their Profession, a part of the Christian Religion, to suffer, and therefore, Nihil deprecati de causa, They never solicited the Judge for favor. They had learnt by experience of daily tribulation, the Apostles Lesson, Think it not strange, when temptations and tribulations fall; That is, make that your daily bread, and you shall never starve, use yourselves to suffering, at least to the expectation, the contemplation of suffering, acquaint yourselves with that, accustom yourselves to that before it come, and it will not be a stranger to you when it comes. Tertullian's Method may be right, and it may work that effect in very great afflictions; a man may be so used to them, as that he will not descend to any low deprecation, or suit to be delivered of them. But David's affliction was spiritual; and howsoever, as a natural man, nay; as a devout and religious man, (for even in rectified men there are affections of a middle nature, that participate of nature, and of grace too, and in which the Spirit of God moves, and natural affections move too; for nature and grace do not so destroy one another, as that we should conclude, He hath strong natural affections, therefore he hath no grace) David I say, that might justly wonder at his own condition, and think it strange, that he that put his trust so entirely in God, should so entirely be delivered over to such afflictions, might also justly deprecate, and boldly say, Ne facias, O Lord deal not thus with thy servant.

Our Savior Christ's Transeat calix, Let this cup pass from me, was a deprecation in his own behalf; And his Pater dimitte illis, Father, forgivethem, they know not what they do, was a deprecation in the behalf of his enemies; And so was Stephens, Ne statuas illis, O Lord, lay not this sin to their charge, A deprecation in the behalf of his Executioners. And these Deprecations for others, for ourselves, are proposed for our imitation. But for Moses his Dele me, Pardon this people, or blot my name out of thy Book, and for S. Paul's Anathema, rather then his brethren should not be saved, let himself be condemned, for such Deprecations for others, as were upon the matter, Imprecations upon themselves, those may not well be drawn into consequence, or practice; for in Moses and S. Paul themselves, there was, if not an irregularity, and an inordinateness, at least an inconsideration, not to be imitated by us now, not to be excused in them then; but for the Prayer that is merely deprecatory, though some have thought it less lawful then the postulatory prayer, because when God is come to the act of afflicting us, he hath then revealed, and declared, and manifested his will to be such, and against the revealed and manifested will of God we may not pray, yet because his afflictions are not peremptory, but we have ever day to show cause, why that affliction should be taken off, and because all his judgments are conditional, and the condition of every particular judgment is not always revealed to us, and this is always revealed to us, Miserationes ejus super omnia opera ejus, That his mercy is above all his judgments, therefore we may come to that Deprecation, that God will make his hand lighter upon us, and his corrections easier unto us.

As the Saints in heaven have their Vsqucquo, How long Lord, holy and true, before thou begin to execute judgment? So the Saints on earth have their Vsquequo, How long Lord, before thou take off the execution of this judgment upon us? For, our Deprecatory prayers, are not Mandatory, they are not Directory, they appoint not God his ways, nor his times; but as our Postulatory prayers are, they also are submitted to the will of God, and have all in them, that ingredient, that herb of grace, which Christ put into his own prayer, that Veruntamen, Yet not my will, but thy will be fulfilled; And they have that ingredient, which Christ put into our prayer, Fiat volunt as, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven; In heaven there is no resisting of his will; yet in heaven there is asoliciting, a hastening, an accelerating of the judgment, and the glory of the Resurrection; So though we resist not his corrections here upon earth, we may humbly present to God, the sense which we have of his displeasure; for this sense, and apprehension of his corrections, is one of the principal reasons, why he sends them; he corrects us therefore, that we might be sensible of his corrections; that when we, being humbled under his hand, have said with his Prophet, I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, He may be pleased to say to his Correcting Angel, as he did to his Destroying Angel, This is enough, and so burn his rod now, as he put up his sword then.

For though David do, well for himself, and well for our example, deprecate the anger of God, expressed in those Judgments, yet we see he spends but one verse of the Psalm in that Deprecation. In all the rest he leaves God wholly to his pleasure, how far he will extend, or aggravate that Judgment; and he turns wholly upon the Postulatory part, That God would have mercy upon him, and save him, and deliver his soul. And in that one verse, he does not deprecate all afflictions, all corrections. David knows what moves God to correct us; It is not only our ilnesse that moves him; for he corrects us when we are not ill in his sight, but made good by his pardon: But his goodness, as well as our ilnesse, moves him to correct us; If he were not good, not only good in himself, but good to us, he would let us alone, and never correct us. But, Ideo cos qui errant corripis, quia bonus & suavis es Domine, as the Vulgate reads that place, The Lord corrects us, not only as he is good, but as he is gentle; he were more cruel, more unmerciful, if he did always show mercy; That David intends, when he says, Propitius fuisti, Thou wast a Merciful God, because thou didst punish all their inventions.

So then, our first work is to consider, that that in the Prophet, is a promise, and hath the nature of a mercy, I will correct thee in measure; where the promise does not fall only upon the measure, but upon the correction it self; and then, since this is a promise, a mercy, a part of our daily bread, we may pray as the same Prophet directs us, O Lord correct me, but with judgment, not in thine anger; Where also the petition seems to fall, not only upon the measure, but upon the correction it self; and then, when I have found some correction fit to be prayed for and afforded me by God upon my prayer, if that correction at any time grow heavy, or wearisome unto me, I must relieve myself upon that consideration, Whether God have smitten me, as he smote them that smote me, Whether it be not another manner of execution, which God hath laid upon mine enemies then that which he hath laid upon me, in having suffered them to be smitten with the spirit of sinful glory, and triumph in their sin, and my misery, and with excecation, and obduratenesse, with impenitence, and insensibleness of their own case. Or at least, let me consider, as it is in the same place, Whether I be slain according to the slaughter of them that were slain by me; That is, whether my oppression, my extortion, my prevarication have not brought other men to more misery, then God hath yet brought me unto. And if we consider this, as no doubt David did, and find that correction is one loaf of our daily bread, and find in our heaviest corrections, that God hath been heavier upon our enemies, then upon us, and we heavier upon others, then God upon us too, we shall be content with any Rebuke, and any Chastisement, so it be not in anger, and in hot displeasure, which are the words that remain to be considered.

Now these two phrases, Argui in furore, and Corripi in ira, which we translate, To rebuke inanger, and to chasten in hot displeasure, are by some thought, to signify one and the same thing, that David intends the same thing, and though in divers words, yet words of one and the same signification. But with reverence to those men, (for some of them are men to whom much reverence is due) they do not well agree with one another, nor very constantly with themselves. S. Jerome says, Furor & ira maxim unum sunt, That this anger, and hot displeasure, are merely, absolutely, entirely, one and the same thing, and yet he says, that this Anger is executed in this world, and this hot Displeasure reserved for the world to come. And this makes a great difference; no weight of God's whole hand here, can be so heavy, as any finger of his in hell; the highest exaltation of God's anger in this world, can have no proportion to the least spark of that in hell; nor a furnace seven times heat here, to the embers there. So also S. Augustine thinks, that these two words, to Rebuke, and to Chasten, do not differ at all; or if they do, that the latter is the lesser. But this is not likely to be David's method, first to make a prayer for the greater, and that being granted, to make a second prayer for the lesser, included in that which was asked, and granted before. A later man in the Roman Church, allows the words to differ, and the later to be the heavier, but then he refers both to the next life; that to Rebuke in anger, should be intended of Purgatory, and of a short continuance there, and to be Chastened in hot displeasure, should be intended of hell, and of everlasting condemnation there. And so David must make his first petition, Rebuke me not in thine anger, to this purpose, Let me pass at my death immediately to Heaven, without touching at any fire, and his second petition, Chasten me not in thy hot displeasure to this purpose, If I must touch at any fire, let it be but Purgatory, and not Hell.

But by the nature, and propriety, and the use of all these words in the Scriptures, it appears, that the words are of a different signification, which S. Jerome it seems did not think; and that the last is the heaviest, which S. Augustine it seems did not think; and then, that they are to be referred to this life, which Ayguanus did not think. For the words themselves, all our three Translations retain the two first words, to Rebuke and to Chasten; neither that which we call the Bishops Bible, nor that which we call the Geneva Bible, and that which we may call the Kings, depart from those two first words. But then for the other two, Anger and Hot displeasure, in them all three Translations differ. The first calls them Indignation and Displeasure, the second Anger and Wrath, and the last Anger and Hot displeasure.

To begin with the first, to be Rebuked was but to be chidden, but to be Chastened, was to be beaten; and yet David was heartily afraid of the first, of the least of them, when it was to be done in anger: This word that is here to Rebuke, Iacach, is for the most part, to Reprove, to Convince by way of argument, and disputation. So it is in Isaiah, Come now, and let us reason together, says God. The natural man is confident in his Reason, in his Philosophy; and yet God is content to join in that issue, If he do not make it appear, even to your reason, that he is God, Choose whom ye will serve, as Joshua speaks; If he do not make it appear, that he is a good God, change him for any other God that your reason can present to be better. In Micah, the word hath somewhat more vehemence; The Lord hath a quarrel against his people, and he will plead with Israel. This is more then a Disputation; it is a Suite. God can maintain his possession other ways; without Suite; but he will recover us, by matter of Record, openly, and in the face of the County; he will put us to a shame, and to an acknowledgement, of having disloially devested our Allegeance. Yea, the word hath sometimes somewhat more sharpness then this; for in the book of Proverbs, it comes to Correction, The Lord correcteth him whom he loveth, even as the father doth the child, in whom he delighteth. Though it be a fatherly correction, yet it is a correction; and that is more then the Reasoning or Disputing, more then the Suing or Impleading.

Now though all this, Disputing, Impleading, Correcting, in S. Augustine's interpretation, amount but to an Instruction, and an Amendment, yet says he of David, In ira emendari non vult, erudiri non vult, He is loath to fall into God's hands, loath to come into God's fingers at all, when God is angry; he would not be disputed withal, not Impleaded, not Corrected, no, not Instructed, not Amended by God in his Anger. The Anger of God is such a Pedagogie, such a Catechism, such a way of teaching, as the Law was. Lex paedagogus; the Law is a Schoolmaster, says the Apostle; but Litera occidi • , the Law is such a Schoolmaster, as brings not a rod, but a sword. God's Anger should instruct us, but if we use it not aright, it hardens us. And therefore, Kiss the Son lest he be angry, says David, And what is the danger if he be? that which follows, Lest ye perish in the way; Though his Anger be one of his ways, yet it is such a way, as you may easily stumble in; and, as you would certainly perish without that way, so you may easily perish in that way. For when a sinner considers himself to be under the Anger of God, naturally he conceives such a horror, as puts him farther off. As soon as Adam heard the voice of God, and in an accent of Anger, or as he tuned it in his guilty conscience, to an accent of Anger, (for as a malicious man will turn a Sermon to a Satire, and a Panegyricke to a Libel, so a despairing soul will set God's comfortablest words, to asad tune, and force a Vae even in God's Euge, and find Anger, and everlasting Anger in every Access, in every Action of God) when Adam heard God but walking in the Garden, but the noise of his going, and approaching towards him, (for God had then said nothing to him, not so much as called him) Adam fled from his presence and hid himself amongst the trees. When the guilty man was but spoken to, and spoken to mildly, by the Master of the Marriage feast, Amice quomodo intrasti? Friend how came you in? we see he was presently speechless, and being so, not able to speak, to come to any confessin, any excuse, he fell farther and farther into displeasure, till he was bound hand and foot, and cast irrecoverably away. For Si repent interroget, quis respondebit ei? If God surprise a Conscience with a sudden question, if God deprehend a man in the Act of his sin, and while he accomplishes and consummates that sin, say to his soul, Why dost thou this, upon which mine anger hangs? there God speaks to that sinner, but he confounds him with the question; It is not a leading Intergatorie, it gives him no light to answer, till God's anger be out of his contemplation, he cannot so much as say Domine vim patior, responde pro me, O Lord I am oppressed, do thou answer for me; do thou say to thyself for me, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, because he is but flesh. If the Lord come in anger, if he speak in Anger, if he do but look in Anger, a sinner perishes; Aspexit & dissolvit Gentes; He did but look, and he dissolved, he melted the Nations; he poured them out as water upon the dust, and he blew them away as dust into the Sea, The everlasting mountains were broken, and the ancient hills did bow.

It is not then the disputing, not the impleading, not the correcting, which this word Iacach imports, that David declines, or deprecates here, but that Anger, which might change the nature of all, and make all the Physic poison, all that was intended for our mollifying, to advance our obduration. For when there was no anger in the case, David is a forward Scholar, to hearken to God's Reasoning, and Disputing, and a tractable Client, and easy Defendant, to answer to God's Suite, and Impleading, and an obsequious Patient, to take any Physic at his hands, if there were no Anger in the cup. Vre renes & cor meum, says David, he provokes God with all those emphatical words, Judge me, Prove me, Try me, Examine me, and more, Vre renes, bring not only a candle to search, but even fire, to melt me; But upon what confidence all this? For thy loving kindness is ever before mine eyes. If God's Anger, and not his loving kindness had been before his eyes, it had been a fearful apparition, and a dangerous issue to have gone upon. So also he surrenders himself entirely to God in another Psalm, Try me O God, and know my heart; prove me, and know my thoughts, and consider, if there be any way of wickedness in me. But how concludes he? And lead me in the right way forever. As long as I have God by the hand, and feel his loving care of me, I can admit any weight of his hand; any furnace of his heating. Let God mould me, and then melt me again, let God make me, and then break me again, as long as he establishes and maintains a rectified assurance in my soul, that at last he means to make me a Vessel of honor, to his Glory, howsoever he Rebuke or Chastise me, yet he will not Rebuke me in Anger, much less Chasten me in hot Displeasure, which is the last, and the heaviest thing, that David deprecates in this Prayer.

Both these words, which we translate to Chasten, and Hot displeasure, are words of a heavy, and of a vehement signification. They extend both, to express the eternity of God's indignation, even to the binding of the soul and body in eternal chains of darkness. For the first, Iasar, signifies oftentimes in the Scriptures, Vincire, to bind, often with ropes, often with chains; to fetter, or manacle, or pinion men, that are to be executed; so that it imports a slavery, a bondage all the way, and a destruction at last. And so the word is used by Rehoboam, My Father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with Scorpions. And then, the other word, Camath, doth not only signify Hot displeasure, but that effect of God's hot displeasure, which is intended by the Prophet Isaiah, Therefore hath he poured forth his fieree wrath, and the strength of battle, and that set him on fire round about, and he knew it not, and it burnt him up, and he considered it not; These be the fearfully conditions of God's hot displeasure, to be in a furnace, and not to feel it; to be in a habit of sin, and not know what leads us into temptation; to be burnt to ashes, and so not only without all moisture, all holy tears, but, as ashes, without any possibility, that any good thing can grow in us. And yet this word, Camath, hath a heavier signification then this; for it signifies Poison it self, Destruction it self, for so is it twice taken in one verse, Their poison is like the poison of a Serpent; so that this Hot displeasure, is that poison of the soul, obduration here, and that extension of this obduration, a final impenitence in this life, and an infinite impenitiblenesse in the next, to die without any actual penitence here, and live without all possibility of future penitence forever hereafter.

