Eighty Sermons

SERM. LXVII. The third of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalms: Preached at S. Paul's, November 5. 1626. In Vesperis.

I Have had occasion to tell you more then once before, that our Predecessors, in the institution of the Service of this Church, have declared such a reverence and such a devotion to this particular Book of Scripture, The Psalms, as that by distributing the hundred and fifty Psalms (of which number the body of this book consists) into thirty portions, (of which number the body of our Church consists) and assigning to everyone of those thirty persons, his five Psalms, to be said by him every day, every day God receives from us (howsoever we be divided from one another in place) the Sacrifice of Praise, in the whole Book of Psalms. And, though we may be absent from this Choir, yet wheresoever dispersed, we make up a Choir in this Service, of saying over all the Psalms every day. This sixty fourth Psalm, is the third of my five. And when, (according to the obligation which I had laid upon myself, to handle in this place some portion of everyone of these my five Psalms) in handling of those words, of the Psalm immediately before this, in the seventh verse, (Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy Wings I will rejoice) I told you, that the next world, Heaven, was (as this world is) divided into two Hemispheares, and that the two Hemispheares of Heaven, were Joy and Glory, (for, in those two notions of Joy and Glory, is Heaven often represented unto us) as in those words which we handled then, we sailed about the first Hemispheare, That of Joy, (In the shadow of thy Wings will I rejoice) So, in these which I have read to you now, our voyage lies about the Hemispheare of Glory, for, (All the upright in heart shall Glory. ) As we said then of Joy, we say of Glory now; There is an inchoative joy here, though the consummative joy be reserved for Heaven; so is there also such a taste, such an inchoation of glory in this life. And as no man shall come to the joys of Heaven, that hath no joy in this world, (for, there is no peace of conscience without this joy) so no man shall come to the glory of Heaven, that hath not a holy ambition of this glory in this world; for, this glory which we speak of, is the evidence, and the reflection of the glory from above; for, the glory of God shines through godly men, and we receive a beam and a tincture of that glory of God, when we have the approbation, and testimony, and good opinion, and good words of good men; which is the Glory of our Text, as far as this world is capable of glory. All the upright in heart shall glory, that is, They shall be celebrated and encouraged with the glory and praise of good men here, and they shall be rewarded with everlasting glory in Heaven.

In these words we propose to you but two parts; First, The disposition of the Persons, Omnes recti cord, All the upright in heart, and then, The retribution upon these Persons, Gloriabuntur, They shall Glory, or, (as it is in the Vulgat, and well) Laudabuntur, They shall be celebrated, they shall be praised. In the first, The qualification of the persons, we shall pass by these steps; First, that God in his punishments and rewardings proposes to himself Persons, Persons already made, and qualified. God does not begin at a retribution, nor begin at a condemnation, before he have Persons, Persons fit to be rewarded, Persons fit to be condemned. God did not first make a Heaven and a Hell, and after think of making man, that he might have some persons to put in them; but, first for his Glory he made Man, and for those, who by a good use of his grace preserved their state, Heaven, and for those, who by their own fault fell, he made Hell. First, he proposed Persons, Persons in being; And then, for the Persons (as his delight is for the most part to do) in this Text he expresses it; which is, rather to insist upon the Rewards, which the Good shall receive, then upon the condemnation and judgments of the wicked. If he could choose, that is, If his own Glory, and the edification of his Children would bear it, he would not speak at all of judgments, or of those persons that draw necessary judgments upon themselves, but he would exercise our contemplation wholly upon his mercy, and upon Persons qualified and prepared for his gracious retributions. So he does here; He speaks not at all of perverse, and froward, and sinister, and oblique men, men incapable of his retributions, but only of Persons disposed, ordained, prepared for them.

And, in the qualification of these Persons, he proposes first a rectitude, a directnesse, an uprightness; declinations downward, deviations upon the wrong hand, squint-eyed men, splay footed men, left-handed men, (in a spiritual sense) he meddles not withal. They must be direct, and upright; And then, upright in heart; for, to be good to ill ends, (as, in many cases, a man may be) God accepts not, regards not. But, let him be a person thus qualified, Vpright; upright because he loves uprightness, Vpright in heart; And then, he is infallibly embraced, and enwrapped in that general rule, and proposition, that admits no exception, Omnes recti cord, All the upright in heart shall be partakers of this retribution: And in these branches we shall determine our first Part, first, That God proposes to himself Persons; Persons thus and thus qualified; he begins at them. Secondly, That God had rather dwell himself, and propose to us the consideration of good persons, then bad, of his mercies, then his judgments, for he mentions no other here, but persons capable of his retributions; And then, the goodness that God considers, is rectitude, and rectitude in the root, in the heart; And from that root grows that spreading universality, that infallibility, Omnes, All such are sure of the Reward.

And then, in our second Part, in the Reward it self, though it be delivered here in the whole bar, in the Ingot, in the Wedge, in Bulloyn, in one single word, Gloriabuntur, Laudabuntur, They shall Glory, yet it admits this Mintage, and coining, and issuing in lesser pieces, That first we consider the thing it self, The metal in which God rewards us, Glory, Praise; And then, since God's promise is fastened upon that, (We shall be praised) As we may lawfully seek the praise of good men, so must we also willingly afford praise to good men, and to good actions. And then, since we find this retribution fixed in the future, (We shall be praised, we shall be in glory) there arises this Consolation, That though we have it not yet, yet we shall have it, Though we be in dishonor, and contempt, and under a cloud, of which we see no end ourselves, yet there is a determined future in God, which shall be made present, we shall overcome this contempt, and Gloriabimur, and Laudabimur, we shall Glory, we shall be celebrated; In which future, the consolation is thus much farther exalted, that it is an everlasting future; the glory, and praise, the approbation, and acclamation, which we shall receive from good men, here, shall flow out and continue, to the Hosannaes in Heaven, in the mouth of Saints, and Angels, and to the Euge bone serve, Well done, good and faithful Servant, in the mouth of God himself.

First then, God proposes to himself, (in his Rewards and Retributions) Persons; Persons disposed and qualified. Not disposed by nature, without use of grace; that is flat and full Pelagianism; Not disposed by preventing grace, without use of subsequent grace, by Antecedent and anticipant, without concomitant and auxiliant grace; that is Semi-pelagianisme. But persons obsequious to his grace, when it comes, and persons industrious and ambitious of more and more grace, and husbanding his grace well all the way, such persons God proposes to himself. God does not only read his own works, nor is he only delighted with that which he hath writ himself, with his own eternal Decrees in heaven, but he loves also to read our books too, our histories which we compose in our lives and actions, and as his delight is to be with the sons of men, so his study is in this Library, to know what we do. S. Paul says, That God made him a Minister of the Gospel, to preach to the Gentiles, to the intent that the Angels might know the manifold wisdom of God by the Church; That is, by that that was done in the Church. The Angels saw God; Did they not see these things in God? No; for, These things were hid in God, says the Apostle there; And the Angels see no more in God, then God reveals unto them; and these things of the Church, God reserved to a future, and to an experimental knowledge, to be known then when they were done in the Church. So there are Decrees in God, but they are hid in God; To this purpose and entendment, and in this sense, hid from God himself, that God accepts or condemns Man Secundum allegata & Probata, according to the Evidence that arises from us, and not according to those Records that are hid in himself. Our actions and his Records agree; we do those things which he hath Decreed; but only our doing them, and not his Decreeing them, hath the nature of evidence. God does not Reward, nor Condemne out of his Decrees, but out of our actions. God sent down his Commissioners the Angels to Sodom, to inquire, and to inform him how things went. God goes down himself to inquire, and inform himself, how it stood with Adam and Eve. Not that God was ever ignorant of anything concerning us, but that God would prevent that dangerous imagination in every man, That God should first mean to destroy him, and then to make him, that he might destroy him, without having any evidence against him. For God made man Ad imaginem suam, To his own Image. If he had made him under an inevitable, and irresistible necessity of damnation, he had made him Ad Imaginem Diabolicam, to the Image of the Devil, and not to his own. God goes not out as a Fowler, that for his pleasure and recreation, or for his commodity, or commendation, would kill, and therefore seeks out game that he may kill it; It is not God that seeks whom he may devour: But God sees the Vulture tearing his Chickens, or other birds picking his Corn, or pecking his fruit, and then when they are in that mischievous action, God takes his bow and shoots them for that. When God condemns a man, he proposes not that man to himself, as he meant to make him, and as he did make him, but as by his sins he hath made himself. At the first Creation, God looked upon nothing; there was nothing; But ever since there have been Creatures, God hath looked upon the Creature: and as Adam gave every Creature the Name, according as he saw the Nature thereof to be; so God gives every man reward or punishment, the name of a Saint or a Devil, in his purpose, as he sees him a good or a bad user of his graces. When I shall come to the sight of the Book of life, and the Records of heaven, amongst the Reprobate, I shall never see the name of Cain alone, but Cain with his addition, Cain that killed his brother; Nor Judas name alone; but Judas with his addition, Judas that betrayed his Master. God does not begin with a morte moriendum, somebody must die, and therefore I will make somebody to kill; But God came to a morte morieris, yet thou art alive, and mayest live, but if thou wilt rebel, thou must die. God did not call up fevers, and pestilence, and consumptions, and fire, and famine, and war, and then make man, that he might throw him into their mouths, but when man threw down himself, God let him fall into their mouths. Had I never sinned in wantonness, I should never have had consumption; nor fever, if I had not sinned in Riot; nor death, if I had not transgressed against the Lord of life. If God be pleased to look upon me, at the last day, as I am renewed in Christ, I am safe. But if God should look upon me, (as he made me) in Adam, I could not be un-acceptable in his sight, except he looked farther, and saw me in mine own, or in Adams sin. I would never wish myself better, then God wished me at first; no, nor then God wishes me now, as manifold a sinner as he sees me now, if yet I would conform my will to his. God looks upon persons; persons so conditioned as they were, which was our first branch, in this first part; and our second is, That he delights to propose to himself Persons that are capable of his rewards; for he mentions no others in this place, All that are upright in heart.

The first thing that Moses names to have been made, was Heaven, (In the beginning God made Heaven and Earth) And infinite millions of generations before this Heaven was made, there was a Heaven, an eternal emanation of beams of glory, from the presence of God. But Moses tells us of no Hell made at the Creation; And before the Creation, such a Hell, as there was a Heaven, there could not be; for, the presence of God made Heaven; and God was equally present everywhere. And they who have multiplied Hells unto us, and made more Hells then God hath made, more by their two Limboes, (one for Fathers, another for Children) and one Purgatory, have yet made their new Hells, more of the nature of Heaven then of Hell. For, in one of their Limboes, (that of the Fathers) and in their Purgatory, there is in them, who are there, an infallible assurance of Heaven, They that are there, are infallibly assured to come to Heaven; And an assurance of salvation will hardly consist with Hell; He that is sure to come to Heaven, can hardly be said to be in Hell.

God was loath and late in making places of torment; He is loath to speak of Judgments, or of those that extort Judgments from him. How plentifully, how abundantly is the word Beatus, Blessed, multiplied in the Book of Psalms? Blessed, and Blessed in every Psalm, in every Verse; The Book seems to be made out of that word, Blessed, And the foundation raised upon that word, Blessed, for it is the first word of the Book. But in all the Book, there is not one Vae, not one woe, so denounced; Not one woe, upon any soul in that Book. And when this Vae, this woe is denounced in some other of the Prophets, it is very often Vox dolentis, and not Increpantis, That Vae, that woe, is a voice of compassion in him that speaks it, and not of destruction to them to whom it is spoken. God, in the person of Jeremiah, weeps in contemplation of the calamities threatened, Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the Daughter of my people. It is God that was their Father, and it is God, their God that slew them; but yet, that God, their Father weeps over the slaughter. So in the person of Isaiah, God weeps again, I will bewail thee with weeping, and I will water thee with tears. And without putting on the person of any man, God himself avows his sighing, when he comes to name Judgments, Heu, vindicabor, Alas, I will revenge me of mine enemies; And he sighs, when he comes but to name their sins, Heu abominationes, Alas, for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel. As though God had contracted an Irregularity, by having to do in a cause of blood, He sighs, he weeps when he must draw blood from them. God delights to institute his discourses, and to take, and to make his Examples, from men that stand in state of grace, and are capable of his Mercies, and his Retributions, as here in this Text, he names only those, who are Recti cord, The upright in heart, They shall be considered, rewarded.

The disposition that God proposes here in those persons, whom he considers, is Rectitude, Uprightness, and Directnesse. God hath given Man that form in nature, much more in grace, that he should be upright, and look up, and contemplate Heaven, and God there. And therefore to bend downwards upon the earth, to fix our breast, our heart to the earth, to lick the dust of the earth with the Serpent, to inhere upon the profits and pleasures of the earth, and to make that which God intended for our way, and our rise to heaven, (the blessings of this world) the way to hell; this is a manifest Declination from this Uprightness, from this Rectitude. Nay, to go so far towards the love of the earth, as to be in love with the grave, to be impatient of the calamities of this life, and murmur at God's detaining us in this prison, to sink into a sordid melancholy, or irreligious dejection of spirit; this is also a Declination from this Rectitude, this Uprightness. So is it too, to decline towards the left hand, to Modifications, and Temporisings in matter or form of Religion, and to think all indifferent, all one; or to decline towards the right hand, in an over-vehement zeal, To pardon no errors, to abate nothing of heresy, if a man believe not all, and just all that we believe; To abate nothing of Reprobation, if a man live not just as we live; this is also a Diversion, a Deviation, a Deflection, a Defection from this Rectitude, this Uprightness. For, the word of this Text, Iashar, signifies Rectitudinem, and Planiciem; It signifies a direct way; for, the Devils way was Circular, Compassing the Earth; But the Angels way to heaven upon Jacob's ladder, was a straight, a direct way. And then it signifies, as a direct and straight, so a plain, a smooth, an even way, a way that hath been beaten into a path before, a way that the Fathers, and the Church have walked in before, and not a discovery made by our curiosity, or our confidence, in venturing from ourselves, or embracing from others, new doctrines and opinions.

The persons then, whom God proposes here to be partakers of his Retributions, are first Recti, (that is, both Direct men, and Plain men) and then recti cord, this qualification, this straightness, and smoothness must be in the heart; All the upright in heart shall have it. Upon this earth, a man cannot possibly make one step in a straight, and a direct line. The earth it self being round, every step we make upon it, must necessarily be a segment, an arch of a circle. But yet though no piece of a circle be a straight line, yet if we take any piece, nay if we take the whole circle, there is no corner, no angle in any piece, in any entire circle. A perfectt rectitude we cannot have in any ways in this world; In every Calling there are some inevitable temptations. But, though we cannot make up our circle of a straight line, (that is impossible to human frailty) yet we may pass on, without angles, and corners, that is, without disguises in our Religion, and without the love of craft, and falsehood, and circumvention in our civil actions. A Compass is a necessary thing in a Ship, and the help of that Compass brings the Ship home safe, and yet that Compass hath some variations, it doth not look directly North; Neither is that star which we call the North-pole, or by which we know the North-pole, the very Pole it self; but we call it so, and we make our uses of it, and our conclusions by it, as if it were so, because it is the nearest star to that Pole. He that comes as near uprightness, as infirmities admit, is an upright man, though he have some obliquities. To God himself we may always go in a direct line, a straight, a perpendicular line; For God is vertical to me, over my head now, and vertical now to them, that are in the East, and West-Indies; To our Antipodes, to them that are under our feet, God is vertical, over their heads, then when he is over ours.

To come to God there is a straight line for every man everywhere: But this we do not, if we come not with our heart. Praebe mihi fili cor tuum, saith God, My son give me thy heart. Was he his son, and had he not his heart? That may very well be. There is a filliation without the heart; not such a filliation, as shall ever make him partaker of the inheritance, but yet a filliation. The associating ourselves to the sons of God, in an outward profession of Religion, makes us so far the sons of God, as that the judgment of man cannot, and the judgment of God doth not distinguish them. Because, then when the sons of God stood in his presence, Satan stood amongst the sons of God; God doth not disavow him, God doth not excommunicate him, God makes his use of him, and yet God knew his heart was far from him. So, when God was in Council with his Angels, about Ahab's going up to Ramoth Gilead, A spirit came forth and offered his service, and God refuses not his service, but employs him, though he knew his heart to be far from him. So, no doubt, many times, they to whom God hath committed supreme government, and they who receive beams of this power by subordination, and delegation from them, they see Satan amongst the sons of God, hypocrites and impiously disposed men come into these places of holy convocation, and they suffer them, nay they employ them, nay they prefer them, and yet they know their hearts are far from them; but as long as they stand amongst the sons of God, that is, appear and conform themselves in the outward acts of Religion, they are not disavowed, they are not ejected: by us here, they are not. But howsoever we date our Excommunications against them, but from an overt act, and apparent disobedience, yet in the Records of heaven, they shall meet an Excommunication, and a conviction of Recusancy, that shall bear date from that day, when they came first to Church, with that purpose to delude the Congregation, to elude the laws in that behalf provided, to advance their treacherous designs by such disguises, or upon what other collateral and indirect occasion soever, men come to this place: for, though they be in the right way, when they are here, at Church, yet because they are not upright in heart, therefore that right way brings not them to the right end.

And that is it which David looks upon in God, and desires that God should look upon in him; ( According to thine own heart, saith David to God, hast thou done all these great things unto us ) (For, sometimes God doth give temporal blessings to men, upon whom he hath not set his heart) And then in the 27. Verse he says, ( Therefore hath thy servant found in his heart, to pray this prayer unto thee ) If he had only found it in the Liturgy, and in the manner of the Service of that Church, to which he came with an ill will, and against his heart, he would not have prayed that prayer, nay he would not have come to that Church. For, though David place a great joy in that, ( That he can come to praise God in the Congregation, and in the great Congregation ) And though David seem even to determine God's presence in the Church, (for he multiplies that expostulation, that adprecation many times, When shall I come, in conspectum tuum, into thy presence? And, Restore me, O Lord, conspectui tuo, to thy presence, He was not right, not in the right way, if he came not to Church) yet there is a case in which David glories in, though (as he saith there) In cord meo abscondi eloquium tuum, Thy word have I hidden, locked up, in my heart. Though in another, in many other places, he rejoice in that, ( I have not hid thy righteousness in my heart, I have not concealed thy truth from the great Congregation ) yet here he glories in his Abscondi, I have hid it. Which, (as both S. Hilary, and S. Ambrose refer it to a discreet and seasonable suppressing of the mysteries of Religion, and not to cast pearls before swine) may also infer this Instruction; That a man were better serve God at home, (though not in so right a way, if he think it right) then to come hither against his heart, and conscience. Not, but that there is better means of receiving good here, then at home in private prayer, (though made the right way) But his end in coming is not to make this means his way to that good; And therefore his very being here, (though he be thereby in the right way) because it comes not from an upright heart, as it is a greater danger to us, who are deluded by their hypocritical conformity, so is it a greater sin to them, who come so against their conscience. David prays thus, Incola sum, ne abscondas, I am a stranger, hide not thy commandments from me, (Let me not be a stranger at Church, at thy Service.) And so it behooves us to pray too, That those Doors, and those Books may always be open unto us; But yet I will say with David too, Abscondam eloquium, where I am a stranger, and in a place of strange, and superstitious worship, I will hide my religion so far, as not to communicate with others, in a service against my heart; It is not safe for us to trust ourselves at a superstitious Service, though curiosity, or company, or dependency upon others draw us thither; neither is it safe to trust all that come hither, if their hearts be not here. For the Retribution of our Text, that is, Thanks and Praise, belongs only to them, who are Right, and Right of heart, and to them it is made due, and infallible, by this promise from God, and made universal, Omnes, All the upright in heart shall glory.

