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PAGE

XIII. TfiK Fatal Banquet : Tue First Ser-

mon Pkov. IX. 17, 18, . 158

XIV. The Fatal Banquet : The Second Ser-

vice Pro V. IX. 17, . . 175

XV. The Fatal Banquet: The Beeaking-

up OP THE Feast ,.Prov, IX. 17, , .198

XVI The Fatal Banquet : The Shot Prov. IX. 18, . . 21-5

XVII. The Fool and his Sport Prov. XIV. 9, . . 245

XVIII. Mystical Bedlam Eccles. IX. 3, . . 254

XIX. The Gallant's Burden Isaiah XXI. 11,12, 294

XX. The Sinner's Passing-bell Jer. VIII. 22, . .329

XXI. Physic FROM Heaven Jer. VIII. 22, . .358

XXII. England's Sickness Jer. VIII. 22, . . 394

XXIII. „ „ (continued), 422

XXIV. Heaven AND Earth Reconciled Dan. XII. 3, . . 448

XXV. The Soul's Sickness : A Discourse, Divine, ]\roRAL,

aj^d Physical, . . . . .471

EDITOEIAL NOTE.

Having undertaken tlie general editorship of this most important series of works after two volumes of it had been published, I embrace the opportunity aftbrded by the issue of the fii-st volume of the works of a new author, to state briefly the method that will be pursued in discharging the duties of that responsible office.

The main object to be constantly aimed at, and so far as possible attained, is the issue of a complete and perfect text of the works to be included in the series. In most of the modern reprints of some of these works, passages have been left out, and expressions have been modified, on tlie plea that if the authors had lived in our days, they would not have written as they actually did. Such a mode of procedure would be altogether inconsistent with the objects and plan of the present series. We have nothing to do with what they might, or might not, have written in other circumstances, but with what they did write. The only change intended to be introduced into the works as originally published, is the substitution of the modem orthography for the antique and capricious spelling. To some readers even this may seem unadvisable; but the balance of advantage seems to be decidedly in its favour, as it will undoubtedly render the works more attractive to the great body of readers. The punctuation of the old editions is exceedingly faulty, and requires to be set aside altogether.

In a few instances I have altered the forms of words that have become obsolete; but I have substituted only what may be regarded as the modern forms of the same words, and that only where the old forms might puzzle ordinary readers. When there was no likeU-hood of this, I have retained the antiquated forms. No one, I think, will blame me for not changing, for example, the fine old words covetise and niggardice into covetousness and nifjcjardliness. There is

TUl EDITORIAL NOTE.

one instance in which I have systematically made a change, which some may regard as a change of words, but which I consider to be only a change of forms. Most readers must have noticed that the word its does not occur in the Authorised Version of the English Bible. Its place in that version is supplied by his. Adams, who was cotemporary with the authors of that version, in like manner never makes use of its. If, like them, he had used his for it, I should not have considered it necessary or proper to alter it. But he almost invariably uses the for zte.* In very many cases this sounds awkwardly to a modern ear, and in some instances might prevent the iinmediate apprehension of the sense of a passage. For example, I doubt if the common proverbial maxim, '■ Virtue is its own reward,' would be at once intelligible to every reader under the form, * Virtue is the own reward.' Expressions similar to this are of constant occurrence in the earlier writings of the period embraced in this series, and I am not sure that some of them are not retained towards the beginning of this first volume of Adams's Works. After the printing had proceeded a little way, I adopted the resolution to discard the article, whenever it was manifestly the representative of the neuter possessive pronoun. When there could be any doubt of its being so used, I have allowed it to remain, although my own belief might be that it ought to be altered. To some it will appear that I have said more than enough about a small matter; but it should be remembered that this explanation is given once for all regarding the text of one of the largest collections of works ever published in connexion.

The original editions abound with typographical errors, and these I have corrected when it was perfectly manifest that they were such. I have also discarded the artificial form of printing the divisions of sermons and treatises, in which the authors and the printers of those days evidently prided themselves. The reader will find appended to this note, as a specimen, the divisions of one of Adams's sermons, ^ The Black Saint.' This in the present edition is given thus :—

' The material circumstances concerning both fort and captain, hold and holder, place and person, may be generally reduced to these three :—

' I. The unclean spirit's egress, forsaking the hold; wherein we have—

'1. His tinroosling; and observe, (1.) The j^erson going out; (2.). The manner ; and, (3.) The vieasiire of his going out.

'2. His unresting, or discontent; which appears, (1.) In his travel, "he walketh;" (2.) In his trial, "in dry places;" (3.) In his trouble, "seeking rest;" (4.) In the event, " findeth none."

' IL His regress, striving for a re-entry into that he lost; considered—

* In a few instances he uses it; the expression it own occurring occasion ally. Thi.s is in accordiince with the analogy of the language in the case of ii.sr"//, himself, .themselves.

EDITOKIAL NOTE. UC

* 1, Intentively; wherein are regardable, (1.) His resolution, "I will;" (2.) His revolution, "return;" (3.) The description of his seat, "into my house ;" (4.) His affection to the same place, " whence I came out."

'2. Invent'ivdij; for he findcth in it, (1.) Clearness, it is "empty;" (2.) Cleanness, "swept;" (3.) Trimness, "garnished."

' III. His ingress, which consists in his fortifying the hold; manifested—

'1. By his associates; for he increaseth his troops, who are described, (1.) By their nature, "spirits;" (2.) By their number, "seven;" (3.) By the measure of their malice, " more wicked."

' 2. By his assault, to the repossessing of the place; testified, (1.) By their invasion, "they enter;" (2.) By their inhabitation, "they dwell;" (3.) By their cohabitation, " they dwell there together."

' IV. The conclusion and application shut up all. The conclusion : " The last state of that man is worse than the first." The application : " Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation." You see I have ventured on a long journey, and have but a short time allowed me to go it. My observations in my travel shall be the shorter, and, I hope, not the less sound. So the brevity shall make some amends for the number.'

The production of a perfect text on these principles is a work requiring sound judgment, incessant care, and no small amount of labour, in which I trust that the readers of the series will not find me wanting.

The works of almost all the divines of this period abound with allusions to, and quotations from, the writings of the Fathers. Where these quotations form the foundation of an argument, it is clearly necessary that they should be verified, and the reference given, as it may frequently be desired to consult the context in the original; but where, as is generally the case, they are simply statements of what one of the Fathers has said, introduced merely to give point to a sentence, to corroborate the author's view, or to express a distinction or an antithesis more pointedly than it could be expressed in English, it could accomplish no practical good to spend days or weeks in searching the voluminous works of the Fathers and others, for passages which, even if found, would afford no additional information to the reader. The first class of quotations will, in all cases, be verified, and the references given, and as many of the second class as can readily be found. The series having been undertaken in the belief that it w'ould be eminently useful to ministers of the gospel who desire to search the rich stores of the Puritan theology for practical purposes, it is not supposed tliey would value it for any appearance of scholarship which an editor might seek to display, but for the profound learning whicli is so great a peculiarity of the Puritan Fathers. In the great majority of cases, the ordinary reader will be quite content with a general reference; while the few Avho are curious in such matters would be sorry to have the work done for them, which they will take great pleasure in doing for themselves. In not a few

cases, the sentences marked as taken from the Fathers are not given in their words. This is, of com-se, the case with respect to those from the Greek Fathers, which are always quoted in Latin. The Scriptural references, which are very incon-ect in the original editions, may be depended upon in this.

Besides furnishing a text approaching perfection as nearly as possible, ray editorial duty includes the preparation of a full and accurate index to the works of each author. This I hope to be able to accomplish in a manner that will prove satisfactory.

On the part of the Publisher I have to state, with reference to the volume now issued, that it was intended, as the subscribers to this series are aware, that a Memoir of Adams, by the Eev. Charles H. Spm-geon of London, should be prefixed to the first volume of his Practical Works. Unfortunately the state of Mr Spurgeon's health for some time past has incapacitated him from the discharge of any extra duty ; and though, both from his having undertaken the preparation of this Memoir, and from the great interest he has always taken in this series, he was most desirous to fulfil his engagement, he has found it impossible to do so. In these circumstances, the Memoir will be postponed till the appearance of the third volume, in April 1862; when it will be supplied by the Ptev. Joseph Angus, D.D., Principal of the Baptist College, Regent's Park, London. The present volume is in consequence somewhat thinner than the Publisher intended, but this will be rectified in the course of the issue of the series. In the third and concluding volume of Adams it is the Editor's intention to insert a short dissertation on the literary acquirements of Adams, what he borrowed from previous and cotem-porary writers, and what cotemporary and succeeding writers borrowed from him.

The absence of the Memoir referred to from this volume seems to make it necessary for the Editor to introduce Adams to the reader. This I shall do in a few sentences. He is a writer of the earlier Puritan period, and belongs to the class that were called doctrinal Puritans, while he is as far as possible from being a Puritan writer according to the ideas that are usually attached to that term. A high Tory in church and state, an uncompromising advocate of the divine right of kings and bishops, he is never weary of pouring forth invectives against Papists on the one hand, and those whom he regards as scliismatics and sectaries on the other. There is something exceedingly amusing in the pertinacity with which he launches forth indignant abuse of all who dift'er from him. But there is not a particle of sourness in his abuse; while there is much of

EDITORIAL NOTE.

hearty, witty, sarcastic, trenchant bitterness. He was a ' good hater,' evidently because he was an ardent lover.

Adams was not distinctively a doctrinal writer; but sound evangelical doctrine, according to the school of Augustine and Calvin, forms the basis of his writings. Neither docs he enter deeply into Christian experience; but perhaps no preacher ever excelled him in faithfully and vigorously, without fear or favour, or respect of persons, denouncing vice and immorality under all disguises. It is evident in every page of his writings that ' in his eyes a vile person was contemned.' The reader will go to him in vain for expositions of Scriptural texts, or for insight into the deeper workings of the Christian heart; but not in vain for a hearty appreciation of all that is good, and as hearty a denunciation of all that he considered to be evil.

His extant writings are all to be given in this series, with the exception of his Commentary on the Second Epistle of Peter, which was reprinted not long ago.

The style of Adams, though frequently disfigured by what I must be permitted to call wretched puns and conceits, is exceedingly lively and racy ; sometimes rising into pure eloquence, always clear, vigorous, spirited; a style that, in these days, would be deemed more suitable to our light periodical literature, than to the conventional formalities of the pulpit. Every reader who can appreciate genuine English manliness, decided sentiments, and frankness in expressing them, will receive a rich treat in the perusal of the works of Thomas Adams. He has been styled the Shakspeare of the Puritans; and a claim may be laid to the compliment, as the fertility of his imagination, and his intimate acquaintance with human nature in its graver and lighter moods, are frequently evinced with a power which warrants the comparison.

It only remains to explain that Adams was in the exercise of his ministry while the Authorised Version of the Bible was in preparation. He occasionally refers to it as ' the new translation;' but does not seem to have habitually made use of it. In some cases his argument depends upon readings of texts different from that in that Version. It will also be noticed that he quotes the Apocrypha with the same freedom with which he quotes the canonical books.

It will be seen from the address * to the Candid and Ingenious Keader,' that the sermons collected by Adams, and published by him in one folio volume, had previously been published separately. In their original form most of them had dedications prefixed; but, for reasons which do not appear, he deleted many of these. They will all be reprinted in connexion with his Memoir, as they are wortliy of preservation on many grounds.

Xil EDITORIAL NOTE.

The sermons in this series are arranged according to the order of the texts. This seems to be an advantageous arrangement upon the whole; but it involves the inconvenience, that in a few instances references are made to previous sermons, which in this edition occupy a subsequent place. T. S.

SPECIMEN OF DIVISIOIT. (See p. viii.)

* The materiall circumstances concerning both FoH and Captaine, hold and holder, place and person, may be generally reduced to these three.

Egresse; forsaking the Hold; wherein wee have his

Ynroosting: wher-in obserue the

( Person < Manner I Measure

•i

going out.

rnresting; ov 6is-(^'^^''Jl-

\ Trouble. { Euent.

content; which ap-peares in his

He Walkes. In dry places. SeeTcing rest. Findeth none.

Regresse; stri-uing for a reentry into that 'he lost; consi-der'd

Intentiuely ; wher-in are regardable

Resolution. I will.

Reuolution. Returne.

^.^ , Description of his seat. House. his j Affection, to the same place. My I house, whence I came out.

T ^. , -t^ (Glearenesse. Inuentiuely. lor I ^, 1- £ J xif • -i. s Cleanenesse. .hee findeth m It ] ^^,-,^,,,,,,.

It is empty.

Swept.

Garnished.

Ingresse; which consists in his fortifying the < Hold; manifested by his

^Associates; for he f Nature. Spirits.

cncreaseth his J Number. Seauen.

trooiDes, who are j Measure of Malice. More

described by their (^ tvicked.

Assault ; to the re-1 Inuasion. They enter.

possessing of the) Inhabitation. Dwell.

place; testifycd by] Cohabitation. They dwell their ( there together.

' The Conclusion &. Application shut vp all. 1. The Conclusion: The last state of that man is ivorse then the first. 2. The Application: Euen so sliall it be also vnto this wicked generation. You see, I haue ventured on a long iourney; and haue but a short time allowed me to goe it. My obseruations in my trauell shall be the shorter, and, I hope, not the lesse sound. So the breuity shall make some amends for the number.*

EIGHT HONOURABLE AND TRULY NOBLE

WILLIAM, EARL OF PEMBROKE, &c.;

LORD HIGH STEWARD OF HIS MAJESTY'S HOUSEHOLD ;

OF HIS majesty's most HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL;

CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD ;

AND KNIGHT OP THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTEB.

My Lord,

Tour Iionourable name hath stood long, like a happy star, in the orb of divine volumes; a sanctuary of protection to the labours and persons of students ; and if I have presumed to flee thither also for refuge, I am taught the way by more worthy precedents. It cannot but be for your honour that your patronage is so generally sought for, not only by private ministers, but even by -whole universities. In the vouchsafing whereof, you have daily as many prayers as the earth hath saints. I am bold also to present my poor offering, as one loath to be hindmost in that acknowledgment which is so nobly deserved, and so joyfully rendered, of all tongues. Divers of these sermons did presume on the help^of your noble wing, when they first adventured to fly abroad. In their retrief, or second flight, being now sprung up again in greater number, they humbly beg the same favour. They all speak the same language, and desire so to be understood. Yet for fear of misinterpretation, I beseech your Lordship to give them aU your pass; and, lest they should grow poor with contempt, your legacy of approbation. So I doubt not but that for your noble name's sake, (not their

own merit,) wheresoever they light, they shall find respective* entertainment, and do yet some more good to the church of God. Which success, together with your Honour's true happiness, both of this and a better life, is still prayed for, by

Your Lordship's humbly devoted.

And ready to be commanded,

THO. ADAMS. • That is, respectful— Ed.

EIGHT HONOUEABLE

HENRY, EAEL OF MANCHESTER,

VISCOUNT MANDEVILLE, BARON OF KIMBALTON;

LORD privy-seal;

AND OF HIS majesty's MOST HONOUEABLE PRIVY COUNCIL.

By your Lordship's favour, one moiety of these my unworthy meditations had the honour of their first patronage; and, under the seal of your gracious allowance, were conveyed to the public light. At your command many of them were preached, and, not without your acceptation, published. They were unthankful servants, if they should not know their old master, whose livery they have so long worn, and in whom they have ever found so fair indulgence. But howsoever soon charitable men might acquit them, there could be no discharging of their author from the imputation of ingratitude, if I should not send them to your Lordship, for the same blessing at their second which they had at their first publication. There is no merchant that hath found a fortunate success under the steering of a pilot, such as myself had under your honourable protection, in one adventure, but he will implore the same favour in his next voyage. At the preaching of these thoughts I was bound to your Lordship for your favourable ear; in the publishing of them, to your generous eye ; and now a third obligation you may bring upon me, by your Lordship's kind re-acceptance. They were once yours; I be-seecb you give them leave to be so still, and account me not altogether your Lordship's unprofitable servant, who have returned you your own with increase. Being once so willingly parted from me, they were no longer mine, but your Lordship's; and if I did present at first, I do but restore them now. That

„i DEDICATION TO THE EAEL OF MANCHESTEE.

„>i.ht be an act of love and observance; tlik ia an act of gratitude and r„st ce. That your honours may be stUl multiplied ,v>th our most gracious i^g on eartb, and with the King of kings in heaven, is faithfully prayed for, by him that is unworthy to be

Your Lordship's humble servant,

THO. ADAMS.

MY DEAELY BELOVED CHARGE,

THE PAEISHIONEES OF SAINT BENNET'S,

NEAR TO Paul's wharf, London :

INCKEASE OF GRACE, PEACE, AND COMFORT IN OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

I OWE you a treble debt—of love, of service, of thankfulness. The former, the more I pay, the more still I owe. The second I will be ready to pay to the uttermost of my power, though short both of your deserts and my own desires. Of the last, I will strive to give full payment; and in that, if it be possible, to come out of your debts. Of all, I have in this volume given you the earnest; as, therefore, you use to do vnth bad debtors, take this till more comes. You see I have venturously trafficked with my poor talent in public, whilst I behold richer graces kept close at home, and buried in silence ; liking it better to husband a little to the common good, than to hoard up much wealth in a sullen niggardice= I censure none. If all were writers, who should be readers ? If none, idle pamphlets would take up the general eye, be read and applauded, only through want of better objects. If the grain be good, it doth better in the market than in the garner. All I can say for myself is, I desire to do good; whereof if I should fail, yet even that I did desire it and endeavour it shall content my conscience. I am not affrighted with that common objection of a dead letter. I know that God can effectuate his own ends, and never required men to appoint him the means. If it were profitable being spoken, sure it cannot be unnecessary being written. I-very well know the

b

XVIU DEDICATION TO THE PARISHIONErvS OF ST BEN NET S.

burden of preaching in this city, "We may say of it in another sense, what Christ said of Jerusalem, * Oh thou that killest the prophets!' Many a minister comes to a parish with his veins full of blood, his bones of marrow; but how soon doth he exhaust his spirits, waste his vigour! And albeit there are many good souls, for whose sake he is content to make himself a sacrifice; yet there are some so unmerciful, that after all his labour, would send him a beggar to his grave. I tell you but the fault of some. To you I am thankful. In testimony whereof I have set to my hand, and sent it you as a token of the gratitude of my heart. Eeceive it from him that is unfeignedly desirous of your salvation; and if he knew by what other means soever he might bring you to everlasting peace, would study it, practise it, continue it, whilst his organ of speech hatt breath enough to move it. The God of peace grant you that peace of God which passeth all understanding, and afford you many comforts in this life to the end, and in the next life his glory without end! Amen.

Your loving and faithful Pastor,

THO. ADAMS.

TO THE CANDID AND INGENIOUS* READER.

These Meditations, which before were scattered abroad in parcels, are now presented to thee in one entire volume. I cannot but take notice that much injury hath been done to the buyers of such great books by new additions, so that by the swelling of the later impressions the former are esteemed un-perfect. Be satisfied and assured, that to this volume nothing shall ever be added. If the Lord enable me to bring forth any other work of better use to his church, it shall be published by itself, and never prejudice this. I cannot look to escape censures, no more than St Paul did perils ; and amongst the rest, especially by false brethren, 2 Cor. xl 26. It is prodigious when such a spirit of pride and bitterness shall possess the heart of any ministers, that they shall think nothing well done but what they do themselves. Let me humbly borrow the application of our Saviour's words to them : ' If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; if well, why do you smite me with your virulent tongues]' To the honest-hearted readers I submit all: In omnibus meis scriptis, non modo pium ledorem, sed et liberum corredorem, ■lesidero.f But to such \mcharitable censurers, qui vel non intelligendo repre-Undunt, vel reprehendendo non intelli()unt,X —that cannot or will not under-cLand,—I wish either a more sound judgment, or a more sober affection : that of lectores, they would not become lictores; and being but readers, no usurp the office of judges ; or, worse, of executioners. But, ' as he that com-mendeth himself is not approved, but whom the Lord commendeth,' 2 Cor. X. 18; so if the Lord approve, I pass not for man's censure. Cupio, si fieri potest, propitiis auribus, quid sentiam dicere: sin minus, dicam et iratis.^ I hear of some idle drones humming out their dry derisions, that we (forsooth) afiect to be men in print, as if that were the only end of these publications ; but let the communication of goodness stop their mouths. Speech * That ib, ingenuous.— Ed. t Aug. in Prooem. lib. iiL do Trin-

f Idem, Contra Faustum, lib. xiii., cap. 4. § Sea, Ep. 59.

^^ TO THE CANDID AND INGENIOUS READER,

is only for presence, writings have their use in absence : quo, liceat lihris, non licet ire mihi, —our books may come to be seen where ourselves shall never be heard. These may preach when the author cannot, and (which is more) when he is not. The glory be only to God, the comfort to your souls and mine : with which prayer, I leave you to Him that never leaveth

THO. ADAMS.

POLITIC mNTING.

Esau VMS a cunning hunter, and a mem of ilie field ; and Jacoh ivas a plain man, dwelling in tents. — Gen. XXV. 27.

Whex God hatli a long while deferred his actual blessings to the importunate suppliants, and extended their desires, at last he doubles on them the expected mercy. So he rccompenseth the dilation -with the dilatation and enlarguig of his favours. Eebekah had been long barren, and now the Lord opens her womb, and sets her a-teeming; she conceives two at once.

It is observable that many holy women, ordained to be mothers of men specially famous and worthy, were yet long barren. »Sarah, the wife of Abraham, that bore Isaac; llebekah, the wife of Isaac, that bore Jacob; Rachel, the wife of Jacob, that bore Joseph; Hannah, the mother of Samuel; Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, Hereof may be given some reasons:—

1. One Chrysostom gives, Ut ex mirahili partu sterilium, prasirueretur fides 2)artui virginis, —That by the mkaculous child-bearing of barren women a way might be made to beUeve the birth of Christ by a vii'gin.

2. To shew that Israel was multiplied, not by natural succession, but by grace. So Theodoret.

3. To exercise the faith, hope, and patience of such as, notwithstanding a promise, had their issue delayed.

But now Isaac prays, God hears, Bebekah conceives. She conceives a ■double burden, a pair of sons struggling in her womb. Her body is no less disquieted with this plenty, than her mind was before with the lack of children. Esau and Jacob are bom: brethren they are, not more near in birth than different in disposition; for * Esau was a cumiing hunter, a man of the field ; but Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.'

These two are the subject of my discourse; whereui I regard their nomina, omina, —names and proceedings. Their names, Esau and Jacob, note their conditions for opposite : the one ' a cunning hunter,' the other ' a plain man.' Of both whom I will be bold to si)eak literally and lil)erally : literally, of their individual persons; liberally, as they were figaircs and significations of future things.

For herein is not only regardablc a mere histor}', but a mystery also. And as St Paul applied the true story of Isaac, the son of the free, and Lsh-jnael, the son of the bond-woman, that by these things was another thing

VOL. I. A

meant, Gal, iv. 24; so I may conclude of these two brotliers iu tlie same manner : ver. 29, 'As then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so is it now,* So it is now, and so it shall be to the end of the world.

I must speak first of the first-bom, Esau, It is probable he was called Esau in regard of his manner of birth ; ver. 25, he that ' came out fii'st was red, all over like a haiiy garment; and they called his name Esau.'

Some derive it from the Hebrew word Quasah, which signifieth, to make; and taken passively it implies a perfect man, for he came forth red and haiiy,—red, to betoken his bloody disposition; hairy, to shew his savage and wild nature. Other children are born with hair only on the head, eyelids, and brows; but he was hairy all over, promising extraordinary cruelty.

He had three names :—1. Esau, because he was complete; 2. Edom, because he was red of complexion, or because he coveted the red pottage; 3, Seir, that is, hairy.

You hear his name; listen to his nature. God's Spirit gives him this character : ' He was a cunning hunter,' &c. A name doth not constitute a nature; yet in Holy Writ very often the nature did fulfil the name, and answer it in a future congruence.

The character hath two branches, noting his dition and his condition.

His condition or disposition was huntmg; his dition, portion, or seigniory was the field : he was a field-man.

The first mark of his character is,' a cunning hunter,' wherein we have expressed his power and his polici/, his strength and his sleight, his brawn and his brain ; his might, he was a hunter; his wit, he was a cunning hunter.

His Strength : A Huntek. —Hunting in itself is a delight lawful and laudable, and may well be argued for from the disposition that God hath put into creatures. He hath naturally inclined one kind of beasts to pursue another for man's profit and pleasure. He hath given the dog a secret instinct to follow the hare, the hart, the fox, the boar, as if he would direct a man by the finger of nature to exercise those qualities which his divine wisdom created in them.

There is no creature but may teach a good soul one step towards his Creator. The world is a glass, wherein we may contemplate the eternal power and majesty of God, ' For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead,' Rom. i. 20. It is that great book of so large a character that a man may run and read it; yea, even the simplest man, that cannot read, may yet spell out of this book that there is a God. Every shepherd hath this calendar, every ploughman tliis ABC. What that French poet divinely sung is thus as sweetly Englished—

' Tho world's a school, where, in a general story, God always reads dumb lectures of his glory.'

Eut to our purpose. This practice of hunting hath in it—1. Eecreation; 2. Benefit,

1. DelifjJd. —Though man, by his rebellion against his Creator, forfeited the charter which he had in the creatures, and hereon Adam's r)unishmeut was, that he should work for that sudore vuUus which erst sprung up naturally heneficio Creatoris; yet this lapse was recovered in Christ to believers, and a new patent was sealed them in his blood, that they may use them not only ad necessitatem vitce, but also in dtlectationem animi. So God gives man not only bread and wine to strengthen his heart, but even oil to refresh his

countenance. ' Let thy garments be always white, and let thy head hxck no ointment,' Eccles. ix. 8. When Solomon had found men pulling on themselves unnecessaiy vexations in this world, and yet not buying peace in heaven with their trouble on earth, he concludes, ' Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry : for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, that God giveth him under the sun,' Eccles. viii. 15.

But there is a liberty, the bounds whereof because men's affections cannot keep, it is better their understandings knew not ; for, melius est nescire centrum, quam non tenere circulum. I may say of too many, as Seneca, Nihil felicitati eorum deed, nisi moderatio ejus, —They have happiness enough, if they could moderate it. Nothing is magis propritim materice, say philosophers, more proper to matter, than to flow; nisi afonna sistitur, unless the form restrain and stay it. Nothing is more peculiar to man than to run out, and to err exorbitantly, if grace direct not.

Men deal with recreation as some travellers do with another's grounds, they beg passage through them in winter for avoidance of the miiy ways, and so long use it on sufierance that at last they plead prescription, and hold it by custom. God allows delights to succour our infirmity, and we saucily turn them to habitual practices. Therefore Solomon condemns it in some, as he commends it in others. ' Rejoice in thy youth,' and follow thy vanities ; ' but know, that for all this God wUl bring thee into judgment,' Eccles. XL 9. And our Saviour denounceth a Vce ridentihus; for they that will laugh when they should weep, shall mourn when they might have rejoiced.

We often read of Christ weeping, never laughing: taking his creatures for sustentation, not for recreation. Indeed he afforded us this benefit; and what we had lost, as it were, ex jwstliminio, recovered to us. But it were strange that hceres succedens in defuncti locum shoidd do more than the testator ever did himself, or allowed by his grant; or that servants and sinners should challenge that which was not permitted to their ]\Iaster and Saviour. But thus we pervert our liberty, as the Pharisees did the law, in sensum reprobum. These hmit, but keep not within God's pale, the circum-ferent limits wherein he hath mounded and bounded our liberty.

2. Benefit. —Recreations have also their profitable use, if rightly undertaken.

(1.) The health is preserved by a moderate exercise. Sedentariam agentes vitcim, they that live a sedentary life, so find it.

(2.) The body is prepared and fitted by these sportive to more serious labours, when the hand of war shall set them to it.

(.3.) The mind, wearied with graver employments, hath thus some cool respiration given it, and is sent back to the service of God with a revived alacrity.

His Policy : A Cunning Huntek. —But we have hunted too long with Esau's strength, let us learn his sleight: ' a cunning hunter.' Hunting requires tanturii artis, quaiitum martis. Plain force is not enough, there must be an accession of fraud. There is that common sense in the creatures to avoid their pursuers. Fishes -will not be taken with an empty hook; nor birds with a bare pipe, though it go sweetly; nor bea.sts with Briareus's strength only, though he had a hundred hands. Here astus polleniior armis. Fishes must have a bait, birds a net, and he that takes beasts must be a cunning hunter. ' Can a bird fall into a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for liim V Amos iii. 5. Nay, often both vises and devices, toils and toil-ings, strength and stratagems, are aU too little.

A Cunning Hunter. —It appears tliat Esau's delight was not to surprise tame beasts that did him service, but Tvild; for against the former there needed no such cunning. How easily is the ox brought to the yoke, the horse to the bit, the lamb to the slaughter ! His intention and contention was against wild and noxious creatures.

This observation teacheth us to do no violence to the beasts that serve us. Solomon stamps this mark on the good man's forehead, that he is merciful to his beast; and the law of God commanded that tlie mouth of the ox should not be muzzled that treadeth out the corn. God opened the mouth of an ass to reprove the folly of Balaam, who struck her undeservedly for not going forward, Avhen God's angel stood ad oppositum.

Those sports are then intolerable wherein we vex those creatures that spend their strengths for our benefit. God therefore often justly suffers them to know their own power, and to revenge themselves on our ingratitude. The Roman soothsayers divined that when bulls, dogs, and asses (beasts created for iise and obedience) grew mad on a sudden, helium servile imminebat, it boded some servile war and insurrection. But we may truly gather, that when God suffers these serviceable and domestical creatures to make mutiny and rebellion against us, that God is angiy with our sms; and that they no otherwise shake off our service than we have shaken off the service of God. So long as Ave keep our covenant with the Lord, he makes a league for us with the beasts of the field; but when we fall from our allegiance, they fall from theirs, and, without wonder, quit our rebellion against God with their rebellion against us. We see what we get by running from our Master ; we lose our servants.

But if they that fly from God by contempt shall thus speed, what shall become of them that fly upon God by contumacy 1 If wiclced Nabal could blame the servants qui fugiunt dominos, that run from their masters; how would he condemn them qui persequuntur, that run upon them -ndth violence? But if we band ourselves against God, he hath liis hosts to fight against us. Fowls in the air, fishes in the sea, beasts on the earth, stones in the street, will take his part against us. So long doth the hen cluck her chickens as she takes them to be hers; but if they fly from the defence of her wings, she leaves them to the prey of the kite. So long as we obey God, heaven and earth shall obey us, and every creature shall do us service; but if we turn outlaws to him, we are no longer in the circle of his gracious custody and protection.

A Cunning Hunter. —-As cunning as he was to take beasts, he had little cunning to save himself How foolish was he to part with his birthright for a mess of lentil pottage! And since there is a necessary discussion of his folly, as well as of his cunning, I will take here just occasion to demonstrate it ; and that in five circumstances :—

1. He had a ravenous and intemperate desire. This appears by three phrases he used:—(1.) 'Feed me, I pray thee,' ver. 30 j satisfy, saturate, satiate me; or, let me swallow at once, as some read it. The words of an appetite insufferable of delay. (2.) To shew his eagerness, he doubles the word for haste: 'with that red, with that red pottage;' red was his colour, red was his desire. He coveted red pottage ; he dwelt in a red soil, callecl thereon Idumea; and in the text, 'tliereforc was his name called Edom.' (3.) He says,' I am faint,' and, ver. 32, * at the point to die,' if I have it not. Like some longing souls that have so weak a hand over their appetites, that they must die if their humour be not fulfilled.

We may here infer two observations ;—

(1.) Tliat intemperance is not only a tiltliy, but a fonlisli sin. It is impossible that a ravenous throat should lie near a sober l)rain. There may be m such a man undcrstaudinL; and reason ; but he neither hears that nor follows tliis. A city may have good laws, though none of them be kept. But as hi sleepers and madmen there is habitus rationis, non usus et actus, — such men have reason, but want the active use. Venter pnccepta non audit, —the belly hath no ears. Though you would write such men's epitaphs while they are li\ang, yet you cannot; for moHem suam antecesserunt, they have ante-acted their death, and buried themselves alive; as the French proverb says, They have digged their grave with their teeth. The philosopher passing through Vacia the epicures grounds, said, Hic situs est Vacia: not. Here he lives, but, Here he lies ; as it were dead and sepulchred. The parsimony of ancient times hath been admirable. The Arcadians lived on acorns ; the Argives on apples; the Athenians on figs; the Tyruithians on pears ; the Indians on canes ; the Carmanes on i)alms; the Sauromatians on millet; the Persians, nasturtio, with cresses; and Jacob here made dciinty of lentil.s.

(2.) That a man may epicurise on coarse fare; for lentil pottage was no extraordinary fine diet. But as a man may be a Crassus in his purse, yet no Cassius in his pots; so, on the contrary, another may be, as it is said of Job, poor to a proverb, yet be withal as voluptuous as Esau. Men have taletn dentem, qualem mentem, —such an appetite as they have affection. And Esau may be as great a glutton in his pottage as those greedy dogs, Isa. Ivi, 12, that fill themselves with strong wines; or those fat bulls, Amos vi. 4, that eat the lambs and calves out of the stall. Thus the poor may sin as much in their throat as the rich, and be epicures tarn late, though not tam laute, —in as immoderate, though not so dainty fivre. Indeed, labour in many bodies requires a more plentifiJ repast than in others; and the sedentary gentleman needs not so much meat as his drudging hind. But in both this rule should be observed, Quantum natuvce sujiciaf, non quantum gulce jjlaceat, —Not what will please the throat, but what will content nature; to eat what a man shoidd, not what he would. The poor man that loves delicate cheer shall not be wealthy; and the rich man that loves it .shall not be healthy. As cunning as Esau was, here is one instance of his folly, an intemperate appetite.

2. His folly may be argued from his base estimation of the birthright; that he woidd so lightly part from it, and on so easy conditions as pottage. It seems he did measure it only by the i:»leasures and commodities of this life which were afforded him by it: ver. 32, ' I am ready to die : and what profit shall this birthright do to mel' Which words import a limitation of it to this present world, as if it could do him no good afterwards ; whereupon the Hebrews gather that he denied the resurrection. For this cause the Apostle brands him with the mark of profaneness, Heb. xii., that he changed a spiritual blessing for a temporal pleasure.

And what, O ye Esauites, worldling.s, are momentary delights compared to eternal! What is a mess of gruel to the supper of glory ! The belly is pleased, the soid is lost. Never was any meat, except the forbidden fruit, so dearly bought as this broth of Jacob. A curse followed both their feedings. There is no temporal thing without trouble, though it lie far more worthy than the lentil [)ottagc. Hath a man good tilings I Ho fears to forego them; and when he must, could either wish tliey had not been .so good, or a longer possession of them. Hath he evil \ They bring grief, and he either wisheth them good, or to be rid of them. So that good things

trouble us Tvitli fear, evil witli sorrow; those in the future, these in the present; those because they shall end, these because they do not end. Nothing, then, can make a man truly happy but eternity. Pleasures may last a while in this world; but they will grow old with us, if they do not die before us. And the staft" of age is no pole of eternity. He, then, hath too much of the sensual and profane blood of Esau in him, Heb. sii. 16, that wUl sell everlasting birthrights and comforts for transient pleasures.

3. Another argument of his folly Avas, ingratitude to God, who had in mei'cy vouchsafed him, though but by a few minutes, the privilege of primogeniture ; wherewith divines hold that the priesthood was also ctuiveyed. The father of the famUy exercised it during his life, and after his decease the first-born succeeded m that with the inheritance. And could Esau be ungrateful to a God so gracious? Or could he possibly have aspired to a higher dignity ? Wretched unthankfulness, how ju.stly art thou branded for a prodigy in nature ! There are too many that, in a sullen neglect, overlook all God's favours for the want of one that their affections long after. jVo71 tarn ar/unt gratias de tribimatu, quam queruntur, quod non sunt evecti in con-sulatum, —It is nothing with them to be of the court, except they be also of the council.

4. His obstinacy taxeth his folly, that, after cold blood, leisure to think of the treasure he sold, and digestion of his pottage, he repented not of his rashness; but, ver. 34, ' He did eat, and drink, and rose up, and went his way'—fiJled his belly, rose up to his former customs, and went his way without a Quid feci ? Therefore it is added, ' he deq^ised his birthi'ight,' He followed his pleasures without any interception of sorrow or interniption of conscience. His whole life was a circle of sinful customs; and not his birthright's loss can put him out of them. A circular thing implies a perpetuity of motion, according to mathematicians. It begins from all parts alike, et in seipso desinit, ends absolutely in itself, without any point or scope objectual to move it. Earth was Esau's home; he looks after no other felicity: therefore goes his way with less thought of a heavenly birthright than if he had missed the deer he hunted. It is wicked to sell heavenly things at a great rate of worldly; but it is most wretched to vilipend them.

5. Lastly, his perfidious nature appeareth, that though he had made an absolute conveyance of his birthright to Jacob, and sealed the deed with an oath, yet he seemed to make but a jest of it, and purposed in his heart not to perform it. Therefore, chap, xxvii. 41, 'He said in his heart. The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then wUl I slay my brother Jacob.' He tarried but for the funeral of his father, and then resolved to send his brother after him ; a,s Cain did Abel, because he was more accepted. It is hard to judge whether he was a worse son or a brother. He hopes for his father's death, and purposeth his brother's; and vows to shed blood instead of tears.

Perhaps from his example those desperate wretches of England drew their instruction. They had sold their birthright, and the Ijlessing which Jesus Christ, like old Isaac dying, becjueathed in his will to all believers, and all the interest in the truth of the gospel, to the Pope for a few pottage, red pottage, dyed in their own blood, fm- seeking to colour it with the blood of God's anointed, and of his sanits. And now, in a malicious rancour, seeing the children of truth to enjoy as nnich outward peace as they were conscious of an inAAard vexation, they expected but diem luctns, the days of mourning, when God should translate our late queen, of eternally-blessed memory, from a kingdom on earth to a better in heaven ; and then hoped, like bus-

tards in a fallow-field, to raise up their heavy fortunes vi turbinis, by a -whirlwind of commotion. But our Pacator Orbis (wliich was the real attribute of Constantine) beguiled their envious hopes. And as Patcrculus said of the Roman empire, after Augustus's death, when there was such hope of enemies, fear of friends, expectation of trouble in aU, Tantafuit unius viri majesias, lit nee honis, neque contra malos opus foret armis, —Such was the majesty of one man, that his very presence took way all use of arms. Our royal Jacob precluded all stratagems, prevented all the plots of these malicious Esauites, and settled us both in the fruition of the gospel and peace with it. But in meantime God did punish their perfidious machinations, as he will do perjury and treason, wheresoever he finds them ; for he will naU upon the head of the perjurer his oath traitorously broken.

In aU these circumstances it appeareth, that though Esau was subtle to take beasts, he had no cunning to hunt out his own salvation. From all which scattered stones, brought together, let me raise this building of instruction.

The wisest for the world are most commonly fools for celestial bles:-ings. Wicked men can sentire quae sunt carnis, not of the Spirit. The prophet Jeremiah compounds both these, and shews how wisdom and folly may concur in one man : chap. iv. 22, ' They are wise to do evil; but to do good they have no knowledge.' Let them war, they have their stratagems; let them plot in peace, they have their policies. For hunting, they have nets; for fowling, gins; for fishing, baits : not so much as even in husbandry, but the professors have their reaches; they know which way the market goes, whicJi way it will go. Your tradesmen have their mysteries—mysteries indeed, for the mystery of iniquity is in them : they have a stock of good words to put oS a stock of bad wares; in their particular qualities they are able to school Machiavel.

But draw them from their centre, earth, and out of their circumference, worldly poHcies, and you have not more simple fools. They have no acquaintance with God's statutes, and therefore no marvel if they misjudge vices lor virtues; as Zebul told Gaal, Judges ix. 36, that he mistook umbras moniium pro capitihus homimim. A man may easily run his soul upon the rocks of rebellion, while he neither looks to the card of conscience nor regards the compass of faith.

A Man of the Field. —We have taken the first branch of his character, the main proportion of his picture: ' he was a cunning hunter.' There is another colour added: 'he was a man of the field.' But because I take it for no other than an explanation of the former attribute, an exposition of the proposition, saving it hath a little larger extent, I do no more but name it.

We do not think, because he is called a man of the field, that therefore he was a husbandman ; but, as tlie Scptuagdnt calls him, a field-man, in regard that he was continually conversant in the field. There was his sport, there was his heart. Therefore, ver. 28, did Isaac love Esau, ' because he did eat of his venison.' He loved his venison, not his conditions. Some would read it thus, ' because venison was in his mouth,' and so turn lus hunting into a metaphor : as if by insinuation he had wound himself into the favour of Isaac. But the other reading is better; saving that, by the way, we may give a reprehension to sucli mouth-hunters.

If you would know who they are, they are the tiattcrers. of whom we may say, as huntsmen of their dogs, they are wcU-mouthed; or rather, ill-mouthed. For an ordinary dog's biting doth not rankle so sore as their

licking. Of all dogs they are best likened to spaniels, but that they have a more venomous tongue. They wiU fawn, and fleer, and leap up, and kiss their master's hand: but aU tliis Avhile they do but hunt him; and if they can spring him once, you shall hear them quest uistantly, and either present him to the falcon, or worry and prey on him themselves, perhaps not so much for his flesh as for his feathers. For they love not dominos, but dominorum; not their master's good, but their master's goods.

The golden ass, got into sumptuous trappings, thinks he hath as many friends as he hath beasts coming about him. One commends his snout for fairer than the lion's; another his skin for richer than the leopard's; another his foot for swifter than the hart's ; a foui-th his teeth for whiter and more precious than the elephant's; a last, his breath for sweeter than the civet beast's. And it is wonder if some do not make him believe he hath horns, and those stronger than bulls', and more virtual than the unicorn's. All tliis while they do but hunt him for his trappings; uncase him, and you shaJl have them baffle and kick him. This doth Solomon insinuate, Prov. xis. 4, ' Riches gather many friends: but the poor is separated from his neighbours.' He says not the rich man, but riches. It is the money, not the man, they hunt.

The great one bristles up himself, and conceits himself higher by the head than all the rest, and is proud of many friends. Alas ! these dogs do but hunt the bird of paradise for his feathers. These wasps do but hover about the gallipot because there is honey in it. The proud fly, sitting upon the chariot-wheel, which, hurried with violence, hufted up the sand, gave out that it was she which made all that glorious dust. The ass, carrying the Egyptian goddess, swelled with an opinion that all those crouches, cringes, and obeisances were made to him." But it is the case, not the carcase, they gape for. So may the chased stag boast how many hounds he hath attending him. They attend indeed, as ravens a dying beast. Actcieon found the kind truth of their attendance. They run away as spiders from a decaying house; or as the cuckoo, they sing a scurvy note for a month in summej-, and are gone in June or July; sure enough before the fall. ■ These hunters are gone; let them go : for they have brought me a little from the strictness and directness of my intended speech. But as a physician coming to cure doth sometimes receive some of his patient's infection, so I have been led to hunt a little wide, to fiud out these cunning hunters.

Be pleased to observe two general notes, and then I will come to the application:-—

1. These two brethren were born together, were brought up together; yet how great diff'erence was there in their composition of bodies, in their disposition of minds, in their events of life, or, as they say, in their fortunes !

(1.) For bodies : one was rough and hairy, the other was smooth and plain. This is seldom seen in children begot and born of the same parents, but seldom or never in two born at one birth. And we may go so far with the physiognomer to say, that complexion, though not guides, yet incUnes the inward disposition.

(2.) For disposition of mind, this text shews a wide and opposite difference : ' Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; but Jacob a l)lain man, dwelling in tents.' And (ircgory observes from this example, the remoteness or contrariety of worldlings' and holy men's delights. ]\lea of the world hunt after the pleasures of the world, as Esau. Men of grace give themselves to the contemplation and study of virtue, as Jacob.

(3.) For events or success in this world, there was such distance as greater could not be imagined ; for it is here said,' tlie elder shall serve the younger.' The privilege of prunogeniture belonged to Esau; yet both that and the blessing went to Jacob. If among us the eldest son sell all his lands to a younger brother, many are ready to bless his stars, and to say, He is born to better fortunes. Divers thhigs are here figured :—

[1.] Literally, here is intended that the Idumeans, the seed of Esau, should be subject to the Israelites, the posterity of Jacob. So we read, 2 Sam. viii. 14, that they were subdued to Israel by David, 'All they of Edom became David's servants / and so continued to the reign of Jotliam. This gave the Jews not only a superiority in temporal dominion, but in spiritual blessings, the grace and mercy of God; for they were the visible church, and Edom was cut off.

[2.] [Mystically, this signifies the carnal Jews subdued to the Christians, though the other were the elder people.* Therefore it is observable, that in the genealogy of Christ, Matt, i., many of the first-born were left out. Luke iii. 38, Seth is put in for the son of Adam; yet his eldest son was Cain. So, Matt. i. 2, 'Abraham begat Isaac,' yet his eldest son was Ishmael; ' Isaac begat Jacob,' yet here his first-born was Esau; ' Jacob begat Judah,* yet his first-bom was Reuben. And Daiid begat Solomon in Matthew's genealogy, Nathan in Luke's; yet both younger brethren by Bathsheba. Exod. iv. 22, Israel is called God's first-born, and his chosen people, his appropriation. Populus Juckeus aduinhraUis fait in his progenitis, —the Jews were figured in these first-born ; and we the Gentiles, that were the younger brothers, have got away the birthright. Eom. xi. 19, they are cast off, we grafted in; so that now the elder serveth the younger.

"Which teachcth us to look well to our charter in Christ ; for it is not enough to be born of believing parents, but we also must be believers. Job may sacrifice for, not expiate, his sons' sins. It is sinful for men on earth to deprive the first-born; but God may, and doth it. Gen. xlviii. 14, ' Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim's head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh's head, guiding his hands wittingly: though Manasseli was the first-born.' And, ver. 18, ' When Joseph said to him, Not so, my father, Jacob answered, I know it, my son, I know it.' Thus generation may be cut off, regeneration never. A man may be lost though born in the faith, unless he be born again to. the faith. Neither is it enough for Ishmael to plead himself the son of Abraham, unless he can also plead himself the son of God, and an heir of Abraham's faith.

2. Commend me here to all genethliacs, casters of nativities, star-worshippers, by this token, that they are all impostors, and here proved fools. Here be twins conceived together, born together; yet of as different natures and quolities as if a vast local distance had sundered their births, or as if the origdnary blood of enemies had run in their several veins. It is St Augustine's preclusion of all star-predictions out of this place. And since I am fallen upon these figure-casters, I will be bold to cast the destmy of their profession, and honestly lay open their juggling in six arguments :—

(1.) The falsehood of their ephonieridcs. The pr< ignosticators, as if they were midwives to the celestial bodies, plead a deep insight into their secrets; or as if, like physicians, they had cast the urine of the clouds, and knew where the fit held them, that it could neither rain nor hail till some star had first made them acquainted with it. Demonstration hath proved these * Aug. de Civit. Dei, lib. xvi., c. 25.

SO false and ridiculous that they may rather commovere nauseam quam hUem, and riswn more than both.

Perhajis when some appoint rain on such a day, some frost, others snow, a fourth wmd, a last cahn and ftiir weather, some of these may hit, some of these must hit. But lightly he that against his knowledge told true to-day, lies to-morrow; and he that lied yesterday may happen right next day; as a blind archer may kill a crow.

For this cause, I think, some were called erring or wandering stars; not so much that thej'- were uncertain in their own seats and motions, as because they caused to eiT their clients and gaping inquisitors. And so they are called erring in the same phrase and sense as death is called pale; not that it is pale itself, but because it makes those pale it seizeth on; and winter duty, not formaliter, but secundum effectum, because it maketh the earth dirty. So that rather their own speculations by the stars, than the stars, are erring: both decepto sensu cum judicio, et cornq^tis organis.

Therefore some of the subtler have delivered their opinions in such spurious, enigmatical, dilogical terms, as the de\al gave his oracles; that since heaven will not follow their instructions, their constructions shall follow heaven. And because the weather hath not fallen out as they have before told, they will now tell as the weather falls out. So that reading their books you would think, as the beggars have their canting, they had got a new language out of the elements, which the poor earth never did or shall understand. And it is thought that canting is the better language, because it is not so ambitious as to meddle with the stars, whereof the prognosticator's head comes as short as his tongue doth of the beggar's eloquence.

(2.) The state of fortune-tellers and prophecy-usurpers; which is not only^ poor and beggarly, as if the envious earth refused to relieve those that could fetch their living out of the stars, but also ridiculous :—

* Nil liabet infelix paupertas durius in se, Quam quod ridicules homines facit.'

This is not all; but they are utterly ignorant of their own destinies. Now, Qui sihi nescius, cui jorccscins ? —He that is a fool for himself, how shtiuld he be wise for others 1 Thrasius the soothsayer, in the nine years' drought of Egypt, came to Busiris the tyrant—

' Monstratque piari Hospitis eff'uso sanguine posse Jovem '—

and told him, that Jupiter's wrath might be appeased by sacrificing the blood of a stranger. The tyrant asked him what countr}^nan he was, of Egypt, or an alien 1 He told him, a stranger.

* Eli Busiris; fics Jovis liostia primus, Inquit, et iEgypto tu dabis hospes aquam;'—

' Thou, quoth the tyrant, art that lucky guest "WTiose blood shall wet our soil, and give us rest.*

It is reported that Biron, that French marshal, came to an astrologer to know the future success of his plots; which because he gave disastrous, the angry duke begun to his mischievous intendments in the fixte-tcllcr's blood. Can they read other men's fates in the stars, and not their o\m 1 Therefore one wittily wrote on such a book, after throwing it into the fire—

' Thy author foretells much : alas ! weak friend, That he could not prognosticate thy end.'

(3.) Tlie quick moving of the celestial bodies, and their remoteness from our eyes; both our sense is too weak to pierce into those fires, and those fires are too quick in motion for our apprehension. Therefore saith St Augustine, Si tarn cdeiiter alter post alterum nascitur, ut eadem pars Jioro-scopi maneat, paria cunda qucero, quce in nullis possunt geminis inveniri; — If one of the twins be so immediately born after the other that the same pail of the horoscope abide, 1 require likeness and equality in them botli, wliich can in no twins be f(iund. We see here two brethren born together, it is most likely, under the reign of one planet or constellation ; yet more difi'erent in natures than the planets themselves.

To this they answer, that even this cause, the swift motion of the planets, wrought this diversity, because they change their aspects and conjunctions every moment. This would one Nigidius demonstrate, who upon a wheel turning with all possible swiftness, let drop at once two aspersions of ink, so near together as possibly he could; 3'et stante rota, &c., the wheel standing still, they were found very remote and distant. Whereby he would demonstrate, that in a small course of time, a great part of the celestial globe may be turned about. But this St AugiTstine soundly returns on them: that if the planetary courses and celestial motions be so swift, it cannot be discerned under what constellation any one is born. And Gregory wittily derides their folly, that if Esau and Jacob were not therefore born under one constellation, because they came forth one after another; by the same reason, neither can any one be bom under one constellation, because he is not born all at once, but one part after another.

(4.) Vita brevis liominum, —man's short and brittle life. If our age were now as it was with the patriarchs, when the stag, the raven, and long-lived oak, compared with man's life, died very young, they might then observe and understand the motion and revolution of the stars, and behold their effects; when if any star had long absented itself from their contemplation, they could stay two or three hundred years to see it again : but now, as an English nightingale sung—

' 'V\\\o lives to age Fit to be made Methusalem his page V

Of necessity this astrologer must live so long as to have observed the life of such a man born under such a planet, and after him another born in like manner. Nay, he must overtake the years of ]\Iethusalem in the successive contemi>lation of such experiments. But this life is not given, therefore not this knowledge.

(5.) The infinite number of the stars takes from them all possibility of infallible predictions. They cannot give their general number, and can they give their singular natures? To attempt it is impnideiitia ccecissima; to afiirm it, impudmtia efrontissiina, —blind dotage, shameless imimdence.

(G.) The various disposition, conditions, natures, and studies axetaneorinn, of such as are born together. So Gregory reasons of these twins: Cum eodem momento mater vtrumque fiiderit, cur non una utriusque vita qualitas (vel a^qualitas) fuit ? —When the mother brought them forth at one instant, how comes it to pass that they have not the same quality and equality in their lives ? Are not many born at the same time and under tJie same constellation, quorum processus et successus varios et scope contrarios videmus, —whose proceedings and events we behold so different.

If we may give credit that Romulus and Remus were both bom of a vestal (defiled by a soldier) at one birth, both exposed together to a wild desert, both taken together and nourished of a she-wolf, both building and

challenging Borne; yet Romulus slew his brother, and got the kingdom of that city, and after his own name called it Rome. Fraterno primi madu-erunt sanguine nmri. If Castor, Pollux, and Helena were got by Jupiter, and hatched by Leda out of one egg, how came they to so various fortunes? Ciw fratrem Pollux alterna morte redemit ? Cicero mentions it for the Chaldean folly, that they would have 07nnes eodem tem^^ore ortos, all that were born (wheresoever) together, eadem conditione nasci, —to be born to the same condition.

But were all the infants slain at one time by Herod born under one constellation 1 Or all the old world drowned in the deluge under one star 1 Or all soldiers slain in one field under the same sign 1 The mathematicians were wont to affirm that all born under the sign Aquarius would be fishers. But in Gctulia there are no fishers : was never any there born under the sign Aquarius ? The Cretians, saith Paul, were always liars : what, were they all bom under Mercury ? The Athenians, greedy of novelties : had they all one predominant star ? The Belgics, warriors: were they therefore all born under the reign of Mars ?

But I have spent too much breath about this folly of prognosticators; of whom it may be said that not only ' the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light,' Luke xvi. 8, but they would be wiser ipsa luce, than the light itself They would know more than saints and angels, and search out the uninvestigable things of the Lord. Nam si qm, quce eventura sunt, jircevideant, a;quiparent Jovi, —If they could foresee future things, they would brag themselves equal to God, But secret things belong to God ; revealed, to us. The other is both arrogant in man and derogant to God. And Gregory says well, ' If such a star be a man's destiny, then is man made for the stars, not the stars for man.' The devils know not future events, and will these boast it 1 Sus Minervam scilicet.

They grew up together, and presently Esau was ' a cunning hunter,' Jacob ' a plain man.' We see that even yovitli doth insinuate to an observer the inclination and future course of a man. The sprig shooting out of the tree bends that way it will ever grow. ' Teach a child a trade in his youth, and when he is old he will not forget it,' saith Solomon. Esau entered quickly into the black way, which leads to the black gates, that stand ever ready open for black souls. Fatet cdri janua Ditis. As if he should want rather time for his sport than sport for his time, he begins early, at the very threshold of his life and morning of his years. Neqidtice cursns cele-rior (luatn a^tatis, —his -nickedness got the start of his age.

And did he ever stay his course 1 That foolish parents should be so indulgent to their children's licentiousness ! nay, even ready to snib and check their forwardness to heaven with that curb, ' A young saint, an old devil,' and, ' Wild youth is blessed with a staid age !' But indeed, most likely, a young saint proves an old angel, and a young Esau an old devil.

And hence follows the ruhi of so many great houses, that the young master is suflered to live like an Esau till he hath huntecl away his patrimony, wliich scarce lasts the son so many years as the father that got it had letters in his name. But what cares he for the birthright ? When all is gone, he, like Esau, can live by the sword. He will fetch gold from the Indies but he "will have it. But he might have saved that journey, and kept what he had at home. If the usurer hath bought it, though for i)or-ridge, he will not part with it again, though they weep tears. It is better to want superfluous means than necessary moderation. In se magna ruunt, siimniisque negatuvi est stare din; especially when the huge Colosses

have not sound feet. Vast desires, no less than buildings, where foundations are not firm, sink by their own magnitude. And there comes often fire ex rhamno, out of the bramble, Judg. ix. 20, that burns up the men of Shechem, and sets on fire the eagle's nest in the cedars. Vs. xxxvii. IG, Parvum jiisto, ' A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.' And a i)lain Jacob will prosper better than a profane hunting Esau. Let a man begin then with God. ' Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way 1 By taking heed thereunto according to thy word,' Ps. cxbc. 9.

Thus literally; let us now come to some moral application to ourselves.

Hunting is, for the most part, taken in the Holy Scripture in the worst sense. So, Gen. x. 9, Nimrod was a hunter, even to a proverb; and that * before the Lord,' as without fear of his majesty. Now, if it were so hateful to hunt beasts, what is it to hunt men ? The wicked oppressors of the world are here typed and taxed, who employ both arm and brain to hunt the poor out of their habitations, and to drink the blood of the oppressed. Herein observe—I. The persons hunted; II. The manner of hunting; and. III. The hounds.

I. The poor are their prey : any man that either their wit or violence can practise on. Not so much beggars; yet they would be content to hunt them also out of their coasts; but those that have somewhat worth their gaping after, and whose estates may minister some gobbets to their throats. Aquila non capit muscas, —the eagles hunt no flies so long as there be fowls in the air. The commonalty, that by great labour have gotten a little stay for themselves, these they hunt and lay along, and prey upon their prostrate fortunes.

If they be tenants, woe is them : fines, rents, carriages, slaveries, shall drink up the sweat of their brows. There is law against coiners; and it is made treason, justly, to stamp the king's figure in forbidden metals. But what is metal to a man, the image of God ! And we have those that coin money on the poor's skins : traitors they are to the King of kings.

The whole country shall feel their hunting. They hunt commons into severals, tilled grounds into pastures, that the gleaning is taken from the poor, which God commanded to be left them, and all succour, except they can graze in the highAvays. And to others, to whom their rage cannot extend, their craft shall; for they will hoist them in the subsidies, or overcharge them for the wars, or vex them with quarrels in law, or perhaps theii' servants shall in direct terms beat them. Naboth shall hardly keep his vineyard, if any nook of it disfigures Ahab's lordsliip. If they cannot buy it on their own price, they will to lav/ for it; wherein they respect no more than to have ansam quereloi, a colourable occasion of contention; for they will so weary him, that at last he shall be forced to sell it. But TuUy says of that sale, Ereptio, non emptio est, —It is an extortiVig, not a purchasing.

Thus the poor man is the beast they hunt; who must rise early, rest Late, eat the bread of sorrow, sit vriili many a hungiy meal, perhaps his children crj-ing for food, while all the fruit of his pains is served into Nim-rod's table. Complaui of tliis whiles you will, yet, as the orator said of Verres, pecuniosus nescit damnari. Indeed, a money-man may not be damnified, but he may be damned. For this is a crying sin, and tho wakened ears of the Lord will hear it, neither shall his provoked hands forbear it. Si tacuerint pauperes, loqueniur lapides, —If the poor should hold their peace, the very stones would speak. The fines, rackings, en-

closiires, oppressions, vexations, will cry to God for vengeance, "The stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it,' Hab. ii. 11.

You see the beasts they hunt. Not foxes, not wolves, nor boars, bulls, nor tigers. It is a certain observation, no beast hunts its owTi kind to devour it. Now, if these should prosecute wolves, foxes, &c., they should then hunt their own kind ; for they are these themselves, or rather worse then these; because here homo homini lupus. But though they are men they hunt, and by nature of the same kind, they arc not so by quality; for they are lambs they persecute. In them there is blood, and flesh, and fleece to be had; and therefore on these do they gorge themselves. In them there is weak armour of defence against their cruelties; therefore over these they may domineer, I will speak it boldly: There is not a mighty Nimrocl in this land that dares hunt his equal; but over his inferior laml) he insults like a young Nero. Let him be graced by high ones, and he must not be saluted under twelve score oif. In the country he proves a termagant; his very scowl is a prodigy, and breeds an earthquake. He would be a Caasar, and tax aU, It is well if he prove not a cannibal. Only Alacro salutes Sejanus so long as he is in Tiberius's favour; cast him from that pinnacle, and the dog is ready to devour him.

II, You hear the object they hunt; attend the manner. And this you shall find, as Esau's, to consist in two things— -force and fraud. They are not only hunters, but cunning hunters.

1. For their force, they are rohicsti latrones, and have a violent, impetuous, imperious hunting, 'Desolation and destruction are in their paths,' Isa, lix, 7. We may say of them as TertuUian said of the !Montanists, Non tarn lahorant ut cedi^carent sua, quam ut destruerent aliena, —They seek not so much their own increasing as the depopulation of others. Philosophers hold the world to be composed of three concurrent principles —matter, form, and privation; holding the last to be rather a principle of transmutation than of establishment. Oppressors, besides the matter, which is the commonwealth, and the form, which is justice, have devised to malce ueces-sary also privation.

There are sms which strive only intra orbem suum ficrere, which have no further latitude than the conscience of the committer. They are private and domestical sins, the sting whereof dies in the proprietary. Such are prodigality, envy, sloth, pride. Though evil example may do somewhat, they have no further extension. But some are of so ^vild a nature that they iwe mallets and sv/ords to the whole country about them. And these are distinctly the sins of the hand. So Micah ii. 2, ' They covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, even a man and his heritage.' Why do they ^all this but because manus potest, ver. 1, ' it is in the power of their hand.' And they measure their power, saith Seneca, by the span, by the reach of their hands : Injuriis vires metiuntur. Anaxagoras thougl^t man the wisest of all creatures because he hath hands, whereby he can ex:-press all signs. He might have concluded hun the wickedest of all creatures quia manuatus, because he hath hands; for no tiger or vultiu-e under heaven is more hurtful with his ckws and talons than man with his hands. AchiUcs asked Palamedes going to the Trojan wars why he went without a servant ? He shewed him his hands, and told him they were loco servorum, in stead of many servants. Mcmus or/janum organorum. Their dexterity and aptness chargeth them with sins whereof the other parts are no less guilty.

For the most part, those beasts have least inimaiiity that have most strength. Oxen, and horses, and elephants are tame and serviceable, but bees and hornets have stings. So wisely hath the Creator disposed, that there may not be a conjunction et potentice et malevolentue, —that might and malice may not meet. So they are suffered to have avUI to hurt, and not power; or power, and not will. The curst cow hath short horns; but these hunters have got both. The poet saith—

' That lions do not prey on yielding things; Pity's infeoffed to the blood of kings.'

Posse et nolle, nohile. That thou mayest harm and wilt not is laus iua, thy praise; that thou wouldest imd canst not, gratia Dei, is God's providence. Haman would hang ]\Iordecai, and cannot; he is a \aLlain in hell for his intent. David, when he had Saul in the cave, could hurt, and would not; he is a saint in heaven. Shimei would, but cannot kill (though rail on) David; David can, and will not, kill Shimei. The hot disciples would have fire from heaven to destroy the Samaritans, and could not; Christ could command it, and would not. How rare is a man of this disposition among us! If advantage hath thrust a booty into his hands, the lamb is in the wolves' cave with more securitj'. Plead what thou wilt, prostrate thy own innocence, aggravate the oppressor's cruelty, he answers as ^sop's wolf answered the lamb: ' Thy cause is better than mine, but my teeth are better than thine; I will eat thee.' And this is a shrewd invincible argument, when the cause must be tried out by the teeth. Factum non pactum est, non ixictum pactum est; quicquid illis luhet, —Bargain or not bargain, the law must be on their sides. JVe7no jMtentes tutus potest aggrecli, —He comes to his cost, that comes to complain agamst them.

2. For theu- fraud, they are cunning hunters. They are foxes as well as lions to get their prey. Nay, the fox-head doth them often more stead than the lion's skin. ' They hunt with a net,' Micah vii. 2. They have their politic gins to catch men. Gaudy wares and dark shops (and would you have them love the light that live by darkness, as many shopkeepers V) draw and tole customers in, where the crafty leeches can soon feel their pulses: if they must biiy, they shall pay for their necessity. And though they plead. We compel none to buy our ware, caveat emptor; yet with fine voluble phrases, damnable protestations, they will cast a mist of error be-, fore an eye of simple truth, and with cunning devices hunt them in. So some among us have feathered their nests, not by open violence, but politic circumvention. They have sought the golden fleece, not by Jason's merit, but by Medea's suljtlety, by Medea's sorcerj'.

