Eighty Sermons
So then is Pride well represented in the Horse; and so is the other, Lust, licentiousness in the Mule. For, besides that reason of assimilation, that it desires, and cannot, and that reason, that it presents unnatural and promiscuous lust, for this reason is that vice well represented in that Beast, because it is so apt to bear any burdens. For, certainly, no man is so inclinable to submit himself to any burden of labor, of danger, of cost, of dishonor, of law, of sickness, as the licentious man is; He refuses none, to come to his ends. Neither is there any tree so loaded with boughs, any one sin that hath so many branches, so many species as this. Shedding of blood we can limit in murder, and manslaughter, and a few more; and other sins in as few names. In this sin of lust, the sex, the quality, the distance, the manner, and a great many other circumstances, create new names to the sin, and make it a sin of another kind. And as the sin is a Mule, to bear all these loads, so the sinner in this kind is so too, and (as we find an example in the Nephew of a Pope) delights to take as many loads of this sin upon him, as he could; to vary, and to multiply the kinds of this sin in one act, He would not satisfy his lust by a fornication, or adultery, or incest, (these were vulgar) but upon his own sex; and that not upon an ordinary person, but in their account, upon a Prince; And he, a spiritual Prince, A Cardinal; And all this, not by solicitation, but by force: for thus he compiled his sins, He ravished a Cardinal. This is the sin, in which men pack up as much sin as they can, and as though it were a shame to have too little, they belie their own pack, they brag of sins in this kind, which they never did, as S. Augustine with a holy and penitent ingenuity confesses of himself.
This sin then, (though one great mischief in it be, that for the most part, it destroys two together, (the Devil will have his creatures come to his Ark by couples too, two and two together) yet this sin we are able to commit without a companion, upon our own bodies, yea without bodies; (in the weakness of our bodies our minds can sin this sin) This which the Wiseman calls a pit, The mouth of a strange woman is as a deep pit, he with whom the Lord is angry, shall fall therein. And therefore he that pursues that sin, is called to a double sad consideration, both that he angers the Lord in committing that sin then; And that the Lord was angry with him before for some other sin, and for a punishment of that former sin, God suffered him to fall into this. And it is truly a fearful condition, when God punishes sin by sin; other corrections bring us to a peace with God; He will not be angry forever, he will not punish twice, when he hath punished a sin, he hath done: But when he punishes sin by sin, we are not thereby the nearer to a peace or reconciliation by that punishment, for still there is a new sin that continues us in his displeasure. Punish me O Lord, with all thy scourges, with poverty, with sickness, with dishonor, with loss of parents, and children, but with that rod of wyre, with that scorpion, to punish sin with sin, Lord scourge me not, for then how shall I enter into thy rest?
And this is the condition of this sin; for, He with whom the Lord is angry, shall fall into it. And when he is fallen, he shall not understand his state, but think himself well; For Nathan presents David's sin to him, in a parable of a feast, of an entertainment of a stranger: He tastes no sowrnesse, no bitterness in it; not because there is none, but because a carcass, a man already slain cannot feel a new wound; A man dead in the habit of a sin, hath no sense of it: This sin of which S. Augustine, who had been overcome by it, and was afraid that his case was a common case, saith in the person of all, Continua pugna, victoria rara; In a defensive war, where we are put to a continual resistance, it is hard coming to a victory; what hope then where there is no resistance, no defense, but a spontaneous and voluntary opening ourselves to all provocations, yea provoking of provocations by high diet, a tempting of temptations by exposing ourselves to dangerous company, when as the Angels who were safe enough in themselves, yet withdrew themselves from the uncleanness of the Sodomites. This sin will not be overcome but by a league, Job's league, Pepigi foedus, I have made a covenant with mine eyes, why then should I think upon a maid? Since I have bound my senses, why should my mind be at liberty to sin? This league should bind both; I have taken a promise of mine eyes, that they will not betray me by wanton glaunces, by carrying me to dangerous objects, why should not I keep covenant with them? why should my thoughts be scattered upon such temptations? The league must be kept on both parts, the mind and the senses; we must not entertain temptations from without, we must not create them within. Eloquia Domini casta, The words of the Lord are chaste words, pure words, and so must all the talk, and conversation of him, that loves God, be. And then, Castificate animas vestras, you must see that you keep your minds pure and chaste. If we have not both chaste minds, and chaste bodies, we shall have neither; And then follows the excommunication: S. Augustine saith, That according to most probability, there were no Mules in the Ark; but undisputably there are no Mules in the Church, in the triumphant Church, none of our metaphorical Mules there: The Apostle hath put it beyond a Problem, Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate persons shall inherit the Kingdom of heaven, there is the fearful excommunication: And therefore Nolite fieri sicut, Be not made like the Horse or the Mule, in pride, or wantonness especially, Quia non Intellectus, because then you lose your understanding, and so become absolutely irrecoverable, and leave God nothing to work upon: For the understanding of man is the field which God sows, and the tree in which he engraffes faith it self; and therefore take heed of such a descent, as induces the loss of the understanding, and that is the case here, (and our next consideration) Non Intellectus, They have no understanding.
This faculty of the understanding in man is not always well understood by men. The whole Psalm is a Psalm to rectify the understanding; It is in the title thereof, David's Instruction: And that office God undertakes in the verse before our Text, I will instruct thee, which is in some Latin Copies, Faciam te intelligere, I will make thee understand, and in others, (the vulgat) Intellectum tibi dabo, I will give thee understanding; Now though this Instruction, and this Understanding, which is intended in the Title, and specified in the former verse, be not the same Understanding as this in our Text, (for this is but of that natural faculty of man, wherewith God enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world, till he make himself like the horse or the mule ) the other is God superedification upon this, those other super-natural Graces, which God produces out of the understanding, or infuses into the understanding; yet this Understanding in our Text, though it be but the natural faculty, is a considerable thing, and hath, in part, the nature of materials for God to work upon. That Instruction which is the subject of the whole Psalem, is that saving Doctrine, That there is no blessedness but in the remission of sins. That David establishes for his foundation in the first verse, and would say nothing till he had said that. But then, though this remission of sins (which only constitutes Blessedness) proceed merely from the goodness of God, yet that goodness of God, as it excites primarily, so it works still upon that act of man, penitent confession, Notum feci, I acknowledged my sin, and Dixi confitebor, I prepared myself to confess my sin, and thou forgavest all.
This then S. Jerome delivers to be the Instruction of the Psalm, Hominem, non propriis meritis, sed Dei gratia, posse salvari, si confiteatur admissa; That man of himself is irrecoverable, But yet there is a way opened to salvation in Christ Jesus: But this way is only open to them, who enter by Confession. And though S. Jerome, and S. Augustine differ often in the exposition of the Psalms, yet here they speak almost the same words. The Instruction of this Psalm is, Intelligentia, qua intelligitur, non meritis operum, sed gratia Dei hominem liberari, confitentem sua peccata, That no man is saved by his own merits, That any man may be saved by the mercy of God in the merits of Christ, That no man attains this mercy, but by confession of his sins: And that that rule, In ore duorum aut trium, may have the largest fullness, add we a third witness, Intellectus est, This is the Instruction that David promises, Nemo ante fidem, Let no man presume of merits, before faith; But in all this they all three agree, Every man must know, that he may be saved, And that by his own merits he cannot, And lastly, that the merits of Christ are applied to no man, that doth nothing for himself. Quid est Intellectus? saith he again, What is this understanding? It is, saith he, no more but this, Vt non jactes opera ante fidem, Never to take confidence in works, otherwise then as they are rooted in faith: For (as he enlarges this Meditation) if thou shouldst see a man pull at an Oare, till his eye-strings, and sinews, and muscles broke, and thou shouldst ask him, whither he rowed; If thou shouldst see a man run himself out of breath, and shouldst ask him whither he ran; If thou shouldst see him dig till his back broke, and shouldst ask him, what he sought, And any of these should answer thee, they could not tell, wouldst not thou think them mad? So are all Disciplines, all Mortifications, all whippings, all starvings, all works of Piety, and of Charity madness, if they have any other root then faith, any other title or dignity, then effects and fruits of a preceding reconciliation to God. Multi pagani, saith he, There are many Infidels that refuse to be made Christians, because they are so good already; Sibi sufficiunt de sua bona vita; They are the worse for being so good, and they think they need no faith, but are rich enough in their moral honesty. And there are Christians, that are the worse for thinking and believing that it is enough to Believe. It is not faith to believe in gross, that I shall be saved, but I must believe, that I shall be saved by him that died for me. If I consider that, I cannot choose but love him too; And if I love him, I shall do his will; Ama & operaberis, whomsoever thou lovest, thou wilt do what thou canst to please him. Da mihi vacantem amorem; I would be glad to see an idle love, that that man, that loved anything in this world, should not labor to compass that that he loved: But purga amorem, saith he, I do not forbid thee loving, (it is a noble affection) but purge and purify thy love; Aquam fluentem in cloacam converte in hortum; Turn that water which hath served thy stables, and sewers before, into thy gardens: Turn those tears which thou hast spent upon thy love, or thy losses, upon thy sins, and the displeasure of thy God, and Quales impetus habebas ad mundum, habebis ad Creatorem mundi, Those passions which transported thee upon the creature, will establish thee upon the Creator.
The Instruction then of the whole Psalm, is peace with God, in the merits of Christ, declared in a holy life; which being the sum of all our Christian profession, is far beyond this Understanding in our Text, (They have no understanding) but yet upon this Understanding God raises that great building, and therefore we take this faculty, The Understanding, into a more particular consideration. Here is the danger, He that at ripe years hath no understanding, hath no grace, A little understanding may have much grace; but he that hath none of the former, can have none of this. God therefore brings us to the consideration, not of the greatest, but of the first thing; not of his superedifications, but of his foundations, our understanding, our reason. For, though Animalis homo, The natural man perceiveth not the things that be of the Spirit of God, yet let him be what man he will, Natural or Supernatural, he must be a man, that must probare spiritum, prove and discern the spirit; let him have as much more as you will, it is requisite he have so much reason, and understanding, as to perceive the main points of Religion; not that he must necessarily have a natural explicit reason for every Article of faith, but it were fit he had reason to prove, that those Articles need not reason to prove them. If I believe upon the Authority of my Teacher, or of the Church, or of the Scripture, very expedient it were to have reason to prove to myself that these Authorities are certain, and irrefragable. And therefore, Caeteris animalibus, se ignorare, natura est, homini vitium, If a Horse or a Mule understand not it self, it is never the worse Horse nor Mule, for it is borne with that ignorance; But if man, having opportunities, both in respect of his parts and calling, to be better instructed, either by a negligent and lazy and implicit relying upon the opinion of others, do but lay himself down as a leaf upon the water, to be carried along with the tide, or by a willful drowsiness, and security in his sins, have given over the debatement, the discussing, the understanding of the main of his belief, and of his life, if either he keep not his understanding awake, or over-watch it, if he do nothing with it, or employ it too busily, too fervently, too eagerly upon the world, I would it were true of them, Facti sicut, you are like the Horse, and the Mule; but Vtinam essetis, I would you were so well, as the Horse, and the Mule, who, though they have no understanding, have no forfeiture, no loss, no abuse of understanding to answer for.
First then the Horse, The proud man, hath no understanding; He hath forgot his letters, his Alphabet; how he was spelled and put together, and made of body and soul. You may as well call him an Anatomist, that knows how to pare a nail, or cut a corn, or him a Surgeon, that knows how to cut, and curle hair, as allow him understanding, that knows how to gather riches, or how to buy an Office, or how to hurt, and oppress others, when he hath those means. That absurdity, that height of strange ignorance, that the Prophet observes in an Idolatrous Image-maker, is in this proud man; He burns half in the fire, and the residue he makes a god. He hath seen as great estates as his, burn to ashes, as great persons as himself ruined and destroyed, burn out, and vanish into sparks, and stinking smoke; He hath seen half his own time burnt out and wasted, and yet he dreams of an eternity in himself; He says, I am, and none else; he will not say so to me in express words, but does he not say so to the whole world, in his manifest actions?
The Horse then, The proud man, hath no understanding, and the Mule, the licentious man, as little. The Ancients had a purpose to express that, when they placed by their Goddess of Licentiousness, Venus, A Tortoyse, A Creature that had no heart; capable of no understanding. And it is better expressed in those licentious persons, who pursued Lots guests. Their blindness brought them to an impossibility of finding the door, (They were weary in seeking the door) And if they had found it, they had sound it shut. A man that hath wallowed long in that sin, when he seeks a door to repentance, he will quickly be weary, for there lie hard conditions upon him; and he is in danger of finding the door so shut, as his understanding (and that is all his key) cannot open; He will make shift for reasons, why he should continue in that sin, and he will call it ill nature, or falsehood, or breach of promise, and inconstancy, to depart from the Conversation that nourishes that sin. The door will be shut, and his Reason cannot, nay his Reason would not open it, but rather plead in the sins behalf.
Thus far our first reason hath carried us, Do it not, least you loose your understanding, The field of that blessed seed, The tree of that fruitful graft, The materials for that glorious building, Faith; For, the understanding is the receptacle of Faith: But do it not, the rather, because if ye do it, God will be brought to a necessity, In chamo & fraeno maxillas constringere, to hold in your mouths with bit and bridle, to come to hard usage, when as he would fain have you reduced by fair and gentle means. But to this way God is often brought; and, by this way of affliction, the cure is sometimes wrought upon us. S. Augustine proposes to himself a wonder, why the first woman was called at first, and in her best state, but Isha, Virago, which was a name of diminution, as she was taken from the man, (for Isha is but a she-man ) And then in her worse state, when she had sinned, she was called Eva, Mater viventium, The Mother of all living; she had a better name in her worst estate. But this was not in respect of her sin, says that Father, but in respect of her punishment. Now that she was become mortal by a sentence of death pronounced upon her, and knew that she must die, and resolve to dust, now, says he, there was no danger in her, of growing proud by any glorious title; affliction had tamed her, and rectified her now; and to that purpose sometimes does God bit and bridle us with afflictions, that our corrupt affections might not transport us. We find that Absalom sent for Joab; The Kings Son for the Kings servant; There was coldness, some dryness between Absalom, and his Father, Absalom was under a cloud at Court, and so Joab neglected him, he would not come; Absalom sent again, and again Joab refused; But then Absalom sent his servants to burn Joab's Corn fields, and then Joab came apace. Affliction and calamity are the bit and the bridle, that God puts into our mouth sometimes to turn us to him. Behold, we put bits into the horses mouths, that they should obey us, and we turn all the body about. And to this belongs that, A whip for the Horse, a bridle for the Ass, and a rod for the fools back; When we are become fools, made like the Horse and Mule, that we have no understanding, then God bits and bridles us, he whips and scourges us, sometimes lest our desires should mislead us a wrong way, sometimes, if they have, to turn us into the right way again; But here in our text, it is, Ne approximent te, Their mouths must be held with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.
When God, by their incorrigibility, have given over all care of them, yet he takes care of us, of his Servants, of his Church, and he bits and bridles his and our enemies, so, as that they shall not come near us, they shall not hurt us. So God said to Sennacherib, Because thou ragest against me, (God was far enough out of Sennacherib's reach, but God accounts his Jerusalem as Heaven, and his Hezekiah as himself) Because thy rage is against me, I will put my hook into thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and will turn thee back, by the way by which thou camest. When man is become as the Horse, proud of his strength, In chamo, et fraeno, God shall bit him, and bridle him so, as that he shall be able to do no harm; and certainly, the godly have not a greater joy, when they are able to do good to others, then the wicked have sorrow, when having power in their hands, yet they are not able to execute their mischievous purposes upon them that they hate. Satan was glad of any Commission upon Job, because God made a hedge about him, and about his house, Ne approximaret, That Satan could not come near him; He was glad God gave him power, to annoy him any way; but sorry that he exempted his person, in that first Commission, (Only upon himself put not forth thy hand) He was glad that in a second Commission, God did lay open his person to his power, but sorry that he excepted his life, (Behold he is in thy hand, but save his life.) For, till the wicked come to an utter destruction of their enemies, they think it no approximation, They are never come near enough to them. And In chamo, & fraeno, therefore God bits & bridles them, that they shall not come near, not so near, to destroy; and certainly, God's children have not so much sorrow for that which the wicked do inflict upon them, as the wicked have for that which they cannot inflict upon them; The wicked are more tormented that they can do no more, then the godly are, that they have done so much. And this is a comfortable, (and truly, the most literal sense of this Ne approximent ) Their mouths must be held, They must, though none can hold them but God, yet God must, God himself for his own glory, and the preservation of his Church, is reduced to a necessity, he must, he will hold them in with bit and bridle, lest they come near us. But there is a sadder, and a heavier sense arising out of these words, as S. Jerome accepts and pursues the words, with which we shall end all that belongs to them.
S. Jerome reads these words so, as that when God hath said, Nolite fieri, Be not as the Horse or Mule, that have no understanding, God hath done, and says no more; and that in the rest of the words, In chamo & fraeno maxillas eorum constringe, (hold in their mouths with bit and bridle, who come not near thee) the Church speaks to God; and so, this inhibition, Ne approximent, That they come not near thee, may very well be, That they come not near God, That God bits and bridles them so, afflicts and multiplies afflictions so, that even those afflictions drive them farther from God, and seal their condemnation in their own blood. God's Spirit shall fan them, sift them; That might do them good; purify them, cleanse them; No, it shall do them no good; for, (as it follows) God shall sift them with a sieve of vanity; In vain, to no purpose, without any amendment; And there shall be, Fraenum erroris, a bridle in their jaws causing them to err; Their impatient mis-interpretation of God's corrections, shall turn them upon a wrong way on the left hand, and depart them farther and farther from God. And then, He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy; suddenly, and irrecoverably; suddenly, no time given him to deprecate his destruction, no reprieve; Irrecoverably, if he had never so much time; I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble. Shall any be able to cry unto God, and not be heard? Yes, to cry, and to cry for their trouble; for all this may be done, and yet no true prayer made, nor right foundation laid; when only impatience upon affliction extorts, and presses, and vents a cry, God will not hear them. No, nor when they are thus disabled to pray for themselves, will God hear any other to pray for them. Thrice doth God chide the Prophet Jeremiah from that charitable disposition of praying for that people. Lift not up a cry nor prayer for them; Not a Cry, by way of remembering me of their pressures and afflictions, as though that should move me; Not a Prayer, by remembering me of my Covenant of mercy towards them, as though that should bind me. At other times, God sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before him for the land, that he might not destroy it, but he found none. Here Jeremiah offers himself in the gap, and God will not receive him to that Mediatorship, to that Intercession for that people. When Moses importuned God for the people, God tells him, for thyself thou shalt be no loser; whatsoever become of this people; (I will make thee a great Nation) But yet, says God, (Let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against this people, that I may consume them.) O how contagious and pestilent are the sins of man, that can thus (if we may so speak) infect God himself! How violent, how impetuous, how tempestuous are the sins of man, that can thus, (if we may so speak) transport God himself, and carry him beyond himself! for himself is mercy, and there is no room for our own prayers, no room for the prayers of others to open any door, any pore of mercy to flow out, or to breath out upon us.
Truly, Beloved, it is hard to conceive, how any height of sin in man should work thus upon God, as to throw him away, without any purpose of re-assuming him again, or any possibility of returning to him again. But to impute that distemper to God, that God should thus peremptorily hate Man, thus irreparably destroy Man, before he considered that Man, as a sinner, and as a manifold sinner, and as an obdurate sinner, nay before he considered him, as a Man, as a Creature, that first he should mean to damn him, if he had him, and then mean to make him, that he might damn him; this is to impute to God, a sowrer and worse affected nature, then falls into any man. Doth any man desire that his enemy had a son, that he might kill him? Doth any man beget a son therefore, that he might dis-inherit him? Doth God hate any man therefore, because he will hate him? Deliver me, O Lord, from my sins, pardon them, and then return to thy first purposes upon me; for I am sure they were good, till I was ill; and my illness came not from thee; but may be so multiplied by myself, as that thou mayest bit me and bridle me so, as that I shall not come near thee, in any of those accesses which thou hast opened in thy Church: Prayer, Preaching, Sacraments, Absolution, all shall be unavailable upon me, ineffectual to me. And therefore, as God would have us conserve the dignity of our nature in his Image, and not descend to the qualities of these Beasts, Horse and Mule, specified by the Holy Ghost, to represent to us those two sins, which are the wombs and mothers of very many others, Pride and Lust, (the greatest spiritual, and the greatest bodily sin) because thereby we lose all understanding, which is the matter upon which Grace works; so would he have us do it for this also, that he might not be put to a necessity of bitting and bridling us, of hard usage towards us, which may turn us as well to Obduration as Contrition, and so come to lose our faith at last, as we had done our reason and understanding before.