How often God admits into his own Name, this addition of Universality, Omne, All, as though he would be known by that especially. He is Omnipotent, There he can do All; He is Omniscient, There he can know All; He is Omnipresent, There he can direct All. Neither doth God extend himself to all, that he may gather from all, but that he may gather all, and all might meet in him, and enjoy him. So, God is all Center, as that he looks to all, and so, all circumference, as that he embraces all. The Sun works upon things that he sees not, (as Mynes in the womb of the earth) and so works the less perfectly. God sees all, and works upon all, and desires perfection in all. There is no one word so often in the Bible, as this, Omne, All. Neither hath God spread the word more liberally upon all the lines of this Book, then he hath his gracious purposes upon all the souls of men. And therefore, to withdraw God's general goodness out of his general propositions, That he would have all repent, That he came to save all, is to contract and abridge God himself, in his most extensive Attribute, or Denotation, that is, his Mercy: And as there is a curse laid upon them, that take away any part, any proposition out of this Book, so may there be a curse, or an ill affection, and countenance and suspicion from God, that presses any of his general propositions to a narrower, and less gracious sense then God meant in it. It were as easily believed, that God looks towards no man, as that there should be any man (in whom he sees, that is, considers no sin) that he looks not towards. I could as easily doubt of the universal providence of God, as of the universal mercy of God, if man continued not in rebellion, and in opposition. If I can say, by way of confession, and accusing myself, Lord, my ways have not been right, nor my heart right, there is yet mercy for me. But, to them who have studied and accustomed themselves to this uprightness of heart, there is mercy in that exaltation, mercy in the nature of a Reward, of a Retribution; And this Retribution expressed here, in this word Glory, constitutes our second Part, All the upright in heart shall Glory.

This Retribution is expressed in the Original, in the word Halal; And Halal, to those Translators that made up our Book of Common Prayer, presented the signification of Gladness, for so it is there, They shall be glad; So it did to the Translators that came after, for there it is, They shall rejoice; And to our last Translators it seemed to signify Glory, They shall Glory, say they. But the first Translation of all into our Language (which was long before any of these three) calls it Praise, and puts it in the Passive, All men of rightful heart shall be praised. He followed S. Jerome, who reads it so, and interprets it so, in the Passive, Laudabuntur, They shall be praised. And so truly Iithhalelu, in the Original, bears it, nay requires it; which is not of a praise that they shall give to God, but of a praise, that they shall receive for having served God with an upright heart; not that they shall praise God in doing so, but that godly men shall praise them for having done so. All this will grow naturally out of the root; for, the root of this word, is Lucere, Splendere, To shine out in the eyes of men, and to create in them a holy and a reverential admiration, as it was John Baptists praise, That he was A burning, and a shining Lamp. Properly it is, by a good and a holy exemplary life, to occasion others to set a right value upon Holiness, and to give a due respect to holy men. For so, where we read, Their Maidens were not given in Marriage, we find this word of our Text, Their Maidens were not praised, that is, there was not a due respect held of them, nor a just value set upon them.

So that, this retribution intended for the upright in heart, as in the growth and extension of the word, it reaches to Joy, and Glory, and Eminency, and Respect, so in the root, it signifies Praise; And it is given them by God, as a Reward, That they shall be Praised; now, Praise (says the Philosopher) is Sermo elucidans magnitudinem virtutis; It is the good word of good men, a good testimony given by good men of good actions. And this difference we use to assign between Praise, and Honor, Laus est in ordine ad finem, Honor eorum qui jam in fine; Praise is an encouragement to them that are in the way, and so far, a Reward, a Reward of good beginnings; Honor is reserved to the end, to crown their constancy, and perseverance. And therefore, where men are rewarded with great honors at the beginning, in hope they will deserve it, they are paid beforehand. Thanks, and Grace, and good countenance, and Praise, are interlocutory encouragements, Honors are final Rewards. But, since Praise is a part of God's retribution, a part of his promise in our text, They shall be praised, we are thereby not only allowed, but bound to seek this praise from good men, and to give this praise to good men; for, in this Coine God hath promised, that the upright in heart shall be paid, They shall be praised.

To seek praise from good men, by good means, is but the same thing which is recommended to us by Solomon, A good name is rather to be chosen, then great riches, and loving favor, then silver and Gold. For, Habent & mores colores suos, habent & odores; Our good works have a color, and they have a savor; we see their Candor, their sincerity in our own consciences, there is their color; (for, in our own consciences our works appear in their true colors; no man can be an hypocrite to himself, nor seriously, deliberately deceive himself) And, when others give allowance of our works, and are edified by them, there is their savor, their odor, their perfume, their fragrancy. And therefore S. Jerome, and S. Augustine differ little in their manner of expressing this, Non paratum habeas illud e trivio, Serve not thyself with that trivial, and vulgar saying, As long as my conscience testifies well to me, I care not what men say of me; And so says that other Father, They that rest in the testimony of their own consciences, and contemn the opinion of other men, Imprudenter agunt, & crudeliter, They deal weakly, and improvidently for themselves, in that they assist not their consciences, with more witnesses, And they deal cruelly towards others, in that they provide not for their edification, by the knowledge and manifestation of their good works. For, (as he adds well there) Qui à criminibus vitam custodit, been facit, He that is innocent in his own heart, does well for himself, but Qui famam custodit, & in alios misericors est, He that is known to live well, he that hath the praise of good men, to be a good man, is merciful, in an exemplary life, to others, and promoves their salvation. For, when that Father gives a measure, how much praise a man may receive, and a rule, how he may receive it, when he hath first said, Nec totum, nec nihil accipiatur, Receive not all, but yet refuse not all praise, he adds this, That that which is to be received, is not to be received for our own sakes, sed propter illos, quibus consulere non potest, si nimia dejectione vilescat, but for their sakes, who would undervalue goodness it self, if good men did too much undervalue themselves, or thought themselves never the better for their goodness. And therefore S. Bernard applies that in the Proverbs to this case; Hast thou found Honey? eat that which is sufficient. Mellis nomine, favor humanae laudis, says he, By Honey, favor, and praise, and thankfulness is meant; Meritóque non ab omni, sed ab immoderato edulio prohibemur, We are not forbid to taste, nor to eat, but to surfeit of this Honey, of this praise of men. S. Augustine found this love of praise in himself, and could forbid it no man, Laudari à been viventibus, si dicam, nolo, mentior, If I should say, that I desired not the praise of good men, I should belie myself. He carries it higher then thus; He does not doubt, but that the Apostles themselves had a holy joy, and complacency, when their Preaching was acceptable, and thereby effectual upon the Congregation. Such a love of praise is rooted in Nature; and Grace destroys not Nature; Grace extinguishes not, but moderates this love of praise in us, nor takes away the matter, but only exhibits the measure. Certainly, he that hath not some desire of praise, will be negligent in doing praise-worthy things; and negligent in another duty intended here too, that is, To praise good men, which is also another particular branch in this Part.

The hundred forty fifth Psalm is, in the Title thereof, called A Psalm of Praise; And the Rabbins call him Filium futuri Seculi, A child of the next World, that says that Psalm thrice a day. We will interpret it, by way of Accommodation, thus, that he is a child of the next World, that directs his Praise every day, upon three objects, upon God, upon himself, upon other men. Of God, there can be no question; And for ourselves, it is truly the most proper, and most literal signification of this word in our Text, Iithhalelu, That they shall praise themselves, that is, They shall have the testimony of a rectified conscience, that they have deserved the praise of good men, in having done laudable service to God. And then, for others, That which God promises to Israel in their restauration, belongs to all the Israel of the Lord, to all the faithful, I will get thee praise, and fame in every land, and I will make thee a name, and a praise amongst all the people of the earth. This, God will do; procure them a name, a glory: By whom? When God binds himself, he takes us into the band with him, and when God makes himself the debtor, he makes us stewards; when he promises them praise, he means that we should give them that praise. Be all ways of flatterings, and humourings of great persons precluded with a Protestation, with a detestation; Be Philo Judaeus his comparison received, His Coquus, and his Medicus, One provides sweetness for the present taste, but he is but a Cook, The other is a Physician, and though by bitter things, provides for thy future health; And such is the honey of Flatterers, and such is the wormwood of better Counselors. I will not shake a Proverb, not the Ad Corvos, That we were better admit the Crowes, that pick out our eyes, after we are dead, then Flatterers that blind us, whilst we live; I cast justly upon others, I take willingly upon myself, the name of wicked, (if I bless the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth) or any other whom he hath declared to be odious to him. But making my object goodness in that man, and taking that goodness in that man, to be a Candle, set up by God in that Candlestick, God having engaged himself, that that good man shall be praised, I will be a Subsidy man so far, so far pay God's debts, as to celebrate with condign praise the goodness of that man; for, in that, I do, as I should desire to be done to, And in that, I pay a debt to that man, And in that I succor their weakness, who, (as S. Gregory says) when they hear another praised, Si non amore virtutis, at delectation laudis accenduntur, At first for the love of Praise, but after, for the love of goodness it self, are drawn to be good. For, when the Apostle had directed the Philippians upon things that were True, and honest, and just, and purc, and lovely, and of a good report, he ends all thus, If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. In those two says S. Augustine, he divides all, Virtue, and Praise; Virtue in ourselves, that may deserve Praise; Praise towards others, that may advance and propagate Virtue. This is the retribution which God promises to all the upright in heart, Gloriabuntur, Laudabuntur, They shall Glory, they shall have, they shall give praise. And then it is so far from diminishing this Glory, as that it infinitely exalts our consolation, that God places this Retribution in the future, Gloriabuntur, If they do not yet, yet certainly they shall glory, And if they do now, that glory shall not go out, still they shall, they shall forever glory.

In the Hebrew there is no Present tense; In that language wherein God spake, it could not be said, The upright in heart, Are praised; Many times they are not. But God speaks in the future; first, that he may still keep his Children in an expectation and dependence upon him, (you shall be, though you be not yet) And then, to establish them in an infallibility, because he hath said it, (I know you are not yet, but comfort yourselves, I have said it, and it shall be.) As the Hebrew hath no Superlatives, because God would keep his Children within compass, and in moderate desires, to content themselves with his measures, though they be not great, and though they be not heaped; so, considering what pressures, and contempts, and terrors, the upright in heart are subject to, it is a blessed relief, That they have a future proposed unto them, That they shall be praised, That they shall be redeemed out of contempt. This makes even the Expectation it self as sweet to them, as the fruition would be. This makes them, that when David says, Expecta viriliter, Waite upon the Lord with a good courage; Waite, I say, upon the Lord, they do not answer with the impatience of the Martyrs under the Altar, Vsquequo, How long, Lord, wilt thou defer it? But they answer in David's own words, Expectans expectavi, I have waited long, And, Expectabo nomen tuum, still I will wait upon thy Name; I will wait till the Lord come; His kingdom come in the mean time, His kingdom of Grace, and Patience; and for his Ease, and his Deliverance, and his Praise, and his Glory to me, let that come, when he may be most glorified in the coming thereof. Nay, not only the Expectation, (that is, that that is expected) shall be comfortable, because it shall be infallible, but that very present state that he is in, shall be comfortable, according to the first of our three Translations, They that are true of heart, shall be glad thereof; Glad of that; Glad that they are true of heart, though their future retribution were never so far removed; Nay, though there were no future retribution in the case, yet they shall find comfort enough in their present Integrity. Nay, not only their present state of Integrity, but their present state of misery, shall be comfortable to them; for this very word of our Text, Halal, that is here translated Joy, and Glory, and Praise, in divers places of Scripture, (as Hebrew words have often such a transplantation) signifies Ingloriousnesse, and contempt, and dejection of spirit; So that Ingloriousnesse, and contempt, and dejection of spirit, may be a part of the retribution; God may make Ingloriousnesse, and Contempt, and Dejection of spirit, a greater blessing and benefit, then Joy, and Glory, and Praise would have been; and so reserve all this Glory and Praising to that time, that David intends, The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance. Though they live and die contemptibly, they shall be in an honorable remembrance, even amongst men, as long as men last, and even when time shall be no more, and men no more, they shall have it in futuro aeterno; where there shall be an everlasting present, and an everlasting future, there the upright in heart shall be praised, and that forever, which is our conclusion of all.

If this word of our Text, Halal, shall signify Joy, (as the Service Book, and the Geneva translation render it) that may be somewhat towards enough, which we had occasion to say of the Joyes of heaven, in our Exercise upon the precedent Psalm, when we say-led thorough that Hemispheare of Heaven, by the breath of the Holy Ghost, in handling those words, Under the shadow of thy wings I will rejoice. So that, of this signification of the word, Gaudebunt in aeterno, They shall rejoice forever, we add nothing now. If the word shall signify Glory, (as our last translation renders it) consider with me, That when that Glory which I shall receive in Heaven, shall be of that exaltation, as that my body shall invest the glory of a soul, (my body shall be like a soul, like a spirit, like an Angel of light, in all endowments that glory it self can make that body capable of, that body remaining still a true body) when my body shall be like a soul, there will be nothing left for my soul to be like but God himself; I shall be partaker of the Divine nature, and the same Spirit with him. Since the glory that I shall receive in body, and in soul, shall be such, so exalted, what shall that glory of God be, which I shall see by the light of this glory shed upon me there? In this place, and at this time the glory of God is; but we lack that light to see it by. When my soul and body are glorified in heaven, by that light of glory in me, I shall see the glory of God. But then, what must that glory of the Essence of God be, which I shall see thorough the light of God's own glory? I must have the light of glory upon me, to see the glory of God, and then by his glory I shall see his Essence. When S. Paul cries out upon the bottomless depth of the riches of his Attributes, ( O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! ) how glorious, how bottomless is the riches of his Essence? If I cannot look upon him in his glass, in the body of the Sun, how shall I look upon him face to face? And if I be dazzled to see him as he works, how shall I see him, Sicutiest, as he is, and in his Essence? But it may be some ease to our spirits, (which cannot endure the search of this glory of heaven, which shall show us the very Essence of God) to take this word of our Text, as our first translation of all took it, for one beam of this glory, that is Praise; Consider we therefore this everlasting future only so, How the upright in heart shall be praised in heaven.

First, The Militant Church shall transmit me to the Triumphant, with her recommendation, That I lived in the obedience of the Church of God, That I died in the faith of the Son of God, That I departed and went away from them, in the company and conduct of the Spirit of God, into whose hands they heard me, they saw me recommend my spirit, And that I left my body, which was the Temple of the Holy Ghost, to them, and that they have placed it in God's treasury, in his consecrated earth, to attend the Resurrection, which they shall beseech him to hasten for my sake, and to make it joyful and glorious to me, and them, when it comes. So the Militant Church shall transmit me to the Triumphant, with this praise, this testimony, this recommendation. And then, if I have done any good to any of God's servants, (or to any that hath not been God's servant, for God's sake) If I have but fed a hungry man, If I have but clothed a naked child, If I have but comforted a sad soul, or instructed an ignorant soul, If I have but preached a Sermon, and then printed that Sermon, that is, first preached it, and then lived according to it, (for the subsequent life is the best printing, and the most useful and profitable publishing of a Sermon) All those things that I have done for God's glory, shall follow me, shall accompany me, shall be in heaven before me, and meet me with their testimony, That as I did not serve God for nothing, (God gave me his blessings with a large hand, and in overflowing measures) so I did not nothing for the service of God; Though it be as it ought to be, nothing in mine own eyes, nothing in respect of my duty, yet to them who have received any good by it, it must not seem nothing; for then they are unthankful to God, who gave it, by whose hand soever.

This shall be my praise to Heaven, my recommendation thither; And then, my praise in Heaven, shall be my preferment in Heaven. That those blessed Angels, that rejoiced at my Conversion before, shall praise my perseverance in that profession, and admit me to a part in all their Hymns and Hosannaes, and Hallelujahs; which Hallelujah is a word produced from the very word of this Text, Halal; My Hallelujah shall be my Halal, my praising of God shall be my praise. And from this testimony I shall come to the accomplishment of all, to receive from my Savior's own mouth, that glorious, that victorious, that harmonious praise, that Dissolving, and that Recollecting testimony, that shall melt my bowels, and yet fix me, pour me out, and yet gather me into his bosom, that Euge bone serve, Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into thy Masters joy. And when he hath sealed me with his Euge, and accepted my service, who shall stamp a Vae quod non, upon me? who shall say, Woe be unto thee, that thou didst not preach, this or that day, in this or that place? When he shall have styled me Bone & fidelis, Good and faithful servant, who shall upbraid me with a late undertaking this Calling, or a slack pursuing, or a lazy intermitting the function thereof? When he shall have entered me into my Masters joy, what fortune, what sin can cast any Cloud of sadness upon me? This is that that makes Heaven, Heaven, That this Retribution, which is future now, shall be present then, and when it is then present, it shall be future again, and present and future forever, ever enjoyed, and expected ever. The upright in heart shall have, whatsoever all Translations can enlarge and extend themselves unto; They shall Rejoice, they shall Glory, they shall Praise, and they shall be praised, and all these in an everlasting future, forever. Which everlastingness is such a Terme, as God himself cannot enlarge; As God cannot make himself a better God then he is, because he is infinitely good, infinite goodness, already; so God himself cannot make our Terme in heaven longer then it is; for it is infinite everlastingness, infinite eternity. That that we are to beg of him is, that as that state shall never end, so he will be pleased to hasten the beginning thereof, that so we may be numbered with his Saints in Glory everlasting. Amen.

SERM. LXVIII. The fourth of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalms: Preached at S. Paul's, 28. January, 1626.

G Od makes nothing of nothing now; God eased himself of that incomprehensible work, and ended it in the first Sabbath. But God makes great things of little still; And in that kind he works most upon the Sabbath; when by the foolishness of Preaching he infatuates the wisdom of the world, and by the word, in the mouth of a weak man, he enfeebles the power of sin, and Satan in the world, and by but so much breath as blows out an hourglass, gathers three thousand souls at a Sermon, and five thousand souls at a Sermon, as upon Peters preaching, in the second, and in the fourth of the Acts. And this work of his, to make much of little, and to do much by little, is most properly a Miracle. For, the Creation, (which was a production of all out of nothing) was not properly a miracle: A miracle is a thing done against nature; when something in the course of nature resists that work, then that work is a miracle; But in the Creation, there was no reluctance, no resistance, no nature, nothing to resist. But to do great works by small means, to bring men to heaven by Preaching in the Church, this is a miracle. When Christ intended a miraculous feeding of a great multitude, he asked, Quot panes habetis? First he would know, how many loaves they had; and when he found that they had some, though they were but five, he multiplied them, to a sufficiency for five thousand persons. This Psalm is one of my five loaves, which I bring; One of those five Psalms, which by the Institution of our Ancestors in this Church, are made mine, appropriated especially to my daily meditation, as there are five other Psalms to every other person of our Church. And, by so poor means as this, (my speaking) his Blessing upon his Ordinance may multiply to the advancement, and furtherance of all your salvations. He multiplies now, farther then in those loaves; not only to feed you all, (as he did all that multitude) but to feed you all three meals.