David therefore foresees, that if God Rebuke in anger, it will come to a Chastening in hot displeasure. For what should stop him? For, If a man sin against the Lord, who will plead for him? says Eli; Plead thou my cause, says David; It is only the Lord, that can be of counsel with him, and plead for him; and that Lord, is both the Judge, and angry too. So David's prayer hath this force, Rebuke me not in anger, for though I were able to stand under that, yet thou wilt also Chasten me in thine hot displeasure, and that no soul can bear; for as long as God's anger lasts, so long he is going on towards our utter destruction. In that State, (it is not a State) in that Exinanition, in that annihilation of the soul, (it is not an annihilation, the soul is not so happy as to come to nothing) but in that misery, which can no more receive a name, then an end, all God's corrections are borne with grudging, with murmuring, with comparing our righteousness with others righteousness; In Job's impatience, Quare posuisti me contrarium tibi? Why hast thou set me up as a mark against thee, O Thou preserver of men? Thou that preservest other men, hast bent thy bow, and made me a mark for thine arrows, says the Lamentation: In that state we cannot cry to him, that he might answer us; If we do cry, and he answer, we cannot hear; if we do hear, we cannot believe that it is he. Cum invocantem exaudierit, says Job, If I cry, and he answer, yet I do not believe that he heard my voice. We had rather perish utterly, then stay his leisure in recovering us. Si flagellat, occidat semel, says Job in the Vulgat, If God have a mind to destroy me, let him do it at one blow; Et non de poenis rideat, Let him not sport himself with my misery. Whatsoever come after, we would be content to be out of this world, so we might but change our torment, whether it be a temporal calamity that oppresses our state or body, or a spiritual burden, a perplexity that sinks our understanding, or a guiltiness that depresses our conscience. Vt in inferno protegas, as Job also speaks, O that thou wouldest hide me, In inferno, In the grave, says the afflicted soul, but in Inferno, In hell it self, says the despairing soul, rather then keep me in this torment, in this world!

This is the miserable condition, or danger, that David abhors, and deprecates in this Text, To be rebuked in anger, without any purpose in God to amend him; and to be chastened in his hot displeasure; so, as that we can find no interest in the gracious promises of the Gospel, no conditions, no power of revocation in the severe threatenings of the Law; no difference between those torments which have attached us here, and the everlasting torments of Hell it self. That we have lost all our joy in this life, and all our hope of the next; That we would fain die, though it were by our own hands, and though that death do but unlock us a door, to pass from one Hell into another. This is Ira tua Domine, & faror tuus, Thy anger, O Lord, and, Thy hot displeasure. For as long as it is but Ira patris, the anger of my Father, which hath dis-inherited me, Gold is thine, and silver is thine, and thou canst provide me. As long as it is but Ira Regis, some mis-information to the King, some mis-apprehension in the King, Cor Regis in manu tua, The Kings heart is in thy hand, and thou canst rectify it again. As long as it is but Furor febris, The rage and distemper of a pestilent Fever, or Furor furoris, The rage of madness it self, thou wilt consider me, and accept me, and reckon with me according to those better times, before those distempers overtook me, and overthrew me. But when it comes to be Ira tua, furor tuus, Thy anger, and, Thy displeasure, as David did, so let every Christian find comfort, if he be able to say faithfully this Verse, this Text, O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure; for as long as he can pray against it, he is not yet so fallen under it, but that he hath yet his part in all God's blessings, which we shed upon the Congregation in our Sermons, and which we seal to every soul in the Sacrament of Reconcilation.

SERM. LI. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalms.

T His whole Psalm is prayer; And the whole prayer is either Deprecatory, as in the first verse, or Postulatory. Something David would have forborne, and something done. And in that Postulatory part of David's prayer, which goes through six verses of this Psalm, we consider the Petitions, and the Inducements; What David asks, And why: of both which, there are some mingled, in these two verses, which constitute our Text. And therefore, in them, we shall necessarily take knowledge of some of the Petitions, and some of the Reasons. For, in the Prayer, there are five petitions; First, Miserere, Have mercy upon me, Think of me, look graciously towards me, prevent me with thy mercy; And then Sana me, O Lord, heal me, Thou didst create me in health, but my parents begot me in sickness, and I have complicated other sicknesses with that, Actual with Original sin, O Lord, heal me, give me physic for them; And thirdly, Convertere, Return, O Lord, Thou didst visit me in nature, return in grace, Thou didst visit me in Baptism, return in the other Sacrament, Thou doest visit me now, return at the hour of my death; And, in a fourth petition, Eripe, O Lord, deliver my soul, Every blessing of thine because a snare unto me, and thy benefits I make occasions of sin, In all conversation, and even in my solitude, I admit such temptations from others, or I produce such temptations in myself, as that, whensoever thou art pleased to return to me, thou findest me at the brink of some sin, and therefore Eripe me, O Lord, take hold of me, and deliver me; And lastly, Salvum me fac, O Lord, save me, Manifest thy good purpose upon me so, that I may never be shaken, or never overthrown in the faithful hope of that salvation, which thou hast preordained for me. These are the five petitions of the Prayer, and two of the five, The Miserere, Have mercy upon me, and the Sana, O Lord, heal me, are in these two verses. And then, the Reasons of the prayer, arising partly out of himself, and partly out of God; and some being mixed, and growing out of both roots together, some of the Reasons of the first nature, that is, of those that arise out of himself, are also in this Text.

Therefore in this Text, we shall consider, first the extent of those two petitions that are in it, Quid miserere, what David intends by this prayer, Have mercy upon me, And then, Quid sana me, what he intends by that, O Lord, heal me. And secondly, we shall consider the strength of those Reasons, which are in our text, Quia infirmus, why God should be moved to mercy with that, Because David was weak, And then Quia turbata ossa, why, Because his bones were vexed; And again, Quia turbata anima valde, Because his soul was sore vexed. And in a third Consideration, we shall also see, that for all our petitions, for mercy, and for spiritual health, and for all our Reasons, weakness, vexation of bones, And sore vexation of the soul it self, God doth not always come to a speedy remedy, but puts us to our Vsquequo, But thou, O Lord, how long? How long wilt thou delay? And then lastly, That how long soever that be, yet we are still to attend his time, still to rely upon him; which is intimated in this, That David changes not his Master, but still applies himself to the Lord; with that Name, that he begun with in the first verse, he proceeds; and thrice in these few words he calls upon him by this name of Essence, Jehovah, O Lord have mercy upon me, O Lord heal me, O Lord how long wilt thou delay? He is not weary of attending the Lord, he is not inclinable to turn upon any other then the Lord; Have mercy upon me O Lord, &c.

First then in our first part, that part of David's postulatory prayer in this Text, Have mercy upon me, This mercy that David begs here, is not that mercy of God which is above all his works; for those works which follow it, are above it; To heal him, in this Text, To return to him, To deliver his soul, To save him, in the next verses, are greater works then this, which he calls here in that general name of Mercy. For this word Chanan used in this place, is not Dele iniquitates, Have mercy upon me so, as to blot out all mine iniquities; It is not Dimitte debita, Have mercy upon me so, as to forgive all my sins; but it is only Des mihi gratiam, Lord shed some drops of grace upon me, or as Tremellius hath it, Gratiosus sis mihi, Be a gracious Lord unto me. For this word is used, where Noah is said to have found grace in the eyes of the Lord; which grace was, that God had provided for his bodily preservation in the Ark. And this word is used, not only of God towards men, but also of men towards God; when they express their zeal towards God's house, and the compassion, and holy indignation which they had of the ruins thereof, they express it in this word, Thy servants delight in the stones of Zion, & miserti sunt pulveris ejus, They had mercy, they had compassion upon the dust and rubbish thereof. So that here this Miserere mei, which is the first groan of a sick soul, the first glance of the soul directed towards God, imports only this, Lord turn thy countenance towards me, Lord bring me to a sense that thou art turned towards me, Lord bring me within such a distance, as my soul may feel warmth and comfort in the rising of that Sun; Miserere mei, Look graciously upon me.

At the first meeting of Isaac and Rebecca, he was gone out to meditate in the fields, and she came riding that way, with his fathers man, who was employed in making that marriage; and when upon asking she knew that it was he who was to be her husband, she took a veil and covered her face, says that story. What freedom, and nearness soever they were to come to after, yet there was a modesty, and a bashfulness, and a reservednesse required before; and her first kindness should be but to be seen. A man would be glad of a good countenance from her that shall be his, before he asked her whether she will be his or no; A man would be glad of a good countenance from his Prince, before he intend to press him with any particular suit: And a sinner may be come to this Miserere mei Domine, to desire that the Lord would think upon him, that the Lord would look graciously towards him, that the Lord would refresh him with the beams of his favor, before he have digested his devotion into a formal prayer, or entered into a particular consideration, what his necessities are.

Upon those words of the Apostle, I exhort you that supplications, and prayers, and Intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, S. Bernard makes certain gradations, and steps, and ascensions of the soul in prayer, and intimates thus much, That by the grace of God's Spirit inanimating and quickening him, (without which grace he can have no motion at all) a sinner may come Ad supplicationes, which is S. Paul's first step, To supplications, which are à suppliciis, That out of a sense of some Judgment, some punishment, he may make his recourse to God; And then, by a farther growth in that grace, he may come Adorationes, which are Oris rations, The particular expressing of his necessities, with his mouth; and a faithful assurance of obtaining them, in his prayer; And after, he may come farther, Ad Intercessiones, to an Intercession, to such an interest in God's favor, as that he durst put himself betwixt God and other men, as Abraham in the behalf of Sodom, to intercede for them, with a holy confidence that God would do good to them, for his sake; And to a farther step then these, which the Apostle may intend in that last, Ad gratiarum actiones, to a continual Thanksgiving, That by reason of God's benefits multiplied upon him, he find nothing to ask, but his Thanksgivings, and his acknowledgements, for former blessings, possess and fill all his prayers; Though he be grown up to this strength of devotion, To Supplications, to Prayers, to Intercessions, to Thanksgivings, yet, says S. Bernard, at first, when he comes first to deprehend himself in a particular sin, or in a course of sin, he comes Verecunde affectu, Bashfully, shamefastly, tremblingly; he knows not what to ask, he dares ask no particular thing at God's hand; But though he be not come yet, to particular requests, for pardon of past sins, nor for strength against future, not to a particular consideration of the weight of his sins, nor to a comparison betwixt his sin, and the mercy of God, yet he comes to a Miserere mei Domine, To a sudden ejaculation, O Lord be merciful unto me, how dare I do this in the sight of my God?

It is much such an affection as is sometimes in a Felon taken in the manner, or in a condemned person brought to execution: One desires the Justice to be good to him, and yet he sees not how he can Baile him; the other desires the Sheriff to be good to him, and yet he knows he must do his Office. A sinner desires God to have mercy upon him, and yet he hath not descended to particular considerations requisite in that business. But yet this spiritual Malefactor is in better case, then the temporal are; They desire them to be good to them, who can do them no good; but God is still able, and still ready to reprieve them, and to put off the execution of his Judgments, which execution were to take them out of this world under the guiltiness, and condemnation of unrepented sins. And therefore, as S. Basil says, In scala, prima ascensio est ab humo, He that makes but one step up a stair, though he be not got much nearer to the top of the house, yet he is got from the ground, and delivered from the foulness, and dampnesse of that; so in this first step of prayer, Miscrere mei, O Lord be merciful unto me, though a man be not established in heaven, yet he is stepped from the world, and the miserable comforters thereof; He that committeth sin, is of the Devil: Yea, he is of him, in a direct line, and in the nearest degree; he is the Off-spring, the son of the Devil; Ex patre vestro estis, says Christ, You are of your father the Devil.

Now, Qui se à maligni patris affinitate submoverit, He that withdraws himself from such a Fathers house, though he be not presently come to means to live of himself, Quam feliciter patre suo orbatus! How blessed, how happy an Orphan is he become! How much better shall he find it, to be fatherless in respect of such a father, then masterless in respect of such a Lord, as he turns towards in this first ejaculation, and general application of the soul, Miserere mei, Have mercy upon me, O Lord, so much mercy, as to look graciously towards me! And therefore, as it was, by infinite degrees, a greater work, to make earth of nothing, then to make the best creatures of earth; So in the regeneration of a sinner, when he is to be made up a new creature, his first beginning, his first application of himself to God, is the hardest matter. But though he come not presently to look God fully in the face, nor conceive not presently an assurance of an established reconciliation, a fullness of pardon, a cancelling of all former debts, in an instant, Though he dare not come to touch God, and lay hold of himself, by receiving his Body and Blood in the Sacrament, yet the Evangelist calls thee to a contemplation of much comfort to thy soul, in certain preparatory accesses, and approaches. Behold, says he; that is, Look up, and consider thy pattern: Behold, a woman diseased came behind Christ, and touched the hem of his garment; for she said in herself, If I may but touch the hem of his garment only, I shall be whole. She knew there was virtue to come out of his Body, and she came as near that, as she durst: she had a desire to speak; but she went no farther, but to speak to her self; she said to her self, says that Gospel, if I may but touch, &c. But Christ Jesus supplied all, performed all on his part, abundantly. Presently he turned about, says the Text: And this was not a transitory glance, but a full sight, and exhibiting of himself to the fruition of her eye, that she might see him. He saw her, says S. Matthew: Her; he did not direct himself upon others, and leave out her; And then, he spake to her, to overcome her bashfulness; he called her Daughter, to overcome her diffidence; He bids her be of comfort, for she had met a more powerful Physician, then those, upon whom she had spent her time, and her estate; one that could cure her; one that would; one that had already; for so he says presently, Thy faith hath made thee whole. From how little a spark, how great a fire? From how little a beginning, how great a proceeding? She desired but the hem of his garment, and had all him.

Beloved in him, his power, and his goodness ended not in her; All that were sick were brought, that they might but touch the hem of his garment, and as many as touched it, were made whole. It was far from a perfect faith, that made them whole; To have a desire to touch his garment, seems not, was not much: Neither was that desire that was, always in themselves, but in them that brought them. But yet, come thou so far: Come, or be content to be brought, to be brought by example, to be brought by a statute, to be brought by curiosity, come any way to touch the hem of his garment, yea the hem of his servant, of Aaron's garment, and thou shalt participate of the sweet ointment, which flows from the head to the hem of the garment. Come to the house of God, his Church; Joyne with the Congregation of the Saints; Love the body, and love the garments too, that is, The Order, the Discipline, the Decency, the Unity of the Church; Love even the hem of the garment, that that almost touches the ground; that is, Such Ceremonies, as had a good use in their first institution, for raising devotion, and are freed and purged from that superstition, which, as a rust, was grown upon them, though they may seem to touch the earth, that is, to have been induced by earthly men, and not immediate institutions from God, yet love that hem of that garment, those outward assistances of devotion in the Church.

Bring with thee a disposition to incorporate thyself with God's people here; and though thou beest not yet come to a particular consideration of thy sins, and of the remedies, Though that spirit that possesses thee, that sin that governs thee, lie still a while, and sleep under all the thunders, which we denounce from this place, so that for a while thou beest not moved nor affected with all that is said, yet Appropinquas, & nescis, (as S. Augustine said, when he came only out of curiosity to hear S. Ambrose preach at Milan) Thou doest come nearer and nearer to God, though thou discern it not, and at one time or other, this blessed exorcism, this holy Charme, this Ordinance of God, the word of God in the mouth of his servant, shall provoke and awaken that spirit of security in thee, and thou shalt feel him begin to storm, and at first that spirit, thy spirit, will say to the spirit of the Preacher, Tune qui conturbas? Art thou he that troublest Israel? (as Ahab said to Elijah ) Art thou he that troublest the peace of my conscience, and the security of my ways? And, when the Spirit of God shall search farther and farther, even ad occulta, to thy secretest sins, and touch upon them, and that that spirit of disobedience, when he feels this powerful Exorcisme, shall say in thee, and cry as Ahab also did, Invenisti me? Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? God shall answer, Inveni te, I have found thee, and found that thou hadst sold thyself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, And so shall bring thee to a more particular consideration of thine estate, and from thy having joined with the Church, in a Dominus miserebitur Zion, In an assurance, and acknowledgement, that the Lord will arise, and have mercy upon Zion, that is, of his whole Catholic Church, And then come to a Dominus misereatur nostri, God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us, upon us that are met here, according to his Ordinance, and in confidence of his promise, upon this Congregation, of which thou makest thyself a part, thou wilt also come to this of David here, Domine miserere mei, Have mercy upon me, me in particular, and thou shalt hear God answer thee, Miserans miserebor tibi, With great mercy will I have mercy upon thee; upon thee; For, with him is plentiful Redemption; Mercy for his whole Church, mercy for this whole Congregation, mercy for every particular soul, that makes her self a part of the Congregation. Accustome thyself therefore to a general devotion, to a general application, to general ejaculations towards God, upon every occasion, and then, as a wedge of gold, that comes to be coined into particular pieces of currant money, the Lord shall stamp his Image upon all thy devotions, and bring thee to particular confessions of thy sins, and to particular prayers, for thy particular necessities. And this we may well conceive and admit, to be the nature of David's first prayer, Miserere mei, Have mercy upon me; And then, the reason, upon which this first petition is grounded, (for so it will be fittest to handle the parts, first the prayer, and then the reason) is, Quia infirmus, Have mercy upon me, for I am weak.