If I should intend to discover these hunters' plots, and to deal pmictually with them, I should afford you more matter than you would afford me time. But I lioiiit myself, and answer all their pleas with Augustine : Their tricks may hold m jure fori, but not in jure poli, —in the common-pleas of earth, not before the king's bench m heaven.

Neither do these cunning hunters forage only the forest of the world, but they have ventured to enter the pale of the church, and hunt there. They will go near to empark it to themselves, and thrust God out. So many have done in this land; and though it be danger for the poor hare to preach to Uons and foxes, I am not afraid to tell them that they hunt where they have nothing to do. Poor ministers are dear to them, for they are the deer they hunt for. How many parishes in England (almost the number of half) have they empaled to themselves, and chased the Lord's

deer out ? Yea, now, if God lay challenge to Iiis own ground, against tlieir sacrilegious impropriations, for his own titles, they are not ashamed to tell him they are none of his; and what laws soever he hath made, they will hold them with a non obstante. They were taken into the church for patrons, defenders; and they prove offenders, thieves: for most often patrocinia, latrocinia.

You have read how the badger entertained the hedgehog into his cabin as Ids inward friend; but, being wounded with the prickles of his offensive guest, he mannerly desired him to depart in kindness, as he came. The hedgehog thus satisfies his just expostulation : That he for his part found himself very well at ease, and they that were not had reason to seek out another place that likes them better. So the poor horse, entreating help of the man against the stag, ever after, Non equltem dorso, non freeman depuUt ore, —They have rid us, and bridled us, and backed us, and spurred us, and got a tyranny over us, whom we took in for our familiar friends and favourites.

III. Now for their hounds. Besides that they have long noses themselves, and hands longer than their noses, they have dogs of all sorts.

Beagles, cunning intelligencers. Eo laudaUlior, quo fraudulentior, — the more crafty they are, the more commendable.

Their setters, prowling promoters; Avhereof there may be necessary use, as men may have of dogs, but they take them for mischievous purposes.

Their spaniels, fawning sycophants, that lick their masters hands, but are brawling ever at poor strangers.

Their great mastifis; surly and sharking bailiffs, that can set a rankling tooth in the poor tenants' ribs.

They have their ban-dogs, corrupt solicitors, parrot-lawyers, that are their properties and mere trunks, whereby they inform and plead before justice against justice. And as the hounds can sometimes smell out the game before their master, as having a better nose than he an eye, so these are stUl picking holes in poor men's estates, and raking up broken titles ; which if they justly be defended, actio Jit non lustralis, sed secularis. Where if (because justice doth sometimes prevail) it go against them, yet major est expen-sarum sumptus, quam sententice fructus, —the cost is more chargeable than the victory profitable.

Some of them, whose pale is the Burse, have their bloodhounds; long-nosed, hook-handed brokers, that can draw the sinking estate of poor men by the blood of necessity. If they spy pride and prodigality in the streets, they watch over them as puttocks over a dying sheep. For pascuntur sce-lere, they are not doves but ravens, and therefore sequuntur cadavera, follow carcases. Oh that some blessed medicine could rid our land of these Avarts and scabs, free us from these curs ! The cunning hunters could not do so much mischief without these lurchers, these insatiate hounds.

Thus I have shewed you a field of hunters; what should I add, but my prayers to heaven, and desires to earth, that these hunters may be hunted 1 'J'he hunting of harmful beasts is commended : the wolf, the boar, the bear, the fox, the tiger, the otter. ]'ut the metaphorical hunting of these is more praiseworthy; the country wolves, or city foxes, deserve most to be hunted. Non est mew parvitatis, &c. I am too shallow to advise you de modo: I only wish it might be done. They that have authority to do it know best the means, I will but discover the game, and leave it to their hunting, naming the persons they should hunt; they know the hounds wherewithal.

1. There is the wild boar, that breaks over God's mounds, and spoils his

Aineyard: Ps. Ixxx. 13, * The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.' This is the depopiilator, that will forage and lay all wa.ste, if he be not restrained. What! do you call him a wasting boar 1 He rather encloseth all, brcaketh up none. Yes, he lays waste the conimonwerdth, though he encloseth to himself. He wasteth societies, comnniuity, neighbourhood of people ; turns them out of their ancient doors, sends them to the wide world to beg their bread. He is a bloody boar, and hath two damnable tusks : money, to make him friends, and to charm connivance ; and a wicked conscience, that cares not to swim t) heU in blood. The brawny shield of this boar, whereby he bears off all blows of curses, is the security of his own dead heart. He thinks the cries and iilula-tions of -widows and orphans the best music. When the hand of God strikes him, (as strike him it will, and that fearfully,) he even rouseth and rageth on him, and dies like an angry boar, foaming at mouth, as if he were spitting defiance at heaven. Let this beast be hunted.

2. There is the fox, the crafty cheater, that steals the gi-apcs: Cant. ii. 15, ' Take us the foxes,' etc. It is God's charge to hunt him. He turns beasts out of their dens by defiling them. He sold his conscience to the de\dl for a stock of villanous mt. He hath a stinking breath, corrupted with oaths and lies; and a ravenous throat, to prey upon men's simpleness. If all tricks fail, he ■will counterfeit himself dead, that so drawing the fowls to feed upon him, he may feed upon them. The defrauder puts on a semblance of great .smoothness; you would take him for a wonderful honest man. Soft! you are not yet within his clutches; when you are, Lord have mercy on you, for he will have none !

3. There is the bloody wolf; the professed cut-throat, the usurer. Hunt him, seize on his den ; it is full of poor men's goods. What a golden law would that be which were called a .statute of restitution ! Such a one as Nehemiah enacted, chap, v., that land and vineyards, houses and goods, mortgaged into usurers' hands, should be restored ; when he sealed it with a sacramental oath, and made them swear consent to it: ' And he shook his lap, and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth not this promise; even thus be he shaken out, and emptied. And all the congregation said. Amen,' ver. 13. But if they will not restore by themselves, they .shall by their posterity. For as Pliny writes of the wolf, that it brings forth bhnd whelps; so the usurer lightly begets blind children, that cannot see to keep what their father left them. But when the father is gone to hell for gathering, the son often follows for scattering. But God is just. ' A good man leaveth his inheritance to his chil- ' dren's children; and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just,' Prov, xiiL 22.

4. There is also the badger, a beast of rapine. We have fellows among us, the engrossers of corn, the raisers of price, sweeping away whole markets; we call these badgers. The poor that comes vnth. a little money cannot speed, but at an unreasonable rate. They engross all. And by their capacity, or rather rapacity, having so much in their hand.s, they sell it at the place of their transporting at their own price.

5. The dromedary would alscj be better hunted. I mean the vagrant rogue-s, whose whole life is nothing but an exorbitant course; the main begging, the byes filching and stealing. Only they are not so serviceable as the dromedary, which is a bea.st of quick feet and strange speed. The reason is given by Aristotle, because the extreme heat of nature doth waste all the unctuosity and fatness, and thereby gives greater agility. But these drome-

VOL. I. B

daries are not swift. Let one charitable constable amongst a bundred light on him, and give him correction, and a passport to his (false-named) place of birth, and he will not travel above a mile a day. Let them alone, and they will ' traverse their ways,' Jer. ii. 23, Avhich are no ways, for they cannot keep the beaten path; let them be where they will, they are never out of their way. They may boast themselves of the brood of Cain, for they are perpetual runagates. If the stocks and whip-post cannot stay their extravagance, there remains only the jad-house.

6. Let the roaring buU be hunted: the bulls of Bashan, the bulls of Rome,, sent over by the Pope ad interitum, either of us or themselves; for their end is not implere ecdesiam, but coem,eterium, —to fill churchyards with dead bodies, not the church with living souls. No service would be so welcome to them as the Sicilian evensong or the Parisian matins. But since no drug is current in their shops but diacatholicon, treason and ruin, let it be first ministered to themselves to purge their burning fevers. And since the Pope sends his bulls into England so thick, bellowing to call his calves together, and to excite their revolting from their sovereign, let them speed no otherwise than those bulls once did, that called in another bull, which was Bull the hangman, to despatch them all.

If you be disposed to hunt, hunt these beasts that havoc the commonwealth : let the lambs alone, they do much good, no hurt. And to this chase use all your skill; in this work it shall be your commendation to be cunning hiinters. The Lord shaU empark you within the pale of his own merciful providence, and restrain the savage fury of your enemies. Let those whom God hath made masters of this serious game, and given commission to hunt vicious persons, look to it. Let every particidar man hunt vice out of his own heart. If there be any violence to get the kingdom of heaven, use it; if any policy to overthrow Satan and liis accomplices, against whom we wrestle, exercise it. This war shall be your peace. You shall help to purge the land of noxious beasts, and cleanse your own hearts from those lusts, which if you hunt not to death shall hunt you to death ; as was the moral of Acta^on. And God, that gives you this command and courage, shall add for it a merciful recompense; taking you at last from this militant chase to the park of his triumphant rest. Amen.

PLAIN-DEALING

A PRECEDENT OF HONESTY,

Jacoh was a plain man, dwelling in tents. — Gex. XXV. 27.

TiiE -world (I take it in Paul's sense, Eom. xii. 2) is grown at once deformed and subtle. And as it is commonly seen that misshapen trunks are houses of the sharpest wits,—as it was said of the Emperor Galba, Ingenium Galhce male habitat, because he had an acute wit with an uncomely body, nature recompensing her defection one way vv'itli perfection another way,—so the world is become ill-favoured and shrewd-pated, as politic m brain as it is stigmatic in limbs. Honesty, though it be elder than fraud, yet hath lost the privilege in men's estimation : it may keep the priority, the superiority is gone ; and it must be fain to serve the younger.

Plam-dealing was held a good citizen, a good townsman ■ but Double-dealing, since he came blustering in, hath thrust him sedibus, a'dibus, out of house and home ; out of repute among men, out of succour of friends; out of commons, and almost out of canons; out of his house in the town and seat ill the church.

I will therefore call back antiquity, and present to your eyes the purity of the primitive times. For I may say with Tertullian, Ferfediora pi'ima; the nearer the spring-head, the purer streams. Men, quo minus ab ortu aberant, might more perfectly discern and more constantly follow the truth. Jacob is our exemplar and pattern of plain-dealing. He ' was a plain man, dwelling in tents.'

Jacod, taken in the proper sense, significth to supplant. Indeed Esau abusetli it. Gen. xxvii. 3G, ' Is he not rightly named Jacob 1 for he hath suji-planted me these two tunes : he took away my birthright; and, behold, noAv he hath taken away my blessing.' But Jacob did not steal away his birthright, but only took the advantage to buy what careless Esau was willing to sell. And having the birthright, the blessing did justly belong to hini; for the birthright and the blessing were not to be separated. Ijut this name was a prediction of that fell out afterwards, for Jacob indeed supplanted and overthrew his brother.

The character gives him ' a plain man, dwelling in tents.' This is a manifest description of Jacob's conversation and of his profession.

For his life, he was a plain-dealing man; simple and without fraud. Though some antithetically oppose it to Esau's roughness : that Esau was a hairy man, but Jacob was plain and smooth, without any semblance to his brother's ruggedncss. We deny not that Jacob was so ; that exposition is true, but not enough. It falls short of that praise which God's Spirit here means him. ' He was a plain man,' witliout craft or subtlety.

For his delight and profession, he 'dwelt in tents;' which, though the Hebrews expound of frequenting the tents of Sliem and Heber for knowledge, is indeed only a description of such as live in the fields and employ themselves about cattle; and this we frequently find to be Jacob's desire and practice. The good patriarchs were plain men,—plahi in their clothes, no seas crossed for strange stuffs and fashions,—plain in their houses, which were mere tents, not gorgeous parlours without hospitahty,—plam in their diet, as Jacob here, that fed on lentil-pottage.

But having thus proposed Jacob for a precedent of plain-dealing, it is primarily necessary to prove him clearly so; otherwise, the original being faulty, there can hardly be taken a good copy out of it. There are exceptions made against Jacob's plainness, and that in regard of his dealing both with his own brother Esau and with his father-in-law Laban.

I will briefly examine either, and how far he may be justified. In regard of Esau, it is objected that he strove against him before, at, and after his birth.

Before. —It is said, ver. 22, ' The children struggled together within their mother's womb.' Never brothers began so early a Litigation. These two were the champions of two mighty nations, successively to be derived from their loins; and they begin this opposition in a duel or single combat, when the field was their mother s womb—the quarrel, precedency and chiefdom.

This was not a pleasant and merry contention, as some would read it, Ambrose, Hierom, Augustine, so give it: exuUare, gestire, hiclere, —to leap, skip, or play. But it was an earnest struggling, as we translate it; the word signifying to beat, hurt, or bruise one another.

It was not a natural strife or ordinary motion. Aristotle affirms that male twins do strive in the right side upon the fortieth day, and females in the left on the ninetieth day. But by Aristotle's leave, what woman, except Rebekah, ever complained of so strange and early a contention 1 Nature was not here alone, if at least she was here at all.

Nor yet was this struggling voluntary and considerate. They did not strive scientia certandi, with a knowledge capable of what they did, or with any skill of wrestling. No, it was extraordinaiy, moved by a higher cause, not without the presage and signification of a great eftcct. It portended the future conccrtation of two great people. Neither if it had been pleasant, natural, or usual, would Kebekah have been so strangely affected or troubled with it as to cry out,' Why am I thus ?' or to solicit God by prayer to laioA\-what it meant.

And is it any wonder that Jacob and Esau wrestle in their mother's womb, when their seed, especially after a si)iritual signification, must for ever wi-estle in the world 1 Shall the womb of the church on earth be ever free from carnal professors mingled with holy ? And is it possible these should live together in perfect peace, that are of so contrary natures 1 The wolf shall sooner dwell with the lamb, and the leopard play with the untroubled Idd, and children sit unstung at the holes of asps. The sons of Belial Avill not

let the sons of God live in quiet; that enmity which was once put between the seed of the woman and of the serpent wUl not so easily be reconciled. Indeed the seed of Esau is the irreater, but they serve the less. They are more in number, stronger in power; yet cannot extend it further than the permitting b.and of Heaven wills it. And even whiles they do persecute the righteous, quiOus nocere volunt, j^rosunt plurimiim, siii autem ipsi maxime nocent, —they hurt only themselves, and benefit those to whom they intended nothing less. They are our apothecaries, to minister us bitter pills, but so that they cannot put in one ingredient more than the Lord allows them.

Origeu draws from this a mystical sense, and understands these twc combatants to be within us; as if it had presignified what Paul affirmeth, Gal. v. 17, ' The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh ; and these are contrary the one to the other.' Kcbekah may well thus ligure the state of a regenerate soul, wherein till' tliis mortal shall put on immortality,' and glory swallow up corruption, there must be a perpetual conflict. In men unconverted on earth, in saints glorified in heaven, there is no such imquietness : the former being without a Jacob, the latter without an Esau ; these having no flesh, the other nothing but flesh. But in men called and justified by the blood of Christ, yet in a militant estate, there is a necessity of this combat. No strife, no Christian. Before sanctification there is ail peace in the soul. How should there choose, when there is no enemy to resist ? The unregenerate heart hath only an Esau m it; what strife can there be without a Jacob I Nature can very easdy agree with itself. Disturbance is a sign of sanctification; there is no gxace where there is all peace. No sooner is the new man formed in us, but suddenly begins this quarrel. The remaining corruption will fight with grace, and too often prevail against it. Indeed it hath lost the dominion, but not the opposition; the sovereignty, not the subtlety; it will dwell, though it cannot reign, Rom. vii. Never any Rebekah was so happy as to conceive none but a Jacob ; Esau, the flesh, will be there also, to give trial and exercise. If grace alone sat in the heart, the hopeless devil would forbear his tentations ; he knows he hath a friend in our house that will be ready to let him in. So long as there is a Judas with Christ, he will not despair of betraying him. It is our corruption he works upon : if it were not for this Esau, he would not proffer assault. We see our combat, let us fight and conquer. Our flesh is the elder brother, grace is born after nature; but when tliis Jacob comes, he will get the superiority: 'The elder shall serve the younger.' This strife begins betimes; there is no Israelite but must be content to commence this war with his' being. Regeneration and contention salute us at once ; wo cannot enter our names into Christ's muster-book but we must fight. Let the secure worldling live at his cowardly ease, we must look for a skirmish. Herein stands our comfort, ' We shaU be more than conquerors, through him that loved us,' Rom. viii. 37.

At his Birth. —The strife is not ended at once, but continues, or rather is renewed at the birth : ' Afterward came his brother out, and his hand held Esau by the heel.' Lest Esau should outrun his brother into the world, Jacob catcheth fast hold of his heel. So that though Esau's body have the primogeniture, yet Jacob's hand was born before his heel. Razi hath a conceit, that though Esau was first bom, yet .Tacob was first conceived, and therefore the birthright did of right belong unto him. But it is without question that Esau had the start of nature, though Jacob of grace; and therefore Jacob holds him by the heel, as if he would stay hun from possess-

ijig that privUegc which nature (God afterwards disposing otherwise) be-Btowi-d on him. ^ i -j +„

VnKK THK lliRTH.—And herein there are two impeachments laid to JacL.-:* I.lain-dwding. He is accused with fraudulent stratagems concernmg thu hirthriqht and concerning the blessing.

For the ^birthn<jlU.—\\.<m is by some few minutes the elder, and that w'as enough to give liiin just title to the birthright. That Jacob therefore might have the better claim to it, he buys that which he could not win, and by an holiest art redeems the losses of nature. But this action smells of cunning, and scorns to mar the credit of his plain-dealing.

1. Jacob is accused for cmel and uncharitable dealing with his brother. Esau conies hungrj- from the field ; he is ready to die for want of sustenance; ho .sees his brother, in no such exigent, with food in his hand ;^ he breaks forth into an earnest comj.laint, cntreatuig his commiseration. Now^, shall a brother ilcny reUef to his brother, beuig ready to die, except upon such intolerable conditions ? Sure it could be no less than a hard measure to take such atlviujtage of a brother's necessity. But it is answered, that there could not bo any such necessity of Esau's coveting Jacob's pottage, for there was, if not lentil-pottage, store of as good meat in the house, able to have given satisfaction to his hunger, and ready enough at his request, being the elder ^'on. It was not, then, distressed ncedmess, but insatiate greediness. And it is not unfit that the luxurious appetite should pay for his folly.

1'. But Jacob cannot be excused of covetousness, that would set no lower a price on his pottage than the birthright; which comprehended many privileges,—priority, govcnnnent of the brethren, a double portion to the rest, the pricsthootl and right to sacrifice, and, what yet further commended it, a tyiH.' and figure of everlasting life. And will Jacob require such a birthright, uicluduig idl these jirivileges, for a mess of pottage ? What tyrant could set such an impost on a merchandise? what citizen such a price on his engrossed commodities? Here was an exaction beyond the taxing of Tiberius. Wo answer, not as the Hebrews conceit, that Jacob afterwards gave a greater i<un», and p;ud this but as an earnest, the Scripture neither expressing directly nor inferring by consequence any such matter; but we say that Jacob, by the instruction of his mother, knew that the birthright did justly belong to hun, by the i(rcordination of God, therefore now wisely taketh this opportunity to recover that to himself whereof his brother was but an usurper. For though Esau could plead the right of nature, Jacob could the right of grace, and he knew this would at last prevail. Neither yet must this particular fact of Jucob be drawn into a general imitation. His warrant was fhvine revelation, the silence whereof in these days sends us for direction to the written trutli, ' to the law, to the testimony,' Isa. viii. 20 : let this re-Holvc and instruct thee.

3. But this birtliright was a holy thing, and therefore the Apostle calls him a profane person, Hob. xii. IG, for selling it. Now there is no profane-nes« in ueUing a thing not sacred. But if sanctified things cannot be sold witjjout sm, can they be bought without sin ? Did not Jacob offend as much in the »)no as K^au in the other? It is well answered, that Jacob hitelligi }^,UU sitam reilemisM vfxa(ionnn,~hc did but buy his own vexation. He buys not Himply a thing whercunto he had no right, but only taketh this «-c.a.Hion to recover his own ; whereof the appointnient of God had made him a l.o;H.Hil,lo, yea, certiunly, future proprietary. It was never held simony for a ^plntuHl man to buy his own peace. Many things arc detained from the cJergy unjustly, wluch God's law hath made sacred and theirs. They may,

therefore, without touch of simoniacal dealing, redeem their own quietness, and i^urchase a peaceable possession. I say not that any man may buy a spiritual endowment before he hath it; but when he hath it in right, he may purchase his own peaceful and quiet enjoying it. All that can be said is this, Esau preferred his belly before his birthright; Jacob his birthright before liis belly. The one sold spiritual things for temporal; the other with, temporal things bought spiritual.

And wIk) will not part with transient benefits for eternal blessings ? If either by suit, or strife, or purchase we can attain heaven, we are happy. For suit; there is no hour unseasonable, no prayer tinwelcome, no importunity troublesome. The unjust judge could give relief to the importunate widow, Luke xviii. 5 ; and shall not our just God give ear and ease to our incessant plaints I Spare to speak and spare to speed; the timorous requester teacheth the invocated a denial. For sti'ife; we know who taught us, that ' the kingdom of heaven suffers violence,' and must be attained by a holy kind of force. Jacob must -wTestle for the blessing before he hath it; and so wrestling he shall have it, though he be sent halting to his grave. The Lord knows our strength, yet he loves our violence and importunity; and therefore hath so conditioned the gate of heaven, that without our striving we must not look to enter it. For purchase ; had a far higher rate been set on the birthright, Jacob would not have grudged to gdve it. He hath too much of the blood of Esau in him that will not forego all the world rather than the birthright. The wise merchant, when he knew the field wherein lay that hidden treasure, sold all he had to buy it. He is a besotted cosmopolite that refuseth to purchase such spiritual friends by his riches as may procure him a place in the celestial habitations, Luke xvi. 9. Grudge not him a portion of thy temporal wealth that is able to minister everlasting comfort to thy conscience. Thou art no loser, if thou mayest exchange earth for heaven.

For the blessing. —What hath secure Esau lost, if liaving sold the birthright he may reserve the blessing? Behold, of this he assureth himself: his father hath sent him for venison, that ' his soul might bless him,' Gen. xxvii. ■4. To hunting he is gone in haste ; meaning to recover that again by his o^vn venison which he had lost by his brother's pottage. Isaac being now blind in his eyes, but yet blinder in his affections, forgetting what decree and sentence God had formerly passed of his two sons, for some temporal regard doth favour Esau, and intends to bequeath unto him that spiritual and happy legacy of the blessing, God had said that ' the elder shall serve the younger;' yet forgetful Isaac purposeth to bless his first-born, Esau. How easy is it even for a saint to be transported with natural affections! He could not but remember that himself, though the younger, was preferred to his elder brother, Ishmael; he knew that God's command prevailed with his father Abraham above nature, when he bound him for a sacrifice. He .saw Esau lewdly matched with the daughters of heathens : yet he will now think on nothing but, Esau is my first-born; and, if it be possible, he will pour the benediction upon a wrong head.

But God is often better to us than we would, and with liis ])reventing grace stops the precipitation of en-ing nature. So sweet is the ordination of the divine providence, that we shall not do what we would, but what we ought; and by deceiving us, tunis our purposed evil into eventual good. Wc are made to do that good which we not intended. God hath ordained the superiority to the younger; he will therefore contrive for hint the blessing "Whatsoever Isaac affected, this God will have effected.

S4

PLAI.N-DK.UJXG. [SeEISION II.

To briiie the Lord's will to pass there never wanted means. Sinful man ij,, • ' ' ■ ' ill this ; the just decree of God stands xmtouched. He ,; 1 of his Son, without favoiu: to their guilt that murdered

1 . ,-; of parents are ht-re tlivdded: Isaac loves Esau, and

liebckaii Juo.b ; this dilferenee shall make way to the fultilliug of the promise. Neither jKireut neglected either son; but Rebekah remembered the L<.ni'. puriRLse better than Isaac. Neither is it enough what Ambrose hill" ! -siith : .Uater a/edum, pater judicium indicat; mater circa minorem tcr r. ■ j)idat€ prupendit, pater circa seniorem naturce honorijicentiam servat, —'i ill! mother shews ali'ection, the father judgment: she tenderly loves the yoinu'L-r, he gives the honour of nature to the elder. Nay, rather, the m<'ilitr shews judgment, and the father affection. For what was Jacob to IW (!..Lii more tluui Esau? Or why should she not rather love her first-Ixmi i It is God that inclines the mother's love to the younger against natua-. becaube the lather aliects the elder against the promise. Hereupon she will nither deceive her o^^^l husband, than he shall deceive his own chosen son of the decreed blessing. The "svife will be subtle when the hus-baiid is partial; her honest fraud shall answer his forgetful indulgence. laaac would turn E.sau into Jacob; liebekah doth turn JacolD into Esau.

The di.sc(3urse or contem[)lation of the provident mother and her happy son's pas-ages in this action, I iind set down by so divine and accurate a pen, that, despairing of any tolerable imitation, I shall, without distaste to the n-adtT or imputation to myself, deliver it in his own express words :— ' Itil' k.'.li, prcsuinuig upon the oracle of God, and her husband's simplicity, dai. s !.L' Jacob's surety for the danger, his counseller for the carriage of the bu>iiu-s, his cook for tlie diet; yea, dresses both the meat and the man. And nnw puts dislies into his hand, words into Ms mouth, the garments on his back, the goat's hair upon the open parts of his body, and sends ]iim in thus furnished for the blessing; standing no doubt at the door to see how well her lesson was learned, how well her device succeeded. And if old Isaac should by any of his senses have discerned the guile, she had soon stopt in and undertaken the blame, and urged him with that known will of Uoil concerning Jacob's donnnion and Esau's servitude, which either age or atr.-ction had made him forget. And now she wisheth that she could borrow E-au's tongue as well as his garments, that she might securely deceive all the senses of him which had sutlered himself more dangerously deceived with his affection. But this is past her remedy; her son must name himself Enau with the voice of Jacob.' *

Wf see the proceeding : it is now cxanmiable whether this doth not somewhat inii.cach the credit of Jacob's plam-dealing. There have been under-tAktrs of Jacob's justihcation, or at least excusation, in this fact. Let us hear what they say :—1. Gre-ory llms excuseth it: that Jacob did not steal the blcssuiK by fraud, but sibi dehitam accepit, took it as a due to himself, in re-Jpcct that the- primogeniture was formerly devolved to him. The truth is, he that o^vned the birthright might justly challenge the blessing. But this doth n..t wholly excuse the fact. 2. Chry.sostom thus mitigates it : that luwi audio nocnid, ronlexU/ni,ulan,~hc did not deceive with a jnind to hurt, but only m ifspoct of the promi.sc of God. But this is not sufficient; for thirc wn.s an mtcntion of hurt, both to Isaac in deceiving him, and to Esau in depriving hini of the blessing. But whatsoever may be pleaded for the defence ..f Jacobs dissimulation in outward ge.stui'e, there is no apology for

bo^!«'i'v^'i.ni'n'T^'":;'^""'''' •'"' "P''""^v!odged extract, the author in this sermon oorrowi many ncntcncca nod exprewions from Bishop Hall.— Ed.

the words of his tongue. The meaning of the speecli is in the speaker; therefore his tongue cannot be guiltless when it -goes against his cou.scious heart; but the meaning of the gesture is in the interpreter, Avho gives it a voluntary construction. Gesture is more easily ruled than speech ; and it is hard if the tongue will not blab what a man is, in spite of his habit. Isaac's eyes might be deceived, they were dim; his hands, by the roughness of the garments; his nostrils, by the smell of them ; his palate, by the savour of the meat. All these senses yield alliance ; what then shall drive Isaac to a suspicion or incredulity I None but this, the ear sticks at the judgment; that says, * The voice is the voice of Jacob.' To help forward this deceit, three lies are tumbled out, one in the neck of another:—(1.) * I am Esau thy firstborn;' (2.) 'I have done as thou badest me;' (3.) 'Eat of my venison.' To clear liim of this sin of lying hath been more peremptorily undertaken than soundly performed.

1. (Jhi-ysostom, Avith divers others, think that though he did lie, he did not sin, because he did it by the revelation and coun.sel of God. So that God, -willing to have the prediction fulfilled, dispensing and disposing all things, is brought in as the preordainer of Jacob's lie, that I say not the patron. But not without derogation to his divine justice. For, (1.) it appears not that this was the counsel of God, but only Rebekah's device: Ver. 8,' Hear my voice, my son, in that which I command thee.' ' My voice,' not God's; 'what I command,' not what God approves. (2.) If Jacob had received any oraculous warrant for this project, he would not have had so doubtful an opinion of the success. The matter was foreseen of God, not allowed; for God never inspireth lies. God's wise disposition of this means aftbrds no warrant of his approbation. He ordereth many things which he ordained not. The means were so unlawful that Jacob himself doth more distrust their success than hope for their blessing. He knew that good Isaac, being so plain-hearted himself, would severely punish deceit in his son. Men in oftice truly honest are the sorest enemies to fraudulent courses in others. He therefore carries his meat in trembling hands, and scarce dares hope that God will bless such a subtlety with good event. Yet he did; but how ? Here was prodigal dissembling : a dissembled person, a dissembled name, dissembled venison, dissembling answer; yet behold a true blessing, to the man, not to the means. Thus God may work his own will out of our infirmities ; yet without approval of our weakness, or wronging the integrity of his own goodness.

2. Some have confessed it a lie, but a guiltless lie, by reason of a necessity imagined in this exigent; as if God could not have wrought Isaac's heart to bless Jacob in this short interim, whiles Esau was gone a-hunting for venison. Origen says, that necessity may uige a man to use a lie as sauce to his meat; another, as physicians use hellebore. But that which is simply evil can by no apology be made good. Causa patrocinio non bona, pejor erit.

3. Some take from it all imputation of a lie, and directly justify it. Au-gu.stine ■■ thinks Jacob spoke mystically, and that it is to be referred to Jacob's body, not to Jacob's person; to the Christian church, that should take away the birthright from the elder. But we may better receive that Jacob fell into an infirmity than the colour of un allegory. Neither doth the success justify the means, as some philosophers have delivered, that prospentm seeing vacatur virtus, —lucky wickedness merits the name of goodness. But Jacob's one act of falsehood shall not disparage wholly that simplicity the Scripture gives him; he was ' a plain man.' To be unjust condemns

* Horn. XXXV. in Genes.

a man not the doing of one singular act unjustly; therefore God casts not off Jacob for thi-s one infirmity, but makes use of this infirmity to sei-ve his own i.iirj...sc. If Esau's and Jacob's works be weighed together in a bai-iUKi', one would think the more solid virtue to be in Esau's.

hLiu obcyeth his father's wUl, painfully hunts venison, carefully prepares it; here is nothing but praiseworthy. Jacob dissembles, offers kid's flesh for venison, couut<.'rfeits Esau, beguiles his father; here is all blameworthy. I will not hereon speidc as a poet,—

' Committiint eadem diverso crimina fato, lUe crucem, sceleria pretium tulit, hie Siadema,'—

but infer with the Apostle, Rom. ix, 11, the purpose of God shall remain by election, wliich standeth not in works, but in grace. Therefore, howsoever Jacob got the blessing against Isaac s will, yet once given, it stood ; neither did the father recant this act as an error, but saw in it the mercy of God, that prevented him of an error. So, ver. 33, ' I have blessed him, therefore he shall be blessed.' "When afterwards Esau came in, Isaac trembled; his heart told him that he should not have intended the blessing where he did, and that it was due to him unto whom it was given, not intended, lie .saw now that he had performed unwilling justice, and executed God's purpose against his own. He rather cries mercy for wrong intending than thinks of reversing it.

Yet then may Jacob stand for our precedent of plain-dealing, notwith-sL-xnding this jjarticular weakness. Who hath not oftener en-ed, without the lois of his honest reputation ? Not that this fact shoidd embolden an imitation ; let us not tell Jacob's lie to get Jacob's blessing. It would be pre-^unlption in us, Avhat was in him infirmity; and God, that pardoned his weakness, would curse our obstinateness.

There is yet one cavil more against Jacob's intcgTity, concerning Laban, alK)ut the particoloured sheep ; whether it were a fault in Jacob by the de\-ice of the pilled and straked rods to enrich himself. The answer is threefold:—

1. This wa.s by the direction of God, Gen. xxxi. 11, who, being an infinite and illiinited Lord, hath an absolute power to transfer the right of things from one to another ; as he miglit justly give the land of Canaan to the Is-ratlites from the u.surping Canaamtes.

2. Jacob apprehends this means to recover his own, due unto him by a dtjublc right:—First, as the wages of twenty years' service. Gen. xxxi. 7, yet unpaid. Secondly, as the dowry for his wives, Gen. xxxi. 15, whom miserable L.d)an had tlirust upon him without any competent portion. Thirdly, c.siK>cially (Jod's v.an-ant concurring, it was lawful for him to recover that l»y policy wliiili was detained from him by injury. So did the Israelites l^orrow of the K.t,7ptian8 their best goods, jewels, and ornaments, and bore tluni away a.s a just recompense of their long service.

3. La-stly, he is (piitted by that saying, Volenti non jit injuria. Laban Hoe-s that he was well blessed by Jacob's service ; the increasing his flocks m.ike.s hnn ]<.ath to part. Ihit Jacob hath served long enough for a dead pay; w.in.-what he nni-.t have, or be gone. His hard uncle bids him ask a hire; you know Jacol/.s demand. Laban readily jiromoves this bargain ; which at la.st made lus «<>n-ni-law rich, and himself envious. So saith Calvin, Tmc-tntu, r,t pro suo tngnu.,; Laban is handled in his kind. He thought by thi.H nu.an.s to have n.ultiplied his own flocks ; but tho.se few spotted sheep and i;..at^ upon this c^.vu.ant, as if they had been weary of their old owner, alter their fashion, and run their best young into particolours, changin- at

once their colour and their master. So that tliis means which Jacob used was not fraudulent or artilicial, but natural; not depending upon man's wit, but God's blessing, who, consideiing his tedious and painful service, pays him good wages out of his uncle's folds. For fourteen years the Lord hath for Jacob enriched Laban ; therefore for these last six he will out of Laban enrich Jacob. And if the uncle's flock be the greater, the nephew's shall be the better. Most justly then is Jacob cleared from injustice; and no aspersion of fraud viith. Laban can be cast to discredit his plain-dealing.

He Dwelt in Tents. —Two things are observable in the holy patriarchs, and commendable to all that vnll be heirs with them of eternal life.

L Their contempt of the world. They that dwell in tents intend not a long dwelling in a place. They are moveables, ever ready to be transferred xit the occasion and will of the inhabiter. Hcb. xi. 9,' Abraham dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.' The reason is added, ' for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.' These saints studied not to enlarge their barns, as the rich cosmopolite, Luke xii., or to sing requiems to their souls, in the hoped perpetuity of earthly habitations. ' Soul, live; thou hast enough laid up for many years.' Fool! he had not enough for that night. They had no thought that their houses should continue for ever, and their dwelling-places to all generations; thereupon calling their lands after their own names, Ps. xlix, 11. God convinceth the foolish security of the Jews, to whom he had promised (by the Messiah to be purchased) an everlasting royalty in heaven, by the Rechabites, Jer. xxxv. 7, who built no houses, but dwelt in tents, as if they were strangers, ready on a short warning for removal. The church esteems heaven her home, this world but a tent, a tent which we must all leave, build we as high as Babel, as strong as Babylon. When Ave have fortified, combined, feasted, death comes with a voider, and takes away all, * Dost thou think to reign securely, because thou closest thyself in cedar V Jer. xxii. 15. Friends must part: Jonah and his gourd, Nebuchadnezzar and his palace, the covetous churl and his bams. ' Arise, and depart, for this is not your rest,' Micah. ii. 10. Though you depart with grief from orchards fidl of fruits, grounds full stocked, houses dightly furnished, purses richly stuffed, from music, wine, junkets, sports; yet go, you must go, every man to liis own home. He that hath seen heaven with the eye of faith, through the glass of the Scripture, slips off his coat with Joseph, and springs away. They that lived thrice our age yet dwelt in tents as pilgrims that did not own this world. The shortness and weakness of our days strengthens our reasons to vilipend it. The world is the field, thy body the tent, heaven thy freehold. The world is full of troubles; winds of persecutions, storms of menaces, cold of uncharitableness, heat of malice, exhalations of prodigious terrors, will annoy thee. Love it not, 1 John ii. 15. Who can affect his own vexations 1 It is thy thoroughfare; God loves thee better than to let it be thy home. Every misery on earth should turn our love to heaven. God gives this world bitter teats, that we might not suck too long on it. Satan, as some do with rotten nutmegs, gilds it over, and sends it his friends for a token. But when they put that spice into their broth, it infects their hearts. Set thy atiections on heaven, Avhere thou shalt abide for ever. This life is a tent, that a mansion : ' In my Father's house there are many mansions,' John xiv. 2. This casual, that firm; ' a kingdom that cannot bo shaken,' Hcb. xii. This troublesome, that full of rest. This assuredly short, that eternal. Happy is he that here esteems himself a pilgrim in a tent, that he may be hereafter a citizen in a stable kingdom !

•> Their frugality should not pass unregarded. Here is no ambition of jm^t buildings" a tcnrwill serve. How differ our days and hearts from th....- • 'I'iic f;isliioa is now to build great houses to our lands, till we leave uo lands to our houses ; aud the credit of a good house is made, not to consist in inward hospitality, but in outward walls. These punkish outsides be"uilo the needy traveller : he thinks there cannot be so many rooms in a house, and never a one to harboiu: » poor stranger; or that from such a multitude of chimneys no meat should be sent to the gates. Sucli a house is like A painted whore ; it hath a fair cheek, but rotten lungs ; no breath of charity comes out of it. We say, frustrajit pet- plura, quod fieri potest pa" pauciora. What needs a house, and more rooms, t'han there is use for ? A leas house, and more hospitableness, would do a great deal better. Are not laauy of these glorious buildings set up in the curse of Jericho ? the foundation laid in the blood of the eldest, the poor; the walls reared in the blood of the youngest, the ruin of their own posterity ? This was one of the travellers-observed faults in England, camini mali; that we had ill clocks, and worse chiunieys, for they smoked no charity.

^Vc see the precedent: the application must teach us to deal plainly. Here is commeuded to us plainness in meaning and in demeaning, which instructs us to a double concord and agreement,—in meaning, betwixt the heart and the tongue ; in demeaning, betwixt the tong-ue and the hand.

In mmiiing, there .should be a loving and friendly agreement between the heart and the tongue. This is the mind's herald, and should only proclaim the sender's message. K the tongue be an ill servant to the heart, the heart will be an ill master to the tongue, and Satan to both. There are three kinds of dis.bemulation held tolerable, if not commendable; and beyond them, w me without sin:—

1. When a man dissembles to get himself out of danger, without any prejudice to another. So David feigned himself mad, to escape with life, 1 S;uiL XXL So the good physician may deceive his patient, by stealing upon him a potion which he abhorreth, intending his recovery.

"2. When dissiuudation is directly aimed to the instruction and benefit of another. So Joscj)h caused the money to be put in his brethren's sacks, tlienliy to work in them a knowledge of themselves. So Christ, going to Eiuuiaus with the two disciples, made as if he would go further, to try theur humanity, Luke xxiv.

3. When some common service is thereby performed to the good of the church. Such are those stratagems and policies of war, that carry in them a dire.-t iatentiun of honesty and justice, though of hostility; as Joshua's, whereby hu discomfited the men oi Ai, Josh. viii.

Kurthor than these lunits no true Israelite, no plain-dealing man must venture, i'lato was of opinion that it was lawful for magistrates, hosiium vel ciDiuui c'liim menliri, to lie, either to deceive an enemy, or save a citizen.* I iniRht ag;iiiLst Plato set Aristotle, who saith expressly that ' a lie in itself is evil and wiekcd.'t And another philosopher was wont to say, that in two things a man w;w like unto Ciod, in bestowing benefits, and telling the truth.:{: Nor will wo iiiftr with Lyranus, because there is a title in the civil law. Be dolo malo, of cvU cnift, that therefore it is granted there is a cnift not evil. But let U8 know, t<i the terror of liars, that the devU is the f^ither of lying; and ' when ho H|>cnkelh a lie, he speakcth of his own,' John viii. 44. And beyond ex-ccpliou tiiey are the words of everlasting verity, 'No lie is of the truth,' 1 John u. 21. Therefore, into that heavenly Jerusalem shall enter none that • Lib. iii. «l„ Uo,.. t Ethic, 1. iv., c. 7. t Pythag. ex .Elian, lib. xii.

works abomination, or maketh a lie, Rev. xxi. 27. A lie must needs be contrary to the rule of grace, for it is contrary to the order of nature, which hath given a man voice and words to express the meaning of the heart. As in setting instruments, they refer all to one tune, so the heart is the gi'ound which all our instruments should go by. If there were no God to search the heart, he were a fool that would not dissemble; since there is, he is a fool that doth. Therefore Job excellently, ' All the while my breath is in me, and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils, my lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit,' chaj). xxvii. 3. The sweetest Psahnist insiimates no less: ' My heart is inditing a good matter; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer,' Ps. xlv. 1. When the heart is a good secretary, the tongue is a good pen; but when the heart is a hollow l^ell, the tongue is a loud and a lewd clapper. Those undefiled virgins, admitted to follow the Lamb, have this praise, ' In their mouth was found no guile,' llev. xiv. 5.

In demeaninr/, which is the good harmony betwixt the tongue and the hand. The righteous man, to whom God's celestial tabernacle is promised, ' speaketh the truth in his heart;' and when he hath sworn, though to his own hurt,' he chaugeth not, Ps. xv. 4. The paucity of these men makes the church of God so thin of saints, and the world so full of dissemblers. As the tongue must not speak false, so the hand must not do unjustly : injustice is the greatest dissimidation. We live under Libra, justice and equity : who knows whether the nights or the days pass over his head more happily ] We fear not Tamils the bull, that shoots his horns from Rome ; nor Scorpio, that sends his venomous sting from Spain ; nor the un-christened Aries of infidels, profane and professed enemies to engine and batter our walls; if the Sagittarius of heresy do not wound us in the reins, nor the Gemini of double-dealing circumvent us in our lives. The world is fuU of tricks. We will not do what we ought, yet defend what we do. How many spend their wits to justify their hands ! Through the unlucky and unnatural copulation of fraud and maUce was that monstrous stigniatic, equivocation, engendered : a damned egg, not covered by any fail* bird, but hatched, as poets feign of ospreys, with a thunder-clap.

I will now only seek to win you to plain-dealing by the benefits it brings: the success to God :—

1. The principal is to please God, whose displeasure against double-dealing the sad examples of Saul for the Amalekites, of Gehazi for the bribes, of Ananias for the inheritance, testify in their dcstraction. "WTiose delight in plain-dealing himself affirms : ' Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guUe !' John i 17.

2. The credit of a good name, wliich is a most worthy treasure, is thus preserved. The riches left thee by thy ancestors may miscarry through others' negligence ; the name not, save by thy own fault. It is the phiin-dealer's reward, his name shall be had in estimation ; whereas no faith is given to the dissembler, even speaking truth. Every man is more ready to trust the poor plain-dealer than the glittering falsc-tongued gallant.

3. It prevents and infatuates all the malicious plots of enemies. God, in regard to thy simplicity, brings to nought all their machinations. Thou, O Lord, hadst respect to my simple pureness. An innocent fool takes fearless steps, and walks as securely as if it stood girt with a wall of brass.

4. It preserves thy state from ruin. When by subtlety men think to scrape together much wealth, all is but the spider's web, artificial and weak. What plain-dealing gets, .sticks by us, and infallibly derives itself to our posterity. Not only this man's own 'soul shall dwell at ease,' but also 'his

Bc«a shall inherit tlie earth,' Ps. xxv. 13. Wicked men labour with hands mul wit^ to undermine ajid undo many poor, and from their demolished heaps to erect themselves a gi'oat fortune ; but God blowcth upon it a no)t j>l,irf(; and then, as powder doth small shot, it scatters into the air, not without a great noise, and they are blown up. If thou wouldst be good to thyself and thine, use plaiimess

'/). It shall somewhat keep thee from the troubles and vexations of the world. Others, when their double-dealing breaks out, are more troubled themselves than erst they troubled others; for shame waits at the beels of fraud, lint 'blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,' Matt. V. 5.

C. The curses of the poor shall never hurt thee. Though the causeless curse shall never come, yet it is happy for a man so to live that all may bless him. Now the plain man shall have this at last. Gallant prodigalit)'', like fire in flax, makes a great blaze, a hot show ; but plain hospitalit}^ like fire in solid wood, holds out to warm the poor, because God blesseth it. So I have .seen hot-spurs in the way gallop amain; but the ivy-bushes have so stayed them, that the plain traveller comes first to his journey's end.

7. It shall be thy best comfort on thy death-bed : consclentia bene ^jer-arttr vita; —the conscience of an innocent life. On this staff leans aged Samuel: 'Whose ox or ass have I taken]' To whom have I by fraud or force done wrong] On this jiiUow doth sick Hczckiah lay his head: 'Remember, Lord, that I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight,' Isa, xxxviii. 3. So Job solaceth himself: ' My heart shall not condemn me for my days.' When no clogs of usury with their heavy pressures, nor folds of injustice with their troublesome vexations, disipiiet our peace-desiring sides, or lie upon our consciences; when thou hast no need to say to thine heir, Kestore this or that which I have frauilulontJy or unjustly taken away; you see how false the proverb was, I'lain-dealing is a jewel, and he that useth it shall die a beggar. But it is well returned in the supplement, He that vidll not use it, shall die a dishonest man.

.8. Lastly, thou shalt find rest for thy soul. Thou hast dealt plainly ; so will God with thee, multiplying upon thee his promised mercies. If thoit hadst l)ecn hollow, not holy, fraudulent, not plain, thy portion had been bitter, even witli liyjx.critcs. IJiit now of a plahi saint on earth, thou shalt become a glorious saint in heaven.

TIE SOLDIEE'S HONOUR.

PREACHED TO THE WORTHY COMPANY OF GEXTLEMEN" THAT EXERCISE IN THE ARTILLERY G^VRDEN,

A^'D NOW, ON THEIR SECOND REQUEST, PUBLISHED TO FURTHER USE.

TO THE NOELE COMPANY OF THE GENTLEMEN EXERCISING ARMS IN THE ARTILLERY GARDEN OF LONDON.

We are all soldiers, as we are Christians: some more specially, as they are men. You bear both spiritual arms against the enemies of your salvation, and material arms against the enemies of your countiy. In both you fight under the colours of our great general, Jesus Christ. By looking a little into thk mystical war, you shall the better understand to be viilites cataphradi, good soldiers in all respects.

Job calls man's life a warfare, and we find, Rev. xii., that ' there was war in heaven : ^Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels.' Where by heaven is meant the church of God upon earth, as intcqjreters observe generally. For in heaven above there is no warfare, but welfare; no trouble, but peace that passeth all understanding.' Now, to this war every Christian is a professed soldier, not only for a spurt for sport, as young gentlemen use for a time to see the fashion of the wars, but our vow runs thus in baptism, that every man undertakes to fight manfully under Christ's banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and to continue his faithful soldier and servant to his life's end. And this battle let us fight with courage, because we are warriors under that general that Avithout question shall conquer, ^"'il desperandum Chrisio duce, d auspice Christo. ' They overcome by the blood of the Lamb,' Rev. xii. 11. Though they lose some blood, they shall be sure to win the victory.

Bernard supposeth a great war between Christ, the king of Jerusalem, and Satan, the king of Babylon. The watchman on the walls sees a Christian soldier to be surprised by the Babylonian host, and carried ca^jtive to their

toiiU. Hereof ho informs the king, who presently chargeth Timorem, the Fear of God, to run and redeem the soldier. Fear comes thundering upon the adversary power, and forceth tliem trcmbUng to surrender back their prvy, which he is now returning home to the king. Hereupon steps up Spintus Tristititp, Sadness, and cries, 0 ye Babylonians, is it not a shame that one man should rescue a prisoner from such a multitude 1 Well, ne timealU a Timore isto,—Be not afraid of this feUow, Fear; I will give you a rttrataijem how to reduce him. This must not be done marte sed arte, —not by force but by fraud. Mark the event.

Tliis spirit I'f Sadness lies hi the way, and falls in with the soldier, colloguing a-s a friend, as a fiend; a7nica sed iniqua colloaitione. Suspectless Fear follows a little off. But Sorrow had brought the soldier to the brink ♦»f a deep pit, Desperation, and was even upon the point of thrusting him in. The watchman observes it, and again tells the king, who, quicker than thought, despatcheth a fresh supply of succour, Hope, to his delivery. Hope, nunuited upon a swift horse, Desire, conies anmin, and with the sword of Gladness puts Sorrow to flight; so qixits him from the gailf of Despair. Once again is the citizen of heaven freed. Now Hope sets him, being weary, upon Ids u\\'n horse, Desire: himself leads him with the cord of Promised Jlercy : Fear comes after with a switch made of Remembrance of Sins, and so sets him forward to Jerusalem.

Hereupon the king of Babylon calls a council; where some grieve, others rage, all hell roars, that they have lost a prisoner of whom they lately thought themselves so sure. There is not more joy with the angels in heaven than tlicrc is sorrow with the devils in hell for this sinner's conversion. But yet all is not well, as the watchman certifies the king of Omnipotence. The srddier is mounted upon Desire, Hope leads him, and Fear drives him amain : but I doubt he comes too fast, because he hath neither bridle nor saddle. Hexcon tlic king, that hath everlasting care of all Christian sovds, sends forth two of his grave councillors to him. Temperance and Prudence. Temperance gives lum a bridle, that is Discretion ; Prudence a saddle, that is Circumspection. This is not all: Fear and Hope give him two spurs—on the left heel. Fear of Punishment; on the right. Expectation of Bliss. Knowledge clears his eye, Diligence opens his ear. Obedience strengthens his hand, Devotion rectifies his foot, Faith encourageth his heart. And if he want anything, Prayer offers him her service, to wait upon him as a faithful messenger, promising that whensoever he sends her to the king with a petition, she will bring him back a Ijcncfliction.

TI1U.H aa in a little tablet you sec the whole worid; that all of us must be Holdiers on earth militant that will be conquerors in heaven triumphant. But arc there not enemies in the flesh so weU as enemies in the spirit ? Is mystical armour only nc<5c.s.sary to a Christian, and is there no use of material 1 No ; .E'jmim ext Deiim UUm esse propilium, <jui sibi non sunt advermrii,~lt is just that G.k1 8lu)nld be a friend to them that are not enemies to themselves. I know prnycrH arc good weapons ; and, Exod. xvii., there was more speed made to ^^cto^)• by lifting up of Moses's hands than of Joshua's sword. He that

would overcome Ms enemies on earth, must first previoil with his best friend in heaven. If the mercy and strength of God be made thine by prayer, fear not the adverse powers; Horn, viii., we shall be conquerors througli him that loved us. But is it enough to bond the knee without stirring the hand I Shall war march against us -with, thundering steps, and shall we only assemble ourselves in the temples, lie prostrate on the pavements, lift up our hands and eyes to heaven, and not our weapons against our enemies 1 Shall we beat the air with our voices, and not their bosoms with our swords? Only knock our own breasts, and not knock their heads 1 Sure, a religious conscience never taught a man to neglect his life, his liberty, his estate, his peace. Piety and policy are not opposites: he that taught us to be harmless as doves, bade us also be Avise as serpents. Give way to a fiction; fables are not without their useful morals. A boy was molested with a dog ; the friar taught him to say a gospel by heart, and warranted this to allay the dog's fury. The mastiff, sp}dng the boy, flies at him; he begins, as it were, to conjure him with his gospel The dog, not capable of religion, approacheth more violently. A neighbour passing by bids the boy take up a stone ; he did so, and throwing at the dog, escaped. The friar demands of the lad how he sped with his charm. ' Sir,' quoth he, ' your gospel was good, but a stone with the gospel did the deed.' The curs of Antichrist are not afraid of our gospel, but of our stones : let U5 fight and they will fly.

Fight, say you; why, who strikes us ? Yield that no enemies do, are we sure that none will do 1 When our security hath made us weak, and tieir policy hath made them strong, we shall find them, like that troublesome neighbour, knocking at our door early in the morning, before we are up, when it will be too late for us to say, If we had known of your coming, we would have provided better cheer for you. They thank you, they will take now such as they find, for they purpose to be their own carvers, and the morsels they swallow shall be your hearts. Let us therefore, Like good housekeepers, when such unbidden guests come, have always a breakfast ready for them : which if we give them heartily, they shall have small stomach to their dinners.

Be you but ready for war, and I durst warrant your peace. AVhUst you are dissolute, they grow resolute. Ludovicus Vives reports, that the young nobles and gallants in a city of Spain were fallen to such levity of carriage, that, instead of marching to the sound of a drum, they were dancing levaltos to a lute in a lady's chamber: their beavers were turned to beaver hats. Every one had his mistress, and spent his time in courting Venus ; but Mars was shut out at the back gate. The ancient magistrates observuag this, consulted what should become of that country^, which these men must govern after they were dead. Hereupon they conferred with the women, their daughters, the ladies ; whom they instructed to forbear their wonted favours, to despise the fantastical amorists, and to afibrd no grace to them that had no grace in themselves. This they obeyed diligently, and it wrought so efi'ectually that the gentlemen soon began to spy some diff"erence betwixt effeminateness and nobleness; and at last in honourable and serviceable de-VOL. I. c

signs excelled aU their ancestors. If we had in England such ladies, (though I do not wish them from Spain,) we should have such lords. Honour should go by the banner, not by the barn; and reputation be valued by valour, not measured by the acre : there woidd be no ambition to be carpet-knights.

How necessary the readiness of arms, and of men practised to those arms, hath been to the common good, what nation hath not found, either in the habit • to their safety, or in the privation to their ruin 1 Only we bless ourselves in our peace, and say to them that advise us to military preparations, as the devils said to Christ, that we come to torment them before their time. But let them rest that thus wUl rust; and for yourselves, worthy gentlemen, keep your arms bright, and thereby your names, your nrtues, your souls : you shall be honoured in good men's hearts, whilst wanton and effeminate gulls shall weave and wear their own disgraces. .S/)ernUe vos sperni : there are none that think basely of you whose bosoms are acquainted with other than ignoble thoughts. But I have held you too long in the gates, unless I could promise you the sight of a better city. Yet enter in, and ^iew it ^vith your eyes : it hath already entered your ears; God grant it may enter all your hearts ! So yourselves shall be renowned, our peace secured, and the Lord's great name glorified, through Jesus Christ.

Yours to be commanded in all Christian services,

THO. ADAMS. * i. e., Haviug.— Ed,

THE SOLDIER'S HONOUR

They chose new gods ; then tvas war in the gates: was there a shield o^ spear seen among forty thousand in Isratl ? My heart is toward the governors of Israel^ that offered themselves ivillingly among the people. Bless ye the Lord. — Judges V. 8, 9.

It was a custom in the heathen "world after victory to sing songs of triumph.

This foshion was first observed among the Jews, as we frequently find it. After a gi-eat conquest of the Philistines, the people of Israel sung, ' Saul hath slain his thousand, and David his ten thousand.' When Joshua had overthrown those five kings,—at whose prayer the sun stood stUl, and the day was made longer than ever the world saw before or since,—the people sung, ' The sun stood still in Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon,' Josh. X. 12. When Israel had crossed the Red Sea with dry feet, and the returning Avaters had drowned their pursuing enemies, Moses and the people sung this song, ' The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name,' (fcc, Exod. XV. 3. Here Deborah having conquered Sisera, with his nine hundred chariots of iron, she sung this triumphant song to the Lord : ' Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel! ' Hear, O ye kings, I will sing to the Lord.'

I have chosen two strains of this song, from which, as they shall teach. me, so I purpose to teach you, to bless the Lord that teacheth us all. So the Psalmist: 'It is the Lord that teacheth our hands to war, and our fingers to fight.' The Lord give me a tongue to sing it, and you ears to hear it, and us all hearts to embrace it!

In all I observe two generals, which express the nature of the two verses. There is great aj/lidion and great affection.

The affliction : ' They chose new gods; then was war in the gates,' &c. The affection : ' My heart is toward the governors of Israel, that oifered themselves willingly among the people. Bless ye the Lord.' In the affliction, methinks I find three points of war :— I. The alarm : ' Tiiey chose new gods.' II. The battle : ' Then was war in the gates.'

III. The forlorn hope : ' Was there a shield or spear scon among forty thousand in Israel?'

Here is, (1.) siipej'stUio popidi, the apostasy of the people : 'They chose

new cods' This I caU the alarm ; for impietas ad arma womf,—ungodliness calls to war. If we fight against God, we provoke God to fight against us. Then (2) injlidio belli, a laying on of punishment. God meets their abomination with desolation; the hand of justice against the hands of un-riL'htoousness : ' Then was war in the gates.' This I call the battle. Then, (3 ) defedus remedii, a destitution of remedy: ' Was there a shield or spear Len among forty thousand in Israel ?' Sin had not only brought war, but taken away defence; in prcelia trudit inei-mes, —sent them unarmed to fight. And this I call the forlorn hope. You see the particulars : now ordine quidqne suo.

I. The Alarm : 'They chose new gods.' Their idolatry may be aggravated by three circumstances or degrees. They are all declining and downwards : tliere is malum, pejus, pessimum, —evil, worse, and worst of all.

1. 'They chose.' Here is electio, non compulsio, — a frank choice, no compelling. They voluntarily took to themselves, and betook themselves to, other gods. Naaman begged mercy for a sin, to which he seems enforced, if he would reserve the favour of his king and peace of his estate; and therefore cried, ' Be merciful to me in this : when I bow with my master in the house of Rimmon, in this the Lord pardon me,' 2 Kings v. 18. But here is spontanea malitia, a wilful wickedness : ' they chose.' There is evil, the first degree.

2. ' Gods.' What! a people trained up in the knowledge of one God : ' Jehovah, I am ; and there is none besides me.' Unissimus, saith Bernard, si non est unus, non est, —If he be not one, he is none. The bees have but one king, flocks and herds but one leader, the sky but one sun, the world but one God.

' Immensus Deus est, quia scilicet omnia mensus: Innumerabilis eat, unus enim Deus est,'

Kiys the Epigrammatist. God is therefore innumerable, because he is but one. It was for the heathen, that had, saith Augustine, mentes amentes, intoxicate minds and reprobate hearts, to have plurimos dees, a multitude of gods. They had gods of the water, gods of the wind, gods of the corn, gods of"the fruits ; nee omnia commemoro, quia me piget, quod illos non pudet, — neither do I mention all, because it grieves me to speak what they were not ashamed to do. Prudentius says, they had so many things for their gods as there were things that were good.

' Quicquid humus, pelagus, caelum mirabile gignunt, Id duxere deos, collea, freta, flumina, flammas.'

Insomuch that rroXudicTrji aOiorrn. But Israel knew that unions Deus, there was but one God ; that others were dii titulares, gods in name : theirs only Deus tulelaris, God in power. ' Their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies tlieniselvcs being judges,' Deut. xxxii. 31. Do these bring other gods in conipetilion with hhu ? Pejus, this is worse.

.'{. ' New gods.' Will any nation change their gods? No ; the Ekronites will keep their god, though it be Beelzebub ; the Ammonites will keep their god, though it be Melchom; the Spians will stick to their god, though it be Kimnion; the riiilistines will not part with their god, though it be Dagon. And .shall I.siacI change Jehovah, viventeni Deum, the living God? I'f»»imum, thi.s i.s worst of all.

The.sc be the wretched degrees of Israel's sin : God keep England from Buch apo.stasy! We have one God : let the llomists choose them another ; m the canonists Btyle their Tope, Dominus Deus nosier Fapa,—0\XT Lord God

the Pope. But we have * one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all,' Eph. iv. 6. We have one God in profession; this God grant that we have but one in affection! But unum colimus ore, vixiUos corde, —we worship one with our mouths, many in our hearts. Tot sunt nostrce deitates, quot cupiditates, —we have so many gods as we have lusts. Honour is the ambitious man's god; pleasure the voluptuous man's god; riches the covetous man's god. II(Bg tria pro trino numine viundus Jiabet, —This is the trhiity the world worships. These three tyrants, like those three Romans, C*sar, Crassus, and Pompey, have shared the world between them, and left God least, that owns all.

The people of Israel, when they had turned beast, and calved an idol, cried in triumph, ' These are thy gods, O Israel,' Exod. xxxii. 4. So we may speak it, with horror and amazement of soul, of these three idols : These are thy gods, 0 England. ' The idols of the heathen were silver and gold,' saith the Psalmist. It is but inverting the sentence : mutctto nomine tios sumus fabida, —change but the names, and we arc the subject of whom the tale is told. Their idols were silver and gold; and silver and gold are our idols. He that railed on Beelzebub, pulled all Ekron about his ears ; he that slighted IMelchom, provoked the i\jnmonites. But he that condemns Mammon, speaks against all the world.

But if God be our God, mammon must be our slave; for he that is the lervant of God must be the master of his money. If God be our king, he must be our king only; for the bed and the throne brook no rivals. When the soldiers had chosen Valentinian emperor, they were consulting to join with him a partner. To whom Valentinian replied : ' It was in your power to give me the empire when I had it not; now I have it, it is not in your power to give me a partner.' God must be our God alone. J^quum est deos Jinffere, ac Deiim neyare, —It is aU one to choose new gods, and to deny the true God. If therefore we will have novum deum, a new god, we shall have tiulhan Deum, no God. No, let the heathen choose new gods; thou, O Father of mercy, and Lord of heaven and earth, be our God for ever !—This is the alarm.

II. We come now to the Battle : ' Then was war in the gates.' If Israel give God an alarm of wickedness, God will give them a battle of desolation. Idolatry is an extreme impiety; therefore against it the gate of heaven is barred. ' Know ye not, that no idolater shall inherit the kingdom of God V 1 Cor. vi. 9. The idolater Avould thrust God out of his throne, therefore good reason that God should thrust him out of his kingdom. The punishment is also extreme, and hath in it a great portion of misery; though not a proportion answerable to the miquity, for it deserves not only war and slaughter in the gates of earth, but eternal death in the gates of hell. But not to extend the punishment beyond the projjosed limits, let us view it as it is described. And we shall find it aggravated by three circumstances :—

1. Analura: 'War.' There is the nature of it.

2. A tempore: 'Then.' There is the time of it.

3. A loco: ' In the gates.' There is the place of it.

There is quid, quando, ubi, —what, when, and where. War, that is the quid. Then, that is the quando. In the gates, that is the ubi. ' Then was war in the gates.'

1. The nature of it; what? 'War.' War is that miserable desolation that finds a land before it like Eden, and leaves it behind it like Sodom and Gomorrah, a desolate and forsaken wilderness. Let it be sowed with the seed of man and beast, as a field with wheat, war will eat it up. Sellumf

quasi minime helium; or rather in vicinity to the name, mos helluarmn. For men. solummodo Jiutum, qtiibtts necessarium, —not just, but Avhen it is necessary ami cannot well bo avoided. Not to be waged by a Christian without ol»»or%ation of St Augustine's rule : Esto hellando pacijicus, —In war seek peace; though thy hand be bloody, let thy heart be peaceable. Facem debet habtre voluntas, bellum necessitas, —Let necessity put war into the hands, religion keep peace in the heart In itself it is a miserable punishment. This is the nature ; what i

2. The time, or qiiando ? ' Then.' When was this war ? Tempore idolo-latiice, in the time of idolatry. ' They chose new gods ; then.' ^Vhen we fight against God, we incense him to tight against us. Indeed we have all stricken him; which of us hath not ofiered blows to that .sacred Deity ? Our oaths proffer new wounds to the sides of Jesus Christ; and our merci-Ica oj.prcssions persecute him through the bowels of the poor : ' Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me V Acts ix. 4. Saul strikes upon earth, Jesus Christ suffers in heaven. Yet if timely repentance step in, we escape his blows, though he hath not escaped ours. He is ready to say, as Cato to the man that hurt him in the bath, (when in sorrow he asked him forgiveness,) Non viemini me percussiim, —I do not remember that I was stricken.

But if Israel's sins strike up alarm, Israel's God wUl give battle. If they choose new gods, the true God wUl punish. ' Then was war.'