SERM. LXIII. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalms.
PSAL. 32.10, 11.
Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; But he that trusteth in the Lord, Mercy shall compass him about.
Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice ye righteous; And shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart.
T He two Elements, of which Heaven is proposed to us to be composed, are Joy and Glory. That which is opposed to these, is Sorrow and Contempt: Of the sense of contempt and ingloriousnesse, Men are not alike capable in this world; but of the sense of sorrow, we are somewhat more equal. A man must have had some possession, or at least some hopes of glory and greatness, that apprehends contempt or ingloriousnesse very passionately. And besides, in the lowest and most abject contempt a man may relieve himself by conveniences of a plentiful Fortune at home, how much soever he be undervalued and despised abroad. But when it comes to a sorrow of heart, which dwells not imaginarily in the opinion of others, as contempt doth, but really in mine own bosom, it is a heavy colluctation. Therefore doth the Holy Ghost so often, so very often, blow that coal, and threaten that insupportable, that inextinguishable fire, sorrow, sorrow of heart, sorrow of soul; Many sorrows shall be to the wicked. But the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Consolation; He is a Dove that hasts to a better air, to a whiter house, to the Ark of Peace, the station of the Righteous; Joy in the mercy of God; for, He that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about; Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice ye Righteous, and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart.
Our parts are, the Persons, and their Portions; Who they Be, and what they Have. The Persons are all the Inhabitants of this world; for all are wicked, or righteous; And the Portion is all that the soul receives here, or hereafter; for all is joy or sorrow; Many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he &c.
First then, here are sorrows; A passion which we cannot express, and from the understanding whereof, in this sense, God bless us all: A sorrow, that is nothing but sorrow; a sorrow that determines not in joy at last. And here are Dolores multi, his sorrows are multiplied, Many sorrows; And as the word Rabbim doth as properly import, and might be as well so translated, here are Dolores magni, Great sorrows; Great in their own weight, great in themselves, and great also in the apprehension, and tenderness, and impatience of the sufferer, great to him; And then all these heavy circumstances, as the dregs and lees of this cup of malediction, meet in the bottom, in the center of all; That these sorrows are determinable by no time; for in the Original, there is neither that which our first Translation inserted, (Shall come) Sorrowes shall come to the wicked, lest the wicked might say, Let it go as it came, if I know how it came, what occasioned the sorrow, I know how to overcome it; nor is there that which our later Translation added, (Shall be) Sorrowes shall be to the wicked; for though that imply a Continuance, when it comes, yet the wicked might say, It is not come yet, and why should I anticipate sorrow, or execute myself before the Executioner be sent? But it is without all limitation of time, and so includes all parts of time; Est, fuit, & erit, The wicked are not, never were, or shall be without sorrows, many sorrows, great sorrows, everlasting sorrows. This is the Portion in our first part; and then the Person, for whom this cup is thus filled there, is The wicked; Which denotes a Plurality, and a Singularity too; For it is not said, The wanton, The ambitious, The covetous, The man that is a little leavened, or soured, or discoloured with some degrees of some of these; but it is The wicked; a man whose whole complexion, and structure seems made up of wickedness; And so it is Super impium, Upon the wicked, Emphatically, The wicked; And then, Super impium, Upon the wicked, in the singular; that is, upon every such wicked person. The sorrow is not lessened by being divided amongst many; The wicked is not eased by having companions in his torments. And this is the Portion, and these be the Persons of the first kind; which will determine the first Part, Many sorrows shall be to the wicked.
And then in the second, to give all this the full weight, and to make the sorrow the more discernible, and the more terrible, God puts into the other balance, The joy of the righteous. In which, that all may be in opposition to the other, we have also the Person, Him that trusteth in the Lord; Where we have, as in the former part, a plurality intimated, and a singularity too. For it is not said, He that trusteth not in Man, He that trusteth not in Princes, He that trusteth not in this or that miserable Comforter in the world, but He that trusteth in the Lord; Whose present refuge, be the case what it will, or can be, is the Lord; Him, Emphatically Him, mercies shall compass. And then, Ille, He, every such man, is infallibly interested in this portion, in this true cause of joy, which is not, that he shall have no affliction, but that he shall have Mercy in his afflictions, patience and ease all the way, and an end and joy at last. And then, this mercy shall Compass him; It shall not suffer his confidence to break out into a presumption in God, nor any diffidence, or distrust in God, to break in upon him; But he shall see, that only to him, who Trusts in the Lord, to him who is Righteous, to him who is Vpright in heart, (with which three Characters the Holy Ghost specifies the person, in this second Part of our Text) belong those three great privileges, those glorious beams of joy, which flow out here; first, Laetari, To be glad, that is, to conceive an inward joy; And then, Exultari, To rejoice, that is, to testify that inward joy, by outward demonstrations; And lastly, Iubilare, To be full of joy, which our last Translation hath expressed well, in that word, To shout for joy, that is, to extend our joy to others, to glorify God by drawing in of others, and to call upon them, to call upon God: Many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but, &c.
First then, they shall have sorrow, and cause of sorrow. For when we conceive a sorrow in the mind, without any real, and external cause, without pain, or shame, or loss, this is but a melancholy, but an abundance of a distempered humor, but a natural thing, to which some in their constitutions are borne, and to be considered but so: But when God lays his hand, and his crosses upon us, the sorrow of the wicked, conceived upon that impression, is the sorrow. For this Word, which we Translate Sorrowes here, is according to the Septuagint, Scourges, and Whips; God shall scourge them, and that shall only work to a sorrow; So far, and no farther. As a startling horse, they shall avoid a shadow, and fall into a ditch; They shall sorrow, and murmur at their afflictions in this life, and fall the sooner for that into the Eternal. Amongst the Romans, condemned persons were first whipt; but that excused them not; when they were whipt, they were executed too. The wicked are scourged by God in this life; and then their temporal afflictions shall meet, and join with the everlasting, they have begun already here, that which they shall never end there. Deeis qui voluntatem Dei facere nolunt, fit voluntas Dei; It is Panis quotidianus, A loaf of that bread which is to be distributed every day; A saying of S. Augustine, worthy to be repeated in every Sermon, That upon them, who will not do the will of God, the will of God is done; And God executes his righteous sentence upon them, and he executes his justice upon others also by giving them instructions from the impatience and obduration of these. Fata fugiendo in fata ruant; They chide, and they wrangle, they wrestle, and they exclaim at their miseries in an intemperate sorrow, and this intemperate sorrow is the heaviest part of the judgment of God upon them; they are too sensible of their afflictions, that is, too tender, too impatient; and yet altogether unsensible, without all sense of God's purpose in those afflictions. In hell itself, they know that they are in hell; And yet in this world, there are Dolores inferni, Sorrowes that have begun hell here, and they that are under them, are stupefied, and devested of all sense of them. That sense that is bodily, and carnal, they abound in; They feel them impatiently; but of all spiritual sense they are absolutely destitute; They understand not them, nor God's purpose in them at all; yet they are Many, and Great, and Eternal. For by all these heavy talents doth the Holy Ghost weigh them in these words.
They are Many. Now the pride of the wicked is to conceal their sorrows, that God might receive no glory by the discovery of them. And therefore if we should go about to number their sorrows, they would have their victory still, and still say to themselves, yet for all his cunning he hath mist; they would ever have some bosom-sorrows, which we could not light upon. Yet we shall not easily miss, nor leave out any, if we remember those men, that even this false and imaginary joy, which they take in concealing their sorrow and affliction, is a new affliction, a new cause of sorrow. We shall make up the number apace, if we remember these men, that all their new sins, and all their new shifts, to put away their sorrows, are sorrowful things, and miserable comforters; if their conscience do present all their sins, the number grows great; And if their own conscience have forgotten them, if God forget nothing that they have thought, or said, or done, in all their lives, are not their occasions of sorrow the more for their forgetting, the more for God's remembering? Indgements are prepared for the scorners, says Solomon, God foresaw their wickedness from before all times, and even then set himself on work, To prepare judgments for them; And as they are Prepared before, so affliction followeth sinners, says the same Wise King; It follows them, and it knows how to overtake them; either by the sword of the Magistrate, or by that which is nearer them, Diseases in their own bodies, accelerated and complicated by their sins. And then, as affliction is Prepared, and Followes, and Overtakes, so says that wise King still, There shall be no end of plagues to the evil man; We know the beginning of their plagues; they are Prepared in God's Decree, as soon as God saw their sins; we know their continuance, they shall Follow, and they shall Overtake; Their end we do not know, we cannot know, for they have none. Thus they are Many.
And if we consider farther, the manifold Topiques, and places, from which the sorrows of the wicked arise, That every inch of their ground is overgrown with that venomous weed, that every place, and every part of time, and every person buds out a particular occasion of sorrow to him, that he can come into no chamber, but he remembers, In such a place as this, I finned thus, That he cannot hear a Clock strike, but he remembers, At this hour I sinned thus, That he cannot converse with few persons, but he remembers, With such a person I sinned thus, And if he dare go no farther then to himself, he can look scarcely upon any limb of his body, but in that he sees some infirmity, or some deformity, that he imputes to some sin, and must say, By this sin, this is thus: When he can open the Bible in no place, but if he meet a judgment, he must say, Vindicta mihi, This vengeance belongs to me; and if he meet a mercy, he must say, Quid mihi? What have I to do to take this mercy into my mouth? In this deluge of occasions of sorrow, I must not say with God to Abraham, Look up to heaven, and number the Stars, (for this man cannot look up to heaven) but I must say, Continue thy dejected look, and look down to the earth, thy earth, and number the grains of dust there, and the sorrows of the wicked are more then they. Many are the sorrows; And as the word as naturally denotes, Great; Great sorrows are upon the wicked.
That Pill will choke one man, which will slide down with another easily, and work well. That sorrow, that affliction would strangle the wicked, which would purge, and recover the godly. The coare of Adams apple is still in their throat, which the blood of the Messias hath washed away in the righteous; Adams disobedience works in them still, and therefore God's Physic, the affliction, cannot work. So they are great to them, as Cain's punishment was to him, greater then he could bear, because he could not ease himself upon the consideration of God's purpose, in laying that punishment upon him. But it is not only their indisposition, and impatience, that makes their sorrows and afflictions great; They are truly so in themselves; as the Holy Ghost expresses it, Is not destruction to the wicked, and strange punishment to the workers of iniquity? A punishment, which we cannot tell how to measure, how to weigh, how to call, A strange punishment; Greater then former examples have presented. There the greatness is expressed in the Word; And in Isaiah it is expressed in the action; When the scourge shall run over you, and pass thorough you, Eritis in conculcationem, You shall be trodden to dust; Which is, as the Prophet calls it there, Flagellum inundans, An affliction that overflows, and surrounds all, as a deluge, a flood, that shall wash away from thee, even the water of thy Baptism, and all the power of that, And wash away from thee the blood of thy Savior, and all his offers of grace to worthy receivers; A flood that shall carry away the Ark it self out of thy sight, and leave thee no apprehension of reparation by God's institution in his Church; A flood that shall dissolve, and wash thee thyself into water; Thy sorrows shall scatter thee into drops, into tears, upon a carnal sense of thy torment, And into drops, into incoherent doubts, and perplexities, and scruples, in understanding, and conscience, and into desperation at last. And this is the Greatness: Solutis doloribus inferni, In another sense then David speaks that of Christ; There it is, that the sorrows of hell were loosed, that is, were slacked, dissolved by him: But here it is that the sorrows of hell are loosed, that is, let loose upon thee; and when thou shalt hear Christ say from the Cross, Behold and see, if ever there were any sorrow like my sorrow, thou shalt find thy sorrow like his in the Greatness, and nothing like his in the Goodness: Christ bore that sorrow, that every man might rejoice, and thou wouldest be the more sorry, if every man had not as much cause of desperate sorrow, as thou hast.
Many, and great are the sorrows of the wicked, and then eternal too, which is more then intimated, in that the Original hath neither of those particles of supplement, which are in our Translations, no such (shall come) no such (shall be) nor no (shall) at all; but only, Many sorrows to the wicked, Many and great now, more and greater hereafter, All forever, if they amend not.
It is not, They have had sorrows, but they are overblown; nor that they have them, but patience shall outweare them; nor that they shall have them, but they have a breathing time to gather strength before hand; But as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, Sorrowes upon them, and upon them forever. Whatsoever any man conceives for ease in this case, it is a false conception; You shall conceive chaff, and bring forth stubble. And this stubble is your vain hope of a determination of this sorrow; But the wicked shall not be able to lodge such a hope, though this hope, if they could apprehend it, would be but an aggravating of their sorrows in the end. It is eternal, no determination of time afforded to it. For, They shall be as the burning of lime, and as thorns cut up shall they be burnt in the fire. Who amongst us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who amongst us shall dwell with that everlasting burning? It is a devouring fire, and yet it is an everlasting burning. The Prophet asks, Who can dwell there? In that intensenesse who can last? They that must, and that is, All the wicked. Fire is kindled in my wrath, saith God; Yet may not tears quench it? Tears might, if they could be had; But It shall burn to the bottom of hell, saith God there. And Dives that could not procure a drop of water to cool his tongue there, can much less procure a repentant tear in that place: There, as S. John speaks, Plagues shall come in one day; Death, and Sorrow, and Famine. But it is in a long day; Short for the suddenness of coming, for that is come already, which for anything we know, may come this minute, before we be at an end of this point, or at a period of this sentence: So it is sudden in coming, but long for the enduring. For it is that day, when They shall be burnt with fire, for strong is the Lord God, that will condemn them. That is argument enough of the vehemence of that fire, that the Lord God, who is called the strong God, makes it a Master-piece of his strength, to make that fire.
Art thou able to dispute out this Fire, and to prove that there can be no real, no material fire in Hell, after the dissolution of all material things created? If thou be not able to argue away the immortality of thine own soul, but that that soul must last, nor to argue away the eternity of God himself, but that that must last, thou hast but little ease, in making shift to give a figurative interpretation to that fire, and to say, It may be a torment, but it cannot be a fire, since it must be an everlasting torment; nor to give a figurative signification to the Worm, and to say, It may be a pain, a remorse, but it can be no worm after the general dissolution, since that Conscience, in which that remorse, and anguish shall ever live, must live ever: If there be a figure in the names, and words, of Fire and Wormes, there is an indisputable reality in the sorrow, in the torment, and in the manifoldnesse, and in the weightiness, and in the everlastingness thereof. For in the inchoation of these sorrows, in this life, and in the consummation of them, in the life to come, The sorrows of the wicked are many, and great, and eternal.
This then is the portion prepared here, Thy portion was with the Adulterers, as our last Translators have expressed that place in their Margin. Thy portion was with them here, in this world, and thy portion shall be with them forever; for God expresses all kind of wickedness, carnal and spiritual, in that name of Adultery, throughout the body of the Scriptures. And therefore when you meet judgments denounced against Adulterers, never think that those judgments concern not you, if you have forborne that one sin, (and yet even that sin may have been committed in a look, in a letter, in a word, in a wish, in a dream) when S. James saith, Ye Adulterers, and Adulteresses, know you not this? Think not that S. James calls not upon you if you be but Covetous, but Ambitious, but Superstitious, and no Adulteters; for every aversion from the Creator, every converting to the creature is Adultery. Even in nature you are made for that marriage; In the covenant of God you were betrothed, and affianced for that marriage; In the Sacrament of Baptism you were actually, personally married; and in the other Sacrament there is a consummation of that marriage; And every departing from that contract which you made with God at your Baptism, and renewed at your receiving the other Sacrament, is an Adultery. Thus a Hermit is a husband, and a Nun a wife; and thus both may be adulterers, though in a Wilderness, though in a Cloister. Si deseris Deum qui te fecit, & amas illa quae fecit, adultera es; If thou turn from God that made thee, to those things that he made, this is an adultery. Therefore Christ calls them, An evil and adulterous generation, because they sought a sign; because they turned upon other ways of satisfaction, then he had ordained for them, that was adultery. And as David saith, Thy portion was with adulterers here; so, as theirs is said to be, Thy portion also shall be in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Thou art this person, if thou be this adulterer, which is intended in this emphatical word, The wicked.
So then, as these Sorrowes in our Text, are an inchoative Hell, they are such wounds as induce, such pangs as precede even the second death, sorrows that flow into desperation, and impenitiblenesse, (and impenitiblenesse is hell.) As the torment is an inchoative hell, so is the person, the Wicked here, an inchoated Devil: It is S. Chrysostom's spontaneus daemon, and voluntarius daemon; He that is a devil to himself, that could be, and would be ambitious in a Spittle, licentious in a Wilderness, voluptuous in a Famine, and abound with temptations in himself, though there were no devil. Most of the names of the devil in the Scripture, denote some action of his upon us; As he is called The Prince of the power of the Air, there he is called so, because as it is added there, He works in the children of disobedience; As the air works upon our bodies, this Prince of the Air works upon our minds; how works he? he deceives; He deceived the whole world, saith S. John; from this infinuation, he hath those other names there, the great Dragon, and the old Serpent. When he hath crept in as a Serpent, then he grows A roaring Lyon; He professes his power, he disguises not a temptation; then he grows Satan an Adversary, an Enemy, he opposes all good endeavors in us; & then he grows Diabolus, an Accuser, an accuser to God, an accuser to our own conscience; and when he hath made our sin, as great as it can be in our practice, when by age, or sickness, or poverty, he cannot multiply our sins for the present, then by his multiplying glass, he multiplies the sins of our former times, and presents them greater, then even the mercies of God, or the merits of Christ Jesus. So he grows in mischievous names, according to his mischievous actions and practices upon us; but then out of himself arises the most vehement, and the most collective name that is given him in all the Scriptures, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and that with the emphatical article, The wicked one; One that is all wickedness, & one that is the wickedness of all; One, who if he had no object to direct his wickedness upon, no subject to exercise his wickedness in, If God should proclaim so general a Pardon, That all men, All, should effectually be saved, and so all hope to have enlarged his Kingdom be withdrawn, yet would still be as wicked, and as opposite to God as he is.
So then, by this character of Multiplicity, this emphatical note of the wicked in our Text, the person, whose portion this sorrow is, this sorrow which is a brand of Hell, at least a match, by which Hell fire it self is kindled, is not he that is an Adulterer, or that is a Murderer; not he that hath fallen into some particular sins, though great, and continued those great sins in habits, though long, for David fell so, and yet found a holy sorrow, a medicinal sorrow: but it is the wicked, he that runs headlong into all ways of wickedness, and usque ad finem, precludes, or neglects all ways of recovery: That is glad of a temptation, and afraid of a Sermon; that is dry wood, and tinder to Satan's fire, if he do but touch him, and is ashes it self to God's Spirit, if he blow upon him; That from a love of sin, at first, because it is pleasing, comes at last to a love of sin, because it is sin, because it is liberty, because it is a deliverance of himself from the bondage, as he thinks it, of the law of God, and from the remorse and anguish of considering sin too particularly. This is the person, in whom, at first, by this emphatical note, the wicked, we design a Plurality, (as we called it) that is, a Complicated, a Multiplied, a Compact sinner, a Body, rather a Carkasse of Many, of All sins, all that have fallen within his reach. And then, in the word we noted also a Singularity, That upon such a sinner, upon every such sinner, these Many, these Great, these Eternal sorrows shall fall and tarry.
As in the former Circumstance, we noted that it was the They, that aggravated it, it was not an An, an Adulterer, an Ambitious man, but a The, The wicked, whom God enwrapped in this irrecoverable, this undeterminable sorrow: so here, it is not a This, or That, This wicked, or that wicked man, but The wicked, every wicked man is surrounded with this sorrow. He can propose no comfort in a decimation, as in popular Rebellions, where nine may be spared, and the tenth man hanged; No, nor so much hope as to have nine hanged, and the tenth spared; He is not in Sodom's case, That a few righteous might have saved the wicked; But he feels a necessity of applying to himself, that, If Noah; Daniel, and Job were in the midst of them, as I live, saith the Lord God, they should deliver neither Son, nor Daughter. Iussisti Domine, & sic est, ut poena sit sibi omnis inordinatus animus; It is thy pleasure O God, and thy pleasure shall be infallibly accomplished, that every wicked person should be his own Executioner. He is Spontaneus Daemon, as S. Chrysostom speaks, an In-mate, an in-nate Devil; a bosom devil, a self-Devil; That as he could be a tempter to himself, though there were no Devil, so he could be an Executioner to himself, though there were no Satan, and a Hell to himself, though there were no other Torment. Sometimes he stays not the Assizes, but prevents the hand of Justice; he destroys himself before his time. But when he stays, he is evermore condemned at the Assizes. Let him sleep out as much of the morning as securelyas he can; embellish, and adorn himself as gloriously as he can; dine as largely and as delicately as he can; wear out as much of the afternoon, in conversation, in Comedies, in pleasure, as he can; sup with as much distension, and inducement of drousiness as he can, that he may scape all remorse, by falling asleep quickly, and fall asleep with as much discourse, and music, and advantage as he can, he hath a conscience that will survive, and overwatch all the company; he hath a sorrow that shall join issue with him when he is alone, and both God, and the devil, who do not meet willingly, shall meet in his case, and be in league, and be one the sorrows side, against him. The anger of God, and the malice of the devil, shall concur with his sorrow, to his farther vexation. No one wicked person, by any diversion or cunning, shall avoid this sorrow, for it is in the midst, and in the end of all his forced contentments; Even in laughing, the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness.