First then, how imperfect, how weak soever our prayers be, yet still if it be a prayer, it hath a Quia, a Reason, upon which it is grounded. It hath in it, some implied, some interpretative consideration of ourselves, how it becomes us to ask that, which we do ask at God's hand, and it hath some implied, and interpretative consideration of God, how it conduces to God's glory to grant it: for, that prayer is very far from faith, which is not made so much as with reason; with a consideration of some possibility, and some conveniency in it. Every man that says Lord, Lord, enters not into heaven; Every Lord, Lord, that is said, enters not into heaven, but vanishes in the air. A prayer must be with a serious purpose to pray; for else, those fashionall and customary prayers, are but false fires without shot, they batter not heaven; It is but an Interjection, that slips in; It is but a Parenthesis, that might be left out, whatsoever is uttered in the manner of a prayer, if it have not a Quia, a Reason, a ground for it. And therefore, when our Savior Christ gave us that form of prayer, which includes all, he gave us in it a form of the reason too, Quia tuum, For thine is the Kingdom, &c. It were not a prayer, to say Adveniat Regnum, Thy Kingdom come, if it were not grounded upon that faithful assurance, that God hath a Kingdomehere; Nor to say Sanctificetur nomen, Hallowed be thy name, If he desired not to be glorified by us; Nor to ask daily bread, nor forgiveness of sins, but for the Quia potestas, Because he hath all these in his power. We consider this first access to God, Miserere mei, Have mercy upon me, to be but a kind of imperfect prayer, but the first step; but it were none at all, if it had no reason, and therefore it hath this, Quia infirmus, Because I am weak.

This reason of our own weakness is a good motive for mercy, if in a desire of farther strength we come to that of La • arus sisters, to Christ, Ecce, quam amas, infirmatur, Behold Lord, that soul that thou lovest, and hast died for, is weak, and languishes. Christ answered then, Non est infirmitas ad mortem, This weakness is not unto death, but that the Son of God might be glorified. He will say so to thee too; if thou present thy weakness with a desire of strength from him, he will say, Quare moriemini, domus Israel? why will ye die of this disease? Gratia mea sufficit; you may recover for all this; you may repent, you may abstain from this sin, you may take this spiritual physic, the Word, the Sacraments, if you will; Tantummodo robustus esto, (as God says to Joshua ) Only be valiant, and fight against it, and thou shalt find strength grow in the use thereof. But for the most part, De infirmitate blandimur, says S. Bernard, we flatter ourselves with an opinion of weakness; & ut liberiùs peccemus, libenter infirmamur, we are glad of this natural and corrupt weakness, that we may impute all our licentiousness to our weakness, and natural infirmity. But did that excuse Adam, (says that Father) Quod per uxorem tanquam per carnis infirmitatem peceavit, That he took his occasion of sinning from his weaker part, from his wife? Quia infirmus, That thou art weak of thyself, is a just motive to induce God to bring thee to himself; Qui vere portavit languores tuos, who hath surely borne all thine infirmities; But to leave him again when he hath brought thee, to refuse so light and easy yoke as his is, not to make use of that strength which he by his grace offers thee, this is not the affection of the Spouse, Languor amantis, when the person languishes for the love of Christ, but it is Languor amoris, when the love of Christ languishes in that person. And therefore if you be come so far with David, as to this Miserere quia infirmus, that an apprehension of your own weakness have brought you to him, in a prayer for mercy, and more strength, go forward with him still, to his next Petition, Sana me, O Lord heal me, for God is always ready to build upon his own foundations, and accomplish his own beginnings.

Acceptus in gratiam, hilariter veni ad postulationes: When thou art established in favor, thou mayest make any suit; when thou art possessed of God by one prayer, thou mayst offer more. This is an encouragement which that Father S. Bernard gives, in observing the diverse degrees of praying, That though servandae humilitatis gratia, divina pietas ordinavit, To make his humility the more profitable to him, God imprints in an humble and penitent sinner, this apprehension, Vt quanto plus profecit, eo minus se reputet profecisse, That the more he is in God's favor, the more he fears he is not so, or the more he fears to lose that favor, because it is a part, and a symptom of the working of the grace of God, to make him see his own unworthiness, the more manifestly, the more sensibly, yet, it is a religious insinuation, and a circumvention that God loves, when a sinner husbands his graces so well, as to grow rich under him, and to make his thanks for one blessing, a reason, and an occasion of another; so to gather upon God by a rolling Trench, and by a winding stair, as Abraham gained upon God, in the behalf of Sodom; for this is an act of the wisdom of the Serpent, which our Savior recommends unto us, in such a Serpentine line, (as the Artists call it) to get up to God, and get into God by such degrees, as David does here, from his Miserere, to a Sana, from a gracious look, to a perfect recovery; from the act of the Levite that looked upon the wounded man, to the act of the Samaritan that undertook his cure; from desiring God to visit him as a friend, (as Abraham was called the friend of God ) to study him as a Physician. Because the Prophet Isaiah makes a Proclamation in Christ's name, Ho, everyone that thirsteth, &c. And because the same Prophet says of him, Vere portavit, He hath truly born upon himself (and therefore taken away from us) all our diseases, Tertullian says elegantly, that Isaiah presents Christ, Praedicatorem, & Medicatorem, as a Preacher, and as a Physician; Indeed he is a Physician both ways; in his Word, and in his Power, and therefore in that notion only, as a Physician, David presents him here.

Now Physicians say, That man hath in his Constitution, in his Complexion, a natural virtue, which they call Balsamum suum, his own Balsamum, by which, any wound which a man could receive in his body, would cure it self, if it could be kept clean from the annoyances of the air, and all extrinsique encumbrances. Something that hath some proportion and analogy to this Balsamum of the body, there is in the soul of man too: The soul hath Nardum suam, her Spikenard, as the Spouse says, Nardus meadedit odorem suum, she had a spikenard, a perfume, a fragrancy, a sweet savor in her self. For, Virtutes germaniùs attingunt animam, quàm corpus sanitas, Virtuous inclinations, and a disposition to moral goodness, is more natural to the soul of man, and nearer of kin to the soul of man, then health is to the body. And then, if we consider bodily health, Nulla oratio, nulla doctrinae formula nos docet morbum odiisse, says that Father: There needs no Art, there needs no outward Eloquence, to persuade a man, to be loath to be sick: Ita in anima inest naturalis, & citra doctrinam mali evitatio, says he; So the soul hath a natural and untaught hatred, and detestation of that which is evil. The Church at thy Baptism doth not require Sureties at thy hands, for this: Thy Sureties undertake to the Church in thy behalf, That thou shalt forsake the flesh, the world, and the devil, That thou shalt believe all the Articles of our Religion, That thou shalt keep all the Commandments of God; But for this knowledge and detestation of evil, they are not put to undertake them then, neither doth the Church Catechize thee, in that after: for, the sum of all those duties which concern the detestation of evil, consists in that unwritten law of thy conscience which thou knowest naturally. Scis quod boni proximo faciendum, says that Father, Naturally thou knowest what good thou art bound to do to another man; Idem enim est, quod ab aliis tute tibi fieri velis; for, it is but asking thyself, What thou wouldest that that other man should do unto thee: Non ignoras quid sit ipsum malum, Thou canst not be ignorant, what evil thou shouldest abstain from offering to another, Est enim quod ab alio fieri nolis, It is but the same, which thou thinkest another should not put upon thee. So that the soul of man hath in it Balsamum suum, Nardum suam, A medicinal Balsamum, a fragrant Spikenard in her self, a natural disposition to Moral goodness, as the body hath to health. But therein lies the souls disadvantage, that whereas the causes that hinder the cure of a bodily wound, are extrinsique offenses of the Air, and putrefaction from thence, the causes in the wounds of the soul, are intrinsique, so as no other man can apply physic to them; Nay, they are hereditary, and there was no time early enough for ourselves to apply anything by way of prevention, for the wounds were as soon as we were, and sooner; Here was a new soul, but an old sore; a young child, but an inveterate disease. As S. Augustine cannot conceive any interim, any distance, between the creating of the soul, and the infusing of the soul into the body, but eases himself upon that, Creando infundit, and infundendo creat, The Creation is the Infusion, and the Infusion is the Creation, so we cannot conceive any Interim, any distance, between the infusing and the sickning, between the coming and the sinning of the soul. So that there was no means of prevention; I could not so much as wish, that I might be no sinner, for I could not wish that I might be no Child. Neither is there any means of separation now; our concupiscencies dwell in us, and prescribe in us, and will gnaw upon us, as worms, till they deliver our bodies to the worms of the grave, and our consciences to the worm that never dies.

From the dangerous effects then of this sickness, David desires to be healed, and by God himself, Sana me Domine, O Lord heal me; for that physic that Man gives, is all but drugs of the earth; Moral and Civil counsels, rather to cover then recover, rather to disguise then to avoid: They put a clove in the mouth, but they do not mend the lungs. To cover his nakedness Adam took but fig-leaves; but to recover Hezekiah, God took figs themselves. Man deals upon leaves, that cover, and shadow, God upon fruitful and effectual means, that cure, and nourish. And then, God took a lump of figs; God is liberal of his graces, and gives not over a cure, at one dressing: And they were dry figs too, says that story; you must not look for figs from the Tree, for immediate Revelations, for private inspirations from God; but the medicinal preaching of the Word, medicinal Sacraments, medicinal Absolution, are such dry figs as God hath preserved in his Church for all our diseases. S. Paul had a strong desire, and he expressed it in often prayer to God, to have this peccant humor, this malignity clean purged out, to have that Stimulus carnis, that concupiscence absolutely taken away. God would not do so; but yet he applied his effectual physic, sufficient Grace.

This then is the souls Panacaea, The Pharmacum Catholicum, the Medicina omnimorbia, The physic that cures all, the sufficient Grace, the seasonable mercy of God, in the merits of Christ Jesus, and in the love of the Holy Ghost. This is the physic; but then, there are ever Vehicula medicinae, certain syrups, and liquors, to convey the physic; water, and wine in the Sacraments; And certain Physicians to ordain and prescribe, The Ministers of the Word and Sacraments; The Father sends, The Son makes, The Holy Ghost brings, The Minister lays on the plaster. For, Medicinae ars à Deo data, ut inde rationem animae curandae disceremus, God's purpose in giving us the science of bodily health, was not determined in the body: but his large and gracious purpose was, by that restitution of the body, to raise us to the consideration of spiritual health. When Christ had said to him, who was brought sick of the palsy, Thy sins are forgiven thee, and that the Scribes and Pharisees were scandalized with that, as though he, being but man, had usurped upon the power of God, Christ proves to them, by an actual restoring of his bodily health, that he could restore his soul too, in the forgiveness of sins: He asks them there, Whether is it easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee, or to say, Arise, take up thy bed, and walk. Christus facit sanitatem corporalem argumentum spiritualis; Christ did not determine his doctrine in the declaration of a miraculous power exercised upon his body, but by that, established their belief of his spiritual power, in doing that, which in their opinion was the greater work. Pursue therefore his method of Curing; And if God have restored thee in any sickness, by such means, as he of his goodness hath imprinted in natural herbs, and Simples, think not that that was done only or simply for thy bodies sake, but that, as it is as easy for God to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee, as Take up thy bed and walk, so it is as easy for thee, to have spiritual physic, as bodily; because, as God hath planted all those medicinal Simples in the open fields, for all, though some do tread them under their feet, so hath God deposited and prepared spiritual helps for all, though all do not make benefit of those helps which are offered. It is true, that God says of his Church, Hortus conclusus soror mea, My sister, my Spouse is a Garden enclosed, as a spring shut in, and a fountain sealęd up; But therein is our advantage, who, by being enwrapped in the Covenant, as the seed of the faithful, as the children of Christian Parents, are borne if not within this walled Garden, yet with a key in our hand to open the door, that is, with a right and title, to the Sacrament of Baptism. The Church is a Garden walled in, for their better defense and security that are in it; but not walled in to keep any out, who, either by being borne within the Covenant, inherit a right to it, or by accepting the grace which is offered them, acquire, and profess a desire to enter thereinto. For, as it is a Garden, full of Spikenard, and of Incense, and of all spices, (as the Text says there) so that they who are in this Garden, in the Church, are in possession of all these blessed means of spiritual health; So are these spices, and Incense, and Spikenard, of a diffusive and spreading nature, and breath even over the walls of the Garden: Oleum effusum nomen ejus; The name of Christ is unction, Ointment; but it is an Ointment poured out, an Ointment that communicates the fragrancy thereof, to persons at a good distance; And, as it is said there, Christ calls up the North and the South to blow upon his Garden, he raises up men to transport and propagate these means of salvation to all Nations, so that, in every Nation, they that fear him are acceptable to him; not that that fear of God in general, as one universal power, is sufficient in it self, to bring any man to God immediately, but that God directs the Spikenard, and Incense of this Garden upon that man, and seconds his former fear of God, with a love of God, and brings him to a knowledge, and to a desire, and to a possession, and fruition of our more assured means of salvation. When he does so, this is his method, as in restoring bodily health, he said, Surge, Tolle, Ambula, Arise, Take up thy bed, and Walk: So to every sick soul, whose cure he undertakes, he says so too, Surge, Tolle, Ambula. Our beds are our natural affections; These he does not bid us cast away, nor burn, nor destroy; since Christ vouchsafed Induere hominem, we must not Exuere hominem; Since Christ invested the nature of man, and became man, we must not pretend to devest it, and become Angels, or flatter ourselves in the merit of Mortifications, not enjoined, or of a retiredness, and departing out of the world, in the world, by the withdrawing of ourselves from the offices of mutual society, or an extinguishing of natural affections. But, Surge, says our Savior, Arise from this bed, sleep not lazily in an over-indulgency to these affections; but, Ambula, walk sincerely in thy Calling, and thou shalt hear thy Savior say, Non est infirmitas haec ad mortem, These affections, nay, these concupiscencies shall not destroy thee.

David then doth not pray for such an exact and exquisite state of health, as that he should have no infirmity; Physicians for our bodies tell us, that there is no such state; The best degree of health is but Neutralitas; He is well (that is, as well as Man can be) that is not dangerously sick; for, absolutely well no man can be. Spiritual Physicians will tell you so too; He that says you have no sin, or that God sees not your sin, if you be of the Elect, deceives you. It is not for an Innocency that David prays; but it is against deadly diseases, and against violent accidents of those diseases. He doth not beg, he cannot hope for an absolute peace: Nature hath put awarre upon us; True happiness, and apparent happiness fight against one another: sin hath put a war upon us; The flesh and the Spirit fight against one another: Christ Jesus himself came to put a war upon us; The zeal of his glory, and the course of this world, fight against one another. It is not against all war; nay, it is not against all victory that David prays; He cannot hope that he should be overcome by no Tentations; but against such a war, and such a victory, as should bring him to servility, and bondage to sin, That sin entering by Conquest upon him, should govern as a tyrant over him, against such a sickness as should induce a consumption, it is that he directs this prayer, Sana me Domine, Not, Lord make me impeccable, but Lord make me penitent, and then heal me. And he comes not to take physic upon wantonness; but because the disease is violent, because the accidents are vehement; so vehement, so violent, as that it hath pierced Ad ossa, and Ad animam, My bones are vexed, and my soul is sore troubled, Therefore heal me; which is the Reason upon which he grounds this second petition, Heale me, because. my bones are vexed &c.