It is a fearful thing when God fights. "When he took off the chariot-wheels of the Egyptians, they cried, ' Let us flee from the face of Israel, for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians,' Exod. xiv. 25. The heathen gods could not defend their friends, nor subdue their enemies, nor avenge themselves.

' Mar3 ultor galeam quoque perdidit, et res Non potuit servare suas;'—

Their stout god of war might lose his helmet, his target, the victory; unable to deliver himself But God is the Lord of hosts. ' God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God.' Once, twice, yea, a thousand times, have we heard it, read it, seen it, that God is powerful. Tiiat, as Augustine, Verba Mies inculcata, vera sunt, viva sunt, Sana sunt, plana sunt, —Things so often repeated and pressed must needs be plain and peremptory. God hath soldiers in heaven, soldiers on earth, soldiers in hell, that fight under his press. So that he hath mille nocendi artes, —a thousand ways to avenge himself

In heaven he hath armies : of/;-e to burn Sodom; o^floods to drown a wi.rld ; of hailstones to kill the Amorites; of stars, as here Deborah sings : ' 'I hey fought from heaven ; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera,' vcr. L'O. And whilst Lsrael slew their enemies, at their general's prayer ' the sun stwd still in Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon,' Josh. xL \ ea, there are heavenly soldiers : Luke ii., ' Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude ot the heavenly host.' One of these celestial soldiers slew u. one ni,-ht above a hundred thou.sand Assyrians, 2 Kings xix. 35.

Ik-low hr. hath seas t(j drown Pharaoh ; sivallows of the earth to devour Korah With fierce lums, fell dragons, hisshig serpents, crawling worms, he <iiii .suixlue the ]>roude.st rebels.

In hell he hatli a.i army oifiends, though bound in chains that they shall not hurt the faithful, yet let loose to terrify the wicked. There was an evil spirit to vex baul; foul spirits in the gospel made some deaf, others dumb, and cast many into firo and into waters.

Thus stands the wicked man environed with enemies. God and man, angels and de\'ils, heaven and earth, birds and beasts, otliers and himself, maintain this war against himself. God may be patient a 'tong time ; but Icesa patientiafit furor, —patience too much wronged becomes rage; and furor arma ministrat, —-vvi-ath will quickly afford weapons.

' Serior esse solet vindicta severior,'—

The sorest vengeance is that which is long in coming ; and the fire of indignation burns the hotter, because God hath been cool and tardy in the execution. Impiety and impunity are not sworn sisters ; but if wickedness beat the drum, destruction will begui to march. The ruined monuments and monasteries in some provinces seem to tell the passengers, Uicfuit hostilitas, —War hath been here. We may also read in those rude heaps, Hicfuit ini-quitas, —Sin hath been here. It was idolatry rather than war that pulled down those walls. If there had been no enemy to rase them, they should have fallen alone, rather than hide so much superstition and impiety under their guilty roofs. In chap. x. 6 of this book, when the Israelites ' served Baalim and Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, then was the anger of the Lord hot against them ; and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and mto the hands of the children of Amnion.' Tlien those enemies destroyed their cities, and depopulated their countries, making them spectacles of cruelty and justice,—cruelty of man, justice of God. This is the time, when.

3. The place, or uhi. ' In the gates.' This is an extreme progress of war, to come so near as the gates. If it had been hi terra inimiconLtn, —in the land of their enemies, a preparation of war a great way off; sonus hosiilitatis, — the noise of war. As Jer. vi., ' Behold, a people cometh from the north, a nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth. Their voice roareth like the sea;' and 'we have heard the fame thereof.' Here is war, but coming, raising, roaring; audivimus tantuvi, —we have only heard the noise of it. Yea, if it had come but to the coasts, and invaded the borders, as the Philistines did often forage the skirts of Israel, yet it had been somewhat tolerable, for then vidimus tantum, —we have but seen it only. Ostendisti populo r/ravia, —' Thou hast shewn thy people grievous things,' Ps. Ix. 3 ; shewed, but not inflicted; shaken the rod, but not scourged us. But here venit ad liniina helium, —war is come to their thresholds, yea, to the heart of the laud, to defy them in the very gates. And now they more than hear or see it; sentiunt, they feel it.

The gates in Israel were those places where they sat in justice, as we may frequently read, ' They gave judgment in the gates.' They distributed the corn in the gates, where that unbelieving prince was trodden to death, 2 Kings viL 17. And Absalom sat in the gates, and said to every man that had a controversy, ' See, thy matters are good and right; but here is no man deputed of the king to hear thee,' 2 Sam. xv, 3. So that pads loca helium, occupat, —war possesseth the places of peace, and thrusts her out of her wonted residence and presidence, the gates, ' In the gates:' war is not then in the right uhi, as they said of Pope Sixtus, because he delighted in bloody wars, that he ill became the seat of peace, according to that epitaph on him:—

* Non potuit Bjevum vis uUa extinguere Sixtiim, Audito tandem nomine pacia obit,'—

No war could kill Sixtus; but so soon as ever he heard of peace, he presently died. War is got very far when it possesseth the gates.

^Q TUE soldier's uonoub. [Sebmon hi.

You now SCO the punishment. Happy are we that cannot judge the terrors of war but by report and hearsay ! that never saw our towns and cities buniin.' our houses rifled, our temples spoiled, our wives ravished, our children bleeding dead on the pavements, or sprawling on the merciless pikes ! We nr-ver heard the gi'oans of our own dying and the clamours of our enemies insulting cnfusecUy sounding in our distracted ears ; the ^vife breathing out her life in the arms of her husband, the children snatched from the breasts of their mothers, as by the terror of their slaughters to aggi-avate their own ensuing torments. We have been strangers to this misery m passion, let us not be so in compassion. Let us think we have seen these calamities with our ncigiibours' eyes, and felt them through their sides.

When /ICneas Sylvius reports of the fall of Constantinople, the murdering of children before the parents' eyes, the nobles slaughtered like beasts, the priests torn in pieces, the holy virgins savagely abused, he cries out, 0 mise-rtim uvbis faciem ! —0 wretched face of a city ! Many of our neighbours h.ive been whirled about in these bh)ody tumults; they have heard the dismal crios of cruel adversaries. Kill, kill ; the shrieks of women and infants, the thunders of those murdering pieces in their ears, their cities and temples flaming before their eyes, the streets swimming with blood, when

' Permisti caede virorum Semianimes volvuntur equi,'—*

men and horses confusedly wallowing in their mingled bloods.

Only to us the iron gates of war have been shut up. We sit and sing under our own fig-trees ; we drink the wine of our own vineyards, * There i.s no breaking in, nor going out; no complaining in our streets,' Ps. cxliv. 14. We have the peace of God ; let us be thankful to the God of peace. But it is good to be merry and wise. Let. not our peace make us secure. The Jews in their great feast had some malefactor brought forth to them. Matt. xxvil 1.5 ; so let it be one good part of our solemnity to bring forth that malefactor, !^ecurity, a rust grown over our souls in this time of peace, and send him packing. We have not the blessings of God by entail or by lease, but hold all at the good-will of our landlord; and that is but during our good behaviour. We have not so many blessings but we may easily forfeit them by disobedience. ^Vhen we most feared war, God sent peace ; now we most brag of peace, God prevent war !

L)o our sins give an alarm to Heaven, and shall not Heaven denounce war against us 1 Nulla pax impiis, —' There is no peace to the wicked, saith my Ofxl,' Isa. xlviii. 22. Joram said, ' Is it peace, Jehu ? But he answered, What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many V 2 Kings be. 22. They arc our sins that threaten to lose ua our best friend, God ; and if God be not our friend, we must look for Btorc of enemies. Our great iniquities hearten our adversaries ; they profess to build idl their wickedness against us upon our wickedness against God. If they did not see us choose new gods, they would never have hope to bring war to our gates. If we could i)revail against our own evils, we should pre-v.'id agamst all our enemies. The powers of Komc, the powers of hell, should Tint hurt us, if wo did not hurt oiu-selvcs. Let us cast down our Jezebels that W-witch us, those lusts whereby we run ivwhoring after other gods, and then jKu-wu. Hhall .stand sentinc I in our turrets. God shall then ' strengthen the Kira of our gates, and establish peace in our borders,' Ps. cxlvii. 13. Let m, accurduig to that sweet singer's doctrine, Ps. xxxiv. 14, ' depart from • .^ucid, xi.

evil, and do good ; then seek peace, and pursue it.' Yea, do well, and thou shalt not need to pursue it; peace will find thee without seeking. Augustine says, Fiat jiistitia, et hahehis pacem, —Live righteously, and live peaceably. Quietness shall find out righteousness, wheresoever he lodgeth. But she abhor-reth the house of evil. Peace will not dine where grace hath not first broken her fast. Let us embrace godliness, and ' the peace of God, that passeth all understanding, shaU preserve our hearts and minds in Jesus Christ,' Phil, iv. 7. The Lord fix all our hearts upon himself, that neither ourselves, nor our children after us, nor their generations, so long as the sun and moon endureth, may ever see war in the gates of England !—Thus we have run through the battle, and considered the terrors of a bloody war.

III. We now come to the Forlorn Hope : 'Was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel V Was there 1 There was not. This question is a plain negative. Here is defectus remedii, —the want of help ; great misery, but no remedy; not a spear to offend, no, not a shield to defend. War, and war in the gates, and yet neither offensive nor defensive weapon ! Miserrima privatio, quce omnem tollit ad habitum rejressum. It takes away all, both present possession and future possibility ; )-e7n et spem, —help and hope.

But suppose that only some one company had wanted, yet if the rest of the forces had been armed, there were some comfort. No, not a shield nor spear among many, among thousands, among many thousands, among forty thousand. A host of men, and not a weapon ! Grievous exigent! If it had been any defect but of armour, or in any other time but the time of war, or only in one city of Israel, and not in all. But is there war, and war in the gates, and do many, even thousands, want ? What ? armour enough 1 So they might easily. Nay, but one shield, one spear 1 Miserable calamity !

They were in great distress under the reign of Saul, 1 Sam. xiii. 22, ' The spoilers came out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies,' &c. ; yet ' it came to pass in the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul and Jonathan : but with Said, and with Jonathan his son, was there found.' Here was a great want; three bands of the enemies, and but two swords : yet there were then two ; and it so pleased God that those two were enougL As the Apostle said to Christ, Luke xxii. 38, Ecce duo gladii, —' Master, here are two swords; and he answered. It is enough.' But two swords for so many, and against so many; a word of great misery. But God saith. Satis est, —Those two are enough ; a word of great mercy. He can give victory with two swords, with one sword, -svith no sword; and so he did here, that convinced Israel might see it was the Lord that fought for them, and so be moved to bless the Lord.

You see now all the parts of the affliction : the alarm in sin, the battle in war, and the forlorn hope in the want of remedy. Two useful observations may hence be deduced :—

1. That war at some times is just and necessary ; indeed, just when it is necessary : as here. For shall it come to the gates, and shall we not meet it 1 Yea, shall we not meet it before it come near the gates ? There is, then, a season when war is good and lawful. St Augustine observes that when the soldiers, among the rest of the people, came to John the Baptist to be catechised, 'What shall we do ?' he did not bid them leave off being soldiers, but taught them to be good soldiers. ' Do violence to no man, neither accuse any ftdsely; and be content with your wages,' Luke iii. 14. Milites instritit, militare non prohibet, —he directs them to be good men, not forbids them to be warlike men.

God himself is termed * a man of war,' Exod. xv. 3; and he threatens war: 'The Ix.rd hath sworn that he will have war with Amalek from generation to generation,'Exod. xvii. 16. :Many of the Philistines, Canaanites, and Sidonians were left to teach Israel war, Judges iii. 2. L uxuriant animi rebus pUrunviue secundig,—Too much warmth of prosperity hatcheth up luxury. There must be some exercise, lest men's spirits grow rust)'.

• TLo standing water tiirns to putrefaction, And virtue is no virtue but in action,'

sings the divine poet. Idleness doth neither get nor save, but lose. If exercise be good, those are best which tend to most good. The exercises of war step in here to challenge their deserved praise. As with wooden wasters nu'ii learn to pky at the sharp ; so practice in times of peace makes reaily for the time of war. It is good to be doing, that when Satan comes, inv^iiai occupatum, —he may find thee honestly busied. The bird so long as she is upon wing, flying in the air, is safe from the fowler; but when she sits lazy on a tree, pruning her feathers, a little shot quickly fetcheth her down. So long as we arc well exercised, the devil hath not so fair a mark of us; but idle, we lie prostrate objects to all the shot of his temptations. Now there are two cautions observable in the justness of wars :— (1.) That they be undertaken justa causa, upon just and warrantable cause. (lV) That they be prosecuted bono anbno, with an honest mind. (1.) The cause must be just. For,—

' Frangit et attollit vires in milite causa,'—

The cause doth either encourage or discourage the soldier; indeed, it makes or mars all. This just cause is threefold; well comprised in that verse—

' Pax populi, patriseque salus, et gloria regni,'—

The peace of the people, the health of the country, and the glory of the kingdom.

[1.] The peace of the people ; for we must aim by war to make way for peaec. We must not desire tnice to this end, that we may gather force for an unjust war; but we desire a just war that we may settle a true peace. So Joab heartened his brother Abishai, and the choice men of Israel, against the Syrians : ' Be of good courage, and let us play the men for our people, aiul for the cities of our God,' 2 Sam. x. 12.

[2.] The health and safety of our country : pericUtantur aliqui, ne pere-ant omites,^-som<i must be endangered that all may not be destroyed. And I would here that the dull and heavy spirits of our rotten worldlings would con.sidcr qitorurn causa, for whose sake these worthy men spare neither their |)aiiis nor their purses in this noble exercise. Even for theirs ; theirs, and their cliildrcn's, tliut so contemptibly judge of them.

If war sIk.uUI be in the gates, whither would you run for defence, when shroud yourselves, but under their colours which you have despised 1 AVh( sljould keep the usurer's money from pillaging ? all his obligations, mort-Kages, and statutes from burning] Who should keep the foggy epicure in )u» soft chair after a full meal fa.st asleep 1 Who should maintain the nice lady in her carriage whirling through the popular streets ? Who should re-iM-rvo tho.so .lelioato parloun and adorned chambers from fire and flames? \\\ui should wivo virgins from ravishment, children from famishment, niolhcrs from astonishment, city and country, temples and palaces, traffics an<l markets, ships and shops, Westminster Hall and the Exchange, two of

the richest acres of ground in England, from ploughing up ; from having it said, Jam seges uhi Trojafait, —Com groweth where London stood,—all from v\m\ ? Who but the soldier under God 1 * The sword of God, and the sword of Gideon,' Judges \\x. 18.

[3.] The glory of the kingdom; and that is evangelium Ghiisti, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Wars for God are called God's battles. The destruction of their cities that revolt from God to idols, and the whole spoil, is for the Lord; it is the Lord's battle and the Lord's spoil, Deut. xiii. 16. Saul thus encourageth David to war, ' Be thou valiant for me, and fight the Lord's battles,' 1 Sam. xviii. 17. The most and best warriors were called the sons of God. So Abraham, ]Moses, David, Joshua, Gideon. And that centurion was a man of war whose praise Christ so sounded forth in the gospel, 'I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel,' Matt. viii. 10. And the best wars are for God ; so Christians bear in their ensigns the cross, to shew that they fight for the honour of Jesus Christ.

'\\'hen, therefore, there is hazard to lose the peace of the people, the safety of the country, the glory of all, the gospel of our Saviour Christ, here is just cause of war. They that go forth to fight upon these terms shall conquer.

' Causa jubet melior superos sperare secundos,'—

A good cause gives assurance of victory. God shall marshal that army; yea, himself wUl fight for them.

(2.) The next caution, after a good ingression, is to be sure of a good prosecution. We say of the chirurgeon, that he should have a lady's hand and a lion's heart; but the Christian soldier should have a lady's heart and a lion's hand. I mean, though he deal valiant blows, yet not destroy without compassion. Fortitudo virtus bellica, mansuetudo virtus bella, —Though manfulness be a warlike virtue, yet gentleness is a Christian virtue. The sword should not be bloodied but in the heat of battle. And after victory, when a soldier looks on the dead bodies of his enemies, pity should sit in his eyes rather than insultation. He should not strike the yielding, nor prey upon prostrate fortunes.

I know that divers aspersions are cast upon men of this rank. They think that many take arms, non ut serviant, sed ut sceviant, —not to serve for their country, but to rage and forage; making their coat-armour a defence for drinking, whoring, swearing, dicing, and such disorders. As if it were impossible that a tender conscience should dwell in one bosom with a valiant heart. Oliyn castra quasi casta dicebantur; quia castratur in iis libido, —The camp seemed to take the denomination, saith he, from chastity; because in the wars lust was beaten do^vn. But now Venus is gotten into the arms of Mars.

' Militat omnia amans, et habet sua caetra Cupido,'—

Cupid hath displaj-ed his colours, and pitched his tent in the midst of the army ; as if it were the only bravery of a soldier to drink valiant healths to his mistress. One writes of the Turks, that though they are the most monstrous beasts at home in peace, and sin even against nature, yet in wars caute et cast^ vivunt, —they live charily and chastely. Not as the friars say, caute si non caste. The Turks are better than the friars in this. Vitia sua domi deponunt, saith he,—they leave all their naughtiness behind them at home. But he adds mthal, to our reproach, Christianus assumit, —the Christians there take up those vices, as if they found them sown in a pitched field. That there is often, saith he, gravior turba meretricum, quam mill-

turn,—it is hard to judge whether the number of soldiers or of harlots be greater. Hence it is said that

' Rara fides pietasque viris, qui castra sequuntur/—

There is so little fidelity and pity in men that follow the wars. These be the common invectives against soldiers.

Hut now do not many tax them, that are worse themselves ? Wbo can endure to hear a usurer tax a pillager ? an epicure find fault with a drinker 1 a man-eating oppressor with a gaming soldier 1

' Quifl tulerit Gracchum de seditione loquentem ?'— Who can abide to hear Gracchus declaim against sedition ? or the fox preach innoccncy to the gccse ? Say that some arc faulty, must therefore the whole profession be scaud;dised ? Will you despise the word of God because some that preach it are wicked men 1 No—

' Dent ocius omnes, Quas meruere pati, sic stet sententia, poenas,'—

Lay the fault where it should lie ; be they only blamed that deserve it. Some persons may be reproveable, but the profession is honourable.

The martialist may be a good Christian; in all likelihood should be the best Christian. Mors semper in oculo, therefore should be semper in animo. How should death be out of that man's mind that hath it always in his eye ? His very calling tcacheth him to expound St Paul, who calls the Christian's life a warfare. His continual dangers, to the good soldier, are as it were so many meditations of death. If he die in peace, he falls breast to breast with virtue. If in war, yet he dies more calmly than many a usurer doth in his chamber. Though he be conquered, yet he is a conqueror; he may lose the day in an earthly field, but he wins the day against sin, Satan, and hell \ and sings with Paul, like a dpng swan, ' I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kejit the faith; now there is laid up for me a crown of righteou.sness,' 2 Tim. iv. 7.

2. The other inference that may hence be deduced is this, that munition and arms should at all times be in readiness. How grievous was it, when .Tabin had such a host, and not a ' .shield or spear among forty thousand in Israel!' For ourselves, we have not our peace by patent, we know not how long it will continue ; let us provide for war, in training some up to military practices. If war do come, it is a labour well spent; if war do not come, it is a lalx)ur very well lost Wise men in fair weather repair their houses against winter stonns; the. ant labours in harvest that she may feast at Christmas. l)iH ajypnrandum est helium, ut vincas celerius* —Be long in preparing for war, that thou mayest overcome with more speed. Longa belli proeparatio cfUrrm jncit virtnriavi, —A long preparation makes a short and quick victory.

Tut, we .say, if that day comes, we shall have soldiers enough ; we will all fight. I) ilulce Mlin.i i ii expert is,—Thoy that never tried it, think it a pleasure to figlit. We shall fight strangely if we have no weapons, and use our weapons more strangely if we have no skill. ]Von de pugna, sed defuga cogi-t'lnt, qui nitdi in ncie ej-ponuntur ad vtdnera,—Their minds are not so much on tiKhtiiiL; as on flying, that arc exposed to the fury of war without weapons; nnithcr will all be soldiers that dare talk of war. A^on dat tot pugna socios, quf^dat mnifo cnninvas,—\\\ that arc your fellow-guests at the table wUl not be your fellow-.soldiers in the field.

Could any tongue forbear to tax the rich men of this honourable city, if • Sen.

their houses be altogether furnished with jjlate, hangings, and carpets, and not at all with weapons and armour to defend the commonwealth ? How fondly do they love their riches that will not lay out a little to secure the rest! When the Turk invaded the Greek empire, before the siege was laid to Constantinople, the metropolitan city, the emperor solicits the subjects to contribute somewhat to the repair of the walls, and such military provision and pre\cntion; but the subjects drew back and pleaded want. Hereupon the Turk enters and conquers : and in ransacking the city, when he found such abundance of wealth in private houses, he lift up his hands to heaven, and blessed himself that they had so much riches, and would suffer themselves to be taken for not using them.

So if ever London should be suprised by her enemies,—which the wonted mercies of our God defend for ever!—would they not wonder to find such infinite treasures in your private houses, when yet you spent none of them to provide shield or spear, munition to defend yourselves 1 What scope can you imagine, or propound to your own hearts, wherem your riches may do you service ? You can tell me; nay, I can tell you. You reserve one bag for pride, another for belly-cheer, another for lust, yet another for contention and suits in law. Oh the madness of us Englishmen ! We care not what we spend in civil jars, that yet will spend nothing to avoid foreign wars. They say the Jew will spend all on his paschs, the barbarian on his nuptials, and the Christian on his quarrels or lawsuits. We need not make ourselves enemies by our riches, we have enough made to our hands. Christ says,' Make you friends of the mammon of unrighteousness,'—make to yourselves friends by your charity, not adversaries by your litigation. ' Seek peace,' saith the prophet, ' and pursue it,'—seek peace, war will come fast enough. And if it do come, it will hardly be made welcome. The Spaniards have often threatened, often assaulted, ever been prevented, ever infatuated. Take we heed, if they do prevail, they will be revenged once for all. God grant we never try their mercy. Whether they come like lions rampant, or like foxes passant, or like dogs couchant, they intend nothing but our ruin and desolation.

0 Lord, if we must fiiU by reason of our monstrous sins, let thine own hand cast us down, not theirs; for there is mercy in thy blows. When that woful offer was made to David of three things, ' Choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee,'—either seven years' famine, or three months' persecution, or three days' plague,—he answered unto Gad, and by him unto God, ' I am in a wonderful strait;' but suddenly resolves, ' Let us now fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are great; and let me not faU into the hands of man,' 2 Sam. xx.iv. 14. If it be thy will, O Lord, to plague us, take the rod into thine own hands; do thou strike us.

' Liceat perituro viribus ignis, Igne perire tuo; clademque authore levare.'

Why shouldst thou sell us into the hands of those idolatrous Romists, that will give thine honour to stocks and stones, bless this or that saint, and not be thankful to thy majesty, that gives them the victory. For thine own sake, be merciful to us; yea, thou hast been merciful, therefore we praise thee, and sing with thy apostle, ' Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord,' 1 Cor. xv. 57.

1 have held you long in the battle; it is now high time to sound a retreat. But as I have spoken much of Israel's afHiction, so give me leave to speak one word of the prophetess's afi"ectiou, and of tliis only by way of exhorta-

lion : ' My heart is set on the governors of Israel, that offered themselves willinu'ly among the jteople. Bless ye the Lord.' Here is considerable both the ruhjfctum in quo and the objection in quod, —the subject in which this affection resides, and the object on which this affection reflects.

The subject wherein it abides is cor, the heart,—a great zeal of love. Not only aftdio cordis, but cor afectionis; not only the affection of the heart, but t'he heart of affection : ' My heart is set.'

The object on which it reflects is double, man and God"; the excellent creature, and the most excellent Creator; the men of God, and the God of men. Upon men : ' My heart is towards the governors of Israel, that offered themselves willingly among the people.' Upon God : ' Bless ye the Lord.'

Among men two sorts are objected to this love : superiors in the first l)lace, inferiors in the latter. To the commanders primarily, but not only; for if they offered themselves willingly among the people, as we read it, then certainly the people also willingly offered themselves, as the other translations read it, ' Those that were -willing amongst the people.' You see here is a foundation laid for a great and ample building of discourse ; but I know you look to the glass, therefore promise nothing but application. And that—

1. To the governors of our Israel; that they offer for themselves willingly to these military designs, not on compulsion. Quoniam probitate coacta, gloria nulla vrnit, —His brows deserve no wreathed coronet that is enforced. Come with a willing mind. In every good work there must be sollicitiido in fffectu, and fervor in affectu, —cheerfulness in the affection, and carefulness in the action. God loves a cheerful giver; so thou gainest no small thing by it, but oven the love of God. Whatsoever good thing thou doest, saith Augustine, do it cheerfully and willingly, and thou doest it well. Si cmtem cum tristida facis, de te jit, non tu fads, —If thou doest it heavily and grudgingly, it is wrought upon thee, not by thee : thou art rather the patient than the agent m it. God could never endure a lukewarm affection, Kev. iii. IG. No man was admitted to offer to the building of the tabernacle that did it grudgingly: ' Of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering,' Exod. xxv. 2. In all thy gifts shew a cheerful countenance, sjiith the wise man; in all, whether to God or man. St Chrysostom gives the reason : Cum tali vultu respicit Dens, cmi quali tu facts,—God respects it with such a countenance as thou performest it. God's ser/kc is libera servitus, whore not necessity but charity serves, ^^on com-placft Deo famnlatus conctus,—God could never endure forced service. Do all then with willingness of heart.

Tliink with a reverend courage of your noble ancestors ; how their prowess renownied thtinselvos and this whole nation. Shew yourselves the legitimate and true born children of such fathers. The fame of Alexander gave heart to Juliu.s ta;.sar to be the more noble a warrior. Let the consideration of their valout teach you to shake off cowardice. They fought the battles that you might enjoy the peace. You hold it an honour to bear arms in your KUtcheons ; and is it a dishonour to bear arms in the field 1 The time hath \m-u when all h..nour in England came a Marte or Merciirio; from learning or .invalo' from the pen or the pike, from priesthood or knighthood.

it wouKlbc an unknown encouragement to goodness if honour still might not be dealt but ujum tho.se'tern.s. Then should many worthy spirits get

Un .1 if ^"!'i ^^'•"■';'''■'■"""^' ='"'* ^'"^ ^^'•""^■^ «^i""W not come nearer than the DunsUible highway of obscurity. It was a monstrous story that Niappusa sheep did bring forth a lion ; but it is too true that many of our

English lions have brought forth sheep. Among birds 3'ou shall never see a pigeon hatched in an eagle's nest: among men you shall often see noble progenitors bring forth ignoble cowards.

But let virtue be renowned, rewarded, wheresoever she dwells. Though Bion was the son of a courtesan, I hope no man will censure him with parties sequiticr ventrem. Non genus sed genius; non gens sed mens. Never speak of thy blood, but of thy good ; iiot of thy nobility, thou art beholden to thy friends for it, but of thy virtue. Even the duke fctcheth the honour of his name from the wars, and is but dux, a captain. And it seems the difference was so small between a knight and a common soldier among the Romans that they had but one word, miles, to express both their names.

You that have the places of government in this honourable city, offer willmgly your hands, your purses, yourselves, to this noble exercise. Your good example shall hearten others. Be not ashamed to be seen among the people : upon such did Deborah set her heart. Alexander would usually call his meanest soldiers, friends and companions. Tally wi-itcs of Caesar, that he was never heard speaking to his soldiers, Ite illuc, Go thither ; but Venite hue, Come hither: I will go with you. The inferior thinks that labour much easier which he sees his captain take before him. Malus miles qui imperatorem gemens sequitur, —He is an ill soldier that follows a good leader with a dull pace. So Gideon to his soldiers. Judges vii. 17, ' Look on me, and do likewise : when I come to the outside of the camp, it shall be that as I do, so shall ye do.' So Abimelech to his men of arms, Judges ix; 48, 'What ye have seen me do, make haste, and do as I have done.' The good captain is first in giving the charge, and last in retirmg his foot. He endures equal toil with the common soldiers: from his example they all take fire, as one torch lighteth many.—And so much for the governors.

2. Now for you that are the materials of all this, let me say to you without flattery, Go forth vnih coimage in the fear of God, and the Lord be with you. Presence unity among yourselves, lest as in a town on fire, whilst all good hands are helping to quench it, thieves are most busy to steal booties; so whilst you contend, murmur, or repine one at the honour of another, that subtle thief Satan, through the crack of your divisions, step in, and steal away your peace.

Offer yourselves willingly; and being offered, step not back. Remember that tui'pe est militem fugere, —it is base for a soldier to fly. When Bias was envu'oned with his enemies, and his soldiers asked him. What shall we do ? he replied. Go ye and teU the living that I die fighting, and I will tell the dead that you did scape flying. Our chronicles report, that when WiUiam the Conqueror landed at Pemscy, near to Hastings in Sussex, he commanded all his ships to be sunk, that all hope of returning back might be frustrate. You have begun well; go on, be perfect, be blessed.

And remember always the burden of this song, which everything that hath breath must sing, ' Bless ye the Lord.' Those heavenly soldiers that waited on the nativity of Jesus Christ sung this song : * Glory be to God on high,' Luke ii. 14, Upon this Lord the heart of Deborah, of Israel, of us all, should be set. It is he that teacheth us to fight, and fighteth for us.

To conclude with an observation of a reverend divine : England was said to have a warlike saint, George ; but Bellarmine snibs Jacobus de Voragine for his leaden legend of our English George. And others have inveighed against the authentic truth of that story. Sure it is their malice that have robbed England of her saint. St James is for Spain, St Denis for France, St Patrick for Ireland; other saints are allotted and allowed for other

countries; only poor England is bereaved of her George : they leave none but (jod to revenge our quarrels. I think it is a favour and an honour, and we are bound to thank them for it. Let them take their saints, give us the Lord ! ' Bless ye the Lord.' So let us pray with our church, ' Give peace in our time, 0 Lord; for there is none that fighteth for us but thou, 0 God.' To this merciful God be all glory, obedience, and thanksgiving now and for ever ! Amen.

THE SINNER'S MOURNING-HABIT.

Wlierefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. — Job XLII. b.

This is in many dear regards a mourning and penitential season,* therefore I thought best to accommodate it with a penitential sermon : ' I abhor myself,' &c.

Affliction is a winged chariot, that mounts up the soul toward heaven ; nor do we ever so rightly understand God's majesty as when wq are not able to stand under our own misery. It was Naaman's leprosy that brought him to the knowledge of the prophet, and the prophet brought him to the saving knowledge of the true God. Had he not been a leper, he had still been a sinner. Schola crucis, schola lucis, —there is no such school instructing as the cross afflicting. If I*aul had not been buffeted by Satan, he might have gone nigh to buffet God, through danger of being puffed up with his revelations.

The Lord hath many messengers by whom he solicits man. He sends one health, to make him a strong man ; another wealth, to make him a rich man ; another sickness, to make him a weak man ; another losses, to make liim a poor man; another age, to make him an old man; another death, to make him no man. But among them all, none despatcheth the business surer or sooner than affliction; if that fail of bringing a man home, nothing can do it. He is still importunate for an answer; yea, he speaks, and strikes. Do we complain of his incessant blows ? Alas! he doth but his office, he waits for our repentance ; let us give the messenger his errand, and he will begone. Let him take the proud man in hand, he will humble him : he can make the drunkard sober, the lascivious chaste, the angry patient, the covetous charitable ; fetch the unthrift son back again to his father, whom a full purse had put into an itch of travelling, Luke xv. 17. The only breaker of tlio.^e wild colts, Jer. V.; the waters of that deluge, which (though they put men in fear of their lives) bear them up in the ark of repentance higher toward heaven. It brought the brethren to the acquaintance of Joseph, and makes many a poor sinner familiar with the Lord Jesus.

Job was not igaiorant of God before, while he sat in the sunshine of peace ; Init resting his head on the bosom of plenty, he could lie at his ease and contemplate the goodness of his Maker. But as when the sun shines forth in

* This sermon was preached in Whitehall, March 29, 1625, " being the first Tuesday after the departure of King James into blessedness."— Ed. VOL. l! D

THE sixner's mourning-habit. [Sermon IV.

hia most glorious brightness, we are then least able to look upon him,—we inay st)lace ourselves in his diffused rays and comfortable light, but we cannot fix our eyes upon that burning carbuncle,—these outward things do so engmss us, take up our consideration, and drown our contemplative faculty in°our sense, that so long we only observe the effects of God's goodness, rather than the goodness of God itself. Necessity teacheth us the worth of a friend; as absynthium (wormwood) rubbed upon the eyes makes them smart a little, but they see the clearer. Therefore Job confessed that in his prosperity he had only, as it were, heard of God; but now in his trial he had seen him. Ver. 5, ' 1 heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye sceth thee'—tliat is, he had obt;iined a more clear and perspicuous vision of him ; the eye being more apprehensive of the object than the ear : segnius irritant aiiimos Jeinissa per aures. When we hear a man described, our imagination conceives an idea or form of him but darldy; if we see him, and iutcntively look upon him, there is an impression of him in our minds : we know his stature, his gesture, his complexion, his proportion : sic oculos, sic Hie tnanus, sic ora ferebat. Such a more full and perfect apprehension of God did calamity work in this holy man ; and from that speculation proceeds this humiliation, ' Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.'

Where we may consider three degrees of mortification : the sickness, the death, and the burial of sin. ' I abhor myself,' there sin is sick and wounded ; * I repent,' there it is wounded and dead ; ' in dust and ashes,' there it is dead and buried. To deny one's-self maims concupiscence, that it cannot thrive; to repent kills it, that it cannot live ; in dust and ashes, buries it, that it cannot rise up again. I throw it into the grave, I cover it with mould, I rake it up in dust and ashes.

Hut I will not pull the text in pieces; only I follow the manuduction of the words : f )r there is not a superfluous word in the verse, as the Psalmist said of the army of Israel, ' There was not one feeble person among them.' It begins as high as the glory of heaven, and ends as low as the basest of earth. The first word, 'therefore,' respects-an infinite God: the last words, ' dust and ashes,' declare a humbled man. The meditation of the former is the cause of the latter, and the condition of the latter is the way to the former. To study God, is the way to make a humble man; and a humble man is in the way to come unto God. Such a consideration will cast u3 down to dust and ashes: such a prostration will lift us up to glory and ble.'isedness. Here, then, is a Jacob's ladder, but of four rounds : divinity is the highest, ' I have seen thee ; therefore ;' mortality is the lowest, * dust and ashes;' between both these sit two others, 'shame' and 'sorrow;' no man can abhor hunself without shame, nor repent without sorrow. Let your Iionourablc patience admit Job descending these four stairs, even so low a.s lie went ; and may all your souls rise as he is !

Whn-ejore.—'nns, refers us to the motive that humbled him; and that appears by the context to be a double meditation,—one of God's majesty, another of his mercy.

1. Of hi.s majesty, which being so infinite, and beyond the comprehension of man, he considered by way of comparison, or relation to the creatures; tlie great behemoth of the land, the greater leviathan of the sea, upon which \\i'- hath spent the pr.'rcdcnt chapters. Mathematicians wonder at the sun, that, being so much bigger than the earth, it doth not set it on fire and burn it to a.«ho.s : but here is the wonder, that God being so infinitely gneat, and we BO infinitely evil, we are not consumed. ' Whatsoever the Lord would do, that ilid he in heaven, in earth, in the sea, and in all deep places,' Ps.

cxxxv. G. If man's power could do according to Ids will, or God's will W(juld do according to his power, who could stand ? ' I will destroy man from the face of the earth,' saith the Lord, Gen. vi. 7. The original word is, ' I will steep him,' as a man steeps a piece of earth in water, till it turn to dirt; for man is but clay, and forgets his Maker and his matter. None but God can reduce man to his first principles, and the original grains whereof he was made ; and there is no dust so high, but this great God is able to give him a steeping.

2. Or this was a meditation of his mercy, than which nothing more humbles a heart of flesh. ' With thee, 0 Lord, is forgiveness, that thou mightcst be feared,' Ps. cxxx. 4. One would think that punishment should procure fear, and forgiveness love; but nemo magis diligit, quam qui maxime veretur offendere, —no man more tmly loves God than he that is most fearful to offend him. ' Thy mercy reacheth to the heavens, and thy faithfulness to the clouds,'—that is, above all sublimities. God is glorious in all his works, but most glorious in his works of mercy ; and this may be one reason why St Paul calls the gospel of Christ a ' glorious gospel,' 1 Tim. i. 11. Solomon tells us, ' It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence.' Herein is God most glorious, in that he passeth by all the offences of his children. Lord, who can know thee and not love thee, know thee and not fear thee ; fear thee for thy justice and love thee for thy mercy; yea, fear thee for thy mercy and love thee for thy justice, for thou art infinitely good in both !

Put both these together, and here is matter of humiliation, even to ' dust and ashes.' So Abraham interceding for Sodom, ' Behold, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes,' Gen. xviii. 17. Quaato viagis sancti Divinitatis interna conspicuunt, tanto magis se nihil esse cognoscunt. It is a certain conclusion, no proud man knows God. Non sum dignus, I am not worthy, is the voice of the saints : they know God, and God knows them. Moses was the meekest man upon earth, and therefore God is said to know him by name, Exod. xxxiii. 17. 'I am less than the lea.st of thy mercies,' saith Jacob, Gen. xxxii. 10 ; lo, he was honoured to be fiither of the twelve tribes, and heir of the blessing. Quis ego sum, Domine, says David,—' Who am I, O Lord?' He was advanced from that lowly conceit to be king of Israel. ' I am not worthy to loose the latchet of Christ's shoe,' saith John Baptist, Matt. iii. 11 ; lo, he was esteemed worthy to lay his hand on Christ's head. ' I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof,' says the centurion ; therefore Christ commended him, ' 1 have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel,' ilatt. viii. 8. ' I am the least of the apostles,' saith Paul, ' not worthy to be called an apostle,' 1 Cor. XV. 9 ; therefore he is honoured with the title of tlie Apostle. ' Behold the handmaid of the Lord,' saith tlie holy virgin; therefore she was honoured to be the mother of the Lord, and to have all generations call her blessed. Tliis non sum dignus, the humble annihilation of themselves, hath gotten them the honour of saints. In spiritual graces let us study to be great, and not to know it, as the fixed stars are every one bigger than the earth, yet iippear to us less than torches. In alto non ultum sapere, not to be higli-naiiided in high deserts, is the way to blessed preferment. Humility is not only a virtue itself, but a vessel to contain other viitues : like embers, which keep the fire alive that is hidden under it. It emptieth itself by a modest estimation of its own worth, that Christ may fill it. It wrestleth with God, like Jacob, and wins by yielding ; and the lower it stoops to the ground, the more advantage it gets to obtain the blessing. All our pride, O Lord, is from the want of knowing thee. O thou infinite Maker, reveal thyself yet

more unto u.s; so shall we 'abhor ourselves, and repent in dust and

/ abhor myself.—It is a deep degree of mortification for a man to abhor him.sclf. To abhor others is easy, to deny others more easy, to despise others uiyst eiisy. liut it is hard to despise a man's self, to deny himself harder, hardest of all t.. abhor himself. Every one is apt to think Avell, speak well, do well to himself Not only charity, a spiritual virtue, but also lust, a canial vice, begins at home. There is no direct commandment in the Bible fur a man to love himself, because we are all so naturally prone to it. Indeed, wo are bound to love our.-^elves : so much is implied in the precept, 'Love thy nei,'lil)our as thyself;' therefore love thyself, hut modus 2'>raici-■piendus, nt tibt prosis* so love thyself, as to do thyself good. But for a man, upon good terms, to abhor himself, this is the wonder. He is more than a mere son of Eve that does not overvalue himself. Qui se non admi-raUtr, mirabilis est, —He that doth not admire himself, is a man to be admired.

Nor is this disease of proud flesh peculiar only to those persons whose imperious commands, surly salutations, insolent controlments, witness to the world how little they abhor themselves ; but it haunts even the baser condition, and foams out at the common jaws. A proud beggar was the wise man's monster; but pride is tlie daughter of riches. It is against reason, indeed, that metals should make difference of men ; against religion that it should make such a difference of Christian men. Yet commonly reputation is measured by the acre, and the altitude of countenance is taken by the pole of advancement. And as the servant values himself higher or lower according as his master is, so the master esteems himself greater or less according as his master is,—that is, as his money or estate is. His heart is proportion-ably enlarged with his house : his good and his blood riseth together. ' Is not thi.s the great Babylon, which I have built for the honour of my majesty ]' Dan. iv. 30. But, you know, he was turned into a beast that said so. Gold and silver are heavy metals, and sink down in the balance; yet, by a preposterous inversion, they lift the heart of man upwards, as the plummet of a clock, which, while itself-poiseth downwards, lifts up the striking hammer. As Saul upon his anointing, so many a one upon his advancing, is turned quite into another man. ' God, I thank thee,' says the Pha-ri.see, ' that I am not as other men are, nor as this publican,' Luke xviiL 11. ' Not as other men,' and for this he thanks God : as if because he thought bettor of himself, God must needs think better of him too. Now he must no more take it as he hath done ; a new port for a new report. He abhors all luMi, but admires himself Yet after these blustering insolences and windy ...stentatious, all this thing is but a man, and that, God knows, a very fooli.sh one.

r.ut the children of grace have learned another lesson,—to think well of otlitr men, and to abhor themselves. And indeed, if we consider what ina.ster we have .served, and what wages deserved, we have just cause to abhor ourselves. What part of us hath not sinned, that it should not merit to be dc.si.i.s.-.l ] Run all over this little Isle of Man, and find me one member of the ho.ly. or faculty of the soul, that can say with Job's messenger, chap. L 1.'). A> s„lnx ui//iif/i,—' I alone have escaped.' What one action can we justify t Produce ex tot mi//i/>us, nnnm. Where is tliat innoccncy which desires jot to Htand only in the .sight of mercy ? There is in our worst works wick-cdne.s.s, m otir best wcaknes,s, error in all. ^Vhat time, what place, are not * Augustine.

witnesses against us ? The very Sabbath, the day of rest, hath not rested from our evils. The very temple, that holy place, hath been defiled with our obliquities. Our chanabcrs, our beds, our boards, the ground we tread, the air we breathe, can tell our follies. There is no occasion which, if it do not testify what evil we have done, yet can say what good we should and have not done.

If all this do not humble us, look we up, with Job here, .to the majesty which we have offended. To spoil the arms of a common subject, or to counterfeit liis seal, is no such heinous or capital crime; but to deface the arms of the king, to counterfeit liis broad seid or privy signet, is no less than treason, because the disgrace redomids upon the person of the king. Every sin dishonours God, and offers to stick ignommy upon that infinite majesty; therefore deserves an infinite penalty. ' Against thee, 0 Lord, against thee have I siimed,' Ps. li. 4. I, thy creature, against thee, my Maker : here is a transcendency, which when a man considers, he is worthy to be abhorred of all men that does not abhor himself.

Yet when God and our own selves stand in competition, which do we most respect ? Temptation is on our left hand, in a beautiful resemblance, to seduce us; the will, the glory, the judgment of God is on our right hand to direct us : do we now abhor ourselves 1 Commodity sets off inicjuity, and woos us to be rich, though sinners; Christ bids us first seek the kingdom of heaven, and tells us that other things shall come without seeking, they shall be added unto us : do we now abhor ourselves ? Such a sin is pleasing to my lust and concupiscence, but it is disjileasing to God and my conscience : do I now abhor myself? That we love God far better than ourselves, is soon said ; but to prove it is not so easily done. He must deny himself that will be Christ's servant, Mark viii. 34:. Many have denied their friends, many have denied their kindred, not a few have denied their brothers, some have denied their ovra parents; but to deny themselves, dunes hie sermo, this is a hard task. Ntgare suos, sua, se; to deny their profits, to deny their lusts, to deny their reasons, to deny themselves? No, to do all this they utterly deny.

Yet he that repents truly abhors himself. A'^on se ut conditum, sed se ut perdiium, —Not the creature that God made, but the creature that himself made, llepentance loves animam, nan malitiam; carnem, nan canialita-iem, —the soul, not the venom of the soul; the flesh, not the flcshliness of it. So far as he hath corrupted himself, so far he abhors himself; and could rather wish non esse, not to be at all, than malum esse, to be displeasing to lus ]\Iaker.

Thus, if we despise ourselves, God will honour us; if we abhor ourselves, God will accept us; if we deny ourselves, God will acknowledge us ; if we. hate ourselves, God will love us; if we condemn ourselves, God will acquit us; if we punish ourselves, God will spare us; yea, thus if we seem lost to ourselves, we shall be found in the day of Jesus Christ.

/ repent. —Repentance hath much acquaintance in the world, and few fiiends; it is better known than practised, and yet not more known than trusted. My scope now shall not be the definition of it, but a persuasion to it. It is every man's medicine, a universal antidote, that makes many a Mithridates venture on poison. They make bold to sin, as if they were sure to repent. But the medicine was made for the wound, not the wound for the medicine. We have read, if not seen, the battle betwixt those two venomous creatures, the toad and the spider, where the greater being overmatched by the poison of the less, hath recourse to a certain herb, some thhik

the plantain, with which she expels the infection, and renews the fight; but at last, the herb being wasted, the toad bursts and dies. We suck in sin, the poison of that old serpent, and presume to drive it out again with repcuunce ; but how if this herb of gi-ace be not found in our gardens ? As Trajan was marching forth with his army, a poor woman solicited him to do her justice upon the murderers of her only son. ' I will do thee justice, woman,' says the emi)cror, ' when I return.' The woman presently replied, ' But what if my lord never return'?' How far soever we have run out, we hope to make all reckonuigs even when repentance comes; but what if repentance never comes ?

It is not many years, more incitations, and abundance of means, that can work it; but repentance is the fair gift of God. One would think it a short lesson, yet Israel was forty years a-learning it; and they no sooner got it but presently forgot it. Rev. xvi. 11, we read of men plagued with heat, and pains, and sores, yet they repented not. Judas could have a broken neck, not a broken heart. There is no such inducement to sin as the presumption of ready repentance, as if God had no special riches of his own, but every sinner might command them at his pleasure. The king hath earth of his own, he lets his subjects walk upon it; he hath a sea, lets them sail on it; his land yields fruit, lets them eat it ; his fountains water, lets them drink it. But the moneys in his exchequer, the garments in his wardrobe, the jewels in his jewel-house, none may meddle with but they to whom he disposeth them. God's common blessings are not denied; his sun shines, his rain falls, Matt. v. 45, on the righteous and unrighteous. But the treasures of heaven, the robes of glory, the jewels of grace and repentance, these he keeps in his own hands, and gives not where he may, but where he v/ill. Man's heart is like a door with a spring-lock ; puU the door after you, it locks of itself, but you cannot open it again without a key. Man's heart doth naturally lock out grace; none but he that ' hath the key of the house of David,' Jicv. iii. 7, can open the door and put it in. God hath made a promise to repentance, not of repentance; we may trust to that promise, but there is no trusting to ourselves. Nature flatters itself with that singular instance of mercy, one malefactor on the cross repenting at his last hour. But such hath been Satan's policy, to draw evil out of good, that the calling and saving of that one soul hath been the occasion of the loss of many thousands.

^V'hc^esocver repentance is, she doth not deliberate, tarries not to ask cpicstions and examine circumstances, but bestirs her joints, calls her wits and .senses together; summons her tongue to praying, her feet to walking, her hands to working, her eyes to weeping, her heart to gToaning. There is no need to bid her go, for slie runs ; she runs to the word for direction, to her own heart for remorse and compunction, to God for grace and pardon ; and wheresoever she findeth Christ, she layeth faster hold on him than the Shuuammitc did on the feet of Klisha, 2 Kings iv. 30 : ' As the Lord liveth, and as tliy .soul liveth, I will not let thee go;' no Gehazi can beat her off. She resolves that her knees .shall grow to the pavement, till mercy hath answered lier from heaven. As if she had felt an earthquake in her soul, not unlike that jailor when he fdt, the foundations of his prison shaken, she 'calls for a light; Acts xvi. L'li, the gos[.el of truth, and springs in trembling; and the first voice of her lips i.s, ' () what .shall I do to be saved V She lows with mounuiiB, like the kine that carried the ark, and never rests till she comes to Ik'thshcineHh, the fields of mercy. The good star that guides her is the proamc of God ; this gives her light through all the dark clouds of her sor-

row. Confidence is her life and soul; she draws no other breath than the persuasion of mercy, that the ' king of Israel is a merciful king,' 1 Kings XX. 31. Faith is the heart-blood of repentance. The matter, composition, constitution, substance of it, is amendment of life; there be many counterfeits that walk in her habit, as King Ahab had his shadows, but that is her substance. Her countenance is spare and thin ; she hath not eyes standing out with fatness. Her diet is abstinence; her garment and livery, sackcloth and ashes; the paper in her hand is a petition ; her dialect is Miserere; aiid lest her own lusts should be bane within her, she sweats them out with confession and tears.

We luiow there is no other fortification against the judgments of God but repentance. His forces be invisible, invincible; not repelled with sword and target; neither portcullis nor fortress can keep them out; there is nothing in the world that can encounter them but repentance. They had long since laid our honour m the dust, rotted our carcases in the pit, sunk our souls into hell, but for repentance. Which of those saints, that are now saved in heaven, have not sinned upon earth ? What could save them but repentance ? Their infirmities are recorded not only for the instruction of those that stand, but also for the consolation of them that are fallen. In-struunt pafriarchce, non solum docentes, sed et err antes, —They do not only teach us by their doctrines, but even by their very errors. Noah was overcome with a little wine, that escaped drowning with the world in that deluge of water. Lot was scorched with the flame of unnatural lust, that escaped burning in the fire of Sodom. Samson, the strongest, Solomon, the wisest, fell by a woman. One balm recovered them all, blessed repentance. Let our souls, from these premises, and upon the assurance of God's promises, conclude, that if we repent, our sins are not greater, God's mercies cannot be less. Thus was Nineveh overthrowTi, that she might not be overthrown. Quce peccatis periit, JJetibus stetit. Every man must either be a Ninevite or a Sodomite; a Ninevite sorrowing for sin, or a Sodomite suffering for sin. Doleat peccata reus, ut deleat peccata Deus. If we grieve, God will forgive.

Nor yet must we think with this one short word, ' I repent,' to answer for the multitude of our offences; as if we, that had sinned in parcels, should be forgiven in gross. It were a rare favour, if we paying but one particular of a whole book of debts, should be granted a general acquittance for them all No, let us reckon up our sins to God in confession, that our hearts may find a plenary absolution. Nor is it enough to recount them, but we must recant them. Do we think, because we do not remember them, that God hath forgotten them ? Are not debts of many years' standing to be called for ? Man's justice doth not forbear old offenders; no tract of time can eat out the characters of blood. ' Thou writest bitter things against me, when thou makest me to possess the sins of my youth,' Job xiii. 26. ' These things hast thou done,' saith God, ' and I held my peace : therefore thou thoughtest me altogether such a one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before tlune eyes,' Ps. 1. 21. Therefore let us number all the sins we can, and then God will forgive us all the suis we have.

If we could truly weigh our iniquities, we must needs find a necessity either of repenting or of perishing. Shall we make God to frown upon us in heaven, arm all his creatures against us on earth 1 shall we force his curses upon us and ours ; take his rod, and teach it to scourge us with all temporal plagues ; and not repent ? Shall we wound our own consciences with sins, that they may wound us with eternal torments; make a hell in our bosoms here, and open the gates of that lower hell to devour us here-

TUE sixner's mourning-habit. [Sermon TV.-

after : and not repent? Do we by sin give Satan a right in us, a power over US', Ml advantage against us ; and not labour to cross bis mischiefs by repontaiice ? Do we cast brimstone into that infernal fire, as if it could not be h.'t enough, or we should fail of tortures except we make ourselves our own U)rnjentor3 ; and not rather seek to quench those flames ^vith our penitent tears / ■, ■, ^

If we could see the farewell of sin, we would abhor it, and ourselves for it. Could David have conceived the grief of his broken bones beforehand, he had csciiped those aspersions of lust and blood. Had Achan foreseen the Htone.s about ills cars, before he filched those accursed things, he would never have lin"ur<-'d them. But it may be said of us, as it was of our first parents, when they had once sinned and f.dlen : Tunc aperti sunt oculi eorum, —' Then their eyes were opened,' Gen. iii. 7; then, not before. In this place comes in repentance, as a rectifier of disorders, a recaller of aberrations, a repairer of all decays and breaches. So it pleaseth God's mercy that the daughter should be the death of the mother. Peccatum tristitiam peperit, tristitia pec-cattiiH i-oiiUret, —Sin bred sorrow, sorrow shall kill sin ; as the oil of scorpions heaU'th the sting of scorpions.

If I should give you the picture of repentance, I would tell you that she is a virgin fair and lovely ;^nd those tears, which seem to do violence to her beauty, rather indeed grace it. Her breast is sore with the strokes of her own i)cnitent hands, which are always either in ^Moses's posture in the mount, lift up towards heaven, or the publican's in the temple, smiting her bo.som. Her knees are hardened with constant praying; her voice is hoarse with calling to heaven ; and when she cannot speak, she delivers her mind in groans. There is not a tear falls from her, but an angel holds a bottle to catch it. She thinks every man's sins less than her own, every man's good deeds more. Her compunctions are unspeakable, known only to God and herself She could wish, not only men, but even beasts, and trees, and stones, to mourn with her. She thinks no sun should shine, because she t'lkes no pleasure in it; that the lilies should be clothed in black, because she is so apparelled. Mercy comes down like a glorious cherub, and lights on her bosom, with this message from God, ' I have heard thy prayers, and seen thy tears ;' so with a handkerchief of comfort dries her cheeks, and tells her that .she is accepted in Jesus Christ.

In dust and ashes. —I have but one stair more, down from both text and pulpit; and it is a very low one—'dust and ashes.'

An adorned body is not the vehicle of a humbled soul. Job, before his aftliction, was not poor. Doubtless he had his wardrobe, his change and choice of garments. Yet now, how doth his humbled soul contemn them, as if he threw away his vesture, saying, I have worn thee for pomp, given countenance to a silken case ; I (|uite mistook thy nature ; get thee from me, I am wear>- of tliy service ; thou hast made me honourable with men, thou f.-iu.st get me no estimation before the Lord. Repentance gives a farewell not only to wonted delights, but even to natural refreshings. Job lies not on a b.'d of ro.seH and violets, as did the Sybarites; nor on a couch beautified with the tq)cstry of Eg}-pt; but on a bed of ashes. Sackclotlj is his apparel ; du.st juid ashes the lace and embroidery of it. Tlius Nineveh's king, ui-on that fearful Kenteiu-e, ' ro.se fnmi his tlinme, laid his robe from hini, cover.'d him.solf with .sa- kcl„t],, and sat in ashe.s,' Jonah iii. G. Oh, what an alU;rati<.n c.-in repenUuice make ! From a king of the earth to a worm "f the cnrtii ; from a footcloth to .sackcloth ; from a throne to a dunirhill; from wttuig in state to lying in ashes! Whom all the reverence of the world

attended on, to whom the head was micovered, the knee bowed, the body prostrated; who had as niauy sahitations as the tinnament stars,—God save the king !—he tlirows away crown, sceptre, majesty, and all, and sits in ashes. How many doth the golden cup of honour make drunk, and drive from all sense of mortality ! Kiches and heart's ease are such usual intoxications to the souls of men, that it is rare to find any of them so low as dust and ashes.

Dust, as the remembrance of his original; ashes, as the representation of his end. Dust, that was the mother; ashes, that shall be the daughter of our bodies.

Dust, the matter of our substance, the house of our souls, the original grains whereof we were made, the top of all our kindred The glory of the strongest man, the beauty of the fairest woman, all is but dust. Dust, the only compounder of differences, the absolver of all distinctions. Who can say which was the client, which the la-«'yer; which the borrower, which the lender; which the captive, which the conqueror, when they all lie together in blended dust?

Dust; not marble nor porphyry, gold nor precious stone, was the matter of our bodies, but earth, and the fractions of the earth, dust. Dust, the sport of the wind, the very slave of the besom. This is the pit from whence we are digged, and this is the pit to which we shall be resolved. ' Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return again,' Gen. iii. 18. They that sit in the dust, and feel their own materials about them, may weU renounce the ornaments of pride, the gulf of avarice, the foolish lusts of concupiscence. Let the covetous think, What do I scrape for ? a little golden dust; the ambitious. What do I aspire for? a little honourable dust; the libidinous. What do I langoiish for 1 a little animated dust, blown away with the breath of God's displeasure.

Oh, how goodly this building of man appears when it is clothed with beauty and honour ! A face fuU of majesty, the throne of comeliness, wherein the whiteness of the lily contends with the sanguine of the rose; an active hand, an erected countenance, an eye sparkling out lustre, a smooth com-l)lexion, arising from an excellent temperature and composition; whereas other creatures, by reason of their cold and gross humours, are grown over, beasts with hair, fowls with feathers, fishes with scales. Oh, what a workman was this, that could raise such a fabric out of the earth, and lay such orient colours upon dust! Yet all is but dust, walking, talking, breathing dust; all this beauty but the effect of a well-concoctcd food, and life itself but a walk from dust to dust. Yea, and this man, or that woman, is never so beautiful as when they sit weeping for their sins in the dust: as Mary Magdalene was then fairest when she kneeled in the dust, bathing the feet of Christ with her tears, and wiping them with her hairs ; like heaven, fair sight-ward to us that are without, but more fair to them that are within.

The dust is come of the same house that we arc, and \\hen .she sees us proud and forgetful of ourselves, she thinks with herself. Why should not she that is descended as well as we bear up her plumes as high as ours ? Therefore she so often borrows wings of the wind, to mount aluft into the air, and in the streets and highways dasheth herself into our eyes, as if she would say. Are you my kindred, and will not know me ? Will you take no notice of your own mother ? To tax the folly of our ambition, the dust in the street takes pleasure to be ambitious.

The Jews in their mourning used to rend their garments, as if they would be revenged on them for increasing their pride and keeping them from the

TUE sinner's moukning-habit. [Seemon IV

sight of their nakedness. Then they put on sackcloth, and that sackcloth they sprinkled over with dust, and overstrawed with ashes, to put God m mind that if he shouM arm his displeasure agamst them, he should but contend with dust and ashfs. And what glory could that be for liiiu ? ' Shall the dust praise thee, O Gi)d I or art thou glorified in the pit r Ps. xxx. 9. Nay, rather, how often doth the Lord spare us, ' because he remembers we are but dust?' Ps. ciii U. To shew that they had lifted up themselves above their creation, and forgot of what they are made, now by repentance returning to their first image, in all prostrate humility they lie in the dust, confessing tliat the wind doth not more easily disperse the dust than the breath of God was able to bring them to nothuig.

Thus dust is not only materia nostra, or mater, our mother, or matter whereof we are made, for our ' foundation is in the dust,' Job iv. 19, but patria nostra, our country where we shall dwell. * Awake, ye that dwell in the dust,' Isa. xxvi. 19. We are no better than the dust we shake off from our feet, or brush off from our clothes. Oh, therefore, let us turn to (Jod in dust, before he turn us into dust! Yea, St Augustine goes further, and says, that not only the bodies of all men, but even the souls of some men, are no better than dust. They are so set upon earth and earthly things, that they are transformed into earth and dust, and so become the food of that old serpent, whose punishment was to eat the dust.

For ashes, they are the emblem or representation of greater miserj\ Dust only shews us that we have deserved the dissolution of our bodies. Ashes put us in mind that we have merited also the destruction of our souls. Ashes are the leavings of the fire, the offals of consumed substances. When God shall give up the largest buildings of nature to the rage of that element, it shall reduce them to a narrow room, the remnants shall be but ashes. This was all the monument of those famous cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the rest; heaps of ashes, 2 Pet. ii. 6. Ecce vix totam Hercules implevit urnam, says the poet,—That great giant scarce makes a pitcher of ashes.

For this cause the ancients used to repent in ashes, remonstrating to themselves that they deserved burning in endless fire more than those ashes wherein they wallowed. Yea, if Abraham compared himself to dust and ashes, I may compare my soul to a spark hid in the ashes, which when sickness and death shall stir up, like fire she takes her flight upwards, and leaves the heavy fruitless ashes of my body behind her.

In both, we have a lesson of our own mortality. The finger of God hath written the epitaph of man, the condition of his body, like characters printed in the dust. Man's body, so well as the ice, expounds that riddle, that gifjnit ilia 7natrem,~i]ie daughter begets the mother. Dust begot a body, and a body begets dust. Our bodies were at first strong cities, but then we ma/Ie them the forts of rebels; our offended liege sent his servant Death to arrest us of high treason. And though, for his mercies' sake in Christ, he jiardoMfd i.nr sins, yet he suffers us no more to have such strong houses, but leta us dw.'il ill paper cottages, mud walls, mortal bodies. Methusalem lived nine liundrcd sixty-nine years, yet he was the son of Enoch, who was the son of Jarcd, who was the son of Mahalaleel, who was the son of Cainan, who was tlie 8f)n of Enos, who was the son of Seth, who was the son of Adam, wlio was the son of dust. Ask the woman that hath conceived a child in her womb, Will it be a son? Peradventure so. Will it be well-formed aiul ftatund f Pcnulveiitiire so. Will it be wise ? Peradventure so. WiU wn T''^ Peradventure .so. Will it be long-lived? Peradventure so. Will It be morUl ? Yes, this is without peradventure ; it will die. Even a

heathen, when he heard that his son was dead, could say without changing countenance, Scio vie yenuisse mortalem, —I know I begot a mortal man.

An old man is said to give Alexander a little jewel, and told him that it had this virtue, so long as he kept it bright, it would outvalue the most tine gold or precious stone in the world; but if it once took dust it would not be worth a feather. What meant the sage, but to give the monarch an emblem of his own body, which, being animated with a soul, commanded the world ; but once fallen to dust, it would be worth nothing, ' for a living dog is better than a dead lion,' Ecclcs. ix. 4.

I conclude; I call you not to casting dust on your heads or sitting in ashes, but to that sorrow and compunction of soul whereof the other was but an external symbol or testimony. Let us rend our hearts and spare our garments, humble our souls without afflicting our bodies, Isa. Iviii. 5. It is not a corpse wrapped in dust and ashes, but a contrite heart, which the Lord will not despise, Ps. li. 17. Lotus repent our sins and amend our lives; so God will pardon us by the merits, save us by the mercies, and crown us with the glories of Jesus Christ.

HEAVEN MADE SURE;

THE CERTAINTY OF SALVATION.

Say xinto my soul, I am thy salvation. — Psalm XXXV. 3.

The words contain a petition for a benediction. The supplicant is a king, and his humble suit is to the King of kings : the king of Israel prays to the King of heaven and earth. He doth beg two things :—1. That God would save liim; 2. That God would certify him of it. So that the text may be distributed accordingly, in salutem, et certitudinem, —into salvation, and the (Insurance of it,.

The assurance lies first in the words, and shall have the first place in my discourse; wherein I conceive two things—the matter, and' the manner. The matter is assurance; the manner, how assured: Die animal, 'Say unto my soul.'

I. From the matter, or assurance, observe—

1. That salvation may be made sure to a man. Da\dd would never pray for that whicli could not be. Nor would St Peter charge us with a duty which stood not in possibility to be performed : 2 Pet. i. 10, 'Make your flection sure.' And to stop the bawling throats of all cavilling adversaries, Paul directly proves it: 2 Cor. xiiL 5, ' Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates T We may then know th.at Christ is in us : if Christ be in us, we are in Christ; if we be in Christ, we c^mnot be condenmed; for, Rom. viii. 1, ' There is no damnation to them winch arc in Christ Jesus.'

Put I le;ive this point, that it may be sure, as granted; and come to ourselves, tliat we may make it sure. The Papists deny this, and teach tho cnntrary, tliut salvation caimot be made sure : much good do it them, with thi-ir .sorry and lu-artle.s.s doctruie ! If they make that impossible to any which (Jod hath made easy for many, 'into their secret let not my soul come,' Gen. xVix. G.