The person is The wicked; Every wicked person; He hath no relief in a decimation, that some may scape: Nor relief in the communication of the torment; It is no ease to him, that so many bear a part with him. In some afflictions in the world, men lay hold upon such a relief, Many men are in as ill case, as I; why am I so sensible of it? and they make shift to patch up a comfort of that kind, out of some chips of Poets, and fragmentary sentences; And they that cannot find this relief ready made, will make shift to make it; when they are under the burden of a defamation, of an ill name, they will cast aspersions of the same crime, upon as many as they can, and think themselves the better, if they can make others be thought as ill as they. But all these are amongst Job's miserable comforters; It is a part of our joy in Heaven, that every man's joy shall be my joy; I shall have fullness of salvation in myself, and I shall have as many salvations, as there are souls saved: But in hell there is no one feather towards such a Pillow, no degree of ease, in the communication of the torment. Every soul shall murmur against God, and curse God, for damning every other soul, as well as for damning his: Though they would have them damned, that are damned, yet they shall reproach God, for damning them: And though they wish all the Saints in Heaven, in hell, yet they shall call it tyranny in God, to have sent a Cain, or an Achitophel, or a Judas thither. And as the person whom we consider in this text, is an embryon of the Devil, Genimina viperarum, The spawn of the Devil, a potential, and as we said, an inchoated Devil; so is the torment, this sorrow, a Lucifer, Such a Lucifer, as hell can send out; not a light of any light, but a cloud of that darkness: As sure as this man, The wicked, shall be a Devil, so sure this sorrow, shall end, not end, but reach to hell.
Yet when all this is thus said, said with a holy vehemence, with a zealous animosity, as indeed belongs to the denouncing of God's judgments, yet may we not be asked, where is there any such person, or upon whom works there any such sorrow? Is it always true, that the wicked make no good use of afflictions? or is it always true, that they have them? The first may admit a doubt, for if God justify the ungodly, (God justifieth the ungodly) then their affliction may be a way, to prepare justification in them, as well as in them whom we call godly; And if Christ died for the ungodly, (Christ died for the Ungodly) they also may fulfill his sufferings in their flesh, and their afflictions may produce good effects. But for that, they which are called ungodly, in both those places, are only such as were ungodly before God's justification began to work upon them, before Christ's Death began to be applied to them, but did not continue in their ungodliness after; But these ungodly persons, whom afflictions supple and mollify no farther, but to an intemperate, and excruciating, and exclamatory sorrow, and continue ungodly still, are such as never have good effect of affliction or sorrow.
But then have these always affliction inflicted upon them? one would doubt it, by that in Job, The Tabernacles of robbers do prosper, and they are in safety that provoke God. God's children are robbed and spoiled by the wicked, and the wicked show it in God's face, they hide not their Theft, they maintain publicly their Wantonness, and their Excesses, with the spoil of the poor; They have it, and they will hold it, and they bid God bring his action, and recover how he can. This the Prophet Jeremiah saw, and was affected, and scandalized with it; O Lord, if I plead with thee, thou art righteous; I know thou canst maintain, and make good that which thou hast done; But yet, says he, Let me talk with thee of thy judgments; wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously? Why, their ways prosper in a just punishment of God for their former sins, that they may have a larger and a broader way to destruction; and they are happy in temporal happiness, that they may have more occasions of smarting; If their wealth stick not to their heirs, in a third generation, call them not Rich; If their prosperity cleave not to their souls, call them not Happy; He is a poor man, whose wealth can be writ in an Inventorie; That hath locked all in such an iron Chest, in such a Cabinet, and hath sent up nothing to meet him in Heaven. As all the wealth of the wicked is but counterfeit, so is all the joy that they have in it counterfeit too. And howsoever they disguise their sorrow, yet if their torment be invisible to us, it is the liker hell; If we know not how they are afflicted, it is the liker hell; Their damnation sleepeth not, nor they neither; And when at midnight their own consciences are a thousand witnesses to them, it is but a poor ease, that other men do not know, that they are those wicked persons, and their sorrow the sorrow of this text; that they are The wicked, and their sorrows many, and great, and eternal sorrows. But I would be glad to reserve as much time as I could for the other part, The person and The portion, that is in the other scale; Mercy shall compass, &c.
In this part we will begin with the persons; For when we come to their portion, with which we must end, of that we shall be able to find no end, nay no beginning, for it begins with Mercy, (Mercy shall compass them) and mercy is as much without beginning, as eternal, as God himself, and it flows on to joy and gladness, and exultation, and this joy shall no more see an end of it self, then God himself shall see an end of himself. Upon the persons we have three characters, and in their portions we have three weights; Three degrees of goodness in their persons, three degrees of greatness in their portions. The persons first Trust in God, and then They are Righteous, and lastly, They are upright in heart; So also, the reward is first Inward joy, and then Outward declaration, and lastly, An exemplary working upon others; And then, all these are rooted in the root of all, that mercy shall compass them.
First then They trust in God. And that, first Exclusive; They trust in him so, as that they trust in nothing else, and Inclusive too; so, as that they do actually, and positively trust in God. Some have been so beaten out of all confidences in this world, so evacuated of former power, so devested of former favor, so despoiled of former treasures, as that they are brought to trust in nothing else; But then they trust not in God neither; Quia Deo non advent dare iniquitatem, auferunt ei gubernationem; Because they dare not say, that God does anything ill, they come to say, that God does nothing at all; and to avoid the making of an unjust God, they make an idle God; which is as great an Atheism as the other. But because it goes thus with them, that they have many and great sorrows, they conclude that all have so; But The heart knoweth his own bitterness; They know their own case, the case of the godly they know not. The stranger shall not meddle with their Joy; He that is a stranger to this trust in God, understands nothing of the joy that appertains to them that have it. Let that be thy prayer, which was the prayer of Esther, Thy handmaid hath had no joy but in thee, O Lord God of Abraham; O thou mighty God, above all, hear thou the voice of them that have no other hope.
Our Adversaries of Rome charge us, that we have but a negative Religion; If that were true, it were a heavy charge, if we did only deny, and establish nothing; But we deny all their new additions, so as that we affirm all the old foundations. The Negative man, that trusts in nothing in the world, may be but a Philosopher, but an Atheist, but a stupid and dead carcass. The Affirmative man, that does acknowledge all blessings, spiritual and temporal, to come from God, that prepares himself by holiness to be fit to receive them from God, that comes for them by humble prayer to God, that returns for them humble thanks to God, this man hath the first mark of this person upon him, He trusts in God. But he that trusts not in the world, nor in God neither, is worse then he, that trusts in the world, and not in God; because he is farther removed from all humility, that attributes all to himself; He pretends to be an Atheist, and to believe in no God; and yet he constitutes a new Idolatry, he sacrifices to himself, and makes himself his God.
The second Character, and specification of this Person, is, that he is Righteous. And this word, we shall do best to contain here within a legal Righteousness; that Righteousness, in which S. Paul protested, and proclaimed himself to be unblamable. For howsoever this apparent Righteousness, Righteousness in the eyes of the world, be not enough alone, yet no other Righteousness is enough without this. The hypocrite, by being an hypocrite, may aggravate his own condemnation, when he comes to reckon with God; But to the Church, who knows him not to be an hypocrite, he does good, by his exemplar and outward Righteousness. He that does good for vain-glory, may lead another man to good upon good grounds; And the prayers of those poor souls, whom he may have benefited by his vain-glorious good work, may prevail so with God in his behalf, as that his vain-glory here, may become true glory, even in the Kingdom of Heaven.
So then we carry this word Righteous no farther, but to the doing of those honest things, which we are bound to do in the sight of men. The word is Tzadok, which is often used for the exaltation and perfection of all true holiness; But as it is very often in the Old Testament taken for Verax and Aequus, when a man's word and work answer one another towards men; so in the New Testament, in the Syriac Translation, where the word is the same as in the Hebrew, it is Oportuit, It behooved Christ to suffer; and in such a sense, in very many places, to be Righteous, is to do that which it behooved us to do, became us to do, concerned us to do in the sight of men. Which can be expressed in no one thing more fully, then in this, To embrace a lawful Calling, and to walk honestly in that Calling; That is Righteousness; For, Iustus sua fide vivit, The Righteous lives by his own faith; Not without faith, nor with the faith of another; so Iustus suo sudore vescitur, The Righteous eats his Bread in the sweat of his own brows; He labors in an honest Calling, and drinks not the sweat of others labors; And this is that Righteousness in this Text, the second mark upon this Person, who is partaker of this Portion.
And the third is, that he is Rectus cord, Vpright in heart; That he direct even all the works of his Calling, all the actions of his life upon the glory of God. If you carry a Line from the Circumference, to the Circumference again, as a Diameter, it passes the Center, it flows from the Center, it looks to the Center both ways. God is the Center; The Lines above, and the Lines below, still respect and regard the Center; Whether I do any action honest in the sight of men, or any action acceptable to God, whether I do things belonging to this life, or to the next, still I must pass all through the Center, and direct all to the glory of God, and keep my heart right, without variation towards him. For as I do no good action here, merely for the interpretation of good men, though that be one good and justifiable reason of my good actions: so I must do nothing for my Salvation hereafter, merely for the love I bear to mine own soul, though that also be one good and justifiable reason of that action; But the primary reason in both, as well the actions that establish a good name, as the actions that establish eternal life, must be the glory of God. Distortum lignum semper nutat, A wry and crooked plank in the floor, will always shake and kick up, and creake under a man's foot. A wry and a crooked heart will always shake distrustfully, and kick rebelliously, and creake repiningly, under the hand of God. Non potest collineari rectitudine Dei, says the same Father, He is not paralleled with God, he is not leveld with God, if he use not his blessings, if he accept not his corrections, as God intends them. First, To trust in God, and then to deal Righteously with men, and all the way to keep the heart straight upon God; these three make up the Person; And these three his Portion, That he shall be glad, and he shall rejoice, and jubilabit, he shall shout for joy.
Now as three great sums of gold put into one bag, these three branches of this Portion of the Righteous, are fixed in one root, raised upon one foundation, Mercy shall compass him about. But then this mercy, this Compassing mercy reaches not so far, as that thou shalt have no affliction, though thou trust in God; David had been an unfit person, to have delivered such a Doctrine, who says of himself, Daily have I been punished, and chastened every morning: He had it every day, it was his daily bread; and it was the first thing that he had, he had it in the morning. Here is mention of a morning, early sorrows, even to the godly; and mention of a Day, continuing sorrows, even to the godly; But he speaks of no Night here, the Son of grace, the Son of God, does not set in a Cloud of anger upon him. The Martyrs that abounded with this Trust in God, and this Righteousness, and this Uprightness of heart, abounded with these afflictions too. They that bestowed themselves upon God and his Church, as the Apostle expresses it, had these sorrows plentifully bestowed upon themselves. And to pass from them to the Author of their constancy, Christ himself, He is Vir dolorum, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with Griefe. And now, Whom he loveth he chasteneth, and he scourgeth everyone that he receiveth; Flagellat omnem, He scourgeth everyone; Vis audire quem omneem? Will you know how general, and yet how particular this is? Vnicus sine peccato, non tamen sine flagello, There was one Man without any sin, but even that Man was not without punishment, Christ Jesus himself. So general is correction, as that in this case, and in this sense, it is more general then sin it self.
It is not then that the godly shall no afflictions, no sorrows; But mutant fortitudinem, They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, say our Translators in the body of their Translation; but in the Margin, (and nearer to the Original) They shall change their strength. They that have been strong in sinning, that have sinned with a strong hand, when they feel a judgment upon them, and find that it is God's hand, and God's hand for their sins, they faint not, they lose not their strength, but mutant fortitudinem, They change their strength, they grow as strong in suffering, as they were in sinning, and invest the Prophets resolution, I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him. The Book which God gave Ezekiel to eat, was written within and without, with Lamentations, and Mournings, and Woes; but when he eat it, he found it in his mouth as sweet as honey. When God offers the Book, which is the Register of our sins to our Consciences, or the Decree of his Judgments to our understanding, or to our sense, it is writ in gall and wormwood, and in the bitterness of sorrow; but if we can bring it to the first concoction, the first digestion, to that mastication, that rumination, which is the consideration of God's purpose upon us in that Judgment, we shall change our taste, for we shall Taste and See, Quam suavis Dominus, How good, and how sweet the Lord is; for even this Judgment is Mercy.
Think not then thy valor sufficiently tried, if thou canst take it patiently, to have mist a fute long pursued, or failed of a Preferment long expected; no not if thou have stood in a hail of bullets without winking, or sat the searching of a wound without starting; but Muta fortitudinem, Change thy valor, and when thou comest to bear great crosses, proportionable to thy great sins, with a spiritual courage, acknowledge that courage to be the mercy of God, and not thine own moral constancy. God loves his own example, to do as he hath done; Omni quaestione severius, à te interrogari; It was said to a Roman Emperor, who examined with Wisdom, and Majesty too: It is truer of God; that it is more fearful then any rack, or torture, when he comes to search and sift a conscience: Yet God did come to that office upon Adam, before he would condemn him. He came to a worse place then Paradise; he came to Sodom, to rack and torture them, with that confession, that there could not be found ten Righteous men amongst them. But yet this he did, before he condemned them. God will visit thee in this wrack, in this furnace, in these trials, before he proceed to thy condemnation. But when God doth so, believe thou David, in his Indulgence to his Son, to have been a Type of God's disposition to thy soul. When he sent out his Army against Absalom, he stood in the gate to survey the Muster, and to everyone of the Commanders, Joab, and the rest, still he said, Servate mihi puerum Absalom, Intreat the young man Absalom well for my sake. The Lord of Hosts may send forth his Army against thee, Sickness, Loss, Shame, Paine, Banishment, Imprisonment, (which are all swords of his) but he says to them all, Servate mihi Absalom, That soul that I have bought with my blood, preserve for me; Fight but against mine enemies, his Pride, his Security, his Presumption; but Servate Absalom, Preserve his soul unshaken, and un-offended. God hath said it before, and he says again to thee, in all thy afflictions, I know the thoughts that I think towards you, the thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. God said this, when a False Prophet had promised them deliverance in two years; God prorogues the time; he would do it, but he would not do it under threescore and ten years. Limit not God in his time, nor in his means; The mercy consists in relieving thee so, as that thy soul suffer not, though thou do. And if that be preserved, this mercy is a Compassing mercy, which is also another Circumstance in this Branch.
The Devil had Compast all the Earth, and he was angry that God had Compast Job. He says in indignation, Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath, on every side? God did so for Job, and he will do so for thee: He redeemeth thy life from the grave, and crowneth thee with mercy, and compassion. This is the Compassing in heaven, when we come to be crowned there. But there is a Compassing here, and an empailing of God's children, in S. Paul's Co-operantur, When all things work together, for good, to them that love God. When Prosperity and Adversity, Honor and Disgrace, Profit and Loss, the Lord's Giving and the Lord's Taking, do all concur to the making up of this Paile, that must Compass us; When we acknowledge that there must be nails in the Paile, as well as stakes, there must be thorns in the hedge, as well as fruit trees; Crosses as well as Blessings; when we leere not over the Paile, neither into the Common; that is, to the Gentiles and Nations, and begin to think, that we might be saved by the light of nature, without this burden of Christianity: nor leere over into the Pastures, and Corn of our neighbors; that is, to think, that we are not well in our own Church, but must needs hearken to the Doctrine, or Discipline of another; When we see all that comes, to come from God, and are content with that, then Omnia co-operantur, Every piece serves to the making up this Paile, and his Mercy compasses us about.
This is the root of our three Branches, the foundation of our three Stories; the bag of our three sums, in this portion, Mercy, Compassing mercy; and then the Branches themselves, Be glad, Rejoice, and Shout for joy; Which joy, is first an inward love of the Law of God, Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart: It is not Dant, but Sunt, not that they Bring joy, but that they Are joy; There is no other joy but the delight in the Law of the Lord: For all other joy, the Wise King said, Of laughter, thou art mad, and of joy, what is this that thou dost? True joy is the earnest which we have of heaven, It is the treasure of the soul, and therefore should be laid in a safe place, and nothing in this world is safe to place it in: And therefore with the Spouse we say, We will be glad in thee, we will remember thy love more then wine. Let others seek their joy in wine, in society, in conversation, in music; for me, Thou hast put gladness into my heart, more then in the time that their corn and their wine increased.
Rejoice therefore in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice: Again, that is, Rejoice in the second manner of expressing it, by external declarations. Go cheerfully, and joyfully forward, in the works of your callings. Rejoice in the blessings of God without murmuring, or comparing with others. And establish thy joy so, in an honest, and religious manner of getting, that thy joy may descend to thine heir, as well as thy land. No land is so well fenced, no house so well furnished, as that, which hath this joy, this testimony of being well gotten. For, This thou knowest of old, since man was placed upon earth, that the Triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the Hypocrite but for a moment.
And then the last degree is louder then this, Iubilate, Shout for joy; Declare thy joy in the ears of other men. As the Angels said to the Shepherds, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be unto all people, So be thou a cheerful occasion of glorifying God by thy joy. Declare his loving kindness unto the sons of men; Tell them what he hath done for thy soul, thy body, thy state. Say, With this staff came I over Jordan: Be content to tell whose Son thou wast, and how small thy beginning. Smother not God's blessings, by making thyself poor, when he who is truly poor, begs of thee, for that God's sake, who gave thee all that thou hast. Hold up a holy cheerfulness in thy heart; Go on in a cheerful conversation; and let the world see, that all this grows out of a peace, betwixt God and thee, testified in the blessings of this world; and then thou art that Person, and then thou hast that Portion, which grows out of this root, in this Text, Mercy shall compass him about that trusteth in the Lord.
SERM. LXIV. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalms.
PSAL. 51.7.
Purge me with Hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall bewhiter then snow.
I N the Records of the growth, and propagation of the Christian Church, The Ecclesiastical Story, we have a relation of one Pambo, an unlearned, but devout, and humble Ermit, who being informed of another man, more learned then himself, that professed the understanding, and teaching of the Book of Psalms, sought him out, and applied himself to him, to be his Disciple. And taking his first lesson casually, at the first verse of the thirty ninth Psalm, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue, He went away with that lesson, with a promise to return again when he was perfect in that. And when he discontinued so long, that his Master, sometimes occasionally lighting upon him, accused him of this slackness, for almost twenty years together he made several excuses, but at last professed, that at the end of those twenty years, he was not yet perfect in his first lesson, in that one verse, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue. Now, that which made this lesson hard unto him, was, that it employed all his diligence, and his watchfulness upon future things; to examine and debate all his actions, and all his words; for, else he did not take heed to his ways; at least, not so, as that he would not sin with his tongue. But if he had begun with this lesson, with this Psalm, which is but a calling to our memory that which is past, The sinful employment of that time, which is gone, and shall not return, The sinful heats of our youth, which, since we wanted remorsefull tears to quench them, even the sin it self, and the excess thereof hath overcome, and allayed in us, sinful omissions, sinful actions, and habits, and all those transitory passages, in which the Apostle shows us, our prodigality, our unthriftiness, our ill bargain, when he asks us that question of Confusion, What fruit had you then in those things, whereof ye are now ashamed? If he had begun his first lesson at this, with the presenting of all his passed sins, in the sight of the Father, and in the Mediation and merit of the Son, he would have been sonner perfect in that lesson, and would have found himself, even by laying open his disease, so purged with Hyssop as that he should have been clean, and so washed, as that he should have been whiter then snow. For, Repentance of sins past is nothing but an Audit, a casting up of our accounts, a consideration, a survey, how it stands between God and our soul. And yet, as many men run out of plentiful estates, only because they are loath to see a list of their debts, to take knowledge how much they are behind hand, or to contract their expenses: so we run out of a whole and rich inheritance, the Kingdom of heaven, we profuse and pour out even our own soul, rather then we will cast our eye upon that which is past, rather then we will present a list of our spiritual debts to God, or discover our disease to that Physician, who only can Purge us with hyssop, that we may be clean, and wash us, that we may be whiter then snow.