We must necessarily insist a little upon these terms, The Bones, The Soul, The Trouble, or Vexation. First, Ossa, Bones, We know in the natural and ordinary acceptation, what they are; They are these Beams, and Timbers, and Rafters of these Tabernacles, these Temples of the Holy Ghost, these bodies of ours. But Immanebimus nativae significationi? says S. Basil, Shall we dwell upon the native and natural signification of these Bones? Et intelligentia passim obvia contenti erimus? Shall we who have our conversation in heaven, find no more in these Bones, then an earthly, a worldly, a natural man would do? By S. Basils example, we may boldly proceed farther: Membra etiam animae sunt, says he: The soul hath her limbs as well as the body. Surdi audit, caeci aspicite, says God in Isaiah; If their souls had not ears and eyes, the blind could not see, the deaf could not hear, and yet God calls upon the deaf and blind, to hear and see. As S. Paul says to the Ephesians, The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; so David says, Dentes peccatorum contrivisti, Thou hast broken the teeth; That is, the pride and the power, the venom and malignity of the wicked: Membra etiam animae sunt, The soul hath her Bones too; and here David's Bones were the strongest powers and faculties of his soul, and the best actions and operations of those faculties, and yet they were shaken. For this hereditary sickness, Original sin, prevayles so far upon us, that upon our good days we have some grudgings of that Fever; Even in our best actions, we have some of the leaven of that sin. So that if we go about to comfort ourselves, with some dispositions to God's glory, which we find in ourselves, with some sparks of love to his precepts, and his commandments, with some good strength of faith, with some measure of good works, yea, with having something for the Name, and glory of Christ Jesus: yet if we consider what human and corrupt affections have been mingled in all these, Conturbabuntur ossa, our Bones will be troubled, even those that appeared to be strong works, and likely to hold out, will need a reparation, an exclamation, Sana me Domine, O Lord heal these too, or else these are as weak as the worst: Ossa non dolent; The Bones themselves have no sense, they feel no pain. We need not say, That those good works themselves, which we do, have in their nature, the nature of sin; That every good work considered alone, and in the substance of the act it self is sin; But membranae dolent; Those little membrans, those films, those thin skins, that cover, and that line some bones, are very sensible of pain, and of any vexation. Though in the nature of the work it self, the work be not sin, yet in those circumstances that invest, and involve the work, in those things which we mingle with the work, whether desire of glory towards men, or opinion of merit towards God; Whensoever those bones, those best actions come to the examination of a tender and a diligent Conscience, Si ossa non dolent, membranae dolent, If the work be not sinful, the circumstances are, and howsoever they may be conceived to be strong, as they are Ossa, Bones, works, in a moral consideration, good, yet, as they are Ossa mea, says David, as they are My bones, such good works as taste of my ill corruptions, so long they are vexed, and troubled, and cannot stand upright, nor appear with any confidence in the sight of God.

Thus far then first David needed this sanation, this health that he prays for, that his best actions were corrupt; But the corruption went farther, to the very root and fountain of those actions, Ad ipsam animam, His very soul was sore vexed. It is true, that as this word Anima, the soul, is sometimes taken in the Scriptures, this may seem to go no farther then the former, no more that his soul was vexed, then that his bones were so: for, Anima, in many places, is but Animalis Homo, The soul signifies but the natural man: And so opponitur spiritui, The soul is not only said to be a diverse thing, but a contrary thing to the Spirit. When the Apostle says to the Thessalonians, Now the very God of peace sanctify you throughout, that your whole spirit, and soul, and body, may be kept blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And where the same Apostle says to the Hebrews, The word of God divideth asunder the soul and the spirit; here is a difference put between corrupt nature, and the working of the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost in man: for here, the soul is taken for Animalis home, The natural man, and the Spirit is taken for the Spirit of God. But besides this, these two words, Soul and Spirit, are sometimes used by the Fathers, in a sense diverse from one another, and as different things, and yet still as parts of one and the same man; Man is said by them, not only to have a body, and a soul, but to have a soul, and a spirit; not as Spirit is the Spirit of God, and so an extrinsical thing, but as Spirit is a constitutive part of the natural man. So, in particular, amongst many, Gregory Nyssen takes the Body to be spoken De nutribili, The flesh and blood of man, And the soul De sensibili, The operation of the senses, And the Spirit De Intellectuali, The Intellectuall, the reasonable faculties of man; That in the body, Man is conformed to Plants that have no sense, In the soul, to Beasts, that have no reason, In the spirit, to Angels. But so, The Spirit is but the same thing with that, which now we do ordinarily account the soul to be; for we make account, that the Image of God is imprinted in the soul, and that gives him his conformity to Angels: But divers others of the Ancients have taken Soul and Spirit, for different things, even in the Intellectuall part of man, somewhat obscurely, I confess, and, as some venture to say, unnecessarily, if not dangerously. It troubled S. Jerome sometimes, how to understand the word Spirit in man: but he takes the easiest way, he dispatches himself of it, as fast as he could, that is, to speak of it only as it was used in the Scriptures: Famosa quaestio, says he, sed brevi sermon tractanda; It is a question often disputed, but may be shortly determined, Idem spiritus hic, ac in iis verbis, Nolite extinguere spiritum; When we hear of the Spirit in a Man, in Scriptures, we must understand it of the gifts of the Spirit; for so, fully to the same purpose, says S. Chrysostom, Spiritus est charisma spiritus, The Spirit is the working of the Spirit, The gifts of the Spirit: and so when we hear, The Spirit was vexed, The Spirit was quenched, still it is to be understood, The gifts of the Spirit. And so, as they restrain the signification of Spirit, to those gifts only, (though the word do indeed, in many places, require a larger extension) so do many restrain this word in our text, The Soul, only Ad sensum, to the sensitive faculties of the soul, that is, only to the pain and anguish that his body suffered; But so far, at least, David had gone, in that which he said before, My bones are vexed.

Now, Ingravescit morbus, The disease festers beyond the bone, even into the marrow it self. His Bones were those best actions that he had produced, and he saw in that Contemplation, that for all that he had done, he was still, at best, but an unprofitable servant, if not a rebellious enemy; But then, when he considers his whole soul, and all that ever it can do, he sees all the rest will be no better; The poison, he sees, is in the fountain, the Canker in the root, the rancor, the venom in the soul it self. Corpus instrumentum, anima ars ipsa, says S. Basil: The body, and the senses are but the tools, and instruments, that the soul works with. But the soul is the art, the science that directs those Instruments; The faculties of the soul are the boughs that produce the fruits; and the operations, and particular acts of those faculties are the fruits, but the soul is the root of all. And David sees, that this art, this science, this soul can direct him, or establish him in no good way; That not only the fruits, his particular acts, nor only the boughs, and arms, his several faculties, but the root it self, the soul it self, was infected. His bones are shaken, he dares not stand upon the good he hath done, his soul is so too, he cannot hope for any good he shall do: He hath no merit for the past, he hath no free-will for the future; that is his case.

This troubles his bones, this troubles his soul, this vexes them both; for, the word is all one, in both places, as our last Translators have observed, and rendered it aright; not vexed in one place, and troubled in the other, as our former Translators had it; But in both places it is Bahal, and Bahal imports a vehemence, both in the intenseness of it, and in the suddenness, and inevitablenesse of it: And therefore it signifies often, Praecipitantiam, A headlong downfall and irrecoverablenesse; And often, Evanescentiam, an utter vanishing away, and annihilation. David, (whom we always consider in the Psalms, not only to speak literally of those miseries which were actually upon himself, but prophetically too, of such measures, and exaltations of those miseries, as would certainly fall upon them, as did not seek their sanation, their recovery from the God of all health) looking into all his actions, (they are the fruits) and into all his faculties, (they are the boughs) and into the root of all, the soul it self, considering what he had done, what he could do, he sees that as yet he had done no good, he sees he should never be able to do any; His bones are troubled, He hath no comfort in that which is grown up, and past, And his soul is sore troubled, (for to the trouble of the soul, there is added in the Text, that particle, Valde, It is a sore trouble that falls upon the soul, A troubled spirit who can bear? ) because he hath no hope in the future; He was no surer for that which was to come, then for that which was past; But he, (that is, all, considered in that case which he proposes) he comes (as the word signifies) ad praecipitantiam, That all his strength can scarce keep him from precipitation into despair, And he comes (as the word signifies too) ad Evanescentiam, to an evaporating, and a vanishing of his soul, that is, even to a renouncing, and a detestation of his immortality, and to a willingness, to a desire, that he might die the death of other Creatures, which perish altogether, and go out as a Candle. This is the trouble, the sore trouble of his soul, who is brought to an apprehension of God's indignation for not performing Conditions required at his hands, and of his inability to perform them, and is not come to the contemplation of his mercy, in supply thereof.

There is Turbatio Timoris, A trouble out of fear of danger in this world, Herod's trouble; When the Magi brought word of another King, Herod was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. There is Turbatio confusionis, The Mariners trouble in a tempest; Their soul melteth for trouble, says David. There is Turbatio occupationis; Martha's trouble; Martha thou art troubled about many things, says Christ. There is Turbatio admirationis, The blessed Virgins trouble, When she saw the Angel, she was troubled at his saying. To contract this, There is Turbatio compassionis, Christ's own trouble, When he saw Mary weep for her brother Lazarus, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled in himself. But in all these troubles, Herod's fear, The Mariners irresolution, Martha's multiplicity of business, The blessed Virgins sudden amazement, Our Savior's compassionate sorrow, as they are in us, worldly troubles, so the world administers some means to extemiate, and alleviate these troubles; for, fears are overcome, and storms are appeased, and businesses are ended, and wonders are understood, and sorrows wear out; But in this trouble of the bones, and the soul, in so deep and sensible impressions of the anger of God, looking at once upon the pravity, the obliquity, the malignity of all that I have done, of all that I shall do, Man hath but one step between that state, and despair, to stop upon, to turn to the Author of all temporal, and all spiritual health, the Lord of life, with David's prayer, Cor mundum crea, Create a clean heart within me; Begin with me again, as thou begunst with Adam, in innocence; and see, if I shall husband and govern that innocence better then Adam did; for, for this heart which I have from him, I have it in corruption; and, who can bring a clean thing out of uncleanness? Therefore David's prayer goes farther in the same place, Renew a constant spirit in me; Present cleanness cannot be had from myself; but if I have that from God, mine own clothes will make me foul again, and therefore do not only create a clean spirit, but renew a spirit of constancy and perseverance. Therefore I have also another Prayer in the same Psalm, Spiritu principali confirma me, Sustaine me, uphold me with thy free spirit, thy large, thy munificent spirit: for thy ordinary graces will not defray me, nor carry me through this valley of temptations; not thy single money, but thy Talents; not as thou art thine own Almoner, but thine own Treasurer; It is not the dew, but thy former and later rain that must water, though it be thy hand that hath planted; Not any of the Rivers, though of Paradise, but the Ocean it self, that must bring me to thy Jerusalem. Create a clean heart; Thou didst so in Adam, and in him I defiled it. Renew that heart; Thou didst so in Baptism; And thy upholding me with thy constant spirit, is thy affording me means, which are constant, in thy Church; But thy confirming me with thy principal spirit, is thy making of those means, instituted in thy Church, effectual upon me, by the spirit of Application, the spirit of Appropriation, by which the merits of the Son, deposited in the Church, are delivered over unto me.

This then is the force of David's reason in this Petition, Ossa implentur vitiis, as one of Job's friends speaks, My bones are full of the sins of my youth, That is, my best actions, now in mine age, have some taste, some tincture from the habit, or some sinful memory of the acts of sin in my youth; Adhaeret os meum carni, as David also speaks, My bones cleave to my flesh, my best actions taste of my worst; And My skin cleaves to my bones, as Jeremiah laments, That is, My best actions call for a skin, for something to cover them: And Therefore, not Therefore because I have brought myself into this state, but because by thy grace I have power to bring this my state into thy sight, by this humble confession, Sana me Domine, O Lord heal me; Thou that art my Messias, be my Moses, and carry these bones of thy Joseph out of Egypt; Deliver me, in this consideration of mine actions, from the terror of a self-accusing, and a jealous, and suspicious conscience: Bury my bones beside the bones of the man of God; Beside the bones of the Son of God: Look upon my bones as they are coffind, and shrouded in that sheet, the righteousness of Christ Jesus. Accedant ossa ad ossa, as in Ezekiel's vision, Let our bones come together, bone to bone, mine to his, and look upon them uno intuitu, all together, and there shall come sinews, and flesh, and skin upon them, and breathe upon them, and in Him, in Christ Jesus, I shall live; My bones being laid by his, though but gristles in themselves, my actions being considered in his, though imperfect in themselves, shall bear me up in the sight of God. And this may be the purpose of this prayer, this sanation, grounded upon this reason, O Lord heal me, for my bones are vexed, &c. But yet David must, and doth stop upon this step, he stays God's leisure, and is put to his Vsquequo? But thou, O Lord, how long?

David had cried Miserere, he had begged of God to look towards him, and consider him; He had revealed to him his weak and troublesome estate, and he had entreated relief; but yet God gave not that relief presently, nor seemed to have heard his prayer, nor to have accepted his reasons. David comes to some degrees of expostulation with God; but he dares not proceed far; it is but usquequo Domine? which if we consider it in the Original, and so also in our last Translation, requires a serious consideration. For it is not there as it is in the first Translation, How long wilt thou delay? David charges God with no delay: But it is only, Et tu Domine, usquequo? But thou O Lord, how long? And there he ends in a holy abruptnesse, as though he had taken himself in a fault, to enterprise any expostulation with God. He doth not say, How long ere thou hear me? If thou hear me, how long ere thou regard me? If thou regard me, how long ere thou heal me? How long shall my bones, how long shall my soul be troubled? He says not so; but leaving all to his leisure, he corrects his passion, he breaks off his expostulation. As long as I have that commission from God, Dic animae tuae, Salus tua sum, Say unto thy soul, I am thy salvation, my soul shall keep silence unto God, of whom cometh my salvation: Silence from murmuring, how long soever he be in recovering me; not silence from prayer, that he would come; for that is our last Consideration; David proposed his Desire, Miserere, and Sana, Look towards me, and Heale me, that was our first; And then his Reasons, Ossa, Anima, My bones, my soul is troubled, that was our second; And then he grew sensible of God's absence, for all that, which was our third Proposition; for yet, for all this, he continues patient, and solieites the same God in the same name, The Lord, But thou O Lord, how long?

Need we then any other example of such a patience then God himself, who stays so long in expectation of our conversion? But we have David's example too, who having first made his Deprecation, That God would not reprove him in anger, having prayed God to forbear him, he is also well content to forbear God, for those other things which he asks, till it be his pleasure to give them. But yet he neither gives over praying, nor doth he incline to pray to anybody else, but still Domine miserere, Have mercy upon me O Lord, and Domine fana, O Lord heal me: Industry in a lawful calling, favor of great persons, a thankful acknowledgement of the ministry and protection of Angels, and of the prayers of the Saints in heaven for us, all these concur to our assistance; But the root of all, all temporal, all spiritual blessings, is he, to whom David leads us here, Dominus, The Lord; Lord, as he is Proprietary of all creatures; He made All, and therefore is Lord of All; as he is Jehovah, which is the name of Essence, of Being, as all things have all their being from him, their very being, and their well-being, their Creation, and their Conservation; And in that Name of Recognition and acknowledgement, that all that can be had, is to be asked of him, and him only, Him, as he is Jehovah, The Lord, does David solicit him here; for, as there is no other Name under heaven, given amongst men, whereby we must be saved, but the Name of Jesus Christ; So is there no other Name above in heaven proposed to men, whereby they should receive these blessings, but the Name of Jehovah; for Jehovah is the name of the whole Trinity, and there are no more, no Queen-mother in heaven, no Counsaylors in heaven in Commission with the Trinity.