2. That the best saints have desired to make their salvation sure. David that knew it, yet entreats to know it more. Ps. xli 11, 'I know thou favourcst me ;' yet here still. Die aninui', ' Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.' A man can never be too sure of his going to heaven. If we pur-

Psalm XXXV. 3.] heaven made sure. G1

chase an inheritance on earth, we make it as sure, and our tenure as strong, as the bra-^vn of the law, or the brams of the lawyers, can devise. We have conveyance, and bonds, and fines, no strength too much. And shall we not be more curious in the settling our eternal inheritance in heaven ? Even the best certainty hath often, in this, thought itself weak. Here we find matter of coiisolailon, of reprehension, of admonition : comfort to some, reproof to others, warning to all.

(1.) Of consolation. Even David desires better assurance: to keep us from dejection, behold, they often think themselves weakest that are the strongest. Sum peccatornm maximus, dicit apostolorum non m.ininuis, —He calls himself the 'chiefest of smucrs,' 1 Tim. i. 15, that was not the least of saints. Indeed sometimes a dear saint may want feeling of the spirit of comfort. Grace comes into the soul as the morning sun into the world : there is first a dawning, then a mean light, and at last the sun in his excellent brightness. In a Christian life there is pmfessio, profectio, perfectio. A profession of the name of Christ wrought in our conversion; not the husk of religion, but the sap: 'A pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned.' Next, there is a profection, or going forward in grace, ' working up our salvation in fear and trembling.' Last, a perfection or full assurance, that we are ' sealed up to the day of redemption.'

And yet after this full assurance there may be some fear: it is not the commendation of this certainty to be void of doubting. The wealthiest saints have suspected their poverty ; and the richest in grace are yet ' poorest in spirit.' As it is seen in rich misers: they possess much, yet esteem it little in respect of what they desii-e; for plenitudo opum non implet hiatum mentis, —the fulness of riches cannot answer the insatiable afiection. WTience it comes to pass that they have restless thoughts, and vexing cares for that they have not, not caring for that they have. So many good men, rich in the graces of God's Spirit, are so desirous of more, that they regard not what they enjoy, but what they desire : complaining often that they have no grace, no love, no life. God doth sometimes, from the best men's eyes, hide that saving goodness that is in their hearts :—

[1.] To extend their desires, and sharpen their afiection. By this means he puts a hunger into their hearts after righteousness ; whereas a sensible fulness might take away their stomachs. Deferred comforts quicken the appetite.

[2.] To enlarge their joys, when they shall find again the consolation which they thought lost. Desiderata diu didcius veniunt, —What we much wished before it came, we truly love when it is come. Our lady had lost our Lord, Luke ii., three days : who can express the joy of her soul when she found him ! She rejoiced not only as a mother finding her son, but as a smner finding her Saviour. Jiicunde ohtinetur, quod diu detinetur, —What was detained from us with grief, must needs be obtained of us with joy.

[3.] To try whether we vv'ill serve God gratis, and be constant in his obedience though we find no present recompense. Satan objects that against Job, Pro nihilo ? —' Doth Job fear God for nought?' chap. L 9. Thus are we put to the test whether our service proceed from some other oblique respect, or merely out of love to God, when nothing but smart is i)resented to our instant sense.

[4.] That our care may be the greater to keep this comfort when we have it. Quod lugemus ademptum, vigilanter seniamus adepivm, —If we so sorrowfully lamented the lo.ss, sure we wUl look well to the possession.

In all this, Deus dona sua non neyat, sed commendat, —God intends not to

HKAVEN MADE SURE. [SeRMON V.

deny as his comforts, but to instruct our hearts how to value them. Cito data vilescunt,—li we might have them for the first asking, their worth would fall to the oi)inion of cheapness and contempt. We shall have it, th(^u^'h wc stay for it. And to comfort us, let us assuredly know that this niouniing for God's absence is an evident demonstration of his presence.

(2.) Of reprehension to other.s, that say they are sure of the purchase before they ever gave earnest of the bargain. Presumption is to be avoided so well as despair. For as none more complain that they want this as.surance than they that have it, so none more boast of it than they that have it not. The fond hypocrite takes his own presumption for this assurance : he lives after the flesh, yet brags of the Spirit. This false opinion ariseth partly from liis own conceit, partly from Satan's deceit.

[1.] From his own conceit: he dreams of the Spirit, and takes it granted that it ever rests within him; but when his soul awakes, he finds there no »uch manner of guest: the Holy Spirit never lodged there. Prov. xxx. 12, ' There is a generation that is pure in their own eyes, yet are not washed from their filthiness.' These pure people so vaunt their assurance of salvation, that they will scarce change places in heaven with St Peter or St Paul, without boot. The infallible mark of distinction which the Apostle sets on the sons of God is this: they are ' led by the Spirit,' Rom. viii. 14. Gal. v. IS, 'So many as are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.' The Holy Ghost is their God and their guide; and this Spirit ' leads them into all truth,* John xvi. 13, and guides them 'into the land of righteousness,' Ps, cxliii. 10. But these men wUl Spirilum ducere, lead the Spirit. They are not ductible ; they will not be led by the Spirit into truth and peace, but they will lead the Spirit, as it were, overrule the Holy Ghost to patronise their humours. Let them be adulterers, usurers, bribe-corrupted, sacrilegious, &c.; yet they are still men of the Spirit. But of what Spirit? Nescitis: we may say to them, as Christ to his two hot disciples, Luke is, 55, ' Ye know not of what spirit ye are.' It is enough, they think, to have oculos in coelo, though they have vuinus in fundo, animos in prnfundo, —It is held sufficient to have eyes fixed on heaven, though covetous hands busy on earth, and crafty miilds deep as hell. This over-venturous conceit that heaven is theirs, how ba-se and debauched lives soever they live, is not assurance, but presumption.

[2. J This ari.scth from Satan's deceit: who cries, like Korah, Num. xvi. 3, ' Ye t.ike too much upon you, seeing all the congregation is holy, every one of them.' You are holy enough, you are sure of heaven : what would you morel You may sit down and play : your work is done. Hereupon they hiiig peace and requiems to their souls, and begin to wrap up their affections in worldly joys. But tranquillitas ista tempestas est, —tliis calm is the most grievous storm. This is carnal security, not heavenly assurance. As the .lews went Hito captivity with Templum Domini —'The temple of the Lord,' itc—in tlieir lips ; so many go to hell with the water of baptism on their faces, and the assurance of .salvation in their mouths.

(:i.) Gf iiiKtntdion, teaching us to keep the even way of comfort; eschewing both the rock of presumption on the right hand, and the gulf of desperation on the left. Let ua neither be tiunidi nor iimidi, neither over-bold nor ovfT fainting, but endeavour by faith to assure ourselves of Jesus Christ, and l.y rfpcnfance to assure ourselves of faith, and by an amended life to n.H.sur." oiirs,'lve-8 of repentance. For they must here live to God's glory that would hereafter live in CJod's glory.

."5. In the next place, observe the means how we may come by this assurance. Thia in diacoverod iu the text: JJic anima-, ' Say unto my soul.' Who

must speak 1 God. To whom must he speak 1 to the soul. So that in this assurance God and the soul must meet. This St Paul demonstrates, Rom. viii. 1G, ' The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.' The word is a\j;M,'xa»TvsiTv, contestari, to bear witness together. Neither our spirit alone, nor God's Spirit alone, makes this certificate, but both concurring.

Not our spirit alone can give this assurance; for man's heart is always evil, often deceitful. At all times evii : Gen. vi. 5, ' Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually.' At some times deceitful : Jer. xvii. 9, ' The heart is deceitful above all tilings, and desperately wicked ; who can know it?' Non novi anhnam meam, saith Job, chap. ix. 21, 'I know not my own soul, though I were perfect.' And Paul, concerning his apostleship : 1 Cor. iv, 4, ' I know nothing by myself, yet am I not hereby justified.' And if David's soul could have made a sufficient testimony alone, what need he pray. Die anivuv, ' Say thoic to my soul V Some have a true zeal of a false rehgion, and some a false zeal of a true religion. Paul, before his conversion, had a true zeal of a fiilse religion ; Gal. i. 14, ' I was exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.' The Laodiceans had a false, or rather no zeal of a true religion : Rev. iii. 15, ' I know thy works, that thou art neither hot nor cold.' So that when about this certificate a man deals with his heart singly. Ids heart will deal with him doubly.

No ; nor doth God's Spirit alone give this testimony, lest a vain illusion should be taken for tliis holy persuasion. But both God's Spirit and our spirit meeting together are Concordes and contestes, joint witnesses. Indeed, the principal work comes from God's Spirit; he is the primary cause of this assurance. Now, he certifies us by word, by deed, and by seal. By word, terming us in the Scripture God's children, and putting into our mouths that filial voice whereby we cry, ' Abba, Father.' By deed : Gal. v. 22, ' The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering,' &c. By these is our * election made sure,' saith St Peter, 2 Epist. i. 10. By seal: ' Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you are sealed to the day of redemption.' Now our spirit witnesseth with him from the sanctity of our life, faith, and reformation. ' He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself,' 1 John v. 10.

4. Lastly, this is the sweetest comfort that can come to a man in this life, even a heaven upon earth, to be ascertained of his salvation. There are many mysteries in the world, which curious wits with perplexful studies strive to apprehend. But without this, ' he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow,' Eccle?. i. 18. Unum necessarium, this one thing is only necessary; whatsoever 1 leave unknown, let me know this, that I am the Lord's. Qui Christum discit, satis est, si ccetera nescit, —He may without danger be ignorant of other things that truly knows Jesus Christ.

There is no potion of misery so embittered with gall but this can sweeten it with a comfortable relish. When enemies assault us, get us under, triumph over us, imagining that salvation itself cannot save us, what is our comfort ? iVoi't in quern credidi, —' I know whom I have believed ;' I am sure the Lord ■will not forsake me. Deficit panis 1 thou wantest bread; God is thy bread of life. We want a pillow; God is our * resting-place,' Ps. xxxii. 7. We may be sine veste, non sijie fide; sine cibo, non sine Christo; sine domo, non sine Domino, —without apparel, not without faith; without meat, not without Christ; without a house, never without the Lord. What state can there be wherein the stay of this heavenly assurance gives us not peace and joy?

Are we clapped up in a dark and desolate dungeon ? there the light of the

HEAVEN MADE SURE. [SeRMON V.

G4

sun cannot enter, the light of mercy not be kept out. What restrained body, that hath the assurance of this eternal peace, will not pity the darkness of the proHuie man's liberty, or rather the liberty of his darkness? No walls ran kcej) t)ut an infinite spirit; no darkness can be uncomfortable where ' the Father of lights,' James L 17, and the ' Sun of righteousness,' Mai. iv. 2, .sliinoth. The presence of glorious angels is much, but of the most glorious God is enough.

Are we ca.st out in exile, our backs to our native home 1 —all the world is our way. ^^^lither can we go from God 1 Ps. cxxxix, 7, ' Whither shall I go from thy face ? or wliither shall I flee from thy presence 1 If I ascend,' A-c. That exile would be strange that could separate us from God. I speak not of thuse {MOT and common comforts, that in all lands and coasts it is his sun that shines, his elements of earth or water that bear us, his air we breatlie ; but of that special privilege, that his gracious presence is ever with us; that no sea is so broad as to di\4de us from his favour; that wheresoever we feed, he is our host; wheresoever we rest, the wings of his blessed providence are stretched over us. Let my soid be sure of this, though the whole world be traitors to me.

Doth the world despise us? We have sufficient recompense that God esteems us. How unworthy is that man of God's favour that cannot go away contented with it without the world's ! Doth it hate us much 1 God hates it more. That is not ever worthy wliich man honours; but that is ever ba.se which God despises. Without question, the world would be our friend if God were our enemy. The sweetness of both cannot be enjoyed j let it content us we have the best.

It may be, poverty puts pale leanness into our cheeks; God makes the worltl fat, but withal puts leanness into the soul. We decay in these temporal vanities, but we thrive in eternal riches. Job v. 22, ' The good man laughs at destruction and dearth.' Doth sickness throw us on our weary beds ? It is impossible any man should miscarry that hath God for his physician. So Martha confessed to Jesus, John xi. 21, ' Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.' Thy body is weak, thy soul is strengthened ; dust and ashes is sick, but thy eternal substance is the better for it. Vs. cxix. 71, ' It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.'

Lastly, Doth the inevitable hand of death strike thee ? Egredere, anima mea, egredere, —Go forth, my soul, with joy and assurance ; thou hast a promise to be received in peace. Happy dissolution, that parts the soul from the body, that it may knit them both to the Lord ! Death, like the proud rhili.stinc, comes marching out in liis hideous shape, daring the whole host of Israel to match him with an equal combatant. The atheist dares not die, for fear non es/^r, tiiat lie shall not be at all : the profane dares not die, for fear Jiiale esse, to bo danmed : the doubtful conscience dares not die, be-cnu.sc he knows not whether he shall be, or be damned, or not be at aU. Only the re.sulved Christian dares die, because he is assured of his election : he knows he shall be happy, and so lifts up pleasant eyes to heaven, the mfalhljle place of his eternal rest. He dares encounter with this last enemy, trample on him with the foot of disdain, and triumphantly sing over him, 1 Cor. XV. 55, ' O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?' He con.iuers m bemg conquered ; and all because God hath said to his soul, ' I am thy salvation.'

The poor l'api.st must not believe this; such an assurance to him were npocryph.il, yea, heretical. Ho nuist lie on his deathbed, call upon what

Psalm XXXV. 3.] heaven made sure. Go

Baint or angel he list, but must not dare to believe he shall go to heaven. O uncomfortable doctrine, able to lose the soul! What can follow, but fears without and terrors within, distrustful sighs and heart-breaking groans ! Go away he must with death, but whither he knows not. It would be presumption to be confident of heaven. How should purgatory stand, or the Pope's kitchen have a larder to maintain it, if men be sure of their salvation 1 Herefore they bequeath so great sums for masses, and dirges, and trentals, to be sung or said for them after they are dead, that their souls may at the last be hjvd to heaven, though first for a while they be reezed in purgatory. If this be all the comfort their i^iests, Jesuits, and confessors can give them, they may well say to them, as Job to his friends, chap. xvi. 2, ' Miserable comforters are ye all.'

But he that hath Stephen's eyes, as also Paul's heart, and the saints' tongue : he that with Stephen's eyes. Acts vii 55, can see that ' Son of man standing on the right hand of God,' as if his arms were open to welcome and embrace him, must needs, with Paul, Phil. i. 23, ' desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ,' and, with the saints, cry, ' Come, Lord, how long ! Amen ; even so, come. Lord Jesus !'

II. Thus much for the matter of the assurance, let us now come to the manner : Die animce, ' Say unto my soul.'

Say. —But is God a man 1 Hath he a tongue 1 How doth David desire him to speak ? That God who made the ear, shall not he hear 1 He that made the eye, shall not he see 1 He that made the tongue, shall not he speak 1 He that sees without eyes, and hears without ears, and walks without feet, and works without hands, can speak without a tongue. Now God may be said to speak divers ways.

1. God hath spoken to some by his own voice. To Adam : Vocem audive-runt, Gen. iii. 8,' They heard the voice of God,' (tc. To Israel: Deut. iv. 15, * The Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire ; ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude ; only ye heard a voice.' To Christ : John xii. 28, ' There came a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and I will glorify it.' This St Peter testifies : 2 Pet. i. 17, ' There came a voice from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'

2. To omit visions, and dreams, and clouds, and chcrubims, and angels, Urim and Thummim; God speaks also by Ids ivorks : Ps. six. 1, 'The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handywork.' Manus loquuntur, —his works have a tongue. Opera testantur de me, saith Christ,—' My works bear witness of me.' We may thus understand God ex opei'ibus ; his actions preach his will.

3. God speaks by his Son : Heb. i. 1, * God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.' He is therefore called the Word, John i. The sacred Scriptures, and sayings of the prophets, given by the inspiration of God, (for ' no prophecy is of private interpretation : it came not by the will of man, but holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,' 2 Pet. i. 20, 21,) are called verbum Domini, the word of the Lord. But to distinguish God the Son from those words, he is, after an eminent sort, called o '/.dyo;, the Word, or that excellent Word. As also he is called, not a light, but ' tliat Light,' John i. 8 ; not a lamb, but ' that Lamb," ver. 29. Not a vocal word formed by the tongue beating the air, for he was before either sound or air, but the mental and substantial word gf his Father; but—

gg HEAVEN MADE SURE. [SeRMON V.

' Ipse paternl Pectoris effigies, lumenque ii lumine vero;'—* according to that of Paul, Heb. L 3, ' The brightness of his glory, and express image of his person.'

4. God speaks by his Scriptures : Rom. xv. 4, ' Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope.' Scripta sunt,—t]i&y are written. Tilings that go only by tale or tradition meet with such variations, augmeutatii)n.s, ubbreviations, corruptions, false glosses, that, as in a lawyer's plwiding, truth is lost in the qucere for her. Related things we are long in gettin!;,°quick: in forgetting; therefore God commanded his law should be written. Litem scripta manet.

Thus God doth effectually speak to us. Many good wholesome instructions have dropped from human pens, to lesson and direct man in goodness; but there is no promise given to any word to convert the soul but to God's ATord.

Without this, antiquity is novelty, novelty subtlety, subtlety death. Theo-loffia scholastica multis modis sophistica, —School divinity is little better than mere sophistry. Plus argutiarum quam doctrinoe, plus doctrince quam usus, —It hath more quickness than soundness, more sauce than meat, more difficulty than doctrine, more doctrine than use.

This Scripture is the perfect and absolute rule. Bellarmiue acknowledgeth two things requirable in a perfect rule—certainty and evidence. If it be not certain, it is not rule; if it be not evident, it is no rule to us. Only the Scripture is, both in truth and evidence, a perfect rule. Other writings may have canonical verity ; the Scripture only hath canonical authority. Others, like oil, may make cheerful man's countenance; but this, like bread, strengthens his heart. This is the absolute rule : ' And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God,' Gal. vi. 16.

Oh that we had hearts to bless God for his mercy, that the Scriptures are among us, and that not sealed up under an unknown tongue ! The time was when-a devout father was glad of a piece of the New Testament in English ; when he took his little son into a corner, and with joy of soul heard him read a chapter, so that even children became fathers to their fathers, and begat them to Christ. Now, as if the commonness had abated the worth, our lUbles lie dusty in the windows; it is all if a Sunday-handling quit them from perpetual oblivion. Few can read, fewer do read, fewest of all read as they should. God of his infinite mercy lay not to our charge this neglect!

5. God speaks by his ministers, expomiding and opening to us those Scriptures. These are legati d, latere, —dispensers of the mysteries of heaven ; * aniba-ssadors for Christ, as if God did beseech you through us : so we pray you in Christ's stead, that you would be reconciled to God,' 2 Cor. v. 20. Thi.s voice is continually sounding in our churches, beating upon our ears; I would it could i)ierce our consciences, and that our lives would echo to it in an answerable obedience. How great should be our thankfulness !

God hath dealt with us as he did with Elijah: 1 Kings xix. 11, 'The I.a3rd pa.s.scd by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in ideccs the r(M'kH before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind : after the wind came an earthquake ; but the Lord was not in the earthquake : after the carlhcjuake a fire ; but the Lord was not in the fire : and after the firo a .still voice ;' and the Lord came with that voice. After the same man-* I'allul.

PrfALM XXXV. 3.] HEAVEN MADE SURE. C7

uer hath God done to this hmd. In the time of King Henry the Eighth, there came a great and mighty wind, that rent down churches, overthrew altarages, impropriated from ministers their livings, that made laymen sub-stantiid {)arsons, and clergymen their vicar-shadows. It blew away the rights of Levi into the lap of Lssachar. A violent wind ; but God was not in that wind. In the days of King Edward the Sixth, there came a terrible earthquake, hideous vapours of treasons and conspiracies, rumbling from Rome, to shake the foundations of that church, which had now left off loving the whore, and turned Antichrist quite out of his saddle. Excommunications of prince and people ; execrations and curses in their tetrical forms with bell, book, and candle ; indulgences, bulls, pardons, promises of heaven to all traitors that would extirpate such a king and kingdom. A monstrous earthquake ; but God was not in the earthquake. In the days of Queen Mary came the fire, an unmerciful fire, such a one as was never before kindled in England, and, we trust in Jesus Christ, never shall be again. It raged against all that professed the gospel of Christ; made bonfires of silly women for not understanding that their inefl'able mystery of transubstantiation; burnt the mother with the child. Bonner and Gardiner were those hellish bellows that set it on fiaming. A raging and insatiable fire; but God was not in that fire. In the days of Queen Elizabeth, of blessed memory, came the still voice, saluting us with the songs of Sion, and speaking the comfortable things of Jesus Christ. And God came with this voice. This sweet and blessed voice is still continued by our gracious sovereign. God long preserve him with it, and it with him, and us all with them both !

Let us not say of this blessing, as Lot of Zoar, ' Is it not a little one?' nor be weary of manna with Israel, lest God's voice grow dumb unto us, and, to our woe, we hear it ^^eak no more. No, rather let our hearts answer with Samuel, 2 Sam. iii. 10, ' Speak, Lord, for thy servants hear.' If we will not hear him say to our souls, ' I am your salvation,' we shall hear him say, 'Depart from me, I know you not' So saith Wisdom, Prov. i. 24-2G, ' Because I have called, and ye refused ; I will therefore laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh.' The gallant promiscth himself many years, and in them all to rejoice. He thinks of preachers, as the devil said to Christ, that we come to ' torment him before his time.' Well, then, ' Rejoice,' saith God, Eccles. xi. 9; ' let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth.' But ivonice, he mocks when he says so. Now, quod Deus lajid-tur ridens, tu lege lacri/mans, —what God speaks laughing, do thou read lamenting. If God once laughs, it is high time for us to weep. They will not hear God when he preacheth in their health ; God will not hear them when they pray in their sickness. They would not hearken to him in the pulpit, nor he to them on their deathbed.

6. God speaks by his Spirit: this ' Spirit beareth witness with our spirit,' &c. Perhaps this is that 'voice behind us,' Isa. xxx. 21, as it were whis-})ering to our thoughts, ' This is the way, walk in it.' This is that speaking Sl)irit: ' It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speak-eth in you,' Matt. x. 20. It is this Spirit that speaks for us, and speaks to us, and speaks in us. It is the church's prayer, Cant. i. 2, ' Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.' Sandus Spiritics oscidum I'atns, —The Holy Gho.st is the kiss of God the Father. Whom God kisseth, he loveth.

Now by all these ways doth God speak peace to our consciences, and say to our souls that he is our .salvation :—

1. He may speak with his own voice : and thus he gave assurance to Abraham, Gen. xv. 1, ' Fear not, I am thy shield, and thy eyieeding great

HEAVEN MADE SUKE. [SeEMON V.

reward' If God speak comfort, let hell roar horror. 2. He may speak by his works : actual mercies to us demonstrate that we are in his favour, and shall not be condemned. Ps. xU. 11, ' By this I know thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.' 3. He may speak by his Son : Matt. xi. 28, ' Come to me, all that labour and are hea^y laden, and I will ea.<?e you.' 4.' He may speak by his Scripture : this is God's epistle to us, and his letters patent, wherein are granted to us all the privileges of salvation. A universal siquis : ' Whosoever believes, and is baptized, shall be saveiL' 5. He may speak by his ministers, to whom he hath given ' the ministry of reconciliation,' 2 Cor. v. 19. 6. He doth speak this by his Spirit: he ' sendeth forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father,' Gal. iv. 6. By all these voices God says to his elect, ' I am your siilvation.'

To MV Soul. —Many hear God speaking comfort to the corporal ear, that hear him not speaking this to the soul. They hear him, but they feel him not. The best assurance is from feeling, ' Come near, let me feel thee, my son,' said Isaac to Jacob, Gen. xxvii. 21. Let me feel thee, my Father, say we to God. The thronging Jews heard Christ, but Zaccheus, that believing publican, felt Christ. ' This day is salvation come to thy house,' Luke xuc. 9.

My Soul. —There is no vexation to the vexation of the soul; so no consolation to the consolation of the soul. David in this psalm, ver. 17, calls it his ' darling.' ' Rescue my soul from their destructions, my darling from the lions.' The .same prophet complained of a great unrest, when ' his soul was disquieted within him,' Ps. xlii. 11. Jonah, of a grievous sickness, when his soul fainted, chap. iL 7. Joseph had a cruel bondage, when the iron entered his soul, Ps. cv. 18. So, no comfort to tlye comfort of the soul. ' In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts have refreshed my soul,' Ps. xciv. 19. The wicked hear tell of God's mercies,— comynuniter audimus verbum sahttis, —but God speaks not to their souls. Therefore they cannot say with Mary, •' My soul rejoiceth.' This joy, when God speaks peace to the soul, is inrfabile gaiidium, —a jubilation of the heart, which a man" can nciihcx redtare nor reticere, neither suppress nor express. It gives end to all jars, doubts, and differences ; overcomes the world, nonsuits the devil, and makes a man keep Hilary-term all his life.

To MY Soul. — Mine. I might here examine whose this Tneoe is. Who is the owner of this my ? A prophet, a king, a man after God's own heart ; that confessed himself the beloved of God ; that knew the Lord would never forsake hirii; holy, happy David owns this mece: he knows the Lord loves him, yet desires to know it more; Die anima mece, —Say to my soul.

lint let this teach us to make much of this my. Luther says there is great divinity in pronouns. The assurance that God will save some is a faith iufident to devils. The very reprobates may believe that there is a book of election; but Cod never told them that their names were written there. The hiingiy beggar at the feast-house gate smells good cheer, but the master doth not say, This is provided for thee. It is small comfort to the haibourles.s wretch to pass through a goodly city, and see many glorious buildings, when he cannot say, IIa>c mea domus, —I have a place here. The be:iuty of that excellent city Jerusalem, built with sapphires, emeralds, chrysolites, aiul such preci)us stones, the foundation and walls whereof are pcrf.Tt gnjd, Jvev. xxi., atT.inls a soul no comfort, unless he can say, Mea dvitnii,~-l iiave a mansion in it. The all-sufficient merits of Christ do thee no good, uulcsa lua pars el j>oiiio, he be thy Saviour. Happy soul that can

say with tlie Psalmist, '0 Lord, thou art my portion!' Let us all have oil in our lamps, lest if we be then to buy, beg, or borrow, we be shut out of doors, like the fools, not worthy of entrance. Pray, * Lord, say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.'

I am thy Salvation. —The petition is ended. I will but look into the benediction, wherein I should consider these four circumstances: Quis, Quid, Cut, Quando, —Who, What, To whom. When.

Who ?— The Lord. To the Lord David prays. He hath made a good choice, for there is salvation in none other. Hos. xiii. 9, ' Thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help.' The world fails, the flesh fails, the devil kills, only the Lord saves.

What] — Salvation. A special good thing; every man's desire. Who would not be saved 1 Every man would go to heaven, though perhaps he runs a course directly to heD. Beatus vult homo esse, etiani non sic vivendo ut possit esse, —Man would be blessed, though he takes the course to be cursed. I will give thee a lordship, saith God to Esau. I will give thee a kingdom, saith God to Saul. I will give thee an apostleship, saith God to Judas. But, I will be thy salvation, he says to David, and to none but saints.

Indeed this voice comes from heaven, comes unto earth ; but only through the Mediator betwixt heaven and earth, Jesus Christ. He is the alone Saviour. Worldlings possess many things, but have right to nothing, because not right to him that is ' the heir of all things,' Christ, Heb. i. 2. The soul is the perfection of the body, reason of the soul, religion of reason, faith of religion, Christ of faith. A man can warrant us on earth that our land is ours, our garment ours, our money, servant, beast ours, and that he is a thief who robs us of these. But all the men in the world cannot warrant us our salvation, but only Jesus Christ. Therefore that we may have assurance that all these are ours, and that we shall never answer for every bit of bread we have eaten, and for every drop of wine we have drunk; that our possessions are our own, our gold, robes, rents, revenues, are our own; let us be Christ's. 1 Cor. iii. 22, 'Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.' Be sure of salvation, and be sure of all. For ' he that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?' Piom. \Tii. 32.

To WHOM?— Jli/ salvation. Not others' only, but mine. A man and a Christian are two creatures. He may be a man that hath reason and outward blessings ; he is only a Christian that hath faith, and part in the salvation of Christ. God is plentiful salvation, but it is not ordhiary to find- a ciii, —to whom. Much of heaven is lost for lack of a hand to apprehend it. All pa.ssengers in this world presume they are going to heaven, but we may guess by the throng that the greater part take the broader way. Christ leaving the earth in respect of his bodily presence, left there his gospel to apply to men's souls the virtue of his death and passion, ilinistcrs preach this gospel, people hear this gospel, all boast of this gospel ; yet himself foretells that when he comes again he shall scarce ' find faith upon the earth.' No doubt he shall find Christians enough, but scarce faith. Salvation is common, as St Jude speaketh, ver. 3, ' When I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation;' but few make it proper to themselves. That God is ??iy salvation and thy salvation, this is the comfort.

When ?—In the time present, / am. Sum; non sufficit, (jund era. It is comfort to Israel in captivity that God .says, Ero tua redemptio, —I will redeem thee; but the assurance that quiets the conscience is this, ' I am thy

JQ HEAVEX MADE SURE. [SkEMOX V.

salvation,' Ajs God said to Abraham, ' Fear not, I am with thee.' Deferred hope faints tlic heart. Whatsoever God forbears to assure us, oh, pray we him not to delay this : ' Lord, say to our souls, I am your salvation.'

To conclude: it is salvation our j.rophet desires ; that God would seal biui up for his child, then certify him of it. He requests not riches; he knew that man may be better fed than taught, that wealth doth but frank men up to death. He that prefers riches before his soul, doth but sell the horse to buy the saddle, or kill a good horse to catch a hare. He begs not honour : many have leai)t from the high throne to the low pit. The greatest commander on earth hath not a foot of ground in heaven, except he can get it by entitling him.sclf to Christ. He desires not pleasures; he knows there are ns great miseries beyond prosperity as on this side it. And that all vanity is but the indulgence of the present time; a minute begins, continues, ends it: for it endures but the acting, and leaves no solace in the memory. In the fairest garden of delights there is somewhat quod in ipsis florihus anf/at, that stings in the midst of all vain contents.

In a word, it is not momentary, variable, apt to either change or chance, that he desires; but eternal salvation. He seeks, like Mary, ' that better part which shall never be taken from him.' The wise man's mind is ever above the moon, saith Seneca : let the world make never so great a noise, as if it all ran upon coaches, and all those full of roarers, yet all peace is there. It is not sublunary, under the wheel of changeable mortality, that he wishes, but salvati(jn. To be saved is simply the best plot: beat your brains, and break your sleeps, and waste your marrows, to be wealthy, to be worthy— for riches, for honours; plot, study, contrive, be as politic as you can; and then kiss the child of your own brains, hug your inventions, applaud your wits, doat upon your advancements or advantagements; yet all these are but dreams. When you awake, you shall confess that to make sure your salvation was the best plot: and no study shall yield you comfort but what hath been spent about it. What should we then do but work and pray ? ' Work,' saith Paul, Phil, il 12,—' Work up your salvation with fear and trembling;' and then pray with our prophet, ' Lord, say to our souls, thou art our salvation," -with comfort and rejoicing.

•

A GENERATION OF SERPENTS.

Hieir poison is like the poison of a serpent: like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear. — Psalm LVIII. 4.

This verse spends itself on a double comparison; of persons and conditions.

The persons compared are men and serpents; the conditions or qualities upon which the similitude stands are poison and deafness. The former whereof is mdefinite: ' Their poison is as the poison of a serpent,' any serpent. The latter is restrictive : ' Their deafness is like the adder,' one kind of serpents.

I. I will begin with the conditions ; for if the same qualities be found in men that are in serpents, there will follow fitly, too fitly, a comparison of their persons. The first quality here ascribed to the wicked by the Psalmist is—

Poison. —There is such a thing as poison; but where to be found ? Uhicunque fuerit, in honiine quis qucereret? —Wheresoever it is, in man who would look for it] God made mans body of the dust; he mingled no poison with it. He inspireth his soul from heaven ; he breathes no poison with it. He feeds him with bread; he conveys no poison with it. Unde venenum 1 —Whence is this poison % Matt. xiii. 27, * Didst not thou, 0 Lord, sow good seed in thy field ?' JJnde zizanice, —'From whence then hath it tares?' Whence? Hoc fecit inimicus, —' The enemy hath done this.' We may perceive the devil in it. That great serpent, the red dragon, hath poured into wicked hearts this poison.

His own poison, malitiam, wickedness. Cum infundit peccatum, infundit venenum, —"NVhen he pours in sin, he pours in poison. Sin is poison. Original pravity is called corruption; actual, poison. The \dolence and vii'ulcnce of this venomous quahty comes not at first. Nemo fit repente pes-simus, —No man becomes worst at the first dash. We are born corrupt, we have made ourselves poisonous. There be three degrees, as it were so many ages, in sin :— First, Secret sin; an ulcer lying in the bones, but skinned over with hypocrisy. Secondh/, Open sin, bursting forth into manifest vil-lany. The former is corruption, the second eruption. Thirdly, Frequented and confirmed sin, and that is rank poison, envenoming soul and body.

When it is imposthuniated to this ripeness and rankncss, it impudently ju-stifies wickedness for goodness; venenum pro nutrimento, —poison for nutriment. It feeds on, swallows, digests sin, as if it were uourishmcut; as

-■> A GEXEEATIOX OF SERPKNTS. [SeRMON VI.

hemlock is good meat for goats, and spiders for monkeys. It despiseth all rci.r-H.f, 'sitting in the sconier's cliair,' Ps. i. 1 ; which, for the poison, is called by divines, secies pestilenti(e, —the seat of pestilence. Peccator cum in profundum venen't, contemnet, —When a wicked man comes to the depth and worst of sin, he despiseth. Then the Hebrew will despise Moses, Exod. ii. 14, 'Who made thee a prince and a judge over us?' Then Ahab will quarrel with Micaiah, 1 Kings xxii. 18, because he doth not prophesy good unto him. Every child in Bethel will mock Elisha, 2 Kings ii. 23, and be bold to call him ' bald-pate.' Here is aj^original drop of venom swollen to a main ocean of poison : as one drop of Some serpents' poison, lighting on the hand, gets into the veins, and so spreads itself over all the body, till it hath stifled the vital spirits.

In this poison there is a double pestilent effect— inficit, interficit.

It i.s to themselves death; to others, a contagious sickness.

1. To themselves. —It is an epidemical corruption, dispersing the venom over all parts of body and soul. It poisons the heart with falsehood, the head with lightness, the eyes with adultery, the tongue with blasphemy, the hands with oppression, the whole body with intemperance. It poisons beauty with wantonness, strength vith violence, wit with wilfulness, learning with dissension, devotion with superstition, religion with treason. If they be greater gifts, it poisons them with pride, putting cantharides into the oU-pot. If meaner, it poisons them with hypocrisy, putting coloquintida into the porridge-pot. And where the cantharides of pride or coloquintida of hypocrisy are, there is veiienum et exitium, —poison and death. This poison, faster than a gangrene, nnis from joint to joint; as an enemy takes fort after fort till he hath won the whole country.

(1.) It is in the thought: Gen. vi. 5, the imaginations are full of poison. Every evil thought is not thus poisonous. There is malum innatum, and insemiriatu})!, saith liernard,—an evil bred in us, and an evil sown in us. Sins, like weeds, wUl grow fast enough without sowing; but qui semi-naverit, —' He that sows to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption,' Gal. vi, 8. He that shall sow this venomous seed, poisons his soul. Jer. iv. 14, ' Cleanse thy heart from iniquity, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee % ' Lodge ! He doth not speak of transient, but permanent sins: such as 'meditate mischief,' Mic. ii. 1; study to be naught; whose imaginations suck poison out of every object, yea, though it be good, as the spider sucks poison from the sweetest flower*

Vanishing thoughts, that pass through a good man without approbation, not without suppression, are properly non mors, sed morbus anima;, sed de-/onnita.\—i\\Q disease, not death of the soul, but the deformity. They are \mmiis»<t, Satan's darts shot through us : in corde, non de corde, in the licart, not of the heart. Which the godly sentiunt, von consentiunt, —feel, but givc^ no liking to. They are our crosses, rather than our sins. Such a thought i.s but mnrljHs mentis, the disease of the mind ; the other morsus ser-pentui,ihc w..und or poison of the serpent. The allowed filthy cogitation is the poi.son. Thus are the thoughts poisoned.

(2.) From thi-nce it runs to the senses, and sets open those windows to let in the ])(.i.son..UH air of wickedness. The five senses are the Cinque Forts, when^ all the great traflic of the devil is taken in. They are the pores whereby Satan ronvey.s in the stinking breath of temptation.

The ear is set wide open to receive in the poison of scurrUous songs, obsopnc jests, seditious libels. It is not only an Athenian ear, novitatis avida, Kreedy of news; but a Cretian ear, pravitatis avida, greedy of evil. It

listens to hear of civil wars, uncivil treasons. It would fiiin have heard the great thunder-clap which the gunpowder should have made at the blowing up of the Parliament-house. Here is an ear for the de\il. Such ears have the Jesuits: they would fain hear of the ruin of kingdoms. What would make others' ears tingle, 1 Sam. iii. 11, makes their ears tickle. Auirs illcs in se sentiant, quod audire de aliis ciipiunt, —Let such ears feel that woe themselves which they desire so earnestly to hear of others.

The ei/elid is set open with the gags of lust and envy. A libidinous eye draws in much poison. There be ' eyes full of adultery,' saith the Apostle. They fetch in seeds of poison from the theatre; yea,—I tremble to speak it,— from the church of God. It beholds beauty, (God's rare workmanship on a piece of clay,) not to bless the Creator, but to draw a curse on the creature. Like a melancholy distracted man, that drowns himself in a clear crystal river. To such, chaste beauty is like the bellows; though its own breath be cold, it makes them burn.

There is another kind of eye that derives poison to the heart: the envious eye, that is vexed at the richer furniture, fatter estate, or higher honour of another; thinking his own not good, because his neighbour hath better. Any man's advancement is so capital an offence to his malice, that he could shoot out his own eyes, so they might be balls of wild-fire to consume him. But his malice sucks up the greatest part of his own venom, and therewith poisons himself, rather than others. A man that sees him would say he is poisoned ; for his blood looks of a yellowish colour, like those that are bitten with vipers. His gall flows as thick in him as if he had a poisoned stomach. If he had, as Seneca wished to the envious, eyes in every place, his uncon-tainable poison would soon burst him. As he is, he would be another's enemy, but is his own mischief.

(3.) From the senses it runs to the tongue, and sets it a-swelling, a-swear-ing, that it infects the air, and poisons the very ' walls of the house,' Zech. V. 4. The excrements of the Jews, spat upon the face of our Sa\dour, were not so feculent. Their blasphemies strive to blast, not only the plants of the earth, but even the planets of heaven—the sun and stars ; and, if it were po.ssible, thoy would make new wounds in the side of Jesus Christ. If any swearer think I do his tongue ^vrong, let him read Eom. iii. 13, * The poison of asps is under their lips.' If you would know what that pestilent poison is, the next verse expounds it: ver. 14, ' Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.' They carry worse poison in ore, in their mouth, than any serpent in Cauda, in his tail. 'Their tongue is full of deadly poison,' James iii. 3. [1.] They have poison ; [2.] not dead, but deadly; mortal poison; [3.] not a little, but saturity of it; full of deadly poison.

Poison hath thus got from their silent thoughts to their moving senses, and from thence to their loud and lewd-talking tongues. And this bewrays their venom, as the serpent's hissing betrays his malice. * The li"irt of fools is in their mouth; but the mouth of the wise is in their heart,' Ecclesiast. xxi. 26. Caesar .said, he feared not Antony, whose heart was in his tongue, but Cassius, whose tongue was in his heart. A N\acked man's tongue discovers him. A bell may have a crack, though invisible; take the clapper and strike, and you shall soon perceive it. The ungodly may conceal his wickedness by silence; but if the clapper strikes, if his tongue walks, you shall quickly perceive he is cracked. A poisoned tongue cannot forbear to sputter abroad his venom.

(4.) From the tongue this poison runs to the hnndx. Anaxagoras thought man the wisest of all creatures, because he hath hands : he might

A GENERATION OF SERPENTS, [SeRMON VI.

have thought him the wickedest of all creatures, because he hath hands. No creature doth so nuich hurt with his teeth or talons as the wicked man with Ilia poisoued hands. A man doth greatly express himself by his hands. Paul, by beckoning his hand, Acts xxi. 40, procured silence. Much is done majtstate vmnus, as the poet,* by majesty of the hand. The wit seems to manifest itself in the hands : as the Italians say of the Dutchmen, that their wit dwells in their fingers' end. The power is seen in the hands. An ncsi'is lonijas re<jibus esse manus ? Yield the hand a principal instrument, yet corniptio optimi pessima. The evU hand doth not so much manifest man's wittiness as his wickedness. ' They devise iniquity, and practise it, because it is in the power of the hand,' Mic. ii. 1. The poison that was conceived in their thoughts dilates itself into their hands : cogitant, agitant.

God reproves the Jews that they had manus sanguinum, bloody hands, Isa. i. 15. And the same prophet seems to liken it to a venomous infection, Isa. lix. 3, ' Your hands are defiled with blood.' And if the tongue can be po.ssibly brought to smother the inchcrished poison, yet manus manifestabit, the hand will discover it: ver. 6, ' The act of violence is in their hands.' The Israelites soon suspected what a king Rehoboam would be, when he threatened gravitatem manus, to make his hand heavy; yea, his ' finger heavier than his father's loins.' Ahab quite disgraced himself for being thought religious, when he laid a violent hand on Naboth's vineyard. Jeroboam makes it plain that he bore no love to God's prophets, cum extendlt maiam, when he put forth his hand to strike one. Many landlords seem Christians, but they have Rehoboam's hand, a heavy hand on their tenants. Many usurers come to church, but they have Ahab's hand, to take the forfeit of the poor debtor's heritage, ilany parishioners seem to love their prophets, but they have Jeroboam's hand, a hand that strikes them, if not in person, yet in estate, undoing them and their families. This is venenata Tnanus, a poisoned hand.

(5.) L;ustly, this poison having got possession of the thoughts, words, works, it nuist needs follow that it hath taken the heart. Cor dolet, —' The whole heart is sick,' Isa. i. 5. These corrupted symptoms prove that the hcrirt is rotten. Job xx. 14, 16, ' The very meat in their bowels is turned to the g;dl of aspa They suck in the poison of asps.' If you ask why they feel it not, Paul says their sense is lost, ' they are past feeling,' Eph. vi. 19. Tlieir whole self is changed into a disease. Their body is no longer corpus, but nwrhus. As Lucan, Totum est pro vulnere corpus, —Their whole body is aa one wound or sickness. Neither can we say so properly of them that they arc sick, as that they are dead. Non a^groti, sed defuncti, —not diseased, but decoa.scd.

And in all this observe the effect of this poison in themselves. For it doth not only annoy others, but mostly destroy themselves. And herein tlieir pci.son is not only tafe and tantum, such and so much as that of serpents ; but j'lus el perniciosiiis, more and more dangerous. Seneca says, I enenum quod serjKntes in alienam perniciem proferunt, sine sua continent, —The poison wliidi serpents cast out to the damage of others, they retain ^yitho^t their own prejudice, liut the poison of the wicked, duvi alios in-Jicit,iieipsos interjicif, whilst it infects others, kills themselves. ' His own ini-(piilies .shall take the \\icked himself,' Prov. v. 22.

Their own wickedness, like poLsou, liath in themselves these three direful ,.ff,:it,H -.— It makes thciu. (1.) swell; (2.) .sv/v7/; (3.) burst.

(1.) It makes them swell with [nkh, and blows up the heart as a bladder * I'crs. (Satyr, iv.

with a quill. Quis est JJaiid ? —' Who is David ? and who is the son of Jesse r 1 Sam. xxv. 10. Yea, Qitis est Dominm? —'Who is the Almight}'', that we should serve him V J(.)b xxi. 15. Thus the spider, a poisonous vermin, ' climbs up to the roof of the king's palace,' Prov. xxx. 28. If he be in prosperity, nothing can hold him to a man. Be he but a ' thistle,' 2 Kings xiv. 9, he sends to the king of Lebanon for his daughter to be his son's wife. Though he be but a dwarf in comparison, he would swell to a son of Anak. Sin hath puffed him up, and he forgets his Maker. Jer. v. 7, * The Lord hath fed him to the full,' and he rebels against him. We have then good cause to pray with our church, ' In the time of our wealth, good Lord, deliver us.'

(2.) It makes them swill; the poison of sin is such a burning heat within them, that they must still be drinking. And the devil, their physician, hold.s them to a diet-drink; they shall not have the water of the sanctuary, that would cool thoni, but the harsh, haiish, and ill-brewed drink of corruption. They shall taste nothing but sin ; more poison still. Which is so far from quenching their thirst that it inflames it.

' Totis exquirit in agris, Quas modo poscit aquas, sitiens in corde venenum.' *

So a man puts out the lamp by pouring in more oil, and extinguisheth the fire by laying on fuel. This may for a small time allay the heat, as cold drink to a burning fever. So Ahab's fervour was a little delayed with a draught of wine out of Xaboth's vineyard. But Satan holds his guests to one kmd of liquor, and that is rank poison, the mud of sin and wickedness. He allows them no other watering-place but this puddle-wharf.

(3.) It makes them Uirst. Here be the three sore effects of sin in the soul, as of poison in the body. First, it makes a man swell; then it makes him drink ; lastly, it bursts him. Judas is hoven wdth covetousness, he drinks the money of treason, and then he bursts, liumpuntur viscera Jicdce, ' he burst out,' Acts i. 18. This is the catastrophe of a Avicked life. ' Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death,' James 1. 15.

2. To others. —You see how fatal the poison of the wicked is to themselves. It doth not only rumpere se, but corrumpere alios, burst themselves, but corrupt others. It deprives them of their own good, it depraves others' good.. The hurt it doth to others consists in correptione et coti-vptione, in outward harming, in inward defiling them.

Outwardly. —Their poison breaks forth in the injuries of all about them. They spare neither foreigner nor neighbour. There be little snakes in Babylon, that bite oiUy foreigners, and not inhabitants. Pliny writes of scorpion.s in the hill Caria, that when they sting only wound the natural-bom people of the country; but extraneos leviter viordere, but bite strangers gently or not at all. These, like fools, not only strike them that are nearest, but beteem their poison in ruinam omnium, to the overthrow of all. Such a one cannot sleep except he have done mischief; nay, he dies, if others do not die by him. £t si non aliqua nocuisset, mortuus esset. A man's land cannot escape the poison of the depopulator, nor his estate the poison of the usurer, nor his children the ravisher, nor his peace the contender, nor his name the slanderer. If their poison cannot prevail ad interitum hominis, they will spend it ad interitum nominis. If they cannot murder, they will murmur. They are the devil's ban-dogs, as one calls parsons the Pope'.s Cerberus. If • Lucan.

yg A GENERATION OF SERPENTS. [SeRMON VI.

they cannot come to bite, they will bark. If their sting cannot reach, their luoiith shall sputter out their venom.

Vea, some of them do not only this mischief whilst they live, but etiam mortiii, even dead. As Herod, that caused the noble sons of the Jews to be slain post mortem suam, after his death. They write of some serpents, that their poison can do no hurt except it be shot from the live bodies of them; but these leave behind them a still evil working poison. As we say of a charitable man, that he doeth good after he is dead; his alms main-tiiin many poor souls on earth when his soul is in heaven,— et quavivis ipse sepulliis, a/it : so these wicked sin perpetually even dead. The encloser of ct>mmons sinncth after he is dead, even so long as the poor are deprived of that benefit. He that hath robbed the church of a tenth, and so leaves it to his heir, sins after he is dead, even so long as God is made to lose his right. Moriente scrpente, montur vencnum ; but here, Moriente homine, vivit peccatiim. As one said of a lawyer, that, resolving not to be forgotten, he made his will so full of intricate quirks, that his executors, if for nothing el.se, yet for very vexation of law, might have cause to remember him. Jeroboam's sin of idolatry outlived him. The unjust decrees of a partial judge may outlive him, even so long as the adjudged inheritance remains with the wrongful possessor. The decrees of divers Popes, as in abusing the sacrament, forbidding marriage, &c., are their still living sins, though themselves be dead and rotten.

Intra nil I/. —Their poison doth most hurt by infection ; their company is as dangerous as the plague ; a man cannot come near them but he shall be contaminated. Like the weed called gosses, they make the ground barren wheresoever they grow. Their poison is got, (I.) per contactum, (2.) contractum, (3.) compadum, (4.) conspectum.

(1.) By touching. He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled. It is dangerous to sport and dally with them: Dum ludunt, Imlnnt. Prov. xxvi. 18, ' He casteth firebrands, and arrows, and death; and saith. Am I not in sport]' As .Solomon saith,' Their very mercies are cruel;' so their very jest is killing earnest.

■ {2-) By companying with them. They hurt by sporting, but worse by sorting. Prov. i. 14, ' Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse.' They that will quarter themselves with the wicked must drink of their poison. If you ask how haps it that their infection is not smelt, Bernard answers: Ubi omnes sordent, unus miiiime senlitur, —One is not smelt, where all stink.

(."'..) By confederacy; which is yet a higher degree of receiving their poison. Tlie first was a light dallying with their humours, the next a society with tliPMi in some drunken riots and disorders; but this third is a conspiracy witli thoni in tluir pernicious and deadly plots. Thus a Seminary comes from linnie, and whistles together a number of traitors : he brought poison with him in a bull's horn, and they all nmst drink it; as they report, that once one scabbed sheep from Si)ain rotted all the sheep of England.

In this manner is this poison of adultery spread from a harlot. In selling lipr fle.sh, she sells prelium pe.ccati, and takes prcemium peccati. Either pre-tium pm-li or prcumium facti, she hath her price, and gives her male his reward. This IS a damnal)le combination: he that goeth after her poisons hmisclf ;),'r romparfmn, h-. bar-ains for his own destruction.

(4 ) By ^i;,ht. As tho.se that look on iU-aiTected eyes attract .some of the nniniiH 1 by a kind of reflection, so the very beholdhig of their wicked example derives corru].tion to the heart by resultance. Many sins had been

unknown if they had not been learned by precedent. Great men graceless are the devil's special factors ; they have their new tricks of vanity to teach otliers. And they often broach these new fashions of damnation, not so much out of affection to the thing itself, as to be talked of. As Alcibiades cut off his dog's tail, that all the people might talk of his curtail. Oh the unspeakable deal of poison that is thus conveyed into men's hearts, and the innumerable souls that go to hell by pattern ! Thus they hurt others.

But I have been too copious in discovery of their poison. I should come to their deafness : but I am loath to speak of deafness till the end of the sermon.

II. Their poison being thus compared with the poison of serpents, let us now compare their persons.

They are here said to be sicut serpentes, like serpents. But, Matt, xxiii. 33, Christ calls the Pharisees very serpents; and John Baptist, Matt. iii. 7 a ' generation of vipers." And God tells Ezekiel that he did ' dwell among scorpions,' chap. ii. 6. In these places the sicut is left out, and the wicked are called very serpents. Not that the frame and form of their bodily constitution was serpentine.

It was a foolish opinion among the heathen- that there were Ophiogenes, or Anr/itigence. They write of Ophion, the companion of Cadmus, and biulder of Thebes, that he was made by Pallas of a dragon's tooth. So Ephesus was once called Colubraxia, and the people thereof Ophiussai.

I have read of one Exagon, an ambassador to Rome, being at the consul's command cast into a tun of snakes ; that they licked him with their tongues, and did him no harm. But to conclude hereon that these were of serpents' brood, we might as well say Daniel was born of lions because they did not hurt him.

They are mystical serpents I mean. And if wicked men think scorn to be called scrpent.s, let them abhor the qualities of serpents. Sin is of that power that it can work metamorphoses, and transform men into beasts and serpents."' Let us now see what serpents we have among us.

1. We have the salamander, the troublesome and litigious neighbour, who ever loves and lives in the fire of contention. Whatsoever they talk that the salamander is nourished by the fire, yet Galen and Dioscorides affirm that if it tarry long in it it will be burned, when the humidity is wasted. Whatsoever a man gets by the fire of vexation, at last his humour will be wasted, his wealth spent, and himself consumed in his own flames. Let no man think to get by his troublesomeness, as if he could be fed with fire. They talk of a net at Borne, wherein Christ's napkin is preserved, that it is washed in nothing but fire. And Paulus Venetus speaks of a kind of earth in Tartaria, which being spun into a thread, and woven into cloth, is only purged from all spots by washing it in the fire. But if ever any man grow happy by his contentiousness, I will believe that fire is nourishment.

Some make the emblem of strife the snake. Alecto sent a snake to move contention in the family of Amata.

' Unum de crinibus anguem Conjicit, inque sinum, praecordia ad intima, subdit.' +

Let the unquiet man, that is still vexing his neighbours with suits and quarrels, here take his choice, whether he will be a snake or a salamander.

2. We have the dart, and that is the angry man. This is the serpent that is thought to leap on Paul's hand. Acts xx\iii. : Jacidum vocat Africa. It

* I refer you for thia doctrine to my sermon upon Matt. x. 16. t /Eneid, vil

fjg A GENEHATION OF SERPENTS. [SeRMON VI.

gathers itself into a heap on the top of a tree, and so flies at a man, tanquam ntffUta, as a dart. Such a serpent is the hasty, furious man ; he flies upon another with a sudden blow. Some conjecture, I biow not how probably, that these wore the fiery serpents in the desert.

3. There is tlie dlpms, the drunkard. This serpent lives altogether in moorish places : the serpent in the fens, the man at the ale-house. Ovid writes of an old drunken woman, Est qucedam nomine Dipsas anus: ex re rumen habet. Her name did agree with her nature. It is ever dry, saith Lucan: MeJiis sUiehant Dipsades undis. If this sequent wound a man, it turns all his blood into poison: so the drunkard turns his blood to water, his bread to drink, his reason to jjoison, his very soul to froth.

4. There is the crocodile, the hypocrite. He will sob, and sigh, and weep, to get a man into his clutches. If his hypocrisy can get him into a good house, he will devour the patron that breeds bim, the maintainer that feeds him : he undoes the fiimily where he once sets a foot into their doors, or puts a linger into their purses. Pliny saith, the crocodile is so delighted with the sunshine, that it lies on the earth immoveable, as if it were stark dead. Let the hypocrite be franked up with prosperity, and be sleeps as securely as if earth had lost all winds and heaven the thunder. His pampered body grows so fat tliat his soul lies soft in it, at great ease, and is loath to rise.

5. The cockatrice, that is said to kill with the eyes. Illius auditos expectant nulla sumrros* The reason why it kills by sight is thus given, because the beams of a cockatrice's eye corrupt the visible spirits of a man; which corrupted, corrupt the other spirits coming from the brain, aRd life of the heart. Our common phrase hath found out creatures to match this kind of serpents—whores, usually called cockatrices. I would to God they were believed as dangerous as they are, and are named.

The cockatrice is a very hot creature, and therefore made with spiraments and breathing places all over the body, lest the compage and juncture of the whole composition should be dissolved. The intemperate heat of harlots is wor.-e, and in some kind a very reflection from the fire of hell. There is an old talc, that England was once so pestered with cockatrices, that a certain man found out one only trick to destroy them; which was by walking up and down in glass before them, whereby their own shapes were so reflected upon their own faces that they died. But it is idle, for it is more likely that the man should die by the corruption of the air from the cockatrice, than the cockatrice by the resultance of its oivn similitude from the glass; as the liarlot will sooner pervert a man than he shall convert the harlot. Indeed they say, if they first see us, they kill us ; if we first see them, they die. So if we first see the damnation of a courtesan, we save ourselves ; if tbey first Bee and wound us, we die of it,

0. There is tlie caterpillar : you all know this to be the covetous. I confer that other serpents are also fit emblems of the covetous; as the toad, that eatK sijaringly of the very earth, for fear it should be all wasted, and no food left for her. The German painters, to signify covetousness, do l-icture an old woman sitting upon a toad. Or the earth-worm: these worms eat up the fat of the earth, toads eat up those worms, and dragons eat up those toad.s. So lightly i)ctty usurers eat up the fat of the country, great oppr<'sv)rs(levoar those little extortioners, and at last the great red dragon bwaliows tliosf oppres-sors.

Kut here I especially liken them to caterpillars. Pliny saith, that little worms, bred in the green leaves of plants, prove in three days caterpillars, * Nicand.

and eat up those plants. The country breeds these covetous \vretches, and they devour her. He writes also that caterpillars are bred by a dew, incras-sated and thicked by the heat of the sun; it is the warmth of prosperity that breeds and feeds our usurers. Others say, that they come of butterflies' eggs, which the heat of the sun hatcheth, workhig so fit a passive matter to the form of a caterpillar; so commonly your usurer hatcheth his riches out of the butterflies' eggs laid abroad by prodigal young gallants. The Scripture calls them great devourers, Joel i. 4. Erucam vix pascit hortus unam* —A whole country will not content one avarous caterpillar. At last the caterpillars perish of themselves, as ours do wilfully, through famine, and are transformed mto a bare and empty bag or case. If they perish in summer, out of their rind, being broken, comes forth a butterfly. Just as we see often from the ruins of a dead usurer, that wiis a caterpillar, springs a prodigal heir, that is a painted butterflj^

7. "We have also the asp, that is the traitorous Seminary. Lucan writes that the original of asps was Africa, and that merchants translated them into Europe.

' Sed qiiis erit nobis lucri pudor! Inde petuntur Hue Lybicre mortes, et fecimus aspida merces;'—'

But what is our gain ? saith he. We have made the asps a merchandise. So these our asps are bred in Italy, and shipped over into England as a precious merchandise. They speak themselves so gentle, that ' a sucking child may play at the holes of these asps,' Isa. xi. 8; but we have found their burrows the holes of treason, and their vaults the vaults of gunpowder. There is feud betwixt the ichneumon and the asp: they oft fight. If the asp bite first, the ichneumon dies; if the ichneumon first, the asp dies. Let us strike them with punishment, lest they strike us with death. These asps kill many souls in our land.

' Aspidis et morsu Iscsum dormire fatentur In mortem, antidotum nee valuisse ferunt;'—

If the bewitched people once receive their poison, they sleep to death; and no hope prevails, for they will not come to the church to be cured.

8. There is also the lizard, the emblem of the slothful; as is also the sloio-worm, or the serpentine tortoise. They write of the lizard, that having laid eggs, she forgets the very place where she laid them. She will lie still till you cut her in pieces; and then the fore-part runs away upon two legs, and the hinder part on other two, living apart till they meet again, and then are naturally conjoined. If the lazy will follow the qualities, let them take the name of Uzards.

9. There is also the seorserpent, and that is the pirate; a thief cross to all kind of thieves: for other thieves first fall to robbery, and then are cast into jirison; but he first casts himself into a prison, and then falls to robbery. In a little vessel, a very jail, with a large grave round about it, he does all mischief. At last, when he grows great, he ruins himself. They write of a sea-dragon that grows to a huge vastness; but then the winds take him up into the air, and by a violent agitation shake his body to pieces. A notable part of God's providence, to tame that himself which his creatures cannot.

10. There is the stellion, and that is the extortioner. Extortion and cozenage is proverbially called crimen stellionalus, the sin of stellature. When the stellion hath cast his skin, he greedily devours it again; which, saith Theophrastus, he doth in envy, because he understands that it is a

' • Martial.

gQ A GENERATION OF SERPENTS. [SeEMON VI.

noble remedy against the falling sickness. So in malice it lines the guts with that covered the back; and eats that in summer wherewith it was clothed in winter. It destroys the honey of bees. Stellio scepe favos ignotus ademil* So the extortioner spoils the hives, and devours all the honey of poor men's gathering. It is a beast full of spots.

'Aptumque colori, Nomen habet, variis stellatus corpore guttis.'f

The spots that stick upon an extortioner are more innumerable. It Were well if such extortioners were served, as Buda3us relates a history of two tribunes, iiui per ^tfllaturas viilitibus multum ahstuUssent, —whom the emperor commanded to be stoned to death.

11. The last is the great serpent of all, draco, the devil; who is called the ' great red drugon,' Rev. xii. 3. In idolatrous times and places dragons Lave been worshipped. The common distinction is, angues aquarum, ser-pentes terrarum, dracones templorum, —snakes of the water, serpents of the earth, dragons of the temple. There are too many wicked worldlings that still worship this god of the world, the red dragon. The dragons haunt principally trees of frankincense. Satan loves to have men sacrifice to him ; he tempted the Son of God to fall down and worship him. Nothing but the smoke of styrax can drive away dragons; not holy water, not crossings, but only faith hi the Lord Jesus can put the devil to flight. Serpens serpentem devorando ft draco, —The devil at first was but a serpent; now, by devouring many millions of these serpents, the wicked, he is become a dragon,

I should here shew you two things:—

1. The remedy to draw out this poison, and to cure the soul; which is only sanguis medici, the blood of our physiciari. John iii. 14, 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,' so was Christ lifted up as a serpent, that what eye of faith soever looks on him, he may be healed of the sting of those fiery seri)cnts, and have the damnable poison of sm drawn out.

2. That our next course is repentance for our sins; that as the oil of scori)ions is the best remedy for them that are stung with scorpions, so rcptntance for sin is the best remedy within us to expel the poison of sin. Think of the wise man's counsel, Ecclesiast. xxi. 2, ' Fly from sin as from the face of a serpent: if thou comest too near it, it will bite thee.'

Their deafness remains to be spoken, and must remain unspoken. How should they be cured that are deaf to the counsel of their physician ? Though there be poison in us, even the poison of dragons, yet God bless us from the deafness of the adder ! Let us hear our remedy, and embrace it; pray to God for it, and receive it; and 'the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all our sins,' 1 John i. 7. To this Saviour let aU that are saved give praise and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

• Virg. f Ovid.

THE EAGE OF OPPEESSION.

Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through ivater: hut thou hroughtestvs out into a xvealthy place. — Psalm LXVI. 12.

This verse is like that sea, Llatt. viii. 24, so tempestuous at first that the vessel was covered with waves; but Christ's rebuke quieted all, and there followed a great calm. Here are cruel Nimrods riding over innocent heads, as they would over fallow lands; and dangerous passages through fire and water; but the storm is soon ended, or rather the passengers are landed : * Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.'

So that this strain of David's music or psalmody consists of two notes— one mournful, the other mirthful; the one a touch of distress, the other of redress : which directs our course to an observation of misery and of mercy, of grievous misery, of gracious mercy. There is desolation and consolation in one verse: a deep dejection, as laid under the feet of beasts ; a happy deliverance, ' brought out into a wealthy place.'

In both these strains God hath his stroke : he is a principal in this concert. He is brought in for an actor and for an author; an actor in the persecution, an author in the deliverance. ' Thou causest,' &c.; ' Thou broughtest,' &c. In the one he is a causing worker, in the other a sole-working cause. In the one he is joined with company, in the other he works alone. He hath a finger in the former, his whole hand in the latter.

We must begin with the misery, before we come to the mercy. If there were no trouble, we should not know the worth of a deliverance. The passion of the saints is given, by the hearty and ponderous description, for very grievous : yet it is written in the forehead of the text, ' The Lord caused it.' ' Thou causedst men to ride,' &c.

Hereupon some wicked libertine may offer to rub his filthiness upon God's purity, and to plead an authentical derivation of all his villany against the saints from the Lord's warrant: * He caused it.' We answer, to the justification of truth itself, that God doth ordain and order every persecution that striketh his children, without any allowance to the instrument that gives the blow. God works in the same action with others, not after the same manner. In the affliction of Job were three agents—God, Satan, and the Sa-beans. The devil works on his body, the Sabeans on his goods; yet Job confesseth a third party : * The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.' Here VOL. I. p

g2 THE RAGE OF OPPRESSION. [SeRMON VII.

onpressore trample on the godly, and God is said to cause it. He causeth affUction for trial, (so, ver. 10, 11, 'Thou hast tried us,' &c.;) they work it for ni:iUce: neither can God be accused nor they excused.