In the words we shall consider the Person, and the Action, who petitions, and what he asks. Both are twofold; for, the persons are two, the Physician and the Patient, God and David, Do thou purge me, do thou wash me; and the Action is twofold, Purgabis, do thou purge me, and Lavabis, do thou wash me. In which last part, and in the first branch thereof, we shall see first, the Action it self, Purgabis, Thou shalt purge me, and what that imports; And then the means, Purgabis hyssopo, Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, what that implies; and then the effect, Mundaber, I shall be made clean, and what that comprehends. And in the other branch of that second part, Lavabis, Thou shalt wash me, we shall also look upon the Action on God's part, Lavabis, Thou shalt wash me, and the Effect on our part, Dealbabor, I shall be white, and the Degree, the Extent, the Exaltation of that Emundation, that Dealbation, that Cleansing, supra nivem, I shall be whiter then snow. And then we shall conclude all with that consideration, That though in the first part, we find two persons in action; for God works, but man prays that God would work, yet in the other part, the work it self; Though the work be divers, a purging, and then a washing of the soul, the whole work is God's alone: David doth not say, no man can say, Do thou purge me, and then, I will wash myself; nor do thou make the Medicine, and I will bring the Hyssop; nor do thou but wash me, begin the work, and I will go forward with it, and perfect it, and make myself whiter then snow; but the entire work is his, who only can infuse the desire, and only accomplish that desire, who only gives the will, and the ability to second, and execute that will, He, He purges me, or I am still a vessel of peccant humors; His, His is the hyssop, or there is Mors in olla, Death in the cup; He, He washes me, or I am still in my blood; He, He exalts that cleanness, which his, his washing hath endued, or I return again to that red earth, which I brought out of Adams bowels; Therefore Do thou purge me with Hyssop, and I shall be clean; Do thou wash me, and I shall be whiter then snow.
First then, for our first part, we consider the persons. Of these God is the first; Isaiah spoke boldly, saith the Apostle, when he said, God is found by them that seek him not; But still we continue in that humble boldness, to say, God is best found, when we seek him, and observe him in his operation upon us. God gives audiences, and admits accesses in his solemn and public and out-rooms, in his Ordinances: In his Cabinet, in his Bedchamber, in his unrevealed purposes, we must not press upon him. It was ill taken in the Roman State, when men inquired in Arcana Imperii, the secrets of State, by what ways, and means, public businesses were carried: Private men were to rest in the general effects, peace, and protection, and Justice, and the like, and to inquire no more; But to inquire in Arcana Domus, what was done in the Bed-chamber, was criminal, capital, inexcusable. We must abstain from enquiring De modo, how such or such things are done in many points, in which it is necessary to us to know that such things are done: As the manner of Christ's presence in the Sacrament, and the manner of Christ's descent into Hell, for these are Arcana Imperii, secrets of State, for the manner is secret, though the thing be evident in the Scriptures. But the entering into God's unrevealed, and bosom-purposes, are Arcana domus, a man is as far from a possibility of attaining the knowledge, as from an excuse for offering at it. That curiosity will bring a man to that blasphemy of Alfonsus King of Castile, the great Astronomer, who said, That if he had been of God's Counsel in the creation of the world, he could have directed him to have done many things better then he did. They that look too far into God's unrevealed purposes, are seldom content with that that they think God hath done; but stray either into an uncharitable condemning of other men, or into a jealous, a suspicious, a desperate condemning of themselves. Here, in this first branch of this first part, we seek God, and because we seek him, where he hath promised to be, we are sure to find him; Because we join with David, in an humble confession of our sins, the Lord joins us with David, in a fruition of himself. And more of that first Person, God himself, we say not, but pass to the other, to the petitioner, to the penitent, to the patient, to David himself.
His example is so comprehensive, so general, that as a well made, and well placed Picture in a Gallery looks upon all that stand in several places of the Gallery, in several lines, in several angles, so doth David's history concern and embrace all. For his Person includes all states, between a shepherd and a King, and his sin includes all sin, between first Omissions, and complications of Habits of sin upon sin: So that as S. Basil said, he needed no other Book, for all spiritual uses, but the Psalms, so we need no other Example to discover to us the slippery ways into sin, or the penitential ways out of sin, then the Author of that Book, David. From his Example then, we first deduce this, That in the war-fare of this life, there are no Emeriti milites; none of that discipline, that after certain years spent in the wars, a man should return to ease, and honor, and security, at home. A man is not delivered from the temptation of Ambition, by having overcome the heats and concupiscences of his youth; nor from the temptation of Covetousness in his age, by having escaped ambition, and contented himself with a mean station in his middle years. David, whom neither a sudden growth into such degrees of greatness, as could not have fallen into his thought, or wish before, nor the persecution of Saul, which might have enraged him to a personal revenge, considering how many advantages, and occasions he might have made shift to think that God had put into his hands, to execute that revenge; David, whom neither the concourse and application of the people, who took knowledge of him, as of a rising Sun, nor the interest and nearness in the love and heart of Jonathan the Kings Son, which falls seldom upon a new, and a popular man; David, whom not that highest place, to which God had brought him, in making him King, nor that addition even to that highest place, that he made him Successor to a King of whom the State was weary; (for, as the Panegyrique says, Onerosum est succedere bono principi, It is a heavy thing, and binds a Prince to a great diligence, to come immediately after one, whom his subjects loved, So had David an ease, in coming after one, with whom the Kingdom was discontented) David, whom this sudden preferment, and persecutions, and popularity, did not so shake, but that we may say of him, as it is said of Job, That in all this height, David did not sin, nor in all these afflictions, He did not charge God foolishly; Though he had many victories, he came not to a Triumph; but him, whom an Army, and an armed Giant, Goliath, near hand, could not hurt, a weaker person, and naked, and far off, overthrows and ruins.
It is therefore but an imperfect comfort for any man to say, I have overcome temptations to great sins, and my sins have been but of infirmity, not of malice. For herein, more then in any other contemplation appears the greatness, both of thy danger, and of thy transgression. For, consider what a dangerous, and slippery station thou art in, if after a victory over Giants, thou mayest be overcome by Pigmees; If after thy soul hath been Canon proof against strong temptations, she be slain at last by a Pistol; And, after she hath swom over a tempestuous Sea, she drown at last, in a shallow and standing ditch. And as it shows the greatness of thy danger, so it aggravates the greatness of thy fault; That after thou hast had the experience, that by a good husbanding of those degrees of grace, which God hath afforded thee, thou hast been able to stand out the great batteries of strong temptations, and seest by that, that thou art much more able to withstand temptations to lesser sins, if thou wilt, yet by disarming thyself, by devesting thy garrisons, by discontinuing thy watches, merely by inconsideration, thou sellest thy soul for nothing, for little pleasure, little profit, thou frustratest thy Savior of that purchase, which he bought with his precious blood, and thou enrichest the Devils treasure as much, with thy single money, thy frequent small sins, as another hath done with his talent; for, as God was well pleased with the widows two farthings, so is the Devil well pleased, with the negligent man's lesser sins. O who can be confident in his footing, or in his hold, when David, that held out so long, fell, and if we consider but himself, irrecoverably, where the tempter was weak, and afar off?
De longe vidit illam in qua captus est. Berseba was far off; Mulier longe, libido prope, but David's disposition was in his own bosom. Yet David came not up into the Teras, with any purpose or inclination to that sin. Here was no such plotting as in his son Hammons case, to get his sister Tamar, by dissembling himself to be sick, to his lodging. That man post-dates his sin, and begins his reckoning too late, that dates his sin at that hour, when he commits that sin. You must not reckon in sin, from the Nativity, but the Conception; when you conceived that sin in your purpose, then you sinned that sin, and in every letter, in every discourse, in every present, in every wish, in every dream, that conduces to that sin, or rises from that sin, you sin it over, and over again, before you come to the committing of it, and so your sin is an old, an inveterate sin, before it be borne, and that which you call the first, is not the hundredth time, that you have sinned that sin.
It is not much that David contributed to this sin on his part: He is only noted in the Text, to have been negligent in the public business, and to have given himself too much ease in this particular, that he lay in bed all day; When it was evening, David arose out of his bed, and walked upon the Teras. And it is true, that the justice of God is subtle, as searching, as unsearchable; and oftentimes punishes sins of Omission, with other sins, Actual sins, and makes their laziness, who are slack in doing that they should, an occasion of doing that they should not.
It was not much that Bathsheba contributed to this temptation, on her part. The Vulgat Edition of the Roman Church, hath made her case somewhat the worse, by a mistranslation, Ex adverso super solarium suum, as though she had been washing her self, upon her own Teras, and in the eye of the Court; whereas indeed, it is no more, but that David saw her, he upon his Teras, not her upon hers. For her washing, it may well be collected out of the fourth verse, that it was a Legal washing, to which she was bound by the Levitical Law, being a purification after her natural infirmity, and which it had been a sin in her, to have omitted. But had it been a washing of Refreshing, or of Delicacy, even that was never imputed to Susanna for a fault, that she washed in a Garden, and in the day, and employed not only sope, but other ingredients and materials, of more delicacy, in that washing.
Certainly the limits of adorning and beautifying the body are not so narrow, so strict, as by some sour men they are sometimes conceived to be. Differences of Ranks, of Ages, of Nations, of Customs, make great differences in the enlarging, or contracting of these limits, in adorning the body; and that may come near sin at some time, and in some places, which is not so always, nor everywhere. Amongst the women there, the Jewish women, it was so general a thing to help themselves with aromatical Oyles, and liniments, as that that which is said by the Prophets poor Widow, to the Prophet Elisha, That she had nothing in the house but a pot of Oil, is very properly by some collected from the Original word, that it was not Oil for meat, but Oil for unction, aromatical Oil, Oil to make her look better; she was but poor, but a Widow, but a Prophets Widow, (and likely to be the poorer for that) yet she left not that. We see that even those women, whom the Kings were to take for their Wives, and not for Mistresses, (which is but a later name for Concubines) had a certain, and a long time assigned to be prepared by these aromatical unctions, and liniments for beauty. Neither do those that consider, that when Abraham was afraid to lose his wife Sara in Egypt, and that every man that saw her, would fall in love with her, Sara was then above threescore; And when the King Abimelech did fall in love with her, and take her from Abraham, she was fourscore and ten, they do not assign this preservation of her complexion, and habitude to any other thing, then the use of those unctions, and liniments, which were ordinary to that Nation. But yet though the extent and limit of this adorning the body, may be larger then some austere persons will allow, yet it is not so large, as that it should be limited only, by the intention and purpose of them that do it; So that if they that beautify themselves, mean no harm in it, therefore there should be no harm in it; for, except they could as well provide, that others should take no harm, as that they should mean no harm, they may participate of the fault. And since we find such an impossibility in rectifying and governing our own senses, (we cannot take our own eye, nor stop our own ear, when we would) it is an unnecessary, and insupportable burden, to put upon our score, all the lascivious glances, and the licentious wishes of other persons, occasioned by us, in over-adorning ourselves.
And this may well have been Bathshebaes fault, That though she did not bathe with a purpose to be seen, yet she did not enough to provide against the infirmity of others. It had therefore been well if David had risen earlier, to attend the affairs of the State; And it had been well, if Bathsheba had bathed within doors, and with more caution; but yet these errors alone, we should not be apt to condemn in such persons, except by God's permitting greater sins to follow upon these, we were taught, that even such things, as seem to us in their nature to be indifferent, have degrees of natural and essential ill in them, which must be avoided, even in the probability, nay even in the possibility that they may produce sin.
And as from this Example, we draw that Conclusion, That sins, which are but the Children of indifferent actions, become the Parents of great sins; which is the industry of sin, to exalt it self, and (as it were) ennoble it self, above the stock, from which it was derived, The next sin will needs be a better sin then the last: So have we also from David this Conclusion, that this generation of sin is infinite; infinite in number, infinite in duration; So infinite both ways, as that Luther (who seldom checks himself in any vehement expression) could not forbear to say, Si Nathan non venisset, If Nathan had not come to David, David had proceeded to the sin against the Holy Ghost. O how impossible a thing is it then, for us to condition and capitulate with God, or with our own Nature, and say to him, or to ourselves, We will sin thus long and no longer, Thus far, and no farther, this sin, and no more; when not only the frailty of man, but even the justice of God provokes us (though not as Author, or cause of sin) to commit more and more sins, after we have entangled and enwrapped ourselves in former! Who can doubt, but that in this years space, in which David continued in his sin, but that he did ordinarily all the external acts of the religious Worship of God? who can doubt but that he performed all the Legal Sacrifices, and all the Ceremonial Rites? Yea, we see, that when Nathan put David's case in another name, of a rich man that had taken away a poor man's only sheep, David was not only just, but he was vehement in the execution of Justice; He was, says the text, exceeding wroth, and said, As the Lord liveth, that man shall die; But yet, for all this external Religion, for all this Civil justice in matter of government, no mention of any repentance in all this time. How little a thing then is it, nay how great a thing, that is, how great an aggravating of thy sin, if thou think to bribe God with a Sabbath, or with an alms; And, as a criminal person would fain come to Sanctuary, not because it is a consecrated place, but because it rescues him from the Magistrate, So thou comest to Church, not because God is here, but that thy being here may redeem thee from the imputation of profaneness. At last Nathan came; David did not send for him, but God sent him; But yet David laid hold upon God's purpose in him. And he confesses to God, he confesses to the Prophet, he confesses to the whole Church; for, before he pleads for mercy in the body of the Psalm, in the title of the Psalm, which is as Canonical Scripture, as the Psalm it self, he confesses himself plainly, A Psalm of David, when the Prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
Audiunt male viventes, & quaerunt sibi patrocinia peccandi; We hear of David's sin, and we justify our sins by him; Si David, cur non & ego? If David went in to a Bathsheba, why may not I? That Father tells you why, Qui facit, quia David fecit, id facit, quod David non fecit, He that does that, because David did it, does not do that which David did; Quia nullum exemplum proposuit, For David did not justify his sin, by any precedent example; So that he that sins as David did, yet sins worse then David did; and he that continues as unsensible of his sin, as David was, is more unsensible then David was; Quia ad te mittitur ipse David, For God sends Nathan to thee, with David in his hand; He sends you the Receit, his invitations to Repentance, in his Scriptures, and he sends you a Probatum est, a personal testimony how this Physic hath wrought upon another, upon David.
And so having in this first Part, which is the Consideration of the persons in our Text, God and David, brought them by Nathan's mediation, together, consider we also, for a conclusion of this Part, the personal applications, that David scatters himself upon none but God, Tu me, and he repeats it, do Thou purge me, do Thou wash me.
Damascene hath a Sermon of the Assumption of the blessed Virgin, which whole Sermon is but a Dialogue, in which Eve acts the first part, and the blessed Virgin another; It is but a Dialogue, yet it is a Sermon. If I should insist upon this Dialogue, between God and David, Tu me, Tu me, Do thou work upon me, it would not be the less a profitable part of a Sermon for that. For first, when we hear David in an anhelation and panting after the mercy of God, cry out, Domine Tu, Lord do thou that that is to be done, do Thou purge, do Thou wash, and may have heard God, (thereby to excite us to the use of his means) say, Purget natura, purget lex, I have infused into thee a light and a law of nature, and exalted that light and that law, by a more particular law and a clearer light then that, by which thou knowest what is sin, and knowest that in a sinful state thou canst not be acceptable to me, Purget natura, purget lex, let the light of nature, or of the law purge thee, and rectify thyself by that; Do but as much for thyself, as some natural men, some Socrates, some Plato hath done, we may hear David reply, Domine Tu, Lord put me not over to the catechizing of Nature, nor to the Pedagogie of the Law, but take me into thine own hands, do Thou, Thou, that is to be done upon me. When we hear God say, Purget Ecclesia, I have established a Church, settled constant Ordinances, for the purging and washing of souls there; Purget Ecclesia, Let the Church purge thee, we may hear David reply, Domine Tu, Alas Lord, how many come to that Bath, and go foul out of it? how many hear Sermons, and receive Sacraments, and when they return, return to their vomit? Domine Tu, Lord, except the power of thy Spirit make thine Ordinance effectual upon me, even this thy Jordan will leave me in my leprosy, and exalt my leprosy, even this Sermon, this Sacrament will aggravate my sin. If we hear God say, Shall I purge thee? Doest thou know what thou askest, what my method in purging is, That if I purge, I shall purge thee with fire, with seven fires, with tribulations, nay, with temptations, with temporal, nay, with spiritual calamities, with wounds in thy fortune, wounds in thine honor, wounds in thy conscience, yet we may hear David reply, Tu Domine; As the people said to Joshua, God forbid we should forsake the Lord, we will serve the Lord; And when Joshua said, You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a jealous God; and if ye turn from him, he will turn and do you hurt, and consame you after he hath done you good; The people replied, Nay, but we will serve the Lord; so whatsoever God threatens David of afflictions and tribulations, and purgings in fire, we may hear David reply, Nay but Lord, do Thou do it, do it how Thou wilt, but do Thou do it: Thy corrosives are better then others somentations; Thy bitternesses sweeter then others honey; Thy fires are but lukewarm fires, nay, they have nothing of fire in them, but light to direct me in my way; And thy very frowns are but as trenches cut out, as lanes that lead me to thy grave, or Rivers or Channels, that lead me to the sea of thy blood. Let me go upon Crouches, so I go to Heaven; Lay what weight thou wilt even upon my foul, that that be heavy, and heavy unto death, so I may have a cheerful transmigration then. Domine Tu, Lord do thou do it, and I shall not wish it mended.
And then when we hear David say, Domine Me, Lord purge Me, wash Me, and return four times in this short Text, to that personal appropriation of God's work upon himself, Purge Me, that I may be clean, wash Me, that I may be whiter then snow, if we hear God say (as the language of his mercy is, for the most part, general) As the Sea is above the Earth, so is the blood of my Son above all sin; Congregations of three thousand, and of five thousand were purged and washed, converted and baptized at particular Sermons of S. Peter, whole legions of Soldiers, that consisted of thousands, were purged in their own blood, and became Martyrs in one day. There is enough done to work upon all; Examples enow given to guide all; we may hear David reply, Domine Me, Nay but Lord, I do not hear Peter preach, I live not in a time, or in a place, where Crowns of Martyrdom are distributed, nor am I sure my Constancy would make me capable of it if I did, Lord I know, that a thousand of these worlds were not worth one drop of thy blood, and yet I know, that if there had been but one some distressed, and that soul distressed but with one sin, thou wouldest have spent the last drop of that blood for that soul; Blessed be thy Name, for having wrapped me up in thy general Covenants, and made me partaker of thy general Ordinances, but yet Lord, look more particularly upon me, and appropriate thyself to me, to me, not only as thy Creature, as a man, as a Christian, but as I am I, as I am this sinner that confesses now, and as I am this penitent that begs thy mercy now. And now, Beloved, we have said so much towards enough of the persons, God and David; The access of David to God, and the appropriation of God to David, as that we may well pass to our other general part, the petitions which David in his own and our behalf makes to God, Purge me with Hyssop, and I shall be clean, wash me, and I shall be whiter then snow.
In this, the first is a great work, That which we translate, Purge me. And yet how soon David is come to it? It is his first period. The passage of a Spirit is very quick, but it is not immediate; Not from extreme to extreme, but by passing the way between. The Evil spirit passes not so; no good soul was ever made very ill in an instant, no, nor so soon as some ill have been made good: No man can give me Examples of men so soon perverted, as I can of men converted. It is not in the power of the Devil to do so much harm, as God can do good; Nay, we may be bold to say, it is not in the will, not in the desire of the Devil to do so much harm, as God would do good; for illness is not in the nature of the Devil; The Devil was naturally good, made, created good. His first illness was but a defection from that goodness; and his present illness is but a punishment for that defection; but God is good, goodness in his nature, essentially, eternally good; and therefore the good motions of the Spirit of God work otherwise upon us, then the temptations of the evil Spirit do. How soon, and to what a height came David here? He makes his Petition, his first Petition with that confidence, as that it hath scarce the nature of a Petition: for it is in the Original, Thou wilt purge me, Thou wilt wash me, Thou hadst a gracious will, and purpose to do it, before thou didst infuse the will and the desire in me to petition it. Nay, this word may well be translated not only Thou wilt, but by the other denotation of the future, Thou shalt, Thou shalt purge me, Thou shalt wash me, Lord I do but remember thee of thy debt, of that which thy gracious promise hath made thy debt, to show mercy to every penitent sinner. And then, as the word implies confidence, and acceleration, infallibility, and expedition too, That as soon as I can ask, I am sure to be heard; so does it imply a totality, an entireness, a fullness in the work; for the root of the word is Peccare, to sin, for purging is a purging of peccant humors; but in this Conjugation in that language, it hath a privative signification, and literally signifies Expeccabis; and if in our language, that were a word in use, it might be translated, Thou shalt un-sin me; that is, look upon me as a man that had never sinned, as a man invested in the innocence of thy Son, who knew no sin. David gives no man rule nor example of other assurance in God, then in the remission of sins: Not that any precontract or Election makes our sins no sins, or makes our sins no hindrances in our way to salvation, or that we are in God's favor at that time when we sin, nor returned to his favor before we repent our sin; It is only this expeccation, this unsinning, this taking away of sins formerly committed, that restores me; And that is not done with nothing; David assigns, proposes a means, by which he looks for it, Hyssop, Thou shalt purge me with Hyssop.