In this Name therefore David pursues his Prayer: for, from a River, from a Cistern, a man may take more water at once, then he can from the first spring and fountain head; But he cannot take the water so sincerely, so purely, so intemerately from the channel as from the fountain head. Princes and great persons may raise their Dependants faster then God does his; But sudden riches come like a land-water, and bring much foulness with them. We are God's vineyard; The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts, is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant plant, says the Prophet. And God delights to see his plants prosper, and grow up seasonably. More then once Christ makes that profession, That he goes down into the Garden of Nuts, to see the fruits of the valley, And to see whether the Vine flourished, and whether the Pomegranet budded; And he goes up early into the vineyard, to see whether the tender grape appeared. He had a pleasure in the growth and successive increase of his plants, and did not look they should come hastily to their height and maturity. If worldly blessings, by a good industry, grow up in us, it is natural; But if they fall upon us, Pluit laqueos, God rains down springes and snares, occasions of sin in those abundances, and Pluit grandinem, He will rain down Hailstones; Hailstones as big as Talents, as in the Revelation; as big as Milstones; He will make our riches occasions of raising enemies, and make those enemies Grindstones to grind our fortunes to powder. Make not too much haste to be rich: Even in spiritual riches, in spiritual health make not too much haste. Pray for it; for there is no other way to get it. Pray to the Lord for it: For, Saints and Angels have but enough for themselves. Make haste to begin to have these spiritual graces; To desire them, is to begin to have them: But make not too much haste in the way; Do not think thyself purer then thou art, because thou seest another do some such sins, as thou hast forborne.

Beloved, at last, when Christ Jesus comes with his scales, thou shalt not be weighed with that man, but every man shall be weighed with God: Be pure as your Father in heaven is pure, is the weight that must try us all; and then, the purest of us all, that trusts to his own purity, must hear that fearful Mene Tekel Vpharsin, Thou art weighed, Thou art found too light, Thou art divided, separated from the face of God, because thou hast not taken the purity of that Son upon thee, who not only in himself, but those also who are in him, in him are pure, as his, and their Father in heaven is pure. Neither make so much haste to this spiritual riches, and health, as to think thyself whole before thou art: Neither murmur, nor despair of thy recovery, if thou beest not whole so soon as thou desiredst. If thou wrestle with temptations, and canst not overcome them, If thou purpose to pray earnestly, and find thy mind presently strayed from that purpose, If thou intend a good course, and meet with stops in the way, If thou seek peace of conscience, and scruples out of zeal interrupt that, yet discomfort not thyself. God 〈…〉 in the Creation, before he came to make thee; yet all that while he wrought for thee. Thy Regeneration, to make thee a new creature, is a greater work then that, and it cannot be done in an instant. God hath purposed a building in thee; he hath sat down, and considered, that he hath sufficient to accomplish that building, as it is in the Gospel, and therefore leave him to his leisure.

When thou hast begun with David, with a Domine ne arguas, O Lord rebuke me not, and followed that, with a Domine miserere, O Lord look graciously towards me, and pursued that, with a Domine sana me, O Lord heal me, If thou find a Domine usqucquo? Any degree of weariness of attending the Lord's leisure, arising in thee, suppress it, overcome it, with more and more petitions, and that which God did by way of Commandment, in the first Creation, do thou by way of prayer, in this thy second Creation; First he said, Piat lux, Let there be light: Pray thou, that he would enlighten thy darkness. God was satisfied with that light for three days, and then he said, Fiant luminaria, Let there be great lights; Bless God for his present light, but yet pray that he will enlarge that light which he hath given thee; And turn all those his Commandments into prayers, till thou come to his Faciamus hominem, Let us make man according to our own Image; Pray that he will restore his Image in thee, and conform thee to him, who is the Image of the invisible God, our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. He did his greatest work upon thee, before time was, thine Election; And he hath reserved the confummation of that work, till time shall be no more, thy Glorification: And as forthy Vocation he hath taken his own time, (He did not call thee into the world in the time of the Primitive Church, nor, perchance, call thee effectually, though in the Church, in the days of thy youth) So stay his time for thy Sanctification, and, if the day-spring from on high have visited thee, but this morning, If thou beest come to a fiat lux but now, that now God have kindled some light in thee, he may come this day seven-night to a siant luminaria, to multiply this light by a more powerful means. If not so soon, yet still remember, that it was God that made the Sun stand still to Ioshaah, as well as to run his race as a Giant to David; And God was as much glorified in the standing still of the Sun, as in the motion thereof; And shall be so in thy Sanctification, though it seem to stand at a stay for a time, when his time shall be to perfect it, in a measure acceptable to thee. Nothing is acceptable to him, but that which is seasonable; nor seasonable, except it come in the time proper to it: And, as S. Augustine says, Natura rei est, quam indidit Deus, That is the nature of everything, which God hath imprinted in it, So that is the time for everything, which God hath appointed for it. Pray, and Stay, are two blessed Monosy lables; To ascend to God, To attend God's descent to us, is the Motion, and the Rest of a Christian; And as all Motion is for Rest, so let all the Motions of our soul in our prayers to God be, that our wills may rest in his, and that all that pleases him, may please us, therefore because it pleases him; for therefore, because it pleases him, it becomes good for us, and then, when it pleases him, it becomes seasonable unto us, and expedient for us.

SERM. LII. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalms.

T He whole Psalm is Prayer; and Prayer is our whole service to God. Earnest Prayer hath the nature of Importunity; We press, we importune God in Prayer; Yet that puts not God to a morosity, to a frowardness; God flings not away from that; God suffers that importunity, and more. Prayer hath the nature of Impudency; We threaten God in Prayer; as Gregor: Nazi: adventures to express it; He says, his Sister, in the vehemence of her Prayer, would threaten God, Et honesta quadam impudentiae, egit impudentem; She came, says he, to a religious impudency with God, and to threaten him, that she would never depart from his Altar, till she had her Petition granted; And God suffers this Impudency, and more. Prayer hath the nature of Violence; In the public Prayers of the Congregation, we besiege God, says Tertul: and we take God Prisoner, and bring God to our Conditions; and God is glad to be straitened by us in that siege. This Prophet here executes before, what the Apostle counsels after, Pray incessantly; Even in his singing he prays; And as S. Basil says, Etiam somniajustorum preces sunt, A Good man's dreams are Prayers, he prays, and not sleepily, in his sleep, so David's Songs are Prayers. Now in this his besieging of God, he brings up his works from a far off, closer; He begins in this Psalm, at a deprecatory Prayer; He asks nothing, but that God would do nothing, that he would forbear him; Rebuke me not, Correct me not. Now, it costs the King less, to give a Pardon, then to give a Pension; and less to give a Reprieve, then to give a Pardon; and less to Connive, not to call in Question, then either Reprieve, Pardon or Pension; To forbear, is not much. But then, as the Mathematician said, That he could make an Engin, a Screw, that should move the whole frame of the World, if he could have a place assigned him, to fix that Engin, that Screw upon, that so it might work upon the World: so Prayer, when one Petition hath taken hold upon God, works upon God, moves God, prevails with God, entirely for all. David then having got this ground, this footing in God, he brings his works closer; he comes from the Deprecatory, to a Postulatory Prayer; not only that God would do nothing against him, but that he would do something for him. God hath suffered man to see Arcana imperii, The secrets of his State, how he governs; He governs by Precedent; by precedents of his Predecessors, he cannot; He hath none; by precedents of other God's, he cannot; There are none; And yet he proceeds by precedents; by his own Precedents; He does as he did before; Habenti dat, To him that hath received, he gives more, and is willing to be wrought, and prevailed upon, and pressed with his own example. And, as though his doing good, were but to learn how to do good better, still he writes after his own copy; And Nulla dies sine linea, He writes something to us, that is, he doth something for us, every day. And then, that which is not often seen, in other Masters, his Copies are better then the Originals; his later mercies larger then his former: And in this Postulatory Prayer, larger then the Deprecatory, enters our Text, Return O Lord; Deliver my soul; O save me, &c.

David, who everywhere remembers God of his Covenant, as he was the God of Abraham, remembers also, how Abraham proceeded with God, in the behalf of Sodom; And he remembers, that when Abraham had gained upon God, and brought him from a greater, to a less number of righteous men, for whose sakes God would have spared that City, yet Abraham gave over asking, before God gave over granting; And so Sodom was lost. A little more of S. Augustine's Importunity, of Nazi: Impudence, of Tertul: violence in Prayer, would have done well in Abraham; If Abraham had come to a less price, to less then ten, God knows what God would have done; for God went not away, says the text there, till he had left communing with Abraham; that is, till Abraham had no more to say to him. In memory and contemplation of that, David gives not over in this text, till he come to the utter most of all, as far as man can ask, as far as God can give; He begins at first, with a Revertere Domine, Return O Lord, and higher then that, no man can begin; no man can begin at a Veni Domine; no man can pray to God, to come, till God be come into him; Quid peto, ut venias in me, says S. August: Qui non essem, si nonesses in me? How should I pray, that God would come into me, who not only could not have the Spirit of praying, but not the Spirit of being, not life it self, if God were not in me already? But then, this prayer is, that when God had been with him, and for his sins, or his coldness, and slackness in prayer, was departed aside from him, yet he would vouchsafe to return to him again, and restore to him that light of his countenance which he had before, Revertere Domine, O Lord return. And then he passes to his second petition, Eripe animam, Deliver my soul; That when God in his return saw those many and strong snares which entangled him, those many and deep temptations and tribulations which surrounded him, God, being in his mercy thus Returned, and in his Providence seeing this danger, would not now stand neutral, between them, and see him, and these temptations fight it our, but fight on his side and deliver him; Eripe animam, Deliver my soul. And then, by these two petitions, he makes way for the third and last, which is the perfection and consummation of all, as far as he can carry a Prayer or a Desire, Salvum me fac, O Lord save me; that is, Imprint in me a strong hope of Salvation in this life, and invest me in an irremoveable possession, in the life to come. Lord I acknowledge that thou hast visited me heretofore, and for my sins hast absented thyself, O Lord return; Lord, now thou art returned, and seest me unable to stand in these temptations and tribulations, Deliver thou my soul; Lord thou hast delivered me again and again, and again and again I fall back to my former danger, and therefore, O Lord save me, place me where I may be safe; safe in a constant hope, that the Savior of the World intended that salvation to me; And these three Petitions constitute our first part in David's postulatory Prayer.

And then the second part, which is also within the words of this text, and consists of those reasons, by which David inclines God to grant his three Petitions, which are two, first, Propter misericordiam tuam, Do this O Lord, for thine own mercy sake, And then, Quia non in morte, Do it O Lord, for thine own honors sake, Because in death there is no remembrance of thee, that second part will be the subject of another exercise, for, that which belongs to the three Petitions, will employ the time allowed for this.

First then, the first step in this Prayer, Revertere, O Lord return, implies first a former presence, and then a present absence, and also a confidence for the future; Whosoever says, O Lord return, says all this, Lord thou wast here, Lord thou art departed hence, but yet, Lord thou mayest return hither again. God was with us all, before we were anything at all; And ever since our making, hath been with us, in his general providence; And so, we cannot say, O Lord Return, because, so, he was never gone from us. But as God made the earth, and the fruits thereof, before he made the Sun, whose force was to work upon that earth, and upon the natural fruits of that earth, but before he made Paradise, which was to have the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Knowledge, he made the Sun to do those offices, of shining upon it, and returning daily to it: So God makes this earth of ours, that is ourselves, by natural ways, and sustains us by general providence, before any Son of particular grace be seen to shine upon us. But before man can be a Paradise, possessed of the Tree of life, and of Knowledge, this Sun is made and produced, the particular graces of God rise to him, and work upon him, and awaken, and solicit, and exalt those natural faculties which were in him; This Son fills him, and fits him, compasses him, and disposes him, and does all the offices of the Sun, seasonably, opportunely, maturely, for the nourishing of his soul, according to the several necessities thereof. And this is God's returning to us, in a general apprehension; After he hath made us, and blest us in our nature, and by his natural means, he returns to make us again, to make us better, first by his first preventing grace, and then by a succession of his particular graces. And therefore we must return to this Returning, in some more particular considerations.

There are beside others, three significations in the Scripture, of this word Shubah, which is here translated, to Return, appliable to our present purpose. The first is the natural and native, the primary and radical signification of the word. And so, Shubah, To Return, is Redire ad locum suum, To return to that place, to which a thing is naturally affected; So heavy things return to the Center, and light things return to the Expansion; So Mans breath departeth, says David, Et redit in terr am suam, He returns into his Earth; That earth, which is so much his, as that it is he himself; Of earth he was, and therefore to earth he returns. But can God return in such a sense as this? Can we find an Vbi for God? A place that is his place? Yes; And an Earth which is his earth; Surely the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts, is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant plant. So the Church, which is his Vineyard, is his Vbi, his place, his Center, to which he is naturally affected. And when he calls us hither, and meets us here, upon his Sabbaths, and sheds the promises of his Gospel upon the Congregation in his Ordinance, he returns to us here, as in his Vbi, as in his own place. And as he hath a place of his own here, so he hath an Earth of his own in this place. Our flesh is Earth, and God hath invested our flesh, and in that flesh of ours, which suffered death for us, he returns to us in this place, as often as he maketh us partakers of his flesh, and his blood, in the blessed Sacrament. So then, though in my days of sin, God have absented himself from me, (for God is absent when I do not discern his presence) yet if today I can hear his voice, as God is returned today to this place, as to his Vbi, as to his own place; so in his entering into me, in his flesh and blood, he returns to me as to his Earth, that Earth which he hath made his by assuming my nature, I am become his Vbi, his place; Delitiae ejus, His delight is to be with the sons of men, and so with me; and so in the Church, in the Sermon, in the Sacrament he returns to us, in the first signification of this word Shubah, as to that place to which he is naturally affected and disposed.

In a second signification, this word is referred, not to the place of God, not to the person of God, but (if we may so speak) to the Passion of God, to the Anger of God; And so, the Returning of God, that is, of God's Anger, is the allaying, the becalming, the departing of his Anger; and so when God returns, God stays; his Anger is returned from us, but God is still with us. The wrath of the Lord was kindled, says the Prophet Isaiah; and He smote his people, so that the mountains trembled, and their carcasses were torn in the midst of the streets. Here is the tempest, here is the visitation, here is God's coming to them; He comes, but in anger, and we hear of no return; nay, we hear the contrary, Et non redibat furor, For all this, his wrath, his fury did not return, that is, did not depart from them; for, as God never comes in this manner, till our multiplied sins call him, and importune him, so God never returns in this sense, in withdrawing his anger and judgments from us, till both our words and our works, our prayers and our amendment of life, join in a Revertere Domine, O Lord Return, withdraw this judgment from us, for it hath effected thy purpose upon us. And so the Original, which expresses neither signification of the word, for it is neither Return to me, nor Return from me, but plainly and only Return, leaves the sense indifferent; Lord, thou hast withdrawn thyself from me, therefore in mercy return to me, or else, Lord, thy Judgments are heavy upon me, and therefore return, withdraw these Judgments from me; which shows the ductilenesse, the appliablenesse of God's mercy, that yields almost to any form of words, any words seem to fit it.