In this Psalm (and especially in this Text) God satisfies you with this threefold knowledge: First, what he hath done for man, in the light and law of nature; Then, how much more he had done for his chosen people, the Jews, in affording them a law; And lastly, what he had reserved for man after, in the establishing of the Christian Church. The first, (in this Metaphor, and miracle of feeding) works as a break-fast; for though there be not a full meal, there is something to stay the stomach, in the light of nature. The second, that which God did for the Jews in their Law, and Sacrifices, and Types, and Ceremonies, is as that Dinner, which was spoken of in the Gospel, which was plentifully prepared, but prepared for some certain guests, that were bidden, and no more; Better means then were in nature, they had in the law, but yet only appropriated to them that were bidden, to that Nation, and no more. But in the third meal, God's plentiful refection in the Christian Church, and means of salvation there; first, Christ comes in the visitation of his Spirit, (Behold I come, and knock, and will sup with him) (He sups with us, in the private visitation of his Spirit) And then, (as it is added there) he invites us to sup with him, he calls us home to his house, and there makes us partakers of his blessed Sacraments; And by those means we are brought at last to that blessedness, which he proclaims, (Blessed are all they which are called to the marriage Supper of the Lamb) in the Kingdom of heaven. For all these three meals, we say Grace in this Text, (By terrible things, in righteousness, wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation) for all these ways of coming to the knowledge and worship of God, we bless God in this Text, (Thou art the confidence of all the ends of the Earth, and of them that are a far off, upon the Sea.

The consideration of the means of salvation, afforded by God to the Jews in their law, inanimates the whole Psalm, and is transfused thorough every part thereof; and so, it falls upon this Verse too, as it doth upon all the rest; And then, for that, that God had done before in nature, and for all, is in the later part of this Verse, (Who art the confidence of all the ends of the Earth, and of them that are a far off, upon the Sea) And lastly, that that he hath reserved for the Christian Church, God hath centred, and embowelled in the womb and bosom of the Text, in that compellation, (O God of our salvation) for there the word salvation, is rooted in Iashang, which Iashang is the very Name of Jesus, the foundation, and the whole building of the Christian Church. So then our three parts will be these; What God hath done in Nature, what in the Law, what in the Gospel. And, when in our Order we shall come to that last part, which is that, that we drive all to, (The advantage which we have in the Gospel, above Nature, and the Law) we shall then propose, and stop upon the Holy Ghosts manner of expressing it in this place, (By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation) But first, look we a little into the other two, Nature, and Law.

First then, the last words settle us upon our first consideration, What God hath done for man in Nature, He is the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are a far off, upon the Sea, that is, of all the world, all places, all persons in the world; All, at all times, everywhere, have Declarations enow of his power, Demonstrations enow of his Goodness, to confide in him, to rely upon him. The Holy Ghost seems to have delighted in the Metaphor of Building. I know no figurative speech so often iterated in the Scriptures, as the name of a House; Heaven and Earth are called by that name, and we, who being upon earth, have our conversation in heaven, are called so too, (Christ hath a House, which House we are) And as God builds his House, ( The Lord builds up lerusalem, saith David ) so he furnishes it, he plants Vineyards, Gardens, and Orchards about it, He lays out a way to it, (Christ is the way) He opens a gate into it, (Christ is the gate) And when he hath done all this, (built his house, furnished it, planted about it, made it accessible, and opened the gate) then he keeps house, as well as builds a house, he feeds us, and feasts us in his house, as well as he lodges us, and places us in it. And as Christ professes what his own Diet was, what he fed upon, (My meat is to do the will of my Father) so our meat is to know the will of the Father; Every man, even in nature, hath that appetite, that desire, to know God. And therefore if God have made any man, and not given him means to know him, he is but a good Builder, he is no good Housekeeper, He gives him lodging, but he gives him no meat; But the eyes of all wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due season. All, (not only we) wait upon God; and he gives them Their meat, though not our meat, (The Word and the Sacramenss) yet Their meat, such as they are able to digest and endue. Even in nature, He is the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are a far off, upon the Sea. That is his daily bread, which even the natural man begs at God's hand, and God affords it him.

The most precious and costly dishes are always reserved for the last services, but yet there is wholesome meat before too. The clear light is in the Gospel, but there is light in Nature too. At the last Supper, (the Supper of the Lamb in Heaven) there is no bill of fare, there are no particular dishes named there. It is impossible to tell us what we shall feed upon, what we shall be feasted with, at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb; Our way of knowing God there cannot be expressed. At that Supper of the Lamb, which is here, here in our way homewards, that is, in the Sacramental Supper of the Lamb, it is very hard to tell, what we feed upon; How that meat is dressed, how the Body and Blood of Christ is received by us, at that Supper, in that Sacrament, is hard to be expressed, hard to be conceived, for the way and manner thereof. So also in the former meal, that which we have called the Dinner, which is The knowledge which the Jews had in the Law, it was not easy to distinguish the taste, and the nature of every dish, and to find the signification in every Type, and in every Ceremony. There are some difficulties (if curious men take the matter in hand, and be too inquisitive) even in the Gospel; more in the Law; most of all in Nature. But yet, even in this first refection, this first meal, that God sets before man, (which is our knowledge of God in Nature) because we are then in God's House, (all this World, and the next make God but one House) though God do not give Marrow and fatness, (as David speaks) though he do not feed them with the fat of the wheat, nor satisfy them with honey out of the Rock, (for the Gospel is the honey, and Christ is the Rock) yet, even in Nature, he gives sufficient means to know him, though they come to neither of the other Meales, neither to the Jews Dinner, The benefit of the Law, nor to the Christians Supper, either when they feed upon the Lamb in the Sacrament, or when they feed with the Lamb in the possession and fruition of Heaven.

Though therefore the Septuagint, in their Translation of the Psalms, have, in the Title of this Psalm, added this, A Psalm of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, when they were departing out of the Captivity of Babylon, intimating therein, that it is a Psalm made in contemplation of that blessed place which we are to go to, (as, literally, it was of their happy state in their restitution from Babylon to Jerusalem) And though the ancient Church, by appropriating this Psalm to the office of the dead, to the service at Burials, intimate also, that this Psalm is intended of that fullness of knowledge, and Joy, and Glory, which they have that are departed in the Lord, yet the Holy Ghost stops, as upon the way, before we come thither, and, since we must lie in an Inn, that is, Lodge in this World, he enables the World to entertain us, as well as to lodge us, and hath provided, that the World, the very world it self, (before we consider the Law in the World, or the Church in the World, or Glory in the next World) This very World, that is, Nature, and no more, should give such an universal light of the knowledge of God, as that he should be The confidence of all the ends of the Earth, and of them that are a far off upon the Sea.

And therefore as men that come to great places, and preferments, when they have entered by a fair and wide gate of Honor, but yet are laid down upon hard beds of trouble and anxiety in those places, (for, when the body seems in the sight of men, to go on in an easy amble, the mind is every day (if not all day) in a shrewd and diseasefull trot) As those men will sometimes say, It was better with me, when I was in a lower place, and fortune, and will remember, being Bishops, the pleasures they had when they were School-boys, and yet, for all this, intermit not their thankfulness to God, who hath raised them to that height, and those means of glorifying him: so, howsoever we abound with joy and thankfulness, for these gracious and glorious Illustrations of the Law, and the Gospel, and beams of future Glory, which we have in the Christian Church, Let us reflect often upon our beginning, upon the consideration of God's first benefits, which he hath given to us all in Nature, That light, by which he enlighteneth every man that cometh into the World, That he hath given us a reasonable soul capable of grace, here, (that, he hath denied no man, and no other creature hath that) That he hath given us an immortal soul capable of glory hereafter, (and that, that immortality he hath denied no man, and no other creature hath that.) Consider we always the grace of God, to be the Sun it self, but the nature of man, and his natural faculties to be the Sphere, in which that Sun, that Grace moves. Consider we the Grace of God to be the soul itself, but the natural faculties of man, to be as a body, which ministers Organs for that soul, that Grace to work by. That so, as how much soever I fear the hand of a mighty man, that strikes, yet I have a more immediate fear of the sword he strikes with; So, though I impute justly my sins, and my fears of judgments for them, to God's withdrawing, or to my neglecting his grace, yet I look also upon that which is next me, Nature, and natural light, and natural faculties, and that I consider how I use to use them; whether I be as watchful upon my tongue, that that minister no temptation to others, and upon mine eye, that that receive no temptation from others, as by the light of Nature, I might, and as some moral Men, without addition of particular Grace, have done. That so, first for myself, I be not apt to lay anything upon God, and to say, that he starved me, though he should not bid me to the Jews dinner, in giving me the light of the Law, nor bid me to the Christians Supper, in giving me the light of the Gospel, because he hath given me a competent refection even in Nature. And then, that for others, I may first say with the Apostle, That they are without excuse, who do not see the invisible God, in the visible Creature, and may say also with him, O altitudo! The ways of the Lord are past my finding out; And therefore to those, who do open their eyes to that light of Nature, in the best exaltation thereof, God does not hide himself, though he have not manifested to me, by what way he manifests himself to them. For, God disappoints none, and he is The confidence of all the ends of the Earth, and of them who are a far off upon the Sea.

Commit thy way unto the Lord, says David; And he says more, then our Translation seems to express; The Margin hath expressed it; for, according to the Original word, Galal, it is in the Margin, not Commit, but Roll thy way upon the Lord; which may very well imply, and intend this precept, Carry thy Rolling trench up to God, and gather upon him; As Abraham, when he beat the price with God for Sodom, from fifty, to ten, rolled his Petition upon God, fo roll thy ways upon him, come up to him in a thankful acknowledgement, what he hath done for thee, in the Gospel, in the Law, and in Nature; And then, as Tertullian says of public Prayers, Obsidemus Deum, In the Prayers of the Congregation we besiege God, So this way we entrench ourselves before God, so, as that nothing can beat us out of our trenches; for, if all the Canons of the Church beat upon me, so that I be by Excommunication removed from the assistances of the Church, (though I be inexcusable, if I labor not my Reconciliation, and my Absolution) yet, before that be effected, I am still in my first trench, still I am a man, still I have a soul capable of Grace, still I have the light of Nature, and some presence of God in that; though I be attenuated, I am not annihilated, though by my former abuses of God's graces, and my contumacy, I be cast back to the ends of the earth, and a far off upon the Sea, yet even there, God is the confidence of all them; As long as I consider that I have such a soul, capable of Grace and Glory, I cannot despair.

Thus Nature makes Pearls, Thus Grace makes Saints. A drop of dew hardens, and then another drop falls, and spreads it self, and clothes that former drop, and then another, and another, and become so many shells and films that invest that first feminall drop, and so (they say) there is a pearl in Nature. A good foul takes first God's first drop into his consideration, what he hath shed upon him in Nature, and then his second coat, what in the Law, and successively his other manifold graces, as so many shells, and films, in the Christian Church, and so we are sure, there is a Saint.

Roll thy ways upon God; And (as it follows in the same verse) Spera in eo, & ipse faciet; we translate it, Trust in him, and he shall bring it to pass; Begin at Alpha, and he shall bring it to Omega: Consider thyself but in the state of Hope, (for the state of Nature is but a state of Hope, a state of Capablenesse; In Nature we have the capacity of Grace, but not Grace in possession, in Nature) Et ipse faciet, says that Text, God shall do, God shall work; There is no more in the Original but so, Ipse faciet; Not God shall do it, or do this, or do that, but do all; do but consider that God hath done something for thee, and he shall do all, for, He is the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are a far off upon the Sea. Here is a new Mathematiques; without change of Elevation, or parallax, I that live in this Climate, and stand under this Meridian, look up and fixe myself upon God, And they that are under my feet, look up to that place, which is above them, And as divers, as contrary as our places are, we all fixe at once upon one God, and meet in one Center; but we do not so upon one Sun, nor upon one constellation, or configuration in the Heavens; when we see it, those Antipodes do not; but they, and we see God at once. How various forms of Religion soever pass us through divers ways, yet by the very light and power of Nature, we meet in one God; and for so much, as may make God accessible to us, and make us inexcusable towards him, there is light enough in this dawning of the day, refection enough in this first meal, The knowledge of God, which we have in Nature; That alone discharges God, and condemns us; for, by that, He is, that is, He offers himself to be, The confidence of all the ends of the Earth, and of them who are a far of upon the Sea; that is, of all mankind.

But then, Lunae radiis non matureseit botrus, fruits may be seen by the Mooneshine, but the Mooneshine will not ripen them. Therefore a Sun rises unto us, in the law, and in the Prophets, and gives us another manner of light, then we had in nature. The way of the wicked is as Darkness, says Solomon; Wherein? It follows, They know not at what they stumble. A man that calls himself to no kind of account, that takes no candle into his hand, never knows at what he stumbles, not what occasions his sin. But by the light of nature, if he will look upon his own infirmities, his own deformities, his own inclinations, he may know at what he stumbles, what that is that leads him into temptation. For, though S. Paul say, That by the law is the knowledge of sin, And, Sin is not imputed when there is no law; And again, I had not known sin, but by the law; in some of these places, the law is not intended only of the law of the Jews, but of the law of nature in our hearts, (for, by that law, every man knows that he sins) And then, sin is not only intended of sin produced into act, but sin in the heart; as the Apostle instances there, I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. Of some sins, there is no clear evidence given by the light of nature: That the law supplied; and more then that. The law did not only show, what was sin, but gave some light of remedy against sin, and restitution after sin, by those sacrifices, which, though they were ineffectual in themselves, yet involved, and represented Christ, who was their salvation. So then, God was to the Jews, in general, as he was to his principal servant amongst them, Moses; He saw the land of promise, but he entered not into it; The Jews saw Christ, but embraced him not. Abraham saw his day, and rejoiced; They saw it, that is, they might have seen it, but winked at it. Luther says well, Iudaei habuere jus mendicandi, The Jews had a license to beg, They had a Breve, and might gather, They had a Covenant, and might plead with God; But they did not; and therefore, though they were inexcusable for their neglect of the light of Nature, and more inexcusable for resisting the light of the law, That they and we might be absolutely inexcusable, if we continued in darkness after that, God set up another light, the light of the Gospel, which is our third and last part, wrapped up in those first words of our Text, By terrible things, in righteousness, wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation.

This word, Salvation, Iashang, is the root of the name of Jesus. In the beginning of the Primitive Church, when the followers of Christ left or discontinued their being called the Disciples, and the Faithful, and the Brethren, and the Professors, as they had been called before, and would bring the Name of their founder, Christ Jesus, into more evidence and manifestation, yet they were not called by the Name of Jesus, but from Christ; at Antioch first they were called Christians. For, it is well distinguished, That the Name of Jesus, as it signifies a Savior, first contemplates God, and the Divine nature, (which only could save us) And then hath relation to Man, and the Human nature, without assuming of which, the Son of God could not have saved us that way, that God had proposed, The satisfaction of his Justice; And then, the Name of Christ, (as it signifies Anointed, and appointed to a certain purpose, as to die for us) first contemplates Man, and the Human nature, which only could die, And then hath relation to God, and the Divine nature. So that Jesus is God, and Man in Him; And Christ is Man, and God in Him. So the Name Jesus seems to taste of more Mystery, and more Incomprehensiblenesse; And the Name of Christ, of more Humility, and Appliablenesse.

And with this lower Name, to be called Christians from Christ, was the Church of God contented; Whereas a later race of men in the Roman Church, will needs take their Denomination from Jesus himself; But I know not whether they mean our Jesus or no. Josephus remembers two (at least) of that name, Jesus, that were infamous malefactors, and men of blood; and they may deduce themselves from such a Jesus. And a Jesuit teaches us, that it is the common opinion, that Barabbas the murderer, was by his proper Name called Jesus; that his name was Jesus Barabbas; and that therefore Pilate made that difference upon our Savior, Jesus Nazarenus, This is Jesus of Nazareth, and not Jesus Barabbas; and from that Jesus, Jesus Barabbas they may deduce themselves. And we know also, that that mischievous sorcerer, was called by that Name, Bar-jesu, The Son of Jesus. From which Jesus amongst these, they will make their extraction, let them choose. As amongst the Jesuits, the bloodiest of them all, (even to the drawing of the sacred blood of Kings) is, by his name, Mariana; So all the rest of them, both in that respect, of sucking blood, and occasioning massacres, and other respects too, are rather Marianits then Jesuits, Idolaters of the blessed Virgin Mary, then worshippers of Jesus.

We consist in the Humility of the Ancients; we are Christians, Jesus is merely a Savior, A name of Mystery, Christ is Anointed, A name of Communication, of Accommodation, of Imitation; And so this name, the name of Christ, is Oleum effusum, (as the Spouse speaks) An ointment, a perfume poured out upon us, and we are Christians. In the name of Jesus, S. Paul abounded, but in the Name of Christ more; for, (as a Jesuit gives us the account) he repeats the name of Jesus almost three hundred times, but the name of Christ more then four hundred, in his Epistles. In this Church then, which is gathered in the Name of Christ, (though in the power and merit of Jesus ) This light which we speak of, This knowledge of God, and means of salvation, is in the highest exaltation. In the state of nature, we consider this light, as the Sun, to be risen at the Moluccae, in the farthest East; In the state of the law, we consider it, as the Sun come to Ormus, the first Quadrant; But in the Gospel, to be come to the Canaries, the fortunate Islands, the first Meridian. Now, whatsoever is beyond this, is Westward, towards a Declination. If we will go farther then to be Christians, and those doctrines, which the whole Christian Church hath ever believed, if we will be of Cephas, and of Apollos, if we will call ourselves, or endanger, and give occasion to others, to call us from the Names of men, Papists, or Lutherans, or Calvinists, we depart from the true glory and serenity, from the luster and splendor of this Sun; This is Tabernaculum Solis, Here in the Christian Church, God hath set a Tabernacle for the Sun; And, as in nature, Man hath light enough to discern the principles of Reason; So in the Christian Church, (considered without subdivisions of Names, and Sects) a Christian hath light enough of all things necessary to salvation.

So then, still roll thy ways upon God, Gather upon him nearer and nearer; for, all these are emanations of lights from him, that he might be found, and seen, and known by thee. The looking upon God, by the first light of Nature, is, to catechize, and examine thyself, whether thou do govern, and employ thy natural faculties to his glory; whether thou do shut thine eyes at a temptation, stop thine ears at a blasphemy upon God, or a defamation upon thy neighbor; and withhold thy hand from blood and bribes, and thy feet from fellowship in sin. The looking upon God, by the second light, the light of the law, is, to discern by that, that God hath always had a peculiar people of his own, and gathered them, and contained them in his worship, by certain visible, sensible Ordinances and Institutions, Sacraments, and Sacrifices, and ritual Ceremonies, and to argue and conclude out of God's former proceedings with them, his greatness and his goodness towards the present world. And then, to see God by that last and best light, the light of the Christian Church, is, to be content with so much of God, as God hath revealed of himself to his Church; And (as it is expressed here) to hear him answer thee, By terrible things in righteousness; for, that he does as he is the God of our salvation, that is, as he works in the Christian Church; which is our last Consideration; By terrible, &c.