The Fathers taking the words as they found them, and fastening with a spiritual delight, as their devout custom was, their Meditations upon the figurative and Metaphoricall phrase of purging by Hyssop, have found purgative virtues in that plant, and made useful and spiritual applications thereof, for the purging of our souls from sin. In this do S. Ambrose, and Augustine, and Jerome agree, that Hyssop hath virtue in it proper for the lungs, in which part, as it is the furnace of breath, they place the seat of pride and opposition against the Truth, making their use of that which is said of Saul, That he breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the Disciples of the Lord. And by this interpretation, David's disease that he must be purged of, should be pride. But except, as the Schoolmen, when they have tired themselves in seeking out the name of the sin of the Angels, are content at last for their ease to call it Pride, both because they thought they need go no farther, for, where pride is, other sins will certainly accompany it; and because they extended the name of Pride to all refusals and resistances of the will of God, and so pride, in effect, includes all sin; Except, I say, the Fathers take Pride in so large a sense as that they would not prescribe Hyssop to purge David's lungs, for his disease lay not properly there; They must have purged his liver, the seat of blood, the seat of concupiscence; They must have purged his whole substance, for the distemper was gone over all. And to this rectifying of his blood, by the application of better blood, and David relation in this place.
All the sacrifices of Expiation of sin, in the old Law, were done by blood, and that blood was sprinkled upon the people, by an instrument made of a certain plant, which because the word in Hebrew is Ezob, for the nearness of the sound, and for the indifferency of the matter, (for it imports us nothing to know, of what plant that Aspergillum, that Blood-sprinckler was made) the Interpreters have ever used in all languages to call this word Hyssop. And though we know no proper word for Hyssop in Hebrew, (for when they find not a word in the Bible, the Hebrew Rabbins will acknowledge no Hebrew word for anything) yet the other languages deduced from the Hebrew, Syriaque, and Arabic, have clearly another word for Hyssop, Zus; And the Hebrew Rabbins think this word of our text, Ezob, to signify any of three or four plants, rather then our Hyssop. But be the plant what it will, the form and the use of that Blood-sprinkler is manifest. In the institution of the Passover, Take a bunch of Hyssop, and dip it in blood. In the cleansing of the Leper, there was to be the blood of a sparrow, and then Cedar wood, and scarlet lace, and Hyssop: And about that Cedar stick, they bound this Hyssop with this lace, and so made this instrument to sprinkle blood. And so the name of the Hyssop, because it did the principal office, was after given to the whole Instrument; all the sprinkler was called an Hyssop; As we see when they reached up a sponge of vinegar to Christ upon the Cross, They put it, says the text, upon Hyssop, that is, upon an Hyssop; not upon an Hyssop stalk, (as the old translation had it) for no Hyssop hath such a stalk, but they called such sticks of Cedar, as ordinarily served for the sprinkling of blood, Hyssops. And whether this were such a Cedar stick, or some other such thing, fit to reach up that spunge to Christ, we cannot say. For S. Matthew calls that, that S. John calls an Hyssop, a Reed.
This then was David's petition here; first, That he might have the blood of Christ Jesus applied and sprinkled upon him; David thought of no election, he looked for no sanctification, but in the blood of Christ Jesus. And then he desired this blood to be applied to him, by that Hyssop, by that Blood-sprinkler, which was ordained by God, for the use of the Church. Home-infusions, and inward inspirations of grace, are powerful seals of God's love; but all this is but the Privy seal, David desired to bring it to the Great seal, the public Ordinance of the Church. In a case of necessity God gave his children Manna and Quails; In cases of necessity God allows Sermons, and Sacraments at home; But as soon as ever they came to the Land of promise, the same day both Manna and Quails ceased: God hath given us a free and public passage of his Word, and Sacraments, the diet and the ordinary food of our souls, and he purges us with that Hyssop, with the application of his promises, with the absolution of our sins, with a redintegration into his mystical body, by the seals of reconciliation. And this reconciliation to God, by the blood of Christ, applied in the Ordinances of the Church, is that which David begs for his cleansing, and is the last circumstance of this branch, Purge me with Hyssop, and I shall be clean.
This Cleansing then implies that, which we commonly call the enwrapping in the Covenant, the breeding in the visible Church, when God takes a Nation out of the Common, and encloses it, empailes it for his more peculiar use, when God withdraws us from the impossibility, under which the Gentiles starve, who hear not Christ preached, to live within the sound of his voice, and within the reach of our spiritual food, the Word and Sacraments. It is that state, which the holy Ghost so elegantly expresses and enlarges, That God found Jerusalem, Her father an Amorite, and her mother an Hittite, none of the seed of the faithful in her; that he found her in Canaan, not so much as in a place of true profession; that he found her in her blood, and her navel uncut, still incorporated in her former stock; And, The time was a time of love, says God, and I covered thy nakedness, and sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, and thou becamest mine. Will you say, this could not be the subject of David's petition, this could not be the cleansing that he begged at God's hand, to be brought into that Covenant, to be a member of that Church? for he was in possession of that before. Beloved, how many are borne in this Covenant, and baptized, and catechized in it, and yet fall away? How many have taught, and wrought, and thought in their own conscience that they did well, in defense of the Covenant, and yet fell away? And from how many places, which gave light to others, hath God removed the Candlestick, and left themselves in darkness? Though David say, A day in thy Courts is better then a thousand, (then a thousand anywhere else) yet he expresses his desire, That he might continue in that happiness all the days of his life; It is as fearful a thing to be removed from the means of salvation, as never to have had them.
This then is Cleansing, To be continued in the distance, and working of the means of cleansing, that he may always grow under the dew, and breath in the air of God's grace exhibited in his Ordinance. Amongst the Jews there were many uncleannesses, which did not amount to sin: They reckon in the Ceremonial law, at least fifty kinds of uncleannesses, from which if they neglected to cleanse themselves, by those ceremonies which were appropriated to them, then those uncleannesses became sins, and they were put to their sacrifices, before they could be discharged of them. Many levities, many omissions, many acts of infirmity might be prevented by consideration before, or cleansed by consideration now, if we did truly value the present grace, that is always offered us in these the Ordinances of God. What sin can I be guilty of, that is without example of mercy, in that Gospel which is preached to me here? But if you will not accept it, when God offers it, you can never have it so good cheap, because hereafter you shall have this present sin, of refusing that offer of grace, added to your burden. Because I have purged thee, & thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged anymore, til I have caused my fury to light upon thee. But shall we be purged then? Then, when his fury in any calamity hath lighted upon us? Is not this donec, this until, such a donec, as donec faciam, Till I make thine cnemies thy footstool: Such a donec as the donec peperit, she was a Virgin, Till she brought forth her first son? Is it not an everlasting donec? That we shall not be purged till God's Judgments fall upon us, nor then neither: Physic may be ministered too late to work, and Judgments may fall too late, to souple or entender the soul: For as we may die with that Physic in our stomach, so may we be carried to the last Judgment, with that former Judgment upon our shoulders. And therefore our later Translation hath expressed it more fully, Not that that fury shall light, but shall rest upon us.
This cleansing therefore, is that disposition, which God by his grace, infuses into us, That we stand in the congregation, and Communion of Saints, capable of those mercies, which God hath by his Ordinance, annexed to these meetings; That we may so feel at all times when we come hither, such a working of his Hyssop, such a benefit of his Ordinance, as that we believe all our former sins to be so forgiven, as that if God should translate us now, this minute, to another life, this Dosis of this purging Hyssop, received now, had so wrought, as that we should be assuredly translated into the Kingdom of heaven. This cleansing applies to us those words of our Savior, My son, be of good cheare, thy sins are forgiven thee; But yet there is a farther degree of cleanness expressed in Christ's following words, Go, and sin no more; And that grace against relapses, the gift of sanctification, and perseverance, is that that David asks in his other Petition, Lava me, Wash me, and I shall be whiter then snow.
Here we proposed first the action, Lava, Wash me. This is more then a sprinkling, A total, and entire washing; More then being an ordinary partaker of the outward means, The Word, and Sacraments; more then a temporary feeling of the benefit thereof in a present sense; for it is a building up of habits of religious actions, visible to others, and it is a holy and firm confidence created in us by the Spirit of God, that we shall keep that building in reparation, and go forward with it to our lives end. It is a washing like Naaman's in Jordan, to be iterated seven times, seventy seven times, daily, hourly, all our life; A washing begun in Baptism, pursued in sweat, in the industry of a lawful calling, continued in tears, for our deficiencies in the works of our calling, and perchance to be consummated in blood, at our deaths. Not such a washing, as the Washes have, which are those sands that are overflowed with the Sea at every Tide, and then lie dry, but such a washing as the bottom of the Sea hath, that is always equally wet. It is not a stillicidium, a spout, a shower, a bucket poured out upon us, when we come to Church, a Sabbath-sanctification, and no more, but a water that enters into every office of our house, and washes every action proceeding from every faculty of the soul. And this is the washing, A continual succession of Grace, working effectually to present Habits of religious acts, and constituting a holy purpose of persevering in them that induces the Whitenesse, the Candor, the Dealbation that David begs here, Lava & Dealbabor.
The purging with Hyssop, which we spoke of before, which is the benefit which we have by being bred in a true Church, delivers us from that redness, which is in the earth of which we are made, from that guiltiness, which is by our natural derivation from our Parents imprinted in us; Baptism doth much upon that; but that that is not Red, is not therefore White. But this is our case: Our first color was white; God made man righteous. Our redness is from Adam, and the more that redness is washed off, the more we return to our first whiteness; And this which is petitioned here, is a washing of such perfection, as cleanses us Ab omni inquinamento, from all filthiness of flesh and spirit. Those inquinamenta, which are ordinary, are first in the flesh, Concupiscence and Carnality, and those other, of which the Apostle says, The works of the flesh are manifest; And in the spirit, they are Murmuring, Diffidence in God, and such others. But besides these, as an over-diligent cleansing of the Body, and additional beauty of the Body, is inquinamentum carnis, one of S. Paul's filthiness upon the flesh, so an over purifying of the spirit, in an uncharitable undervaluing of other men, and in a schismatical departing from the unity of the Church, is Inquinamentum spiritus: False beauties are a foulness of the body, false purity is a foulness of the spirit. But the washing, that we seek, cleanses us Ab omni inquinamento, from all foulness of flesh and spirit. All waters will not cleanse us, nor all fires dry us, so as we may be clean, smoky fires will not do that. I will pour clean water upon you, and you shall be clean. The Sun produces sweat upon us, and it dries us too: Zeal cleanses us; but it must be zeal impermixt as the Sun, not mingled with our smoky, sooty, factious affections. Some Grammarians have noted, the word Washing here, to be derived from a word, that signifies a Lamb; we must be washed in the blood of the Lamb, and we must be brought to the whiteness, the candor, the simplicity of the Lamb; no man is pure, that thinks no man pure but himself. And this whiteness, which is Sanctification in ourselves, and charitable interpretation of other men, is exalted here to that Superlative, Super Nivem, Wash me, and I shall be whiter then Snow.
Though your sins be as Scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Isaiah was an Evangelical Prophet, a prophetical Evangelist, and speaks still of the state of the Christian Church. There, by the ordinary means exhibited there, our Scarlet sins are made as white as Snow; And the whiteness of Snow, is a whiteness that no art of man can reach to; So Christ's garments in his Transfiguration are expressed to have been as white as Snow, so, as no Fuller on earth could white them. Nothing in this world can send me home in such a whiteness, no moral counsel, no moral comfort, no moral constancy; as God's Absolution by his Minister, as the profitable hearing of a Sermon, the worthy receiving of the Sacrament do. This is to be as white as snow; In a good state for the present. But David begs a whiteness above Snow; for Snow melts, and then it is not white; our present Sanctification withers, and we lose that cheereful verdure, the testimony of an upright conscience; And Snow melted, Snow water, is the coldest water of all; Devout men departed from their former fervor are the coldest and the most irreducible to true zeal, true holiness. Therefore David who was metal tried seven times in the fire, and desired to be such gold as might be laid up in God's Treasury, might consider, that in transmutation of metals, it is not enough to come to a calcination, or a liquefaction of the metal, (that must be done) nor to an Ablution, to sever dross from pure, nor to a Transmutation, to make it a better metal, but there must be a Fixion, a fettling thereof, so that it shall not evaporate into nothing, nor return to his former nature. Therefore he saw that he needed not only a liquefaction, a melting into tears, nor only an Ablution, & a Transmutation, those he had by this purging and this washing, this station in the Church of God, and this present Sanctification there, but he needed Fixionem, an establishment, which the comparison of Snow afforded not; That as he had purged him with Hyssop, and so cleansed him, that is, enwrapped him in the Covenant, and made him a member of the true Church; and there washed him so, as that he was restored to a whiteness, that is, made his Ordinances so effectual upon him, as that then he durst deliver his soul into his hands at that time: So he would exalt that whiteness, above the whiteness of Snow, so as nothing might melt it, nothing discolour it, but that under the seal of his blessed Spirit, he might ever dwell in that calm, in that assurance, in that acquiescence, that as he is in a good state this minute, he shall be in no worse, whensoever God shall be pleased to translate him.
We end all the Psalms in our service, those of Praise, and those of Prayer too, with a Gloria Patri, Glory be to the Father, &c. For our conclusion of this Prayer in this Psalm, we have reserved a Gloria Patri too, This consideration for the glory of God, that though in the first Part, The Persons, the persons were varied, God and man, yet in our second Part, where we confider the work, the whole work is put into God's hand, and received from God's hand. Let God be true, and every man a liar; Let God be strong and every man infirm; Let God give, and man but receive. What man that hath no propriety therein, can take a penny out of another man's house, or a root out of his Garden, but the Law will take hold of him? Hath any man a propriety in Grace? what had he to give for it? Nature? Is Nature equivalent to Grace? No man does refine, and exalt Nature to the height it would bear, but if natural faculties were exalted to their highest, is Nature a fit exchange for Grace? and if it were, is Nature our own? Why should we be loath to acknowledge to have all our ability of doing good freely from God, and immediately by his grace, when as, even those faculties of Nature, by which we pretend to do the offices of Grace, we have from God himself too? For that question of the Apostle involves all, What hast thou that thou hast not received? Thy natural faculties are no more thine own, then the grace of God is thine own; I would not be beholden to God for Grace, and I must be as much beholden to him for Nature, if Nature do supply Grace; Because he hath made thee to be a man, he hath given thee natural faculties; because he hath vouchsafed thee to be a Christian, he hath given thee means of Grace. But, as thy body, conceived in thy Mothers womb, could not claim a soul at God's hand, nor wish a soul, no nor know that there was a soul to be had: So neither by being a man endued with natural faculties canst thou claim grace, or wish grace; nay those natural faculties, if they be not pre-tincted with some infusion of Grace before, cannot make thee know what Grace is, or that Grace is. To a child rightly disposed in the womb, God does give a soul; To a natural man rightly disposed in his natural faculties, God does give Grace; But that Soul was not due to that child, nor that grace to that man.
Therefore, (as we said at first) David does not bring the Hyssop, and pray God to make the potion, but, Do thou purge me with Hyssop, All is thine own; There was no pre-existent matter in the world, when God made the world; There is no pre-existent merit in man, when God makes him his. David does not say, Do thou wash me, and I will perfect thy work; Give me my portion of Grace, and I will trouble thee for no more, but deal upon that stock; But Qui sanctificatur, sanctificetur adhuc, Let him that is holy be more holy, but accept his Sanctification from him, of whom he had his Justification; and except he can think to glorify himself because he is sanctified, let him not think to sanctify himself because he is justified; God does all. Yet thus argues S. Augustine upon David's words, Tuus sum Domine, Lord I am thine, and therefore safer then they, that think themselves their own. Every man can and must say, I was thine, Thine by Creation; but few can say, I am thine, few that have not changed their Master. But how was David his so especially? says S. Augustine: Quia quaesivi justificationes tuas, as it follows there; Because I sought thy Righteousness, thy Justification. But where did he seek it? He sought it, and he found it in himself. In himself, as himself, there was no good thing to be found, how far soever he had sought: But yet he found a Justification, though of God's whole making, yet in himself.
So then, this is our Act of Recognition, we acknowledge God, and God only to do all; But we do not so make him Sovereign alone, as that we leave his presence naked, and empty; Nor so make him King alone, as that we depopulate his Country, and leave him without Subjects; Nor so leave all to Grace, as that the natural faculties of man do not become the servants, and instruments of that Grace. Let all, that we all seek, be, who may glorify God most; and we shall agree in this, That as the Pelagian wounds the glory of God deeply, in making Natural faculties joint-Commissioners with Grace, so do they diminish the glory of God too, if any deny natural faculties to be the subordinate servants and instruments of Grace; for as Grace could not work upon man to Salvation, if man had not a faculty of will to work upon, because without that will man were not man; so is this Salvation wrought in the will, by conforming this will of man to the will of God, not by extinguishing the will it self, by any force or constraint that God imprints in it by his Grace: God saves no man without, or against his will. Glory be to God on high, and on earth Peace, and Good will towards men; And to this God of Glory, the Father, and this God of Peace and reconciliation, the Son, and this God of Good will and love amongst men, the Holy Ghost, be ascribed all praise, &c.
PREBEND SERMONS Preached at S t . PAULS.
The first of the Prebend of Cheswicks five Psalms; which five are appointed for that Prebend; as there are five other, for every other of our thirty Prebendaries.
SERM. LXV. Preached at S. Paul's, May 8. 1625.
PSAL. 62.9.
Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie; To be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter then vanity.
W E consider the dignity of the Book of Psalms, either in the whole body together, or in the particular limbs and distribution thereof. Of the whole Body, it may be enough to tell you that which S. Basil saith, That if all the other books of Scripture could perish, there remained enough in the book of Psalms for the supply of all: And therefore he calls it Amuletum ad profligandum daemonem; Any Psalm is Exorcisme enough to expel any Devil, Charme enough to remove any temptation, Enchantment enough to ease, nay to sweeten any tribulation. It is abundantly enough that our Savior Christ himself cites the Psalms, not only as Canonical Scripture, but as a particular, and entire, and noble limb of that Body; All must be fulfilled of me, (saith he) which is written in the Law, in the Prophets, and in the Psalms. The Law alone was the Sadducees Scripture, they received no more: The Law and the Prophets were (especially) the Scribes Scripture, they interpreted that: The Christians Scripture, in the Old Testament, is especially the Psalms. For (except the Prophecy of Isaiah be admitted into the comparison) no book of the Old Testament is so like a Gospel, so particular in all things concerning Christ, as the Psalms.
So hath the Book of Psalms an especial dignity in the entire Body, all together. It hath so also in divers distributions thereof into parts. For even amongst the Jews themselves, those fifteen Psalms which follow immediately and successively after the 119. Psalm, were especially distinguished, and dignified by the name of Graduall Psalms; Whether because they were sung upon the Degrees and stairs ascending to the Altar, Or because he that read them in the Temple, ascended into a higher and more eminent place to read them, Or because the word Graduall implies a degree of excellency in the Psalms themselves, I dispute not; But a difference those fifteen Psalms ever had above the rest, in the Jewish and in the Christian Church too. So also hath there been a particular dignity ascribed to those seven Psalms, which we have ever called the Penitentiall Psalms; Of which S. Augustine had so much respect, as that he commanded them to be written in a great Letter, and hung about the curtains of his Death-bed within, that he might give up the ghost in contemplation, and meditation of those seven Psalms. And it hath been traditionally received, and recommended by good Authors, that that Hymn, which Christ and his Apostles are said to have sung after the Institution and celebration of the Sacrament, was a Hymn composed of those six Psalms, which we call the Allelujah Psalms, immediately preceding the hundred and nineteenth.