In a sinful action there be two things, the material and the formal part; which we commonly distinguish into the act and defect. The material i)art is of God, from whom is all motion; the formal is from the pravity of the agent. Persecutors could not accuse us maliciously, if God gave not motion to their tongues; nor strike us AvrongfuUy, if he denied strength to their hands. Thought, sight, desire, speech, strength, motion, are God's good fifts; to turn all these to his dishonour is the wicked person's fault.

God liath another intent than man hath, even in man's work. The Chaldeans steal Job's wealth to enrich themselves; the devil afflicts liis body in his hatred to mankind; God suffers all this for the trial of his patience. Man for covetousncss, the devil for malice, God for probation of the afflicted's constancy, and advancing his own glory. In the giving of Christ to death, as Augustine observes, Epist. xlviii., the Father gave the Son, the Son gave himself, Judas betrayed him, and the Jews crucified him. In one and the same tradition, God is to be blessed and man condemned. Quia in re una quam fecerunt, causa non una oh quam fecerunt, —Because in that same thing they all did, there was not the same cause why they all did it. God's end was love ; Judas's, avarice ; the Jews', malice.

The covetous extortioner taketh away the goods of his neighbour; that robber spoileth. He could have no tongue to plead, nor wit to circumvent, nor hands to carry away, without God; from him he hath those creatures, together with the notion of mind and motion of body. But to pervert all these to damnify others, and to damn himself, ariseth from his own avarous and rancorous pravity. His intent is wicked; yet not without God's wisdom to raise profit from it. Perhaps the oppressed had too good a liking to the world, and began, to admit a little confidence in their wealth : the Lord hath benefited them in taking away these snares, to save their souls.

Yet without toleration, countenance, or help to the wicked. The usurer hath done thee good ; by making thee poor in purse, helped thee to the riches of grace; yet he goes to hell for his labour. They that do God service against their wills, shall have but shrewd wages. It cannot be denied but the devil did God service in trying Job, winnowing Peter, buff"cting Paul, executing Judas; yet shall not all this ease the least torment of his damnation. For trial here arc these oppressors sufiered to ride over the godly's heads, and to drive them through fire and water; when these have, like furnaces, purged them from dross and corruption, themselves shall be burnt. For it is usual with God, when he hath done beating his children, to throw the rod into the fire. Babylon a long time shall be the Lord's hammer to bruise the nations ; at last itself shall be bruised. Judas did an act that redounds to Cfod's otonial honour and our blessed salvation, yet was his wages the gallows. All these hammers, axes, rods, saws, swords, instruments, when they have (lone tho.se offices they never meant, shall for those they have meant be thrown to confusion.

I will now leave God's justice to himself, and come to the injustice ot tliose o].pressors, and the passion of the sufferers. And because the quality of these latter shall add some aggravation to the cruel malice of the former, I will first set before your eyes the martyrs. The i)salm being written by David, and tlie sulferers .spoken of in the first perscm plural,—«'e, us, and our, —It follows that it was botli David and such as David was: beloved of God, holy, 3.iints.

And whom doth the world think to ride over but saints ? Ps. xliv. 22. Who should be appointed to the slaughter but sheep 1 The wolf will not prey on the fox, he is too crafty; nor on the elephant, he is too mighty; nor on a dog, he is too equal; but on the silly lamb, that can neither run to escape nor fight to conquer. They write of a bird that is the crocodile's tooth-picker, and feeds on the fragments left in his teeth whiles the serpent lies a-sunning; which when the unthankful crocodile would devour, God hath set so sharp a prick on the top of the bird's head, that he dares not shut his jaws till it be gone. And they speak of a little fish that goes bristling by the pike, or any other ravenous water creature, and they dare not for his pricks and thorns touch him. Those whom nature or art, strength or sleight, have made inexposable to easy ruin, may pass unmolested. The wicked will not grapple upon equal terms; they must have either local or ceremonial advantage. But the godly are weak and poor, and it is not hard to prey upon prostrate fortunes. A low hedge is soon trodden down ; and over a wretch dejected on the base earth an insulting enemy may easily stride. Whiles David is down, (or rather in him figured the church,) ' the plowers may plow upon his back, and make long their furrows,' Ps. cxxix. 3,

But what if they ride over our heads, and wound our flesh, let them not wound our patience. Though we seal the bond of conscience with the blood of innocence, though we lose our lives, let us not lose our patience. Lac-tantius* says of the philosophers, that they had a sword and wanted a buckler; but a buckler doth better become a Christian than a sword. Let us know, non nunc honoris 7iostri tempus esse, sed doloris, sed passiouis, —that this is not the time of our joy and honour, but of our passion and sorrow. Therefore ' let us with patience run the race,' &c., Heb. xii. 1.

But leave we ourselves thus suffering, and come to speak of that we must be content to feel, the oppression of our enemies. Wherein we will consider the agents and the actions.

The AiiEXTS are men : ' Thou hast caused men to ride,' &c. !Man is a sociable-living creature, and should converse with man in love and tranquillity. Man should be a supporter of man; is he become an overthrower ? He should help and keep him up; doth he ride over him and tread him under foot 1 O apostasy, not only from religion, but even from humanity ! Quid homini inimicissimum .? Homo,\ —The greatest danger that befalls man comes whence it should least come, from man himself. Caiera animantia, says Pliny, in sua genere, probe degunt, &c.,—Lions fight not with lions ; serpents spend not their venom on serpents; but man is the main suborner of mischief to Ids own kind.

It is reported of the bees, that cegrotante una, lamentantur omnes, —when one is sick, they all mourn. And of sheep, that if one of them be faint, the rest of the flock will stand between it and the sun till it be revived. Only man to man is most pernicious. We know that a bird, yea, a bird of rapine, once fed a man in the wilderness, 1 Kings x\di. G ; that a beast, yea, a beast of fierce cnielty, spared a man in his den, Dan. vi. 22. Whereupon saith a learned father, Ferce parcunt, aves pascunt, homines scEviunt,X —The birds feed man, and the beasts spare him, but man rageth against him. Wherefore, I may well conclude, with Solomon, Prov. xvii. 12, ' Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his foUy.'

God hath hewn us all out of one rock, tempered all our bodies of one clay, and spirited our souls of one breath. Therefore, saith Augustine, sith ■we proceed all out of one stock, let us all be of one mind. Beasts molest * De Falsa Sajjient., lib. iv. t Sen. X Cypr., Ser. vi.

g^ THE KAGE OF OPPRESSION. [SeRMON VIL

not their own kind, and birds of a feather fly lovingly together. Not only the blessed angels of heaven agree in mutual harmony, but even the very do-ils of hell are not di\'ided, lest they ruin their kingdom. We have one greater reason of unity and love observed than all the rest. For whereas God made nor all angels of one angel, nor all beasts of the great behemoth, nor all fishes of the huge leviathan, nor all birds of the majestical eagle, yet he made all men of one man. Let us then not jar in the disiDosition of our minds, that so agree in the composition of our natures. You see how inhuman and unnatural it is for man to wrong man ; of his own kind, and, as it were, of his oavu Icin.—Thus for the agents.

The ACTION is amplified in divers circumstances, climbing up by rough stairs to a high transcendency of oppression. It ariseth thus—1. In riding. 2. In riding over us. 3. In riding over our heads. 4. In driving us through fire and water.

1. They lide. What need they mount themselves upon beasts, that have feet malicious enough to trample on us ? They have a ' foot of pride,' Ps. xxx\i. 11, from which David prayed to be delivered; a presumptuous heel, which they dare lift up against God ; and therefore a tyrannous toe, to spurn dejected man. They need not horses and mules, that can kick with the foot of a revengeful malice, Ps. xxxii. 9.

2. Over us. The way is broad enough wherein they travel, for it is the devil's road. They might well miss the poor : there is room enough besides ; they need not ride over us. It were more brave for them to justle with champions that will not give them the way. Wt?. never contend for their path; they have it without our envy, not without our pity. Why should they ride over us ?

3. Over our heads. Is it not contentment enough to their pride to nde, to their malice to ride over us, but must they delight in bloodiness to ride over our heads ? Will not the breaking of our arms and legs, and such inferior linib.s, satisfy their indignation ? Is it not enough to rack our strength, to mock our innocence, to prey on our estates, but must they thirst after our bloods and lives? Quo tendit sceva libido ? —Whither will their madness run?

But we must not tie ourselves to the letter. Here is a mystical or metaphorical gradation of their cruelty. Their riding is proud; their riding over us is malicious; and their riding over our heads is bloody oppression.

1. They lide. This phrase describes a vice compounded of two damnable ingredients, ])ride and tyranny. It was a part of God's fearful curse to rebellious recidivation, Dcut. xxviii., that theu- enemies should ride and triumph over them, and they should come down very low under their feet. It is delivered for a notorious mark of the great ' whore of Babylon's' pride, that bhe ' rides upon a scarlet-coloured beast,' Rev. xvii. 4. St Paul seems to api)ly the .s^imo word to oppression, 1 Thess. iv. 6, * that no man oppress his Inotlier.' The original iin^Bahin, to go upon him, climb on him, or tread him under foot.

U bla.splienious height of villany ! not only, by false slanders, to betray a man's innocence, nor to lay \'i()lent hands upon his estate; but to trip up his heels with frauds, or to lay him along with injuries, and then to trample on him ! And because the foot of man, for that should be soft and favour-in-, caiuirtt despatch him, to mount upon beasts, wild and savage affections, and t«i ride upon him.

2. Over m. This argues their malice. It were a token of wilful spite for a horseman, in a great road, to refuse all way, and to ride over a poor

traveller. Such is the implacable malice of these persecutors. Isa. lix. 7, ' Wasting and destruction are in their paths ;' yea, wasting and destruction are their paths. They have fierce looks and truculent hearts : their very path is ruin, and every print of their foot vastation. They neither reverence the aged, nor pity tlie sucking infant^ virgins cannot avoid their rapes, nor women with child their massacres. They go, they run, they stride, they ride ' over us.'

The language of their lips is that which Babylon spake concerning Jerusalem, Ps. cxxxviL 7, ' Down with it, down with it, even to the ground. Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.' Desolation sits in their eyes, and shoots out through those fiery windows the burning glances of waste, havoc, ruin : till they turn a land into soUtude, into a desert, and habitation for their fellow-beasts, and their worse selves. O unmerciful men ! that should be to mankind as God, but are more ragingly noxious than wolves. They have lost the nature, let them also lose the name of men.

' Vix repperit unum, Talibus h multis, hominem consuitus Apollo.'

But it is ever trae, optimi corruptio pesshna, —the fairest flowers putrefied, stink worse than weeds : even an angel falling became a devil; and man debauched strives to come as near this devil as he can. They should put their hands under our falling heads, and lift us up; but they kick us down, and ride over us.

3. Over our heads. This notes their bloodiness, unpacifiable but by our slaughters. The pressing, racking, or breaking of our inferior limbs contents not their malice : they must wound the most sensible and vital part, our heads. The Lord be blessed, that hath now freed us from these bloody tidings, and sent us peace with truth! Yet can we not be forgetful of the past calamities in this land; nor insensible of the present in other places. The time was when the Bonners and butchers rode over the faces of God's saints, and madefied the earth with their bloods, every drop whereof begot a new believer. "^Vhen they martyred the living Avith the dead; burnt the impotent wife with the husband, who is content to die with him with whom she may not live, yea, rejoicing to go together to their Saviour : when they threw the new-born (yea, scarce-born) infant, dropping out of the mother's belly, into the mother's flames ; whom, if they had been Christians, they would first have christened, if not cherished;—this was a fiery zeal indeed, set on fire with the fire of hell. They love fire still: they were then for faggots, they are now for powder. If these be catholics, there are no cannibals. They were then mounted on horses of authority, now they ride' on the wings of policy.

Our comfort is, that though all these, whether persecutors of our fiuth or oppressors of our life, ride over our particular heads, yet we have all one Head, whom they cannot touch. They may massacre this corporal life, and spoil the local seat of it, whether in head or heart; but our spiritual life, wliich lies and lives in one Head, Jesus Christ, they cannot reach. No hellish stratagems nor combined outrages, no human powers nor devilish principalities can touch that life; for it is ' hid with Christ in God,' Col, iii. 3.

Indeed this Head doth not only take their blows as meant at him, but he even suffers with us : Acts ix. 4, * Saul, why persecutest thou me V Saul strikes on earth; Christ .Jesus suffers in heaven. There is more lively sense in the head than in other members of the body. Let but the toe ache.

gg THE RAGE OF OPrRESSION. [SeRMON VII.

and the head manifests by the countenance a sensible grief. The body of the church cannot suffer without the sense of our blessed Head. Thus saith Paul 2 Cor. I 5, ' The sufferings of Christ abound in us.' These afflictions are the showers that follow the great storm of his passion : Col. i. 24, ' We fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in our flesh.' We must be content for him, as he was for us, to weep, and groan, and bleed, and die, that we may reign. If we sow not in tears, how shall we look to reap in joy'! Ps. cxxvi. 5. How shall we shine like stars in heaven, if we go not through the fiery trial ? or land at the haven of bliss, if we pass not the waves of this troublesome water 1

You see riders ; but you will say. What is this to us 1 We have no such riders. Yes, many, too many; even so many as we have oppressors, either by tongue or hand. Shall I name some of them ?

The'nialicious slanderer is a perilous rider; and he rides, like death, upon a pale horse, Rev. vi. 2, Envi/. Thus were the Pharisees mounted when they rude over Christ, even the Head of our heads. If Jesus will not be a Pharisee, they will nail liim to the cross. These venomous cantharides light upon God's fairest flowers, and strive either to blast them with their contumelious breaths, or to tread them under their maUcious feet.

The griping usurer is a pestilent rider ; and he is mounted on a heavy jade. Mammon, or love of money. Every step of this beast wounds to the heart, and quasheth out the life-blood. Oh that this sordid beast of usury, with all his ponderous and unwieldy trappings,—bills, obligations, pawns, mortgages,—were throwni into a fire temporal, that the rider's converted soul might be saved from the fire eternal! If any Alcibiades had authority and will to kindle such a fire in England as was once at Athens, I believe that no tears would be shed to quench it; but the music of our peace would sound merrily to it, and the rather because there would be no more groans t<j disturb it.

The destructive depopulator is another pestiferous rider. He is a light-horseman ; he can leap hedges and ditches, and therefore makes them in the midst of plam fields. He loves to ride in his own gTOund; and for this purpose cxpclleth all neighbours. Though Solomon says, Eccles. v. 9, that 'the king is served by the field that is tilled;' yet he, as if he were wiser than Solomon, promiseth to serve him better with grass. He posteth after the poor, and hunts them out of his lordship. He rides from town to town, from village to ^iIlage, from land to land, from house to house; a doloso J'urlo ad judilicum latrocinium, and never rest tiU he hath rid to the devil.

And tlicre is a fourth rider gallops after him amain, as if he had sworn not to be huidmost—the oppressing landlord. And he rides upon a horse that hath no pace but racking ; for that is the master's delight, racking of rents : and he hath two lacqueys or pages run by him—fines and carriages. Thus a.scended and attended, he rides over the heads and hearts of the poor tenants, that they can no more grow in wealth than corn can that is scattered in the highway; for they, as that, are continually overridden by their merciless landlord. Let these riders take heed, lest the curses of the poor stumble their hor.ses, and break their necks.

The churlish cormorant is a mischievous rider : he sits on a black jade, CnvftoHsness; and rides only from market to market, to buy up grain when lie hath store to .sell : and so hatcheth up dearth in a year of plenty. Our land ia too full of these riders : they repine and complain of the unseason-ablenc.H.s of the weather, of the barrenness of the earth ; but they conceal the true cause, whereof their own souls are conscious, thcu* uucharitableness.

The earth hath never been so frozen as their consciences; nor is the ground so fruitless of plenty as they of pity. This is not mala terra, bona gens ; but mala gens, bona terra, —we have bad minds, good materials. The earth hath not scanted her fruits, but our concealings have been close, our en-havacings ravenous, our transportations lavisL The Lord sends grain, and the devil sends garners. The imprecations of the poor shall follow these riders, and the cars of God .shall attend their cries.

There is the proud gallant, that comes forth like a May-morning, decked with all the glory of art; and his adorned lady, in her own imagination a second Flora : and these are riders too, but closer riders. The world with them runs upon wheels; and they, hastening to overtake it, outrun it. Their great revenues will not hold out with the year : the furniture on their backs exceeds their rent-day. Hence they are fain to wring the poor sponges of the country, to quench the burning heat of the city. Therefore say the couutr3anen, that their carts are never worse employed than when they do service to coaches.

There is the fraudulent tradesman, that rides no further than between the burse and the shop, on the back of a quick-spirited hobby called Cheating : and whereas greatness presseth the poor to death with their weight, this man trips up their heels with his cunning. They have one God at the church, another at their shops; and they will fill their coffers, though they fester their consciences. This rider laughs men in the face while he treads on their hearts; his tongue knows no other pace but a false gallop.

The bribe-groping officer, in what court soever his dition lies, is an oppressing rider : they that would have their suits granted, must subject their necks to his feet, and let him ride over them. He confutes the old allegory of Justice, that is usually dra\Mi blind, for he will see to do a petitioner ease by the light of his angels.* Nothing can unlock his lips but a golden key. This rider's horse, like that proud emperor's, must be shod mth silver ; and the poor man must buy of him, and that at a dear rate, his own treading on.

I come to him last, whom I have not least cause to think upon, the church-defrauder, that rides upon a wmged horse, as if he would fly to the devU, called Sacrilege. He may appear in the shape of a Protestant, but he is the most absolute recusant; for he refuseth to pay God his own. He wears the name of Christ for the same purpose the Papists wear the cross, only for a charm. These are the merchants of souls; the pirates of God's ship, the church; the underminers of religion, they arc still practising trains to blow it up. They will not pay their Levites; their Levites must paj'-them. They will not part with their cures, whereof they have the donation,-but upon purchase. But it is no wonder if they sell the cures, that have first sold their souls. The charitable man dreams of building churches, but starts to think that these men will pull them down again.

There is yet one other rider, though he spurs post, must not pass by me unnoted: the truth-hating Jesuit, that comes trotting into England on a red horse, like Murder, dipped and dyed in the blood of souls; and, if he can reach it, in the blood of bodies too. Neither doth he thirst so much after ordinary blood, that runs in common veins, as after the blood-royal. There is no disease, saith one, that may so properly be called the king's-evil. He is the devil's make-bait, and his chief officer to set princes together by the ears. He sits like the raven on a dead bough, and when the lion and leopard conae forth to fight, he .sounds out a point of war, hoping whichsoever falls, his carcase shidl serve him for a prey to feed on. His main study is to * The coin so called.— Ed.

gg THE RAGE OF OPPRESSION, [SeRMOX VIL

fill the schools with clamours, the church with errors, the churchyard with corpses, and all Christian States with tragedies. The Seminaries were once like that strange weed, tobacco, at the first coming up; but here and there one entertained in some great man's house, now may you find them smok-inf' in every cottage. They have deservingly increased the disgrace of that reU'non ; so that now, in the common censure, a Papist is but a new word for a traitor. They have received their errand at Tiber, and they deliver it at Tyburn.

There are many other riders, so properly ranking themselves in this number, and assuming this name, which, for modesty's sake, I bury in silence; considering that (jucedam vitia nominaia docentur, —some sins are taught by reporting their names.

But I perceive a prevention : I have not time enough to end our misery, much less to enter the speech of our mercy. The journey they make us take through fire and water requires a more punctual tractation than your patience will now admit. Two short uses shall send away our oppressors with fear, ourselves with joy.

1. For them. Let all these tyrannous riders know, that there is one rides after them,—a great one, a just one,—even he that ' rides on the wings of the wind, and the clouds are the dust of his feet:' he that hath a bridle for these Sennacheribs, and strikes a snaffle through their jaws, and turns their violence with more ease than the wind doth a vane on the house-top. Then ' a horse shall be but a vain thing to save a man,' saith the Psalmist. Horse and master shall fall together.

Then the covetous Nimrod, that rode on the black beast. Oppression, shall be thundered down from his proud height, and the jade that carried him shall dash out his brains, and lie heavier than a thousand talents of lead on his conscience. His oppression shall damn himself, as before it did damn others. It was to them a momentary vexation, it shall be to him an eternal pressure of torment.

Then the blood-drawing usurer, that rode so furiously on his jade, Extortion, shall (if timely deprecation and restitution stay hhn not) run full butt against the gates of hell, and break his neck. And he that at the bars of temporal judgments cried out for nothing but justice, justice, and had it, shall now cry louder for mercy, mercy, and go ^vithout it.

And let the cormorant, that rides on the back of Engrossing, whose soul is like Erisicathon s bowels in the poet—

'Quodque urbibus esse, Qaodque satis poterat populo, non sufficit uni'—

that starves men to feed vermin—know, that there is a pursuivant flies after him, that .shall give him an eternal arrest, and make him leave both hojreum and hordeitm, his barn and his barley, to go to a place where is no food but iirc and anguish.

And the h.fty gallant, that rides over the poor with his coaches and carochcs, drawn by two wild horses. Pride and Luxury; let him take heed, lest he meet with a wind that shall take oflf his chariot-wheels, as Pharaoh wa« puruahed, Exod. xiv., and drown horses, and chariots, and riders; not m the ]{^d Soa, but in that infernal lake whence there is no redemption.

Let all these nders beware lest he that rides on the wings of vengeance, with a sword drawn in his hand, and that will cat flesh and drink blood; that will make such haste in the pursuit of his enemies that he will not bait or refresh hunsclf by the way; lest this God, before they have repented,

overtake them. Ps. xlv. 4, 5, ' Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, 0 most mighty; and in thy majesty ride prosperously,' &c.; ' and thy right hand sluall teach thee terrible things.' Then shall the ' Lord remember the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem,' Ps. cxxxxii. 7, 8 ; and * reward tliem as they served us.' Lo, now, the end of these riders : Ps. xxxvi. 11, ' There are the workers of iniquity fallen : they are cast down, and shall not be able to rise.' Zech. x. 5, * The riders on horses shall be confounded.'

2. For us. Though passion possess our bodies, let ' patience possess our souls.' The law of our profession binds us to a warfare ; patiendo vincinius, our troubles shall end, our victory is eternal. Hear David's triumph, Ps. xviii. 38-40, ' I have wounded them, that they were not able to rise ; they are fallen under my feet. Thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me. Thou hast also given me the neck of mine enemies,' &c. They have wounds for their wounds; and the treadcrs down of the poor are trodden down by the poor. The Lord will subdue those to us that would have subdued us to themselves; and though for a short time they rode over our heads, yet now at last we shall everlastingly tread upon their necks. Lo, then, the reward of humble patience and confident hope. Spei-amns et super-amus. Deut. xxxii. 31, ' Our God is not as their God, even our enemies being judges.' Ps. XX. 7, ' Some put their trust in chariots, and some in horses.' But no chariot hath strength to oppose, nor horse swiftness to escape, when God pursues. Ver. 8, ' They are brought down, and fallen ; we are risen, and stand upright.' Their trust hath deceived them; down they fall, and never to rise. Our God hath helped us; we are risen, not for a breathing space, but to stand upright for ever.

Teutations, persecutions, oppressions, crosses, infamies, bondage, death, are but the way wherein our blessed Saviour went before us; and many saints followed him. Behold them with the eyes of faith, now mounted above the clouds, trampling all the vanities of this world under their glorified feet j standing on the battlements of heaven, and wafting us to them with the hands of encouragement. They bid us fight, and we shall conquer; suffer, and we shall reign. And as the Lord Jesus, that once sufi'ered a reproachful death at the hands of his enemies, now sits at the right hand of the Majesty in the highest places, far above all prmcipalities and powers, thrones and dominations, ' till his enemies be made his footstool;' so one day they that in their haughty pride and mercUess oppressions rode over our heads, shall then lie under our feet. ' Through thee will we push down our enemies; through thee will we tread them under that rise up against us.' At what time yonder glorious sky, coslum stellatiim, which is now our ceiling over our heads, shall be but a pavement under our feet. To which glory, he that made ua by his word, and bought us by the blood of his Son, seal us up by his blessed Spirit! Amen.

THE VICTOEY OF PATIENCE;

THE EXPIRATION OF MALICE.

We went through fire and through water; hut thou hroughtest us out into a wealthij place. — Psalm LXVI. 12.

I DID not, in the former sermon, draw out the oppressing cruelty of these persecutors to the utmost scope and period of their malice, nor extend their impium impenum to the furthest limit and determination thereof. There is yet one glimpse of their stinking candle before the snuff goes out; one groan ere their malice expire. ' We went through fire and water.'

The Papists, when they hear these words, ' went through fire and water,' stiirtlc, and cry out, Purgatory! direct proofs for jjurgatory! With as good reason as Sedulius,* on that dream of Pharaoh's ofiicer, Gen. xl. 10,' A vine was before me, and in the vine were three branches,' says that the vine signifies St Francis, and the three branches the three orders derived from him. And as a Pope, on that of Samuel, 1 Sam. xv. 22, ' Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice; and stubbornness is as idolatry,' infers, that not to obey the apostolic see of Rome was idolatry by the mtness of Samuel. Or as one writes of St Francis, that because it is said, ' Unless you become as little children, you cannot enter, into the kingdom of heaven,' he commanded one Massaius to tumble round like a little child that he might enter. Or as when the contention was betwixt the services of Ambrose and Gregory, wliich should take place ; by the common consent, both the mass-books were laid on the altar of St Peter, expecting some decision of that doubt by revelation. The church-doors being opened in the morning, Gregory's missal-book was rent and torn into many pieces, but Ambrose'slay whole and open upon the altar. Which event, in a sober exposition, would have signified the inxss of Gregory cancelled and abolished, and that of Ambrose authentical and allowed. iJiit the wise Pope Adrian expounds it thus : that the rending and Hcatti ring of Gregory's missal intended that it should be dispersed over all the Ghri.stian world, and only received as canonical.t Or as that simple friar, that finding Maria in the Scripture, used plurally for seas, cried out,

• AihjI. contr. Alcor. Fraucia. lib. ii., c. 1. f Jacob, de Vorag. in Vita Gregor.

in the ostentation of his lucky wit, that he had found hi the Old Testament the name of Maria for the A'^irgin Mary.

But I purpose not to waste time m this place, and among such hearers, in the confutation of this ridiculous folly; resting myself on the judgment of a worthy learned man in our church,* that purgatory is nothing else but a mythology, a moral use of strange fables. As when Pius the (Second had sent abroad his indulgences to all that would take arms agauist the Turk, the Turk wrote to him to call in his ' epigrams' again. Or as Bellarmine excused Prudentius, when he appoints certam hoUdays in hell, that he did but poetise. So all their fabulous discourse of purgatory is but epigrams and poetry ; a more serious kmd of jest, wherein they laugh among themselves how they cozen the world, and fill the Pope's coffers, who for his advantage, ens non esse facit, non ens fore. So that if Ptoffensist gather out of this place that in purgatory there is great store of water,—' We went through fire and water,'—we may oppose against him Sir Thomas i\Iore, who proves from Zech. ix. that there is no water at all : ' I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit, where is no water.' Set then the frost again.st the rain, and you may go in purgatory dry-shod. If there be nothing left but fire, I make no question but there is not a spark difference betwixt purgatory and hell.

I should narrow up the scope and liberty of God's Spirit, if I should here tie my discourse to the letter, ' AVe went through fire and through water.' It is an effect of our persecution, and may thus be resolved: We were by their malice driven to great extremity. Fire and water are two elements which, they say, have no mercy ; yet either of them more than our oppressors. The time -was that a Pted Sea divided the waters, and gave dry passage to the children of Israel and of God, Exod. xiv. Whereof the Psalmist here sings, ver. 6, ' He turned the sea into dry land: they went through the flood on foot; there did we rejoice in him.' And the fire in an oven whose heat was septupled touched not those three servants of the Lord. But these more incensed and insensible creatures have no mercy, nor can they invent a cruelty which they forbear to execute.

Some translations have it, ' W« went into fire and into water;' which extends their persecution to our deaths, and comprehends the latitude of mortal martjrrdom. And thus understood, the next words of the deliverance, ' Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place,' must be meant of om- glory in heaven. But the evident circumstances following deny that interpretation ; therefore I adhere to the last and best translation, ' We went through fire and through water.'

Wherein two things may seem to be imported and imparted to our consideration :—First, We went. They went, so conveniently as they might, and so conscionably as they durst, from the hands of their persecutors. Secondly, The hard exigents they were driven to, when to pass through fire and water was but a less evil compared with that they eschewed.

' Per mare mactantes fiigimus, per saxa, per ignes.'

1. From the former, observe, That it may be lawful in time of persecution to fly. This was granted, yea, in some respects, enjoined by Christ. But must be warily understood; and the rule, in a word, may be this: When our suffering may stand the church of God in better stead than our flying, we must then lose our lives, to save God's honour and our own souls. To deny God this fealty and tribute of our bloods, when his glory hath use of such a service at our hands, is not only to deny him that is his own by many

* Paeudo Martyr., p. 106, de Purgator, t Coutr. Luther., art. xxxvlL

f)2 THE VICTORY OK PATIENCE. [SeRMON VIII.

dear titles,—of creation, wliicli was ex spintu oris, by the breath of his mouth ; and of rciloinption, which was ex sanguine cordis, by the blood of his heart,— but t.) withdraw this justly required testimony is to betray and crucify him, and scarce inferior to their perjury whose false mtness condemned him.

In this we restore to God his talent with profit; not only our own soul he "ave us, but as many more as our example works upon and wins to him. WTien the people admired the great bounty of John, called Eleemosynarius, he answered them, 0 brethren, I have not yet shed my blood for you, as I ought to dt) for my Master's sake and testimony. In the early morning of the world did Abel dedicate martyrdom without example; and the Lord did approve it by accepting Abel's sacrifice, and Abel for a sacrifice.* I have read that a worthy martyr of ours, Dr Rowland Taylor, wrote first with ink, and after A\-ith his blood, that it is not enough to profess the gospel of Christ ad ignem exclusive, but we must cleave to it even ad ignem inclusive. This was an honour that Christ accepted presently after his birth, Matt, ii., the holocaust or hecatomb of many innocent infants, murdered and martyred for his sake.

So that suffering for Jesus is a thing to which he promiseth an ample reward. ' No man shall forsake parents, or friends, or inheritance, or living, or life, for my sake, but he shall have' in exchange ' a hundred-fold' so much comfort ' in this life, and in the world to come life everlasting.' But all times and occasions yield not warrant for such a service. Much less can the Seminaries, dying in England for treason, arrogate to themselves the glory of martyrdom, though a vicious affectation of it hath hardened them to such a prodigality of their bloods. They come not to maintain the verity of Scriptures, but the vanity of traditions ; the entangling perplexities of school-men; the obscure, tetrical, and contradictory assertions of Popes, who command them to seal that with their lives which not only is in involved being, but in future contingence—whatsoever the Roman church, that is, the Pope, shaU hereafter constitute or declare.

2. From the latter words, through fire and water, observe, That the children of Clod must not expect a gentle and soft entertainment in this world, but'hard exigents; when to fly from their enemies they are fain to pass througli fire and water. Affliction for the gospel is called by Paul, Gal. vi. 17, ' the marks of the Lord Jesus.' The world often sets a man as those three servants of God were set in Daniel's prophecy, Dan. iii. On the one side, a harmony of sweet music, the cornet, flute, &c.; on the other side, a burning furnace, heated above ordinary seven times. Worship the idol, and enjoy the delight of music; not worship it, and be cast into the fiery oven. Join with the world in his ungodly customs, and the world will love, feast, tickle your ears with music. Separate yourselves, and it will hate you: John XV. 19, ' If you were of the world, the world would love his own: but because I liavc chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hatcth you.' Thou shalt be like Abraham's ram. Gen. xxii. 13, tied in a bush of thorns; from which thou can.st not extricate thyself till thou be made a sacrifice.

I have read that Caligula the tyTant being dead, there were found in his closet duo libelli,~o\\c called a sword, the other a dagger; wherein many wore by name pricked for death, and desthied to it in the emperor's bloody uitention. Presumptuous enemies so cast lots on a nation before they have It. and talk of dividing a ipoil ere they come at it. Judges v. 30, ' Have thry not sped ? have they not divided the prey ?' So the proud adversary in that wonderful year '«S, that came with an invincible navy and impla-* Olirj'soatom.

cable fury, the ensigns of whose ships were Victoria, viclona, brought ready with them instruments of torture, as if the land of peace and mercy had in it no such engines of cruelty, and swallowed down an abundant hope of our desolation. They threw at dice for our wives and daughters, lands and vine-)'ards, houses and heritages, shires and kingdom. They purposed to drive us through fire and water, but fire and water was their destruction. Fire broke the sinews of their combination, and the waves devoured both their hopes and themselves. The godly at last shall be as mighty men, Zech. x. 5, ' treading down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle ; and they shall fight, because the Lord is with them.'

The grievousness of these afflictions must teach us two useful lessons— 1. Patience; 2. Prayer.

1. Patience. Acts v. 41, the apostles 'departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Christ.' A true Christian rejoiceth in his tribulation, especially when it is for his Sa\aour's sake, and takes greater pleasure in his iron fetters than a proud courtier doth of his golden chain. Rev. xiv. 13, ' Blessed are they that die in the Lord.' But if it be so blessed a thing to die in the Lord, what is it to die for the Lord? Ps. cxvi. 15, ' Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.' It was Harding's invective against our reverend, learned, and precious JeweU, that Protestants were worse than the devil; for whereas bread and water and the cross could scare away devils, princes could be rid of them by no means but fire. To whom that excellent bishop answers. That though it pleased his malicious humour to make but a jest of the blood of God's saints, yet it was no more ignominy for lambs to suft'er what Christ sufi'ered, than it was praise and credit for wolves to betray liim, as Judas did.

Our patience is our crown and others' conversion. Eusebius 'from Clement reporteth, that when a wicked accuser had brought St James to condemnation, seeing his Christian fortitude, he was touched in conscience, confessed himself a Christian, and so was taken to execution with him. Where earnestly beseeching St James to forgive him, he after a little pause kissed him, and said, ' Peace be to thee, brother,' and they were beheaded together. 0 blessed patience! which not only gets honour to ourselves, but brings others to salvation, and in all glorifies God.

2. I^rayer. This was the apostles' refuge in the time of affliction, Acts ii. 24. Bernard, in a fiction, doth excellently express this necessity, enforce this duty. He supposeth the kings of Babylon and Jerusalem (by whom he means the world and the church) to be at war one against the other. During this hostility, a soldier of Jerusalem was fled to the castle of Justice. Siege was laid to this castle, and a multitude of enemies environed and entrenched it round. There lies near this soldier a faint-hearted coward called Fear. This speaks nothing but discomfort, and when Hope would step in to give him courage. Fear thrusts her out of doors. Whilst these two oppo-sitcs. Fear and Hope, stand debating, the Christian soldier resolves to appeal to the direction of sacred Wisdom, who was chief councillor to the captain of the castle. Justice. Hear Wisdom speak: Dost thou know, saith she, that the God whom we serve is able to deliver us. Is he not the Lord of hosts, even the Lord mighty in battle? We will despatch a messenger to him with information of our necessity.

Fear replies, What messenger? Darkness is on the face of the world; our walls arc begirt with an armed troop, which are not only strong as lions, but also watchful as dragons. What messenger can either escape through

such a host, or find the way into so remote a country 1 Wisdom calls for Uoi^e, and chargeth her with all speed to despatch away her old messenger. Hope' calls to Prayer, and says, Lo here a messenger speedy, ready, trusty, knowing the way. Ready, you cannot sooner call her than she comes; spcedy,°she flies faster than eagles, as fast as angels ; trusty, what embassage soever you put in her tongue she delivers with faithful secresy. She knows the way to the court of Mercy, and she will never faint till she come to the chamber of the royal presence.

Prayer hath her message, away she flies, borne on the sure and swift wings of faith and zeal; "Wisdom having given her a charge, and Hope a bless-iug.° Finding the gate shut, she knocks and cries, ' Open, ye gates of righteousness; and be ye open, ye everlasting doors of glory, that I may enter, and deliver to the long of Jenisalem my petition.' Jesus Christ hears her knock, opens the gate of mercy, attends her suit, promiseth her infallible comfort and redress.

Back returns Prayer, laden with the news of consolation. She hath a promise, and she delivers it into the hand of Faith: that were our enemies more innumerable than the locusts in Egypt, and more strong than the giants, the sons of Anak, yet Power and Mercy shall fight for us, and we shall be delivered. Pass we then through fire and water, through aU dangers and difficulties, yet we have a messenger, holy, happy, accessible, acceptable to God, that never comes back without comfort— Prayer.

And here fitly I will end our misery, and come to God's mercy. Desolation hath held us long, but our consolation is eternal. ' But thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.'

The song, you see^ is compounded like music; it hath acutiim and grave, high and low, sharp and flat. ' Thou causedst men to ride over us. But thou broughtest us out.' Sorrow and joy, trouble and peace, sour and sweet, come by vicissitudes. Invicem cedunt dolor et voluptas. This discord in music hurts not, but graceth the song. Whiles grief and pleasure keep this alternation in our life, they at once both exercise our patience and make more welcome our joys. If you look for the happiness of the wicked, you shall find it in pranis, at the beginning; but if you would learn what becomes of the righteous, intelUges in ncvissimis, you shall know it at last. Pa. xxxvii. 37, ' Mark the upright man, and behold the just : for the end of that man is peace.' We were sore oppressed, ' but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy j)lace.'

Every word is sweetly significant, and amplifies God's mercy to us. Four especially are remarkable:—!. The deliverer; 2. The deliverance; 3. The delivered ; and, 4. Their felicity or blessed advancement. So there is in the deliverer, aliquid cehitudinis, Thou; in the delivery, certitudinis, brought out; in the delivered, solitudinis, lis; in the happiness, pleniiudinis, into a wealthy place. There is highness and lowness, sureness and fulness. The deliverer is great, the deliverance certain, the distress grievous, the exaltation glorious. Thert! is yet a first word, that like a key unlocks this golden gate of mercy, a veruntavun: —

But.— This \svox respirationis, a gasp that fctcheth back again the very life of comfort. ' But thou broughtest,' Ac. We were fearfully endangered into the hands of our eiiomies ; they rode and trode upon us, and drove us throu-h hard perplexities : ' But thou,' &c. If there had been a full point or period at our misery, if those gulfs of persecution had quite swallowed us, and all our light of comfort had been thus smothered and extinguished, we might have cried, Periit spes nostra, yea, 2)eriit salus nostra.—Om hope, our

help is quite gone. He had mocked us that woukl have spoken, Be of good cheer. This same hut is like a happy oar, that turns our vessel from the rocks of despair, and lands it at the haven of comfort. ' But,' <tc.

Thou. —Thou only, without help or succour of either man or angel; that art able to save with a few as well as with many; that art ' a man of war,' Exod. XV. 3, and comest armed against thine enemies, with a spear of wratlx and a sword of vengeance : thou, of whose greatness tbere is no end, no limits, no determination: thou, O Lord, without any partner either to share thy glory or our thanks : ' thou broughtcst us out.'

Thou of thine ovsti goodness, so well as by thy own greatness, hast delivered us. No merit of ours procured, or deserved this mercy at thy hands; but our freedom comes only by thy majesty, of thy mercy. Here were no arms of flesh, nor armies of angels, in this work of our redemption ; but ' thou hast brought us out,' that we might praise thy name. Therefore we say, ' Bless the Lord, O our souls : O Lord, thou art very great, thou art clothed with honour and majesty,' Ps. civ. \.

Eduxisti: Broughtest out. —Great works become a great God. Oi^era testantur de me, saith our Saviour,—' My works bear witness of me.' I heal the sick, cleanse the leprous, give sight to the blind, raise the dead, cast out devils. Will you not believe, 0 ye carnal eyes, unless you see 1 WUl you trust your five senses above the four Gospels ? ' Come then, and see the works of God.' See works : not a fancy, speculation, or deceiving shadow ; but real, visible, acted, accomplished works. Eduxisti. Sensus asseiisiis. Let demonstration convince you ; ' The snare is broken, and we are delivered.' The Lord works patenter and patenter. There is not only manifold mercy, but manifest mercy, in his doings. He ' brought us out.'

When the ungodly see us so low brought, that persecutors ride over our heads, they are ready to say, 'Where is now their God?' Behold, hie est Deus, —our God is here, where there was need of him ; opus Deo, a work fit for the Deity to perform. Misery had wrapped and entangled us ; the wicked hands had tied us, as the Philistines did Samson, with the bands of death. Here then was dignus vindice nodus, —a knot worthy the finger of God to untie. Ps. cii. 20, ' He looked down from the height of his sanctuary : from heaven did the Lord behold the earth.' For what purpose ? ' To hear the groaning of the prisoner : to loose those that are appointed to death.' Behold, the waters went over our soul, yet we were not drowned. Malice had doomed us to the fire ; but our comfort is, nihil jMestatis in nos habuisse ignem, —that the fire had not power over us. They trod us under their cruel insultations, but the Lord hath hfted us up. ' The Lord of hosts was with us : the God of Jacob was our refuge,' Ps. xlvi 11.

Us.—To this act of God, if we tie the subject wherein he works, and knit to eduxisti, nos, —which I called verbum solitudinis, a word of former wretchedness and calamity,—we shall find our misery a fit subject for God's mercy; especially if you set the others' malice against our meekness, their wickedness against our weakness, the persons whom God delivers, and the persons from whom, will greatly commend the mercy of our deliverance.

It is a pleasure to God to have his strength perfected in our infirmity. AVlien the danger is most violent in its own nature and our sense, then is his helping arm most welcome. Isa. xvii. 11, * In the day of grief and of desperate sorrow, the harvest shall be great;' a plentiful crop of joy. Qui Deus est noster, Deus est salutis; Ps. Ixviii. 20, ' He that is our God is the God of salvation; and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death.' He delights to have us say in tliis deep extremity, Eduxisti, ' Thou hast brought

QQ THE VICTORY OF PATIENCE. [SeRMON VIII.

US out.' When Jonah was taken up by the mariners, put from the succour of the ship, no help in any rocks, nor mercy in the waters; neither means nor desire to escape by swimming,—for he yields liimself into the jaws of death with as mortified affoction as if a lump of lead had been thrown into the sea,—a man would have thought that salvation itself could not have siived Jonah. Yet Jonah shall not die. Here is now a delivery fit for God, a cure for the almighty hand to undertake.

Man's extremity is God's opportunity. Distressed desire is importunate. Ps. cii. 13, ' It is time that thou have mercy upon us ; yea, the time is come.' But if God do not presently answer, we are ready to pant out a groan of despair, ' The time is past.' If our importunity prevail not, we think all opportunity is gone. But God says, Tenqms nondum venit, —The time is not yet. God wjiits the maturity of the danger, the more to increase his honour. As Alexander cheered himself when he should fight with men and beasts^ haughty enemies, and huge elephants : Tandem far animo meo penmlum viJeo, —I see at last a danger somewhat equal to my mind. WUl you hear when this time is come 1 John xi, 21, Martha tells Christ, * Master, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.' Christ knew that before : ver. 1.5, 'Lazarus is dead; and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you might believe.' Observe the different thoughts of God and man. Martha is sorry, Christ is glad. She thought that the time of help was past; Christ thought that the time was not opportune tiU now. Jairus's servant comes and tells him, Mark v. 35, ' Thy daughter is dead ; trouble the Master no further.' This was the word Christ expected to hear; and now he says, ' Be not afraid, only believe.' Hear the Israelites' desperate complaint. The waters of the sea roar before their ftices; the wheels of the chariots rattle beliind their backs; hereon they cry to Moses, Exod. xiv. 11, 'Were there no graves in Egypt, that thou hast brought us hither to die?' Now saith Moses, ' Fear not, stand still, and see the salvation of God.'

From that which hath been spoken, and that which follows, we may observe two works of God's mercy : wliich consists—1. Removendo ; 2. Promo-vetido ; the one rcmovmg away much evil, the other preferring to much good. Eduxisti, shews his kindness in freeing us from calamity ; in locum opiden-tum, his goodness in exalting us to dignity. The former is an act of deliverance, the latter of advancement. So there is terminus h quo, from whence We are freed; and terminus ad quern, to which we are exalted.

1. Fur the former, we have God here educentem, bringing out of trouble. Soniftiines we find God ducentem, leading, guiding, directing : ' Wilt not thi'u, O Lord, go forth with our hosts?' And, ' he led them through the wUdomess, by the hand of Moses and Aaron.' Sometimes inducentem: ver. 11,' Thou broughtest us into the net; thou hast laid affliction upon our loin.s.' Sometimes adducentem : ' Thou, 0 Lord, hast brought us home to thyself,' ic. Sometimes reducentem: Ps. cxxvi. 4, ' Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south.' Often educentem: Ps. cv 43, 'He brought forth his jjooplc with joy, and his chosen with gladness.' Never aedurnUnn, l)oguiHiig, deceiving, causing to err; for that is opus diahoU, who is the accuser and seducer of men.

2. For the latter : into a wealthy place. The greatness of our felicity doth far transcend the gricvousness of our past misery. The dimension of our bfight exceeds that of our dci)th ; neither did affliction ever bring it so low, as our elevation hath advanced us high. Hereon St Paul, Rom. viii. 18, ' The sufferings of tMs present time are not worthy to be compared with the

glory which shall be revealed in us,' whether we compare their strength or their length.

(1.) For their vigour or strength; the affliction of man, in tlie greatest extremity that he can lay it on man, is but finite as the atilicter. The blow comes but from an arm of flosli, and therefore can wound but flesh. Yield the extension of it to reach so far as any pos.'sible malice can drive it, yet it can but rack the body, distend the joints, sluice out the blood, and give liberty to the imprisoned soul: which soul they cannot strike. Therefore saith Christ, ' Fear not him that hath power over the body' only, not over the soul. And even in the midst of this dire persecution, God can either quite deliver us, that the storm shall bow over our heads, and hurt us not; or if he suffers us to sutler that, yet he will so qualify the heat of it, that the cool refresliing of liis blessed Spirit inwardly to the conscience shall in a inanner extinguish the torment. But now this ' wealthy place,' the spring of joy that succeeds this winter of anguish, is illimited, inexpressible, infinite : so strongly guarded with an almighty power, that no robber violently, nor thief subtlely, can steal it from us. Some pleasure is mixed with that pam, but no pain is incident to this pleasure. There was some laughter among those tears, but there shall be no tears in this laughter; for ' tears shall be quite wiped from our eyes.' By how much then the power of God transcends man's, yea, God's mercy man's malice, by so much shall our rejoicing exceed our passion. By how much the glorious city of heaven, walled with jasper and pure gold, shining as brass,* Eev. xxi. 12, 18, is stronger than the undefenced and naked cottage of this transient world ; our future comforts arise, in measure, pleasure, and security, above our past distress.—Thus for strength.

(2.) If we compare their length, we shall find an infinite inequality. Paul calls affliction momentary, glory eternal, 2 Cor. iv. 17. Time shaU determine the one, and that a short time, a very winter's day; but the other is above the wheels of motion, and therefore beyond the reach of time. ' For a moment, in mine anger,' saith the Lord, ' I did hide my face from thee; but with everlasting mercy I have had compassion on thee.' Nothing but eternity can make either joy or sorrow absolute. He can brook his imprisonment that knows the short date of it; and he finds poor content in his pleasure that is certain of a sudden loss. We know that our pilgrimage is not long through this valley of tears and miserable desert; but our Canaan, home, inheritance, is a wealthy place : glorious for countenance, blessed for continuance ; wealthy, without want; stable, without alteration ; a constant mansion, an immoveable kingdom. Unto which our Lord Jesus in his appointed time bring us ! To whom, with the Father and Spirit of consolation, be all praise and glory for ever. Amen.

• Glass.-Ea

vol* I.

GOD'S HOUSE;

OR,

THE PLACE OF PRAISES.

I tvill go into thy house with hurnt-oferings : I ivill ixiy thee my vovs.-— rsALM LXVI. 13.

The former verse connexed with this demonstrate, with words of life, David's affliction and affection.

His affliction, to be overridden with persecutors; his affection, to bless Gud for his deliverance. Great misery, taken away by great mercy, requires great thankfuhicss : ' I will go into thy,' &c.

Before vvc put this song into parts, or derive it into particulars, two general things must be considered : the matter, or substance ; and the manner, or form.

■The matter and substance of the verse is thankfulness; the manner and fi»rni, rcsohition. The whole fiibric declares the former; the fashion of the building, the latter. The tenor of all is praising God; the key of tune it is set in, purpose: ' I will go into thy house; I will pay thee my vows.' So that first I must entreat you to look upon a solution and a resolution; a debt to be paid, and a purpose of heart to pay it.

The i)KBT is thankfulness. This is the matter and substance of the words. God ha\ing first, by affliction, taught us to know ourselves, doth afterwards, by deliverance, teach us to know him. And when his gracious iiand hath helped us out of the low pit, he looks that, like Israel, Exod. xv., wc should stand upon the shore and bless his name. David, that prayed to God dt pro/tmdis, Ps. cxxx. 1, ' Out of the depths have I called unto thee,' doth after jiraise hun in excelsis, with the highest organs and instruments of laud.

General mercies require our contiimal thanks, but new favours new praises. P.s. xcviii. 1, ' O sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done mur\-ellous things.' There is a fourfold life belonging to man, and God is the keeper of all : his natural, civil, spiritual, and eternal life. Bloody man would tjike away our natural life, (Ps. xxxvii. 32, ' The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him ;') God keeps it. The slanderous world would bla.st our civil life ; God blesseth our memory. The corrupted flesh would poison our spiritual life; God ' hides it in Christ/ Col. iii. 3.

The raging devil would kill our eternal life; God preserves it in heaven. Unworthy are we of rest that night wherein we sleep, or of the light of the sun that day wherein we rise, without praising God for these mercies. If we think not on him that made us, we think not to what [)urpose he made us. When I consider the works of God, saith Augustine, I am wonderfully moved to praise the Creator, (jid prorsus ita ma[inus est in operibus mag-■nis, ut minor noii sit in minimis,''^' —who is so great in his great works, that he is not less in his least. But when we consider his work of redemption, about which he was, not as about the creation, six days, but above thirty years, where non sua dedit, sal se, —he gave not his riches, but himself, and that non tarn in dominiim, quani in servum et sacrijicium, —not to be a lord, but a servant, a sacrifice; we have adamantine hearts, if the blood of this salvation cannot melt them into praises.

But special favours require special thanks, whether they consist i?i exi-mendo or in exhibendo; either in redeeming us from dangers, or heaping upon us benefits. Our prophet, in five instances, Vs. cvii., exemplifieth this duty: of travellers, captives, sick men, seamen, and others subject to the manifold varieties of life.

For travellers : ver. 4, ' They wander in the wilderness in a solitary way; hungry and thirsty, their soul fainting in them. They ciy unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivers them out of their distresses.' For captives : ver. 10, ' They sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, fast bound in afiiiction and iron.' Their prayers find a way out of the prison to God, and God delivers them out of the prison to liberty. For sick : ver. 17, ' Because of their transgression they are afflicted : their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; and they draw near unto the gates of death.' The strength of their prayers recovers the strength of their bodies. For mariners : ver. 27, ' They reel to and fro, staggering like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end.' They by their prayers appease the wrath of God, and he appeaseth the wrath of the waves and winds.

Now the burden of the song to all these deliverances is this, ver. 8, 15, 21, 31, * Oh that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men !' And because these four dangers are short of the innumerable calamities incident to man's life, therefore in the end of the psalm much misery is heaped up, and the Lord is the scatterer and dissolver of that heap; that all flesh might sing, ' Salvation is of the Lord.'

And because these mercies are infinite, so that what Christian may not say with David, Ps. xxiii. 6, * Thy goodness hath followed me all the days of my life;' therefore I infer with Paul, 1 Thess. v. 18, 'In all things give thanks.' So our Psalmist, ' My mouth shall be filled with thy praise all the day long.' What is meant by ' all the day,' saith Augustine, but a praise without intermission ? As no hour slips by thee without occasion, let none slip from thee without manifestation of gratitude. * I will praise thee,' saith he, ' O Lord,' in prosperis, quia consolaris; in adversis, quia corrigis, —m a prosperous estate, because thou dost bless me; in affliction, because thou dost correct me. Fecisti, rejecisti, perfecisti, —Thou madest me when I was not, restored me when I was lost, suppliest my wants, forgdvest my sins, and crownest m}' perseverance. But as quo acerlnor miseria, eo acceptior miseri-cordia, —the more grievous the misery, the more gracious the mercy ; so the richer benelit requires the heartier thanks. Great deliverances should not have small gratitude, where much is given, there is not a little required. * Contr. Faust. Manicb., 1. xxi., cap. 5.

To tell you what God hath done for us, thereby to excite thankfuhiess, would be to lose myself in the gat<!S of my text. I told you this was the ground and module of the psalm. But I know your curious ears care not so much for plain-song; yon expect I should run upon division. Hear but the next general point, and I come to your desire, reserving what I have more to say of this to my farewell and last application.

I come from the debt to be paid, to his resolution to pay it: ' I will go into thy house ; I will pay,' <fec. Though he be not instantly solvoido, he is resolvendo. He is not like those debtors that have neither means nor meaning to pay. But though he wants actual, he hath votal retribution. Though he cannot so soon come to the place where this payment is to be made, yet lie hath already paid it in his heart : ' I will go ; I will pay.' Here, then, is the debtor's

Rksolution. —There is in the godly a purpose of heart to serve the Lord. This is the child of a sanctified spirit, born not without the throbs and throes of tnie penitence. Not a transient and perishing flower, like Jonah's gourd, — -Ji/iiis nodis; aliens, moriens, —but the sound fruit, which the sap of grace in the heart sends forth. Luke xv. 18, when the prodigal son ' came to liimsclf,' saith the text,—as if he had been fonnerly out of his wits,—his first speech was, ' I will arise, and go to my father, and will say unto him. Father, 1 have sinned.' And what he purposed, he performed : he rose and went.

I know there are many that intend much, but do nothing; and that earth is full of good purposes, but heaven only full of good works; and that the tree gloriously leaved with intentions, without fruit, was cursed; and that a lewd heart may be so far smitten and convinced at a sermon, as to will a forsaking of some sin. Which thoughts are but swimming notions, and vanishing motions ; embryons, or abortive births.

PiUt this resolution hath a stronger force : it is the effect of a mature and deliberate judgment, wrought by God's Spirit, grounded on a voluntary devotion, not without true sanctilication, though it cannot, without some hi-terposition of time and means, come to perform that act w-hich it intends. It is the harbinger of a holy life; the little cloud, like a hand, that Elijah's servant saw, 1 Ivings xviii. 44, pointing to the showers of devotion.

Well, this is but the beginning; and, you know, many begin that do not accomplish : but what shall become of them that never begin '] If he doeth little that purposcth and performs not, what hope is there of them that will not purpose / It is hard to make a usurer leave his extortion, the unclean his lusts, the swearer his dishallowed speeches, when neither of them saith so much a.s, I will leave them. The habit of godliness is far off, when to will is not present; and we despair of their performance in whom cannot be wrought a purpose.

]5ut to you of whom there is more hope, that say. We luill praise the Lord, forget, not to add David's execution to David's intention. God loves the l.re.sriit tense boticr than the future, a facio more than a fadani. Let him that is i>reHi(l( lit over us be a precedent for us : Heb. x. 7, 'ibou, ^"xw, ' Behold, 1 come '—not, I will come, but, I do come—' to do thy will, O God.'

You have hoard the matter and maimer of the song : the substance is gratitude ; the form, a resolution to give it. To set it m some

Divi.sioN OR Method. That every present soul may bear his part, here be threp strains, or stairs, an(l gradual ascents, up which our contemplations must mount with David's actions.

1. An entrance into God's house : *I will go into thy house.' It is well that David will bring thither his praises himself. But many enter God's liouse that have no business there, that both come and return eni])ty-hearted, that neither bring to God devotion, nor carry from God consolation.

2. Therefore the next strain gives his zeal: he will not come empty-handed, but ' with burnt-offering.s.' Manifold and manifest arguments of his dearty affection. Manifest, because hurnt-offerings; real, visible, actual, and Accomplished works. Manifold, because not one singular oblation, but plurally, offerings, without pinching his devotion.

3. But yet divers have otiered sacrifices, and burnt-sacrifices, that stunk, like Balaam's, in God's nostrils : tendering bullocks and goats, not their own hearts. Therefore the third strain atfirms that David will not only offer beasts, but himself: ' I will pay thee my vows.' So that in his gratitude is observable, quo loco, quo modo, quo animo.

In what place? GocFs house; after what manner? with hurnt-offerings; with what mind ? / ivill jmy thee my vows. His devotion is without exception : all the labour is to work our hearts to an imitation.

/ will go into thy house. —The first note hath two strains : place and entrance.

The place he purposeth to enter is described by the property, domus; the proprietary, Dominus.

This house was not the temple, for that was after built by Solomon, but the tabernacle, or sanctuary. God had his house in all ages; as the -n-ise Creator of all things, he reserved to him a portion in all things; non propter indigentiam, not that he had need of them, but that he might be acknowledged in them. Though he be Lord of all nations in the world, because the maker of all men, yet he reserved a particular number of men, and appro priated them to himself; and these he called suum jMjmlum, ' his people,' Luke i. 68.

Though thousands of angels stand before him, and ten thousand thousands of those glorious spirits minister unto him, yet he cuUeth and callcth out some particular men to celebrate his service, sauctifpng or setting them apart to that office; and these be calls suos minisiros, his priests, his ministers.

Though he be a spirit, immortal, most rich, and Lord of all things,—' The earth is his, and the fulness thereof;' yea, heaven and the glory thereof :■ Ps. 1. 12, ' If I were hungry, I would not tell thee; for the world is mine,' &c.,—yet he reserveth to himself a certain share of these inferior things : and this he calls sicam sortem, his portion; Mai. iii. 8, 'his tithes, his offerings.'

Though he be eternal, first and last, without begdnning, wdthout end ; God of all times, and yet under no time ; with whom ' a thousand years is but as one day;' and everlastingly to be honoured;—yet he reserveth to himself a certain time wherein he looks for our general worship; and that he calls suum diem, his day, ' his sabbaths,' Isa, Iviii. 13.

Though he be the * high and lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy,' Isa. Ivii. L5 ; though infinite and comprehended in no place, yet he sets apart some special place wherein his great name shall be called on; and this he calls suavi domum, his house. So, !Matt. xxi. 13, 'My house shall be called the house of prayer.' Here, ' I will go into thy house.'

God never left his church destitute of a certain sacred place, wherein he would be worshipped. Adam had a place wherein he should present himself

to God, and God did present himself to Lim—Paradise. God appeared to Abraham in a pLice, and sanctilied it; and there, Gen. xii. 7, ' Abraham built an altar,' for it was holy. When he commanded him to sacrifice his .s(.n Isaac, he appointed him a i)lacc on a mountain, Gen. xxii. 2. And on this very'mountain, 2 Chron. iii. 1, was afterwards Solomon's temple built. Jacob, according to the several places he dwelt in, built several altars to serve God on. The Israelites were translated out of Egypt for this very cause, that they might have a place to sacrifice to the Lord. When they were come into Canaan, God commanded and directed Moses to make a tabernacle; which was but mobile tahernrtcidum, to be dissolved when Solomon's glorious torar)le was finished. Now all these particular places were consecrated to the service of God, and called loca Dei, God's places; as David calls this domum Dei, God's house.

This is the first note of the strain, the place. The next is his entrance ; wherein observe—

1. That David's fir.st care is to visit God's house. It is very likely that this psalm was written by David either in exile under Saul, or in persecution by Absalom, or in some grievous distress; whereout being delivered, he first resolves to salute God's house. Chrysostom in Opere Imperfecto, or whosoever was the author of that book, notes it the property of a good son, when he comes to town, first to visit his father's house, and to perform the honour that is due to him. We find this in Christ. Matt. xxL 10-12, so soon as ever he came to .Jerusalem, first he visits his Father's house : ' He went into the temple.' What the Son and Lord of David did there, the same course doth the servant of his Son take here : first, ' I will go into thy house.'

Oh for one dram of this respect of God's house in these days ! Shall that place have a principal place in our affections ? We would not then think one ho\ir tedious in it, when many years delight us in the * tents of Kedar.' Tills was not David's opinion : Ps. Ixxxiv. 10, ' One day in thy courts is bettor than a thousand.' Nor grudge at every penny that a levy taxeth to the church, as if tegunien parietibus impositum was enough,—bare walls, and a cover to keep us from rain; and aliquid ornatus was but superfluous, except it be a cushion and a wainscot seat, for a gentleman's better ease. The greatest preparation usually against some solemn feast is but a little fresh .straw under the feet, the ordinary allowance for hogs in the stye or horses in the stable. For other cost, let it be domus opportuna volucrum, —a cage of unclean birds ; and so it must be so long as some sacrilegious persons are in it. It was part of the epitaph of King Edgar—

' Templa Deo, templis monachos, monachis declit agros,'—

He gave temples to God, ministers to those temples, and maintenance to those ministers. But the epitaphs of too many in these days may well run in contrary terms. They take tenths from good ministers, good ministers from the churches, yea, and some of them also the churches from God. But here ipiic.piid Miqero nlcits erit, that which I should touch is an ulcer; and I will spend no phy.sic in imniedicabile vulnus, upon an incurable wound; but leave it ense reddendum Domini, to be cut off with the sword of God's vengeance.

2. Observe the reason why David would go into God's house; and this hafh a double degree. To give him, (1.) praise ; (2.) public praise.

(1.) I'raijie. Might not David praise God in any place 1 Yes; Da\ad might and must bless the Lord in any place, in every place; but the place

that is principally destined to this purpose is domus Dei, Go Js house. The name which God imposed on his house, and by which, as it were, he christened it, was domus orationis, the house of prayer. As Christ, Matt. xxi. 13, derives it from Isa. hi. 7, ' ^ly house shall be called the house of prayer.' Therefore those houses were called in the primitive times dominica, the Lord's houses ; and oratoria, houses of prayer, devoted to the praise of God.

I might here take just cause to tax an error of our times. ]\Iany come to these holy places, and are so transported with a desire of hearing, that they forget the fervency of praying and praising God. The end is ever held more noble than the means that conduce unto it. Sin brought in ignorance, and ignorance takes away devotion. The word preached brings in knowledge, and knowledge rectilies devotion. So that all our preaching is but to beget your praying; to instruct you to praise and worship God. The most immediate and proper ser\ace and worship of God is the end, and hearing but the means to that end. And the rule is true : Semper Jinis excellit id quod est ad Jinem, —The end ever excels that wJiich leads to the end. Scientia non est qualitas activa, sed principium quo aliquis dirigitur in operando* —Knowledge is not an active quality, but only a means to direct a man in working.

Non tarn audire, quam obedire requirit Deus, —God reckons not so much of our audience as of our obedience : not the hearers, but the ' doers, are blessed in their deed,' James i. 25. Indeed, Christ saith, ' Blessed are they that hear the word of God;' but with this condition, that 'they keep it.' The worship of God is the fruit of hearing; shew me this fruit. Our oratoria are turned into auditoria, and we are content that God should speak earnestly to us, but we will not speak devoutly to him. I hope that no man will so ignorantly and injuriously understand me, as if I spake against hearing of sermons frequently. God forbid ; you must hear, and we must preach. The apostles ' gave themselves continually to prayer, and to the preaching of the word,' Acts vi. 4: where yet prayer is put in the first place.

I complain not that our churches are auditories, but that they are not oratories; not that you come to sermons, (for God's sake, come faster,) but that you neglect public jjrayer : as if it were only God's part to bless you, not yours to bless God. And hereof I complain with good company. Chryso-stom saitlijt that such a multitude came to his sermons, that there was scarce room for a late comer; and those would all patiently attend the end of the sermon : but when prayers were to be read, or sacraments to be administered, the company was thin, the seats empty. Vacua desertaque ecclesia reddehatur.