In this Consideration, (God's proceeding with us in the Christian Church) this observation meets us first, That God's conversation with us there, is called an Answering; (He shall answer us) Now if we look that God should answer us, we must say something to God; and our way of speaking to God, is by petition, by prayer. If we present no petition, if we pray not, we can look for no answer, for we ask none. Isaiah is very bold, (saith S. Paul ) when he says, That God was found of them that sought him not, and made manifest to them that asked not after him; Yet though it were boldly said, it was truly said; so early, and so powerful is God's preventing grace towards us. So it is a very ordinary phrase amongst the Prophets, God answered, and said thus, and thus, when the Prophet had asked nothing of God. But here we are upon God's proceeding with man in the Christian Church; and so, God answers not, but to our petitions, to our prayers. In a Sermon, God speaks to the Congregation, but he answers only that soul, that hath been with him at Prayers before. A man may pray in the street, in the fields, in a fair; but it is a more acceptable and more effectual prayer, when we shut our doors, and observe our stationary houses for private prayer in our Chamber; and in our Chamber, when we pray upon our knees, then in our beds. But the greatest power of all, is in the public prayer of the Congregation.

It is a good remembrance that Damascene gives, Non quia gentes quaedam faciunt, à nobis linquenda; We must not forbear things only therefore, because the Gentiles, or the Jews used them. The Gentiles, particularly the Romans, (before they were Christians) had a set Service, a prescribed form of Common prayer in their Temples; and they had a particular Officer in that State, who was Conditor precum, that made their Collects, and Prayers upon emergent occasions; And Omni lustro, every five years there was a review, and an alteration in their Prayers, and the state of things was presumed to have received so much change in that time, as that it was fit to change some of their Prayers and Collects. It must not therefore seem strange, that at the first, there were certain Collects appointed in our Church; nor that others, upon just occasion, be added.

God's blessing here, in the Christian Church, (for, to that we limit this consideration) is, that here He will answer us; Therefore, here we must ask; Here, our asking is our communion at Prayer: And therefore they that undervalue, or neglect the prayers of the Church, have not that title to the benefit of the Sermon; for though God do speak in the Sermon, yet he answers, that is, applies himself, by his Spirit, only to them, who have prayed to him before. If they have joined in prayer, they have their interest, and shall feel their Consolation in all the promises of the Gospel, shed upon the Congregation, in the Sermon. Have you asked by prayer, Is there no Balm in Gilead? He answers you by me, Yes, there is Blame; He was wounded for your transgressions, and with his stripes you are healed; His Blood is your Balm, his Sacrament is your Gilead. Have you asked by prayer, Is there no Smith in Israel? No means to discharge myself of my fetters, and chains, of my temporal, and spiritual Encumbrances? God answers thee, Yes, there is; He bids you but look about, and you shall find yourself in Peter case; The Angel of the Lord present, A light shining, and his chains falling off: All your manacles locked upon the hands, All your chains loaded upon the legs, All your stripes numbered upon the back of Christ Jesus. You have said in your prayers here, (Lord, from whom all good counsails do proceed) And God answers you from hence, The Angel of the great Counsel shall dwell with you, and direct you. You have said in your prayers, Lighten our darkness, and God answers you by me, (as he did his former people by Isaiah ) The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Petition God at prayers, and God shall answer all your petitions at the Sermon. There we begin, (if we will make profit of a Sermon) at Prayers; And thither we return again, (if we have made profit by a Sermon) in due time, to prayers. For, that is S. Augustine's holy Circle, in which he walks from Prayers to the Sermon, and from the Sermon, next day to Prayers again. Invocat te fides mea, says he to God; Here I stand or kneel in thy presence, and in the power of faith, to pray to thee. But where had I this faith, that makes my prayer acceptable? Dedisti mihi per ministerium Praedicatoris; I had it at the Sermon, I had it, saith he, by the ministry of the Preacher; but I had it therefore, because thy Spirit prepared me by prayer before; And I have it therefore, that is, to that end, that I might return faithfully to prayers again. As he is The God of our salvation, (that is, As he works in the Christian Church) he answers us: If we ask by prayer, he applies the Sermon; And, He answers by terrible things, in righteousness.

These two words, (Terribilia per Iustitiam) By Terrible things in Righteousness, are ordinarily by our Expositors taken, to intimate a confidence, that God imprints by the Ordinance of his Church, that by this right use of Prayer and Preaching, they shall always be delivered from their enemies, or from what may be most terrible unto them. In which exposition, Righteousness signifies faithfulness, and Terrible things signify miraculous deliverances from, and terrible Judgments upon his, and our enemies. Therefore is God called, Deus fidelis, The faithful God; for, that faithfulness implies a Covenant, made before, (and there entered his Mercy, that he would make that Covenant) and it implies also the assurance of the performance thereof, for there enters his faithfulness. So he is called, Fidelis Creator, (We commit our souls to God, as to a faithful Creator) He had an eternal gracious purpose upon us, to create us, and he hath faithfully accomplished it. So, Fidelis quia vocavit, He is faithful in having called us; That he had decreed, and that he hath done. So Christ is called, Fidelis Pontifex, A merciful and a faithful high Priest; Merciful in offering himself for us, faithful in applying himself to us. So God's whole word is called so often, so very often Testimonium fidele, A faithful witness, an evidence that cannot deceive, nor mislead us. Therefore we may be sure, that whatsoever God hath promised to his Church, (And whatsoever God hath done upon the enemies of his Church heretofore, those very performances to them, are promises to us, of the like succors in the like distresses) he will perform, re-perform, multiply performances thereof upon us. Thy counsails of old are faithfulness and truth; That is, whatsoever thou didst decree, was done even then, in the infallibility of that Decree; And when that Decree came to be executed, and actually done, in that very execution of that former Decree was enwrapped a new Decree, That the same should be done over and over again for us, whensoever we needed it. So that then, casting up our account, from the destruction of Babel, by all the plagues of Egypt, through the depopulation of Canaan, and the massacre in Sennacherib's Army, to the swallowing of the Invincible Navy upon our Seas, and the bringing to light that Infernal, that subterranean Treason in our Land, we may argue, and assume, That the God of our salvation will answer us by terrible things, by multiplying of miracles, and ministering supplies, to the confusion of his, and our enemies, for, By terrible things in righteousness, will the God of our salvation answer us.

So then, his Judgments are these Terribilia, Terrible, fearful things; And he is faithful in his Covenant, and by terrible Judgments he will answer, that is, satisfy our expectation. And that is a convenient sense of these words. But, the word, which we translate Righteousness here, is Tzadok, and Tzadok is not faithfulness, but holiness; And these Terrible things are Reverend things; and so Tremellius translates it, and well; Per res Reverendas, By Reverend things, things to which there belongs a Reverence, thou shalt answer us. And thus, the sense of this place will be, That the God of our salvation, (that is, God working in the Christian Church) calls us to Holiness, to Righteousness, by Terrible things; not Terrible, in the way and nature of revenge; but Terrible, that is, stupendous, reverend, mysterious: That so we should not make Religion too homely a thing, but come always to all Acts, and Exercises of Religion, with reverence, with fear, and trembling, and make a difference, between Religious, and Civil Actions.

In the frame and constitution of all Religions, these Materials, these Elements have ever entered; Some words of a remote signification, not vulgarly understood, some actions of a kind of half-horror and amazement, some places of reservation and retiredness, and appropriation to some sacred persons, and inaccessible to all others. Not to speak of the services, and sacrifices of the Gentiles, and those self-manglings and lacerations of the Priests of Isis, and of the Priests of Baal, (faintly counterfaited in the scourgings and flagellations in the Roman Church) In that very discipline which was delivered from God, by Moses, the service was full of mystery, and horror, and reservation, By terrible things, (Sacrifices of blood in manifold effusions) God answered them, then. So, the matter of Doctrine was delivered mysteriously, and with much reservation, and in-intelligiblenesse, as Tertullian speaks. The Joy and Glory of Heaven was not easily understood by their temporal abundances of Milk, and Honey, and Oil, and Wine; and yet, in these (and scarce any other way) was Heaven presented, and notified to that people by Moses. Christ, a Messias, a Savior of the World, by shedding his blood for it, was not easily discerned in their Types and Sacrifices; And yet so, and scarce any other way was Christ revealed unto them. God says, I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the Prophets. They were Visions, they were Similitudes, nor plain and evident things, obvious to every understanding, that God led his people by. And there was an Order of Doctors amongst the Jews that professed that way, To teach the People by Parables and dark sayings; and these were the powerfullest Teachers amongst them, for they had their very name (Mosselim) from power and dominion; They had a power, a dominion over the affections of their Disciples, because teaching them by an obscure way, they created an admiration, and a reverence in their hearers, and laid a necessity upon them, of returning again to them, for the interpretation and signification of those dark Parables. Many think that Moses cites these obscure Doctors, these Mosselim, in that place, in the book of Numbers, when he says, Wherefore they that speak in Proverbs, say thus, and thus, And so he proceeds in a way and words, as hard to be understood, as any place in all his Books. David professes this of himself often; I will open dark sayings upon my Harp, And, I will open my mouth in a Parable. And this was the way of Solomon; for that very word is the Title of his book of Proverbs. And in this way of teaching, our Savior abounded, and excelled; for when it is said, He taught them as one having authority, And when it is said, They were astonished at his Doctrine, for his word was with Power, they refer that to this manner of teaching, that he astonished them with these reserved and dark sayings, and by the subsequent interpretation thereof, gained a reverend estimation amongst them, that he only could lead them to a desire to know, (that dark way increased their desire) and then he only satisfy them with the knowledge of those things which concerned their salvation. For these Parables, and comparisons of a remote signification, were called by the Jews, Potestates, Powers, Powerful insinuations, as, amongst the Grecians, the same things were called Axiomata, Dignities; And of Christ it is said, Without a Parable spake he not.

So that God in the Old, and Christ in the New Testament, hath conditioned his Doctrine, and his Religion (that is, his outward worship) so, as that evermore there should be preserved a Majesty, and a reverential fear, and an awful discrimination of Divine things from Civil, and evermore something reserved to be inquired after, and laid up in the mouth of the Priest, that the People might acknowledge an obligation from him, in the exposition, and application thereof. Nay, this way of answering us by terrible things, (that is, by things that imprint a holy horror, and a Religious reverence) is much more in the Christian Church, then it can have been in any other Religion; Because, if we consider the Jews, (which is the only Religion, that can enter into any comparison with the Christian, in this kind) yet, we look more directly and more immediately upon God in Christ, then they could, who saw him but by way of Prophecy, a future thing that should be done after; we look upon God, in History, in matter of fact, upon things done, and set before our eyes; and so that Majesty, and that holy amazement, is more to us then ever it was to any other Religion, because we have a nearer approximation, and vicinity to God in Christ, then any others had, in any representions of their God's; and it is a more dazzling thing to look upon the Sun, in a direct, then in an oblique or side line. And therefore, the love of God, which is so often proposed unto us, is as often seasoned with the fear of God; nay, all our Religious affections are reduced to that one, To a reverential fear; If he be a Master, he calls for fear, and, If he be a Father, he calls for honor; And honor implies a reverential fear. And that is the Art that David professes to teach, Artem timendi, Come ye children, and hearken unto me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord. That you think not Divinity an Occupation, nor Church-Service a recreation; but still remember, That the God of our Salvation (God working in the Christian Church) will answer you; but yet, by terrible things; that is, by not being over-fellowly with God, nor over-homely with places, and acts of Religion; which, it may be an advancement to your Devotion and edification, to consider, in some particulars in the Christian Church.

And first, consider we it, in our manners, and conversation. Christ says, Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends. But, howsoever Christ called him friend, that was come to the feast without the wedding garment, he cast him out, because he made no difference of that place from another. First then, remember by what terrible things God answers thee in the Christian Church, when he comes to that round and peremptory issue, Qui non credider it, damnabitur, He that believes not every Article of the Christian faith, & with so steadfast a belief, as that he would die for it, Damnabitur, (no modification, no mollification, no going less) He shall be damned. Consider too the nature of Excōmunication, That it tears a man from the body of Christ Jesus; That that man withers that is torn off, and Christ himself is wounded in it. Consider the insupportable penances that were laid upon sinners, by those penitential Canons, that went through the Church in those Primitive times; when, for many sins which we pass through now, without so much as taking knowledge that they are sins, men were not admitted to the Communion all their lives, no, nor easily upon their death-beds. Consider how dangerously an abuse of that great doctrine of Predestination may bring thee to think, that God is bound to thee, and thou not bound to him, That thou mayest renounce him, and he must embrace thee, and so make thee too familiar with God, and too homely with Religion, upon presumption of a Decree. Consider that when thou preparest any unclean action, in any sinful nakedness, God is not only present with thee in that room then, but then tells thee, That at the day of Judgment thou must stand in his presence, and in the presence of all the World, not only naked, but in that foul, and sinful, and unclean action of nakedness, which thou committedst then; Consider all this and confess, that for matter of manners, and conversation, The God of thy Salvation answers thee by terrible things. And so it is also, if we consider Prayer in the Church.

God House is the house of Prayer; It is his Court of Requests; There he receives petitions, there he gives Order upon them. And you come to God in his House, as though you came to keep him company, to sit down, and talk with him half an hour; or you come as Ambassadors, covered in his presence, as though ye came from as great a Prince as he. You meet below, and there make your bargains, for biting, for devouring Usury, and then you come up hither to prayers, and so make God your Broker. You rob, and spoil, and eat his people as bread, by Extortion, and bribery, and deceitful weights and measures, and deluding oaths in buying and selling, and then come hither, and so make God your Receiver, and his house a den of Thieves. His house is Sanctum Sanctorum, The holiest of holies, and you make it only Sanctuarium; It should be a place sanctified by your devotions, and you make it only a Sanctuary to privilege Malefactors, A place that may redeem you from the ill opinion of men, who must in charity be bound to think well of you, because they see you here. Offer this to one of your Princes, (as God argues in the Prophet) and see, if he will suffer his house to be profaned by such uncivil abuses; And, Terribilis Rex, The Lord most high is terrible, and a great King over all the earth; and, Terribilis super omnes Deos, More terrible then all other God's. Let thy Master be thy god, or thy Mistress thy god, thy Belly be thy god, or thy Back be thy god, thy fields be thy god, or thy chests be thy god, Terribilis super omnes Deos, The Lord is terrible above all gods, A great God, and a great King above all gods. You come, and call upon him by his name here, But Magnū & terribile, Glorious and fearful is the name of the Lord thy God. And, as if the Son of God were but the Son of some Lord, that had been your School-fellow in your youth, and so you continued a boldness to him ever after, so, because you have been brought up with Christ from your cradle, and catechized in his name, his name becomes less reverend unto you, And Sanctum & terribile, Holy, and reverend, Holy and terrible should his name be.

Consider the resolution that God hath taken upon the Hypocrite, and his prayer; What is the hope of the Hypocrite, when God taketh away his soul? Will God hear his cry? They have not cried unto me with their hearts, when they have howled upon their beds. Consider, that error in the matter of our prayer frustrates the prayer and makes it ineffectual. Zebedees Sons would have been placed at the right hand, and at the left hand of Christ, and were not heard. Error in the manner may frustrate our prayer, and make it ineffectual too. Ye ask, and are not heard, because ye ask amiss. It is amiss, if it be not referred to his will, (Lord if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.) It is amiss, if it be not asked in faith, (Let not him that wavereth, think he shall receive anything of the Lord.) It is amiss, if prayer be discontinued, intermitted, done by fits, (Pray incessantly) And it is so too, if it be not vehement; for Christ was in an Agony in his prayer, and his sweat was as great drops of blood. Of prayers without these conditions, God says, When you spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes, & when you make many prayers, I will not hear you. Their prayer shall not only be ineffectual, but even their prayer shall be an abomination; And not only an abomination to God, but destruction upon themselves; for, Their prayer shall be turned to sin. And, when they shall not be heard for themselves, nobody else shall be heard for them; (Though these three men, Noah, Job, & Daniel, stood for them, they should not deliver thē; Though the whole Congregation consisted of Saints, they shall not be heard for him, nay, they shall be forbidden to pray for him, forbidden to mentiō, or mean him in their prayers, as Jeremiah was. When God leaves you no way of reconciliation but prayer, and then lays these heavy and terrible conditions upon prayer; Confess that though he be the God of your salvation, and do answer you, yet By terrible things doth the God of your salvation answer you. And consider this again, as in manners, and in prayer, so in his other Ordinance of Preaching.

Think with yourselves what God looks for from you, and what you give him, in that Exercise. Because God calls Preaching foolishness, you take God at his word, and you think Preaching a thing under you. Hence is it, that you take so much liberty in censuring and comparing Preacher and Preacher, nay Sermon and Sermon from the same Preacher; as though we preached for wagers, and as though coin were to be valued from the inscription merely, and the image, and the person, and not for the metal. You measure all by persons; and yet, Non erubescit is faciem Sacerdotis, You respect not the person of the Priest, you give not so much reverence to God's Ordinance, as he does. In no Church of Christendom but ours, doth the Preacher preach uncovered. And for all this good, and humble, and reverend example, (fit to be continued by us) cannot we keep you uncovered till the Text be read. All the Sermon is not God's word, but all the Sermon is God's Ordinance, and the Text is certainly his word. There is no salvation but by faith, nor faith but by hearing, nor bearing but by preaching; and they that think meanliest of the Keys of the Church, and speak faintliest of the Absolution of the Church, will yet allow, That those Keys lock, and unlock in Preaching; That Absolution is conferred, or with held in Preaching, That the proposing of the promises of the Gospel in preaching, is that binding and loosing on earth, which binds and looses in heaven. And then, though Christ have bid us, Preach the Gospel to every creature, yet, in his own great Sermon in the Mount, he hath forbidden us, to give holy things to dogs, or to cast pearl before swine, lest they trample them, and turn and rend us. So that if all those manifold and fearful judgments, which swell in every Chapter and blow in every verse, and thunder in every line of every Book of the Bible, fall upon all them that come hither, as well, if they turn, and rend, that is, Calumniate us, the person of the Preacher, as if they trample upon the pearls, that is, undervalue the Doctrine, and the Ordinance it self; If his terrible Judgments fall upon every uncharitable mis-interpretation of that which is said here, and upon every irreverence in this place, and in this action; Confess, that though he be the God of your salvation, and do answer you, yet, by terrible things doth the God of your salvation answer you. And confess it also, as in manners, and in prayers, and in preaching, so in the holy and blessed Sacrament.

This Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Savior, Luther calls safely, Venerabile & adorabile; for certainly, whatsoever that is which we see, that which we receive, is to be adored; for, we receive Christ. He is Res Sacramenti, The form, the Essence, the substance, the soul of the Sacrament; And Sacramentum sine re Sacramenti, mors ost, To take the body, and not the soul, the bread, and not Christ, is death. But he that feels Christ, in the receiving of the Sacrament, and will not bend his knee, would scarce bend his knee, if he saw him. The first of that royal Family, which thinks it self the greatest in Christendom at this day, The House of Austrich, had the first marks of their Greatness, The Empire, brought into that House, for a particular reverence done to the holy and blessed Sacrament. What the bread and wine is, or what becomes of it, Damascene thinks impertinent to be inquired. He thinks he hath said enough; (and so may we do) Migrat in substantiam animae; There is the true Transubstantiation, that when I have received it worthily, it becomes my very soul; that is, My soul grows up into a better state, and habitude by it, and I have the more soul for it, the more sanctified, the more deified soul by that Sacrament.