So then, in the whole Body, and in some particular limbs of the Body, the Church of God hath had an especial consideration of the book of Psalms. This Church in which we all stand now, and in which myself, by particular obligation serve, hath done so too. In this Church, by ancient Constitutions, it is ordained, That the whole book of Psalms should every day, day by day be rehearsed by us, who make the Body of this Church, in the ears of Almighty God. And therefore every Prebendary of this Church, is by those Constitutions bound every day to praise God in those five Psalms which are appointed for his Prebend. And of those five Psalms which belong to me, this, out of which I have read you this Text, is the first. And, by God's grace, (upon like occasions) I shall here handle some part of everyone of the other four Psalms, for some testimony, that those my five Psalms return often into my meditation, which I also assure myself of the rest of my brethren, who are under the same obligation in this Church.
For this whole Psalm, which is under our present consideration, as Athanasius amongst all the Fathers, was most curious, and most particular, and exquisite, in observing the purpose, and use of every particular Psalm, (for to that purpose, he goes through them all, in this manner; If thou wilt encourage men to a love, and pursuit of goodness, say the first Psalm, and 31. and 140, &c. If thou wilt convince the Jews, say the second Psalm; If thou wilt praise God for things past, say this, and this, And this, and this if thou wilt pray for future things) so for this Psalm, which we have in hand, he observes in it a summary abridgement of all; For of this Psalm he says in general, Adversus insidiantes, Against all attempts upon thy body, thy state, thy soul, thy fame, temptations, tribulations, machinations, defamations, say this Psalm. As he saith before, that in the book of Psalms, every man may discern motus animi sui, his own sinful inclinations expressed, and arm himself against himself; so in this Psalm, he may arm himself against all other adversaries of any kind. And therefore as the same Father entitles one Sermon of his, Contr a omnes heresies, A Sermon for the convincing of all Heresies, in which short Sermon he meddles not much with particular heresies, but only establishes the truth of Christ's Person in both natures, which is indeed enough against all Heresies, and in which (that is the consubstantiality of Christ with the Father, God of God) this Father Athanasius, hath enlarged himself more then the rest (insomuch, that those heretics which grow so fast, in these our days, The Socinians, (who deny the Godhead of Christ) are more vexed with that Father, then with any other, and call him for Athanasius, Sathanasius ) As he calls that Sermon, a Sermon against all Heresies, so he presents this Psalm against all Tentations, and Tribulations; Not that therein David puts himself to weigh particular temptations, and tribulations, but that he puts every man, in every trial, to put himself wholly upon God, and to know, that if man cannot help him in this world, nothing can; And, for man, Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie; To be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter then vanity.
We consider in the words, The manner, and the matter, How it is spoken, And what is said. For the first, the manner, this is not absolutely spoken, but comparatively, not peremptorily, but respectively, not simply, but with relation. The Holy Ghost, in David's mouth, doth not say, That man can give no assistance to man; That man may look for no help from man; But, that God is always so present, and so all-sufficient, that we need not doubt of him, nor rely upon any other, otherwise then as an instrument of his. For that which he had spread over all the verses of the Psalm before, he sums up in the verse immediately before the Text, Trust in God at all times, for he is a refuge for us; and then, he strengthens that with this, What would ye prefer before God, or join with God? man? what man? Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie; To be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter then vanity.
Which words being our second part, open to us these steps: First, that other Doctrines, moral or civil Instructions may be delivered to us possibly, and probably, and likely, and credibly, and under the like terms, and modifications, but this in our Text, is Assuredly, undoubtedly, undeniably, irrefragably, Surely men of low degree, &c. For howsoever when they two are compared together, with one another, it may admit discourse and disputation, whether men of high degree, or of low degree do most violate the laws of God; that is, whether prosperity or adversity make men most obnoxious to sin, yet, when they come to be compared, not with one another, but both with God, this asseveration, this surely reaches to both; Surely, The man of low degree is vanity, and, as Surely, The man of high degree is a lie. And though this may seem to leave some room, for men of middle ranks, and fortunes, and places, That there is a mediocrity, that might give an assurance, and an establishment, yet there is no such thing in this case, for (as surely still) to be laid in the balance, they are all, (not all of low, and all of high degree, all rich, and all poor, but) All, of all conditions, altogether lighter then vanity.
Now, all this doth not destroy, not extinguish, not annihilate that affection in man, of hope, and trust, and confidence in anything; but it rectifies that hope, and trust, and confidence, and directs it upon the right object: Trust not in flesh, but in spiritual things, That we neither bend our hopes downward, to infernal spirits, to seek help in Witches; nor miscarry it upward, to seek it in Saints, or Angels, but fix it in him, who is nearer us then our own souls, our blessed, and gracious, and powerful God, who in this one Psalm is presented unto us, by so many names of assurance and confidence, My expectation, my salvation, my rock, my defense, my glory, my strength, my refuge, and the rest.
First then these words, Surely men of low degree, and men of high degree are vanity, are not absolutely, simple, unconditionally spoken; Man is not nothing: Nay, it is so far from that, as that there is nothing but man. As, though there may be many other creatures living, which were not derived from Eve, and yet Eve is called Mater viventium, The Mother of all that live, because the life of none but man, is considered; so there be so many other Creatures, and Christ sends his Apostles to preach, Omni Creaturae, to every creature, yet he means none but Man. All that God did in making all other creatures, in all the other days, was but a laying in of Materials; The setting up of the work was in the making of Man. God had a picture of himself from all eternity; from all eternity, the Son of God was the Image of the invisible God; But then God would have one picture, which should be the picture of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost too, and so made man to the Image of the whole Trinity. As the Apostle argues, Cui dixit, To whom did God ever say, This day have I begotten thee, but to Christ? so we say, for the dignity of man, Cui dixit, of what creature did God ever say, Faciamus, Let us, us make it, All, all, the Persons together, and to employ, and exercise, not only Power, but Counsaile in the making of that Creature? Nay, when man was at worst, he was at a high price; man being fallen, yet then, in that undervalue, he cost God his own and only Son, before he could have him. Neither became the Son of God capable of redeeming man, by any less, or any other way, then by becoming man. The Redeemer must be better then he whom he is to redeem; and yet, he must abase himself to as low a nature as his; to his nature; else he could not redeem him. God was aliened from man, and yet God must become man, to recover man.
God joined man in Commission with himself, upon his Creation, in the Replete and Dominamini, when he gave Man power to possess the Earth, and subdue the Creature; And God hath made man so equal to himself, as not only to have a soul endless and immortal, as God himself, (though not endless and immortal as himself, yet endless and immortal as himself too, though not immortal the same way, (for God's immortality is of himself) yet as certainly, and as infallibly Immortal as he) but God hath not only given man such an immortal soul, but a body that shall put on Incorruption and Immortality too, which he hath given to none of the Angels. In so much, that howsoever it be, whether an Angel may wish it self an Archangel, or an Archangel wish it self a Cherubin; yet man cannot deliberately wish himself an Angel, because he should lose by that wish, and lack that glory, which he shall have in his body. We shall be like the Angels, says Christ; In that wherein we can be like them, we shall be like them, in the exalting and refining of the faculties of our souls; But they shall never attain to be like us in our glorified bodies. Neither hath God only reserved this treasure and dignity of man to the next world, but even here he hath made him filium Dei, The Son of God, and Semen Dei, The seed of God, and Consortem divinae naturae, Partaker of the divine Nature, and Deos ipsos, God's themselves, for Ille dixit Dii estis, he hath said we are God's. So that, as though the glory of heaven were too much for God alone, God hath called up man thither, in the ascension of his Son, to partake thereof; and as though one God were not enough for the administration of this world, God hath multiplied gods here upon Earth, and imparted, communicated, not only his power to every Magistrate, but the Divine nature to every sanctified man. David asks that question with a holy wonder, Quid est homo? What is man that God is so mindful of him? But I may have his leave, and the holy Ghosts, to say, since God is so mindful of him, since God hath set his mind upon him, What is not man? Man is all.
Since we consider men in the place that they hold, and value them according to those places, and ask not how they got thither, when we see Man made The Love of the Father, The Price of the Son, The Temple of the Holy Ghost, The Signet upon God's hand, The Apple of God's eye, Absolutely, unconditionally we cannot annihilate man, not evacuate, not evaporate, not extenuate man to the levity, to the vanity, to the nullity of this Text (Surely men altogether, high and low, are lighter then vanity.) For, man is not only a contributary Creature, but a total Creature; He does not only make one, but he is all; He is not a piece of the world, but the world it self; and next to the glory of God, the reason why there is a world.
But we must not determine this consideration here, That man is something, a great thing, a noble Creature, if we refer him to his end, to his interest in God, to his reversion in heaven; But when we consider man in his way, man amongst men, man is not nothing, not unable to assist man, not unfit to be relied upon by man; for, even in that respect also, God hath made Hominem homini Deum, He hath made one man able to do the offices of God to another, in procuring his regeneration here, and advancing his salvation hereafter; As he says, Savior's shall come up on Mount Zion; which is the Church. Neither hath God determined that power of assisting others, in the Character of Priesthood only, (that the Priest should be a god, that is, do the offices and the work of God to the people, by delivering salvation unto them) but he hath also made the Prince, and the secular Magistrate, a god, that is able to do the offices, and the works of God, not only to the people, but to the Priest himself, to sustain him, yea, and to countenance, and favor, and protect him too, in the execution and exercise of his priestly office; As we see in the first plantation of those two great Cedars, The Secular, and the Ecclesiastical Power, (which, that they might always agree like brethren, God planted at first in those two brethren, Moses and Aaron ) There, though Moses were the temporal, and Aaron the spiritual Magistrate, yet God says to Moses, I have made thee a God to Pharaoh, (but not only to Pharaoh ) but Aaron thy brother shall be thy Prophet; for, (as he had said before) Thou shalt be to him instead of a God. So useful, so necessary is man to man, as that the Priest, who is of God, incorporated in God, subsists also by man; for, Principes hujus seculi rationem reddituri sunt, The Princes of this world must give God an account, Propter Ecclesiam, quam à Christo tuendam susceperunt, for that Church, which Christ hath committed to their protection. In spiritual difficulties, and for spiritual duties, God sends us to the Priest; but to such a Priest as is a man; and (as our comfort is expressed) A Priest which was touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and was in all points tempted like as we are: for the businesses of this world, Rights, and Titles, and Proprieties, and Possessions, God sends us still to the Judge; (Judges and officers shalt thou make in all thy gates) Judges to try between man and man; And the sword in battle tries between State and State, Prince and Prince; And therefore God commands and directs the levying of men to that purpose, in many places of the history of his people; particularly God appoints Gideon to take a certain proportion of the army, a certain number of Soldiers. And in another place, there goes out a press for Soldiers from Moses mouth; He presses them upon their holy allegiance to God, when he says, Who is on the Lord's side, let him come unto me. So, in infirmities, in sicknesses of the body, we ask with the Prophet, Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no Physician there? God does not reprove Asa for seeking of help of the Physicians; but the increpation lies only upon this, That he sought to the Physician, and not to the Lord. God sends man to the Priest, to the Prince, to the Judge, to the Physician, to the Soldier, and so, (in other places) to the Merchant, and to cunning Artificers, (as in the building of the Temple) that all that man needs might be communicated to man by man.
So that still, simply, absolutely, unconditionally, we cannot say, Surely men, men altogether, high or low, or mean, all are less then vanity. And surely they that pervert and detort such words as these, to such a use, and argue from thence, Man is nothing, no more then a worm or a fly, and therefore what needs this solemn consideration of man's actions, it is all one what he does, for all his actions, and himself too are nothing; They do this but to justify or excuse their own laziness in this world, in passing on their time, without taking any Calling, embracing any profession, contributing anything to the spiritual edification, or temporal sustentation of other men. But take the words, as the Holy Ghost intends them, comparatively, what man compared with God, or what man considered without God, can do anything for others, or for himself? When the Apostle says, That all the world is but dung, when the Prophet says, That all the Nations of the world are less then nothing, when the Apostle says even of himself, that he is nothing, all this is nothing in comparison of that expression in the same Apostle, That even the preaching of the Gospel is foolishness, That that which is the favor of life unto life, God's own Ordinance, Preaching, is but foolishness; Let it be a Paul that plants, and an Apollo that waters, if God give not increase, all is but frivolousnesse, but foolishness; And therefore boldly, confidently, uncontroulably we may proceed to the propositions of our Text, which constitute our second part, Man, any man, every man, all men, collectively, distributively, considered so, (comparatively with God, or privatively without God) is but a lie, but vanity, less then vanity.
To make our best use of the words, (as our translation exhibits them) we make our entrance, with this word of confidence, and infallibility, which only becomes the holy Ghost, in his asseverations, and in which he establishes the propositions following; Surely, surely men of low degree, and as surely, men of high, and, surely still all men together, are lighter then vanity. Men deliver their assertions otherwise modified, and under other qualifications. They obtrude to us miraculous doctrines of Transubstantiation, and the like, upon a possibility only; It may be done, say they, It is possible, God can do it. But that is far from the assurednesse of the Holy Ghost, Surely it is so; for Asylum hareticorum, est omnipotentia Dei, is excellently said, and by more then one of the Fathers, The omnipotence of God is the Sanctuary of Heretics, Thither they fly, to countenance any such error; This God can do, why should you not believe it? Men proceed in their asseverations farther then so, from this possibility to a probability; It will abide argument, it hath been disputed in the School, and therefore is probable; why should not you believe it? And so they offer us the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin without Original sin; But this probability reaches not to this assurednesse of our text, surely. They will go farther then this probability, to a verisimilitude, it is more then merely possible, more then fairly probable, it is likely to be so; some of the ancient Fathers have thought so; and then, why should not you believe it? and so they offer us prayer for the dead. Farther then this verisimilitude they go too; They go to a Pie creditor, It may be piously believed, and it is fit to believe it, because it may assist and exalt devotion to think so; And then why should you not believe it? And so they offer us the worship of Images and Relics 〈◊〉 But still, all this comes short of our assurednesse, Surely, undoubtedly, undisputably it is so.
And when the Roman Church would needs counter • it the language of the Holy Ghost, and pronounce this sureness upon so many new Articles in the Council of Trent, it hath not prospered well with them; for we all know, they have repented that forwardness since, and wished they had not determined so many particulars to be matter of fait •• because after such a determination by a Council, they have bound themselves not to recede from those doctrines, how unmaintenable soever they be in themselves, or how inconvenient soever they fall out to be to them. And therefore we see, that in all the solicitations that can be used, even by Princes, to whom they are most affected, they will not come now to pronounce so surely, to determine so positively upon divers points that rest yet in perplexity amongst them. Which hath raised so many commotions in the kingdom of Spain, and put more then one of their later Kings, to send divers Ambassages to Rome, to solicit a clear declaration in that point, but could never, nor can yet attain it, that is, The immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin without Original sin. So also, for the obligation that the laws of secular Magistrates lay upon the Conscience, so also for the Concurrence of Grace, and Free-will, and divers others; in which they will not be drawn to this, Surely, to determine and declare of either side; for, indeed that is the language of the Holy Ghost.
It hath been observed amongst Philosophers, that Plato speaks probably, and Aristotle positively; Plato's way is, It may be thus, and Aristotle's, It must be thus. The like hath been noted amongst Divines, between Calvin, and Melanchthon; Calvin will say, Videtur, It seems to be thus, Melanchthon, It can be no otherwise but thus. But the best men are but Problematicall, Only the Holy Ghost is Dogmatical; Only he subscribes this surely, and only he seals with Infallibility. Our dealings are appointed to be in yea, yea, and nay, nay, and no farther; But all the promises of God are yea, and Amen, that is, surely, verily; for that is his Name; These things saith The Amen, He that is Amen. And it is not (I hope) an impertinent note, That that Evangelist S. John, who considers the Divinity of Christ, more then the other Evangelists do, does evermore, constantly, without any change, double that which was Christ's ordinary asseveration, Amen. As oft as the other Evangelists mention it in Christ's mouth, still they express it with one Amen, verily I say; S. John always, Amen, Amen, verily, verily, it is thus and thus. The nearer we come to the consideration of God, the farther we are removed from all contingencies, and all inclination to Error, and the more is this Amen, verily, surely, multiplied and established unto us.
It is in doctrines and opinions, as it is in designs and purposes; Go to, (says the Prophet, by way of reprehension) Go to, you that say, we will go to such a City, and trade thus and thus there, &c. So, go to, you that pronounce upon every invention, and Tradition of your own, a Quicunque vult salvus esse, Whosoever will be saved, must believe this, and clog every problematicall proposition with an Anathema, Cursed be he, Excommunicated he that thinks the contrary to this; Go to you, that make matters of faith of the passions of men. So also, go to you that proceed and continue in your sins, and say, Surely I shall have time enough to repent hereafter. Go to you that in a spiritual and irreligious melancholy and diffidence in God's mercy, say, Surely the Lord hath locked up his mercy from me, surely I shall never see that Sun more, never receive, never feel beam of his mercy more, but pass through this darkness into a worse. This word, surely, in such cases, in such senses, is not your mothers tongue, not the language of the Christian Church. She teaches you, to condition all in Christ; In him you are enabled to do all things, and without him nothing. But absolutely, unconditionally, this surely is appropriated to the propositions, to the assertions of God himself; And some of those follow in this text.
Now that which the Holy Ghost presents here upon this assurednesse, is, That men of low degree are vanity, and that men of high degree are a lie; These are both sure, and alike sure. It is true that it constitutes a Problem, that it admits a Discourse, it will abide a debatement, whether men of high degree, or of low degree be worst; whether riches or poverty, (both considered in a great measure, very rich, and very poor) Prosperity or Adversity occasion most sins. Though God call upon us in every leaf of the Scripture, to pity the poor, and relieve the poor, and ground his last Judgment upon our works of mercy, (Because you have fed and clothed the poor, inherit the kingdom) yet, as the rich and the poor stand before us now, (as it were in Judgment) as we inquire and hear evidence, which stato •• most obnoxious, and open to most sins, we embrace, and apply to ourselves that law, Thou shalt not countenance a poor man in his cause; And (as it is repeated) Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor in Judgment.
There is then a poverty, which, without all question, is the direct way to heaven; but that is spiritual; Blessed are the poor in spirit. This poverty is humility, it is not beggary. A rich man may have it, and a beggar may be without it. The Wiseman found not this poverty, (not humility) in every poor man. He found three sorts of men, whom his soul hated; And one of the three, was a poor man that is proud. And when the Prophet said of Jerusalem in her afflictions, Paupercula es & ebria, Thou art poor, and miserable, and yet drunk, though (as he adds there) it were not with wine, (which is now, in our days an ordinary refuge of men of all sorts, in all sadnesses and crosses to relieve themselves upon wine and strong drink, which are indeed strong illusions) yet, though Jerusalem's drunkenness were not with wine, it was worse; It was a staggering, a vertiginousnesse, an ignorance, a blindness, a not discerning the ways to God; which is the worst drunkenness, and falls often upon the poor and afflicted, That their poverty and affliction staggers them, and damps them in their recourse to God, so far, as that they know not, That they are miserable, and wretched, and poor, and blind, and raked. The Holy Ghost always makes the danger of the poor great, as well as of the rich. The rich man's wealth is his strong City. There is his fault, his confidence in that; But Pavor pauperum, The destruction of the poor is his poverty; There is his fault, Desperation under it. Solomon presents them, as equally dangerous, Give me neither poverty, nor riches. So does Booz to Ruth, Blessed be thou of the Lord, my daughter, in as much as thou followedst not young men, whether poor, or rich. That which Booz intended there, Incontinency, and all vices that arise immediately out of the corruption of nature, and are not induced by other circumstances, have as much inclination from poverty, as from riches. May we not say, more? I doubt we may. He must be a very sanctified man, whom extreme poverty, and other afflictions, do not decline towards a jealousy, and a suspicion, and a distrusting of God; And then, the sins that bend towards desperation, are so much more dangerous, then those that bend towards presumption, that he that presumes, hath still mercy in his contemplation, He does not think, that he needs no mercy, but that mercy is easily had; He believes there is mercy, he doubts not of that; But the despairing man imagines a cruelty, an unmercifulness in God, and destroys the very nature of God himself. Riches is the Metaphor, in which, the Holy Ghost hath delighted to express God and Heaven to us; Despise not the riches of his goodness, says the Apostle; And again, O the depth of the riches of his wisdom; And so, after, The unsearchable riches of Christ; And for the consummation of all, The riches of his Glory, God's goodness towards us in general, our Religion in the way, his Grace here, his Glory hereafter, are all represented to us in Riches. With poverty God ordinarily accompanies his comminations; he threatens feebleness, and war, and captivity, and poverty everywhere, but he never threatens men with riches.