Beloved, mistake not. It is not the only exercise of a Christian to hear a sermon; nor is that Sabbath well spent that despatcheth no other business for heaven. I will be bold to tell you, that in heaven there shall be no sermons ; and yet in heaven there shall be hallelujahs. And this same end, for which David came to God's house, shall remain in glory—to praise the Lord. So that all God's .service is not to be narrowed up in hearing, it hath greater latitude; there must be prayer, praise, adoration, and worship of God. Neither is it the scope of Christianity to know, but the scope of knowledge is to be a good Christian. You are not heathen, to ask, Quid cre-dendum } What must we believe? nor catechists,to demand. Quid faciendum? ' What must we do V Luke iii. 10. You know what to believe, you know what to do. Our preaching hath not so much need monere as movere ; though you also need instruction, yet more need of exhortation; for you * Th. 1, qu. 117, art. 1. f De Incompreh. Dei Natura, Horn. iii.

have learned more than ever you have followed. Come then hither, both to hear God and to praise God; as Da\-id was not only here a praiser, but, vcr. 16, a preacher : ' Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will teU you what he hath done for my soul.'

(•2.) ^Vhich fitly brings me to the further exemplifying of this cause moving Davitl to enter into God's house. Which was not only to praise him, but to praise him piillicli/. Otherwise he might have muttered his orisons to himself ; no, he desires that his mouth should be a trumpet of God's glory; as frequently in the Psalms : ' I will praise thee before the great congregations.' There are some, that whatsoever service they do to God, desire anany witnesses of it; others desire no -natnesscs at all.

The former are hypocrites, who would have all men's eyes take notice of their dev<jtion; as if they durst not trust God without witness, for fear he should deny it. Such were the Pharisees; they gave no alms without the proclamation of a trumpet, and their prayers were at the corners of streets ; such comers where divers streets met, and so more spectable to many passengers. To these Christ, !Matt. vi. 4, ' Do thy devotion in secret; and he that seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.'

The other have a little desire to serve God, but they would have no witnesses at all. They depend upon some great man, that will be angry with it. And these would fain have God take notice of their devotion, and nobody else. So Nicodemus stole to Christ by night; and many a Papist's servant would come to churcli if he were sure his master might not know of it. For he fears more t« be turned out of his service than out of God's service. To these Christ, Luke xii. 4, ' Be not afraid of them that kill the body,' and no more ; ' but fear him that hath power to cast into hell; yea, I sa'y unto you, fear him.' A man may better lose his landlord's favour than the Lord's favour; his farm on earth than his manor or mansion in heaven.

David was neither of these. His thankfulness shall not be hidden jjrce timore 7mna)it{um,noT yet will he manifest it pro amove laudantiam, —neither for fear of commanders nor for love of commenders. He is neither timidus nor tumidus, not fearful of frowns nor luxurious of praises; but only desires to manifest the integrity of his conscience in the sight of God. It is the manner of the godly not only to ruminate in their minds God's mercies, but to divulge them to the bettering of others. When we yield thus to the world a testimony of our faith and thankfulness in God's public honour, we provoke others to hearken to religion, and inflame their hearts with a fervent desire to partake the like mercies. The fame of Alexander gave heart to Julius Caisar to be the more noble warrior. The freedom of our devotion gives an edge to others.

Jkiiejicinm qui dedit, taceat; narret qui accepit;' —Let him that gives a benefit Ix! silent; let him speak of it that hath received it. There'is that law (»f ditference, saith that philosopher, betwixt the doer of a good turn nn(Uhe recoivrr of it: A Her sUttim oblivisci debet dati ; alter accepti nunqiiam, —Tiie one ou,i,'ht ciuickly to forget what he hath given ; the other ought never to forget what he hath received. We arc the receivers, and must not forget. God gave the law to Israel, and the custom of the saints observed It: Ps. Ixxviii. 3, 4, ' What we have hoard and known, and our fathers have told UH, wc will not hide from our children, showing to the generations to ••OHIO the prai.ses of the I.,<-rd.'

hul.-.-d there was a time when Christ forbade the publishing of his benefit: .Mark I. \\, to the leper, ' See thou .say nothing to any man of it.' But ' he ♦ Sou. do Beucf., lib. ii., cap. 11.

went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter.' I know, divers divines, by curious distinctions, have gone about to excuse the matter, by making this an admonitory, not an obligatory precept. But I subscribe to Calvin and Llarlorat, who tax it for an offence, and manifest breach of Christ's commandment. And Jerome on that place says that non erat necessc zit sermone jadaret, quod cor pore jwceferebat, —his tongue might be silent, for his whole body Avas turned into a tongue to publish it. The act was good, but not good at that time. Disobedient he was, be it granted; yet of all disobedient men commend me to him. Let not then any ix)litic or sinister respects tie up our tongues from blessing him that hath blessed us. Suffocate not the fire of zeal in thy heart by silent lips, lest it prove key-cold ; but say with our projjhet, Ps. xxvi. 12, ' My foot standeth in an even place: in the congregations will I bless the Lord.'

We perceive now the motive-cause that brought David into God's house. I would take leave from hence in a word to instruct you with what mind you ^lould come to this holy place. We are in substance inheritors of the same foith which the Jews held ; and have—instead of their tabernacle, sanctuary, temple—churches, places set apart for the assembly of God's sidnts; wherein we receive divine mysteries, and celebrate divine ministries ; which a^e said by Damascene,* Plus participare operationis et graiioe divince, — There is nothing lost by the gospel which the law afforded; but ratlujr all bettered. It is observable that the building of that glorious temple was the maturity and consummation of God's mercy to the Jews. Infinite were his fiivours betwixt their slavery in Egj^it and their peace in Israel. God did, as it were, attend upon them to supply their wants. They have no guide : why, God hunsclf is their guide, and goes before them in a pUlar of fire. They have no shelter : the Lord spreads a cloud over them for a canopy. Are they at a stand, and want way 1 The sea shall part and give them passage, whilst the divided waters are as walls unto them. For sustenance, they lack bread: heaven itself shall pour down the food of angels. Have they iio meat to their bread ? A wind shall blow to them imuimerable quails. Bread and flesh is not enough without drink : behold, a hard rock, smitten with a little wand, shall pour out abundance of water. But what is all this, if they yet in the wilderness shall want apparel,? Their garments shall not wax old on their backs. Do they besiege 1 Jericho's walls shall fixU down before them ; for want of engines, hailstones shall brain their enemies ; lamps, and pitchers, and dreams shall get them victory. ' The sun shall stand stiU on Gibeon, and the moon in the A'-alley of Ajalon,' Josh. x. 12, to behold their conquests. Lack they yet a land to inhabit? The Lord will make good his promise against all difficulties, and giAC them a land that 'flows with milk and honey.'

But is all this yet short of our purpose, and their chief blessedness 1 They want a house to celebrate his praise that hath done all this for ih-m : behold, the Lord giveth them a goodly temple; neither doth he therein only accept tlieir offerings, but he also gives them his oracles, even vocal oracles between the cherubims. I might easily parallel England to Israel in the circumference of all these blessings; but my centre is their last and best, and Avhercof fhey most boasted: Jer. vii. 4, ' The temple of the Lord,' and the law of their otod. To answer these we have the houses of God, and the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have all, though all in a new manner: 2 (~!or. v. 17, 'Old things are passed away ; behold, all things arc become new.' They had an 'Old Testament,' Heb. viii 13; we have the 'New Testament' They had ♦ Orthod. Fid., lib. cap. 16

the Spirit; we have a new Spirit. They had commandments; we have novum vuinJatum—tliG 'new comnumdment,' John xui. 34. They had an mhen-tancc, Canaan; we have a new inheritance promised: Vidi novum coelum a fio'imn ten-am,—Rev. xxi. 1, ' I saw a new heaven and a new earth.' To conchide, they had their temple, we have our churches; to which as they were brouglit by their sabbath, so we by our Lord's day; wherein as they had their siicrameuts, so we have our sacraments. We must therefore bear the like affection to ours as tliey did to that. We have greater cause. There was the shadow, here is the substance; there the figure, here the truth ; tliere the sacrifices of beasts, here of ' the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world.'

I find myself here occasioned to enter a great sea of discourse; but you shall see I will make but a short cut of it. It is God's house you enter; A house where the Lord is present; the place where his honour dwelleth. Let this teach us to come—

1. With reverence. Lev, xix. 30, 'Ye shall hallow my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary : I am the Lord.' The very mention of this reverence, methinks, should strike our hearts with our self-known guiltiness. How few look to their feet before they enter these holy doors ! Eccles. v. 1; and so they offer the sacrifice of imprudent and impudent fools. If th^y arc to hear, they regard quis, not quid: anything is good that some man speaks, the same in another trivial. If the man like them not, nor shall the sermon. Many thus contend like those two Germans in a tavern. One said lie was of Dr ilartin's religion, the other protested himself of Dr Luther's religion; and thus among their cups the litigation grew hot between them: whereas indeed Martin and Luther was but one man. Others, when they come first into the church, they swap down on their seats, clap their hats before their eyes, and scarce bow their knees ; as if the}'^ came to bless God, not to entreat God to bless them. They would quake in the presence of an offended king, who are thus impudent-faced in the house of God. But saith the Lord, whose ' throne is the heaven, and the earth his footstool; I will look to him that trembleth at my word,' Isa. Ixvi. 2. So Jacob, Gen. xxviii. 17; ' was afraid, and said, How fearful is this place ! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.' Whereupon Bernard, Terribilis plane locus, &c.,—'A fearful place indeed, and worthy of all reverence ; which saints inliabit, holy angels frequent, and God himself graceth. with his own presence.' As the first Adam was placed in paradise to keep it, so the second Adam is in the congregation of his saints to preserve it. Therefore enter not without reverence : Ps. v. 7, ' I will come into thy house in tlic multitude of thy mercies; and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.'

2. With joy. None but a free-will offering is welcome to God. It is a common opinion in the world that religion doth dull a man's wits and deject his spirits, as if mirth and mischief were only sworn brothers. But God's word teachoth, and a good conscience findeth, that no man can be so joyful n» the faitlxful; nor is there so merry a land as the holy land; no place of joy like the church. Let the wicked think that they cannot laugh if they be tied to the law of grace, nor be merry if God be in the company ; but the Chriistian knows there Is no true joy but the good joy : and if this be anywhere, it i,4 in the temple Ps. cxxiv. 1, ' I was glad when they said unto nie, Let u.H go into the house of the Lord.' Indeed, therefore, we are not njcrry enough, because we are not enough Christians. Can you wish more joy to lie received than that, Rom. xiv. 17, 'peace of conscience, and joy of

the Holy Ghost/— hilaris cum pondere virtus, a joy that can neither be suppressed nor expressed,—or more joy to be communicated than, Col. iii 1G, 'in psalms, hyunis, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord?' Think, think, tliy God is here. "The angels of heaven rejoice in his glorious presence, and crown it as their chief felicity; and shall not poor man rejoice in his gracious presence,—as it were, his most blessed society 1 Yes; the light of thy countenance, O Lord, shall put more gladness into our hearts than into the worldlings' their abundance of com and wine, Ps. iv. 6, 7. Cast away then your dulncss and unwillingness of heart; come merrily and with a joyful soul into the house of God.

3. With holiness. It is holy ground, not by any inherent holiness, but m regard of the religious use. For that place which was once Betluel, the house of God, proved afterward Bethaven, the house of iniquity. But it is thus God's sanctuary, the habitation of his sanctity: Frocul hinc, procul este pro-fani. ' Put off thy shoes,'—doff thy carnal affections,—' the place where thou standest is holy ground;' ' wash thy hands,' yea, thy heart, ' in innocency,' before thou ' come near to God's altar.' Be the minister never so simple, never so sinful, the word is holy, the action holy, the time holy, the place holy, ordained by the Most Holy to make us holy. Saith a reverend divine, God's house is for godly exercises; they wrong it, therefore, that turn sanc-tiiariinn into promptuarium, the sanctuary into a buttery, and spiritual food into belly-cheer. And they much more, that pervert it to a place of pastime, making the house of praise a house of plays. And they most of all, that make it a house, not laud is, hut /raudis, —Matt. xxi. 13, 'My house is the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves,'—robbing, if not men of their goods, yet God of the better part, sincerity of conscience.

What a horrid thing would it be, beloved, if you shoidd depart from this church, where you learn to keep a good conscience, but into the market, and there practise deceit, circumvention, oppression, swearing, drunkenness ! Oh, do not derive the commencement of your sins from God's house! What a mockery is this, and how odious in the sight of heaven, if you shoidd begin your wickedness with a sermon, as the Papists begin their treasons with a mass! I tax no known person ; but for the facts and faults, noyi ignota cano,

1 do not speak of things unknown. I would to God your amended lives might bring me with shame again hither to recant and unsay it.

But it often so falls out, that as those conspirators met at the Capitol, so the church is made the covimunis terminus, where many wickednesses have appointed to meet. ' What agreement hath the temple of God with idols V

2 Cor. vi. 16. Begin not the day with God, to spend all the rest with Satan. Your tongues have now blessed the Lord ; let not the evening find them red with oaths, or black with curses. Let not that saying of Luther be verified by you, that in nomine Domini incipit omne malum, —in the name of God begins aU mischief Whatsoever your morning sacrifice pretend, look to your afternoon. You have done so much the worse, as you have made a show of good ; and it had been easier for your unclean hearts to have missed this admonition. This caveat, before I leave God's house, I thought to commend to your practice, when you leave it.

I have held you too long in the church, speaking of the church. It was the most material point I propounded to my discourse ; forgive the prolixity, the brevity of the rest shall make amends. The first strain or stair was his entrance into God's house. Now he is in, what doth he ? What bringeth he? We find—

Bumt-ojerings. —I have three dissuasions from punctual tractation of

GODS HOUSE. [Sermon IX.

this point First, The poor remnant of the fugitive time. Secondly, I have Uberally handled it on former occasions.* Thirdly, The necessity is not CTcat of discoursing the sacrilices of the law in these days of the gospel. We have the light, and therefore need not trouble ourselves to cast back the

Sacrifices are of great antiquity. Not only the book of God, but even the law of nature, hath imprinted in man's heart that sacrifices must be offered. It is written in the conscience, that a homage is due to the superior power, which is able to revenge itself of dishonour and contempt done it, and to rc"Tatify them with kindness that served it. But David's sacrifice was the eanicst of a thankful heart. I might amplify it, and perhaps pick up some good gleanings after others' full carts.

I could also observe, that David came not before God empty-handed, but brought with him some actual testimony of his devoted affection,—burnt-offerings,—to the confusion of their faces who will no longer serve God if he grows chargeable to them. If they may receive from God good things, and pay him only with good words, they are content to worship him. But if they cannot be in his favour but it must cost them the setting on, they ■ftill save their purses though they lose their souls. If he requires aught for his church, poor ministers or poor members, they cry with Judas, Ad quid perJitio h(Bc ? —Why is this waste 1 They are only so long rich in devotion as they may be rich by devotion, and no longer.

But for ourselves, be we sure that the best sacrifice we can give to God is obedience ; not a dead beast, but a living soul. The Lord takes not delight in the blood of brutish creatures, a spirit in bodies, the impassible in savours arising from altars. It is the mind, the life, the soul, the obedience, that he requires : 1 Sam. xv. 22, ' To obey is better than sacrifice.' Let this be our burnt-offering, our holocaust, a sanctified body and mind given up to the Lord, Horn. xii. 1, 2. First the heart: ' My son, give me thy heart' Is not the heart enough? No, the hand also : Isa. i. IG, 'Wash the hands' from blood and pollution. Is not the hand enough 1 No, the foot also : ' Bcinove thy foot from evil.' Is not the foot enough 1 No, the lips also : ' (Jhard the doors of thy mouth;' Ps. xxxiv. 13, 'Refrain thy tongue from evil.' Is not thy tongue enough ? No, the ear also : ' Let liim that hath ears to hear, hear.' Is not the ear enough 1 No, the eye also : ' Let thine eyes be toward the Lord.' Is not all this suflicient 1 No, give body and Hpirit : 1 Cor. vi. 20, ' Ye are bought with a price : therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.' When the eyes abhor lustful objects, the ears slanders, the foot erring paths, the hands wrong and violence, the tongue flattery and blasphemy, the heart pride and hypocrisy; this is thy holocaust, thy whole burnt-ofiering.

/ u'i/l pay thee viy vows. —The third and highest degree of this song is, vows ; ' I will pay thee my vows.' And here among vows, I might sooner than with bunit-offorings lose the time, your patience, and myself This vow was no meritorious or supererogatory work in David. But though the law gent'raliy binds him to (iod's service, yet to some particular act of God's service he may newly bind liimself by a vow. So, Gen. xxviii. 20, 22, 'Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If (iod will be with me,' &c., ' this stone that I have set for a pillar shall l)e God's house ; and of all that thou sbalt give me, I will huffly give the tenth unto thee.' Our prophet did vow performance of that duty to whirh without vowing he was obliged: Ps. cxix. 106, ' I have vowed and swoni, ami will perform it, that I willkeep thy righteous judgments.' • See Sermon on Fa. cxviii. 27.

There are many cautions in vows which I must vow to omit: only Solomon's rule excepted, Eccles. v. 4, 6, ' When thou vowest a vow to God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure m fools : pay that thou hast vowed. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin.' Let nothing be vowed that is not jKiies voventam, in the power of the vower; and then the thing being good, and thou enabled to perform it, this vow must be kept. For thy vows are a heavy charge : Ps. l\d. 12, ' Thy vows are heavy upon me, 0 God.'

The Papists have strange, and often impossible vows, of poverty, virginity, pilgrimage. I will teach thee to make vows too ; God enable thee to keep them ! If thou wilt \ow poverfi/, let it be in spirit. Vow thyself not in the world a beggar, but a beggar to Christ, ilany blessed saints have served God with their wealth, and thought not that religion was only in them that begged. If thou wilt vow virginity, vow thyself a virgin to Christ; whether thou be married or single, keep the bed undefiled, that, 2 Cor. xi, 2, ' thou mayest be presented a pure virgin to Christ.' If thou wilt vow pilf/rimcfje, let it not be to our Lady of Lorctto, or of Halle and Zichem, indeed not to our Lady, but to our Lord; vow thyself a pilgrim to Christ. Load not thyself with the luggage of this world, lest it hinder thy journey; and cease not travelling till thou come to thy home, the place of peace and eternal rest. These are lawful, laudable vows; the Lord send us jdl to make them, and to keej) them !

You see I am quickly got up these two latter stairs. Some more special use remahis only to be made, and so give way to conclusion. I will take from these three branches a just reproof of three sorts of people,— refusers, intruders, backsliders. Refusers to come, being called; intruders, that come being not prepared; and backsliders, that make vows but not keep them. The first say not, ' We will go into thy house.' The second say, ' We will go into thy house,' but not ' with burnt-offerings.' The last deny not both the former : ' We will go into thy house,' and ' with burnt-offerings ;' but non solvent vota, they will not ' pay their vows.'

1. Refusers or recusants are of two sorts—Papists and separatists, or schismatics.

(1.) Papists; and they have so much recourse ad transmarinajudicia, to beyond-sea judgments, that they dare not come into God's house because of the Pope's interdiction. And the Popes have so wrought and brought it about now, that they will not only in ahstrado be had in reverence, but in concreto be feared with observation. Though at first thirty bishops there successively yielded their heads to the block for Christ; yet afterwards, by change of bishops in that see, and of humours in those bishops, such alteration hath followed, that Rome is no liker to what Rome was than JNIichal's image on a pillow of goat's hair, 1 Sam. xix., was like David. The cause therefore of their not communicating with us is awe of the Pope's supremacy. For some of their gi-eatest writers have justified our communion-book to contani all doctrme necessary to salvation. The not suffering them to come to God's house is then rather a point of Popish policy and state than of Christian devotion. But indeed they are the satanical Jesuits that set them afoot. The common peojjle, like the mare mortuuvi, a dead sea, would be quiet enough, if these blustering winds did not put them into tumult. And so long as those dogs can bark against God's house, the poor affrighted people dare not come there. So that England may have their bodies, but Rome hath their hearts; and the danger is fearful, lest Satan also come in for his share, and take possession of their souls.

(2.) Schismatics; who, because their curious eyes, looking through the

spectacles of opinion, spy some morphew * of corruption upon the church's face, will utterly forsake it. There are some that refuse peaceable obedience, as the poet made his plays, to please the people; or as Simon Magus was christened, for company. The separatists are peevishly wretched; discontent drives them from God, and though they say they fly for their conscience, indeed they tiy from their conscience, lea\-ing all true devotion behind them, and their wives and children upon the parish.

2. Well, they are gone, and my discourse shall travel no further after them, but fall upon others nearer hand. There are some so far from refusers, that they are rather intruders. They will come into God's house, but they ^vill bring no burnt-otferings with them; no preparation of heart to receive benefit in the church. They come without their wedding-garment, and shall one day hear that fearful and unanswerable question, ' Friends, how came you in hither /'

These are the utterly profane, that come rather with a lame knowledge than a blind zeal. For some of them, good clothes carry them to church; and they had rather men should note the fashion of their habits than God the habit of their hearts. They can better brook ten disorders in their lives than one ui their locks. Others are the secure semi-atheistical cosmopolites ; and these come too : and none take a truer measure of the sermon, for their sleep begins with the prayer before it, and wakens just at the psalm after it. These think that God may be served well enough with looking on ; and their utmost duty, but to bring their bodies a little further living than they shall be brought dead : for then perhaps they shall come to the churchyard, now they will bring them to the church. Devotion and they are almost strangers, and so much as they know of it, they dishonour by their acquaintance. Their burnt-ofi'erings are nothing else but a number of eyes at utmost lift up to heaven; their heart hath another centre. They bring as many sins with them every day to church as they have been all their lives in committing. Their hands are not washed from aspersions of lust and blood; their eyes are full of whoredom, their lips of slander, their affections of covet-ousnes.s, their wits of cheating, their souls of impiety. If there were no saints in the church, how could they hope the roof would not fall on their guilty heads? But I will leave them to the Lord's reproof: Jer. vii. 9-11, ' Will ye steal, murder, commit adultery, and swear falsely ; and come and stand before me in this house,' staring me in the face, as if you were innocent ] ' Behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord.'

3. There is yet a last sort, that will come into God's house, and bring with them burnt-offerings, a show of external devotion ; but they will not pay their vows. Distress, war, captivity, calamity, famine, sickness, brings down the mosjt elate and lofty spirits. It turns the proud gallant's feather into a kerchief; i)ulls the wine from the lips of the drunkard ; ties up the tongue of the swearer, whom thunder could not adjure to silence ; makes the adulterer loathe the place of lu.s sin, the bed. And though the usurer stuff his pillow with nothing Init hi.s bonds and mortgages, softer and sweeter in his opinion than down or feathers, yet his head will not leave aching.

This misery doth so sting, terrify, and put sense into the dead flesh of the numbed conscience, that (all worldly delights being found like plummets of lead tied about a man while he is cast into this sea, so far from helping hun to swim, that they .sink him rather,) the eye looks about for another shore, and finds none but God To this so long forgotten God, the heart begins to address a messenger, and that is prayer. God, the wicked see, * That is, a ucab or scurf.— Ed.

must be called on, but they know not how. They have been so mere strangers to him, that they cannot tell how to salute him. Like beggars that are blind, they are forced to beg, but they see not of whom. Or if their eyes are so iar oi^en, vident quasi e longinquo salutem, sed interjacente ■pelayo ; vident quo eundum, non qua, —they see health afar off, as it were beyond the sea; they see whither they would go, but not which way.

If any inferior thing or created prop could iljjhold them, God should not be solicited. If friends will, if physic will, if money will, if all the delicate objects for any sense will ease or appease their grief, they will not seek to lieaven. Yea, if Beelzebub, t'.ie god of Ekrou, can cure them, they will not trouble the God of Israel. But ail lower pleasures to one thus sick are but like a sweet harmony of music to a deaf man. There is no hope of comfort but from above the clouds. Health and prosperity is but as a coach to carry our desires to heaven, but sickness is the post-horse. Only this suh-poena can bring us to put up a supplication in the high court of requests and mercy. Now, lo, they pray, they beseech, they sigh, they weep, they bleed, and lastly they vow.

What vow they ? Either some new act to be done, or some old act to be left undone. Now the drunkard vows abstinence, the lustful vows continence, the swearer vows to leave his blasphemy, the encloser vows to throw open nis taken-in commons, the proud vow to leave their gaudy vanity, the worldling vows to be charitable and to relieve the poor; and perhaps, at such a pmch or dead lift, one usurer in a thousand years may vow to forsake his usury, and to restore all that he hath so gotten. Now they say. Lord, remove from me this malady, this extremity, and I will hereafter serve thee better, love thee more, believe thy gospel, relieve thy poor, give something to an hospital, or do some such act as may testify my thankfulness.

Well, God hears and grants; health comes, strength is recovered, the danger is over, they are well. Now ubi vota ? —where be their vows 1 Alas ! we rise from our beds of sickness, and leave our vows behind us.

■ ' .(Egrotus surgit, sed pia vota jacent.'

Physicians have a rule among themselves concerning their patients : Take whiles they be in pain. For whatsoever they promise sick, when they are well they will not perform it. So God had need to take what devotion he can get at our hands in our misery, for when prosperity returns we forget our vows. You have often heard that old verse—

' Dcemon languebat, monachus tunc esse volebat j DsemoQ couvaluit, drcmon ut ante fuit ;'

and as wittily EngUshed—

'The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be; The devil was well, the devil of monk was he.'

The moral of it suits full to our present pur[)0se. It is reported of Constantinople that a terrible earthquake had overthrown many houses, slain much people. Hereupon the remaining inhabitants, affrighted, fell devoutly to their prayers and vows, privately in their chambers, publicly in their churches; the poor were relieved, justice administered, their lives much amended. But afterwards, when God held his hand, they held their tongues ; he forbore plaguing, and they forbore praying ; the rod ceased, and their piety withal: they forgot their vows.

When the Lord hath stricken us by famine, in withholding the rain from

U-; or in pouring clown too much too fast upon us; or by a grievous plague, tunun" our popular streets into a desert; we straight grow jienitent : zeal carries'up our cries to heaven, we pray, we sigh, we weep. Sorrow sits in •mr eyes, devotion on our lips; God hath at that time more hearty prayers in an hour than ordinarily in a year. But as the poet spake— 'Xocte plait tota, redeunt spectacula mane;'—

The Lord no sooner takes ofiF the burden of misery, but we also shake off the burden of piety; we forget our vows. Oh the mercy of God, that such forgetfulness should possess Christian hearts ! This was unthankful Israel's fault: P.s. cvi. 13, ' Thqy soon forgot his works;' they forgat, yea, soon; they made haste to forget, so the original is : ' They made haste, they forgat' Like men that in sleep shake Death by the hand, but when they are awake will not know him.

It is storied of a merchant, that in a great storm at sea vowed to Jupiter, if he would save him and his vessel, to give him a hecatomb. The storm ccaseth, and he betliinks that a hecatomb was unreasonable; he resolves cu seven o.xen. Another tempest comes, and now he vows again the seven at least. Delivered then also, he thought that seven were too many, and one ox would serve the turn. Yet another perd comes, and now he vows solemnly to fall no lower; if he might be rescued, an ox Jupiter shall have. Again freed, the ox sticks in his stomach, and he would fain draw his devotion to a lower rate; a sheep was sufficient. But at last, being set ashore. he thought a sheep too much, and purposeth to carry to the altar only a few dates. But by the way he eats up the dates, and lays on the altar only the shells. After this rate do many perform their vows. They promise whole hecatombs in sickness, but they reduce them lower and lower still as they grow well. He that vowed to build an hospital, to restore an impropriation to the church, to lay open his enclosures, and to serve God with an honest heart, brings all at last to a poor reckoning, and thinks to please the Lord with his empty shells. There was some hope of this man's soul's health while his body was sick ; but as his body riseth to strength, his soul falls to weakness.

It is the reproach of Rome, No penny, no paternoster; let it not be our reproach and reproof too, No plague, no paternoster; no punishments, no prayers. Thy vows are God's debts, and God's debts must be paid ; he wUl not, as men do desperate debtors, dismiss thee on a slight composition. No; juste erir/itur ad soJvemhna, qui non corjitur ad vovendum* —he is justly required to pay that was not compelled to vow. Non talis eris, si non feceris quod vovisii, qualis mansisti si nihil tale vovisses: minor enim tunc esses, non jt/'jor,i—Thou, rcmainest not the same, having vowed and not performed, as thou hadst been hadst thou not vowed : thou hadst then been less, thou art now worse.

Well then, beloved, if we have vowed a lawful vow to the Lord, let us pay it. Let it not be said of us, that we do aliiid sedentes, aliud stantes, —one tiling sitting in our cluiir of sickness, another thing standing in our stations of health. The Lord doth not deliver us out of the bond of distress, that we Hhould deliver ourselves out of the bond of obedience. Gal. vi. 7, 'Be not deceived ; God is not niockod : for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he r.-ap.' The next blow of his liand ^^ill be heavier, because thou hast soon forgotten thia. Who can l)lame justice, if he strike us with yet greater plagues. that liavo on our deliverance from the former so mocked him with the fall-* l'«2'"n t Aug. in Ep. ad Arnientar. et Paulinum.

ing fruits of our vowed devotion 1 Come we then whose hearts the mercy of God and blood of Jesus Christ hath softened, and say with our Psahuist, 'Wo wiU go to thy house, O Lord : we will pay thee our vows.'

You see all the parts of this song; the whole concert or harmony of all is praising God. I have shewed you quo loco, in his liouse; qico modo, with burnt-otferings; quo animo, paying our vows. Time hath abridged this discourse, contrary to my promise and purpose.

In a word, which of us is not infinitely beholden to the Lord our God, for sending to us many good thhigs, and sending away from us many evil things '? Oh, where is our praise, where is our thankfulness l ' What .^liall we do unto thee, 0 thou preserver of men ?' What but ' take the cup of salvation, and bless the name of the Lord ?' Ps. c. 4, ' Oh, let us enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise : let us be thankful unto him, and bless his name.' And let us not bring our bodies only, but our hearts; let our souls be thankful.

Man's body is closed up within the elements : his blood within his body, his si>irits in his blood, his soul within his spirits, and the Lord restcth in Ms soul. Let then the soul praise the Lord ; let us not draw near with our lips, and leave our hearts behind us ; but let us give the Searcher of the hearts a hearty praise. Ingratitude is the devil's text; oaths, execratioiis, blasphemies, and lewd speeches are commentaries upon it. But thankfulness is the language of heaven; for it becometh saints to be thankful. As therefore we would give testimony to the world, and argument to our own conscience, that we serve the Lord, let us promise and perform the words of my text, ' We wiU go into thy house with burnt-ofFermgs : we will pay thee our vows.' The Lord give thankfulness to us, and accept it of us, for Jesus Christ's sake! Ameu.

THE SACEIFICE OF THANKFULNESS.

God is the Lord, which hath shelved ics light: bind the sacrifice ivith cords, even unto the horns of the altar. — Psalm CXVIII. 27.

Tee first and last words of this psalm are, ' 0 give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good : because his mercy endureth for ever.'

Thanksgiving is the prescript and the postscript. He that is Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, requires that our beginning and ending should be, ' Praise to the Lord.'

You see the head and the foot, the bulk, body, members, are not dissonant, There is scarce any verse in the psalm that is not either a hosanna or a hallelujah ; a prayer for mercy, or a praise for mercy.

I have singled out one; let it speak for the rest: ' God is the Lord, that hath shewed,' <kc.

Here is somewhat received; somewhat to be returned. God hath blessed us, and we must bless God. His grace, and our gratitude, are the two lines my discourse must run upon. They are met in my text; let them as happily meet in your hearts, and they shall not leave you till they bring you to heaven.

The sum is, God is to be praised. The particulars are—I. Wherefore he is to be praised ; and, IL Wherewith he is to be praised.

I. Wherefore : ' God is the Lord, that hath shewed us light.'

IL Wherewith: ' Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.

1. \\\ the/or wlutt we will consider—1, The author; and, 2. His blessing. L Tlse author : ' God is the Lord.'

2. His blessing : ' Tliat liath shewed us light.'

The Lord, the light. The author is called God and Lord; which lead U3 to look upon his goodness and his greatness.

1. God and Goon.—Lo, I begin with him that hath no beginning, but is the beginning of all other beings—God; and would only tell you, (for I must not lose myself m this mystery,) that this God is good. In himself goodnesH ; good to us. Ps. c. 5, ' The Lord is good : his mercy is everlasting.' Ho ia true life, saith Augustine:* A quo averti cad ere; in quern converti resurgere; in quo manere vivere es^,—From him to turn is to fall; to him to return is to rise; in him to abide is to live for ever. * In Orat Dom.

David, in the 59th Psalm, calls him his mercy: ver. 10, Deits mens, misericordia mea, —'My God, my mercy.' Whereupon Augustine sweetly discourses:—

' If thou hadst said, My health, I know what thou hadst meant; because God gives health. If thou hadst said. My refuge, I understand ; because thou flicst unto him. If thou hadst said, My strength, I conceive thy meaning ,• because he gives strength. But Misericordia mea; quid est? Totum, quicquid sum, de misericordia tiia est, —My mercy; what is it ? I am by thy mercy, whatsoever I am.' *

Bernard t would have us speak of God in abstracto: not only to call him wise, merciful, good, but wisdom, mercy, goodness, because the Lord is without accidents at all. For as he is most great without quantity, so he is most good without quality. Nil habet in se nisi se, —He hath nothing in him but himself.

God, then, being good,—not only formaliter, good in himself, but also effective, good to us,—teachcth us to love him. We should love goodness for its own sake; but when it reflects upon us, there is a new invitation of our love.

The Lord. —We have heard his goodness; listen to his greatness. In this title we will consider his majesty, as we did in the other his mercy.

Lord implies a great state : the title is given to a great man upon earth. But if an earthen lord be great, quantus est Domimis, qui dominos facit ?% —• how great is the Lord, which makes lords ! Yea, and unmakes them, too at his pleasure.

This is an absolute and independent Lord. 1 Cor. viii. 5, ' There may be many gods, and many lords.' But this is ille Dominies, — the Lord, or that Lord, that commands and controls them all. They avQ Doviini titulares ; this is Dominas tutelaris. They are in title and name, this in deed and power.

There are mani/, saith St Paul. Many in title, many in opinion. Some arc lords and gods ex authoritate; so are kings and magistrates. Ps. Ixxxii. 1, ' God standeth in the congregation of lords : he is judge among the gods.' Others will so style themselves ex usurpadone ; as the canonists say of their Pope, Dominus Deus noster Papa, —' Our Lord God the Pope.' But he is but a lord and god in a blind and tetrical opinion.

The Lord is only almighty; able to do more by his absolute power than he wUl by his actual; able for potent, not impotent works. He cannot lie, he cannot die.§ Dicitur omnipotens faciendo quod vult, non patiendo quod non vult, —He is called almighty in doing what he pleaseth, not in suffering what he pleaseth not.

This is his greatness. As his mercy directs us to love him, so let his majesty instruct us to fear him. I will briefly touch both these affections; but love shall go foremost.

Love. —Our God is good, and good to us ; let us therefore love him. (1.) It is an affection that God principally requires. (2.) It is a nature wherein alone we can answer God.

(1.) For the former; God requires not thy wisdom to direct him, nor thy strength to assist him, nor thy wealth to enrich him, nor thy dignity to advance him ; but only thy love. * Love him with all thy heart.'

(2.) For the second; man cannot indeed answer God well in any other thing. When God judgeth us, we must not judge him again. When he reproves us,

* Aug. in Ps. lix.: Si dicae, Salus nica, intelligo; quia Deus dat salutem, &c. + Serm. 80 in Cant. ^ Augustine. § Aug. de Civit. Dei, lib. v., cap. 10.

jj(j THE SACRIFICE OF THANKFULNESS. [SeRMON X.

we must not justify ourselves. If he be angry, we must answer Mm in patience; if be command, in obedience. Cut when God loves us, we must answer him in the same nature, though not in the same measure, and love him a"ain. We may not give God word for Avord; we dare not offer him blow ^r blow; wo c^umot requite him good turn for good turn; yet we may, can, nmst, give him love for love. Nam cum amat Deus, non aliud vult <juam amari*

Now, because every man sets his foot upon the freehold of love, and says, It is mine, let us ask for his evidence whereby he holds it. We call an evidence a deed; and deeds are the best demonstration of our right in love. If thou love God for his own sake, shew it by thy deeds of piety. If thou love man for God's sake, shew it by thy deeds of charity. The root of love is in the heart; but it sends forth veins into the hands, and gives them an active and nimble dexterity to good works. ' If you love me,' saith Christ, ' keep my commandments,' John xiv. 15. If you love man, shew your compassion to him, 1 John iii. 17. Obedience to our Creator, mercy to his ima"e, testify our loves. He that wants these evidences, these deeds, when that busy informer, the devil, sues him, will be unhappily vanquished.

Fear. —Let us pass from love to fear. We must love our good God; we must fear our great Lord. It is objected against this passage of union, that ' perfect love casteth out fear,' 1 John iv. 18. It is answered that fear brings in perfect love, as the needle draws in the thread. And it is not possible that true love should be without good fear; that is, a filial reverence. For slavish fear, be it as far from your hearts as it shall be from my discourse.

Now this fear is a most due and proper affection, and, I may say, the fittest of aU to be towards God. Indeed God requires our love; but we must think that then God stoops low, and bows himself down to be loved of us. For there is such an infinite inequality betwixt God and us, that without his sweet dignation, and descending to us, there could be no fitness of this affection. But look we up to that infinite glory of our great Lord, look we down on the \nleness of ourselves, sinful dust, and we will say, that by reason of the dispro])ortion between us, nothing is so suitable for our baseness to give so high a God as fear. Therefore, Ps. xxxiv. 11, ' Come, ye children, hearken unto me : I will teach you the fear of the Lord.' Ps. xxxi. 23, 'Fear the Lord, all ye his servants;' as well as 'Love the Lord, all ye his saints,' Ps. ii. 11.

Now this fear hath as many challengers as love had. When this book is held f)ut, every man's lips are ready to kiss it; and to say and swear that they fear the Lord. Love had the testimony, charity ; and fear must have his, service. Ps. ii.,'Serve the Lord with fear.'

It is man's necessitated condition to be a servant. Happy they that can truly call Christ Master ! ' Ye call me Lord and Master: and ye say well; for HO I am,' John xiii. 13.

He that serves ihefesJi serves his fellow; and a beggar mounted on the back of honour rides post to the devil. This is a choleric master ; so fickle, that at every turn he is ready to turn thee out of doors. We may say of him, as of the Spaniard, he is a bad servant, but a worse master.

He that serves the world serves his servant, as if Ham's curse was lighted on him : serni.i gprvnnim,—a, drudge to slaves, a slave to drudges.

Mo that serves the dn^il serves his enemy, and this is a miserable service. Sure It was a lamentable preposterous sight that Solomon saw, Eccles. x. 7, • Bern. Scrui. 83 in Cant.

* I have seen servants on horses, and princes wal Icing as servants upon the earth.' And Agur, Prov. xxx. 22, numbers it among tho.se four things whereby the world is disquieted: 'A servant when he reigneth, and a fool when he is filled with meat; an odious woman when she is married, and a handmaid that is heir to her mistress.'

Judge then how horrible it is that men should set (as the savages of Calicut) the devil, or his two angels, the world and the flesh, in the throne, whiles they place God in the foot.stool; or that in this commonwealth of man, reason, which is the queen or the princess over the better powers and graces of the soul, should stoop to so baso a slave as sensual lust. ' Delight is not seemly for a fool: much less for a servant to have rule over princes,' Prov. xix. 10.

St Basd, not without passion, did envy the devil's happiness, who had neither created us, nor redeemed us, nor preserveth us, but violently labours our destruction; that yet he should have more servants than God that made us, than Jesus Christ that, with his own precious blood and grievous sufferings, bought us. Well, he is happy that can truly say with David, Ps. cxvi. 16, ' I am thy servant, O Lord; I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid.' This service is true honour ; for so kings and princes, yea, the blessed angels of heaven, are thy fellows.

God is good, that we may love him; the Lord is great, that we may fear him. We have heard both severally; let us consider them jointly, and therein the security of our own happiness. It is a blessed confirmation, when both these, the goodness and the gi-eatness of God, meet upon us. His greatness that he is able, his goodness that he is willing to save us. Were he never so great, if not good to us, we had little help. Were he never so good, if not great, and of ability to succour us, we had less comfort. He woidd stand us in smaU stead if either his will or his power was defective ; if either he could not or would not save us.

His goodness without his greatness might fail us; his greatness without his goodness would terrify us. It is a happy concurrence when ' mercy and truth meet together; when righteousness and peace kiss each other,' Ps. Ixxxv. 10. So sweetly sings the Psalmist, Ps. cxvi. 5, 'Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.' Whereupon St Ambrose, Bis misericordiam posidt, semel juslitiam^^ —He is once said to be righteous, but twice in one verse to be gracious. It is sweet when both are conjoined, as in the first and last verse of this psalm : ' 0 give thanks to the Lord; for he is good : for his mercy endureth for ever.' The Lord is good ; though great, yet also good; and his mercy, so well as his justice, endures for ever. Man' hath no such assurance of comfort in God as to meditate that his great power and good-wiU, his glory and grace, his majesty and mercy, meet together.

These be God's two daughters, justice and mercy. Let us honour them both, but let us kiss and embrace mercy. But, alas ! we have dealt unkindly with them both. God hath two daughters, and we have ravished them.

There is a story of a man, that meeting in a desert with two virgin sisters, he did ravish both of them. Mterwards, on his apjjrehcnsion, the former desired that he might justly die for it. The other did entreat as earnestly that he might live, and that she might enjoy him for her husband.

^lan is that ravishcr, and those two virguis are the justice and mercy of God. Against his justice we have sinned, and provoked his indignation to strike us; yea, even his mercy we have abused. For her sake we have * Orat. de obitu Theodosii.

THE SACRIFICE OF THANKFULNESS. [SeEMON X.

been spared, and a longer day of repentance given us; yet we have despised the ridies of this mercy, and presuming on mercy, have dared to multiply our transgressiona Justice pltuids to God that we should die ; urgeth this law, ' Whosoever sinneth shall die,' and, ' Death is the wages of sin.' Mercy entreats, boseecheth that we may Uve, and produceth the gospel, ' Whosoever repents, shall be pardoned : whosoever believes, shall be saved;' and for further'assurance, brings forth that blessed pardon, sealed in the wounds and blood of Jesus Christ. God hearkens to mercy for his Son's sake; though wo have ravished and wronged his mercy, yet for mercy's sake we shairbe forgiven. But then we must be married to mercy; married in our faith, believing on Christ; married in our good life, being merciful unto men.

2. The Blessing. —We see the author; let us look on his blessing, light. ' He hath shewed us light.' We are come into the light, and therefore have light enough of an ample discourse. But my purpose is only to shew you this light, as the word is in my text, not to dwell on it, though I pray that all you and myself may for ever dwell in it.

light. —Such as the giver is, such is the gift. 1 John i. 5, ' God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.' And St James, chap. i. 17, calls him the ' Father of light.' God is—

So glorious a light, that as the sun dazzleth the eyes too steadfastly fixed on it, so his incomprehensible majesty confounds all those that too curiously pry into it.

So clear a light, that he sees into all corners. Prov. xv. 3, * The eyes of God are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.' He searcheth more narrowly than the beams of the sun. He sees bribery in the office, adultery in the closet, fraud in the shop, though the pent-house makes it as dark as a room in bedlam.

So good a light, that in him is no darkness; not so much as a shadow. There is none in him, there comes none from him. Indeed he made ' outward darkness' of hell, the wages of sin. But he never made the inward darkness of the soul, which is shi.

So constant a light, that though the sun be variable in his course, sometimes shining bright, often clouded, yet God is without change, as the moon; without eclipsing, as the sun; without setting, as the stars.

So spreading a light, that he communicates it to us. John i. 9, ' This is tliu true light, which lighteth every one that cometh into the world.' Without whom we should have been wrapped in an eternal miserable darkness, but that he sent one ' to give light to them that sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide their feet in the way of peace,' Luke i. 79.

And this is the light which he here sheweth us. By the consent of all exposittjrs, in this psalm is typed the coming of Christ, and his kingdom of the gospel. This is manifested by an exaltation, by an exultation, by a 'petition, by a benediction.

The exaltcUinn : ver. 22, * The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the comer.' The Jews refused this stone, but God hath built hi.s church upon it.

The exultation : ver. 24, * This is the day which the Lord hath made ; we will rcjoii^e and be glad in it.' A more blessed day than that day wag wherein ho made man, wlicn he had done making the world; ' Rejoice we, and 1)C glad in it.'

The petition : ver. 25, ' Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord; O Lord, I btaeech thee, send now prosperity.' Thy justice would not suflfer thee to

save without the Messiah; he is come, ' Save now, O Lord, I beseech thee. Our Saviour is come, let mercy and salvation come along with him.

The benediction makes all clear : ver. 26, ' Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord.' For what David here prophesied, the people after accomplished : Matt. xxi. 9, ' Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.'

The corollary or sum is in my text: vcr. 27, ' God is the Lord, that hath shewed us light: bind the saeritice with cords to the horns of the altar.'

It was truly said, Lex est lux, —The law is light. But unable to light us to heaven ; not through its owai, but our deficiency. Hereon it did not save, but condemn us. Lex non damnans est Jicta et picta lex^^ —That law that doth not condemn us is a feigned and painted law^ The Apostle calls it the ' ministration of death.'

Let then the less light give place to the greater. Legalia fuerimt ante passionem Domini viva, statim post passionem mortua, hodie sepidfa,f —The legal rites were before the passion of Christ alive, straight after his passion dead, now buried. Or as another : The ceremonies of the law were, in their prime, mortales ; in Christ's age, mortuce ; in our time, mortiferoe. They were at first dying, in our Saviour's time dead, in ours deadly. ' The law v?as given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,' John i. 17.

We have now found out the light, and, blessed be God, above these fifty years we have found it: that if any should say, as Philip to Christ, John xiv. 8, 'Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufliceth us;' to whom Jesus answers, ' Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not kuowTi me, Phihp ? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father;'—so if any should say, Shew us the light, and it sufficeth us, I answer. Hast thou been so long in the light, and hast thou not known it 1 Art thou one of the country that ApoUonius writes of, that can see nothing in the day, but all in the night ? Hath the light made thee blind ? If no other, the contmuance of this exercise shews that the light is among us.

I should trifie the time to prove by arguments to the ear a thing so visible to the eye; and waste the light of the day to demonstrate the evidence of tliis light being amongst us. Meditation and wonder better become this subject than discourse.

It is the blessing of God's right hand. Prov. iii. IG, ' Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honour,' saith Solomon of Wisdom; he meant it of Christ. This light shall procure to a man blessed eternity. All those blessmgs of the left hand, as riches and honour, are frail and mortal. Nothing lasts long in this world, except a suit at law. But this light, if ourselves fault not, shaU outshine for countenance, and outlast for continuance, the sun in the firmament. Therefore our Psalmographer, ver. 15, havhig shewed that 'the voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous,' he adds, ' The right hand of the Lord hath done valiantly;' yea, he doubles and trebles it: ' The right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord hath done valiantly.' This is the God of lights, that 'had the seven stars in his right hand,' Rev. i. IG.—This light must enlighten us to some duties.

1. Itejoice in this light: ver. 24, 'This is the light-day that the Lord hath made : let us rejoice and be glad in it.' Not for a spurt, as the stony ground, ]\Latt. xiii. 20, that with joy receives the sermon, but goes home as stony-hearted as Judas after the sop. Nor as the Jews, to whom John Baptist was ' a burning and a shining lamp ; and they for a season rejoiced * Luth. iu Galat. f Aug.

J 20 THE SACRIFICE OF THANKFULNESS. [SERMON X.

in his light; John v. 35 ; but afterwards never rested till tney had eclipsed the Sun on the cross, and slain his morning-star in the prison. Nor as children, tliat come abroad to play in the sunshine, and make no more account of it'. Nor as a people that never saw the sun, step out of their doors to gaze upon it, and then turn their backs on it. But rejoice with a solid joy, as they whom God hath 'brought out of darkness into his marvellous light.'

2. Walk worthy of this light. This was St Paul's request to his Ephe-sians, that they would ' walk worthy of the vocation wherewith they are called,' Eph. iv. 1. The night is past, the light is come ; let us ' therefore cast otf the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light,' Rom. xiii 12. Be children of the light. As the light shines on thee, let it shine in thee. Thou hast small comfort to be in the light unless the light be in thee. Saith the prophet to the church, Isa. Ix. 1, ' Arise, shine; for thy light cometh, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.' As God hath shewed his light to you, 'so let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven,' Matt. v. 16. There are some that boast their communion ^dth God; against whom St John reasons a natura Dei, 1 John i. 5, 6, ' God is light: if we say we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and know not the truth.' St Paul's argument is of the same fashion : * What communion hath light with darkness 1' The holy writ calls all sins opera tenebrarum, the ' wgrks of darkness.' Because—

(1.) They are perpetrated against God, who is the 'Father of lights,' James i. 17.

(2.) Thoy are suggested by the devil, who is the ' prince of darkness,' Eph. vi. 12.

(3.) They are most usually committed in the dark. Male agens odit liicem. ' They that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken be drunken in the night,' 1 Thess. v. 7.

(4.) They arc the effects of blindness of mind ; and ignorance is a grievous inward dArkncss. ' Their foohsh heart was darkened;' and hence issued tho.?c deadly sins. Bom. i. 11.

(5.) Their reward shall be utter darkness : ' Cast that unprofitable servant into utter darkness,' Matt. xxv. 30 ; and, Jude, ver. 13, 'To them is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.'

If then God hath shewed thee light, shew not thou the deeds of darkness ; but ' walk honestly, as in the day,' Rom. xiii. 13.

3. Take heed of sore eyes. Pleasures, lusts, and vanities make the eyes sore that are dotingly fastened on them. The usurer with telling his gold; the haughty with contemplating his greatness; the drunkard with looking at the wine laughing in the cup; the lustful with gazing on his pamted damnations, make their eyes so sore, that they cannot look up and behold thi.s light.

4. Take benefit of this light whiles it shines. It may be clouded, as it was in the days of I'opcry. Either this light may be set to thee, or thou be set to it. That to thoe, l)y removing the candlestick ; thou to that, by the hand of death, which .sliall send thee to the land of forgetful darkness. Our Saviour tiiught us thi.s, not only in precept, but in practice : John ix. 4, ' I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day; for the night c<inu-th, wliercin no man can work.' Let us not do like some courtiers, that having liglit allowed them, play it out at cards, and go to bed darkling.

have the himps of the sanctuary shine, pour m your oil. Grudge not a little cost to keep this light clear. The l^ipists have their Candlemass ; they bestow great cost in lights about a service of darkness. Repine not you then at a little charges for the everlasting lamp of the gospel. Some of you, I bear you witness, do not grudge it. Go on and prosper; and whiles you make the church happy, make yourselves so.

II. Wherewith. —I must now step from heaven to earth; I pass from the/or tvhat to the 2uith what God is to be praised.

He hath shewed you his light, shew him yours. He hath given us an inestimable blessing, what shall we return him 1 What ? ' Bind the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar.'

This is man's thankfulness for God's bountifulness. We will first cast over the particulars, and then sum them.

1. Here is sacrifice to be offered.

2. This sacrifice must be bound: ' Bind the sacrifice.'

3. This sacrifice must be hound with cords: ' Bind the sacrifice with cords.'

4. This sacrifice must be bound with cords to the altar: ' Bind the sacrifice with cords to the altar.'

5. This sacrifice must be, (1.) bound; (2.) with cords; (.3.) to the altar; (4.) yea, even to the horns of the altar. Ye see the totum is thankfulness; and the bill hath five particulars :—

(1.) The sacrifice is devotion.

(2.) Binding the sacrifice, constant devotion.

(3.) With cords, fervent devotion.

(A.) To the altar, rectified devotion.

(5.) To the horns of the altar, confident devotion

Devotion is the mother, and she hath four daughters:—

1. Constancij. Bind the sacrifice.

2. Fervency. Bind it with cords.

3. Wisdom. Bind it to the altar.

4. Confidence. Even to the horns of the altar.

Sacrifice is the act of our devout thankfulness. I might here (to no great purpose) travel a large field of discourse for sacrifices. But it were no other but where the Scripture offereth us the company a mile, to compel it to go with us twain.

All sacrifices are either expiatory or gratulatory; expiatory for the condonation of .sins, gratulatory for the donation of graces. So, in a word, they were either sin-offerings or peace-offerings.

The sin-offerings of the Jews had two main ends—

1. To acknowledge peccati stipendium mortem, —that death was the wages of sin, due to the sacrijficers, laid on the sacrificed.

2. ^Mystically and symbolically to prefigure the killing of the ' Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world.' So Calvin : Semper illis ante ocidos stjmbola propo7ii ojwrtuit, —They had ever need of signs, and types, and figurative demonstrations before their eyes.

But those sacrifices are abolished in Christ, Heb. x. 12, 'who offered one sacrifice for sins for ever ;' and that was such a one as was ' a sweet-smelling savour to God,' Eph. v. 2. It was a pretty observation, that the last character of the Hebrew aljihabct was a plain figure of Christ's cross, to shew that his sacrifice ended all theins.

Ours is the second kind, gratulatory sacrifice; our prophet here speaking of the days of the gospel. Then * bind this sacrifice with cord.s/ &c. Christ

^^)2 THE SACRIFICE OF THANKFULNESS. [SeRMONX.

is our altar, let ourselves be the sacrifice ; the fire that kindles it, the love of Gixl; the smoke that goes up, the consumption of our sins.

That this sacrifice may be acceptable, I will shew you how it must be done, how it must not be done.

1. What is to be excluded.

2. How it ought to be qualified.

1. Ed-dusively. It must be sine pelle, sine melle, sinefelle, sine macula.

(1.) Sine pelle, without the skin of ostentation ; which indeed makes them not sacrijicia but sacrilegia, not sacrifices but sacrileges. They are so opera muta, dumb deeds ; nay, rather, opera mendacii, loud-lying works ; as if they told God a good tale how they loved him, when they meant to deceive him. God will require all untruths between man and man ; but fallacies and falsehoods done between the porch and the altar, in the shadow of the church and under the pretence of his service, he will sorely revenge.

The casting up of the eyes, the bowing down of the knees, the uncovering the head, moving the lips, knocking the breast, sighing and crying, what mean they? Are they not symptoms and demonstrative witnesses of an inward compunction 1 Are they not a protestation that the soul is speaking to God ? If there be not an honest heart within, this is but the skin of a sacrifice ; and they that give God the skin for the body, God will give them the skin for the body ; the shadow of blessings for the substance.

It is storied of one that sold his wife glasses for pearls, Imposturam fecit, et passus est, —He cozened, and Avas cozened. They that sell the Lord of heaven (howsoever they may deceive his spouse, the church on earth) glasses for pearls, shells for kernels, copper for gold, bark for bulk, show for substance, fancy for conscience, God will be even with them, and give them stones for bread, images of delight for substantial joys. Imjjosturam faciunt, et patientur, —They deceive, and shall be deceived.

(2.) Sine melle; there must be no honey of self-complacency in this sacrifice. Ps. li. 17, ' The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.' A true sacrifice consists not only faciendo, but patiendo, —in doing, but in dying or sufiering for Christ.

In the law, beasts appointed for sacrifice were first slain, and so offered. In the gospel, Christians must first mortify their earthly members and crucify their carnal lusts, and then ofier up themselves. As death takes away the natural lite, so mortification must take away the sensual life. Moria-tur ergo homo, ne moriatur ; miitetur, ne damnetur^^ —Let a man die, that he may not die; let him be changed, that he be not damned. Only the mortified man is the true ' living sacrifice.' It must not then be honey to our palates, but bitter; even so bitter as abnegare suos, sua, se, —to deny our friends, to deny our goods, to deny ourselves, for Christ's cause.

(."3.) Sine fdie; there must be no amaridentia, no gall of bitterness in this sacrifice. Matt. v. 23, ' If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and re-membercst that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave there thy gift, and go thy way; finst be reconciled to thy brother, and then ofter it.' If thy brother hath aught against thee, God hath more. If thou have somewhat against thy brother, God hath somewhat against thee. ' Go ye and learn wliat that meanotli, I will have mercy and not sacrifice,' Matt. ix. 13.

Whiles you trip up mens heels with frauds, lay them along with suits,

tri-ad on them with oppressions, blow them up with usuries,, injuries; your

Bacrilicc is full of gall, ll was said in wonder, ' Is Saul among the prophets?'

fSo, what makes a slanderer, a defrauder, a usurer, an oppressor, at church ?

• Aug. Serm. cxli. de Temp.

They come not nnefelle, without the gall of uncharitableness; they shall return sine melle, without the honey of God's mercies. Heb. xiii. 16, ' To do good, to communicate, forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well piea.sed.' Merciful works are pro sacrificiis, imo prce sacrificiis, —equal to siicrifices, above sacrifices in God's acceptance.

(4.) Sine macula. Lev, xxii. 20, God commands that his sacrifices be ' without blemish; nor blind, nor broken, nor maimed, nor infected,' &c. Therefore a lamb without spot was offered for a morning and an evening sacrifice. And the Lamb of God, in an antitypical relation, is truly said, immaculatus, 'a lamb without spot, without blemish,' 1 Pet. i. 19.

The drunkard is without a head, the swearer hath a garget in his throat, the covetous hath a lame hand, he cannot give to the poor, the epicure hath a gorbelly, the adulterer is a scabbed goat, the worldling wants an eye, the ruffian an ear, the coward a heart: these are mutila sacrificia, —lame, defective, luxate, unperfect sacrifices.

The prophet Isaiah begins and ends his prophecy with a denunciation of God's contempt and refusal of such oblations; who will forget those to be the sons of grace that forget his sacrifices to be the sacrifices of a God. Isa. Ixvi. 3, ' He that sacrificeth a lamb is as if he cut oflF a dog's neck'

2. Afii'viatively. It must be cum thure, cum sale, cum sanguine, cum integritate.

(1.) Cum thure. The frankincense is prayer and invocation : Ps. cxli. 2, ' Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense ; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.'

These the prophet calls vittilos labiorum, —the calves, not of our folds, but of our lips ; whereof the Lord more esteemeth than of the bullock that hath horn and hoof.

This is the special sacrifice here meant. God expects it of us : non ut avarus, (as Ambrose,*) not as if he were covetous of it, but ex dehito. Yet as he must give the beast to us before we can give it to him, Joel ii. 14, for the Lord must ' leave a blessing behind him, even a meat-offering and a drink-offering for himself;' so this spiritual sacrifice of prayers and praise must be datum as well as mandatum, conferred as required. 2'ribuat Deus, lit homo retribuat, —Let God give it to man, that man may give it to God. He that commands it mu.st bestow it.

(2.) Cu7n sale. There must be salt to season this sacrifice : Lev. ii. 13, ' With all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.'

Salt hath been usually taken for discretion. What St Paul speaks of our words should hold also in our deeds: Col. iv. 6, ' powdered with salt.' The proverb is true. An ounce of discretion is worth a pound of learning. Tolle hanc, et virtus vitium erit, —Banish this, and you shall run virtue into vice, blow heat into a flame, turn conscience into a fury, and drive devotion out of her wits. Zeal without this is like a keen sword in a mad hand.

(3.) Cum sanguine. Not literally, as in the sacrifices of the law,—'Almost all things by the law are purged with blood,' Heb. ix. 22,—but spiritually, to make them acceptable, they must be dipped, not in ours, but in the blood of Jesus Christ.

Without this they are not holy; as one expounds. Sanctum, quasi sanguine consecratum. Here is then the necessity of a true faith, to sprinkle all our sacrifices with our Savour's blood ; no sacrifice otherwise good. For ' whatsoever is not of faith is sin,' Rom. xiv. 23. Therefore if any man comes to * De Noah., cap. xxii.

the church more for fear of the law than love of the gospel, he offers a thankless sacrifice.

(4.) C'inn integritate. And this in respect sacrificii et sacrijicantis.

Of the saai/ce. God reproves the Jews, Mai. i. 7, 8, that they had 'laid polluted bread upon his altar. If ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? If ye offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil?' The Lord's sacrifice must be fat and fair; not a lean, scraggling, starved creature.

Paid beseeeheth the Eomans that they would ' present themselves a living' or quick ' sacrifice to God,' Rom. xii. 1. When infirmities have crazed it, and age almost razed it, then to offer it—alas ! it is not a living, but a dying; not a quick, but a sick sacrifice. This must be a whole and holy oblation.

Of the sacrijicer. The life and soul of a sacrifice is not the outward action, but the inward affection of the heart. Mens cujusque, is est quisque, —As the mind is, so is the man; as the man is, so is his sacrifice. If we bring our sheep to God's altar, and them alone, we had as good left them behind us as an unprofitable carriage : Micah vi. 6, ' Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? With burnt-ofierings, and calves of a year old ? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or wdth ten thousand rivers of oil ? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul V No; learn another oblation: ' God hath shewed thee, 0 man, what is good; and what doth he require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God V

The poet could ask the priest, In templo quid facit auruvi ? He bids them bring compositum jus, fasque animi, &c. Put these into my hands, et farre litabo. Lay upon the altar of your heart, faith, repentance, obedience, patience, humility, chastity, charity, bona pignora mentis, and consecrate these to the Lord.

When the Searcher of the reins shall find a carcase of religion without a quickening spirit, he will turn his countenance from it. Beasts died when they were sacrificed.

The oracle answered, to him that demanded what was the best sacrifice to plea.se God, Da medium lunce, soleni simul, et canis iram, —Give the half-moon, the whole sun, and the dog's anger; which three characters make coR, the heart. Deus non habet gratum offerentem propter munera, sed munerd propter of erentem,—God values not the offerer by the gift, but the gift by the offerer. Let not then thy heart be as dead as the beast thou immolatest.

So Peter [Martyr (in Horn, xii.) expounds Paul's 'living sacrifice.' Those things that can move themselves are living and quick : they are dead that cannot stir themselves but by others' violence. Compelled service to God —as to keej) his statutes for fear of man's statutes—is an unsound oblation, not qiiick and lively. God loves a cheerful giver and thanksgiver. lion respicU JJciis munera, nisi te talem prcestes, qualem te munera promittunt, — God regards not thy gifts, unless thou dost shew thyself such a one as thy gifts promise thee. Ad te, non munera spedat.

You see tho sacrifice, Devotion. The mother hath held us long; we will deal more briolly with her daughters.

Coustani>/.—'Y\M' first-born is Constancy : ' Bind the sacrifice.' Grace is like n ring, without end ; and the diamond of this ring is constancy. Deut. yi. 8, "J'hoii shaft l^ind my statutes for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thii.u eyes.' It is the advice of Wisdom, Prov. iii 3, ' Let not mercy and truth forsake tlice : bind them about thy neck; and write them upon the table of thy heart.'

The leaf of a rigliteous man never fadeth, saith the Psalmist. If it doth,

then lapsus folionim, mortificatio arhonim, saitli the Gloss,—the fall of the leaves will be the death of the tree. It is to small purpose to steer the vessel safe through the main, and split her within a league of the haven; to put your hand to the plough, and thrive well in the best husbandry, and with Demas to look back.

Vincenti dahitur; and fulfilled holiness wears the crown. Rev. ii., iii. Some have derived sanctum, quasi sancitum, —an established nature. All virtues run in a race; only one winneth the garland, the image of eternity, happy Constancy. ' Wisdom is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her; and blessed is he that retains her,' Pro v. iii. 18 : therefore, ' make sure your election ;' fiist bind, fast find. ' Bind the sacrifice.'

Fervpncy. —The next daughter of this righteous generation is Fervency : 'Bind the sacrifice with cords.' Thou canst not make heaven too sure. Men use to bind the world to them faster than the Philistines Samson, or the jailor his fugitive prisoner, with cords, with cords of iron; that it may not start from them, and run away.

Riclies is known to be a wild bedlam ; therefore they will keep it in bonds. They bind their lands with entails, their goods with walls, their moneys with obligations, that on no condition they may give them the slip. But they care not how loose the conscience be: they give that liberty enough, even to licentiousness.

But the sacrifice of devotion must be bound with cords: a cord of love, a cord of fear, a cord of faith ; and this ' threefold cord is not easily broken,' Eccles. iv. 12.

Wisdom. —A third daughter, and one of the beautifulest, is Wisdom: ' Bind the sacrifice with cords to the altar.' Rectified devotion is specially acceptable.