Now this Sacrament, which as it is ministered to us, is but a Sacrament, but as it is offered to God, is a Sacrifice too, is a fearful, a terrible thing: If the sacrifices of the Law, the blood of Goats and Rammes, were so, how fearful, how terrible, how reverential a thing is the blood of this immaculate Lamb, the Son of God? And though God do so abound in goodness towards us, Vt possint injuriata Sacramenta prodesse reversis, (as S. Cyprian excellently expresses it) That that Sacrament which we have injured and abused, received unworthily, or irreverently, at one time, may yet benefit us, and be the savor and seal of life unto us, at another, yet when you hear that terrible Thunder break upon you, That the unworthy receiver eats and drinks his own damnation, That he makes Christ Jesus, who is the propitiation of all the world, his damnation; And then, That not to have come to a severe examination of the Conscience before, and to a sincere detestation of the sin, and to a formed, and fixed, and deliberate, and determinate resolution against that sin, at the receiving of the Sacrament, (which, alas, how few do? Is there one that does it? There is scorce one) That this makes a man an unworthy receiver of the Sacrament, That thus we make a mock of the Son of God, thus we tread the blood of the Covenant underfoot, and despite the Spirit of grace; And that for this, at the last day, we shall be ranked with Judas, and not only with Judas, as a negligent despiser, but with Judas, as an actual betrayer of the blood of Christ Jesus. Consider well, with what fearful Conditions even this scale of your reconciliation is accompanied, and though you may not doubt, but that God, the God of your salvation does answer you, yet you must confess too, That it is by terrible things, that he does it. And, as it is so in matter of manners, and so in our prayers, and so in our preaching, and so in the Sacrament, so is it also at the hour of our Death, which is as far as we can pursue this Meditation, (for, after Death we can ask nothing at God's hands, and therefore God makes us no answer) And therefore with that Conclusion of all, we shall conclude all, That by terrible things, the God of our salvation answers us, at the hour of our death.

Though death be but a sleep, yet it is a sleep that an Earth-quake cannot wake; And yet there is a Trumpet that will, when that hand of God, that gathered dust to make these bodies, shall crumble these bodies into dust again, when that soul that evaporated it self in unnecessary disputations in this world, shall make such fearful and distempered conclusions, as to see God only by absence, (never to see him face to face) And to know God only by ignorance, (never to know him sicuti est, as he is) (for he is All mercy) And to possess immortality, and impossibility of dying only in a continual dying; when, as a Cabinet whose key were lost, must be broken up, and torn in pieces, before the Jewell that was laid up in it, can be taken out; so thy body, (the Cabinet of thy soul) must be shaked and shivered by violent sickness, before that soul can go out, And when it is thus gone out, must answer for all the imperfections of that body, which body polluted it, And yet, though this soul be such a loser by that body, it is not perfectly well, nor fully satisfied, till it be reunited to that body again; when thou rememberest, (and, oh, never forget it) that Christ himself was heavy in his soul unto Death, That Christ himself came to a Si possibile, If it be possible, let this Cup pass; That he came to a Quare dereliquisti, a bitter sense of God's dereliction, and forsaking of him, when thou considerest all this, compose thyself for death, but think it not a light matter to die. Death made the Lyon of Judah to roar; and do not thou think, that that which we call going away like a Lamb, doth more testify a conformity with Christ, then a strong sense, and bitter agony, and colluctation with death, doth. Christ gave us the Rule, in the Example; He taught us what we should do, by his doing it; And he pre-admitted a fearful apprehension of death. A Lamb is a Hieroglyphique of Patience, but not of stupidity. And death was Christ's Consummatum est, All ended in death; yet he had sense of death; How much more doth a sad sense of our transmigration belong to us, to whom death is no Consummatum est, but an In principio; our account, and our everlasting state begins but then.

Apud te propitiatio, ut timearis; In this knot we tie up all; With thee there is mercy, that thou mightest be feared. There is a holy fear, that does not only consist with an assurance of mercy, but induces, constitutes that assurance. Pavor operantibus iniquitatem, says Solomon; Pavor, horror, and servile fear, jealousy and suspicion of God, diffidence, and distrust in his mercy, and a bosom-prophecy of self-destruction; Destruction it self, (so we translate it) be upon the workers of iniquity; Pavor operantibus iniquitatem; And yet says that wise King, Beatus qui semper Pavidus; Blessed is that man that always fears; who, though he always hope, and believe the good that God will show him, yet also fears the evils, that God might justly multiply upon him; Blessed is he that looks upon God with assurance, but upon himself with fear. For, though God have given us light, by which we may see him, even in Nature, (for, He is the confidence of all the ends of the Earth, and of them that are a far of upon the Sea ) Though God have given us a clearer light in the Law, and experience of his providence upon his people throughout the Old Testament, Though God have abundantly, infinitely multiplied these lights and these helps to us in the Christian Church, where he is the God of salvation, yet, as he answers us by terrible things, (in that first acceptation of the words which I proposed to you) that is, Gives us assurances, by miraculous testimonies in our behalf, that he will answer our patient expectation, by terrible Judgments and Revenges upon our enemies, In his Righteousness, that is, In his faithfulness, according to his Promises, and according to his performances of those Promises, to his former people; So in the words, considered the other way, In his Holiness, that is, in his ways of imprinting Holiness in us, He answers us by terrible things, in all those particulars, which we have presented unto you; By infusing faith; but with that terrible addition, Damnabitur, He that believeth not, shall be damned; He answers us, by composing our manners, and rectifying our life and conversation; but with terrible additions of censures, and Excommunications, and tearings off from his own body, which is a death to us, and a wound to him; He answers us by enabling us to speak to him in Prayer; but with terrible additions, for the matter, for the manner, for the measure of our Prayer, which being neglected, our very Prayer is turned to sin. He answers us in Preaching; but with that terrible commination, that even his word may be the savor of death unto death. He answers us in the Sacrament; but with that terrible perplexity and distraction, that he that seems to be a John, or a Peter, a Loving, or a Beloved Disciple, may be a Judas, and he that seems to have received the seal of his reconciliation, may have eat and drunk his own Damnation. And he answers us at the hour of death; but with this terrible obligation, That even then I make sure my salvation with fear and trembling. That so we imagine not a God of wax, whom we can melt, and mold, when, and how we will; That we make not the Church a Market, That an over-homelines and familiarity with God in the acts of Religion, bring us not to an irreverence, nor indifferency of places; But that, as the Militant Church is the porch of the Triumphant, so our reverence here, may have some proportion to that reverence which is exhibited there, where the Elders cast their Crowns before the Throne, and continue in that holy and reverend acclamation, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive Glory, and Honor, and Power; for, (as we may add from this Text) By terrible things, O God of our salvation, doest thou answer us in righteousness.

SERM. LXIX. The fifth of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalms: Preached at S. Paul's.

I T is well said, (so well, as that more then one of the Fathers seem to have delighted themselves in having said it) Titulus Clavis, The Title of the Psalm, is the Key of the Psalm; the Title opens the whole Psalm. The Church of Rome will needs keep the Key of heaven, and the key to that Key, the Scriptures, wrapped up in that Translation, which in no case must be departed from. There, the key of this Psalm, (the Title thereof) hath one bar wrested, that is, made otherwise, then he that made the Key, (the Holy Ghost) intended it; And another bat inserted, that is, one clause added, which the Holy Ghost added not. Where we read, in the Title, Victori, To the chief Musician, they read, In finem, A Psalm directed upon the end. I think, they mean upon the later times, because it is in a great part, a Prophetical Psame, of the calling of the Gentiles. But after this change, they also add, Resurrectionis, A Psalm concerning the Resurrection; and that is not in the Hebrew, nor anything in the place thereof. And, after one Author in that Church had charged the Jews, That they had rased that clause out of the Hebrew, and that it was in the Hebrew at first, A learned, and a laborious Jesuit, (for truly, Schools may confess the Jesuits to be learned, for they have assisted there; and States, and Council-tables may confess the Jesuits to be laborious, for they have troubled them there) he, I say, after he hath chidden his fellow, for saying, That this word had ever been in the Hebrew, or was razed out from thence by the Jews, concludes roundly, Vndecunque advenerit, Howsoever those Additions, which are not in the Hebrew, came into our Translation, Authoritatem habent, & retineri debent, Their very being there, gives them Authentikenesse, and Authority, and there they must be. That this, in the Title of this Psalm, be there, we are content, as long as you know, that this particular, (That this Psalm by the Title thereof concerns the Resurrection) is not in the Original, but added by some Expositor of the Psalms; you may take knowledge too, That that addition hath been accepted and followed, by many, and ancient, and reverend Expositors, almost all of the Eastern, and many of the Western Church too; and therefore, for our use and accommodation, may well be accepted by us also.

We consider ordinarily three Resurrections: A spiritual Resurrection, a Resurrection from sin, by Grace in the Church; A temporal Resurrection, a Resurrection from trouble, and calamity in the world; And an eternal Resurrection, a Resurrection after which no part of man shall die, or suffer again, the Resurrection into Glory. Of the first, The Resurrection from sin, is that intended in Isaiah, Arise, and shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Of the later Resurrection, is that harmonious strain of all the Apostles in their Creed intended, I believe the Resurrection of the body. And of the third Resurrection, from oppressions and calamities which the servants of God suffer in this life, some of our later men understand that place of Job, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that in my flesh I shall see God; And that place of Ezekiel all understand of that Resurrection, where God saith to the Prophet, Son of man, can these bones live? Can these men thus ruined, thus dispersed, be restored again by a resurrection in this world? And to this resurrection from the pressures and tribulations of this life, do those Interpreters, who interpret this Psalm, of a Resurrection, refer this our Text, (Say unto God, How terrible art thou in thy works! Through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee.) Consider how powerfully God hath, and you cannot doubt, but that God will give them a Resurrection in this world, who rely upon him, and use his means, whensoever any calamity hath dejected them, ruined them, scattered them in the eyes of men. Say unto the Lord, That he hath done it, and the Lord will say unto thee, that he will do it again, and again for thee.

We call Noah, Ianus, because he had two faces, in this respect, That he looked into the former, and into the later world, he saw the times before, and after the flood. David in this Text, is a Ianus too; He looks two ways, he hath a Prospect, and a Retrospect, he looks backward and forward, what God had done, and what God would do. For, as we have one great comfort in this, That Prophecies are become Histories, that whatsoever was said by the mouths of the Prophets, concerning our salvation in Christ, is effected, (so prophecies are made histories) so have we another comfort in this Text, That Histories are made Prophecies; That whatsoever we read that God had formerly done, in the relief of his oppressed servants, we are thereby assured that he can, that he will do them again; and so Histories are made Prophecies: And upon these two pillars, A thankful acknowledgement of that which God hath done, And a faithful assurance that God will do so again, shall this present Exercise of your devotions be raised; And these are our two parts. Dicite Deo, Say unto God, How terrible art thou in thy works! (that part is Historical, of things past) In multitudine virtutis, In the greatness of thy power, shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee, (that part is Prophetical, of things to come.)

In the History we are to turn many leafes, and many in the Prophecy too, to pass many steps, to put out many branches in each. In the first, these; Dicite, say ye; where we consider first, The Person that enjoins this public acknowledgement and thanksgiving, It is David, and David as a King; for to Him, to the King, the ordering of public actions, even in the service of God appertains. David, David the King speaks this, by way of counsel, and persuasion, and concurrence to all the world, (for so in the beginning, and in some other passages of the Psalm, it is Omnis terra, All ye lands, Verse 1. and All the earth, Verse 4.) David doth what he can, that all the world might concur in one manner of serving God. By way of Assistance he extends to all, And by way of Injunction and commandment to all his, to all that are under his government, Dicite, say you, that is, you shall say, you shall serve God thus. And as he gives counsel to all, and gives laws to all his subjects, so he submits himself to the same law; For, (as we shall see in some parts of the Psalm, to which the Text refers) he professes in his particular, that he will say and do, whatsoever he bids them do, and say; My house shall serve the Lord, says Joshua; But it is, Ego, & domus mea, I and my house; himself would serve God aright too.

From such a consideration of the persons, in the Historical part, we shall pass to the commandment, to the duty it self; That is, first Dicite, say. It is more then Cogitate, to Consider God's former goodness; more then Admirari, to Admire God's former goodness; speculations, and ecstasies are not sufficient services of God; Dicite, Say unto God, Declare, manifest, publish your zeal, is more then Cogitate, Consider it, think of it; but it is less then Facite, To come to action; we must declare our thankful zeal to God's cause, we must not modifie, not disguise that; But, for the particular ways of promoving, and advancing that cause, in matter of action, we must refer that to them, to whom God hath referred it. The Duty is a Commemoration of Benefits; Dicite, Speak of it, ascribe it, attribute it to the right Author; Who is that? That is the next Consideration, Dicite Deo, Say unto God; Non vobis, Not to your own Wisdom, or Power, Non Sanctis, Not to the care and protection of Saints or Angels, Sed nomini ejus da gloriam, Only unto his name be all the glory ascribed. And then, that which falls within this commandment, this Consideration, is Opera ejus, The works of God, (How terrible art thou in thy works!) It is not Decreta ejus, Arcana ejus, The secrets of his State, the ways of his government, unrevealed Decrees, but those things, in which he hath manifested himself to man, Opera, his works. Consider his works, and consider them so as this commandment enjoins, that is, How terrible God is in them; Determine not your Consideration upon the work itself, for so you may think too lightly of it, That it is but some natural Accident, or some imposture and false Miracle, or illusion, Or you may think of it with an amazement, with a stupidity, with a consternation, when you consider not from whom the work comes, consider God in the work; And God so, as that though he be terrible in that work, yet, he is so terrible but so, as the word of this Text expresses this terribleness, which word is Norah, and Norah is but Reverendus, it is a terror of Reverence, not a terror of Confusion, that the Consideration of God in his works should possess us withal.

And in those plain and smooth paths, we shall walk through the first part, The historical part, what God hath formerly done, (Say unto God, how terrible art thou in thy works!) from thence we descend to the other, The Prophetical part, what, upon our performance of this duty, God will surely do in our behalf; he will subdue those enemies, which, because they are ours, are his; In multitudine virtutis, In the greatness of thy power, shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee. Where we shall see first, That even God himself hath enemies; no man therefore can be free from them; And then we shall see, whom God calls enemies here, Those who are enemies to his cause, and to his friends; All those, if we will speak David's language, the Holy Ghosts language, we must call God's enemies. And these enemies nothing can mollify, nothing can reduce, but Power; fair means, and persuasion will not work upon them; Preaching, Disputing will not do it; It must be Power, and greatness of power, and greatness of God's Power. The Law is Power, and it is God's Power; All just Laws are from God. One Act of this Power (an occasional executing of Laws at some few times, against the enemies of God's truth) will not serve; there must be a constant continuation of the execution thereof; nor will that serve, if that be done only for worldly respects, to raise money, and not rather to draw them, who are under those Laws, to the right worship of God, in the truth of his Religion. And yet all, that even all this, This power, this great power, his power shall work upon these, his, and our enemies, is but this, They shall submit themselves, says the text, but how? Mentientur tibi, (as it is in the Original, and as you find it in the Margin) They shall dissemble, they shall lie, they shall yield a feigned obedience, they shall make as though they were good Subjects, but not be so. And yet, even this, Though their submission be but dissembled, but counterfaited, David puts amongst God's blessings to a State, and to a Church; It is some blessing, when God's enemies dare not appear, and justify themselves, and their Cause, as it is a heavy discouragement, when they dare do that. Though God do not so far consummate their happiness, as that their enemies shall be truly reconciled, or thoroughly rooted out, yet he shall afford them so much happiness, as that they shall do them no harm.

And, Beloved, this distribution of the text, which I have given you, is rather a Paraphrase, then a Division, and therefore the rest will rather be a Repetition, then a Dilatation; And I shall only give some such note, and mark, upon every particular branch, as may return them, and fix them in your memories, and not enlarge myself far in any of them, for I know, the time will not admit it.

First then, we remember you, in the first branch of the first part, that David, in that Capacity, as King, institutes those Orders, which the Church is to observe in the public service of God. For, the King is King of men; not of bodies only, but of souls too; And of Christian men; of us, not only as we worship one God, but as we are to express that worship in the outward acts of Religion in the Church. God hath called himself King; and he hath called Kings God's. And when we look upon the actions of Kings, we determine not ourselves in that person, but in God working in that person. As it is not I that do any good, but the grace of God in me, So it is not the King that commands, but the power of God in the King. For, as in a Commission from the King, the King himself works in his Commissioners, and their just Act is the Kings Act: So in the Kings lawful working upon his Subjects, God works, & the Kings acts are God's acts.

That abstinence therefore, and that forbearance which the Roman Church hath used, from declaring whether the Laws of secular Magistrates do bind the Conscience, or no, that is, whether a man sin in breaking a Temporal Law, or no, (for, though it have been disputed in their books, and though the Bishop of that Church were supplicated in the Trent Council, to declare it, yet he would never be brought to it) that abstinence, I say, of theirs, though it give them one great advantage, yet it gives us another. For, by keeping it still undetermined, and undecided, how far the Laws of temporal Princes do bind us, they keep up that power, which is so profitable to them, that is, To divide Kings and Subjects, and maintain jealousies between them, because, if the breach of any Law, constitute a sin, then enters the jurisdiction of Rome; for, that is the ground of their indirect power over Princes, In ordine ad spiritualia, that in any action, which may conduce to sin, they may meddle, and direct, and contstrain temporal Princes. That is their advantage, in their forbearing to declare this doctrine; And then, our advantage is, That this enervates, and weakens, nay destroys and annibilates that ordinary argument, That there must be always a Visible Church, in which every man may have clear resolution, and infallible satisfaction, in all scruples that arise in him, and that the Roman Church is that Seat, and Throne of Infallibility. For, how does the Roman Church give any man infallible satisfaction, whether these or these things, grounded upon the temporal Laws of secular Princes, be sins or no, when as that Church hath not, nor will not come to a determination in that point? How shall they come to the Sacrament? how shall they go out of the world with a clear conscience, when many things lie upon them which they know not, nor can be informed by their Confessors, whether they he sins or no? And thus it is in divers other points besides this; They pretend to give satisfaction and peace in all cases, and pretend to be the only true Church for that, and yet leave the conscience in ignorance, and in distemper, and distress, and distraction in many particulars.

The Law of the Prince is rooted in the power of God. The root of all is Order, and the orderer of all is the King; And what the good Kings of Judah, and the religious Kings of the Primitive Christian Church did, every King may, nay, should do. For, both the Tables are committed to him; (as well the first that concerns our religious duties to God, as the other that concerns our Civil duties to men.) So is the Ark, where those Tables are kept, and so is the Temple, where that Ark is kept; all committed to him; and he oversees the manner of the religious service of God. And therefore it is, that in the Schools we call Sedition and Rebellion, Sacrilege; for, though the trespass seem to be directed but upon a man, yet in that man, whose office (and consequently his person) is sacred, God is opposed, and violated. And it is impiously said of a Jesuit, (I may easily be believed of that Jesuit, if any other might be excepted) Non est Regum etiam veram doctrinam confirmare, The King hath nothing to do with Religion, neither doth it belong to him to establish any form of Religion in his Kingdom, though it be the right Religion, and though it be but by way of Confirmation.