But then, the comfort of God's returning to us, comes nearest us, in the third signification of this word Shubah; not so much in God's returning to us, nor in his anger returning from us, as in our returning to him, Turn us again, O Lord, says David, Et salvi erimus, and we shall be saved; There goes no more to salvation, but such a Turning. So that this Returning of the Lord, is an Operative, an Effectual returning, that turns our hearts, and eyes, and hands, and feet to the ways of God, and produces in us Repentance, and Obedience. For these be the two legs, which our conversion to God stands upon; For so Moses uses this very word, Return unto the Lord and hear his voice; There is no returning, without hearing, nor hearing without believing, nor believing, to be believed, without doing; Returning is all these. Therefore where Christ says, That if those works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, Tyre and Sidon would have repented in sackcloth and ashes; In the Syriac Translation of S. Matthew, we have this very word Shubah, They would have Returned in sack-cloth and ashes. So that the word which David receives from the Holy Ghost in this Text, being only Returned, and no more, applies it self to all three senses, Return thyself, that is, Bring back thy Mercy; Return thy Wrath, that is, Call back thy Judgments, or Return us to thee, that is, make thy means, and offers of grace, in thine Ordinance, powerful, and effectual upon us.

Now when the Lord comes to us, by any way, though he come in corrections, in chastisements, not to turn to him, is an irreverent, and unrespective negligence. If a Pursuivant, if a Serjeant come to thee from the King, in any Court of Justice, though he come to put thee in trouble, to call thee to an account, yet thou receivest him, thou entertainest him, thou paiest him fees. If any Messenger of the Lord come to attach thee, whether sickness in thy body, by thine own disorder, decay in thy estate, by the oppression of others, or terror in thy Conscience, by the preaching of his Ministers, turn thou to the Lord, in the last sense of the word, and his mercy shall return to thee, and his anger shall return from thee, and thou shalt have fullness of Consolation in all the three significations of the word. If a Worm be trodden upon, it turns again; We may think, that is done in anger, and to revenge; But we know not; The Worm hath no sting, and it may seem as well to embrace, and lick his foot that treads upon him. When God treads upon thee, in any calamity, spiritual or temporal, if thou turn with murmuring, this is the turning of a Serpent, to sting God, to blaspheme him; This is a turning upon him, not a turning to him; But if thou turn like a Worm, then thou turnest humbly to kiss the rod, to lick and embrace his foot that treads upon thee, that is, to love his Ministers, which denounce his judgments upon thy sins, yea, to love them, from whom thou receivest defamation in thy credit, or detriment in thy state.

We see how it was imputed to Asa, when God trod upon him, that is, diseased him in his feet, and exalted his disease into extremity, Yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the Physicians. He turned a by-way; at least, though a right way, too soon, to the Physician before the Lord. This is that, that exasperated God so vehemently, Because the people turneth not to him that smiteth them; neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts; when the Lord of Hosts lies with a heavy Army upon them. Therefore, says the Prophet there, The Lord will cut off from Israel, head and tail, branch and rush in one day. God is not so vehement, when they neglected him in their prosperity, as when, though he afflicted them, yet they turned not to him. Measure God by earthly Princes; (for we may measure the world by a Barly corn) If the King come to thy house, thou wilt profess to take it for an honor, and thou wilt entertain him; and yet his coming cannot be without removes, and troubles, and charges to thee. So when God comes to thee, in his word, or in his actions, in a Sermon, or in a sickness, though his coming dislodge thee, remove thee, put thee to some inconvenience, in leaving thy bed of sin, where thou didst sleep securely before, yet here is the progress of the Holy Ghost, intended to thy soul, that first he comes thus to thee, and then if thou turn to him, he returns to thee, and settles himself, and dwells in thee.

This is too lovely a Prospect, to depart so soon from; therefore look we by S. Augustine's glass, upon God's coming and returning to man. God hath imprinted his Image in our souls; and God comes, says that Father, Vt videat imaginem; Where I have given my Picture, I would see how it is respected: God comes to see in what case his Image is in us; If we shut doors, if we draw Curtaines between him and his Image, that is, cover our souls, and disguise and palliate our sins, he goes away, and returns in none of those former senses. But if we lay them open, by our free confessions, he returns again; that so, in how ill case soever he find his Image, he may wash it over with our tears, and renew it with his own blood, and, Vt resculpat imaginem, that he may refresh and re-engrave his Image in us again, and put it in a richer and safer Tablet. And as the Angel which came to Abraham at the promise and conception of Isaac, gave Abraham a farther assurance of his Return at Isaaes birth, I will certainly return unto thee, and thy wife shall have a Son; So the Lord, which was with thee in the first conception of any good purpose, Returnes to thee again, to give thee a quickening of that blessed child of his, and again, and again, to bring it forth, and to bring it up, to accomplish and perfect those good intentions, which his Spirit, by over-shadowing thy soul, hath formerly begotten in it. So then, he comes in Nature, and he returns in Grace; He comes in preventing, and returns in subsequent graces; He comes in thine understanding, and returns in thy will; He comes in rectifying thine actions, and returns in establishing habits; He comes to thee in zeal, and returns in discretion; He comes to thee in fervor, and returns in perseverance; He comes to thee in thy peregrination, all the way, and he returns in thy transmigration, at thy last gasp. So God comes, and so God returns.

Yet I am loath to depart myself, loath to dismiss you from this air of Paradise, of God's coming, and returning to us. Therefore we consider again, that as God came long ago, six thousand years ago, in nature, when we were created in Adam, and then in nature returned to us, in the generation of our Parents: so our Savior Christ Jesus came to us long ago, sixteen hundred years ago, in grace, and yet in grace returns to us, as often as he assembles us, in these holy Convocations. He came to us then, as the Wisemen came to him, with treasure, and gifts, and gold, and incense, and myrrh; As having an ambition upon the souls of men, he came with that abundant treasure to purchase us. And as to them who live upon the Kings Pension, it is some comfort to hear that the Exchequer is full, that the Kings monies are come in: so is it to us, to know that there is enough in God's hands, paid by his Son, for the discharge of all our debts; He gave enough for us all at that coming; But it is his returning to us, that applies to us, and derives upon us in particular, the benefit of this general satisfaction. When he returns to us in the dispensation and distribution of his graces, in his Word and Sacraments; When he calls upon us to come to the receipt; When the greater the sum is, the gladder he is of our coming, that where sin abounds, grace might abound too; When we can pursue this Prayer, Revertere Domine, Return O Lord in grace, in more and more grace, and when we are in possession of a good measure of that grace, we can pray again, Revertere Domine, Return O Lord in glory, Come Lord Jesus, come quickly; When we are so rectified by his Ordinances here, that in a sincerity of soul, we are not only contented, but desirous to depart from hence, then have we religiously followed our example, that man according to God's heart, David, in this prayer of his. If Christ have not been thus fully in thine heart, before, this is his coming; entertain him now: If he have been there, and gone again, this is his returning; bless him for that: And meet him, and love him, and embrace him, as often as he offers himself to thy soul, in these his Ordinances: Wish every day a Sunday, and every meal a Sacrament, and every discourse a Homily, and he shall shine upon thee in all dark ways, and rectify thee in all ragged ways, and direct thee in all cross ways, and stop thee in all doubtful ways, and return to thee in every corner, and relieve thee in every danger, and arm thee even against himself, by advancing thy work, in which thou besiegest him, that is, this Prayer, and enabling thee to prevail upon him, as in this first Petition, Revertere Domine, O Lord return, so in that which follows next, Eripe animam, Deliver my soul.

In this Prayer, we may either consider David in that affection which S. Paul had when he desired to be delivered ab angelo Satanae, from the messenger of Satan that buffeted him, that so that Stimulus carnis which he speaks of, that vexation, and provocation of the flesh, might have been utterly removed from him, whereby he might have past his life in God's service in a religious calm, without any storm, or opposition, or contradiction arising in his flesh: Or we may consider it as a Prayer agreeable to that Petition in our Lord's Prayer, Libera nos à malo, Deliver us from evil; which is not from being attempted by evil, but by being swallowed up by it. Eripe me, may be, Deliver me from rebellions, or Deliver me in rebellions; Either that they come not, or that they overcome not.

In that prayer of S. Paul, that God would remove Angelum Satanae, and take away Stimulum carnis, first, S. Paul is not easily understood, and then, it may be, not safely imitated. It is hard to know what S. Paul means in his Prayer, and it may be dangerous to pray as he prayed. For the actions of no man, how holy soever, till we come to Christ himself, lay such an obligation upon us, as that we must necessarily do as t •• y did. Nay the actions of Christ himself lay not that obligation upon us, to fast as he fasted; no nor to pray as he prayed. A man is not bound in an Affliction, or Persecution, at least at all times, to that Prayer, Si possibile, or Transeat calix, If it be possible let this cup pass; But if God vouchsafe him a holy constancy, to go through with his Martyrdom, he may proceed in it without any such Deprecation to God, or Petition to the Judge.

But first, before we consider whether he might be imitated, if we understood him, we find it hard to understand him. S. Augustine's free confession, Se nescire quid sit angelus Satanae, That he never understood what S. Paul meant by that Messenger of Satan, is more ingenuous then their interpretation, who, I know not upon what Tradition, refer it to an extreme pain in the head, that S. Paul should have, as Theophylact says; or refer it Ad morbum Iliacum, which Aquinas speaks of, or to the Gout, or pains in the Stomach, as Nazianzen, and Basil interpret it. Oecumenius understands this Angel, this Messenger of Satan, to be those Heretics, which were his Adversaries, in his preaching of the Gospel; according to that signification of the word Satan, in which Solomon uses it to Hiram, Non est mihi Satan, I have no Adversary. Others, even amongst the Fathers, understand it particularly, and literally, of that concupiscence, and those lusts of the flesh, which even the most sanctified men may have some sense of, and some attempts by. Others understand it generally of all calamities, spiritual, and temporal, incident to us in this life. But Cajetan goes farthest, who reads it not as we do, Angelum Satanae, but Angelum Satanam; not that Angel which comes from Satan, but that Angel that is Satan himself. So that he conceives it to be a prayer against all temptations and tribulations here, and hereafter, which the Devil or the Devils Instruments can frame against us.

Now, if we think we understand it aright, in understanding it so generally, then enters our second doubt, whether we may imitate S. Paul in so general a prayer. We dispute in the School, whether, if it were in his powerto do it, man might lawfully destroy any entire species of creatures in the world, though offensive, and venerhous, as Vipers, or Scorpions. For every species being a link of God's great chain, and a limb of his great creature, the whole world, it seems not to be put into our power, to break his chain, and take out a link, to maim his great creature, and cut off a limb, by destroying any entire species, if we could. So neither does it soeme conduceable to God's purposes in us, (which is the rule of all our prayers) to pray utterly against all temptations, as vehemently as against sins. God should lose by it, and we should lose by it, if we had no temptations; for God is glorified in those victories, which we, by his grace, gain over the Devil. Nescit Diabolus, quant a bona de illo fiunt, etiam cum saevit; Little knows the Devil, how much good he does us, when he tempts us; for by that we are excited to have our present recourse to that God, whom in our former security, we neglected, who gives us the issue with the temptation. Ego novi quid apposuerim, I know what infirmities I I have submitted thee to, and what I have laid and applied to thee. Ego novi unde aegrotes, ego novi unde saneris; I know thy sickness, and I know thy physic. Sufficit tibi gratiamea; Whatsoever the disease be, my grace shall be sufficient to cure it. For whether we understand that, as S. Chrysostom does, De gratia miraculorum, That it is sufficient for any man's assurance, in any temptation, or tribulation, to consider God's miraculous deliverances of other men, in the like cases; or whether we understand it according to the general voice of the Interpreters, that is, Be content that there remain in thy flesh, Matter and Subject for me to produce glory from thy weakness, and Matter and Subject for thee to exercise thy faith and allegiance to me, still these words will carry an argument against the expedience of absolute praying against all temptations; for still, this Gratiamea sufficit, will import this, amount to this, I have as many Antidotes, as the Devil hath poisons, I have as much mercy as the Devil hath malice; There must be Scorpions in the world; but the Scorpion shall cure the Scorpion; there must be temptations; but temptations shall add to mine, and to thy glory, and, Eripiam, I will deliver thee.

This word is in the Original, Chalatz; which signifies Eripere in such a sense, as our language does not fully reach in any one word. So there is some defectivenesse, some slackness in this word of our Translation, Delivering. For it is such a Delivering, as is a sudden catching hold, and snatching at the soul of a man, then, when it is at the brink, and edge of a sin. So that if thy facility, and that which thou wilt make shift to call Good Nature, or Good Manners, have put thee into the hands of that subtle woman, that Solomon speaks of, That is come forth to mect thee, and seek thy face; If thou have followed her, As an Ox goeth to the slaughter, and as a fool to the correction of the stocks; Even then, when the Axe is over thy head, then when thou hast approached so near to destruction, then is the season of this prayer, Eripe me Domine, Catch hold of me now O Lord, and Deliver my soul. When Joseph had resisted the temptations of his Masters Wife, and resisted them the only safe way, not only not to yield, but as the Text says, not to come in her company, and yet she had found her opportunity when there was none in the house but they, he came to an inward Eripe me Domine, O Lord take hold of me now, and she caught, and God caught; She caught his garment, and God his soul; She delivered him, and God delivered him; She to Prison, and God from thence. If thy curiosity, or thy confidence in thine own spiritual strength, carry thee into the house of Rimmon, to Idolatry, to a Mass, trust not thou to Naaman's request, Ignoscat Dominus servo in bacre, That God will pardon thee, as often as thou doest so; but since thou hast done so now, now come to this Eripe animam, O Lord deliver my soul now, from taking harm now, and hereafter, from exposing myself to the like harm. For this is the purpose of David's prayer in this signification of this word, that howsoever infirmity, or company, or curiosity, or confidence, bring us within the distance, and danger, within the Sphere, and Latitude of a temptation, that though we be not lodged in Sodom, yet we are in the Suburbs, though we be not impailed in a sin, yet we are within the purlues, (which is not safely done; no more then it is in a State, to trust always to a Defensive War) yet when we are engaged, and enthralled in such a temptation, then, though God be not delighted with our danger, yet then is God most delighted to help us, when we are in danger; and then, he comes not only to deliver us from that imminent, and particular danger, according to that signification of this word, but according to that Interpretation of this word, which the Septuagint have given it, in the Prophet Isaiah, Iachalitz, Pinguefaciet; He shall proceed in his work, and make fat thy soul; That is, Deliver thee now, and preserve, and establish thee after, to the fulfilling of all, that belongs to the last Petition of this prayer, Salvum me fac, O Lord save me; Though he have been absent, he shall Return; and being Returned, shall not stand still, nor stand Neutrall, but deliver thee; and having delivered thee, shall not determine his love in that one act of mercy, but shall Save thee, that is, Imprint in thee a holy confidence, that his salvation is thine.

So then, in that manner is God's Deliverance expressed, They shall cry unto him, (till we cry, he takes no knowledge at all) and then he sends to them, (there is his returning upon their cry) and then, He shall deliver them, says that Prophet; and so, the two former Petitions of this prayer are answered; but the Consummation, and Establishment of all, is in the third, which follows in the same place, He shall send them a Savior, and a great one. But who is that? what Savior? Doubtless he that is proclaimed by God, in the same Prophet, Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Behold thy salvation cometh. For, that word which that Prophet uses there, and this word, in which David presents this last Petition here, is in both places, Iashang, and Iashang is the very word, from which the name of Jesus is derived; so that David desires here, that salvation which Isaiah proclaimed there, salvation in the Savior of the world, Christ Jesus, and an interest in the assurance of his merits.