Ordinary poverty, (that is a difficulty, with all their labors, and industry to sustain their family, and the necessary duties of their place) is a shrewd, and a slippery temptation. But for that street-beggary, which is become a Calling, (for Parents bring up their children to it, nay they do almost take prentises to it, some expert beggars teach others what they shall say, how they shall look, how they shall lie, how they shall cry) for these, whom our laws call Incorrigible, I must say of them (in a just accommodation of our Savior's words, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs ) It is not meet, that this vermin should devour any of that, which belongs to them who are truly poor. Neither is there any measure, any proportion of riches, that exposes man naturally to so much sin, as this kind of beggary doth. Rich men forget, or neglect the duties of their Baptism; but of these, how many are there, that were never baptized? Rich men sleep out Sermons, but these never come to Church: Rich men are negligent in the practice, but these are ignorant in all knowledge.
It would require a longer disquisition, then I can afford to it now, whether Riches, or Poverty (considered in lesser proportions, ordinary riches, ordinary poverty) open us to more, and worse sins; But consider them in the highest and in the lowest, abundant riches, beggarly poverty, and it will scarce admit doubt, but that the incorrigible vagabond is farther from all ways of goodness, then the corruptest rich man is. And therefore labor we all earnestly in the ways of some lawful calling, that we may have our portion of this world by good means. For first, the advantages of doing good to others in a real relief of their wants, is in the rich only, whereas the best way of a good poor man, to do good to others, is but an exemplary patience, to catechize others by his suffering; And then, all degrees of poverty are dangerous and slippery, even to a murmuring against God, or an invading of the possessions, and goods of other men, but especially the lowest, the desperate degree of beggary, and then especially, when we cannot say it is inflicted by the hand of God, but contracted by our own laziness, or our own wastfulnesse.
This is a problematicall, a disputable case, Whether riches or poverty occasion most sins. And because on both sides there arise good doctrines of edification, I have thus far willingly stopped upon that disputable consideration. But now, that which we receive here, upon David's, upon the Holy Ghosts security, Surely it is thus, It is surely so, is this, That we shall be deceived, if we put our trust in men; for, what sort of men would we trust? Surely men of low degree are vanity. And this, if it be taken of particular men, needs no proving, no illustrating, no remembering. Every man sees and acknowledges, that to rely upon a man of no power, of no place, no blood, no fortune, no friends, no favor, is a vanity, Surely men of low degree are vanity. The first younger brother that was borne in the world, because he was less then another, is called by the very name of vanity; The eldest brother Cain signifies possession, but Abel is vanity.
But take it of a whole body of such men, Men of low degree, and it is so too; the Applause of the people is vanity, Popularity is vanity. At how dear a rate doth that man buy the people's affections, that pays his own head for their hats? How cheaply doth he sell his Princes favor, that hath nothing for it, but the people's breath? And what age doth not see some examples of so ill merchants of their own honors and lives too? How many men, upon confidence of that flattering gale of wind, the breath and applause of the people, have taken in their anchors, (that is, departed from their true, and safe hold, The right of the Law, and the favor of the Prince) and as soon as they hoysed their sails, (that is, entered into any by-action) have found the wind in their teeth, that is, Those people whom they trusted in, armed against them. And as it is in Civil, and Secular, so it is in Ecclesiastical, and Spiritual things too. How many men, by a popular hunting after the applause of the people, in their manner of preaching, and humouring them in their distempers, have made themselves incapable of preferment in the Church where they took their Orders, and preached themselves into a necessity of running away into foreign parts, that are receptacles of seditious and schismatical Separatists, and have been put there, to learn some trade, and become Artificers for their sustentation? The same people that welcommed Christ, from the Mount of Olives, into Jerusalem, upon Sunday, with their Hosannaes to the Son of David, upon Friday mocked him in Jerusalem, with their Hail King of the Jews, and blew him out of Jerusalem to Golgotha, with the pestilent breath, with the tempestuous whirlwind of their Crucifige's. And of them, who have called the Master Beelzebub, what shall any servant look for? Surely men of low degree are vanity.
And then, under the same oath, and asseveration, Surely, as surely as the other, men of high degree are a lie. Doth David mean these men, whom he calls a lie, to be any less then those whom he called vanity? Less then vanity, then emptiness, then nothing, nothing can be; And low, and high are to this purpose, and in this consideration, (compared with God, or considered without God) equally nothing. He that hath the largest patrimony, and space of earth, in the earth, must hear me say, That all that was nothing; And if he ask, But what was this whole Kingdom, what all Europe, what all the World? It was all, not so much as another nothing, but all one and the same nothing as thy dunghill was. But yet the Holy Ghost hath been pleased to vary the phrase here, and to call Men of high degree, not vanity, but a lie, because the poor, men of low degree, in their condition promise no assistance, feed not men with hopes, and therefore cannot be said to lie, but in the condition of men of high degree, who are of power, there is a tacit promise, a natural and inherent assurance of protection, and assistance, flowing from them. For, the Magistrate cannot say, That he never promised me Justice, never promised me Protection; for in his assuming that place, he made me that promise. I cannot say, that I never promised my Parish, my service; for in my Induction, I made them that promise, and if I perform it not, I am a lie; for so this word Chasab (which we translate a lie ) is frequently used in the Scriptures, for that which is defective in the duty it should perform; Thou shalt be a spring of water, (says God in Isaiah ) Cujus aquae non mentiuntur, mhose waters never lie, that is, never dry, never fail.
So then, when men of high degree do not perform the duties of their places, then they are a lie of their own making; And when I over-magnify them in their place, flatter them, humor them, ascribe more to them, expect more from them, rely more upon them, then I should, then they are a lie of my making. But whether the lie be theirs, That they fear greater men then themselves, and so prevaricate in their duties; Or the lie be mine, that canonize them and make them my God, they, and I shall be disappointed; for, Surely men of high degree are a lie. But we are upon a Sermon, not upon a Satyr, therefore we pass from this.
And, for all this, there may seem to be room left for the Middle-state, for a mediocrity; when it is not so low as to be made the subject of oppression, nor so high as to be made the object of ambition, when it is neither exposed to scorn and contempt, nor to envy, and undermining, may we not then trust upon, not rest in such a condition? Indeed, this mediocrity seems (and justly) the safest condition; for this, and this only enjoys it self: The lazy man gets not up to it; The stirring man stays not at it, but is gone beyond it. From our first Themes at School, to our Texts in the Pulpit, we continue our praising and persuading of this mediocrity. A man may have too much of anything; Anima saturata, A full soul will tread honey under his seete; He may take in knowledge till he be ignorant; Let the Prophet Jeremiah give the Rule, Stultus factus est omnis homo à scientia, Every man becomes a fool by knowledge, by over-weening, and over-valuing his knowledge; And let Adam be the example of this Rule, His eyes were opened by eating the fruit, and he knew so much, as he was ashamed of it; Let the Apostle be the Physician, the moderator, Sapere ad sobrietatem, not to dive into secrets, and unrevealed mysteries. There is enough of this doctrine involved in the fable, Acteon saw more then he should have seen, and perished. There is abundantly enough expressed in the Oracle of Truth, Uzzah was over-zealous in an office that appertained not to him, in assisting the Ark, and suffered for that.
We may quickly exceed a mediocrity, even in the praise of Mediocrity. But all our diligence will scarce find it out. What is mediocrity? Or where is it? In the Hierarchy of the Roman Church they never thought of this mediocrity; They go very high, and very low, but there is no mean station; I mean no denomination of any Order from meanness, from mediocrity. In one degree you find embroidered shoes, for Kings to kiss, and in another degree bare feet; we find an Order of the Society of Jesus; and that is very high, for, Society implies community, partnership; And we find low descents, Minorits, men less then others, And Minims, least of all men; and lower then all them, Nullans, men that call themselves, Nothing; And truly, this Order, best of all others hath answered and justified the name, for, very soon, they came to nothing. We find all extremes amongst them, even in their names, but none denominated from this mediocrity.
But to pass from names to the thing; indeed what is Mediocrity? where is it? Is it the same thing as Competency? But what is competency? or where is that? Is it that which is sufficient for thy present degree? perchance thy present degree is not sufficient for thee; Thy charge perchance, perchance thy parts and abilities, or thy birth and education may require a better degree. God produced plants in Paradise therefore, that they might grow; God hath planted us in this world, that we might grow; and he that does not endeavor that by all lawful means, is inexcusable, as well as he that pursues unlawful. But, if I come to imagine such a mediocrity, such a competency, such a sufficiency in myself, as that I may rest in that, that I think I may ride out all storms, all dis-favors, that I have enough of mine own, wealth, health, or moral constancy, if any of these decay, this is a verier vanity, then trusting in men of low degree, and a verier lie, then men of high degree; for, this is to trust to ourselves; this is a sacrificing to our own nets, our own industry, our own wisdom, our own fortune; And of all the Idolatries of the Heathen, who made God's of everything they saw or imagined, of everything, in, and between Heaven and hell, we read of no man that sacrificed to himself. Indeed no man flatters me so dangerously, as I flatter myself, no man wounds me so desperately, as I wound myself; And therefore, since this which we call Mediocrity, and Competency is conditioned so, that it is enough to subsist alone, without relation to others, dependency upon others, fear from others, induces a confidence, a relying upon myself; As, that which we imagine to be the middle region of the air, is the coldest of all, So this imagined mediocrity, that induces a confidence in ourselves, is the weakest rest, the coldest comfort of all, and makes me a lie to myself. Therefore may the Prophet well spread, and safely extend his asseveration, his Surely, upon all, high, and low, and mean; Surely to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter then vanity.
Here then, upon a full enumeration of all parts, the Prophet concludes upon all. If therefore thou have the favor of great ones, the applause of the people, confidence in thyself, in an instant, the power of those great ones may be overthrown, or their favor to thee withdrawn from thee, (and so, that bladder is pricked, upon which thou swommest) The applause of the people may be hushed and silenced, (either they would not, or they dare not magnify thee) And, thine own constancy may be turned into a dejection of spirit, and consternation of all thy faculties. Put all together, (which falls out seldom, that any man can do so) but if he can do that, (which is the best state of man, that can be imagined in this world, that he hath all these together, the favor of High and low, and of himself, that is, his own testimony in his conscience, (though perchance an erring, a mistaking conscience) yet, the Prophet had delivered the same assurance before (even of that state of man, which is rather imagined, then ever possessed) Surely every man, at his best state, is altogether vanity; And here, he adds, lighter then vanity. Vanity is nothing, but there is a condition worse then nothing. Confidence in the things, or persons of this world, but most of all, a confidence in ourselves, will bring us at last to that state, wherein we would fain be nothing, and cannot. But yet, we have a balance in our text; And all these are but put together in one balance. In the other scale there is something put to, in comparison whereof all this world is so light. God does not leave our great and noble faculty, and affection of hope, and trust, and confidence, without something to direct it self upon, and rectify it self in. He does not; for, for that he proposes himself; The words immediately before the text, are, God is a refuge; and in comparison of him, To be laid in the balance, Surely they are altogether lighter then vanity.
So then, it is not enough not to trust in the flesh (for, for that, Cursed be man, that trusted in man, or maketh flesh his arm; Their flesh cannot secure thee, neither is thine own flesh brass, that thou canst endure the vexations of this world, neither can flesh and blood reveal unto thee the things of the next world) It is not enough not to trust in flesh, but thou must trust in that that is Spirit. And when thou art to direct thy trust upon him, who is spirit, the spirit of power, and of consolation, stop not, stray not, divert not upon evil spirits, to seek advancement, or to seek knowledge from them, nor upon good spirits, the glorious Saints of GOD in Heaven, to seek salvation from them, nor upon thine own spirit, in an over-valuation of thy purity, or thy merits. For, there is a pestilent pride in an imaginary humility, and an infectious foulness in an imaginary purity; but turn only to the only invisible and immortal God, who turns to thee, in so many names and notions of power, and consolation, in this one Psalm. In the last verse but one of this Psalm, David says, God bath spoken once, and twice have I heard him. God hath said enough at once; but twice, in this Psalm, hath he repeated this, in the second, and in the sixth verse, He only is my Rock, and my Salvation, and my Defense, And, (as it is enlarged in the seventh verse) my Refuge, and my Glory. If my Refuge, what enemy can pursue me? If my Defense, what temptation shall wound me? If my Rock, what storm shall shake me? If my Salvation, what melancholy shall deject me? If my Glory, what calumny shall defame me?
I must not stay you now, to infuse into you, the several consolations of these several names, and notions of God towards you. But, go your several ways home, and every soul take with him that name, which may minister most comfort unto him. Let him that is pursued with any particular temptation, invest God, as God is a Refuge, a Sanctuary. Let him that is buffeted with the messenger of Satan, battered with his own concupiscence, receive God, as God is his Defenoe and target. Let him that is shaked with perplexities in his understanding, or scruples in his conscience, lay hold upon God, as God is his Rock, and his anchor. Let him that hath any diffident jealousy or suspicion of the free and full mercy of God, apprehend God, as God is his Salvation; And him that walks in the ingloriousnesse and contempt of this world, contemplate God, as God is his Glory. Any of these notions is enough to any man, but God is all these, and all else, that all souls can think, to every man. We shut up both these Considerations, (man should not, (that is not all) God should be relied upon) with that of the Prophet, Trust ye not in a friend, put not your confidence in a guide, keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lies in thy bosom; (there is the exclusion of trust in man) and then he adds in the seventh verse, because it stands thus between man and man, I will look unto the Lord, I will look to the God of my Salvation, my God will hear me.
SERM. LXVI. The second of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalms. Preached at S. Paul's, January 29. 1625.
PSAL. 63.7.
Because thou hast been my help, Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.
T He Psalms are the Manna of the Church. As Manna tasted to every man like that that he liked best, so do the Psalms minister Instruction, and satisfaction, to every man, in every emergency and occasion. David was not only a clear Prophet of Christ himself, but a Prophet of every particular Christian; He foretells what I, what any shall do, and suffer, and say. And as the whole book of Psalms is Oleum effusum, (as the Spouse speaks of the name of Christ) an Ointment poured out upon all sorts of sores, A Searcloth that souples all bruises, A Balm that searches all wounds; so are there some certain Psalms, that are Imperial Psalms, that command over all affections, and spread themselves over all occasions, Catholic, universal Psalms, that apply themselves to all necessities. This is one of those; for, of those Constitutions which are called Apostolical, one is, That the Church should meet every day, to sing this Psalm. And accordingly, S. Chrysostom testifies, That it was decreed, and ordained by the Primitive Fathers, that no day should pass without the public singing of this Psalm. Under both these obligations, (those ancient Constitutions, called the Apostles, and those ancient Decrees made by the primitive Fathers) belongs to me, who have my part in the service of God's Church, the especial meditation, and recommendation of this Psalm. And under a third obligation too, That it is one of those five psalms, the daily rehearsing whereof, is enjoined to me, by the Constitutions of this Church, as five other are to every other person of our body. As the whole book is Manna, so these five Psalms are my Gomer, which I am to fill and empty every day of this Manna.
Now as the spirit and soul of the whole book of Psalms is contracted into this psalm, so is the spirit and soul of this whole psalm contracted into this verse. The key of the psalm, (as S. Jerome calls the Titles of the psalms) tells us, that David uttered this psalm, when he was in the wilderness of Iudab; There we see the present occasion that moved him; And we see what was passed between God and him before, in the first clause of our Text; (Because thou hast been my help) And then we see what was to come, by the rest, (Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.) So that we have here the whole compass of Time, Past, Present, and Future; and these three parts of Time, shall be at this time, the three parts of this Exercise; first, what David's distress put him upon for the present; and that lies in the Context; secondly, how David built his assurance upon that which was past; (Because thou hast been my help) And thirdly, what he established to himself for the future, (Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.) First, His distress in the Wilderness, his present estate carried him upon the memory of that which God had done for him before. And the Remembrance of that carried him upon that, of which he assured himself after. Fixe upon God anywhere, and you shall find him a Circle; He is with you now, when you fix upon him; He was with you before, for he brought you to this fixation; and he will be with you hereafter, for He is yesterday, and today; and the same forever.
For David's present condition, who was now in a banishment, in a persecution in the Wilderness of Judah, (which is our first part) we shall only insist upon that, (which is indeed spread over all the psalm to the Text, and ratified in the Text) That in all those temporal calamities David was only sensible of his spiritual loss; It grieved him not that he was kept from Saul's Court, but that he was kept from God's Church. For when he says, by way of lamentation, That he was in a dry and thirsty land, where no water was, he expresses what penury, what barrenness, what drought and what thirst he meant; To see thy power, and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the Sanctuary. For there, my soul shall be satisfied as with marrow, and with satnesse, and there, my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips. And in some few considerations conducing to this, That spiritual losses are incomparably heavier then temporal, and that therefore, The Restitution to our spiritual happiness, or the continuation of it, is rather to be made the subject of our prayers to God, in all pressures and distresses, then of temporal, we shall determine that first part. And for the particular branches of both the other parts, (The Remembering of God's benefits past, And the building of an assurance for the future, upon that Remembrance) it may be fitter to open them to you, anon when we come to handle them, then now. Proceed we now to our first part, The comparing of temporal and spiritual afflictions.
In the way of this Comparison, falls first the Consideration of the universality of afflictions in general, and the inevitablenesse thereof. It is a blessed Meraphore, that the Holy Ghost hath put into the mouth of the Apostle, Pondus Gloriae, That our afflictions are but light, because there is an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory attending them. If it were not for that exceeding weight of glory, no other weight in this world could turn the scale, or weigh down those infinite weights of afflictions that oppress us here. There is not only Pestis valde gravis, (the pestilence grows heavy upon the Land) but there is Musca valde gravis, God calls in but the fly, to vex Egypt, and even the fly is a heavy burden unto them. It is not only Job that complains, That he was a burden to himself, but even Absalom's hair was a burden to him, till it was polled. It is not only Jeremiah that complains, Aggravavit compedes, That God had made their fetters and their chains heavy to them, but the workmen in harvest complain, That God had made a fair day heavy unto them, (We have borne the heat, and the burden of the day.) Sand is heavy, says Solomon; And how many suffer so? under a sand-hill of crosses, daily, hourly afflictions, that are heavy by their number, if not by their single weight? And a stone is heavy; (says he in the same place) And how many suffer so? How many, without any former preparatory cross, or comminatory, or commonitory cross, even in the midst of prosperity, and security, fall under someone stone, some grind-stone, some mil-stone, someone insupportable cross that ruins them? But then, (says Solomon there) A fools anger is heavier then both; And how many children, and servants, and wives suffer under the anger, and morosity, and peevishness, and jealousy of foolish Masters, and Parents, and Husbands, though they must not say so? David and Solomon have cried out, That all this world is vanity, and levity; And (God knows) all is weight, and burden, and heaviness, and oppression; And if there were not a weight of future glory to counterpoyse it, we should all sink into nothing.
I ask not Mary Magdalene, whether lightness were not a burden; (for sin is certainly, sensibly a burden) But I ask Susanna whether even chaste beauty were not a burden to her; And I ask Joseph whether personal comeliness were not a burden to him. I ask not Dives, who perished in the next world, the question; but I ask them who are made examples of Solomon's Rule, of that sore evil, (as he calls it) Riches kept to the owners thereof for their hurt, whether Riches be not a burden.
All our life is a continual burden, yet we must not groan; A continual squeasing, yet we must not pant; And as in the tenderness of our childhood, we suffer, and yet are whipt if we cry, so we are complained of, if we complain, and made delinquents if we call the times ill. And that which adds weight to weight, and multiplies the sadness of this consideration, is this, That still the best men have had most laid upon them. As soon as I hear God say, that he hath found an upright man, that fears God, and eschews evil, in the next lines I find a Commission to Satan, to bring in Sabaeans and Chaldeans upon his cattle, and servants, and fire and tempest upon his children, and loathsome diseases upon himself. As soon as I hear God say, That he hath found a man according to his own heart, I see his sons ravish his daughters, and then murder one another, and then rebel against the Father, and put him into straits for his life. As soon as I hear God testify of Christ at his Baptism, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, I find that Son of his led up by the Spirit, to be tempted of the Devil. And after I hear God ratify the same testimony again, at his Transfiguration, (This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased) I find that beloved Son of his, deserted, abandoned, and given over to Scribes, and Pharisees, and Publicans, and Herodians, and Priests, and Soldiers, and people, and Judges, and witnesses, and executioners, and he that was called the beloved Son of God, and made partaker of the glory of heaven, in this world, in his Transfiguration, is made now the Sewer of all the corruption, of all the sins of this world, as no Son of God, but a mere man, as no man, but a contemptible worm. As though the greatest weakness in this world, were man, and the greatest fault in man were to be good, man is more miserable then other creatures, and good men more miserable then any other men.