This then David, David as a King takes to be in his care, in his office, To rectify and settle Religion, that is, the outward worship of God. And this he intimates, this he conveys by way of counsel, and persuasion to all the world, he would fain have all agree in one service of God. Therefore he enters the Psalm so, Iubilate omnes terrae, Rejoice all ye lands; and, Adoret te omnis terrae, All the earth shall worship thee; and again, Venite & audit omnes, Come and hear all ye that fear God. For, as S. Cyprian says of Bishops, That every Bishop is an universal Bishop, That is, must take into his care and contemplation, not only his own particular Dioces, but the whole Catholic Church: So every Christian King is a King of the whole Christian world, that is, must study, and take into his care, not only his own kingdom, but all others too. For, it is not only the municipal law of that kingdom, by which he is bound to see his own subjects, in all cases, righted, but in the whole law of Nations every King hath an interest. My soul may be King, that is, reside principally in my heart, or in my brain, but it neglects not the remoter parts of my body. David maintains Religion at home; but he assists, as much as he can, the establishing of that Religion abroad too.

David endeavors that, persuades that everywhere; but he will be sure of it at home; There he enjoins it, there he commands it; Dicite, says he, Say; that is, This you shall say, you shall serve God thus. We cannot provide, that there shall be no Wolves in the world, but we have provided that there shall be no Wolves in this kingdom. Idolatry will be, but there needs be none amongst us. Idolaters were round about the children of Israel in the land of promise; They could not make all those Proselytes; but yet they kept their own station. When the Arian heresy had so surrounded the world, as that Vniversa fere Orientalis Ecclesia, Almost all the Eastern Church, And Cuncti pene Latini Episcopy, aut vi, aut fraud decepti, Almost all the Bishops of the Western Church, were deceived, or threatened out of their Religion into Arianism; Insomuch, that S. Hilary gives a note of an hundred and five Bishops of note, noted with that heresy; When that one Bishop, who will needs be all alone, the Bishop of Rome, Liberius, so far subscribed to that heresy, (as S. Jerome's express words are) that Bellarmine himself does not only not deny it, but finds himself bound, and finds it hard for him to prove, That though Liberius did outwardly profess himself to be an Arian, yet in his heart he was none; yet for all this impetuousness of this flood of this heresy, Athanasius, as Bishop, excommunicated the Arians in his Dioces, And Constantine, as Emperor, banished them out of his Dominions. Athanasius would have been glad, if no other Church, Constantine would have been glad, if no other State would have received them; When they could not prevail so far, yet they did that which was possible, and most proper to them, they preserved the true worship of the true God in their own Jurisdiction.

David could not have done that, if he had not had a true zeal to God's truth, in his own heart. And therefore, as we have an intimation of his desire to reduce the whole world, and a testimony of his earnestness towards his own Subjects, so we have an assurance, that in his own particular, he was constantly established in this truth, He calls to all, (Come and see the works of God) And more particularly to all his, (O bless our God ye people) but he proposes himself to their consideration too, (I will declare what he hath done for my soul.) Great is the Lord, and greatly to be feared, says this religious King, in another Psalm; And that is a Proclamation, a Remonstrance to all the world. He adds, One generation shall declare thy works to another; And that is a propagation to the ends of the world. But all this is rooted in that which is personal, and follows after, I will speak of the glorious honor of thy Majesly; And that is a protestation for his own particular. And to the same purpose is that which follows in the next verse, Men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts; They shall, that is, They should; and, I would all men would, says David; But, whether they do, or no, I will declare thy greatness, says he there; I will not be defective in my particular. And David was to be trusted with a pious endeavor amongst his Neighbors, and with a pious care over all his own subjects, as long as he nourished, and declared so pious a disposition in his own person. And truly, it is an injurious, it is a disloyal suspicion, and jealousy, it is an ungodly fascination of our own happiness, to doubt of good effects abroad, and of a blessed assurance at home, as long as the zeal of God's truth remains so constantly in his heart, and flows out so declaratorily in his actions, in whose person God assures both our temporal safety, and our Religion.

We pass now from this consideration of the persons; which, though it be fixed here, in the highest, in Kings, extends to all, to whom any power is committed, To Magistrates, to Masters, to Fathers, All are bound to propagate God's truth to others, but especially to those who are under their charge; And this they shall best do, if themselves be the Example. So far we have proceeded, and we come now to the Duty, as it is here more particularly expressed, Dicite, Say unto God, Publish, declare, manifest your zeal. Christ is Verbum, The Word, and that excludes silence; but Christ is also 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and that excludes rashness, and impertinence in our speech. Inter caeteras Dei appellationes, Sermonem veneramur, Amongst God's other Names, we honor that, that he is the Word; That implies a Communication, God's goodness in speaking to us, and an obligation upon us, to speak to him. For, Beloved, That standing of the Sun and Moon, which gave occasion to the drawing of so much blood of the Amorites, is, in the Original, not Siste Sol, but Sile Sol; He does not bid the Sun and Moon stand still, but he bids them say nothing, make no noise, no motion so. Be the Sun the Magistrate, and be the Moon, the Church, Si sileant, if they be silent, command not, pray not, avow not God's cause, the case is dangerous. The Holy Ghost fell in fiery tongues, he inflamed them, and inflamed them to speak. Divers dumb men were presented to Christ; but if they were dumb, they were deaf too, and some of them blind. Upon men that are dumb, that is, speechless in avowing him, God heaps other mischievous impediments too; Deafnesse, They shall not hear him in his word, and Blindness, They shall not see him in his works.

Dicite, Say, says David, Delight to speak of God, and with God, and for God; Dicite, say something. We told you, this was Magis quàm Cogitare, That there was more required then to think of God. Consideration, Meditation, Speculation, Contemplation upon God, and divine objects, have their place, and their season; But this is more then that; And more then Admiration too, for all these may determine in ecstasies, and in stupidities, and in useless and frivolous imaginations. Gold may be beat so thin, as that it may be blown away; And Speculations, even of divine things, may be blown to that thinness, to that subtlety, as that all may evaporate, never fixed, never applied to any use. God had conceived in himself, from all eternity, certain Idea's, certain parterns of all things, which he would create. But these Idea's, these conceptions produced not a creature, not a worm, not a weed; but then, Dixit, & facta sunt, God spoke, and all things were made. Inward speculations, nay, inward zeal, nay, inward prayers, are not full performances of our Duty. God hears willingliest, when men hear too; when we speak allowed in the cares of men, and publish, and declare, and manifest, and avow our zeal to his glory.

It is a duty, which in every private man, goes beyond the Cogitare, and the Admirari; but yet not so far as to a Facite, in the private man. Private men must think piously, and seriously, and speak zealously, and seasonably of the cause of God. But this does not authorize, nor justify such a forwardness in any private man, as to come to actions, though he, in a rectified conscience, apprehend, that God's cause might be advantaged by those actions of his. For, matter of action requires public warrant, and is not safely grounded upon private zeal. When Peter, out of his own zeal, drew his sword for Christ, Nondum manifest conceperat Euangelium patientie. He was not yet well instructed in the patience of the Gospel; Nay, he was submitted to the sentence of the law, out of the mouth of the supreme Judge, All they that take the sword (that take it before it be given them by Authority) shall perish by the sword. The first law, that was given to the new world, after the Flood, was against the eating of blood. God would not have man so familiar with blood. And the second commandment, was against the shedding of blood, (Who so sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.) Nay, not only where Peter was over-forward of himself, to defend Christ by arms, but where John and James were too vehement, and importunate upon Christ, to give them leave to revenge the wrong done to him upon the Samaritans, (Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them?) Christ rebukes them, and tells them, They knew not of what spirit they were; that is, of what spirit they ought to be. They knew, says S. Jerome; they had no power of their own; They go to him who had; And they do not say, Domine jube, Lord do thou do it; but, Thou shalt never appear in it, never be seen in it, only let us alone, and we will revenge thee, and consume them. Though they went no farther then this, yet this rash, and precipitate importunity in James and John, as well as that hasty coming to action in Peter, was displeasing to Christ; Dicite, speak; so far goes the duty of this Text; Speak by way of Counsel, you that are Counselors to Princes, And, by way of Exhortation, you that are Preachers to the people; but leave the Facite, matter of action, to them in whose hearts, and by whose hands, and thorough whose commandments God works.

We are yet in our first, in our Historical part, Commemoration, and there we made it, (in our distribution and paraphrase) our next step, what we are to commemorate, to employ this Dicite, this speaking upon; and it is upon God's works; (Say unto God, how terrible art thou in thy works!) So that the subject of our speech, (let it be in holy Conferences, and Discourses, let it be in God's Ordinance, Preaching) is not to speak of the unrevealed Decrees of God, of his internal, and eternal purposes in himself, but of his works, of those things in which he hath declared, and manifested himself to us. God gave not always to his Church, the Manifestation of the pillar of Fire, but a pillar of Cloud too; And, though it were a Cloud, yet it was a Pillar; In a holy, and devout, and modest ignorance of those things which God hath not revealed to us, we are better settled, and supported by a better Pillar, then in an over-curious, and impertinent inquisition of things reserved to God himself, or shut up in their breasts, of whom God hath said, Ye are gods. God would not show all himself to Moses, as well as he loved him, and as freely as he conversed with him, He shown him but his hinder parts. Let that be his Decrees then, when in his due time they came to execution; for then, and not till then, they are works. And God would not suffer Moses his body to be seen, when it was dead, because then it could not speak to them, it could not instruct them, it could not direct them in any duty, if they transgressed from any. God himself would not be spoken to by us, but as he speaks of himself; and he speaks in his works. And as among men, some may Build, and some may Write, and we call both by one name, (we call his Buildings, and we call his Books, his Works) so if we will speak of God, this World which he hath built, and these Scriptures which he hath written, are his Works, and we speak of God in his Works, (which is the commandment of this Text) when we speak of him so, as he hath manifested himself in his miracles, and as he hath declared himself in his Scriptures; for both these are his Works. There are Decrees in God, but we can take out no Copies of them, till God himself exemplify them, in the execution of them; The accomplishing of the Decree is the best publishing, the best notifying of the Decree. But, of his Works we can take Copies; for, his Scriptures are his Works, and we have them by Translations and Illustrations, made appliable to every understanding; All the promises of his Scriptures belong to all. And, for his Miracles, (his Miracles are also his Works) we have an assurance, That whatsoever God hath done for any, he will do again for us.

It is then his Works upon which we fix this Commemoration, and this glorifying of God; but so, as that we determine not upon the Work it self, but God in the Work, ( Say unto God, (to Him) how terrible art thou, (that God) in thy Works? ) It may be of use to you, to receive this note, Then when it is said in this Psalm, Come, and see the Works of God, and after, Come, and hear all ye that fear God, in both places it is not, Venite, but Ite, It is Lechu, not Come, but Go, Go out, Go forth, abroad, to consider God in his Works; Go as far as you can, stop not in yourselves, nor stop not in any other, till you come to God himself. If you consider the Scriptures to be his Works, make not Scriptures of your own; which you do, if you make them subject to your private interpretation. My soul speaks in my tongue, else I could make no sound; My tongue speaks in English, else I should not be understood by the Congregation. So God speaks by his Son, in the Gospel; but then, the Gospel speaks in the Church, that every man may hear. Ite, go forth, stay not in yourselves, if you will hear him. And so, for matter of Action, and Protection, come not home to yourselves, stay not in yourselves, not in a confidence in your own power, and wisdom, but Ite, go forth, go forth into Egypt, go forth into Babylon, and look who delivered your Predecessors, (predecessors in Affliction, predecessors in Mercy) and that God, who is Yesterday, and today, and the same forever, shall do the same things, which he did yesterday, today, and forever. Turn always to the Commemoration of Works, but not your own; Ite, go forth, go farther then that, Then yourselves, farther then the Angels, and Saints in heaven; That when you commemorate your deliverance from an Invasion, and your deliverance from the Vault, you do not ascribe these deliverances to those Saints, upon whose days they were wrought; In all your Commemorations, (and commemorations are prayers, and God receives that which we offer for a Thanksgiving for former Benefits, as a prayer for future) Ite go forth, by the river to the spring, by the branch to the root, by the work to God himself, and Dicite, say unto him, say of him, Quam terribilis Tu in Tuis, which sets us upon another step in this part, To consider what this Terriblenesse is, that God expresses in his works.

Though there be a difference between timer, and terror, (fear and terror) yet the difference is not so great, but that both may fall upon a good man; Not only a fear of God must, but a terror of God may fall upon the Best. When God talked with Abraham, a horror of great darkness fell upon him, says that Text. The Father of lights, and the God of all comfort present, and present in an action of Mercy, and yet, a horror of great darkness fell upon Abraham. When God talked personally, and presentially with Moses, Moses hid his face, for (says that Text) he was afraid to look upon God. When I look upon God, as I am bid to do in this Text, in those terrible Judgments, which he hath executed upon some men, and see that there is nothing between me and the same Judgment, (for I have sinned the same sins, and God is the same God) I am not able of myself to die that glass, that spectacle, thorough which I look upon this God, in what color I will; whether this glass shall be black, through my despair, and so I shall see God in the cloud of my sins, or red in the blood of Christ Jesus, and I shall see God in a Bath of the blood of his Son, whether I shall see God as a Dove with an Olive branch, (peace to my soul) or as an Eagle, a vulture to prey, and to prey everlastingly upon me, whether in the deep floods of Tribulation, spiritual or temporal, I shall see God as an Ark to take me in, or as a Whale to swallow me; and if his Whale do swallow me, (the Tribulation devour me) whether his purpose be to restore me, or to consume me, I, I of myself cannot tell. I cannot look upon God, in what line I will, nor take hold of God, by what handle I will; He is a terrible God, I take him so; And then I cannot discontinue, I cannot break off this terribleness, and say, He hath been terrible to that man, and there is an end of his terror; it reaches not to me. Why not to me? In me there is no merit, nor shadow of merit; In God there is no change, nor shadow of change. I am the same sinner, he is the same God; still the same desperate sinner, still the same terrible God.

But terrible in his works, says our Text; Terrible so, as he hath declared himself to be in his works. His Works are, as we said before, his Actions, and his Scriptures. In his Actions we see him Terrible upon disobedient Resisters of his Graces, and Despisers of the means thereof, not upon others, we have no examples of that. In his word, we accept this word in which he hath been pleased to express himself, Norah, which is rather Reverendus, then Terribilis, as that word is used, I gave him life and peace, for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my Name. So that this Terriblenesse, which we are called upon to profess of God, is a Reverentiall, a Majesticall, not a Tyrannicall terribleness. And therefore he that conceives a God, that hath made man of flesh and blood, and yet exacts that purity of an Angel in that flesh, A God that would provide himself no better glory, then to damme man, A God who lest he should love man, and be reconciled to man, hath enwrapped him in an inevitable necessity of sinning, A God who hath received enough, and enough for the satisfaction of all men, and yet, (not in consideration of their future sins, but merely because he hated them before they were sinners, or before they were anything) hath made it impossible, for the greatest part of men, to have any benefit of that large satisfaction. This is not such a Terriblenesse as arises out of his Works, (his Actions, or his Scriptures) for God hath never said, never done any such thing, as should make us lodge such conceptions of God in ourselves, or lay such imputations upon him.

The true fear of God is true wisdom. It is true Joy; Rejoice in trembling, saith David; There is no rejoicing without this fear; there is no Riches without it; Reverentia Ichovae, The fear of the Lord is his treasure, and that is the best treasure. Thus far we are to go; Let us serve God with reverence, and godly fear, (godly fear is but a Reverence, it is not a Jealousy, a suspicion of God.) And let us do it upon the reason that follows in the same place, For our God is a consuming fire, There is all his terribleness; he is a consuming fire to his enemies, but he is our God; and God is love: And therefore to conceive a cruel God, a God that hated us, even to damnation, before we were, (as some, who have departed from the sense and modesty of the Ancients, have adventured to say) or to conceive a God so cruel, as that at our death, or in our way, he will afford us no assurance, that he is ours, and we his, but let us live and die in anxiety and torture of conscience, in jealousy and suspicion of his good purpose towards us in the salvation of our souls, (as those of the Roman Heresy teach) to conceive such a God as from all eternity meant to damn me, or such a God as would never make me know, and be sure that I should be saved, this is not to profess God to be terrible in his works; For, his Actions are his works, and his Scriptures are his works, and God hath never done, or said anything to induce so terrible an opinion of him.

And so we have done with all those pieces, which in our paraphrasticall distribution of the text, at beginning, did constitute our first, our Historical part, David's retrospect, his commemoration of former blessings; In which he proposes a duty, a declaration of God's goodness, Dicite, publish it, speak of it; He proposes Religious duties, in that capacity, as he is King; (Religion is the Kings care) He proposes, by way of Counsaile to all; by way of Commandment to his own Subjects; And by a more powerful way, then either counsel or Commandment, that is, by Example, by doing that himself, which he counsels, and commands others to do. Dicite, Say, speak; It is a duty more then thinking, and less then doing; Every man is bound to speak for the advancement of God's cause, but when it comes to action, that is not the private man's office, but belongs to the public, or him, who is the Public, David himself, the King. The duty is Commemoration, Dicite, Say, speak; but Dicite Deo, Do this to God; ascribe not your deliverances to your Armies, and Navies, by Sea, or Land; no, nor to Saints in Heaven, but to God only. Nor are ye called upon to contemplate God in his Essence, or in his Decrees, but in his works; In his Actions, in his Scriptures; In both those you shall find him terrible, that is, Reverend, majestical, though never tyrannical, nor cruel. Passe we now, according to our order laid down at first, to our second part, the Prophetical part, David's prospect for the future; and gather we something from the particular branches of that, Through the greatness of thy power, thine enemies shall submit themselves unto thee.

In this, our first consideration is, that God himself hath enemies; and then, how should we hope to be, nay, why would we wish to be without them? God had good, that is, Glory from his enemies; And we may have good, that is, advantage in the way to glory, by the exercise of our patience, from enemies too. Those for whom God had done most, the Angels, turned enemies first; vex not thou thyself, if those whom thou hast loved best, hate thee deadliest. There is a love, in which it aggravates thy condemnation, that thou art so much loved; Does not God recompense that, if there be such a hate, as that thou art the better, and that thy salvation is exalted, for having been hated? And that profit, the righteous have from enemies. God loved us then, when we were his enemies, and we frustrate his exemplar love to us, if we love not enemies too. The word Hostis, (which is a word of heavy signification, and implies devastation, and all the mischiefs of war) is not read in all the New Testament: Inimicus, that is, non amicus, unfriendly, is read there often, very very often. There is an enmity which may consist with Evangelical charity; but a hostility, that carries in it a denotation of revenge, of extirpation, of annihilation, that cannot. This gives us some light, how far we may, and may not hate enemies. God had enemies to whom he never returned, The Angels that opposed him; and that is, because they oppose him still, and are, by their own perverseness, incapable of reconciliation. We were enemies to God too; but being enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.

As then actual reconciliation makes us actually friends, so in differences which may be reconciled, we should not be too severe enemies, but maintain in ourselves a disposition of friendship; but, in those things, which are in their nature irreconciliable, we must be irreconciliable too. There is an enmity which God himself hath made, and made perpetual: Ponam inimicitias, says God; God puts an enmity between the seed of the Serpent, and the seed of the woman; And, those whom God joins, let no man sever, those whom God severs, let no man join. The School presents it well; we are to consider an enemy formally, or materially; that is, that which makes him an enemy, or that which makes him a man. In that which makes him a man, he hath the Image of God in him, and by that is capable of grace and glory; and therefore, that we may not hate, which excludes all personal, and all national hatred. In that which makes him an enemy he hath the Image of the Devil, infidelity towards God, perfidiousness towards man, Heresy towards God, infectious manners towards man; and, that we must always hate; for, that is Odium perfectum, A hate that may consist with a perfect man, nay, a hate that constitutes love it self, I do not love a man, except I hate his vices, because those vices are the enemies, and the destruction of that friend whom I love.