A man may be devout enough; too much, when their zeal is like the horn in the unicorn's head; it doth more hurt than good. You would not have wished Baal's priests do more for their master; lo, the gashes and mouths of their self-given wounds speak their forwardness : they wanted a lamp of direction to guide it to God's altar.

Aristotle * calls discretion, viHutum normam et formam, —the eye of the .soul, the soul of virtue. I would to God some amongst us had one dram of this grace mingled with their whole handfuls of zeal. It would a little cool the preternatural heat of the fling-brand fraternity, as one wittily calleth them.

HoUerius writes of an Italian, that, by often smelling to the herb basU, had scoq)ions bred in his brain. Proud faction is the weed they so much smell on, and make posies of, that the serpents bred in their brains do sting and wound the bosom of the church. These ' bind,' and ' with cord.s,' but not to the altar. Devotion is not their scope, but distraction. Oh, may the sj)irit of meekness bind their sacrifice to the altar, direct their zeal with 'Uscretion, to the glory of God! And let us every one say resolutely with David, Ps. xxvi. 6, ' I \\\\\ wash my hands in innocency, O Lord: and so will I compass thine altar.' Wisdom is a fair daughter in this progeny, 'Bind the sacrifice with cords to the altar.'

Confidence. —The youngest daughter of this fair sisterhood is Faith. Copious matter of discourse might here be offered me about the site, matter, fashion of the altar; and to what purpose these four horns of the altar served : ' Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of tlic altar.'

Perhaps many precious mines of mysteries might here be found out, which * Elh., lib. vi., cap. 5.

] og THE SACRIFICE OF THANKFULNESS. [SeRMON X.

I di" not fi>r. Among divers other ends, I find that these horns of the altar were for refuge ; and guilty men did flee unto them for fear of the law. 1 Kings i. 50, ' Adonijah feared because of Solomon, and arose, and went, and caught hold on the horns of the altar.' So Joab, in the next chapter, ver. 2S,° fled to the tabernacle of the Lord, and caught hold on the horns of the altar.' They fled thither in a hoj^eful confidence of mercy.

Christ i.s our altar, Heb. xiii. 10 ; his merits the horns of the altar. Ver, 15, 'By huu therefore let us ofi'er the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.' Our faith must catch hold on these horns, Christ's merits, that our sacrifice may be acceptable.

The law of God shall surprise us, and the sword of eternal death shall kill us, if we bind not our sacrifice to the horns of the altar; if we rest not upon the all-suflicient merits of Jesus Christ.

TJiis is the mother of her, of whom she is also the daughter. It may be said of these, as the poet of ice and water, the mother brings forth the daughter, and the daughter brings forth the mother.

All her .sisters are beholden to hex-. Never a damsel of Israel dares enter Aliasuerus's court but she. She alone must bring all graces to the horns of the altar. 0 blessed Faith, ' many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all!' Pro v. xxxi 29. ' Bind, then, the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.'

You hear the mother and her children : these are the daughters that true Devotion bringeth forth. Compare we our progeny with these, and we shall find that we bring forth daughters of another countenance.

Distinguish this land of ours (let the word divide be held heresy in manners) into four C's— Court, City, Country, Church.

The CouH may be said to have three daughters—as Fulco boldly told Richard the First *—which are vicious, and of a wicked disposition. The king an.swered, he had no daughters at all. Fulco said, he cherished three in his court that were no better than strumpets; and therefore wished him tim.ely to provide them husbands, or else they would undo liim and his realm. The angry king would have them named. Fulco told him they were Pride, Avarice, and Luxury. The blushing, penitent, and discreet prince confessed, and resolved to bestow them. So he gave Pride to the Templars, Avarice to the Cistercian monks, and Luxury to the Popish prelates : the like matches, as fitter then in England could not be found for them.

The City hath four daughters too : Fraud, Uypoo'isy, Usury, Sensuality. Let me say, the breeding and indulgence to such daughters shame you. Siiall I tell you how to cast tlicm away upon husbands ? ISlarry Fraud to the professed cheaters. Bestow (Jmry upon the brokers. Banish Sensuality to tlic forest, to see if any beast will take it up. And for Hypocrisy wed it to the brain-sick separatist, though you send it to them with a letter of mart to Amsterdam.

The Country hath three daughters : Ignorance, Uncharitableness, and III-cu.otom. Ignorance they might bestow on the Papists; they will make much of it. Let them send Uncli.aritableness to the savages and Saracens; and Ill-cmtom to the Jews, who will rather keep their customs than their Saviour.

For the Church; we have but two children, and those none of our own breeding neither, though we arc fain to bring them up with patience, Povertjf and Contempt; and take thenx who will, so we were rid of them. * Acts and Monu.

These are not the daughters of Devotion, but the wretched brood of our indevotion.

Tliere are amongst us—

1. Some that will not bind.

2. Some that will l)ind, but not with cords.

3. Some that will bind with cords, but not the sacrifice.

4. Some that -will bind the sacrilice with cords, but not to the altar,

5. Some that will bind the sacrifice with cords to the altar, but not to the horns of the altar.

1. Some will not bind; nay, they will not be bound. There are so many religions in the world, that they will be tied to none of them. Such a one is like a loose tooth in the head, of little use, of much trouble. Their trepidations are more shaking than cold ague-fits; their staggers worse than a drunkard's.

A feather in the air, a vane on the house, a cock-boat in the sea, are less inconstant. The course of a dolphin in the water, of a buzzard in the air, of a whore in the city, is more certain. They are full of farraginous and bullinioug mixtures; pour them forth into liberty, and they run ^vilder than quicksilver on a table.

But let a good man be, as John Baptist was commended by our Saviour, ' no reed shaken with the wind.' Let our actions have ballast, our affections balance. Be we none of those that will not bind.

2. Some will bind, but not with cords. They will take on them an outward profession, but not be fervent in it: they will not bind themselves to devotion, as the Philistines bound Samson mth new withs or with new ropes, Judg. xvi,; but only with a rush, or a hair, or a twine-thread of coldness.

A sermon or a mass is all one to them; they come with equal devotion to either. All the religion in the world with these Gergesenes is not worth a flitch of bacon. For handfiils of barley and morsels of bread you may win them to worship the ' queen of heaven,' Jer. xliv. 17.

Their lukewarmness is so ofiensive that they trouble all stomachs. God shall spue them out of the church, the earth shall spue them into the grave, and the grave shall spue them into hell.

3. Some will bind, and with cords, but not the sacrifice. Such are the utterly irreligious, the openly profane. They have their cords to bind, but they will not meddle with the sacrifice, devotion. The prophet Isaiah gives them a Vce for their labour, chap. v. 18, ' Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart-rope!' But in a just quittance for their strong-haled wickedness, they draw on their own destruction with cords, and damnation as it were with a cart-rope. So those fimes peccatorum that Solomon speaks of, Prov. v. 22, shall be rewarded : ' His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.' There is such a concatenation of their wickedness,—riot-ini:, swearing, drunkenness, whoredom,—that at last the cord's end reaches to helL

Their whole life is but like a firework, that runs along the rope of wickedness, till at last he goes out in the grave, and is rekindled in the flaming pit. They bind sin sure to themselves with cords, and with the same cords the devil binds them as fast to him. They shall speed as himself doth, and be at last bound with the cords or chains of darkness.

The magistrate should do well, in meantime, to bind them with material cords of severe punishment. Chain up their feet from brothel-houses,

T1I£ SACRIFICE OF TUANKFULNESS. [SeRMON X.

inaniiclc their hands from slaughters; give them the cords of correction, lest at last by a cord they depart the world.

asc

The three speciid twists of this cord are—drunkenness, whoredom, cozen-

e. If you could untwine these three, and separate them, there were some hope of breaking them all. You say, on their deprehension they have sure punishment; be as careful to find them out. But it is reported you have roused these sins from their old nests, and sent them home to your own houses. Cheating winds into some of your own shops; adultery^ creeps into some of your own chambers; and, I know not how, sometimes justices and magistrates have whipped drunkenness out of the alehouse into their own cellars.

There is one amongst us that is a terrible bmder, and that is the usurer. He binds strangely, strongly, with the cords of obligations. You know he that enters into obligation is said to come into bonds; it is all one, into cords. This man's whole life is spent in tying of knots ; his profession is cordage. And for this cause he is beloved of the cord-makers, for setting them on work ; and of nobody else.

This fellow binds, but he will never bind the sacrifice ; his conscience shall be loose enough. I could say much to this binder, if there Avere any hope of him. But I remember a true story that a friend told me of a usurer. There was a godly preacher in his parish, that did beat doT\ii Avith all just convictions and honest reproofs that sin. Many usurers flocked to his church, because he was a man of note. Among the rest, this usurer did bid him often to dinner, and used him very kindly. Not long after, this preacher began to forbear the touching usury, not in any connivance or partiality, but because he had dealt plentifully with it, and now his text led him not to it. Now beguis the usurer to be heavy, sorrowing, and discontent, and turned former kindness into suUenness. The preacher must needs observe it, and boldly asked him the reasons of this sudden aversion. The usurer replied, If you had held on your first course to inveigh against usury, I had some hope you would have put all the usurers down, and so I should have had the better vent and custom for my money. For my part, say what you will, I never meaut to leave it ; but I should have been beholden to you if you could have made me a usurer alone. You see the hope of a usurer's conversion.

But I would to God that every one thus bound with the cords of wickedness would consider, that so long as a cord is whole it is not easily broken; but untwist it, and lay it thread by thread, and you may snap it asunder. Beloved, first untwine the cord of your sins by serious consideration, and then you may easily break them off by repentance,

4. Some will bind with cords, yea, and the sacrifice, but not to the altar. There are many of these in our land : they bind the sacrifice exceeding fast to themselves, not to the altar. All the altaragia, the dues that belong to them that serve at God's altar, and which the laws of God and man bound to the altar, they have loosened, and bound to themselves and their heirs.

These bind the .sacrifice, and with cords, but not to the right place; nay, I would to God they would bind no more. But now the fashion is to hold God to custom; and if a poor minister demand those remanents which are left to the altar, he is overthrown by custom. Oh the pity of God, that England shouKl have any such custom !

And for you that never think yourselves well but when you have bound tlic sacrilice to yourselves; and imagine that the milk or fleece of your flocks, which God hath tithed for himself, is too good for the minister; and will

either astu or armls, with force of law or craft of cozening, keep it to yourselves ; that will plead the rate of a penny in law for a pound in conscience; chop and change your sheep, to defraud Christ of his tenth fleece;—know, that as you bind the sacrifice from the altar, so yuu shall have no comfort by the altar, but the justice of God shall bind you from his mercy. Though you may repent,—which if you restore not, is impossible, and your restitution is improbable,—yet for the present the devil hath eleven points of the law against you; that is, possession.

5. Lastly, some bind the sacrifice with cords to the altar, but not to the horns of the altar. These are deficient in a special degree of devotion—faith. They have many good moral virtues ; but they want that which should make both their virtues and themselves acceptable to God, faith in his Son Jesus Christ. It is a vain devotion whence this is excluded; the law finds no works righteous. But quod lex openiin minando imperat, lex fidei credendo impetrat* —what the law of works commanded with threatening, the law of faith obtains by believing. Afly we then the merits of o\ir blessed Saviour, who is our only refuge, and take fast hold on the horns of the altar: * Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.'

The Sum. —To gather these scattered branches to their root; now we have cast over the particulars, let us sum them. The sum is our thankfulness : * Bind the sacrifice with cords,' tic.

Ingratitude hath been ever held a monster, a preternatural thing; one of those privations and deficiencies which God never made, but the devil thrust in upon the absence of the positive and primitive virtues. Hereupon we call an ungrateful person an unnatural man.

No man wonders at dogs, and wolves, and foxes; but at satyrs, and centaurs, and such monsters in nature, all gaze upon. Ebriety, adultery, avarice, though ecpially heinous, are less odious, because they have nature and custom on their side; but an unthankful person named, we all detest, as a solecism in sense, a paradox in manners, a prodigy in nature.

To demonstrate this sin to be so far from humanity, that the very beasts abhor it:—There is a .story of a poor man that w^ent often to a forest to gather sticks, where suddenly one day he heard the voice of a man in distress. Making towards it, he found a rich neighbour fallen into a deep pit; and together with him an ape, a lion, and a serpent. He made his moan, being endangered both of the pit and of the beasts. Pity and charity moved the poor man to help the rich, and that seldom moves the rich to help the poor. He lets down the cord wherewith he bound his sticks, and up comes the ape. Again he puts for the man, and the lion ascends. A third offer he makes, and the serpent takes the advantage. Last he draweth up the man, who, freed by his help from instant death, promised him a bounteous recpiital, if on the next day he did visit him. The poor man affying his word, came to him accordingly, in a hopeful expectation of reward. But now the rich man would not know him. He hath forgotten that ever he stood in any need of him, and impudently denies him any recompense. The discomforted poor man is fain to travel the forest again for his fuel, where the ape sjiying him, had ready broken, with his teeth and nails, sticks enough for his burden: there was his utmost gratitude. Another day coming, the lion approacheth him, presenting to him divers laden camels, which driving home and disburdening, he found precious treasure that enriched him. A third time, upon other occasions travelling the forest, the serpent, creeping, salutes him with a precious stone in her mouth, letting it fail at her saver's •Aug.

VOL. I. 1

feet. The intent of the fable is to demonstrate that beasts and serpents condemn man of ingratitude.

You will say this is but a fiction; then hear a truth: Isa. i. 3, ' The ox knoweth his ow)ier, and the ass his master's crib : but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.' The very beast looketh to his master's hand that feeds him.

The vice is so horrible, that God need not sit to judge it; the devil himself will condemn it. AVhen he reasoned with God about Job, he pleads, chap. i. 10, that God had ' set a hedge about him, and blessed the work of his hands;' and therefore implies, * Doth Job serve God for nought V If he will be unthankful to a God so kind, Satan himself will censure him. It must needs be a horrid sin that the devil taxeth and abominates. If we be unthankful, we are sure to be condemned; for if God would not condemn it, the devil will. An ungrateful man, then, in some sort, is worse than the deviL

lien and brethren, let us be thankful. Let our meditations travel with David, in the 118th Psalm, first up into heaven: ver. 1, even the very ' heavens and heights praise him;' and those blessed angels in his court sing his glory. Descend we then by the celestial bodies, ver. 3, and we shall find ' the sun, moon, and all the stars of light praising him.' Pass we by the waters, ver. 4, Which the Maker's decree hath confined there, and we shall hear these praising him. A Little lower, ver. 8, we shall perceive the meteors and upper elements, the ' fire and hail, snow and vapour, magnifying him;' even the ' wind and storms fulfilling his word.' Fall we upon the centre, the very earth, we shall hear the ' beasts and cattle, mountains and hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, extolling his name.' The chirping birds sing sweet psalms and carols to their Creator's praise every morning when they rise, every evening ere they go to rest. Not so much as the very ' creeping things,' saith the Psalmist, noisome dragons, and crawling serpents in the deep, but they do, in a sort, bless their Maker. Let not then man, the first-fruits of his creatures, for whose service all the rest were made, be unthanlcful. If the.se, much more let all ' kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the world; young men and maidens, old men and children, praise the name of the Lord,' ver. 11, 12.

There are some that ' kiss their own hands,' Job xxxi. 27, for every good tuni that befalls them. God giveth them blessings, and their own wit or strength hath the praise. Others receive them but as due debt, as if God were obliged to them. But, alas ! ' What hast thou,' O man, that is good, ' that thou hast not received V Thou hast not a rag to thy back, nor a bit to thy belly, nor a good hair on thy head, nor a good thought in thy heart but God giveth it.

Our i;vils are properly our own. Omnia mea mala pure sunt mala, et inea sunt ; ovinia mea bona pure sunt bona, et mea non sxint^^ —All my evils are truly evil, and mine own ; all my good tlungs are truly good, but none of my own. Now, is not the Author of all good, good enough to be remembered 1 When the benefits are gotten, must the benefactor be forgotten ? And shall thanks wax old whiles .gifts are new 1 Boni siquid habeo, a Deo sumpsi, non a me pra-sumpsi ? t—Siiall we then set the receivers in the place of the giver, and worship ourselves ?

This is a sacrik-gious theft. The steaUng of temporal goods may be requited with restitution ; but the purloining of God's glory can never be answered. These are sul)tle thieves : for though heaven be sure and secure • Hugo. I ^

enough from violent robbers, yet tlie.se by a wily insidiation enter into it, and rob God of his honour. Other tliieves steal for necessity, and but froni their equals, men. These filch from God his holy right, and that out of a scornful jiride.

It would here be examined whether England hath any ground in it guilty of this barren ingi-atitude. If I should fall to discoursing the favours of God, rained in such plentlfid showers upon us,—our peace, plenty, tranquillity, and all those gifts of his left hand; together with that grace of his right, which bless-eth all the rest, and wthout Avhicli they were but a summer without a spring, full of heat, but infertile, the gospel,—^j'ou would say, Satis Juec, We have heard this often enough, ad nauseam usque. A sermon of such repetition i» but like a suit of the old make. Your curious ears are too fine for such recognitions. You think we never speak of these things but for want of othei matter.

The wonders which God wrought in Egypt by Tyloses, in Canaan by Joshua, were commanded to be proclaimed to all succeeding generations. How many psalms did this sweet 'singer of Israel' compose of this subject? How many excellent sermons did the prophets preach when they had no other ground or text but those principles ? Neither did the people fling away from before the pidpit with—We have heard these things often enough ; they are tedious.

God's mercies to us shall vie in weight and number with theirs. We are, if not their parallel, yet their second in the favours of heaven. God hath hedged us in with his providence, and ' compassed us about with songs of deliverance.' We are the plant of his own hand, and he contmually waters us with the saving showers of his gospel. We need not travel to our neighbours' cisterns ; every man hath his own well, and such a well as yields the water of life, if we woidd bring buckets with us—ears of attention, and hearts of retention—to draw it out withal. What nation, so far as the world is christened, hath so many learned divines 1 Neither is this learning like a coal, burning to themselves, but a bright lamp shining to us. Even those reverend fathers that sit at the stern of the church, and charge their minds with her greatest troubles, are yet continually preaching to some particular congregation. It cannot be denied but the ' Lord hath shewed us light.'

Now where be the fruits that he must look for 1 I dare scarcely enter into this search, as the elephant refuseth to drink in a clear water, lest he should see his own deformity. I fear to find the respondency of the deeds of darkness. I know God hath his number amongst us; I hope it is not small. God every day increase it, to liis glory and the church's comfort! Let me have freedom to speak generally.

Beloved, our lives shame us. If men and angels should hold their peace, our own open and manifest iniquities will proclaim us unthankful. Fraud in our houses, dnnikenness in our streets, oppression in our fields, adultery in comers, injustice on seats, impiety in our temples, rapine upon our temples, devastation of our temples, at lea.st of the means that God hath given them : these, these are the fruits too many of us return for God's mercies. Thus, thus do we adorn the go.spel.

The greatness of God's kindness to us we strive to match with our unkind-ness to God. He that in his own person stood for our defence, and bore the heat and burden of the day for us, hath this requital, to have his cause put off to others. We dare not stand for his glory. Coidd we else brook his holy days profaned, holy name abused, lioly church despised, his servants impoverished, if we were as kind to him as he is to us ?

Whereas every man hath a charge for God's glory, we put it off from one to another : the poor man to the rich, and says he should look to these disorders • the rich man to the minister; the minister, after a hearty dehorta-tion, to the magistrate. But stiU wickedness holds up the head, and the heat of rebellion is not qualified. . i ..i r ^i

It is storied of a certain king, that fightmg a desperate battle, for the recovery of his dauf'hter injuriously stolen from him, found ill success, and the day utterly against him ; till by the faithful valour of a strange prmce, disf-uised in habit of a mean soldier, that pitied his loss, and bore love to his^dau^hter, he recovered both her and victory; the prince interposing himself to hazard of death and many wounds for the other's redemption. Not Ion"- after, this prince received some wrong concerning his honour, which he deservedly prized. He made his complaint to the king, and besought him to give a just censure of his cause. The forgetful khig put him over to a judi^e. The prince replies, 0 king, when thou wast lost, I endangered my-selffor thy rescue : I did not bid another save thee, but I saved thee myself. Lo, the scars of those wounds I bore to free thee and thy state from inevitable ruin. And now my suit is before thee, dost thou shuffle me off to another'? Such was our case. Satan had stolen our dear daughter, our soul. In vain we laboured a recovery; principalities and powers were against us, weakness and wretchedness on our sides. Christ the Son of God took pity on us; and though he were an eternal Prince of peace, disguised himself in the habit of a common soldier,—i7idue7is foymam se/'i'i,—putting on him the ' likeness of a servant,' undertook this war against our too strong enemies, set himself betwixt us and death, bore those wounds which should have lighted on us. By no angel nor saint, by no gold or precious minerals, did he redeem us, but by his own grievous sufferings. Now his glory is in question, his name, his honour is abused, dear to him as his own majesty, we stand by and behold it : he appeals to our censure, remembers us of the wounds, passions, sorrows he endured for us; we put him off from one to another, and let the cause of him that saved us fall to a loss. Who shall plead for our ingratitude 1 Heaven and earth, sun and stars, orbs and elements, angels and devils, will cry shame upon us.

If we ask now, as the wicked will at the latter day, Matt, xxv., ' Lord, when saw we thee hungry, and did not feed theel when naked, and did not clothe thee ?'—when was thy cause before us, which we defended not ?—1 answer. Any day, every day, when we hear swearers wound and tear his holy name in pieces ; when we see idolaters give his honour to carved or painted blocks ; when ruffians speak contemptibly of his holy rites; when liis sabbaths, sacraments, word, ministers, are vilipended, ourselves standing by with a guilty silence. Oh, which of us hath not been guilty of this ingratitude !

It was the cxprobration of Athens, that she suffered those men to die in exile, ignominy, oblivion, that with their virtuous endeavouis had reared her up on the pillars of fame. Miltiadcs, Aristidcs, Solon, Thocion; UOi vixciv.nt i uOijuceidf —Where lived they *? where lie they? Their worthy acts gave glory to that city, and that city covered them with the inglorious dust of ob.scurity. So the Lord Jesus had made us live that were dead, and We do what we can to let his living name die amongst us. The Grecians had a proverb amongst them against them—

' Pro mcritis male tractarunt Agamemnona Graii;'— Ai^amemuon, for the honour of Greece, had done great service to the

conquest and subversion of Troy ; and when lie came home was slain by his ■ own wife, Clytemnestra, by the help of ^yisthus, the adulterer. Christ loved us as his "wife, endowed us with all his own riches; conquers Troy for us, subdues all our enemies; and returning home, when he expects to find peace and kind entertainment in our hearts, we fall to vexing and wounding him, forsaking his love, and cleaving to the world in a cursed adultery. So

' Dulceiu pro mentis tractarnus acerrime Christum,'—

So bitterly do we requite our sweet Saviour for his mercies.

Scipio had made Kome kdy of Africa. And coming home with triumph over that and Hannibal, the senate banished him into a base village; where dying, he commanded this sculpture to be engraven on his tomb : Ingmta patria, ne ossa quidem mea //a6es,—Unthankful country, thou hast not so much as my very bones. ]\Iany and mighty deliverances hath the Lord given us : from furious Amalckites, that came with a navy, as they bragged, able to fetch away our land in turfs; from an angry and raging pestilence, that turned the popular streets of this city into solitude; from a treason wherein men conspired with devils, for hell was brought up to their conjurations, and a whole brewing of that salt sulphur was tunned up in baiTcls for us to drink.

Behold, and kiss the feet of his mercy. We are delivered by Jesus Christ from all these miseries and mischiefs. Oh, let us not voluntarily call upon ourselves a worse than all these by our own unthankfulness. Let not Clirist say, Ingmta Anglia, ne ossa quidem mea hahes, —Unthankful England, thou hast not so much as (my bones) the prints and sensible impressions of these favours in thy memory. Thou hast shut thy Saviour out of thy miiid, and buried him in neglectful oblivion. Take heed, lest in a just quittance he exclude thee from his thoughts, and forget to do thee any more good; lest he take away his name, his glory, his light, his gospel from thee, and bestow it on those unchristened borders where now his great majesty is not adored.

How justly might he leave us in our former wretchedness ! There is a pretty fable, the moral of it will profitably fit our present discourse. A serpent accidentally enclosed betwixt two great stones, that he could no ways extricate himself, made his moan to a man passing by to deliver him. The man with much force removed the stone, and set him free. Tbe serpent now feeling his liberty, thus bespake his deliverer : I confess you have done me kindness in helping me out, being almost famished ; but now I am out, my hunger is so violent, that I must needs take the benefit of my fortune, and devour you. The man urged his ingratitude, but to no purpose, for the serpent would eat him. Instantly he si)ied an ass coming, and desired the serpent to put it to his judgment. The serpent was contented, knowing that the ass durst not but condemn the man for his prey, lest he endangered himself The case was pleaded on both sides; the man urging his kindness, the serpent his hunger. But the ass gave judgment on^the serpent's side, who is now ready to set on the man. Hereupon files by an eagle, to whom the man appealed for judgment in this controversy. The eagle hearing the cause debated, demanded of the serpent if he could have freed himself vnthout the man's aid. The serpent answered aflirmatively, and said it was only his poUcy by this trick to get the man within his reach. The eagle desires to see the place, the man shews it. The eagle bids the serpent go into the hole again for the- mcjre certain demonstration. The serpent doth so, and the man removes the other stone as it was before, and re-encloseth the serpent. The eagle now bids the serpent deliver himself;

he replied he could not. Then, quoth the eagle, this is my judgment: the next time the man lets thee forth, do thou take him for thy prey, and eat him.

It cannot be denied but we were once surer in Satan's hold than this serpent is imaguicd to be between the stones. The man Christ Jesus in pity redeemed us and gave us liberty. We are no sooner out but we fall to devour him ; to make his i)oor members, liis poor ministers our prey; to wound his name with blasphemies; to steal his goods with sacrilege ; and to give his honour either to other creatures or to our own wits, as if we could have deUvercd ourselves. Let any be judge but the ass, our own flesh and blood, and we are sure to be condemned for ingratitude. But if Christ should, in his justice, put us again into our former hole, leave us in the power of Satan, who would not say with the eagle, the next time he sets us free, let us take him for our booty, and devour our Redeemer ?

It is recorded of Alexander, an emperor famoused for his liberality, and of JuUus Ciesar, no less commended for his patience, that the former would never give, nor the other forgive, an ungrateful person. Wretched were we if the Lord should withhold from us either of these mercies : if he should shut up the flood-gates of his bounty, and cease giving; or lock up the treasure-house of mercy, and leave forgiving. If he should neither donare bona sua, nor condonare mala nostra, woe unto us ! We might curse our births, )r rather om- ingratitude.

We hope still God wiU be merciful to us for Christ's sake ; so God of us, tie hopes we will be obedient to him for Christ's sake. Petimusque, damusque vlcissim. As we expect God should save us for the merits of his Son, so God exiiccts we should serve him for the merits of his Son. If the bitter suffermgs and heart-blood of Jesus cannot get of us the forbearance of iniquity, how shall it get for us the forgiveness of iniquity? As we entreat God, for his mercy, to be good to us; so God entreats us, for his mercy, to be good to him, and therein most good to ourselves.

Oh, let that goodness that reconciles us both prevail with us both ! With God, to bless us by his bountifulness; with us, to bless God by our thankfulness. Wliat should I say 1 For Jesus Christ's sake, let us be thankful. Ps. xcii. 1, ' It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord,' saith our Psalmist. Good for the virtue of the action; good for the excellency of the object; good for the happiness of the retribution.

For the action ; it is better to bless than to curse. Ptom. xii. 14, ' Bless thciii that persecute you ; bless, and curse not.'

Fur the object; our praises are sung to a most glorious God, one that is bcaiity itself, Ps. xxvii. 4, and only worthy to ' inhabit the praises of Israel'

For the nitribution; if we bless God, God will bless us: as one notes that all David's psahns were either Ilosanna or Hallelvjah, —that is, ' God bless,' or 'God be blessed;' either a prayer for mercy or a praise for mercy. Ascendat ergo gratia ut descendat gratia ; iov gratlarum cessat decursus, ubi recursus 7W)i fuerU,~Grncfi will not come down unless gratitude go up; all rivers run back to the sea, whence they were first derived.

Let U.9 send up our gifts to God, that he may send down his gifts to us. I^t us not nti dntia, tanquam innatls, but remember that we hold all in cnpite, and are suitors to the court of heaven ; worthy to forfeit our estates if wo pay not the quit-rout of thaulcfulness, acknowledge not gratitude and obedience.

tJod will not long calulis indidgere luporum, pamper the wolves' whelps, a.H the proverb speaks; but he will forget them that forget him. We have

a saying from Aristotle, Nee in puerum, nee in senem coUocandtini esse hene-ficium, —That our beiieliceuce should not be fixed upon a child or an old man ; for the child, before he comes to age •wUl forget it, and the old man will die before he can requite it. ^\j:e we all either children or old men, that we cither not remember, or not return thaukfuhiess to God for his mercies 1 Yet, saith the Psalmist, Ps. cxlviii. 12, ' Old men and chUdren, praise the name of the Lord.'

With liim let us then say, ' ^Vhat shall we render to the Lord for all his benefits towards us^' Ps. cxvi. 12. David was inward with God; yet he studied what present he should offer him. He lights upon that which he was only able to give, and God most willing to receive, thankfulness. ' I will take the cup of salvation, and bless the name of the Lord-' Pray we then to God to give us thankfulness, that we may give it him; for of ourselves we have not what to give, unless the Lord give us wherewith to give.

Let us ' shew forth his loving-kindness in the morning, and his faithfulness every night,' Ps. xcii. 2. Morning and evening let us praise him, that hath made the day for our labour, and the night for our rest; and that not ex iisic, magls quam sensu, but with a hearty humility. ' Give unto the Lord the glory due to his name ; bring your sacrifice, and come into his courts,' Ps. xcvi. 8. Let no opportunity steal by neglected, but ' rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous ; and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness,' Ps. xcvii. 12. No garment better becomes you, though you have almost put it out of fashion, than to praise the Lord; for ' praise is comely for the righteous,' Ps. xxxiii. 1.

Thanksgiving is the best sauce to our meat, and blcsseth all the dishes on the table. ' When thou hast eaten, and art full, thou shalt bless the Lord thy God,' Deut. viii. 10. Whether we eat or drink, w^ork or rest, let us set that golden posy on all our labours which the angel to Zechariah gave of the headstone, ' Grace, grace unto it,' chap. iv. 7. He spake pleasant truth that said. He that riseth from the table without giving of thanks, goes his way and owes for his ordinary. He is unthankful that is unmindful of a benefit, uuthanlcful that requites it not, unthanlvful that dissembles it, but most unthankful that denies it. Though we cannot requite God's favour, we wiU neither forget it, nor dissemble it, nor deny it.

I have purposely been liberal in this doctrine; neither beg I pardon for prolixity. It was necessary for the text; no less for our times. ' God hath shewed us his light,' and we bring forth the works of darkness.

We say we all are thankful Our words wiU not pass with God without our deeds. Our w^ords are so fickle and false, that we dare not trust one another without manuscripts. Scriveners must be employed in all our commerce ; and shall God take our words, with whom we have broke so often ? No, beloved, we must set our hands to it; and, to speak to our capacity in the city, seal it, and deliver it as our act and deed. We must work that which is good.

I appeal from men's lips to their lives. Verba rebus probate, saith Seneca,— The form, the life, the soul of thankfulness is obedience. We, like blind Isaac, cannot see your hearts, but say, ' Let me feel thee, my son.' If your lives be rugged, like the hands of Esau, we dare not trust your voice for the voice of Jacob. If your deeds be rough, and sensible of rebellion, in vain you tell us you are thankful. It is somewhat that you * enter into his courts, and speak good of his name,' Ps. c. 4; but you must also do good for his name, and you shall be blessed. I have begmi and wUl end with a psalm: Ps. xcv.

1-3, ' 0 come, then, let us sing unto the Lord; let us rejoice to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgi\dng, and make a joyful noise to him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.' ' God is the Lord, that hath shewed us light: bmd the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar.'

GOD'S BOUNTY;

OB,

THE BLESSINGS OF BOTH HIS HANDS.

(THE FIRST SERMON.)

Length of days is in her right hand ; and in her left hand riches and honour. — Prov. III. 16.

By Wisdom here we understand the Son of God, the Saviour of man. In the first to the Corinthians, chap. i. 24, he is called the 'wisdom of God.' Col. ii. 3, * In him are hid all the treasures of wdsdom and knowledge.'

Wisdom is formerly commended for her beauty, here for her bounty: ' Length of days is in her right hand ; in her left, riches and honour.' Conceive her a glorious queen sitting on a throne of majesty, and calling her children about her, to the participation of those riches which from everlasting she had decreed them.

Not to travel far for distribution, the parts of this text are as easily distinguished as the right hand from the left. Here be two hands, and they contain two sorts of treasures. The right hand hath in it ' length of days;' the left, ' riches and honour.'

The right hand is, upon good reason, preferred, both for its own worth whereby it excels, and for the worth of the treasure which it contains. It hath ever had the dignity, as the dexterity.

Length of days is the treasure it holds. This cannot be properly understood of this mortal life, though the sense may also stand good with such an interpretation. ' For by me,' saith Wisdom, ' thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall be increased,' Prov. ix. 11. Wisdom is the mother of abstinence, and abstinence the nurse of health; whereas voluptuousness and intemperance, as the French proverb hath it, digs its own grave with the teeth.

But all a man's wisdom cannot keep him still alive. Eccles. ii. 16,' The wise man dieth as the fool,' saith Solomon. And the father of Solomon excludes it from having power to.keep a man ; Ps. xlix. 9, ' That he should live still for ever, and not see corruption,' Methusalem lived nine hundred sixty and nine years; yet he was the sou of Enoch, who was the son of

Jared, who was the son of Mahalaleel, who was the son of Cainan, who was the sou of Enos, who was the son of Seth, who was the sou of Adam, who was the son of dust. The best constitutions, that communicate in the sanguine of the rose and snow of the lily, have this parentage; they are the sons and daughters of dust.

This ' length,' then, is not subject to the poles, nor are these 'days' measured by the sun in his zodiac; all is pitched above the wheel of changeable mortality. It is eternity that fills the right hand of Wisdom.

Length of days. — Days for the clarity ; length for the eternity.

Days. —Man's life in this world is called a day—a short day, a sharp day. Short; for instat vesper, it is not sooner morning, but it is presently night. The sun of life quickly sets, after it is once risen. Sharp; for misery is born with life, brought up with life, and to the good dies with life ; to the wicked rcmauis in death. Like Hippocrates's twins, inseparable in their beginning, process, end. So that aged patriarch to Pharaoh, Gen. xlvii. 9, ' My days have been few and evil.' So Job, chap. xiv. 1,' Man is of few days, and many troubles.' Aniimd revi hrevissimi, solicitiidinis injinike* And Paul calls it 'the evil day,' Eph. vi. 13. It is somewhat to comfort, that though it be sharp, evil, yet it is but short—a day. Eph. v. 16, ' Redeem the time, for the days are evU.' But howsoever semper mcdi dies in seculo, yet semper honi dies in Domino, as Augustine sweetly, (in Ps. xxsiii.),—Though the world hath always evil days, yet God hath always good days.

And this day shall have no night. N'ox nan erit illic, —Rev. xxi. 25 * There shall be no night.' The sun that enlightens it cannot be eclipsed Ver. 23, ' That city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light of it.' No clouds shall draw a veil of obscurity over it. Here, the light of the sun darkens the moon, and the moon obscures the lustre of the stars; sometimes t half the earth is in light, and the rest in darkness. But in these days, albeit ' there is one glory of the sun, another of the moon, and another of the stars, and one star differeth from another star in glory,' 1 Cor. xv. 41 ; yet the light of one incrcascth the light of another, and the glory of one is the glory of all. Dispar est gloria singulorum, sed communis Icetitia om-niinn.X So, in sum, here we live but a short clay : ' Give us this day our daily bread.' But in that world we shall have days, and those good days, and great days; days of eternal length, for they shall have no night.

Length. —As the glory is clear for the countenance, so it is long for the continuance. Nidtiis erit defectus, nidlus terminus. There shall be ceterna Juiriln.^, cliara cvternitas. God's eternal decree to choose us in Christ had no beginning, but it shall have an end—when the elect are taken up to glory. The possession of this decreed inheritance shall have a beginning, but no end: 1 Thcss. iv. 17, ' We shall ever be with the Lord.' God's mercy in both hath neither beginning nor end, for it is from everlasting to everlasting.

Here then is both the countenance—it is a clear day ; and the continuance—it is of length ; the very same length that everlastingncss itself. Hczckiah's day was a long day, when, 2 Kings xx. 11, ' the shadow of the sun went ten degrees backward in the dial of Ahaz.' Joshua had a long day when the sun stood still on Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon : Josh. X. 11, ' And there was no day like that before it or after it.' But both tlifse days had their nights; and the long-forbearing sun at last did set. Hero the days arc so h.ng that it shall never be night. You see the clear-«e.s.s and the length ; both are expressed, Dan. xii. 3, ' They that be wise shall • Petrarch. f Always.— Ed. % Aug. Meclit., cap. 25.

shine as the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars,' there is the clarity; and that ' for ever and ever,' there is the eternity.

There is nothing made perfectly happy but by eternity; as nothing but eternity can make perfect misery. Were thy life a continued scene of pleasures, on v/hose stage grief durst never set his unwelcome foot; were the spoil of Noah's ark the cates of thy table; hadst thou King Solomon's wardrobe and treasury ; did the West Indies send thee all her gold, and the East her spices ; and all these lyuig by thee whiles a late succession of years without cares snows white upon thy head; thou wert ever indulgent to thyself, and health to thee ; —yet suddenly there comes an impartial pursuivant, Death, and he hath a charge to take thee away medio de fonte leporum, batlung thyself in thy delights. Alas ! what is all thy glory but a short play, full of mirth till the last act, and that goes off in a tragedy ? Couldest thou not have made Death more welcome if he had found thee lying on a pad of .straw, feeding on crusts and water-gruel 1 Is not thy pain the more troublesome because thou wast well ? Doth not the end of these temporary joys afflict thee more than if they had never been ? Only then eternity can give perfection to pleasure; which because this world cannot afford, let us reckon of it as it is, a mere thoroughfare, and desire our home, where we shall be happy for ever.

7« her left hand, riches and honour. —The gift of the rigltt hand is large and eternal; of the left, short and temporal. Yet you see I am short in the long part; give me leave to be long in the short part. Herein we have many things considerable :—

I. That riches and honour are God's gifts.

II. That aU are not so, but some ; and therefore it is necessary for us to leara whether God gave unto us that riches and honour which we have.

III. That wealth and worship are for the most part companions; for both those gifts lie in one and the same hand.

IV. That albeit they are his gift-s, yet but the gifts of his left hand.

I. Eiches and honour are God's gifts, therefore in themselves not evU: Sunt Dei dona, ergo in se bona. Saith Augustine,* Ne putentur mala, dantur et bonis; ne jndentur sicmma bona, danticr et malis, —That they may not be thought evil, they are given to good men; that they may not be thought the best good, they are given also to evil men. A rich man may be a good man, and a poor man may be wicked. Christ sanctified riches as well as poverty; and that in his birth, his life, and his death.

1. In his birth. He sanctified poverty, when his chamber of presence was a stable, his cradle a manger, his royal robes coarse rags. He sanctified riches, when he received of the wise men precious gifts, Matt. ii. 11, ' Gold, frankincense, and myrrh,'— quce si faissent ipsissima mala, dedignatus esset ; which, if they had been simply evil, he would not have accepted.

2. In his life. He sanctified poverty, when he was maintained elecmosynarily, having no garment to put on : and the good women kept him by their contributions. He was glad to borrow an ass-colt when he was to ride; and to angle for money in the sea when he paid tribute; and, as if he wanted a bed, to complain. Matt. viii. 20, ' The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to rest his head.' He sanctified riches, when he called Zaccheus, a wealthy usurer, Luke xix. 2, and raised Lazarus, a wealthy citizen, John xi. ; had his steward, which gave alms to the distressed, and bore his purse, Jolm xii. G; and, Ukc a prince, feasted thousands at one banquet.

* Epist. Ixx. ad Bouif.

3. In his death. He sanctified poverty, when he had not a grave of his own, but was buried in another man's sepulchre, Luke xsiii. 53 ; nay. not a sheet to wrap liiui in, but was beholden to another for his linen; and even dying, converted a poor malefactor on the cross by him. He sanctified richel' when he accepted the kindness of Joseph (whom Matthew calls a rich man, chap. xxviL 57 ; Mark, an honourable, chap. xv. 43) for his .sepulchre; and Nicodcmus's costly unction, John xix. 39, even a hundred pound weight, mixed with myrrh and aloes.

Though riches be to some pernicious, a fuming wine which turns their brahis; yet to others they are a vessel, wherein they may with more .speed sail to heaven, though no compass, star, or cause to bring them thither. Others are called by David viri divitiarum, men of riches, because they possess not their riches, but their riches have subjugated them. We have a kind of presage, though we conceive it not, in saying of such a one, He is a vmn oj wealth. The speech signifies him a slave to his riches ; the wealth is not the man s, but the man the wealth's.

But otherwise a rich man may be a good man; for wickedness is not bound to wealthiness, as heat is to fire ; and arrogancy or lewdness may be incident to poverty and baseness. Pauper siiperbus, a poor man proud, was one of Cyprian's twelve abuses. A rotten log will yield as much saiiv-dust as a piece of good timber; and a peasant ill-nurtured is also ill-natured. A great gentleman wUl shew more humble courtesy than a thrashing hind or a toiling ploughman. Hagar was but a gipsy, a bondwoman ; yet was her excellent mistress, Sarah, * despised in her eyes,' Gen. xvi. 4. As Jerome reproved the monks. Quid facit sub tunica poenitentis regius animus? —so not seldom a russet coat shrouds as high a heart as a silken garment. You shall have a paltry cottage send up more black smoke than a goodly manor. It is not wealth therefore, but vice, that excludes men out of heaven.

The friars and Jesuits have very strongly and strangely backbited riches; but all their railing on it is but behind the back : secretly and in their hearts they love it. When they are out of the reach of eyes, then gold is their sun by day, and silver their moon by night. Some of them for enforced want, like the fo.x, dispraise the grapes they cannot reach. Or, as Eusebius notes of Licinius the emperor, that he used to rail at learning, and to say nothing worse became a prince, because himself was illiterate ; so they commend nothing more than poverty, because they are, and must be, poor against their wills.

Others of them find fault with riches, whereof they have great store, but would that none should covet it beside themselves. So the cozening epicure made all his fellow-guests believe that the banquet was poisoned, that all they refusing, he might glut himself alone. These often cheat themselves, and work tlieir own bane: whiles they so beat off others from the world, and wra]) th<'nisclves up in it to tlieir confusion. The fox in the fable, with divers other beasts, found a rich booty of costly robes and jewels. He persuades the lion that he needs not trouble himself with them, because he is king, and may command all at his pleasure. He tells the stag, that if he should put tlnin on, thoy would so molest him that he could not escape the huntsnicn. l-'or tlu^ boar, he says they would evil-favouredly become him; and the wolf he sliufflos off with the false news of a fold of lambs hard by, whirh would do liini more go(>d. So all gone, he begins to put on the robes hnuself, and to rejoice in his lueky fraud. But instantly came the owners, and .surprised hini, who had so puzzled himself in these habiliments, that he could not by flight escape; so they took him, and hanged him up.

The subtle foxes, Jesuits and friars, dissuade kings from coveting wealth, because of their power to command all; and great men, because it will make them envied and hunted after for their trappings; countrymen it wUl not become, they say ; and all the rest, that it will hinder their journey to heaven. So in conclusion they drive all away, and get the whole world for their master Pope and themselves. But at last these foxes are caught in their own noose; for the devil finds them so wrapped and hampered in these ornaments, and their hearts so besotted on money and riches, that he carries them with as much ease to hell as the chariot drew Pharaoh into the Ptcd Sea.

For us, beloved, we teach you not to cast away the bag, but covetousness. ^0)1 facultatem, sed cupidilatem reprehendimiis. We bid you ' use the world,' but enjoy the Lord. And if you have wealth, 'make you friends with your riches, that they'—so made friends by your charity—' may receive,' and make way for, 'you into everlasting habitations,' Luke xvi. 9. It is not your riches of this world, but your riches of grace, that shall do your souls good. 'Not my wealth, nor my blood, but my Christianity makes me noble,' quoth that noble martyr Piomanus. And though the philosopher merrily, when he was asked whether were better, wisdom or riches, answered, Kiches; for I have often, said he, seen poor wise men at rich fools' doors, but never rich fools at poor wise men's doors : yet wealth may be joined with wisdom, goodness with greatness. Mary and Martha may be sisters : righteousness and riches may dwell together.

Chrysostom, on that aphorism of Christ, Matt. vi. 24, ' Ye cannot serve God and Mammon,' observes that he doth not say. Ye cannot have God and Mammon ; but, Ye cannot serve God and Mammon : for he that is the servant of God must be the master of his wealth. The Lord Jesus is able to sanctify and save the rich man's soul as well as the poor's, and to send poor Lazarus into the bosom of rich Abraham : where consider not only qui sublatus, but quo suhlatus* Poor but good Lazarus is carried into rich but good Abraham's bosom; to signify that neither poverty deserves heaven, nor riches hell. JJlvitice non iniquce, sed iniquis, —Hiches are not unrighteous, but to the unrighteous. A^ec cidpahile est habere ista; sed hcerere istis, —It is not a sin to have them, but to trust them.

As much might be said for honour. It is the Lord that advanceth : I Sam. ii. 30, 'Those that honour me I will honour,' saith God. 'It is God,' saith Job, 'that puttcth on the king's girdle,' chap. xii. 18, that fasten-eth his honour about him. ' Promotion comcth neither from the east nor from the west, nor from north nor south,' Ps. Ixxv. G, but only from the Lord. Hence it follows that great men may be good men : yea, hence it should follow that great men ought to be good men.

They mat/ be good. Christ had liis faithful followers even in Caesar's family. Bernard indeed complainedt that the court is wont to receive good men, but to make them bad men. Bonos facilius recipere, quam facere: and, Plures illic defecisse bonos, quam profecisse malos, —The court doth sooner take good men than make good men : there more good are perverted to evil than evil converted to good. Yet in the court of Pharaoh was a good Joseph; in the court of Darius, a good Daniel; in the court of Aha-fiuerus, a good ^Mordecai. Neither is it ever ti-ue that quo quis corruptior moribus, et corrumpentior muneribus, —the more a man is corrupt with vices, and corrupting with bribes, so much the more set by. The Pharisees' objection, John vii. 48, is sometimes false : ' Have any of the rulers believed on him V They may be good; yea—

* Aug. in Ps. IL f De Consid., lib. iv.

They must be good. For they are unprinted statutes, wliereout every man rei>.ds liis duty. They are legis fadores, and therefore should not be hfjis fradores. Aristotle calls them loquenfes leges, speaking laws. Inferiors often .set their eyes to supply the place of their ears, and rather look to see their duties than to hear them. All should live by precept, but most will live by precedent. A superior therefore should teach men to take the measure of his greatness by his goodness. These two should be of an even length, of an equal pace. If honour outruns honesty, it will hardly be overtaken. Let such a one appear to the people as he would liave them be; and be himself such a one as he appears. A great person is like a great hill, which gives a fair prospect, but is subject to the lightning and thunder of censures.

IL But it may here be objected, that if riches and honour be God's gifts, then is he the giver of Judas's wealth and Haman's honour. Perhaps you woidd here learn whether your riches and honours come from God or no : your demand is requisite, and I will strive to give you satisfaction.

First, for riches; if they come from God, they are honestly gotten, justly disposed, and patiently lost.

1. They arc well gotten : for God is not the patron of unjust gains. He can bless a man well enough without the help of the devil. There are many that will have wealth, though they go a-fishing for it, either with Habakkuk's net, chap. i. 15, or Hophni's hooks, 1 Sam. ii. 13. They do not only trouble the waters for it, but they bloody the waters, fetch it out of the bowels and life-blood of the poor. This is not from God, nor will he bless it. But ' as it was gathered of the hire of a harlot, so it shall return to the hire of a harlot,' Mic. i. 7.

It is easy for that man to be rich that will make his conscience poor. He that will defraud, forswear, bribe, oppress, serve the time, use, abuse all men, all things, swallow any wickedness, cannot escape riches. Whereas he whose conscience will not admit of advancing or advantaging himself by indirect means, sits down with contented poverty. But bonus non cito cvasit dives, —a good man seldom becomes rich on the sudden. Wealth comes not easily," not quickly, to the honest door. Neither let us envy the gravel that sticks in the throat of injustice. For he that will swallow the bait which hangs on the line of another man's estate, shall be choked with it. Of riches let us never desire more than an honest man may weU bear away. Mallem me miserum sandnm quam j^rospertim peccatorem, —I had rather be a miserable saint tlian a prosperous sinner. When the raising of thy roof Is the rasing of another's foundation, ' the stones shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it,' Hab. ii. 11. Thus non acdpiimis data, sed arripimus p>rohibita, —we take not things with a beggar's band, Ijut with a tyrant's; they are not God's gifts, but our felonies.

For this cause riches are called bona fortunce, the goods of fortune : not that they come by chance, but that it is a cliance if ever they be good. Vce accitmnlauti non sun, Hab. ii. G; and, vcr. 9, 'Woe to him that coveteth an evil covctousness to his house !' We think the oppressor's avarice evil only to the houses of the oppressed; but God saith it is most evH to his own. Whether fraud or force bring in unjust gain, it is as a coal of fire put in tlic tliatch of his house.

And to .shfw that (Jod is not the giver of this, he pours a curse upon it; tliat often they who thus desire most wealth shall not have it: the world bi'Mig to them like a fn.ward woman, the more wooed, the further off. Isa. xxxm. 1, • Woe to thee that spoilcst, and wast not spoiled ! when thou shalt

cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled.' And, Hab. ii. 8, ' EcCcauae thou hti?.t spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto thorn.' Many a great fish in the sea of this world devours another, and instantly comes a greater and devours him; as that emperor suffered his officers to be like sponges, sucking up the goods of the commonalty, and being once full, he squeezed them into his own coffers.* Pharaoh's lean kine, that devoured the fat, were yet themselves never the fotter. Gen. xli. 21.

Philip was wont to say, that an ass laden with gold would enter the gates of any city; but the golden load of bribes and extortions shall bar a man out of the city of God. All that is so gotten is like quicksilver, it will be running. K the father leave all to his son, yet the son will leave nothing for his son, perhaps nothing for himself; never resting till

' Quodcumque profundo Traxit avaritia, luxu pejore refundat,'—f

until he hath thromi abroad all with a fork which his father got together with a rake. Nah. ii. 12, ' The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with ravin. But I mil be against thee, saith the Lord : and the sword shall devour thy young lions.' The father plays the lion for his whelps, oppresseth and consumeth the poor; but his young lions, which he so provides for, shall be destroyed.

'Non habet eventus sordida prtcda bonos.'J

We have seen huge hills of wealth, like mountains of ice, thus suddenly thawed as wax, with the heat of luxury. But Farvuni justo, Ps. xxxvii. 16, ' A little that the righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked shall be broken :' the strength of then- state shall be confounded. Their wealth is not God's, therefore he takes no charge of it. But the riches of the good is the riches of God, and he will prosper it.

2. These riches are well disposed or used. Piety, not lust, rules them. He whom God's blessing hath made rich, gives God his part, man liis part, and keeps the thirds to himself. He returns part—

(1.) To God. It is reason that he who gives all should have part of all. And because thou shouldest not grudge it, he challengeth but a little part, but the tenth part. Wretched men, that will not give him one that gave them ten ! As Pilate's wife sent her husband word, Matt, xxvii. 19, ' Have thou nothing to do with that just man;' meddle not with God's portion, lest a voice come to thee, as to Abimelech, Gen. xx. 3, ' Thou art but a dead man.' This was good Jacob's resolution. Gen. xxviii. 22, ' Of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee.' Go to now, ye that say the gospel hath no law for tithes, and that they were merely ceremonial. Jacob paid them under nature ; they arc therefore unnatural men that deny them. You can find no law commanding your payment, but you shall find a law condemning your non-payment.

What can then be pleaded for our accursed impropriations? Did the heavenly Wisdom ever give you those riches 1 Shew us your patent, and we will believe you. If ever God did convey his own portion to you, shew his hand and seal for it. Where did ever Jesus pass away his royal prerogative, or acknowledge any fine before a judge, that you say, //«c nostra sunt, — These are ours ? Wliat money did you ever pay him for them ? Where is * Sueton. iu vita Vespaa. t Claudian, X Ovid. Amor.

your acquittance ? Shew your discharge. Oh, but you plead prescription ! if you were not past shame, you would never dare to prescribe against the eternal God. Nullum tempus occurrit r^yt,—The king of heaven had these from the beginning, and will you now plead prescription 1 You may thus undo the i)oor minister in these terrene courts, but your plea shall be danmed in the courts of God. We can produce his act and deed whereby he separated tenths to himself; have you nothing to shew, and will you take away his inheritance 1 Go to, you have a law, and by your own law this proceeding is intolerable. You say you hold them by your law, by your law you shall be condemned.

Perhaps you think to make amends for all, for you will increase the stipend of the vicar. "When the father hath gotten thousands by the sacrilegious impropriation, the son perhaps may give him a cow's grass, or a matter of forty shillings j^er annum; or bestow a little whiting on the claurch, and a wainscot seat for his own worship. Yea, more; he may chance to found a little alms-house, and give twelve pence a-piece a-week to six poor people. Oh, this oppressor must needs go to heaven! what shall hinder him ] But it will be, as the byword is, in a wheelbarrow : the fiends, and not the angels, will take hold on him.

For is it not a great piece of charity to get five hundred pounds a-year from God, and to bestdw twenty marks a-year on the poor 1 When David, providing for the temple's building, saw how bountifully the princes and people offered, he gives solemn thanks to God, acknowledging that they had all received this first from him. 1 Chron. xxbc. 14, 'For all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.' The original is, ' of thine hand.' What here the left hand of God gave to them, their right hand returns to God. They did not, as our church-sackers and ransackers do, rob God with the right hand, and give him a little back with the left; take from him a pound, and restore him a penny. Well, you would know whether God hath given you your wealth; and he says, whatsoever you have gotten by tenths was none of his giving; and, besides everlasting malediction, it shall make your posterity beggars.

(2.) The second rule of using our riches well is, when God hath his own, in the next place, trihuere cuique suum, to render every man his due. If they be God's gifts, they must be disposed with justice. This is double— commutative and distributive justice. The one arithmetical, the other geor metrical. Arithmetical is to give every one alike; geometrical is to give every one according to his deserts. First, Cum res adcequatur rei; secondly, Cum res adcequatur personce. There are two rules for him that would be just : a negative and an affirmative rule. First, the negative : Tobit iv. 15, 'Do that to no man which thou wouldest not have done to thyself,'— Quod tihi 11011 vis, alteri ne facias. Secondly, the affirmative : Matt. vii. 12, ' Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' Nut wliat every man, out of his own disordered passions, would have another do to him ; but what in his composed and deliberate judgment he approves done to liim.self, lot hini do that to others. Wouldest thou be relieved ? liclieve. Wouldest thou borrow? Lend.

If I should follow this point of just distribution, as a mark to discern of your riches whether they are God's goods or not, how distasting would my spcccli be! How few of your houses are filled with those treasures only which the hcaveidy Wisdom here dispcnsi^th ! How little of them is found U> conic in God's name ! It may be some of your wealth was given you of God ; but your evil usage alters the nature of it, and it can no more properly

be ascribed to him. It is hard to draw this circumstance into a scjuare ; it is so confused in your action.s, that I cannot tell how to find a method for it in my discourse. You may make your riches none of God's blessings by using them ill in respect of others, especially three ways : either detinendo debita, by dctainhig things due to others; or extmdendo vilia, by putting forth base things for good ; or cornimpendo utilia, by corrupting with good things other-s.

[1.] By detaining those things that are due to others ; and these are either debts or promises.

First, Debts. Rom. .xiii. 8, ' Owe no man anything, ^ but to love one another.' Indeed there must be some owing, as there must be some lending ; without this mutual commerce we are worse than savages. But we must pay again: Ps. xxxvii. 21, 'The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again.' Debt is not deadly sin when a man hath no means, but when he hath no meaning to pay. There mu.st be votal restitution, if there cannot be actual, llcstore quoad ajfectum, though you cannot quoad effectum. 2 Cor. viii. 12, ' For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not to that he hath not.' God reckons that as done which a man vere voluit, tametsi non valuit adimplere,* —faithfully would, though not fully could accomplish.

There are that will restore some, but not all; to this they have posse, but no velle ; let the creditors be content with one of four. But this little detiny is great iniquity. For a mite is debt, as well as a million : tarn, though not tantum, —so good a debt, though not so great a debt. And, ' He that is faithful in a little shall be made ruler over much,' Matt. xxv. 23.

What shall we then say of their goods that break, and defraud others ? Come they from God's hand or from the devil's 1 Surely Satan's right hand gave them, not God's left. Ilcec mea sunt, saith the devil; mece divitice, mei divites, —The.se are mine, my riches, and my rich men. Oh that men would see this damnable sin ! Methinks their terrified conscience should fear that the bread they eat should choke them ; for it is stolen, and stolen bread fills the belly with gravel. They should fear the drink they swallow .should poison them ; being the very blood of good householders, mixed with the tears of widows and orphans. The poor creditor is often undone, and glad of bread and water; whiles they, like hogs lurking in their sties, fat and lard their ribs with the fruit of others' labours. They rob the husband of his inheritance, the wife of her dowry, the children of their portions; the curse of wliole families is against them.

And if tliis sin lie upon a great man's soul, he shall find it the heavier, to sink him lower into perdition. They are the lords of great lands, yet live upon other men's moneys; they mu.st riot and revel, let the poor commoners pay for it. They have protections ; their bodies shall not be molested, and their lands are exempted. What then 1 Shall they escape 1 No, their souls shall pay for it. When the poor creditor comes to demand his own, they rail at him, they send him laden away, but with ill words, not good money. In the country they set labourers on work, but they give them no hire. Tut, they are tenants, vassals. Must they therefore have no pay 1 Yet those very landlords will bate them nothing of their rents. But the riches so had are not of God's giving, but of the devil's lending, and he will make them repay it a thousand-fold in hell.

Secondly, Promises are due debts, and must not be detained. If the good man promise, though ' to his own hurt, he changeth not,' Ps. xv. 4. Indeed, * Bora. VOL. I. K

now promtssis dives quilibet esse potest, —men are rich in promises, but they are poor in performance. More respect is had to commodity than to honesty. Men have their evasions to disannul their promises; either they equivocate or reserve ; or, being urged, plead forgetfulness. But the truth is, they have sufficient memory, but not sufficient honesty. It is said that a good name is the best riches; qua semel amissa, posfea nullus eris. But Avhat care they for a name, so long as they save their money ? Quid enim salvis infamia nummis ? *

A Pilate could say, John xix. 22, Quod scripsi, scripsi, —'What I have written, I have written;' and shall not a Christian say, Quod dixi faciam, —A\Tiat I have promised I will perform ? Hence it comes that there is so little faith in the world; that scriveners have so much work; that the proverb runs in everybod/s mouth. Fast bind, fast find ; that there is no hope of good deeds, but sealed and delivered; that there is more trust to men's seals than to their souls. For the law of God holds us not so fast as the laws of men. There is more awe of judgment in the Common Pleas, than of a sentence of condemnation in the court of heaven. The sheriff is altogether feared, not God ; there is no dread of any execution but his. Is the wealth thus detained, in your own consciences, God's blessing 1 Deceive not your own souls. God requires us to be in our words as righteous as in all our ways. A Christian's word should be as current as his coin. Thus you see this first circumstance of injustice taxed. Therefore * Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thy hand to do it,' Prov. iii. 27.

[2.] By putting forth base things for good. The prophet Amos, chap, viii. G, speaks of some that ' sell the refuse of their wheat,' the basest wares ; neither do they sell them for base, but for good. If half a score lies, backed with as many oaths, will put off their vile commodities, they shall not lie upon their hands. Not upon their hands. I say; though upon their consciences.

' Plenius cequo Laudat venales, qui vult extrudere merces.' f

Their rule for themselves is vincat xdilitas; for others, caveat emptor lather they will shew you one thing, and sell you another; and this cozenage hath longer arms than all other tricks, and overreaches them: or they will conceal the in.sufficiency of the wares; and for this cause they darken tlieir sliops, lest the light should reveal their works of darkness : John iii. 19, 'They love darkness more than light.' Let them take heed lest it be unto them according to their desires; lest, as they have brought hell into their shops, so their shops send them into hell.

Or if the commodity be discerned bad, you must have that or none. If your necessity forceth you to buy, it shall force you to buy such base stuff. This is a grievous sin in all professions, especially amongst apothecaries, because with their injustice may be also mixed a spice of murder. But you will say, We compel none to buy our commodities; we but shew them, and make the price. But it is craft tendere 2)la(/as, etsi agitaturus non sis, —to iay snares, though you drive not men into them. Or be it what it will, yet r.-ither than refuse your money, they will protest to give you the buying. Vea, rather than fail, they will sell it you cheaper than before they swore it <xj.st them.

' Quia rnetua aut pudor est properantis avari ?'—t

• Juven. Satyr. f Hon, 1. viii. op. :!: Juv. Sat. 14.

What! sell clieai)er than they buy'? How should they then live ? The answer is easy, they live by their lying.

Now doth this wealth come in God's name 1 Is this the blessing of heaven ? Which of your consciences dare think so ] St Augustine* speaks of a certain jester that undertook to tell the people what they all did most desire. Multitudes came to hear this, to whose expectation he thus answered, VUi vultis emere et chare vendere, —You would buy cheap and sell dear. And this is every man's desire, that desires to be rich more than to be just.

[3.] By making others bad with his goods. And here we may fitly proceed to the condemnation of bribery. Deut. xvi. 19, 'A gift bUndeth the eyes of the wise.' They that see furthest into the law, and most clearly discern the causes of justice, if they suffer the dusts of bribes to be thro\vn into their sight, their eyes will water and twinkle, and fall at last to blind connivance. It is a wretched thing when justice is made a hackney that may be backed for money, and put on with golden spurs, even to the desired journey's end of injury and iniquity.

If the party be innocent, let his cause be sentenced for his innocence's sake; if guilty, let not gold buy out his punishment. If the cause be doubtful, the judge shall see it worse when he hath blinded his eyes with bribes. But the will of the giver doth transfer right of the gift to the receiver. No, for it is not a voluntary will. But as a man is willing to give his purse to the thief rather than venture his life or limb, so the poor man gives his bribes rather than hazard his cause. Thou sayest, The thief has no right to the purse so given; God saith. Nor thou to the bribe.

And this is sinful in a justicer though he pass true judgment on the cause ; but much more accursed when for this he will condemn the cause he should allow, or allow the cause he should condemn. ' To justify the vdcked and condemn the innocent' are alike abomination to the Lord. Far be from our souls this wickedness, that the ear which should be open to complaints is thus stopped with the ear-wax of partiality. Alas, poor Truth, that she must now be put to the charges of a golden ear-pick, or she cannot be heard !

But to shew that these riches are not of God's giving, his anger is hot against them : Job xv. 34, ' Fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery.' The houses, or tabernacles, the chambers, halls, offices, studies, benches, a fire shall consume them. They may stand for a while, but the indignation of the Lord is kindled ; and if it once begin to bum, all the waters in the south are not able to quench it. These riches, then, come not of God's blessing ; but I pray that God's blessing may be yours, though you want those riches. Time, that severe moderator, chargeth me silence, and I rather choose abruptly to break off my discourse than immodestly to abuse your tried patience. The Lord send us the gifts of his left hand at his own good pleasure, but never deny us the blessings of his right, for Jesus Christ's sake ! Amen.

• De Trin., lib. iiii., cap. 3.

GOD'S BOUNTY;

OE,

THE BLESSINGS OF BOTH HIS HANDS.

(THE SECOND SERMON.)