We find this name of Savior attributed to other men in the Scriptures, then to Christ. In particular distresses, when God raised up men, to deliver his people sometimes, those men were so called, Savior's. And so S. Jerome interprets those words of the Prophet, Ascendent salvatores, Savior's shall come up, on Mount Zion, of Prophets, and Preachers, and such other Instruments, as God should raise for the salvation of souls. Those, whom in other places, he calls Angels of the Church, here he calls by that higher name, Savior's. But such a Savior as is proclaimed to the ends of the world, to all the world, a Savior in the Mountains, in the height of presumptuous sins, and a Savior in the valleys, in the dejection of inordinate melancholy too, A Savior of the East, of rising, and growing men, and a Savior of the West, of withering, declining, languishing fortunes too, A Savior in the state of nature, by having infused the knowledge of himself, into some men then, before the light, and help of the Law was afforded to the world, A Savior in the state of the Law, by having made to some men then, even Types Accomplishments, and Prophesies Histories, And, as himself Cals things that are not, as though they were, So he made those men see things that were not, as though they were, (for so Abraham saw his day and rejoiced ) A Savior in the state of the Gospel, and so, as that he saves some there, for the fundamental Gospels sake, that is, for standing fast in the fundamental Articles thereof, though they may have been darkened with some ignorances, or may have strayed into some errors, in some Circumstantiall points, A Savior of all the world, of all the conditions in the world, of all times through the world, of all places of the world, such a Savior is no man called, but Christ Jesus only. For when it is said that Pharaoh called Joseph, Salvatorem mundi, A Savior of the world, (besides, that if it were so, that which is called all the world, can be referred but to that part of the world which was then under Pharaoh; as when it is said, that Augustus taxed the world, that is intended De orbe Romano, so much of the world, as was under the Romans ) there is a manifest error in that Translation, which calls Joseph so, for that name which was given to Joseph there, in that language in which it was given, doth truly signify Revelatorem Secretorum, and no more, a Revealer, a Discoverer, a Decypherer of secret and mysterious things; according to the occasion, upon which that name was then given, which was the Decyphering, the Interpreting of Pharaohs Dream.

Be this then thus established, that David for our example considers, and refers all salvation, to salvation in Christ. As he does also where he says after, Notum fecit salutare tuum, The Lord hath made known his salvation. Quid est salutare tuum? says S. Basil; What is the Lord's salvation? And he makes a safe answer out Simeon's mouth, Mine eyes have seen thy salvation, when he had seen Christ Jesus. This then is he, which is not only Satvator populi sui, The Savior of his people, the Jews, to whom he hath betrothed himself, In Pacto salis, A Covenant of salt, an everlasting Covenant: Nor only Salvator corporis sui, The Savior of his own body, as the Apostle calls him; of that body which he hath gathered from the Gentiles, in the Christian Church: Nor only Salvator mundi, A Savior of the world, so, as that which he did, and suffered, was sufficient in it self, and was accepted by the Father, for the salvation of the world; but, as Tertullian, for the most part reads the word, he was Salutificator; not only a Savior, because God made him an instrument of salvation, as though he had no interest in our salvation, till in his flesh he died for us; but he is Salutificator, so the Author of this salvation, as that from all eternity, he was at the making of the Decree, as well as in the fullness of time he was at the executing thereof. In the work of our salvation, if we consider the merit, Christ was sole and alone, no Father, no Holy Ghost trod the Wine-press with him; And if in the work of our salvation we consider the mercy, there, though Christ were not sole, and alone, (for that mercy in the Decree was the joint-act of the whole Trinity) yet even in that, Christ was equal to the Father, and the Holy Ghost. So he is Salutificator, the very Author of this salvation, as that when it came to the act, he, and not they, died for us; and when it was in Council, he, as well as they, and as soon as they, decreed it for us.

As therefore the Church of God scarce presents any petition, any prayer to God, but it is subscribed by Christ; the Name of Christ, is for the most part the end, and the seal of all our Collects; all our prayers in the Liturgy, (though they be but for temporal things, for Plenty, or Peace, or Faire-weather) are shut up so, Grant this O Lord, for our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus sake: So David for our example, drives all his petitions in this Text, to this Conclusion, Salvum me fac, O Lord save me; that is, apply that salvation, Christ Jesus to me. Now beloved, you may know, that yourselves have a part in those means, which God uses to that purpose, yourselves are instruments, though not causes of your own salvation. Salvus factus es pro nihilo, non de nihilo tamen; Thou bringest nothing for thy salvation, yet something to thy salvation; nothing worth it, but yet something with it; Thy new Creation, by which thou art a new creature, that is, thy Regeneration, is wrought as the first Creation was wrought. God made heaven and earth of nothing; but he produced the other creatures, out of that matter, which he had made. Thou hadst nothing to do in the first work of thy Regeneration; Thou couldst not so much as wish it; But in all the rest, thou art a fellow-worker with God; because, before that, there are seeds of former grace shed in thee. And therefore when thou comest to this last Petition, Salvum me fac, O Lord save me, remember still, that thou hast something to do, as well as to say; that so thou mayest have a comfortable answer in thy soul, to the whole prayer, Return O Lord, Deliver my soul, and Save me. And so we have done with our first Part, which was the Prayer it self; and the second, which is the Reasons of the Prayer, we must reserve for a second exercise.

SERM. LIII. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalms.

W EE come now to the Reasons of these Petitions, in David's Prayer; For, as every Prayer must be made with faith, (I must believe that God will grant my Prayer, if it conduce to his glory, and my good to do so, that is the limit of my faith) so I must have reason to ground a likelihood, and a fair probability that that particular which I pray for, doth conduce to his glory and my good, and that therefore God is likely to grant it. David's first Reason here is grounded on God himself, Propter misericordiam, Do it for thy mercy sake; and in his second Reason, though David himself, and all men with him, seem to have a part, yet at last we shall see, the Reason it self to determine wholly and entirely in God too, and in his glory, Quoniam non in morte, Do it O Lord, For in Death there is no remembrance of thee, &c.

In some other places, David comes to God with two reasons, and both grounded merely in God; Misericordia, & veritas, Let thy Mercy and thy Truth always preserve me. In this place he puts himself wholly upon his mercy, for mercy is all, or at least, the foundation that sustains all, or the wall that embraces all. That mercy, which the word of this text, Casad imports, is Benignitas in non promeritum; Mercy is a good disposition towards him, who hath deserved nothing of himself; For, where there is merit, there is no mercy. Nay, it imports more then so, For mercy, as mercy, presumes not only no merit in man, but it takes knowledge of no promise in God, properly; For that is the difference between Mercy and Truth, that by Mercy at first, God would make promises to man, in general; and then by Truth, he would perform those promises: but Mercy goeth first; and there David begins and grounds his Prayer, at Mercy; Mercy that can have no pre-mover, no pre-relation, but begins in it self. For if we consider the mercy of God to mankind subsequently, I mean, after the Death of Christ, so it cannot be properly called mercy. Mercy thus considered, hath a ground; And God thus considered, hath received a plentiful, and an abundant satisfaction in the merits of Christ Jesus; And that which hath a ground in man, that which hath a satisfaction from man, (Christ was truly Man) falls not properly, precisely, rigidly, under the name of mercy. But consider God in his first disposition to man, after his fall, That he would vouchsafe to study our Recovery, and that he would turn upon no other way, but the shedding of the blood of his own and innocent and glorious Son, Quid est homo, aut filius hominis? What was man, or all mankind, that God should be mindful of him so, or so merciful to him? When God promises that he will be merciful and gracious to me, if I do his Will, when in some measure I do that Will of his, God begins not then to be merciful; but his mercy was awake and at work before, when he excited me, by that promise, to do his Will. And after, in my performance of those duties, his Spirit seals to me a declaration, that his Truth is exercised upon me now, as his mercy was before. Still, his Truth is in the effect, in the fruit, in the execution, but the Decree, and the Roote is only Mercy.

God is pleased also when we come to him with other Reasons; When we remember him of his Covenant; When we remember him of his holy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; yea when we remember him of our own innocence, in that particular, for which we may be then unjustly pursued; God was glad to hear of a Righteousness, and of an Innocence, and of clean and pure hands in David, when he was unjustly pursued by Saul. But the root of all is in this, Propter misericordiam, Do it for thy mercy sake. For when we speak of God's Covenant, it may be mistaken, who is, and who is not within that Covenant; What know I? Of Nations, and of Churches, which have received the outward profession of Christ, we may be able to say, They are within the Covenant, generally taken; But when we come to particular men in the Congregation, there I may call a Hypocrite, a Saint, and think an excomunicate soul, to be within the Covenant; I may mistake the Covenant, and I may mistake God's servants, who did, and who did not die in his favor, What know I? We see at Executions, when men pretend to die cheerfully for the glory of God, half the company will call them Traitors, and half Martyrs. So if we speak of our own innocence, we may have a pride in that, or some other vicious and defective respect (as uncharitableness towards our malicious Persecutors, or laying seditious aspersions upon the justice of the State) that may make us guilty towards God, though we be truly innocent to the World, in that particular. But let me make my recourse to the mercy of God, and there can be no error, no mistaking.

And therefore if that, and nothing but that be my ground, God will Return to me, God will Deliver my soul, God will Save me, For his mercy sake; that is, because his mercy is engaged in it. And if God were to sell me this Returning, this Delivering, this Saving, and all that I pray for; what could I offer God for that, so great as his own mercy, in which I offer him the Innocence, the Obedience, the Blood of his only Son. If I buy of the Kings land, I must pay for it in the Kings money; I have no Myne, nor Mint of mine own; If I would have anything from God, I must give him that which is his own for it, that is, his mercy; And this is to give God his mercy, To give God thanks for his mercy, To give all to his mercy, And to acknowledge, that if my works be acceptable to him, nay if my very faith be acceptable to him, it is not because my works, no nor my faith hath any proportion of equivalencie in it, or is worth the least flash of joy, or the least spangle of glory in Heaven, in it self, but because God in his mercy, only of his mercy, merely for the glory of his mercy, hath past such a Covenant, Crede, & fac hoc, Believe this, and do this, and thou shalt live, not for thy deed sake, not nor for thy faith sake, but for my mercy sake. And farther we carry not this first reason of the Prayer, arising only from God.

There remains in these words another Reason, in which David himself, and all men seem to have part, Quia non in morte, For in death there is no remembrance of thee, &c. Upon occasion of which words, because they seem to imply a loathness in David to die, it may well be inquired, why Death seemed so terrible to the good and godly men of those times, as that evermore we see them complain of shortness of life, and of the nearness of death. Certainly the rule is true, in natural, and in civil, and in divine things, as long as we are in this World, Nolle meliorem, est corruptio primae habitudinis, That man is not well, who desires not to be better; It is but our corruption here, that makes us loath to hasten to our incorruption there. And besides, many of the Ancients, and all the later Casuists of the other side, and amongst our own men, Peter Martyr, and Calvin, assign certain cases, in which it hath Rationem boni, The nature of Good, and therefore is to be embraced, to wish our dissolution and departure out of this World; and yet, many good and godly men have declared this loathness to die. Beloved, weigh Life and Death one against another, and the balance will be even; Throw the glory of God into either balance, and that turns the scale. S. Paul could not tell which to wish, Life, or Death; There the balance was even; Then comes in the glory of God, the addition of his soul to that Choir, that spend all their time, eternity it self, only in glorifying God, and that turns the scale, and then, he comes to his Cupio dissolvi, To desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ. But then, he puts in more of the same weight in the other scale, he sees that it advances God's glory more, for him to stay, and labor in the building of God's Kingdom here, and so add more souls then his own to that state, then only to enjoy that Kingdom in himself, and that turns the scale again, and so he is content to live.

These Saints of God then when they deprecate death, and complain of the approaches of death, they are, at that time, in a charitable ecstacy, abstracted and withdrawn from the consideration of that particular happiness, which they, in themselves, might haye in heaven; and they are transported and swallowed up with this sorrow, that the Church here, and gods kingdom upon earth, should lack those means of advancement, or assistance, which God, by their service, was pleased to afford to his Church. Whether they were good Kings, good Priests, or good Prophets, the Church lost by their death; and therefore they deprecated that death, and desired to live. The grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee; But the living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day, says Hezekiah; He was affected with an apprehension of a future barrenness after his death, and a want of propagation of God's truth; I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, says he. He had assurance, that he should see the Lord in Heaven, when by death he was come thither; But, says he, I shall not see him in the land of the living; Well, even in the land of the living, even in the land of life it self, he was to see him, if by death he were to see him in Heaven; But this is the loss that he laments, this is the misery that he deplores with so much holy passion, I shall behold man no more, with the Inhabitants of the world; Howsoever, I shall enjoy God myself, yet I shall be no longer a means, an instrument of the propagation of God's truth amongst others; And, till we come to that joy, which the heart cannot conceive, it is, I think, the greatest joy that the soul of man is capable of in this life, (especially where a man hath been any occasion of sin to others) to assist the salvation of others. And even that consideration, that he shall be able to do God's cause no more good here, may make a good man loath to die. Quid facies magno nomini tuo? says Joshua in his prayer to God; if the Canaanites come in, and destroy us, and blaspheme thee, What wilt thou do unto thy mighty Name? What wilt thou do unto thy glorious Church, said the Saints of God in those Deprecations, if thou take those men out of the world, whom thou hadst chosen, enabled, qualified for the edification, sustentation, propagation of that Church. In a word, David considers not here, what men do, or do not in the next world; but he considers only, that in this world he was bound to propagate God's Truth, and that that he could not do, if God took him away by death.

Consider then this horror, and detestation, and deprecation of death, in those Saints of the Old Testament, with relation to their particular, and then it must be, Quia promissiones obscurae, Because Moses had conveyed to those men, all God's future blessings, all the joy and glory of Heaven, only in the types of earthly things, and said little of the state of the soul after this life. And therefore the promises belonging to the godly after this life, were not so clear then, not so well manifested to them, not so well fixed in them, as that they could, in contemplation of them, step easily, or deliver themselves confidently into the jaws of death; he that is not fully satisfied of the next world, makes shift to be content with this; and he that cannot reach, or does not feel that, will be glad to keep his hold upon this. Consider their horror, and • etestation, and deprecation of death, not with relation to themselves, but to God's Church, and then it will be, Quia operarii pauci, Because God had a great harvest in hand, and few laborers in it, they were loath to be taken from the work.

And these Reasons might, at least, by way of excuse and extenuation, in those times of darkness, prevail somewhat in their behalf; They saw not whither they went, and therefore were loath to go; and they were loath to go, because they saw not how God's Church would subsist, when they were gone. But in these times of ours, when Almighty God hath given an abundant remedy to both these, their excuses will not be appliable to us. We have a full clearness of the state of the soul after this life, not only above those of the old Law, but above those of the Primitive Christian Church, which, in some hundreds of years, came not to a clear understanding in that point, whether the soul were immortal by nature, or but by preservation, whether the soul could not die, or only should not die. Or (because that perchance may be without any constant clearness yet) that was not clear to them, (which concerns our case nearer) whether the soul came to a present fruition of the sight of God after death or no. But God having afforded us clearness in that, and then blest our times with an established Church, and plenty of able work-men for the present, and plenty of Schools, and competency of endowments in Universities, for the establishing of our hopes, and assurances for the future, since we have both the promise of Heaven after, and the promise that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church here; Since we can neither say, Promissiones obseurae, That Heaven hangs in a Cloud, nor say, Operarii pauci, That dangers hang over the Church, it is much more inexcusable in us now, then it was in any of them then, to be loath to die, or to be too passionate in that reason of the deprecation, Quia non in morte, Because in death there is no remembrance of thee &c.

Which words, being taken literally, may fill our meditation, and exalt our devotion thus; If in death there be no remembrance of God, if this remembrance perish in death, certainly it decays in the nearness to death; If there be a possession in death, there is an approach in age; And therefore, Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. There are spiritual Lethargies, that make a man forget his name; forget that he was a Christian, and what belongs to that duty. God knows what forgetfulness may possess thee upon thy death-bed, and freeze thee there; God knows what rage, what distemper, what madness may scatter thee then; And though in such cases, God reckon with his servants, according to that disposition which they use to have towards him before, and not according to those declinations from him, which they show in such distempered sicknesses, yet God's mercy towards them can work but so, that he returns to those times, when those men did remember him before. But if God can find no such time, that they never remembered him, then he seals their former negligence with a present Lethargy; they neglected God all their lives, and now in death there is no remembrance of him, nor there is no remembrance in him; God shall forget him eternally; and when he thinks he is come to his Consummatum est, The bell tolls, and will ring out, and there is an end of all in death, by death he comes but to his Secula Seculorum, to the beginning of that misery, which shall never end.