God himself hath enemies, Thine enemies shall submit, says the text, to God; There thou hast one comfort, though thou have enemies too; but the greater comfort is, That God calls thine enemies his. Nolite tangere Christos meos, says God of all holy people; you were as good touch me, as touch any of them, for, they are the apple of mine eye. Our Savior Christ never expostulated for himself; never said, why scourged you me? why spit you upon me? why crucify you me? as long as their rage determined in his person, he opened not his mouth; when Saul extended the violence to the Church, to his servants, then Christ came to that, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Cain's trespass against God himself was, that he would bind God to an acceptation of his Sacrifice; And for that God comes no farther, but to Why doest thou thus? but in his trespass upon his brother, God proceeds so much farther, as to say, Now art thou cursed from the earth. Jeroboam suffered Idolatry, and God let him alone; that concerned but God himself. But when Jeroboam stretched forth his hand to lay hold on the Prophet, his hand withered. Here is a holy league, Defensive, and Offensive; God shall not only protect us from others, but he shall fight for us against them; our enemies are his enemies.

And beloved, it is well that it is so; for, if we were left to ourselves, we were remediless. It is his mercy that we are not consumed, by his indignation, by himself; But it must be the exercise of his power, if we be not consumed by his, and our enemies; for, there is but that one way in the text, that can bring these enemies to anything, that is, In multitudine virtutis tuae, In the greatness of thy power. It must be power; Intreaty, Appliablenesse, Conformity, Facility, Patience does not serve. It must be Power, and His power; To assist ourselves by his enemies, by Witches, or by Idolaters, is not his power. It is Power that does all; for, the name that God is manifested in, in all the making of the World, in the first of Genesis, is Elohim, and that is Deus fortis, The powerful God. It is Power, and it is His power; for, his name is Dominus tzebaoth, The Lord of Hosts. Hosts and Armies of which he is not the General, are but great insurrections, great rebellions. And then, as it is Power, and His power, so it is the greatness of his Power; His Power extended, exalted. It is in the Original, Berob, In multitudine fortitudinis, in thy manifold power, in thy multiplied power. Moses considers the assurance that they might have in God, in this, That God fought their battails (The Lord your God goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, and save you) There was his power declared, and exercised one way; and then in this, That he had afforded them particular Laws, for their direction in all their actions, Religious, and Civil; (To what Nation is God come so near? what people have Laws and Ordinances, such as we have?) So that, where God defends us by Armies, and directs us by just Laws, that is Multitudo fortitudinis, The greatness of his power, his power magnified, his power multiplied upon us.

Now, through this power, and not without this power, this double power, Law and Arms, Thine enemies shall submit themselves unto thee, says our text. And then, is all the danger at an end? shall we be safe then? Not then. The word is Cacash, and Cacash is but Mendacem fieri, to be brought to lie, to dissemble, to equivocate, to modifie, to temporize, to counterfeit, to make as though they were our friends, in an outward conformity. And there are enemies of God, whom no power of Armies or Laws can bring any farther then that, To hold their tongues, and to hold their hands, but to withhold their hearts from us still. So the Gibeonites deceived Joshua, in the likeness of Ambassadors; Joshua's power made them lie unto him. So Pharaoh deceived and deluded Moses and Aaron; Every Act of power brought Pharaoh to lie unto them. I direct not your thoughts upon public Considerations; It is not my end; It is not my way: My way and end is to bring you home to yourselves, and to consider there, That we are full of weaknesses in ourselves, full of enemies, sinful temptations about us; That only the power of God, his power multiplied, (that is, The receiving of his word, (that is, the power of Law) The receiving of his corrections (that is, the power of his Hosts) can make our enemies, our sinful temptations submit, and when they do so, it is but a lie, They return to us, and we turn to them again, In the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit unto thee.

But then, (which is our last step and Conclusion) even this, That these enemies shall be forced to such a submission, to any submission, though disguised and counterfeit, is, in this Text, presented for a Consolation; There is a comfort even in this, That those enemies shall be fain to lie, that they shall not dare to avow their malice, nor to blaspheme God in open professions. There is a conditional blessing proposed to God's people; (O that my people had hearkened unto me! O that Israel had walked in my ways!) What had been their recompense? This. The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto them. Should they in earnest? No truly; there is the same word, They should have lied unto them, they should have made as though they had submitted themselves; and that, God presents for a great degree of his mercy to them. And therefore, as in thy particular Conscience, though God do not take away that Stimulum carnis, and that Angelum Satanae, though he do not extinguish all lusts and concupiscencies in thee, yet if those lusts prevail not over thee, if they command not, if they divert thee not from the sense, and service of God, thou hast good reason to bless God for this, to rest in this, and to call it peace of conscience: So hast thou reason too to call it Peace in the Church, and peace in the State, when God's enemies, though they be not rooted out, though they be not disposed to a hearty Allegeance, and just Obedience, yet they must be subject, they must submit themselves whether they will or no, and though they will wish no good, yet they shall be able to do no harm. For, the Holy Ghost declares this to be an exercise of power, of God's power, of the greatness of God's power, that his enemies submit themselves, though with a feigned obedience.

SERM. LXX. Preached at White-hall, April 8. 1621.

T Here is a temporal unsatiablenesse of riches, and there is a spiritual unsatiablenesse of sin. The first Covetousness, that of riches, the Apostle calls The root of all evil, but the second Covetousness, that of sin, is the fruit of all evil, for that is The treasure of God's wrath, as the Apostle speaks, when he makes our former sins, the mother of future sins, and then our future sins the punishments of former. As though this World were too little to satisfy man, men are come to discover or imagine new worlds, several worlds in every Planet; and as though our Fathers heretofore, and we ourselves too, had been but dull and ignorant sinners, we think it belongs to us to perfect old inventions, and to sin in another height and excellency, then former times did, as though sin had had but a minority, and an infancy till now. Though the pride of the Prince of Tyrus were ever in some Tyrans, who says there, I am a god, and sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the Seas, and am wiser then Daniel; Yet there is a Sea above these seas, a power above this power, a spiritual pride above this temporal pride, one so much wiser then Daniel, as that he is as wise as the Holy Ghost. The world hath ever had levities and inconstancies, and the fool hath changed as the Moon; the same men that have cried Hosanna, are ready to cry Crucifige; but, as in Job's Wife, in the same mouth, the same word was ambiguous, (whether it were bless God, or curse God, out of the word we cannot tell) so are the actions of men so ambiguous, as that we cannot conclude upon them; men come to our Prayers here, and pray in their hearts here in this place, that God would induce another manner of Prayer into this place; and so pray in the Congregation, that God would not hear the prayers of the Congregation; There hath always been ambiguity and equivocation in words, but now in actions, and almost every action will admit a diverse sense. And it was the Prophets complaint of old, You have multiplied your fornications, and yet are not satisfied; but we wonder why the Prophet should wonder at that, for the more we multiply temporally or spiritually, the less we are satisfied. Others have thought, that our souls sinned before they came into the world, and that therefore they are here as in a prison; but they are rather here, as in a School; for, if they had studied sin in another world before, they practice it here, If they have practiced it before, they teach it now, they lead and induce others into sin.

But this consideration of our insatiablenesse in sin, in my purpose I seposed for the end of this hour; But who knows whether your patience, that you will hear, or who knows whether yours, or my life, that you can hear, shall last to the end of this hour? and therefore it is an excusable anticipation, to have begun with this spiritual covetousness of sin, though our first payment be to be made in the literal sense of the text, A reprehension, and in it, a Counsaile, against our general insatiablenesse of the temporal things of this world. Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.

In which words, there being first a particular Compellation, Tu, hast thou found it? it remembers thee, that there be a great many, that have not found it, but lack that which thou aboundest in; And Invenisti, thou hast not inherited it, nor merited it, thou hast but found it; and for that which thou hast found, it is Honey, sweetness, but it is but Honey, which easily becomes choler, and gall, and bitterness. Such as it is, Comede, thou mayest eat it, and eat it safely, it is not unwholesome; but Comede sufficientiam, eat no more then is sufficient; And in that, let not the servant measure himself by his Master, nor the subject by the King, nor the private man by the Magistrate, but Comede sufficientiam tuam, eat that which is sufficient for thee, for more then that will fill thee, over-fill thee; perchance not so full as thou wouldst be, yet certainly so full, as that there will be no room in thee for better things; and then thou wilt vomit, nay perchance thou must vomit, the malice and plots of others shall give thee a vomit, And such a vomit shall be Evacuans, an exinanition, leave thee empty; and Immundum, an uncleanness, leave thee in scorn and contempt; and Periculosum, a danger, break a vein, a vein at the heart, break thy heart it self, that thou shalt never recover it. Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.

First then, for that Compellation Tu, hast thou found it? It is a word first of familiarity, and then a word of particularity. It is a degree of familiarity, that God hath notified himself to us in several Persons; that he hath come so near to our comprehension, as to be considered not only as an universal, and infinite God, but as a Father, and as a Son, and opened himself unto us in these Notions, Tu Pater, Tu Fili, Thou O Father, and Thou O Son, have mercy upon us. A Constable, or Beadle will not be spoke to so, to be thou'd, and any Person in the Trinity, the whole Trinity together is content with it; Take God altogether, and at highest, Tu altissimus, Thou Lord art most high for evermore; Take him from before any beginning, Tu à seculo, Thy throue is established of old, and thou art from everlasting; Take him from beyond all ending, Tu autem permanes, Thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.

In which, we go not about to condemn, or correct the civil manner of giving different titles, to different ranks of men; but to note the slipperiness of our times, where titles flow into one another, and lose their distinctions; when as the Elements are condensed into one another, air condensed into water, and that into earth, so an obsequious flatterer, shall condense a yeoman into a Worshipful person, and the Worshipful into Honorable, and so that which duly was intended for distinction, shall occasion confusion. But that which we purpose, in noting this Tu, is rather the singularity, the particularity, then the familiarity; That the Holy Ghost in this collects Man, abridges Man, sums up Man in an unity, in the consideration of one, of himself. Oportet hominem fieri unum, Man must grow in his consideration, till he be but one man, one individual man. If he consider himself in Humanitate, in the whole mankind, a glorious creature, an immortal soul, he shall see this immortal soul, as well in Goats at the left hand, as in Sheep at the right hand of Christ, at the Resurrection; Men on both sides: If he consider himself in Qualitate, in his quality, in his calling, he shall hear many then plead their Prophetavimus, we have prophesied, and their Ejecimus, we have exercised, and their Virtutes secimus, we have done wonders, and all in thy Name, and yet receive that answer, Nunquam cognovi, I do not know you now, I never did know you. Oportet unum fieri, he must consider himself in individuo, that one man, not that man in nature, not that man in calling, but that man in actions. Origen makes this use of those words, as he found them, Erat vir unus, There was one man; (which was Elkanah ) He adds, Nomen ejus possessio Dei, this one man, says he, was, in his Name, God's possession; Nam quem Daemones possident, non unus sed mulii, for he whom the Devil possesses, is not one. The same sinner is not the same thing; still he clambers in his ambitious purposes, there he is an Eagle; & yet lies still groveling, and trodden upon at any greater man's threshold, there he is a worm. He swells to all that are under him, there he is a full Sea; and his dog that is above him, may wade over him, there he is a shallow, an empty River. In the compass of a few days, he neighes like a horse in the rage of his lust over all the City, and groans in a corner of the City, in an hospital. A sinner is as many men, as he hath vices; he that is Elkanah, Possessio Dei, possessed by God, and in possession of God, he is unus homo, one and the same man. And when God calls upon man so particularly, he intends him some particular good. It is S. Jerome's note, That when God in the Scriptures speaks of divers things in the singular number, it is ever in things of grace; And it is S. Augustine's note, that when he speaks of any one thing in the plural Number, it is of heavy and sorrowful things; as Ieptha was buried In civitatibus Gilead, in the Cities, but he had but one grave; And so that is, they made Aureos vitulos, Golden Calves, when it was but one Calf.

When God's voice comes to thee in this Text, in particular, Tu, Hast thou found, he would have thee remember, how many seek and have sought, with tears, with sweat, with blood, and lack that, that thou aboundest in. That whereas his Evidence to them whom he loves not, in the next world shall be, Esurivi, I was hungry, and ye gave me no meat; And his proceeding with them whom he loves not in this world, is, Si esuriero, If I be hungry, I will not tell thee, I will not awaken thee, not remember thy conscience, wherein thou mayest do me a service; He does call upon thee in particular, and ask thee, Nonne tu, Hast thou not fortune enough, to let fall some crumbs upon him that starves? and, Nonne tu, hast not thou favor enough, to shed some beams upon him that is frozen in disgrace? There is a squint eye, that looks side-long; to look upon riches, and honor, on the left hand, and long life here, on the right, is a squint eye. There is a squint eye, that looks upwards and downwards; to look after God and Mammon, is a squint eye. There are squint eyes, that look upon one another; to look upon ones own beauty, or wisdom, or power, is a squint eye. The direct look is to look inward upon thine own Conscience; Not with Nebuchadnezzar, Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by the might of my power, and for the honor of my Majesty? But with David, Quid retribuam? for if thou look upon them with a clear eye, thou wilt see, that though thou hast them, thou hast but found them, which is our next step.

Now, if you have but found them, thou hast them but by chance, by contingency, by fortune. The Emperor Leo, he calls money found, Dei beneficium, It is a benefit derived from God; but the great Lawyer; Triphonius, calls it, Donum fortunae too, An immediate gift of fortune. They consist well enough together, God and fortune. S. Augustine in his Retract: makes a conscience of having named her too oft, lest other men should be scandalized; and so the Prophet complains of that, (as the Vulgat reads it) Ponitis mensam fortunae, You sacrifice to fortune, you make fortune a god; that you should not do; but yet you should acknowledge that God hath such a servant, such an instrument, as fortune too. God's ordinary working is by Nature, these causes must produce these effects; and that is his common Law; He goes sometimes above that, by Prerogative, and that is by miracle, and sometimes below that, as by custom, and that is fortune, that is contingency; Fortune is as far out of the ordinary way, as miracle; no man knows in Nature, in reason, why such, or such persons grow great; but it falls out so often, as we do not call it miracle, and therefore rest in the Name of Fortune. We need not quarrel the words of the Poet, Tu quamcun{que} Deus tibi fortunaverit horam, Grata sum manu, Thanke God for any good fortune, since the Apostle says too, that Godliness hath the promise of this life; The godly man shall be fortunate, God will bless him with good fortune here; but still it is fortune, and chance, in the sight and reason of man, and therefore he hath but found, whatsoever he hath in that kind. It is intimated in the very word which we use for all worldly things; It is Inventarium, an Inventory; we found them here, and here our successors find them, when we are gone from hence. Jezebel had an estimation of beauty, and she thought to have drawn the King with that beauty, but she found it, she found it in her box, and in her wardrope, she was not truly fair. Achitophel had an estimation of wisdom in Counsel, I know not how he found it; he counseled by an example, which no man would follow, he hanged himself. Thou wilt not be drawn to confess, that a Man that hath an office, is presently wiser then thou, or a man that is Knighted, presently valianter then thou. Men have preferment for those parts, which other men, equal to them in the same things, have not, and therefore they do but find them; And to things that are but found, what is our title? Nisi reddantur, rapina est, says the Law, If we restore not that which we find, it is robbery. S. Augustine hath brought it nearer, Qui alienum negat, si posset, tolleret, He that confesseth not that which he hath found of another man's, if he durst, he would have taken it by force. For that which we have found in this world, our ealling is the owner, our debts are the owner, our children are the owner; our lusts, our superfluities are no owners: of all the rest, God is the owner, and to this purpose, the poor is God.

S. Augustine puts a case to the point: He says when he was at Milan, a poor Usher of a Grammar School found a bag of money, 200 Solidorum; let it be but one hundredth pounds; he set up bills; the owner came, offered him his tithe, ten pounds; he would none; he pressed him to five, to three, to two; he would none: and then he that had lost it, in an honorable indignation, disclaimed it all; Nihil perdidi, says he, it is all your own, I lost nothing: Quale certamen! Theatrum mundus, spectator Deus, Out of importunity, he that found it, took it all, and out of conscience, that it was not his, gave it all to the poor.

The things of this world we do but find, and of the things which we find, we are but Stewards for others. This finding is not so merely casual, as that it implies no manner of seeking; We must put ourselves into the way, into a calling. The word is Matza, and that word is allowed us; but a word like it, is not allowed us; Matza is, but Matzah is not; if there be an H added, an H, as it is an aspiration, a breathing, a panting after the things of this world, or an Ache, as it is a pain, that it make our bones ache, or our hearts ache, or our conscience ache, it is a seeking, and a finding, not intended in this word. Our prosecution and seeking must be moderate, our title and interest is but a finding; and what hath the most fortunate found? Honey; it is true, but yet but Honey.

That which Solomon may justly seem to intend, especially by Honey in this Text, is that which the Poets, and other Masters of language, have called Magnas amicitias, and Magnas Clientelas, dependence, and interest, and favor in great persons. It appears by the next verse, which depends upon this, and paraphrases it; Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbors house. Where that which we read, Withdraw, is in the Original Hokar, which is Fac pretiosum, make not thyself cheap, not vulgar, have some respect to thyself, to thine own ingenuity, but principally to the other, to thy great friend: be not importune and troublesome by any indiscreet assiduity, to them who are possessed with business, though at sometimes they descend to thee; This is this Honey, where thou hast access, yet do not push open every door, fling up every hanging, but use thy favor modestly.

But in this Honey is wrapped up also all that is delightful in this life; and Solomon carries us often to that Comparison; In the Chapter before this, for Wisdom; My Son, eat thou Honey, because it is good; so shall the knowledge of wisdom be to thy soul; and in the seven and twentieth verse of this Chapter, he uses it for Glory; It is not good to eat much honey; so for men to search their own glory, is not glory. In the sixth Chapter of this book, when Solomon had sent us to the Ant, to learn wisdom, between the eight verse and the ninth, he sends us to another school, to the Be: Vade ad Apem & disce quomodo operationem vener abilem facit, Go to the Be, and learn how reverend and mysterious a work she works. For, though S. Jerome acknowledge, that in his time, this verse was not in the Hebrew Text, yet it hath ever been in many Copies of the Septuagint, and though it be now left out in the Complutense Bible, and that which they call the Kings, yet it is in that still, which they value above all, the Vatican. S. Jerome himself takes it into his exposition, and other Fathers into theirs. So far therefore we may hearken to that voice, as to go to the Be, and learn to work by that Creature.