But then there is Pondus Gloriae, An exceeding weight of eternal glory, and that turns the scale; for as it makes all worldly prosperity as dung, so it makes all worldly adversity as feathers. And so it had need; for in the scale against it, there are not only put temporal afflictions, but spiritual too; And to these two kinds, we may accommodate those words, He that falls upon this stone, (upon temporal afflictions) may be bruised, broken, But he upon whom that stone falls, (spiritual afflictions) is in danger to be ground to powder. And then, the great, and yet ordinary danger is, That these spiritual afflictions grow out of temporal; Murmuring, and diffidence in God, and obduration, out of worldly calamities; And so against nature, the fruit is greater and heavier then the Tree, spiritual heavier then temporal afflictions.
They who write of Natural story, propose that Plant for the greatest wonder in nature, which being no firmer then a bull-rush, or a reed, produces and bears for the fruit thereof no other but an entire, and very hard stone. That temporal affliction should produce spiritual stoniness, and obduration, is unnatural, yet ordinary. Therefore doth God propose it, as one of those greatest blessings, which he multiplies upon his people, I will take away your stony hearts, and give you hearts of flesh; And, Lord let me have a fleshly heart in any sense, rather then a stony heart. We find mention amongst the observers of rarities in Nature, of hairy hearts, hearts of men, that have been overgrown with hair; but of petrified hearts, hearts of men grown into stone, we read not; for this petrefaction of the heart, this stupefaction of a man, is the last blow of God's hand upon the heart of man in this world. Those great afflictions which are poured out of the Vials of the seven Angels upon the world, are still accompanied with that heavy effect, that that affliction hardened them. They were scorched with heats and plagues, by the fourth Angel, and it follows, They blasphemed the name of God, and repented not, to give him glory. Darkness was induced upon them by the fifth Angel, and it follows, They blasphemed the God of heaven, and repented not of their deeds. And from the seventh Angel there fell hailstones of the weight of talents, (perchance four pound weight) upon men; And yet these men had so much life left, as to blaspheme God, out of that respect, which alone should have brought them to glorify God, Because the plague thereof was exceeding great. And when a great plague brings them to blaspheme, how great shall that second plague be, that comes upon them for blaspheming?
Let me wither and wear out mine age in a discomfortable, in an unwholesome, in a penurious prison, and so pay my debts with my bones, and recompense the wastfulnesse of my youth, with the beggary of mine age; Let me wither in a spittle under sharp, and foul, and in famous diseases, and so recompense the wantonness of my youth, with that loath somnesse in mine age; yet, if God with draw not his spiritual blessings, his Grace, his Patience, If I can call my suffering his Doing, my passion his Action, All this that is temporal, is but a caterpiller got into one corner of my garden, but a mill-dew fallen upon one acre of my Corn; The body of all, the substance of all is safe, as long as the soul is safe. But when I shall trust to that, which we call a good spirit, and God shall deject, and empoverish, and evacuate that spirit, when I shall rely upon a moral constancy, and God shall shake, and enfeeble, and enervate, destroy and demolish that constancy; when I shall think to refresh myself in the serenity and sweet air of a good conscience, and God shall call up the damps and vapors of hell it self, and spread a cloud of diffidence, and an impenetrable crust of desperation upon my conscience; when health shall fly from me, and I shall lay hold upon riches to succor me, and comfort me in my sickness, and riches shall fly from me, and I shall snatch after favor, and good opinion, to comfort me in my poverty; when even this good opinion-shall leave me, and calumnies and misinformations shall prevail against me; when I shall need peace, because there is none but thou, O Lord, that should stand for me, and then shall find, that all the wounds that I have, come from thy hand, all the arrows that stick in me, from thy quiver; when I shall see, that because I have given myself to my corrupt nature, thou hast changed thine; and because I am all evil towards thee, therefore thou hast given over being good towards me; When it comes to this height, that the fever is not in the humors, but in the spirits, that mine enemy is not an imaginary enemy, fortune, nor a transitory enemy, malice in great persons, but a real, and an irresistible, and an inexorable, and an everlasting enemy, The Lord of Hosts himself, The Almighty God himself, the Almighty God himself only knows the weight of this affliction, and except he put in that pondus gloriae, that exceeding weight of an eternal glory, with his own hand, into the other scale, we are weighed down, we are swallowed up, irreparably, irrevocably, irrecoverably, irremediably.
This is the fearful depth, this is spiritual misery, to be thus fallen from God. But was this David's case? was he fallen thus far, into a diffidence in God? No. But the danger, the precipice, the slippery sliding into that bottomless depth, is, to be excluded from the means of coming to God, or staying with God; And this is that that David laments here, That by being banished, and driven into the wilderness of Judah, he had not access to the Sanctuary of the Lord, to sacrifice his part in the praise, and to receive his part in the prayers of the Congregation; for Angels pass not to ends, but by ways and means, nor men to the glory of the triumphant Church, but by participation of the Communion of the Militant. To this note David sets his Harp, in many, many Psalms: Sometimes, that God had suffered his enemies to possess his Tabernacle, ( He for sooke the Tabernacle of Shiloh, He delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemies hands ) But most commonly he complains, that God disabled him from coming to the Sanctuary. In which one thing he had summed up all his desires, all his prayers, ( One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I look after; That I may dwell in the house of the Lord, all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his Temple ) His vehement desire of this, he expresses again, ( My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God? ) He expresses a holy jealousy, a religious envy, even to the sparrows and swallows, (yea, the sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for her self, and where she may lay her young, Even thine Altars, O Lord of Host, my King and my God. ) Thou art my King, and my God, and yet excludest me from that, which thou affordest to sparrows, And are not we of more value then many sparrows?
And as though David felt some false ease, some half-temptation, some whispering that way, That God is in the wilderness of Judah, in every place, as well as in his Sanctuary, there is in the Original in that place, a pathetical, a vehement, a broken expressing expressed, O thine Altars; It is true, (says David ) thou art here in the wilderness, and I may see thee here, and serve thee here, but, O thine Altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. When David could not come in person to that place, yet he bent towards the Temple, ( In thy fear will I worship towards thy holy Temple. ) Which was also Daniel's devotion; when he prayed, his Chamber windows were open towards Jerusalem; And so is Hezekiah turning to the wall to weep, and to pray in his sick bed, understood to be to that purpose, to conform, and compose himself towards the Temple. In the place consecrated for that use, God by Moses fixes the service, and fixes the Reward; And towards that place, (when they could not come to it) doth Solomon direct their devotion in the Consecration of the Temple, ( when they are in the wars, when they are in Captivity, and pray towards this house, do thou hear them. ) For, as in private prayer, when (according to Christ's command) we are shut in our chamber, there is exercised Modestia fidei, The modesty and bashfulness of our faith, not pressing upon God in his house: so in the public prayers of the Congregation, there is exercised the fervor, and holy courage of our faith, for Agmine facto obsidemus Deum, It is a Mustering of our forces, and a besieging of God. Therefore does David so much magnify their blessedness, that are in this house of God; ( Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, for they will be still praising thee ) Those that look towards it, may praise thee sometimes, but those men who dwell in the Church, and whose whole service lies in the Church, have certainly an advantage of all other men (who are necessarily withdrawn by worldly businesses) in making themselves acceptable to almighty God, if they do their duties, and observe their Church-services aright.
Man being therefore thus subject naturally to manifold calamities, and spiritual calamities being incomparably heavier then temporal, and the greatest danger of falling into such spiritual calamities being in our absence from God's Church, where only the outward means of happiness are ministered unto us, certainly there is much tenderness and deliberation to be used, before the Church doors be shut against any man. If I would not direct a prayer to God, to excommunicate any man from the Triumphant Church, (which were to damn him) I would not oil the key, I would not make the way too slippery for excommunications in the Militant Church; For, that is to endanger him. I know how distasteful a sin to God, contumacy, and contempt, and disobedience to Order and Authority is; And I know, (and all men, that choose not ignorance, may know) that our Excommunications (though calumniators impute them to small things, because, many times, the first complaint is of some small matter) never issue but upon contumacies, contempts, disobediences to the Church. But they are real contumacies, not interpretative, apparent contumacies, not presumptive, that excommunicate a man in Heaven; And much circumspection is required, and (I am far from doubting it) exercised in those cases upon earth; for, though every Excommunication upon earth be not sealed in Heaven, though it damn not the man, yet it dams up that man's way, by shutting him out of that Church, through which he must go to the other; which being so great a danger, let every man take heed of Excommunicating himself. The imperswasible Recusant does so; The negligent Libertin does so; The fantastique Separatist does so; The half-present man, he, whose body is here, and mind away, does so; And he, whose body is but half here, his limbs are here upon a cushion, but his eyes, his ears are not here, does so: All these are are self-Excommunicators, and keep themselves from hence. Only he enjoys that blessing, the want whereof David deplores, that is here entirely, and is glad he is here, and glad to find this kind of service here, that he does, and wishes no other.
And so we have done with our first Part, David's aspect, his present condition, and his danger of falling into spiritual miseries, because his persecution, and banishment amounted to an Excommunication, to an excluding of him from the service of God, in the Church. And we pass, in our Order proposed at first, to the second, his retrospect, the Consideration, what God had done for him before, Because thou hast been my help.
Through this second part, we shall pass by these three steps. First, That it behooves us, in all our purposes, and actions, to propose to ourselves a copy to write by, a pattern to work by, a rule, or an example to proceed by, Because it hath been thus heretofore, says David, I will resolve upon this course for the future. And secondly, That the copy, the pattern, the precedent which we are to propose to ourselves, is, The observation of God's former ways and proceedings upon us, Because God hath already gone this way, this way I will awaite his going still. And then, thirdly and lastly, in this second part, The way that God had formerly gone with David, which was, That he had been his help, ( Because thou hast been my help. )
First then, from the meanest artificer, through the wisest Philosopher, to God himself, all that is well done, or wisely undertaken, is undertaken and done according to pre-conceptions, fore-imaginations, designs, and patterns proposed to ourselves beforehand. A Carpenter builds not a house, but that he first sets up a frame in his own mind, what kind of house he will build. The little great Philosopher Epictetus, would undertake no action, but he would first propose to himself, what Socrates, or Plato, what a wise man would do in that case, and according to that, he would proceed. Of God himself, it is safely resolved in the School, that he never did anything in any part of time, of which he had not an eternal pre-conception, an eternal Idea, in himself before. Of which Ideaes, that is, pre-conceptions, pre-determinations in God, S. Augustine pronounces, Tanta vis in Ideis constituitur, There is so much truth, and so much power in these Ideaes, as that without acknowledging them, no man can acknowledge God, for he does not allow God Counsaile, and Wisdom, and deliberation in his Actions, but sets God on work, before he have thought what he will do. And therefore he, and others of the Fathers read that place, (which we read otherwise) Quod factum est, in ipso vita erat; that is, in all their Expositions, whatsoever is made, in time, was alive in God, before it was made, that is, in that eternal Idea, and pattern which was in him. So also do divers of those Fathers read those words to the Hebrews, (which we read, The things that are seen, are not made of things that do appear) Ex invisibilibus visibilia facta sunt, Things formerly invisible, were made visible; that is, we see them not till now, till they are made, but they had an invisible being, in that Idea, in that pre-notion, in that purpose of God before, forever before. Of all things in Heaven, and earth, but of himself, God had an Idea, a pattern in himself, before he made it.
And therefore let him be our pattern for that, to work after patterns; To propose to ourselves Rules and Examples for all our actions; and the more, the more immediately, the more directly our actions concern the service of God. If I ask God, by what Idea he made me, God produces his Faciamus hominem ad Imaginem nostram, That there was a concurrence of the whole Trinity, to make me in Adam, according to that Image which they were, and according to that Idea, which they had pre-determined. If I pretend to serve God, and he ask me for my Idea, How I mean to serve him, shall I be able to produce none? If he ask me an Idea of my Religion, and my opinions, shall I not be able to say, It is that which thy word, and thy Catholic Church hath imprinted in me? If he ask me an Idea of my prayers, shall I not be able to say, It is that which my particular necessities, that which the form prescribed by thy Son, that which the care, and piety of the Church, in conceiving fit prayers, hath imprinted in me? If he ask me an Idea of my Sermons, shall I not be able to say, It is that which the Analogy of Faith, the edification of the Congregation, the zeal of thy work, the meditations of my heart have imprinted in me? But if I come to pray or to preach without this kind of Idea, if I come to extemporal prayer, and extemporal preaching, I shall come to an extemporal faith, and extemporal religion; and then I must look for an extemporal Heaven, a Heaven to be made for me; for to that Heaven which belongs to the Catholic Church, I shall never come, except I go by the way of the Catholic Church, by former Idea's, former examples, former patterns, To believe according to ancient beliefes, to pray according to ancient forms, to preach according to former meditations. God does nothing, man does nothing well, without these Idea's, these retrospects, this recourse to pre-conceptions, pre-deliberations.
Something then I must propose to myself, to be the rule, and the reason of my present and future actions; which was our first branch in this second Part; And then the second is, That I can propose nothing more availably, then the contemplation of the history of God's former proceeding with me; which is David's way here, Because this was God's way before, I will look for God in this way still. That language in which God spake to man, the Hebrew, hath no present tense; They form not their verbs as our Western Languages do, in the present, I hear, or I see, or I read, But they begin at that which is past, I have seen and heard, and read. God carries us in his Language, in his speaking, upon that which is past, upon that which he hath done already; I cannot have better security for present, nor future, then God's former mercies exhibited to me. Quis non gaudeat, says S. Augustine, Who does not triumph with joy, when he considers what God hath done? Quis non & ea, quae nondum venerunt, ventura sperat, propter illa, quae jam tanta impleta sunt? Who can doubt of the performance of all, that sees the greatest part of a Prophesy performed? If I have found that true that God hath said, of the person of Antichrist, why should I doubt of that which he says of the ruin of Antichrist? Credamus modicum quod restat, says the same Father, It is much that we have seen done, and it is but little that God hath reserved to our faith, to believe that it shall be done.
There is no State, no Church, no Man, that hath not this tie upon God, that hath not God in these bands, That God by having done much for them already, hath bound himself to do more. Men proceed in their former ways, sometimes, lest they should confess an error, and acknowledge that they had been in a wrong way. God is obnoxious to no error, and therefore he does still, as he did before. Everyone of you can say now to God, Lord, Thou broughtest me hither, therefore enable me to hear; Lord, Thou doest that, therefore make me understand; And that, therefore let me believe; And that too, therefore strengthen me to the practice; And all that, therefore continue me to a perseverance. Carry it up to the first sense and apprehension that ever thou hadst of God's working upon thee, either in thyself, when thou camest first to the use of reason, or in others in thy behalf, in thy baptism, yet when thou thinkest thou art at the first, God had done something for thee before all that; before that, he had elected thee, in that election which S. Augustine speaks of, Habet electos, quos creaturus est eligendos, God hath elected certain men, whom he intends to create, that he may elect them; that is, that he may declare his Election upon them. God had thee, before he made thee; He loved thee first, and then created thee, that thou loving him, he might continue his love to thee. The surest way, and the nearest way to lay hold upon God, is the consideration of that which he had done already. So David does; And that which he takes knowledge of, in particular, in God's former proceedings towards him, is, Because God had been his help, which is our last branch in this part, Because thou hast been my help.
From this one word, That God hath been my He ••• I make account that we have both these notions; first, That God hath not left me to myself, He hath come to my succor, He hath helped me; And then, That God hath not left out myself; He hath been my Help, but he hath left something for me to do with him, and by his help. My security for the future, in this consideration of that which is past, lies not only in this, That God hath delivered me, but in this also, that he hath delivered me by way of a Help, and Help always presumes an endeavor and co-operation in him that is helped. God did not elect me as a helper, nor create me, nor redeem me nor convert me, by way of helping me; for he alone did all, and he had no use at all of me. God infuses his first grate, the first way, merely as a Giver; entirely, all himself; but his subsequent graces, as a helper; therefore we call them Auxiliant graces, Helping graces; and we always receive them, when we endeavor to make use of his former grace. Lord, I believe, (says the Man in the Gospel to Christ) Help mine unbelief. If there had not been unbelief, weakness, unperfectnesse in that faith, there had needed no help; but if there had not been a Beliefe, a faith, it had not been capable of help and assistance, but it must have been an entire act, without any concurrence on the man's part.
So that if I have truly the testimony of a rectified Conscience, That God hath helped me, it is in both respects; first, That he hath never forsaken me, and then, That he hath never suffered me to forsake myself; He hath blessed me with that grace, that I trust in no help but his, and with this grace too, That I cannot look for his help, except I help myself also. God did not help heaven and earth to proceed out of nothing in the Creation, for they had no possibility of any disposition towards it; for they had no being: But God did help the earth to produce grass, and herbs; for, for that, God had infused a seminal disposition into the earth, which, for all that, it could not have perfected without his farther help. As in the making of Woman, there is the very word of our Text, Gnazar, God made him a Helper, one that was to do much for him, but not without him. So that then, if I will make God's former working upon me, an argument of his future gracious purposes, as I must acknowledge that God hath done much for me, so I must find, that I have done what I could, by the benefit of that grace with him; for God promises to be but a helper. Lord open thou my lips, says David; that is God's work entirely; And then, My mouth, My mouth shall show forth thy praise; there enters David into the work with God. And then, says God to him, Dilata os tuum, Open thy mouth, (It is now made Thy mouth, and therefore do thou open it) and I will fill it; All inchoations and consummations, beginnings and perfectings are of God, of God alone; but in the way there is a concurrence on our part, (by a successive continuation of God's grace) in which God proceeds as a Helper; and I put him to more then that, if I do nothing. But if I pray for his help, and apprehend and husband his graces well, when they come, then he is truly, properly my helper; and upon that security, that testimony of a rectified Conscience, I can proceed to David's confidence for the future, Because thou hast been my Help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice; which is our third, and last general part.
In this last part, which is, (after David's aspect, and consideration of his present condition, which was, in the effect, an Exclusion from God's Temple, And his retrospect, his consideration of God's former mercies to him, That he had been his Help) his prospect, his confidence for the future, we shall stay a little upon these two steps; first, That that which he promises himself, is not an immunity from all powerful enemies, nor a sword of revenge upon those enemies; It is not that he shall have no adversary, nor that that adversary shall be able to do him no harm, but that he should have a refreshing, a respiration, In velamento alarm, under the shadow of God's wings. And then, (in the second place) That this way which God shall be pleased to take, this manner, this measure of refreshing, which God shall vouchsafe to afford, (though it amount not to a full deliverance) must produce a joy, a rejoicing in us; we must not only not decline to a murmuring, that we have no more, no nor rest upon a patience for that which remains, but we must ascend to a holy joy, as if all were done and accomplished, In the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.
First then, lest any man in his dejection of spirit, or of fortune, should stray into a jealousy or suspicion of God's power to deliver him, As God hath spangled the firmament with stars, so hath he his Scriptures with names, and Metaphors, and denotations of power. Sometimes he s •• es out in the name of a Sword, and of a Target, and of a Wall, and of a Tower, and of a Rock, and of a Hill; And sometimes in that glorious and manifold constellation of all together, Dominus exercituum, The Lord of Hosts. God, as God, is never represented to us, with Defensive Arms; He needs them not. When the Poets present their great Heroes, and their Worthies, they always insist upon their Arms, they spend much of their invention upon the description of their Arms; both because the greatest valor and strength needs Arms, ( Goliath himself was armed) and because to expose ones self to danger unarmed, is not valor, but rashness. But God is invulnerable in himself, and is never represented armed; you find no shirts of mayle, no Helmets, no Cuirasses in God's Armory. In that one place of Isaiah, where it may seem to be otherwise, where God is said to have put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a Helmet of salvation upon his head; in that prophecy God is Christ, and is therefore in that place, called the Redeemer. Christ needed defensive arms, God does not. God's word does; His Scriptures do; And therefore S. Jerome hath armed them, and set before every book his Prologum galeatum, that prologue that arms and defends every book from calumny. But though God need not, nor receive not defensive arms for himself, yet God is to us a Helmet, a Breastplate, a strong tower, a rock, everything that may give us assurance and defense; and as often as he will, he can refresh that Proclamation, Nolite tangere Christos meos, Our enemies shall not so much as touch us.
But here, by occasion of his Metaphor in this Text, ( Sub umbra alarm, In the shadow of thy wings ) we do not so much consider an absolute immunity, That we shall not be touched, as a refreshing and consolation, when we are touched, though we be pinched and wounded. The Names of God, which are most frequent in the Scriptures, are these three, Elohim, and Adonai, and Jehovah; and to assure us of his Power to deliver us, two of these three are Names of Power. Elohim is Deus fortis, The mighty, The powerful God: And (which deserves a particular consideration) Elohim is a plural Name; It is not Deus fortis, but Dii fortes, powerful God's. God is all kind of God's; All kinds, which either Idolaters and Gentiles can imagine, (as Riches, or Justice, or Wisdom, or Valour, or such) and all kinds which God himself hath called gods, (as Princes, and Magistrates, and Prelates, and all that assist and help one another) God is