This then which we have spoken, arises out of that sense of these words, which seems the most literal; that is, of a natural death. But as it is well noted by divers Expositors upon this Psalm, this whole Psalm is intended of a spiritual agony, and combat of David, wrestling with the apprehension of hell, and of the indignation of God, even in this world, whilst he was alive here. And therefore S. Augustine upon the last words of this verse, in that Translation which he followed, In inferno quis consitchitur tibi? Not, In the grave, but In hell, who shall confess unto thee? puts himself upon this, In Inferne Dives confessus Domino, & oravit pro fratribus, In hell Dives did confess the name of the Lord, and prayed there for his brethren in the world. And therefore he understands not these words of a literal, and natural, a bodily death, a departing out of this world; but he calls Peccatum Mortem, and then, Caecitatem animae Infernum; He makes the easiness of sinning to be Death, and then, blindness, and obduration, and remorslesnesse, and impenitence, to be this Hell. And so also doth S. Jerome understand all that passionate deploring of Hezekiah, (which seems literally to be spoken of natural death) of this spiritual death, of the habit of sin, and that he considered, and lamented especially his danger of that death, of a departing from God in this world, rather then of a departing out of this world. And truly many pieces and passages of Hezekiah his lamentation there, will fall naturally enough into that spiritual interpretation; though perchance all will not, though S. Jerome with a holy purpose drive them, and draw them that way. But whether that of Hezekiah be of natural, or of a spiritual death, we have another Author ancienter then S. Augustine, and S. Jerome, and so much esteemed by S. Iereme, as that he translated some of his Works, which is Didymus of Alexandria, who says, it is Impia opinio, not an inconvenient, or unnatural, but an impious and irreligious opinion, to understand this verse of natural death; because, says he, The dead do much more remember God then the living do. And he makes use of that place, Deus non confunditur, God is not ashamed to be called the God of the dead, for he hath prepared them a City. And therefore reading these words of our Text, according to that Translation which prevailed in the Eastern Church, which was the Septuagint, he argues thus, he collects thus, that all that David says here, is only this, Non est in morte qui memor est Dei, Not that he that is dead remembers not God, but that he that remembers God, is not dead; not in an irreparable, and irrecoverable state of death; not under such a burden of sin as devastates and exterminates the conscience, and evacuates the whole power and work of grace, but that if he can remember God, confess God, though he be fallen under the hand of a spiritual death, by some sin, yet he shall have his resurrection in this life; for, Non est in morte, says Didymus, He that remembers God, is not dead, in a perpetual death.

And then this reason of David's Prayer here, (Do this and this, for in death there is no remembrance of thee ) will have this force, That God would return to him in his effectual grace, That God would deliver his soul in dangerous temptations, That God would save him in applying to him, and imprinting in him a sober, but yet confident assurance that the salvation of Christ Jesus belongs to him; Because if God did not return to him, but suffer him to wither in a long absence, If God did not deliver him, by taking hold of him when he was ready to fall into such sins as his sociableness, his confidence, his inconsideration, his infirmity, his curiosity brought him to the brink of, If God did not save him, by a faithful assurance of salvation after a sin committed and resented, This absence, this slipperiness, this pretermitting, might bring him to such a deadly, and such a hellish state in this world, as that In death, that is, In that death, he should have no remembrance of God, In hell, In the grave, that is, In that hell, In that grave, he should not confess, nor praise God at all. There was his danger, he should forget God utterly, and God forget him eternally, if God suffered him to proceed so far in sin, that is, Death, and so far in an obduration and remorslesnesse, in sin, that is, Hell, The Death and the Hell of this world, to which those Fathers refer this Text.

In this lamentable state, we will only note the force, and the emphasis of this Tui, and Tibi, in this verse; no remembrance of Thee, no praise to Thee; For this is not spoken of God in general, but of that God, to which David directs the last and principal part of his Prayer, which is, To save him; It is to God, as God is Jesus, a Savior; and the wretchedness of this state is, that God shall not be remembered in that notion, as he is Jesus, a Savior. No man is so swallowed up in the death of sin, nor in the grave of impenitence, No man so dead, and buried in the custom or senselessness of sin, but that he remembers a God, he confesses a God; If an Atheist swear the contrary, believe him not; His inward terrors, his midnight startlings remember him of that, and bring him to confessions of that. But here is the depth, and desperateness of this death, and this grave, habitual sin, and impenitence in sin, that he cannot remember, he cannot confess that God which should save him, Christ Jesus his Redeemer; he shall come, he shall not choose but come to remember a God that shall damn him, but not a saving God, a Jesus.

Beloved in the bowels of that Jesus, not only the riches, and honors, and pleasures of this world, and the favor of Princes, are, as Job speaks, Onerosi consolatores, Miserable comforters are they all, all this world, but even of God himself (be it spoken with piety and reverence, and far from misconstruction) we may say, Onerosa consolatio, It is but a miserable comfort which we can have in God himself, It is but a faint remembrance which we retain of God himself, It is but a lame confession which we make to God himself, Si non Tui, Si non Tibi, If we remember not Thee, If we confess not Thee, our only Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. It is not half our work to be godly men, to confess a God in general; we must be Christians too; to confess God so, as God hath manifested himself to us. I, to whom God hath manifested himself in the Christian Church, am as much an Atheist, if I deny Christ, as if I deny God; And I deny Christ, as much, if I deny him in the truth of his Worship, in my Religion, as if I denied him in his Person. And therefore, Si non Tui, Si non Tibi, If I do not remember Thee, If I do not profess Thee in thy Truth, I am fallen into this Death, and buried in this Grave which David deprecates in this Text, For in death there is no remembrance of thee, &c.

SERM. LIV. Preached to the KING at White-hall, upon the occasion of the Fast, April 5. 1628.

T His is David's humiliation; and coming after his repentance and reconciliation, David's penance: And yet here is no Fast; It is true; No Fast named; David had had experience, that as the wisest actions of Kings, (of Kings as Kings over Subjects) so the devoutest actions of Kings, (of Kings, as humble Subjects to the King of Kings, the God of Heaven) had been misinterpreted. Of sighing, and groaning, and weeping, and languishing, (as in this Text) David speaks often, very, very often in the Psalms; and they let him sigh, and groan, and weep, and languish; they neglect his Passion, and are not affected with that; but that is all; they afflict him no farther: But when he comes to fasting, they deride him, they reproach him; Cares God whether you eat, or fast? But thrice in all the Psalms does David speak of his fasting, and in all three places, it was mis-interpreted, and reproachfully mis-interpreted; I humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer returned into mine own bosom; He did this (as he says there) for others, that needed it, and they would not thank him for it, but reproached him. When I wept, and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach. So also my bones are weak through fasting, and I became a reproach unto them. And therefore no wonder that David does not so often mention and publish his fasting, as his other mortifications; No wonder that in all his seven penetentiall Psalms, (which are the Churches Tropics for mortification and humiliation,) there is no mention of his fasting. But for his practice, (though he speak not so much of it in the Psalms) in his history where others, not himself, speak of him, we know that when he mourned, and prayed for his sick child, he fasted too. And we doubt not, but that, when he was thus wearied, (I am weary with my groaning; All the night make I my bed to swim, I water my Couch with my tears; Mine eye is consumed because of grief; It waxeth old because of all mine enemies) he fasted too; He fasted oftener, then he tells us of it. As S. Jerome says, Iejunium non perfecta virtus, sed caeterarum virtutum fundamentum, If we must not call fasting (as fasting is but a bodily abstinence) a religious act, an act of God's worship, yet it is a Basis, and a foundation, upon which other religious acts, and acts of God's worship are the better advanced. It is so at all times; but it is so especially when it is enjoined by Sovereign authority, and upon manifest occasion, as now to us. Semper virtutis Cibus Iejunium fuit, It is elegantly, and usefully said: At all times, Religion feeds upon fasting, and feasts upon fasting, and grows the stronger for fasting. But, Quod pium est agere non indictum, impium est negligere praedicatum, It is a godly thing to fast uncommanded, but to neglect it being commanded, is an ungodly, an impious, a refractary perverseness, says the same Father. But then another carries it to a higher expression, Desperationis genus est, tunc manducare, cum abstinere debeas, Not to fast when the times require it, and when Authority enjoins it, or not to believe, that God will be affected and moved with that fasting, and be the better inclined for it, is desperationis genus, a despairing of the State, a despairing of the Church, a despairing of the grace of God to both, or of his mercy upon both. And truly there cannot be a more disloyal affection then that, desper are rem publicam, to forespeak great Councils, to be witch great actions, to despair of good ends in things well intended: And in our distresses, where can we hope, but in God? and how shall we have access to God, but in humiliation? We doubt not therefore but that this act of humiliation, his fasting was spread over David's other acts in this Text, and that as a sinner in his private person, and as a King in his public and exemplar office, he fasted also, (though he says not so) when he said he was wearied, I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim, I water my couch with my tears; mine eye is consumed because of grief; It waxeth old because of all mine enemies.

But though this fasting, and these other penal acts of humiliation, be the body that carries, and declares, yet the soul that inanimates, and quickens all, is prayer; and therefore this whole Psalm is a prayer; And the prayer is partly Deprecatory, In some things David desires that God would forbear him, as v. 1. Correct me not, for if thou correct me, others will trample upon me; Rebuke me not, for if thou rebuke me, others will calumniate me; And partly Postulatory, that some things God would give him, as Health, and Deliverance, and that which is all, Salvation, in the other verses. Both parts of the prayer are (as all prayer must be) grounded upon reasons; and the reasons are from divers roots; some from the consideration of himself, and they argue his humiliation; some from the contemplation of God, and they testify his devotion, and present recourse to him; some from both together, God, and himself jointly, which is an acknowledgement, that God works not alone in heaven, nor man lives not alone upon earth, but there is a Conversation, and a Correspondence, and a Commerce between God and Man, and Conditions, and Contracts, and Covenants, and Stipulations between them, and so a mutual interest in one another. From God himself alone, David raises a reason, v. 4. Propter misericordiam, O save me for thy mercies sake; for of the mercy of God, there is no precedent, there is no concurrent reason, there is no reason of the mercy of God, but the mercy of God: from God, and himself together, he raises a reason, v. 5. Quia non in morte, For in death there is no remembrance of thee; Destroy me not, for if I die, Quid facies magno nomini tuo? (as Joshua speaks) what will become of thy glory? of that glory which thou shouldest receive from my service in this world, if thou take me out of this world? But then, as he begun in reasons arising from himself, and out of the sense of his own humiliation under the hand of God, (for so he does) v. 2. Quia infirmus, Have mercy upon me, because I am weak, and cannot subsist without that mercy. And Quiaturbata ossa, his bones were vexed; Habet anima ossa sua, says S. Basil, The soul hath bones as well as the body; The bones of the soul are the strongest faculties, and best operations of the soul, and his best, and strongest actions, were but questionable actions, disputable, and suspicious actions; And Turbata anima, all his faculties, even in their very root, his very soul, was sore vexed, v. 3. As, I say, he began with reasons of that kind, arising from himself, so he returns and ends with the same humiliation, in the reasons arising from himself too, Quia laboravi in gemitu, I am weary with my groaning, all the night make I my bed to swim, &c.

As our Savior Christ entered into the house to his Disciples, Ianuis clausis, when the doors were shut: so God enters into us too, Ianuis clausis, when our eyes have not opened their doors, in any real penitent tears, when our mouths have not opened their doors, in any verbal prayers; God sees, and he hears the inclinations of the heart. S. Bernard notes well upon those words of Christ, at the raising of Lazarus, Father I thank thee, that thou hast heard me, That at that time, when Christ gave thanks to God, for having heard him, he had said nothing to his Father; but God had heard his heart. Since God does so even to us, he will much more hear us, as David, when we make outward declarations too, because that outward declaration conduces more to his glory, in the edification of his servants, therefore David comes to that declaratory protestation, Quia labor avi in gemitu, I am weary with my groaning, &c.

In which words, we shall consider, Quid factum, and Quid faciendum, What David did, and what we are to do: for David, after he had thrown himself upon the mercy of God, after he had confessed, and prayed, and done the spiritual parts of repentance, he afflicts his body besides; And so ought we likewise to do, if we will be partakers of David's example. And therefore we may do well to consider Quid faciendum, How this Example of David binds us, how these groanings and waterings of his bed with tears, and other Mortifications assumed after repentance, and reconciliation to God, lay an obligation upon us.

But this is our part, Quid faciendum, what is to be done by us; First, Quid factum, what David did; and truly he did much: first gemuit, he came to greane, to sigh, to outward declarations of inward heaviness. And Laberauit in gemits, He labored, he travelled in that passion, and (as the word imports, and as our later Translation hath it) he was wearied, tired with it; so far, that (as it is in the first Translation) he faimed, he languished with it. First he sighed, and sighed so; and groaned, and groaned so; passionately, vehemently, and then openly, exemplarily; and he was not ashamed of it, for he came to weeping, though he knew it would be thought childish: And that in that abundance, Natare feci, and Liqueseci lectum, He watered his bed, dissolved his bed, made his bed to swim, surrounded his bed with tears; And more, he macerated his bed with that brine: And then he continued this affliction; It was not a sudden passion, a flash of remorse; but he continued it, till his eye was consumed by reason of that anguish, and despite, and indignation; as our diverse Translations vary the expressing thereof; so long, as night and day lasted, so long, as that he was waxen old under it; and when this great affliction should have brought him safely into harbor, that he might have rested securely at last, his enemies that triumphed over him, gave him new occasions of misery, his eyes were consumed, and waxed old because of his enemies; that is, because he was still amongst enemies that triumphed over him.

Be pleased to take another Edition, another Impression of these particulars; A natural man's Moral constancy will hold out against outward declarations of grief; yet David came to that, he groaned: A groan, a sigh may break out, and the heart be at the more ease for that; But Laboravit, they grew upon him, and the more he groaned, and the more he sighed, the more he had an inclination, and not only that, but cause to do so, for he found that his sorrow was to be sorrowed for, and his repentance to be repented, there were such imperfections in all. Therefore he suffered thus till he was wearied, till he fainted with groaning, and sighing. And then this wind does not blow over the rain, he weeps; and weeps the more violently, and the more continually; extremes that seldom meet, violence, and lasting, but in his case they did. All this, all night, and all this, all this while, not amongst friends to pity him, and condole with him, but amongst enemies to affront him, and deride him: So that here are all the ingredients, all the elements of misery; Sorrow of heart, that admits no disguise, but flows into outward declarations; and such declarations as create no compassion, but triumph in the enemy. I am weary with my groaning, &c.

To proceed then to the particulars in our first Part, Quid factum, What David did, first Gemit, He comes to sigh, to groan, to an outward declaration of a sense of God's indignation upon him, till he had perfected his repentance. She sighed, and turned backward, was Jerusalem's misery. To sigh, and turn backward, to repent, and relapse, is a woeful Condition: But to sigh, and turn forward, to turn upon God, and to pursue this sorrow for our sins, then, in such sighs, The Spirit of man returns to God that gave it; As God breathed into man, so man breathes unto the nostrils of God a savor of rest, as it is said of Noah, an acceptable sacrifice, when he sighs for his sins. This fighing, this groaning, expressed in this word, Anach, Gemitus, is Vox Turturis. Turtur gemit; It is that voice, that sound which the Turtle gives; And we learn by Authors of Natural Story, and by experience, Turturis gemitus indicium veris, The voice of the Turtle is an evidence of the Spring; When a sinner comes to this voice, to this sighing, there is a Spring of grace begun in him; Then Vox Turturis audita in terra nostra, says Christ to his Spouse, The voice of the Turtle is heard in our Land; And so he says to thy soul, This voice of the Turtle, these sighs of thy penitent soul, are heard