Both S. Basil, and S. Chrysostom put this difference in that place, between the labor of the Ant, and the Be, That the Ants work but for themselves, the Be for others: Though the Ants have a Common-wealth of their own, yet those Fathers call their labor, but private labor; because no other Common-wealths have benefit by their labor, but their own. Direct thy labors in thy calling to the good of the public, and then thou art a civil, a moral Ant; but consider also, That all that are of the household of the faithful, and profess the same truth of Religion, are part of this public, and direct thy labors, for the glory of Christ Jesus, amongst them too, and then thou art a religious and a Christian Be, and the fruit of thy labor shall be Honey. The labor of the Ant is sub Dio, open, evident, manifest; The labor of the Be is sub Tecto, in a house, in a hive; They will do good, and yet they will not be seen to do it; they affect not glory, nay, they avoid it. For in experience, when some men curious of natural knowledge, have made their Hives of glass, that by that transparency, they might see the Bees manner of working, the Bees have made it their first work to line that Glass-hive, with a crust of Wax, that they might work and not be discerned. It is a blessed sincerity, to work as the Ant, professedly, openly; but because there may be cases, when to do so, would destroy the whole work, though there be a cloud and a curtain between thee, and the eyes of men, yet if thou do them clearly in the sight of God, that he see his glory advanced by thee, the fruit of thy labor shall be Honey.

Pliny names one Aristomachum Solensem, that spent threescore years in the contemplation of Bees; our whole time for this exercise is but threescore minutes; and therefore we say no more of this, but Vade ad Apem, practife the sedulity of the Be, labor in thy calling, And the community of the Be, believe that thou art called to assist others, And the secrecy of the Be, that the greatest, and most authorized spy see it not, to supplant it, And the purity of the Be, that never settles upon any foul thing, that thou never take a foul way to a fair end, and the fruit of thy labor shall be Honey; God shall give thee the sweetness of this world, honor, and ease, and plenty, and he shall give thee thy honey-comb, with thy honey, that which preserves thy honey to thee, that is, a religious knowledge, that all this is but honey; And honey in the dew of the flowers, whence it is drawn, is but Coeli sudor, a sweaty excrement of the heavens, and Siderum saliva, the spettle, the fleame of the stars, and Apum vomitus, the casting, the vomit of the Be. And though honey be the sweetest thing that we do take into the body, yet there it degenerates into gall, and proves the bitterest; And all this is honey in the Anti-type, in that which it signifies, in the temporal things of this world; In the temporal things of this world there is a bitterness, in our use of them; But in his hand, and his purpose that gives them, they have impressions of sweetness; and so Comede, Eat thy honey, which is also a step farther.

Here is libery for any man to eat Honey, if he have found it, and Jonathan the Kings son found honey upon the ground, and did but dip his staff in it, and put it to his mouth, and he must die for it. Of forbidden honey the least dram is poison, how sweet soever any collateral respect make it. But Jonathan knew not that it was forbidken by the King: Ignorance is no plea in any subject against the Kings laws; and there is a King, in breach of whose laws, no King, no Kings son can excuse themselves by ignorance, if they do but dip their Scepter in forbidden honey, in any unlawful delight in this world; For they do, or they may know the unlawfulness of it. But for the honey which God allows us, whether God give it in that plenty, Terram fluentem, that the land flow with milk and honey, nay Torrentes mellis, rivers and streams of honey, that great fortunes flow into men, in this world; or whether God put us to suck honey out of the Rock, that that which we have, we dignity, and plough, and thresh for, yet when thou hast found that, Comede, use it, enjoy it, eat it; He that will not work, shall not eat; He that shuts himself up in a Cloister, till the honey find him, till meat be brought to him, should not eat.

Christ himself are Honey, but after his Resurrection; when his body needed not refection; when our principal end in worldly things, is not for the body, nor for the world, but that we have had a spiritual resurrection, that we can see God's love in them, and show God's glory by them, then Invenisti, thou hast found; (for Invenire, est in rem venire, id est in usum ) to find a thing is to make the right use of it, and Invenisti mel, thou hast found Honey, that which God intends for sweetness, for necessities, conveniences, abundances, recreations, and delights; and therefore Comede, eat it, enjoy it; but to thee also belongs that Caveat, Comede ad sufficientiam, Eat but enough.

That great Moral man Seneca, could see, that Nihil agere, to pass this life, and intend no Vocation, was very ill; and that Aliud agere, to profess a Vocation, and be busier in other men's callings, then his own, was worse; but the Super-agere, to over-do, to do more then was required at his hands, he never brought into comparison, he never suspected; and yet that is our most ordinary fault. That which hath been ordinarily given by our Physicians, by way of counsel, That we should rise with an appetite, hath been enough followed by worldly men; They always lie down, and always rise up with an appetite to more, and more in this world. An Office is but an Anti-past, it gets them an appetite to another Office; and a title of Honor, but an Anti-past, a new stomach to a new Title. The danger is, that we cannot go upward directly; If we have a stair, to go any height, it must be a winding stair; It is a compassing, a circumventing, to rise: A Ladder is a straight Engin of it self, yet if we will rise by that, it must be set a slope; Though our means be direct in their own nature, yet we put them upon crooked ways; It is but a poor rising, that any man can make in a direct line, and yet it is, Ad sufficientiam, high enough, for it is to heaven. Have ye seen a glass blown to a handsome competency, and with one breath more, broke? I will not ask you, whether you have seen a competent beauty made worse, by an artificial addition, because they have not thought it well enough before; you see it every day, and everywhere. If Paul himself were here, whom for his Eloquence the Lystrians called Mercury, he could not persuade them to leave their Mercury; It will not easily be left; for how many of them that take it outwardly at first, come at last to take it inwardly? Since the saying of Solomon, Be not over righteous, admits many good senses, even in Moral virtues, and in religious duties too, which are naturally good, it is much more appliable in temporal things, which are naturally indifferent; Be not over fair, over witty, over sociable, over rich, over glorious; but let the measure be Sufficientia tua, So much as is sufficient for thee.

But where shall a man take measure of himself? At what age, or in what calling shall he say, This is sufficient for me? Jeremiah says, Puer sum, I am a child, and cannot speak at all; S. Paul says, Quando pure, When I was a child, no bigger, I spake like a child; this was not sufficientia sua, sufficienr for him; for since he was to be a man, he was to speak like a man: The same clothes do not serve us throughout our lives, nay not the same bodies, nay not the same virtues, so there is no certain Gomer, no fixed Measure for worldly things, for everyone to have. As Clemens Alexandrinus saith, Eadem Drachma data Nauclero, est Naulum, The same piece of Money given to a Water-man, is his Fare; Publicano Vectigal, given to a Farmer of Custom, it is Impost; Mercatori pretium, to a Merchant it is the price of his Ware; Operario Merces, Mendico Eleemosyna, To a Labourer it is Wages, to a Beggar it is Alms; So on the other side, this which we call sufficiency, as it hath relation to divers states, hath a different measure. I think the rule will not be inconveniently given, if we say, That whatsoever the world doth justly look for at our hands, we may justly look for at God's hands: Those outward means, which are requisite for the performance of the duties of your calling to the world, arising from your birth, or arising from your place, you are to pray for, you are to labor for; For that is Sufficientia tua, so much is sufficient for you, and so much Honey you may eat; but eat no more, says the Text, Ne satieris, Lest you be filled.

He doth not say yet, lest thou be satisfied; there is no great fear, nay there is no hope of that, that he will be satisfied. We know the receipt, the capacity of the ventricle, the stomach of man, how much it can hold; and we know the receipt of all the receptacles of blood, how much blood the body can have; so we do of all the other conduits and cisterns of the body; But this infinite Hive of honey, this insatiable whirlpoole of the covetous mind, no Anatomy, no dissection hath discovered to us. When I look into the larders, and cellars, and vaults, into the vessels of our body for drink, for blood, for urine, they are pottles, and gallons; when I look into the furnaces of our spirits, the ventricles of the heart and of the brain, they are not thimbles; for spiritual things, the things of the next world, we have no room; for temporal things, the things of this world, we have no bounds. How then shall this over-eater be filled with his honey? So filled, as that he can receive nothing else. More of the same honey he can; Another Manor, and another Church, is but another bit of meat, with another sauce to him; Another Office, and another way of Extortion, is but another garment, and another lace to him. But he is too full to receive anything else; Christ comes to this Bethlehem, (Bethlehem which is Domus panis ) this house of abundance, and there is no room for Christ in this Inn; there are no crumbs for Christ under this table; There comes Boanerges, ( Boanerges, that is, filius Tonitrui, the son of Thunder) and he thunders out the Vae's, the Comminations, the Judgments of God upon such as he; but if the Thunder spoil not his drink, he sees no harm in Thunder; As long as a Sermon is not a Sentence in the Star-chamber, that a Sermon cannot fine and imprison him, he hath no room for any good effect of a Sermon. The Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Comfort comes to him, and offers him the consolation of the Gospel; but he will die in his old religion, which is to sacrifice to his own Nets, by which his portion is plenteous; he had rather have the God of the Old Testament, that pays in this world with milk and honey, then the God of the New Testament, that calls him into his Vineyard in this World, and pays him no wages till the next: one Jupiter is worth all the three Elohims, or the three Jehovah's (if we may speak so) to him. Jupiter that can come in a shower of gold, out weighs Jehovah, that comes but in a shower of water, but in a sprinkling of water in Baptism, and sels that water so dear, as that he will have showers of tears for it, nay showers of blood for it, when any Persecutor hath a mind to call for it. The voice of God whom he hath contemned, and wounded, The voice of the Preacher whom he hath derided, and impoverished, The voice of the poor, of the Widow, of the Orphans, of the prisoner, whom he hath oppressed, knock at his door, and would enter, but there is no room for them, he is so full. This is the great danger indeed that accompanies this fullness, but the danger that affects him more is that which is more literally in the text, Evomet, he shall be so filled as that he shall vomit; even that fullness, those temporal things which he had, he shall cast up.

It is not a vomiting for his ease, that he would vomit; but he shall vomit; he shall be forced to vomit. He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again; God shall cast them out of his belly; But by what hand? whether by his right hand, by the true way of justice, or his left hand, by malice, under color of justice, his money shall be his Antimony, his own riches shall be his vomit. Solomon says, he saw a sore evil under the Sun; but if he had lived as long as the Sun, he might have seen it every course of the Sun, Riches reserved to their owners for their own hurt; Richmen perish, that should not have perished, or not so soon, or not so absolutely, if they had not been rich. Their confidence in their riches provokes them to some unjustifiable actions, and their riches provoke others to a vehement persecution. And in this vomit of theirs, if we had time to do so, we would consider first, The sordidnesse, and the contempt and scorn that this evacuated Man comes to in the world, when he hath had this vomit of all his honey; That because there can be no vacuity, he shall be filled again, but Saturabitur ignominia, He shall be filled with shame for glory, and shameful spuing shall be upon his glory. He magnified himself against the Lord, and therefore was made drunk, and shall wallow in his vomit, and be had in derision. His honey was his soul, and that being vomited, he is now but a rotten and abhorred carcass; At best he was but a bag of money, and now he is but the bag it self, which scarce any man will stoop to take up: And as in a vomit in a bason, the Physician is able to show the world, what cold meat, and what raw meat, and what hard and indigestible meat he had eaten; So when such a person comes by justice, or malice to this vomit, every man becomes a Physician, every man brings Indictments, and evidence against him, and can show all his falsehoods, and all his extortions in particular.

In these particulars we would consider the scorn upon this vomit; and then the danger of it in these, That nothing weakens the eyes more then vomiting; when this worldly man hath lost his honey, he hath lost his sight; he was dim sighted at beginning, when he could see nothing but worldly things, things nearest to him, but when he hath vomited thē, he hath lost his spectacles; through his riches he saw some glimmering, some color of comfort, now he sees no comfort at all: And a greater danger in vomiting is, that often times it breaks a vein within, and that is most commonly incurable; This man that vomits without, bleeds within; his fortune is broke, and his heart is broke; and he bleeds better blood then his own, he bleeds out the blood of Christ Jesus himself; the blood of Christ Jesus poured into him heretofore in the consolation of the Gospel, and in the Cup of Salvation in the Sacrament (for so much as concerns him) is but spilled upon the ground; as though his honey, his worldly greamesse, were his Father, and Mother, and Wife, and Children, and Prince, and friends, and all, when that is lost by this vomit, he mourns for all, in a sad and everlasting mourning, in such a disconsolate dejection of spirit as ends either in an utter inconsideration of God, or in a desperation of his mercies. This is that Incipiamte evomere (as the Vulgat reads it) in this vomit of worldly things, God does begin to vomit him out of his mouth; and then God does not return to his vomit, but leaves this impatient patient to his impenitiblenesse. But we must not launch into these wide Seas now, to consider the scorn, or the danger of this vomit, but rather draw into the harbor, and but repeat the text, transferred from this world to the text, from temporal to spiritual things.

Thus far we have been In melle, In honey, upon honey; but now Super mel, above honey. The judgments of the Lord are Dulcia prae melle, Sweeter then honey, and the honey comb; And the judgments of the Lord are that, by which the Lord will judge us, and this world; it is his word. His word, the sincerity of the Gospel, the truth of his Religion is our honey and honey comb; our honey, and our wax, our Covenant, and our Seal; we have him not, if we have not his truth, if we require other honey; and we trust him not, if we require any other Seal, if we think the word of God needs the traditions of men. And Invenisti tu, Hath God manifested to thee the truth of his Gospel? Bless thou the Lord, praise him and magnify him forever, whose day-spring from an high hath visited thee, and left so many Nations in darkness, who shall never hear of Christ, till they hear himself, nor hear other voice from him then, then the Ite maledicti; Pity them that have not this honey, and confess for thyself, that though thou have it, thou hast but found it; couldst thou bespeak Christian Parents beforehand, and say, I will be borne of such Parents as shall give me a title to the Covenant, to Baptism? or couldst thou procure Sureties, that should bind themselves for thee, at the entering into the Covenant in Baptism? Thou foundest thyself in the Christian Church, and thou foundest means of salvation there; thou broughtest none hither, thou boughtest none here; the Title of S. Andrew, the first of the Apostles that came to Christ, was but that, Invenimus Mesiam, We have found the Mesias. It is only Christ himself that says of himself, Comedi mel meum, I have eat my honey, his own honey. We have no grace, no Gospel of our own, we find it here.

But since thou hast found it, Comede, Eat it; do not drink the cup of Babylon, lest thou drink the cup of God's wrath too: but make this Honey (Christ's true Religion) thy meat; digest that, assimilate that, incorporate that: and let Christ himself, and his merit, be as thy soul; & let the clear and outward profession of his truth, Religion, be as thy body: If thou give away that body, (be flattered out of thy Religion, or threatened out of thy Religion) If thou sell this body, (be bought and bribed out of thy Religion) If thou lend this body, (discontinue thy Religion for a year or two, to see how things will fall out) if thou have nobody, thou shalt have no Resurrection, and the clear and undisguised profession of the truth, is the body.

Eat therefore this honey Ad sufficientiam; so much as is enough. To believe implicitly as the Church believes, and know nothing, is not enough; know thy foundations, and who laid them; Other foundations can no man lay, then are laid, Christ Jesus; neither can other men lay those foundations otherwise then they are laid by the Apostles, but eat Ad sufficientiam tuam, that which is enough for thee, for so much knowledge is not required in thee in those things, as in them, whose profession it is to teach them; be content to leave a room still for the Apostles, Aemulamini charismata meliora, desire better gifts; and ever think it a title of dignity which the Angel gave Daniel, to be Vir desideriorum; To have still some farther object of thy desires. Do not think thou wantest all, because thou hast not all; for at the great last day, we shall see more plead Catechisms for their salvation, then the great volumes of Controversies, more plead their pockets, then their Libraries. If S. Paul so great an Argosie held no more, but Christum crucifixum, what can thy Pinnace hold? Let humility be thy ballast, and necessary knowledge thy freight: for there is an over-fullness of knowledge, which forces a vomit; a vomit of opprobrious and contumelious speeches, a belching and spitting of the name of Heretic and Schismatic, and a loss of charity for matters that are not of faith; and from this vomiting comes emptiness, The more disputing, the less believing: but Saturasti nos benignitate tua, Domine, Thou hast satisfied us early with thy mercy, Thou gavest us Christianity early, and thou gavest us the Reformation early: and therefore since in thee we have found this honey, let us so eat it, and so hold it, That the land do not vomit her Inhabitants, nor spew us out, as it spewed out the Nations that were before us, but that our days may be long in this land, which the Lord our God hath given us, and that with the Ancient of days, we may have a day without any night in that land, which his Son our Savior hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. To which glorious Son of God, &c.

SERM. LXXI. At the Haghe Decemb. 19. 1619. I Preached upon this Text. Since in my sickness at Abrey-hatche in Essex, 1630. revising my short notes of that Sermon, I digested them into these two.

S OLOMON presenting our Savior Christ, in the name and person of Wisdom, in the book of Proverbs, puts, by instinct of the Holy Ghost, these words into his mouth, Deliciae meae esse cum filiis hominum, Christ's delight is to be with the children of men; And in satisfaction of that delight, he says in the same verse, in the person of Christ, That he rejoiced to be in the habitable parts of the Earth, (that is, where he might converse with men) Ludens in orbe terrarum, (so the Vulgat reads it) and so our former Translation had it, I took my solace in the compass of the Earth. But since Christ's adversary Satan does so too, (Satan came from compassing the Earth to and fro, and from walking in it; ) since the Scribes and Pharisees do more then so, They compass Land and Sea, to make one of their own profession, the mercy of Christ is not less active, not less industrious then the malice of his adversaries, He preaches in populous Cities, he preaches in the desert wilderness, he preaches in the tempestuous Sea: and as his Power shall collect the several dusts, and atoms, and Elements of our scattered bodies at the Resurrection, as materials, members of his Triumphant Church; so he collects the materials, the living stone, and timber, for his Militant Church, from all places, from Cities, from Desarts, and here in this Text, from the Sea, (Jesus walking by the Sea, &c.)

In these words we shall only pursue a twofold consideration of the persons whom Christ called here to his Apostleship, Peter and Andrew; What their present, what their future function was, what they were, what they were to be; They were fishermen, they were to be fishers of men. But from these two considerations of these persons, arise many Circumstances, in and about their calling; and their preferment for their cheerful following. For first, in the first, we shall survey the place, The Sea of Galilee; And their education and conversation upon that Sea, by which they were naturally less fit for this Church-service. At this Sea he found them casting their Nets; of which act of theirs, there is an emphatical reason expressed in the text, For they were fishers, which intimates both these notes, That they did it because they were fishers; It became them, it behooved them, it concerned them to follow their trade; And then they did it as they were fishers, If they had not been fishers they would not have done it, they might not have usurped upon another's Calling; They cast their Nets into the Sea, for they were fishers ) And then, in a nearer consideration of these persons, we find that they were two that were called; Christ provided at first against singularity, He called not one alone; And then they were two Brethren, persons likely to agree; He provided at first against schism; And then, they were two such as were nothing of kin to him, (whereas the second pair of brethren, whom he called, James and John, were his kinsmen) He provided at first, against partiality, and that kind of Simony, which prefers for affection. These men, thus conditioned naturally, thus disposed at this place, and at this time, our blessed Savior calls; And then we note their readiness, they obeyed the call, they did all they were bid, They were bid follow, and they followed, and followed presently; And they did somewhat more then seems expressly to have been required, for, They left their Nets, and followed him. And all these substantial circumstances invest our first part, these persons in their first estate. For those that belong to the second part, Their preferment upon this obedience, (Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men) it would be an impertinent thing, to open them now, because I do easily foresee, that this day we shall not come to that part.

In our first part, The consideration of these persons then, though in this Text Peter be first named, yet we are to note, that this was not the first time of their meeting; when Christ and they met first, which was, when John the Baptist