Length of days is in her right hand ; and in her left hand riches and honour. — Pro v. III. 16.

We are looking into the left liancl of Wisdom, and there have found, frst, that riches and honour are God's gifts; secondly, that every man's riches and honour are not so, ' that the mouth of wickedness might be stopped.' Therefore to satisfy our own consciences that they are God's blessings to us, I observed that they must be, first, honestly gotten ^ secondly, justly disposed, and that by rendering sincerely that which is due, first, to God; secondly, to man ; thirdly, to ourselves. Duties to others ended my former discourse; I must now begin at—

(3.) Ourselves. The third act of disposing our riches well, when God hath his portion and man his portion, is to take the thirds to ourselves. It is God's will that with the wealth he hath given thee thou shouldest refresh and consolate thyself Ps. xxiii. 5, ' Thou preparest a table before me : thou anointcst my head with oil; my cup runneth over.' Wherefore hath God si)rcad a table before thee, but that thou shouldest eat 1 Wherefore given thee a oup running over, but that thou shouldest drink ? If thou have wine, make, thy heart glad; if oil, let thy fixce shine ; if bread, strengthen thy spirit.^, Ps. civ. 15. Wear tliy own wool, and drink the milk of thy own Hocks. It is a blessing which the Lord gives to those that fear him : Ps. c.xxviii. 2, ' Thou shalt cat the labour of thine own hands : happy shaltthou be, and it shall be well with thee.' But a curse to the wicked, that they shall i)lant vineyards, and not taste the fruit thereof The riches that God truly gives, man truly enjoys. Eccles. v. 19, ' Every man to whom God hath given ridics and wealtli, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God.' Now, a man may take from himself this comfort in abusing his wealth, and tliis many ways; especially four—superstition, malice, riot, misery.

[1 J By spending them upon works of superstition, to the dislionour of God. And this is a high degree of ingxatitadc. When God hath given them a sword to defend themselves, and they turn the point of it upon his o-wTi breast. So God gave Israel sheep and oxen, and they offer them up to Baal. Many in England are beholden to God for great revenues, lands, and lordships ; and they therewith maintain Jesuits and Seminaries, his professed enemies. These use their riches as the Israelites did their car-rings and jewels : God gave them for their own ornament, and they turn them to an idol.

[2.] By malice, in abusing them to unnecessary quarrels and contentions of law, to the hindrance of God's peace and their neighbours' welfare : when men will put out one of their own eyes to put out both their neighbour's; nay, both their own for one of his. Thus what they get by the happiness for foreign peace they spend in civil wars. How unnatural is it for one hand thus to beat and wound another ! Either of them gets a shell; you know who goes away with the meat.

[3.] By riot. Qnicpiul dant, dant vel veneri vel ventri. They spend more upon the tavern than upon the tabernacle, at the house of plays than at the house of praise, more upon their own hounds than upon God's poor children. Julius Caesar seeing women carry little dogs under their arms, asked if they had no children. God asketh you, that give your bread to dogs, if he hath no children for your charity. But they answer all, as the wicked in the 12th Psalm, ' Our tongues are our own.' They stop the mouth of all exhortation to frugal courses with. It is my own; a man may spend his own as he list; I waste none of your goods ; and what hath friend in private or preacher in public to do with it? But they shall find one day that they were but stewards, that these riches were but entrusted to them, and they shall give a strict account. Nothing is properly a man's own but pecxata sua, his sins. Thy sins are thhie own, thy riches God's.

[4.] By miserable niggardice, in forbearing to take his own portion ; and so bccometh his own consumi)tion. No marvel if .such a miser starve others, when he f^imishcth himself. Such a one is the worst vermin the land bears ; another vermin seeks but to feed itself, but he, hoarding up his grain, feeds many thousands of them. Let him beware lest they also at last devour himself. As that German bishop,"' that having great store of corn in a grievous famine, refused to sell it to the poor, and suffered the rats to eat it; but by. the just judgment of God, the mice and rats which he fed with his grain did also feed upon him, albeit he built a tower in the midst of the river Bhine to avoid them, which the Germans call still Bat's Tower. How shall they which slander heaven with pretended dearths, be admitted as friends to that place which they have belied 1

You see how these riches must be gotten, how di.-iposed—honestly gotten, justly dispensed ; now it follows, also, in the next place, that they must be—

.3. Patiently lost. When God gives riches to the good, he gives them also a heart to trust in himself; in himself, I say, not in them. 1 Tim. vi. 17, 'Trust not in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us abundantly all things to enjoy.' He gives abundantly, but he fovbiddcth trust in that abundance. He commends riches to us, as a great man doth a servant to his friend : Work him, but tru.st him not; put labcmr to him, not confidence in him. Wealth may do us good service, but if it get the niastery of our trust, it will turn tyrant, termagant ; we condemn ourselves to our own galleys.

* Acts and Moo.

J 50 gob's bol'xty. [Sermon XII.

To the godly riches are never so dear but they can be content to forego them. They receive them at God's hands with much thankfulness, and they lose them with much patience. When God takes aught from us, he does us no ^v^oug. Retrahit sua, non ahstrahit nostra,^ —He doth but take back his own, not take away ours. So Job, chap. L 21, 'The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away.' The Lord giveth, therefore he may take away. Yea, Faith says, Lord, take all, so thou give me thyself. ' We have left all, and followed thee,' saith Peter, Matt. xix. 27. iA^'os sequamur Christum, ccetera sequentw nos, —Let us follow Christ, other things shall follow us. But if they do not, it is gain enough to have Christ. He is too covetous whom the Lord Jesus cannot satisfy. AVe may lose divitias Dei, but never Deum divitinrum. We may be forsaken of these riches of God, but never of the God of riches. Amittcnmis omnia, dum haheamus hahentem omnia, —Let us lose all, so we have him that hath all.

That was never perfectly good that might be lost. Of this nature are riches; they have made many prouder, none better. As never man was better, so never wise man thought himself better for them. That wise prophet would never have prayed against riches if their want had been the want of blessedness. The devil indeed says, ' All these will I give thee ;' but the two dearest apostles say, ' Silver and gold have I none.' Who would not rather be in the state of those saints than of that devil ? Eiches are such things as those that have them not want them not; those that have them may want them : they are lost in a night, and a man is never the worse for losing them. How many kings—not fewer than nine in our island—that have begun their glory in a throne, have ended it in a cell; changing their command of a sceptre for the contemplation of a book ! Alas, silly things, that they should dare ask one dram of our confidence ! Non tanta in multis falicitas quanta in paiccis securitas, —There is not so much happiness in the highest estate as there is content and peace in the lowest. Only then God be our trust, whose mercy we can no more lose than himself can lose his mercy.

. Thus you see this second general point amplified, if riches be God's blessings, (not only in themselves, so they are always good, but to us,) then they are gotten honestly, disposed justly, lost patiently. As much happily might be said, secondly, for honour, wherein I will briefly consider how and when it is of God.

God indeed gives honour and riches, but not aU honour; as you heard before, not all riches. There are four things in an honoured person:— First, ITis person, wherein he partakes of the common condition of manldnd ; lives and (lies a man. Even the sons of princes have their breath in their nostrils. tSfcoudli/, Hig honour and dignity; this, simply considered, is of God, whosoever he be that hath it, a Joseph or a Haman. Thirdly, The manner of coming to his honour; and tliis is no longer of God than the means are good. If it be God's honour, God must give it, not man usurp it. Fourthly, Tlie managing of this honour ; and this is also of the Lord, if it be right and religious. It haj)peneth often that Potens, the great man, is not of God. Hos. viii. 4, ' They have set up kings, but not by me ; they have made princes, and 1 know it not.' The manner of getting dignity is not always of God. llichard the Third came to the crown of England by blood and murder; Alexander the Sixth obtained the popedom by giving himself to the devil. Yet the dignity is of God. Trov. ^iii. 15, 'By me lungs reign; by me princes and nobles.'

* Greg, in Mor,

It is a hard question whcreui lionour consists. Is it iii blood, descending from the veins of noble ancestors 1 Not so, except nature could produce to noble parents noble children. It was a monstrous tale that Nicippus's ewe should yean a lion. Though it be true among irrational creatures, that they ever bring forth their like,—eagles hatch eagles, and doves doves,—yet in man's progeny there is often found not so like a proportion as unlike a dis-jxjsition. The earthy part only follows the seed, not that whose form and attending qualities are from above. Honour must therefore as well plead a charter of successive virtue as of continued scutcheons, or it cannot consist in blood. The best things can never be traduced in propagation : thou niayest leave thy son heir to thy lands in thy will, to thy honour in his blood ; thou canst never bequeath him thy virtues. The best qualities do so cleave to their subjects, that they disdain communication to others.

That is then only true honour where dignity and desert, blood and virtue meet together; the greatness whereof is from blood, the goodness from virtue. Among fools dignity is enough without desert; among wise men desert without dignity. If they must be separated, desert is infinitely better. Greatness without \irtue laudatur ore alieno, davmaiur conscientia sua, is commended by others' tongues, condemned in thy own heart. Virtue, though without promotion, is more comforted in thy own content than disheartened by others' contempt. It is a happy composition when they are united: think it your honour, ye great men, that you are ennobled with virtues ; not that you have, but that you deserve honour. Let this that hath been spoken teach us some lessons concerning honour.

1. Take it when God sends it, but be not ambitious of it. Indigni est arripere, non accipere honorem. It is an argument of unworthiness to snatch it denied, not to accept it offered. 1 Pet. v. 5, ' God resisteth the proud,'— opposeth himself in a professed war against him, as if he held a sword against his breast, when he would rise up in glory, to nail him fast down to the earth,—but 'he giveth grace to the humble;' like a great and good prince, he gives those servants grace and honour whom he perceives least ambitious of it. Such men seek not for honour as for a jewel they would fain find, but only stumble on it, as Saul sought but his father's asses when he lighted on a longdom. Pride, like smoke, will surge upward, though it vanish into air; massy virtue, like gold, keeps below, and is more preciously respected.

He that would mount, cares not what attendance he dances at all hours, upon whose stairs he sits waiting, what enormities he soothes, what deformities he imitates, what base offices he does prostrate himself to, so he may rise. His carriage is alienum a se, quite another thing from himself; he doth glue it on indecently, that he may screw himself into favour. This man never understood the charge that goes with honour, which the most wise disposition of God hath coupled together. Charge without some honour would overlay a man. If a man could have honour •without some trouble, it would so transport him that he were continually in danger of running mad. The poor man envies the great for his honour; the great perhaps envies the jooor more for his peace, for as he lives obscurely, so securely. He that rightly knows the many public and more secret vexations incident to honour, would not, as that king said of his crown, stoop to take it up, though it lay at his feet before him.

2. Live worthy of that honour thou hast. Greatness not gooded with grace is like a beacon upon a high hill: qui conspiciunt, dispiciunt, —they that behold it hate it, though perhaps they dare not censure it. The knee

god's bounty. [Seemon XII.

may be forced to reverence, but tlie mind cannot but abbor so unworthy a statue. In liis pride he stomachs the covered head or the stift" knee of a coed Mordecai, fretthig that other men do not think him so good as he tbinks'himself. But indeed he doth not think himself more honourable than others think him base. All the poor honour that he hath is only kept above-ground with his body; both corrupt, fall, and rot together : and if it be conjured up at the funeral to present itself, yet it fails not to go back with the heralds.

3. For-'ct not your original, ye whose brows the wreaths of honour have, above hopes, engirt. If the Lord hath ' raised you out of the dust, and lifted you up out of the dunghill, and set you among the princes of the people,' Ps. cxiii. 7,8; yet forget not your ftither's house, nor the place of your be-f'inninf. Miseranda oblivio, originis non oneminisse, —He never truly under-stands°what he is, that forgets what he hath been. Solomon's observation is often true, ' Folly is set in great dignity,' Eccles. x. 6; albeit this be not the rif'ht uhi, —folly in excellency. Now these excellent fools soon forget from huw low estate they are risen. They consider not how glad their carcases would once have been of a warm covering, that are now richer than lilies, more gorgeous than May; scarce ' Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these,' Matt. vi. 29. They consider not that need once made them trudge through the mire, even many tedious journeys, that climb by unjust riches to that dignity, as in their caroches to be whirled through the popular streets.

It was Jacob's humble acknowledgment of God's mercy to him, Gen. xxxii. 10, * With my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands.' If blind ingratitude would suffer many proud eyes to see it, how justly might divers say. With my staff came I hither walking, and now I ride in triumph with attendants! To these let me apply the words of the jirophet, Isa. li. 1,' Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye arc digged.' Kemember your poor beginning, that you may bless God for your advancing. Say, not only in general, Quis homo ? Ps. viii. 4, ' What is man, that thou, O Lord, art so mindful of him V but, Quise;/o? 1 Sam. ix. 21, 'What am I, and what is my father's house, that God should thus raise me up 1 '

4. If thou have honour, keep it, but trust it not. Nothing is more inconstant ; for it depends upon inconstancy itself, the vulgar breath, which is bellua multorum capitum, —a beast of many heads, and as many tongues, which never keep long in one tune. As they never agree one with another, so seldom do they agree long with themselves. Acts xiv., Paul and Barnabas come to Lystra, and raise an impotent cripple ; hereat the amazed people would needs make them gods, and draw bulls and garlands to the altars for sacrifice to them. Not long after they draw Paul out of the city and stone him. Tiiey suddenly turn him from a god to a malefactor, and are really to kill him, instead of killing sacrifice to him. Oh the fickleness of that thing which is committed to the keeping of vulgar hands! Trust not then popularity with thy honour, so it is mutable; but trust virtue with it, so it is diiiiiijle. Nothuig can make sure a good memory but a good life. It is a foolish dream to hope for immortality and a long-lasting name by a monument of bniss or stone. It is not dead stones, but living men, that can rodofin tliy good rememljnmce from oblivion. A sumptuous tomb covers thy i.utrilied carca.se ; and be thy life never so lewd, a commending epitaph Rliadi.w.s ull : but tiic p;i.ssengcr that knew thee tells his friends that these outaidua are hypocriticjil, for thy life was as rotten as is thy corpse; and so is

occasioned by thy presumed glory to luy open tliy deserved infamy. Neither can the common people preserve thy honour whilst thou livest, nor can these dull and senseless moimments keej) it when thou art dead. Only thy noble and Christian life makes every man's heart thy tomb, and turns every tongue into a pen to write thy deathless epitaph.

5. Lastly, if God gives to some men honour, it is then manifest that God allows difference of persons. He ordains some to rule and others to obey ; some masters, others servants; he setteth some up on high, and placeth others in a low degree. To rcinne at others' greatness and our own meanness, is to cavil with God, as if he wanted wisdom and equity in disposing these inferior conditions. It is a savage and popular humour to malign and inveigh against men in eminent places. That rhyme—

' When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then a gentleman ?'—

seems to be made among Jack Straw's followers, and to savour of rebellious discontent. God allows no man to vilify where he hath honoured; no scurrilous libels, disgracing those that live, yea, disparaging to the very dead, shall pass the court of God's justice uncensured. Where the Lord confers and confirms honour, woe to the tongue that shall traduce it!—This second point hath held us long, the brevity of the rest shaU ease it.

III. Observe that Solomon, in the donation of the left hand, couples together riches and honour, as if these two were for the most part inseparable companions. Eccles. \i. 2, ' God gives to a man riches and honour.' First riches and then honour, for it is lightly found,—so much riches, so much honour,—and reputation is measured by the acre. I have wealth enough, saith the worldling, Luke xii.; I will turn gentleman, ' take my ease, eat, drink, and be merry.' Riches are the stairs whereby men climb up into the height of dignity, the fortification that defends it, the food it lives upon, the oil that keeps the lamp of honour from going out. Honour is a bare robe if riches do not lace and flourish it, and riches a dull lump till honour give a soul to quicken it. Fitly, then, riches and honour, wealth and worship, do bear one another company.

IV. Lastly, observe, that though riches and honour be God's gifts, yet they ax-e but the gifts of his left hand : therefore it necessarily follows, that every wise man will fir.st seek the blessings of the right. JNIatt. vi. .33, ' First seek the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and these things shall be added unto you.' Godliness is the best riches, riches the worst. Let us strive for the former without condition ; for the other, if they foil in our way, let us stoop to take them up. If not, let us never covet them. It is no wisdom to refuse God's kindness, that offers wealth; nor piety to scratch for it when God withholds it. When the Lord hath set thee up as high as Haman in the court of Ahasucrus, or promoted thee to ride with Joseph in the second chariot of Egypt; were thy stock of cattle exceeding Job's, chap. i. 3, ' seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen;' did thy wardrobe put down Solomon's, and thy cupboard of plate Belshazzar's when the vessels of God's temple were the ornature,—yet all these are but the gifts of Wisdom's left hand; and the possessors may be under the malediction of God, and go down to damnation. If it were true that sandior qui ditior, —that goods could make a man good, I would not blame men's kissing this left hand, and sucking out riches and honour. But, alas! what antidote again.st the terror of conscience can be chymed * from

♦ That is, extracted by chemical processes.— Ed.

cold ? ^^^l.•^t cliarm is there in brave apparel to keep off the rigour of Satan ? (Juod tibi prcestat opes non tibiprcestat ope7n,—That which makes thee wealthy cannot make thee happy.

Jonah had a gourd that was to him an arbour : he sat under it secure ; but suddenly there was a worm that bit it, and it died. Compare, secretly in your hearts, your riches to that gourd; your pleasure to the greenness of it; your pomp, attendance, vanities, to the leaves of it; your sudden increase of wealth, to the growing and shooting up of it. But, withal, forget not the worm and the wind. The worm that shall kill your root is death, and the wind that shall blow upon you is calamity. There is a greater defect in this wealth and worship than their uncertainty. I^on modo fatlacia quia duhia, verum insidiosa quia dulcia, —They are not only deceitful through their fickleness, but dangerous through their lusciousncss. Men are apt to surfeit on this luxuriant abundance : it is a bait to security, a bawd to wantonness.

Here is the main difference between the gifts of God's right hand and of his left. He gives real blessings with the left, but he doth not settle them upon us ; he promiseth no perpetuity. But with the graces of his right he gives assurance of everlastingness. Christ calls riches the ' riches of deceit-fulness,' Matt. xiii. 22; but grace ' the better part, that shall never be taken away,' Luke x. 42. David compares the wealthy to a flourishing tree that is soon withered, Ps. xxxvii. 35; but faith stablisheth a man like ' Mount Sion, never to be removed,' Ps. cxxv. 1. He that thinks he sits surest in his seat of riches, ' let him take heed lest he fall.' When a great man boasted of his abundance, saith Paulus Emilius, one of his friends told him, that the anger of God could not long forbear so great prosjierity. How many rich merchants have suddenly lost all! How many noblemen sold all! How many wealthy heirs spent aU ! Few Sundays pass over our heads without collections for shipwrecks, fires, and other casualties; demonstrative proofs that prosperity is inconstant, riches casual. And for honour, we read tliat BcUsarius, an honourable peer of the empire, was forced in Ms old age to beg from door to door: Oholum date Belisario. Frederic, a great emperor, was so low brought, that he sued to be made but the sexton of a church.

Oh, then, let us not adhere to these left-hand blessings, but first seek length of days, eternal joys never to be lost. A man may enjoy the other without fault : the sin consisteth prwjerendo vel conferendo, either in preferring riches or in comparing them with faith and a good conscience. Utere caducis, fruere aternis, —thou must necessarily use these transient things; only enjoy and rest upon the everlasting comforts of Jesus Christ. When God hath assured to a Christian spirit the inheritance of heaven, he joyfully pilgrims it through this world : if wealth and worship salute him by the way, he rcfuseth not their company; but they shall not stray him out of liis path, nor transport his affections, for his heart is where his hope is, his love is where hi.s Lord is; even with Jesus his Redeemer, at the right hand of God. Now this man's very riches are blessed to him; for as from the hand of God he hath them, so * from the hand of God he hath to enjoy good in them,' Ecclcs. ii. 24. Whereas to some, saith Solomon, Eccles. v. 13, ' 1 liavc seen riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.' To the good man ' they shall work to the best,' Rom. viii. 28; blessing his condition in Ihi.s life, and enlarging his dition in heaven ; as the wise man sweetly, Pn.v. X. 22. 'The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich; and he addeth no sorrow with it.'

Thus, in particular, if wc confer the right hand with the left, we shall generally learn—

I. That both God's hands are giving: it is enough if man give with one hand, but the Lord sets both his hands a-doling his alms of mercy. Nemo ticarum luicnn vincet utraque manu. No man can do so much with both hands as God with one hand, with one finger. He Ivdik manam j^leyiam, extensam, expansam, —a hand full, not empty ; so fidl, that it can never be emptied with giving. Innumerable are the drops in the sea, yet if one be taken out, it hath, though insensibly, so much the less; but God's goodness can suffer no diminution, for it is infinite. Men are sparhig in their bounty, because the more they give the less they have ; but God's hand is ever full, though it ever disperse : and the filling of many cisterns is no abatement to his ever-running fountain. Our prayers, therefore, are well directed thither for blessings; whence, though wc receive never so mucli, we leave no less behind. Let this Master of requests in heaven have all our suits : we are sure cither to receive what we ask, or what we should ask.

It is externa, a hand put forth, and stretched out: ' Stretched out, not to receive, but to give,' Ecclesiasticus iv. 31. The prophet speaks of rulers that stretch out their hands for bribes, and cry, ' Give ye,' Hos. iv. 18; but the Lord's hand is put forth to offer good things. Rom. x. 21, 'All day long have I stretched forth my hands to a disobedient people.' Indeed God hath a hand, and woe to the man against whom it is stretched ! Homer saith, that all the gods could not ward a blow of Jupiter's hand. His hands are not only x-^i-^ aarToi, hands that cannot be sufficiently praised, but x-^i^^ ai-TTToi, hands that cannot be resisted. It is a heavy hand when it lights upon men in anger: ' It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.' When revolting Israel fell to serve Baal and Ashtaroth, Judg. ii. 15, * whithersoever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil.' When the men of Ashdod were smitten with emerods, 1 Sam. v. 6, it is said ' the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them.' So David, in his grievous misery, Ps. xxxviii. 2, ' Thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.' It is not this hand that God here stretcheth out. Bernard saith,* God hath two hands— fortitudo and latitudo: a hand of strength, qua defendit potenter, wherewith he protects his friends and confounds his enemies; a hand of bounty, qua tribuit ajiuenter, whereby he disperseth and disposeth the largess of his gifts. This is the hand here put forth, manits reyalis, and gives munus regale, —a royal hand, full -of real mercies; let us humbly kiss it.

It is expansa, not a shut hand, but open. Ps. cxlv. 16, 'Thou openest thy hand, and fillest all things living with plonteousness.' ' God gives richly,' saith Paul, 1 Tim. vL 17. Man is poor, because he is a creature : the very name of creature infers poverty; it implies a receiving of all. Quid hahes quod non accepisti 1 The Creator hath the possession of all, and the disposition of all, at his own pleasure. James i. 17, ' Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.' Bread, in the Lord's prayer, is called ours : ' Give us tlxis day our daily bread;' but, neputetur a nobis, dicimus ' Da nobis,'f —lest we should imagine it our own from ourselves, we are taught daily to beg it of our Father in heaven, whose it is. It is the Lord's hand that barreth the gates of our cities, 'that filleth our garners with plenty,' Ps. cxliv. 13, that sets peace about our walls, and i)rosperity in our palaces; that blesseth our goings out and comings in, even all the works of our hands.

♦ Serin. 8 in Cant. f Aug. Epist. cxliii.

But what speak I of temporal things, the gifts of Ms left hand, in comparison of ' length of days,' everlasting joys, the treasures of his right ? Re-l)eutance, huniUity, charity, and the lady of all graces, faith, come from his liand, and are the fiiir gifts of God. Ipsum velle credere, Dens operatur in homiiie^—ThQ first will to believe is wrought in man by God. If any ask, Cur illi ita suadeatur, nt persuadeatur; illi autem non ita .?—Why doth this man believe, and another man remain in infidelity 1 hie digitus Dei,—the hand of God hath been here, working f:iith in the soul of him that believeth. AH comes from this hand of mercy. Quisquis tibi enumerat merita sua, quid tibi enumerat nisi munera tuaff—Ke that reckons to God his merits, what doth he reckon but God's mercies ? Quce bona mea, dona tua, —Those that are my goods, as God's gifts.

2. Though hands be here attributed to God, yet it is but by way of metaphor ; not literally, and in a true propriety of speech. To conceive God to be as man, with human dimensions, was the heresy of the Anthropomor-phites; and he that thus grossly thinks of God, saith Jerome, makes an idol of God in his heart. But herein God stoops to the quality of our understandings, ascribing to himself anger and displeasure, as it were passions to the impassible; whereas nee Deus affectu capitur, nee tangitur ira, —they are not passions, but perfections. God hath a mouth by which he teacheth man wisdom ; he liath feet, by which he walketh on the earth his footstool ; he hath hands, by which he giveth food to all flesh. He hath none of these organically, as men have, but in the variety of effects which he produceth. So Bernard,^ Per effectum hcec habet, non per naturam.

3. Observe that in the left hand there is a double benefit, riches and honour; in the right but a single one, length of days; yet this one far transcends both the other. For if we should restrain it to this world, long life is a great blessing, and more valuable than wealth or worship. But taking it, as it is meant, for eternity,—for this life is but a span long; a span then, now scarce the length of a finger; as Ps. xxiii. 6, ' I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever;' originally, 'to length of days,' but fitly translated, 'for ever,'—the left hand is as far exceeded by the right, as short mortality is by everlastingness. Aged Israel to his grandchildren, Ephraina and Manasseh, two sons of Joseph; when the father had placed the first-born Maua.ssch to his riglit hand, and Ephraim the younger to his left, he crossing his hands, laid the right upon Ephraim, and the left upon Manasseh, Gen. xlviii. 14. When Joseph would have removed his hands, he refused : ' I know it, my son, I know it. Manasseh also shall become a people, and he also .shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he.' The Lord doth bless many Manassehs with his left hand in riches and honours ; but blessed be that Ephraim to whom his right hand is commended. Lord, let others enjoy the treasures of thy left hand, but lay thy right upon our soul.s!

4. I conclude. Since the Lord out of both his hands pours and showers upon us these mercies, wliat should we do but be thankful 1 Shall we receive benefits by heaps, and is the incense of our gratitude of so thin a smoke 1 El capitur viinimo thuns honore Deus ? All these blessings seem to say to man. Take, and take heed : accipe, redde, cave, —receive, return, beware. Take warmth from me, saith apparel; heat from me, saith fire ; strength from me, .siiitli bread. Restore thankfulness to the Giver. Or else

• Aug. dc Sj>iiitii, cap. 34. f Aug. Confes., lib. ix , cap. 13.

J Surin. 4 iu Cmit.

beware lest the fire bum thee, water drown thee, air choKe inee : lest all give destruction that should give comfort. Receive in the name of God, return in the praise of God, or beware in the fear of God. To whom, for the blessings of both his hands, be glory ascribed from aU lips and hearts, for ever and ever! Amen.

THE FATAL BANQUET.

(THE FIRST SERMON.)

Stolen waters are meet, and the bread of secrecies is pleasant. JBut he hnoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell. — Pbov. IX. 17, 18.

I RAVE here chosen two texts in one, intending to preach of a couple of })reachers; one by usurpation, the other by assignation : the world's chaplain, and the Lord's prophet. Where conceive—1. The preachers; 2. Their texts; 3. Their sermons ; 4. Their pulpits ; 5. Their commissions.

1. The jrreachers are two. The first hath a double name : literally here, the harlot; metaphorically, sin, the mind's harlot; for between them is all spiritual adultery committed. Some understand it more synecdochically, the temptation to sin; but (omne majus includit minus) their interpretation is like that short bed, you cannot lay this harlot at her full length in it. Others conceive an antithesis here, and by conferring the 4th verse with the

1 Gth, collect an opposition of two sorts of preachers : the sincere prophets of Wisdom, and the corrupted teachers of traditions, errors, leasings. I cannot subscribe to this sense, as full enough; let it go for a branch, call it not the body of the tree. This first preacher, then, is the delightfulness, Heb. xi. 25, or, if you will, the deceitfulness, Heb. iii. 13, of sin. The second is Solomon, not erring, adulterating, idolatrising Solomon, but converted, confirmed Solomon ; a king and a preacher.

2. ThQiT texts. (1.) Sin's text is from hell's Scriptum est: taken out of the devil's spell; either Lucian's old testament, or Machiavel's new; laws made in the court of damnation, enacted in the vault of darkness, like those under the rarliament-housc; gunpowder-laws, fit for the justices of liell. (2.) Solomon's text is the word of eternal truth : with a Scriptum est, adittis impiratum,^<^ivcn from heaven. This is desuper, the other desuhter. Thi.s, as ' all Scripture, is given by inspu-ation from God, profitable,' &c.,

2 Tim. iii. IG ; the former is the 'delusion of the devil,' 2 Thess. ii. 11, that ' lying spirit in the mouth of jUiab's prophets,' 1 Kings xxii. 22, the divinity of hell.

3. The sermons differ as well as the texts. (1.) The harlot's dixit, ver. 16, is thus amplified : ' Stolen waters are sweet, and the bread of secrecies is

jjlcjisant.' Tullius, nor TertuUus, nor Ilcrnies, the speaker in the parliament of the heathen gods, never moved so eloquent a tongue. She preaches, ac-corduig to the palate of her audience, placentia ; nay, it is placenta, a sweet cake, whose flour is sugar, and the humour that tempers it honey, sweet, pleasant. She cannot want auditors for such a sermon ; for as it is in fairs, the pedlar and the balladmongcr have more throng than the rich merchant: Vanity hath as many customers as she can turn to, when Verity hath but a cold market. (2.) Solomon's sermon is opposed to it with a hut: ' But he knoweth not that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell.' A cross blow, that disarms the devil's fencer; a fiat conviction, or non-plus, given to the arguments of sin; a little coloquintida put into the sweet pot. That, as I have observed in some beguiling pictures, look on it one way, and it presents to you a beautiful damsel; go on the adverse side, and behold it is a devil, or some misshapen stigmatic: sin shews you a fair picture—' Stolen waters are sweet,' &c., suave et deliciosum, plea-.sure and delight; Solomon takes you on the other side, and shews you the ugly visages of death and hell—' The dead are there,' &c. If sin open her shop of delic<acies, Solomon shews the trap-door and the vault; if she boast her olives, he pomts to the prickles; if she discovers the green and gay flowers of delice, he cries to the ingredients,* Latet anguis in herba, —The serpent lurks there. Ilia movet, iste vionet, —she charms, and he breaks her spells. As curious and proud as her house is, Solomon is bold to write * Lord, have mercy on us,' on the doors, and to teU us the plague is there : ' Stolen waters are sweet,' itc.; ' but the dead are there,' &c,

4. Their pulpits have local and ceremonial difference. (1.) The harlot's is described ver. 14, ' She sits at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city.' [1.] Sedet, ' she sits;' she is got into that enchanted chair, Ps. i. : [2.] ' at her house;' she need not stray far for customers : in se turba riiunt luxuriosa, prod, —they come in troops to her : [3.] ' at her door;' she presents herself to the common eye, and would be notable, though not able to answer the show : [4.] ' on a seat;' novit simm locum. Vice knows her seat; the devil is not without his rendezvous. What say you to a tavern, a playhouse, a feast, a may-game 1 that I say not, an ordinary : [.3.] ' in the city.' Whoredom scorns to live obscurely in the suburbs. She hath friends to admit her within the walls. [6.] Nay, 'in the high places of the city;' in the largest streets, populous and popular houses : in exceUis ■urbis, —one of the most curious and stately edifices in the city.

Thus sin reads not a highway lecture only, as among thieves ; nor a cham-ber-lecture only, as among courtesans; nor a mass-lecture only, as among Jesuits; nor a vault-lecture only, as among traitors; nor a table-lecture only, as among humorists; nor a tap-house-lecture only, as among drunkards, that fetch authority from the pot, like Augustus Caesar, to tax all the world : but a city-lecture, such a one as Jezebel read to Israel, 1 Kings xxi. 10 ; a public preaching, her pulpit being excelsa civitatis, top-gallant; filling eminent places with eminent poisons. (2.) St)lomon's pulpit is yet transcendent and above it; for it is a throne, a ' throne of ivory, overlaid with gold,' 1 Kings X. 18; such a throne as no kingdom could match it. The preacher is a king, the pulpit a throne; nay, an oracle, 1 Kings iv. 31 ; de solio rex oraada f audit. For God gave him wisdom, yea, such a wisdom that no man but his Antitype, God and man, did ever excel him.

5. Their commissions. (1.) The devil gave shi her errand; gilded her tongue, and poisoned her heart; put a cup of damnation into her haaid, and * That is, iitijredkntcs, tho.se going in.— Ed.

the sugar of temptation to sweeten it; allowed her for his city-recorder, or his town-clerk; and sealed her a commission from hell, as Saul had from the high-i^riest, Acts ix. 1, to bind with sna.ves, Jilios terra;, the sons of men. (2.) But God gave Solomon a celestial roll to eat, as to Ezekiel, chap. ii. 9 ; and ' touched his lips with a coal from his own altar,' as to Isaiah, chap, vi G, putting into his mouth documenta vitm, the ordinances of eternal life.

' God hath set this day before you two diverse pulpits, adverse preachers, dissonant texts; declares who speaks by his warrant, who besides it, against it. 'Behold,' as Moses said, 'I have set life and death before you;' take your choice.

The dialof'ue of both the verses present us with a banquet: convivium, or convitium rather,—a feast, but a fast were better; a banquet worse than Job's children's. Job i. 19, or the Dagonals of the Philistines, Judges xvi. 30, (like the Bacchanals of the Mtenades,) when for the shutting up of their stomachs, the house fell down, and broke their necks. You have offered to your considerations, ver. 17, (supplying but the immediately precedent word, dixit,) 1. The inviter ; 2. The cheer. Solomon comes after, as with salt and vinegar, and tells you, 3. The guests ; and, 4. The hanqueting-house, ver. 18, ' But the dead are there,' &c.

1. The inviter. It is a woman, ' She saitb to him ;' but that name is too good, for she hath recovered her credit: a woman, as she brought woe to man, so she brought forth a weal for man : causa delicti, solatium relicti, — an instrumental cause of transgression, 1 Tim. ii. 14, and no less of salvation, Gal. iv. 4. If you say, she brought forth sin without man, so she brought forth a Saviour without man; as the devil tempted her to the one, Gen. iii. 4, so the Holy Ghost overshadowed her to the other, Luke i. 35. This not a woman then, but a harlot, meretricia mulier, a degenerate woman, un-womaned, et pudore et pudicitia, of both modesty and chastity.

The feast is like to be good when a harlot is the hostess. And sure the Scriptures found some special parity, if not identity, of these two : not making their names convertible, which had been much; but expressing by one word both of them, which is more, Josh. ii. 1 ; as if it concluded their professions and conditions, names and natures, all one, which is most of all. Impleta in nostris hcec est Scriptura diehus. Experience hath justified this circumstance. A harlot, then, bids, and feasts, and kills ; what other success can be looked for 1 If Delilah invite Samson, ware his locks ; she will spoil the Nazarite of his hairs : there are many Delilahs in these days.

I liave read of many inviters in the holy writ; some good, many indifferent, most evil, this worst of all. (1.) Good : Matt. xxii. 1, you have the King of heaven a feastmaker; Cant. v. 1, you have the King's Son a feastmaker— Jesus ("lu-ist bids, ' Eat, O friends ; drink abundantly, O beloved ;' Bev. xxii. 17, you have the Spirit of glory a feastmaker, and an inviter too, ' The Spirit and the bride say. Come.' To this feast few come, but those that do come arc welcome, Luke xiv. 21 : well come in regard of themselves, for there is the best cheer—Itev. xix. 9, ' Blessed are they that arc called to the marriage-sui)pcr of the Lamb ;' welcome in respect of God, who doth not grudge his mercies. (2.) Alany indifferent: Abraham's feast at Isaac's weaning, Gen. xxi. 8 ; Samson 8 at his marriage, Judg. xiv. 10 ; the wedding-feast in Cana, where the King of glory was a guest, and honoured it with a miracle, with the linst miracle that ever he wrought there, John ii. 11. (3.) Evil : Nabal's fcjUHt at his slicei»-sIioaring, a drunken feast, 1 Sam. xxv. 30 ; Belshazzar's fca.st to a tliousand of his lords, .surfeiting with full carouses from the sacred bowls, a .sacrilegious feast, Dan. v. 2; the Philistines' feast to the honour of

Dagon, an idolatrous feast, Judges xvi. 23; Herod's birthday-feast, when John Bapti.st"s head was the hast course of the service, a bloody feast, Mark xi. 28; the rich churl's, a quotidian feast, a voluptuous surfeit, all bad, Luke xxvi. 19. (4.) This yet worst of all, the harlot's feast, where the guests at once comedunt et comeduntur, their souls feast on evils, and are a feast to devils ; for whiles men devour sins, sins devour them, as Actseon was eaten up of his own dt)gs. This is a bloody banquet, where no guest escapes without a wound, if with life; for if sin keep the revels, lusts arc the junkets, ebriety drinks the wine, blasphemy says the grace, and blood is the conclusion.

But allegorically sin is here shadowed by the harlot; voluptuousness, meretricum meretrix, the harlot of harlots, whose bawd is Beelzebub, and who.se bridewell is broad hell. Wickedness [foeminei generis dicitur) is compared to a woman, and hath all her senses : lust is her eye to see; injury, her hands to feel; sensuality, her palate to taste; malice, her ears to hear; petulancy, her nose to smell; and, because she is of the feminine sex, we will allow her the sixth sense, tittle-tattle is her tongue to talk. Tliis is the common hostess of the world, Satan's housekeeper, whose doors are never shut: nodes atque dies pcdet, &c. There is no man in the world keeps such hospitality, for he searcheth the air, earth, sea, nay, the kitchen of hell, to fit every palate. Vitellius searched far and wide for the rarities of nature, birds, beasts, fishes of inestimable price, which yet brought in, the bodies are scorned, and only the eye of this bird, the tongue of that fish, is taken, that the spoils of many might be sacrifices to one supper. The emperor of tlie low countries—hell—hath delicates of strange variety, curiositj-. Doth Judas's stomach stand to treason ? There it is; he may feed li]3erally on that dish. Doth Nero thirst for homicides ? The devil drinks to him in bowls of blood. Is Jeroboam hungry of idolatry ? Behold, a couple of calves are set before him, 1 Kings xii. 28. Hath Absalom the court appetite, ambition % Lo, a whole kingdom is presented him for a mess, a shrewd bait, 2 Sam. XV. : Machiavel's position, ' Faith-breach for kingdoms is no sin.' The devil thought this dish would please Christ himself, and therefore oflfered him many kingdoms for a morsel. Matt. iv. 9, reserving this to the last, as the strongest argument of his sophistry. Doth Herod affect envy % Behold, a banquet of revenge, furnished with the murdered corpses of thousands of in-fant.s, ^Nlatt. ii. 1G. Doth the ravening maw of the Pope, Ahab-like, 1 Kings xxi. 4, forbear meat, because he cannot get the vineyard of a kingdom ? Or hath he bound himself with the spells of devilish contestations (like those in the Acts, chap, xxiii. 14) not to eat or drink till he hath killed Paul? Behold, here is wine set before him in a golden cuj), (wine of abomination. Rev. xvii. 4,) wherewith whole nations reel : locusts and vipers, pestilent and serpentine poisons whereof the world laughing dies. Is any courtier proud ? Here are piles of silks. Is any officer troubled with the itch in his hands ? Here is unrjuentum aureum to cure it; a mess of bribes. Hath any gentleman the hunger-worm of covetousness ? Here is cheer for his diet: usuries, oppressions, exactions, enclosings, rackings, rakings, pleasing gobbets of avarice. Is any tradesman light-fingered and lighter-conscienced ? Here is a Avhole feast of frauds, a table furnished with tricks, conveyances, glos.sings, perjuries, cheating.s. Hath any Papist a superstitious appetite 1 He is set down in the chair of ignorance, and to him are served in, by Sorbonnist.s, Jesuits, Seminaries, LoyoLists, a large and lavish feast of crucifixes, unctions, scrapings, traditions, relics, ic; and, as cheese to digest all the rest, yet itself never digested, treason. For your rout of epicures, ruffians, roarers, drunk-

VOL. I. L

ards, boon companions, you may know the place easily where these kestrels li"ht, even at the carcase-feast. Sin hath in\dtecl them, and they scorn to be scornful. Hither they come, and every man hath a dish by himself,—eat whiles he blows again,—except their aj^petites agree in the choice. You hear the inviter.

Let it not pass us without observation : Satan is not without his factors abroad. He hath spirits enough of his own,—' Lly name is legion,' Mark v. 9, —but he is not content except he suborn man against man, till homo be homini dccmon, —man a Judas to his friend, woman an Eve to her husband. I confess he hath many setters of this disposition in a literal sense; harlots, scattering his stews, like the lice of Egypt, over all the world. But I will not restrain his kingdom to these narrow limits only, which is not bounded but with the earth. He that compasseth it. Job ii. 2, and hath such dealings in all kingdoms, is not without his plotters and intelligencers in every corner.

lie hath superstitious Seminaries in the country, mercenary in the hall, a long lane for brokers and usurers in the city, and sometimes a dangerous brood of Jesuits in foreign courts, croaking like frogs, even in their Pharaoh's chambers, Ps. cv. 30; whilst himself roves on the sea of this world like a pirate. Cardinals and Jesuits are his mariners, and the Pope sits at the stern. Antichrist is his steward,—strange, he who calls himself Christ's vicar should be the devil's steward !—and hath ever been faithful to his kingdom. ^Many souls have they successively sent to people his low world, whiles then-own went also for company. The wickedness of some Popes has been monstrous, and almost forbidding all the officers of Satan to match them: that if a score of the most prodigious reprobates should be mustered out of hell, it is likely enough that nineteen of them would be Popes; and perhaps, to make up the twentieth, there would be some strife between a Jesuit and u cardinal.

Piome is this harlot's local seat, her house, styled by the Scripture, ' the whore of Babylon,' Her doctrine is here expressed : ' Stolen waters are sweet, and the bread of secrecies is pleasant'—waters of heresy, stolen from the cisterns of superstition, Jer. ii. 13; the bread of deceit, moulded by error, and baked in the oven of tradition. We have three common enemies : as we are men, the devil; as Christians, the Turk; as professors of the gospel, the Pope. The first hath the two last for his factors; of whom-we pray, aut convertaniur, ne pereant; aut confiindantur, ne noceant, —either for their conversion, to save themselves; or for their confusion, not to hurt us. Amongst us the Pope doth most present mischief Peter told Christ, Luke xxii. 38, ' Behold, here are two swords :' Christ told Peter, Matt. xvi. 19, ' Behold, here are the keys.' Peter lays by the swords, and takes the keys; the Pope now lays by his keys, and tails to the sword. Oh quantum mic-totus hie Fetrus ab illo 1 —What difference betwixt the true Peter and his false successor ! Yet, as if he were heaven's porter, men flock to him; whom lut mc appose with that of the poet—

' Et quoo tanta fuit Romani tibi causa videndi ?'— ' What foolish wind blows you to Rome ?'

lie lialli infinite petty stales, to tempt men to sin, whom he hath officed for Itiilders to tliis feast. Will you take a short muster of some of his in-viters?—o/yrtH« iiw/uilatis, engineers, bidders to this ban(j[uet of vanity; they liave all their several stands.

(1.) In the Coicrt he hath set Amhition, to Avatch for base minds, that

would stoop to any villany for preferment, and to bring them to this feast. This attempt can tempt none but the base; the noble spirit cannot be so wrought upon. This is a principal bidder.

(2.) In Foro, at the hall gates, he sets inviters, that beckon contention to them, and fill the world with broils. I mean neither the reverend judges,

nor the worthy councillors, nor the good attorneys; but the libels of law

Solicitors indeed, for they are a solicitation to our peace ; pettifoggers, Satan's firebrands, and mortal things, which ' he casteth abroad to make himself sport.' But they do more hurt amongst the barley, the commons of this land, than Samson's foxes with the fire at their tails. Judges xv. 5. Oh that they were shipped out for Virginia, or, if they would trouble so good a soil, into some desert, where they might set beasts together by the ears, for they cannot live without making broils !

(3.) Pride is another bidder, and keeps a shop in the City. You shall find a description of her shop, and take an inventory of her wares, from the prophet, Isa. iii., ' the tinkling ornaments, the cauls, and the moon-tires,' &c. She sits upon the stall, and courts the passengers with a What lack ye ? Nay, besides her person, she hangs out her picture; a picture unlike herself, though she appears not unlike her picture—all paint. Infinite traflic to her' but with the same luck and success that visitant beasts came to the sick lion— vestigia nulla retrorsum; or at best, as the runners to Rome, that return with shame and beggary.

(4.) Engrossing is another invitcr, and hath a large walk; sometimes he watcheth the landing of a ship ; sometimes he turns whole loads of corn besides the market. This bidder prevails with many a citizen, gentleman, fiu-mer, and brings in infinite guests; the devil gives him a letter of mark for his piracy.

(5.) Bribery is an officious fellow, and a special bidder to this feast. He invites both forward and froward : the forward and yielding, by promises of good cheer, secunda dies, that they shall have a fair day of it; the backward honest man, by terrors and menaces that his cause shall else go westward : (iiideed, it goes to Westminster !) Yea, with j^retence of commiseration and pity, as if the conscience of their right did animate him to their cause. Thus with a show of sanctimony they get a saint's money; but indeed, argenfum fcecundum, argu77ie}iti(m facimdion,—there is no persuasion more pathetical than the purse's. Bribery stands at the stair-foot in the robes of an officer, and helps up injury to the place of audience; thus Judas's bag is drawn with two strings, made of silk and silver, favour and reward.

All officers belong not to one court; their conditions alter with their places. There are some that seem so good that they lament the vices, whereupon they yet inflict but pecuniary punishments. Some of them are like the Israelites, with a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other, with the motto of that old emblem, In utriimqiie paratus; as the one hand daubs up justice, so the other cuts breaches of division. They mourn for truth and equity, as the sons of Jacob for Joseph, when themselves sold it; they exclaim agauist penal transgressions. So Caius Gracchus defends the treasury from others' violence, whiles himself robbed it; so the poinder chafes and swears to see beasts in the com, yet will pull up a stake, or cut a tether, to find supply for his pin-fold; so Charles the Fifth was sorry for the Pope's durance, and gave orders of public prayers for his release, yet held him in his own hands prisoner.

(G.) Faction keeps the Church, and invites some vain-glorious priests to

j/j^ THE FATAL BANQUET. [SeEMON XIII.

this feast: schism and separation, like a couple of thorns, prick the church's Bide wound our mother till her heart bleeds. All seminaries of sedition are Satan's special factors.

(7.) Riot is his inviter in a tavern. He sits like a young gallant at the upper end of the table, and drinks so many and so deep healths to the absent, that the present have no health left them. This is a frequented inviting-place, that I say not the feast itself. Covetousness often is the host, Ebriety drinks the licpior. Swearing keeps the reckoning, Lust holds the door, and Beggary pays the shot.

(A\ Oppression hath a large circuit, and is a general bidder to this banquet. This fiictor hath abundance of the devil's work in hand : he untiles the houses of the poor, that whiles the storms of usury beat them out, he may have peaceable entrance ; he joins house to house, as if he was straitened of room : tell him from me, there is room enough for him in hell.

There are infinite swarms of inviters besides, which run like vagabonds on the de%'irs errand, with salutems in their mouths, as Judas to Jesus,' All haU;' but it proved a rattling salutation, for death's storm followed it. All these declare to us the banquet's preparation. Infinite among ourselves, Rome otfers us more help ; but we answer them, as Octavian did of the crow, Satis istarum, avium habemus cloyni, —We have enough of these birds at home. They are messengers of our wreck, porpoises premonisliing a tempest; usurers, brokers, vagrants, rufiians, blasphemers, tipplers, churls, wantons, pedlars of pernicious wares, seminaries, incendiaries, apostates, humorists, seditious troublers of our peace ; you may perceive that our winter is busy by the flying abroad of these wild geese. All are bidders.

Use. —These instruments of tentation cannot hurt us, except we be enemies to ourselves. They do their worst: Vertitque in meliora Deus, —Rom. viii. 28, ' God turns all to our best.' Like wandering planets, they are carried with a double motion, sua et primo mobili, with their owa and a .superior mover. (1.) By their own, which though non sine errore, tamen mie terrore, —wandering and stalking with big looks, yet are not so feared as they expect. (2.) By the first and great mover's, which overrules them mth a violent hand. Perhaps they exercise us with tentations, as Ashur did Israel, Isa. X. .5, with Isa. xv. 15; but the work done, the rod is thrown into the fire. They are but rubbish to scour the vessels of God's house ; apothecaries to minister us bitter drugs, not able to put in one dram more than God our physician prescribes; shepherd's dogs with their teeth beaten short, to hunt us to the aheepfolds of peace. In all their works, the villany is their own, the virtue God's; as in Christ's betraying, opus Dei redemptio, opus Judce prod it io. If we think they flourish too long, let us satisfy ourselves with Job, chap. xxi. 17-30, and David, Ps. Ixxiii. 19, that subito ad inferos, 'they go sud-dunly down into the pit.' So the poet propped up his tottering hesitations with this conclusion—

' Alistulit hunc tandem Ruffini poena tumultum, Absolvitque deos.'*

In the end, God clears his justice from any imputation, by turning the workers of wickedness into hell.

2. Do not think, l^ecausc I have held you long with the bidders, that I mean to forestall you of the banquet. Behold, I have brought you now to the feast, such us it is. ' Stolen waters are sweet, and the bread of secrecies ia pleasant.' Thus it is in gross; to cut it up and serve it in, in several

* Ckuidian.

dWies, you have, (1.) a prescription ; (2.) a description; (3.) an ascription; —a prescription of their names ; a description of their natures ; an ascription of their qualities. Qn(£, quanta, qualia: —(1.) The junkets are prescribed, qiue sint, of what kind they are; waters, bread. (2.) They are described, quanta sint, of what property, virtue, nature ; stolen, secret. (.3.) They are ascribed to, qualia sint, of what operation, relish, or quality ; sweet, pleasant, stolen waters, &c. Thus have you their quiddity, their quantity, their quality. This is the banquet, lautum, Icetam, dainty and cherishing; cheap, for it is stolen ; delightful, for it is sweet. We will ascend to view this feast, not to feed on it, by the stairs and degrees of my text. You have, (1.) waters; (2.)stolen; (3.) sireet. vSo you have, (1.) bread; (2.) eaten in secret; (3.) pleasant. Of them all, first literally and morally, then doctrinally.

(1.) ]Vaters. Not the waters that the Spirit moved on at the creation, the first waters. Gen. i. 2; nor the waters of regeneration, moved by the same Spirit, sanctifying waters, Isa. xliv. 3; nor the waters of Bethcsda, stirred by an angel, salutary and medicinal watci's, John v. 4 ; nor the ' waters issuing from under the threshold of the sanctuary,' preservative waters, Ezek. xlvii. 1: but the bitter waters of ]Marah, Exod. xv. 25, mthout the sweet wood of grace to season them ; ' waters of trouble,' from which David ju-ays for deli-verj', Ps. cxliv. 7, tumultuous waters ; waters that turn into blood, bloody waters, Exod. vii. 17; waters of tribulation, 2 Sam. xxii. 17, to them that digest it, though waters of titillation to them that taste it: much like our hot waters in these days ; strange chemical extractions, quintessences of distilled natures ; viscera, ne dicam, mysteria terrce, —the bowels, nay, the mysteries of earth; good and happy in their opportune and moderate use, but wretched in our misapplied lusts; to turn the blood into fire, and to fiU the bones with luxury : not to make nature swim in a river of delights, but even to drown it.

Waters: neither succory nor endive, &c.; no refrigerating waters, to cool the soul's heat, but waters of inflammation : Spain's rosa solis, water of Inquisition; Tyrone's usquebagh, water of rebellion; Turkey's aqiia foHis, a violent and bloody water; Rome's aqua inferna, a superstitious water, stUled out of sulphur and brimstone, through the limbeck of heresy. Oh, you wrong it: it is aqua vitce and aqua coelestis! Let the operation testify it: it is aqua fortis, aqua mortis — vinwn barathri, the Avine of hell: no poisons are so baneful. It tastes like honey, but if Jonathan touch it, he will endangei his life by it, 1 Sam. xiv. 43. These arc wretched waters, worse than the moorish and fenny rivers, which, the poets feign, run with a duU and lazy course; tranquilla, alta, —streams stUl at the top, but boiling like a caldron of molten lead at the bottom. Fhlegeton et Fi/riphlegeton, ignitcc et jiarnmeas undo;, were mere fables and toys to these waters : they are truculent, virulent, noxious waters, derived by some filthy gutters from the mai'e mortuum of iniquity.

The Pope hath waters not much unlike these of the devil's banquet—holy waters: holy indeed, for they are conjured with a holy exorcism, saith their mass-book. Of wonderful effects; either si>rinkled outwardly, they refresh the receiver, as if his head was wrapped with a wet clout in a cold morning; or drunk down, they are powerful to cleanse the heart and scour out the devil. Oh, you wrong Rome's holy water, to think it the devil's drink, when the proverb says, the devil loves no holy water. Yes, he will run from it, as a mendicant friar from an alms ! To speak duly of it, it is a special river of deceit, and drowns more than ever did the Red Sea, when it swallowed a whole army of the Egyptians, Exod. xiv. Why, but holy water is a special

ransom to free souls out of purgatory, and digged out of the fountain of Scripture. Ps. li. 7, Asperges vie, Domine, hysopo, —' Thou shalt sprinkle me, 0 Lord, with hyssop ;' for so their translation hath it; the sense of which place is, saith the Romist, that the priest must dash the grave with a holy-water sprinkle. You must suppose that David was dead and buried when he si)ake these words, and his soul in limbo. It is added that Dives desired in hell 'a drop of water to cool his tongue,' Luke xvi. 24. Oh, then, how cooling and comfortable are the sprmklings of these waters on the graves of the dead ! But if they can speak no better for them, they will prove some of these waters here served in at sin's banquet; for if Antichrist can make a man drunk with his holy water, he will swallow all the rest of his morsels with the less difficulty.

These then are the zvaters: not the waters of regeneration, wherein our fathers and we have been baptized ; nor the waters of consolation, which ' make glad the city of God;' nor the waters of sanctification, Avherein Christ once, the Spirit of Christ still, washeth the feet, the affections of the saints; not the Hyblaean nectar of heaven, whereof he that drinks ' shall never thirst again,' John iv. 14 ; nor the waters of that ' pure river of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God,' Rev. xxii. 1; but the lutulent, spumy, maculatory waters of sin, either squeezed from the spongy clouds of our corrupt natures, or surging from the contagious (veins of hell) springs of temptation.

I might here blab to you the enemy's secrets, and tell you his riddles, his tricks, his policies, in that he calls sins waters, and would make his guests believe that they wonderfully refresh; but I reserve it to a fitter place: the sweetness shall carry that note from the waters.* I will contract all to these four observations, as the sum of that I would write of the waters, not on the waters— de aqids, non super aquas: I have better hope of your memories. [1.] The preferment of waters at Satan's banquet. [2.] The devil's policy in calling sins by the names of waters. [3.] The similitude of sins to waters. [4.1 The plurality and abundance of these waters.

[1.] Water is here preferred to bread; for lightly sin's guests are better drinkers than eaters ; they eat by the gomer and drink by the ephah. Indeed, a fuU belly is not of such dexterity for the devU's employment as a fidl brain. Gluttony would go sleep, and do neither good nor harm : Ebriety hath some villany in hand, and is then fitted with valour; the drunkard is a Hercules fur ens, he will kill and slay. How many do that in a tavern which they will repent at a Tyburn! You will say, it is not Avith drinking water ; yes, the harlot's waters, such as is served in at the de\il's banquet, mixed with rage and madness. Water is an element: the sap in the vuie, the juice in the grape, the liquid in the ale or beer, is water. Indeed, sometimes Neptune dwells too far off from Bacchus s door, and the water is nia.stered with additions; yet it may alienate the property, not annihilate the nature and essence of water: water it is still, though compounded water; com[)oundcd in our drinks, but in wines derived, d, primis naturae per media, not extinguished in the being, not brought to a nullity of waters. Drink, than, bibendmn alvjuid; though the hariot gives it a modest and cool name, ' waters' is the first di.sh of this fatal banquet. The first entertainment into this Appu/oinim, Acts xxviii. 15, is with the three taverns; not so much a drunkcmicss to the brain as to the conscience. There is a ' drunkenness, not with wine : there is a staggcrhig, not with strong drink,' Isa. xxix. 9.

* That iH, he will not Hpeak of these thhigs uow, while treatiug of the waters; but afterwards, nncler the head of sweetness.— Ed,

PrOV. IX. 17, 18.] THE FATAL BANQUET. ] G7

The devil begins his feast with a health, as Belshazzar, Dan. v., whatsoever the upshot be. He propounds the water, and he propines it; lie will not give them worse than he takes himself; as Jupiter is said to have at his court gate two great tuns, whereof they that enter must fir.st drmk, and himself begins to them,

' Jupiter ambrosia satur est: est nectare planus.'*

Intemperance is the first dish to be tasted of: it is, if not principalis, yet, Si ita diccan, principialis, —if not the prime dish, yet the first dish : Satan must first intoxicate the brains, and extinguish the eye of reason; as the thief that would rob the house first puts out the candle. Understanding Is first drowned in these waters,— Acrasia prceit, Acrasia sequitur, —Riot justlcs, and the wit is turned besides the saddle. The ' sons of the earth ' would not so dote on the ' whore of Babylon' if the ' wine of her fornication' had not made them drunk, Rev. xvii. 2. The guests here ' rise early to the wine,' Isa. V. 11; it is the first service; and are indeed, as the apostles were slandered, nme-o'clock drunkards, Acts ii. 13, 15. The day would be without his sufficient sorrow, active and passive mischiefs, if the morning wine should not inliame them. They that are daily guests at the devil's table know the fashions of his court; they must be drunk at the entrance. It is one of hi? laws, and a physic-bill of hell, that they must not wash tUl they have drunk. These waters are to be applied inwardly first; and once taken down, they arc fitted to swallow any morsel of damnation that shall afterwards be presented them.

[2.] Water was the first drink in the world, and water must be the first drink at the devil's banquet. There is more in it yet: the devil shews a trick of his wit in this title. Water is a good creature, and many celestial things are shadowed by it. It is the element wherein we were baptized; and dignified to figure the grace of the Holy Sjjirit, Matt. iii. 11. ■ Yet this very name must be given to sin. Indeed, I know the same things are often accepted in divers senses by the language of heaven. Leaven is eftsoons taken for h}^ocri3y, as in the Pharisees; for atheism, as in the Sadducecs; for profaneness, as in the Herodians; and generally for sin, by Paul, 1 Cor. V. 7 ; yet by Christ, for grace, Luke xiii. 21. God is compared to a lion, Amos iii. 8 ; and Christ is called ' the Lion of the tribe of Judah,' Apoc, v. 5 ; and the devil is called a lion, 'a roaring lion,' ifec, 1 Pet. v. 8. Christ was figured by a serpent, John iii. 14 ; and to a serpent is Satan compared, 2 Cor. xi. 3. Stones are taken in the worst sense. Matt. iii. 9, ' God is able of these stones to raise,' (fee.; stones in the best sense, 1 Pet. ii. 5, ' living stones;' and Christ himself, ' the head stone of the corner,' Ps. cxviii. 22. ' Be like children,' saith Paul, and 'not like children :' be children in simplicity, not in knowledge. Graces are called waters; so here vices : but the attribute makes the difterence. Those are ' living waters,' these are the * waters of death.' The devil in this plays the sophister; but I spare to follow this circumstance here, because I shall meet it again in the next branch, ' bread of secrecies.'

[3.] Sins may in some sense be likened to waters; yea, even to waters in the cup, for to waters in the sea they are most like. The one drowns not more bodies than the other souls. They know the danger of the sea ' that prosecute their business in great waters,' Ps. cvii. 23 : they might know the hazards of sin that sail in this barge of luxury. I may say of them both with the poet—

♦ Ters.

j^g THE FATAL BANQUET. [SeUMON XIII.

' Digitis h, morte rcmoti Quatuor, aut septem, si sit latissima tseda;'—

They are within four or seven inches of death. How many souls are thus shipwrecked! How many weep out a De pjvfimcUs, that would not 'sing the songs of Ziou ' in the land of the living ! They forgot Jerusalem in their mirth, and therefore ' sit down and howl by the waters of Babel j' but these here are festival, not marinal waters.

First, Water is an enemy to digestion; so is sin, clogging the memory (the soul's stomach) with such crudities of vice, that no sober instructions can be digested in it: especially waters hurt digestion in these cold countries, naturally cold in regard of the climate, but spiritually more cold in devotion, frozen up in the dregs of iniquity. Surely many of our auditors drink too deep of these waters before they come to Jacob's well : our waters of heavenly doctrine vnR not down with them. The waters of sin so put your mouths out of taste that you cannot relish the waters of life, John iv.; they are Marah to your palates. It seems you have been at that other banquet, and therefore ' thirst not after righteousness,' Matt. v. 6. The cup of the old temptation hath filled you ; you scorn the cup of the testament. If you had not drunk too hard of these waters, you would ask Christ for his living water, John iv. 10; but Achan hath drunk cursed gold, when he should come before Joshua, Josh. vii. ; Gehazi hath drunk bribes, when he should come to Elisha, 2 Kings v. No marvel if you suck no juice from the waters of God, when you are so full and drunken with the waters of Satan.

Secondly, Water dulls the brain, and renders the spirits obtuse and heavy. It is an enemy to literature, saith Horace merrily—

' Who in a rhyme rehearses, That water-drinkers never make good verses.*

We have no skill in the hymns of the Spirit, no alacrity to praise God, no wisdom to pray to him. Why ? We have drunken of these stolen waters. The chilling and killing cold of our indevotion, the morose and raw humours of our uncharitableness, the foggy, dull, stupid heaviness of our invincible ignorance, shew that we have been too busy with these waters ; nothing will l)ass with us but rare and novel msXt&c&, jejunus vara stomachus vulgaria temnit;* and in these we study to admire the garb, not to admit the profit. Thirdly, We find gi'ace compared to fire, and gracelessness to water. The Spirit came down on the apostles in the likeness of fiery tongues, Acts ii. 3, at the day of Pentecost; and John Baptist testifies of Christ, that he should baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire, Matt. iii. 11. The s})irit of sin falls on the heart like a cold dew. It is implied, Bev. iii. 15, that zeal is hot, wickedness cold, neutrality lukewarm. Fire is hot and dry; water is cold and moist, predominantly, and in regard of their habitual qualities. So zeal is hot; no incendiaiy, no preternatural, but a supernatural heat, equally mixed with love and anger: such was Elias's zeal for the Lord of ho.sts; he could not be cold ui this life that went up in ' fire to heaven,' 2 Kings ii. 11. Brt/; not like Ephraim, 'a cake baked on the one side,' but crude and raw on the other : no, the heat of zeal hath dried up the moisture of profanencss. But wickedness is cold, a gelid nature, a numbness in the conscience ; that, as when the air is hottest, the sprmgs are coldest, so when the Sun of grace warms the whole church, is yet shaking of an ague; nay, ncd wUl not cree]), like Simon Peter, to .the fire. Moist; not sued et sanjuinis plenum, full of juice and sap; but sin runs like a cold rheum over * Hor. Ser. ii.

the conscience. This metaphor follows St Paul, 1 Thcss. v. 19, ' Quench not the Spirit;' wherein he fully justifies this circumstance, forbidding the water of impiety to quench the fire of grace.

Here, then, see the impos.sibility of uniting the two contrary natures in one conscience, as of reconciling fire and water into the same i)lace, time, and .subject. If sin keep court in the conscience, and sit in the throne of the heait, grace will not peep in at the gates, 2 Cor. vi. 14; or if it doth, with cold entertainment. I have heard report of a generation of men that carry fire in the one hand, and water in the other; whose conversation mingles hnmentia siccis, wet and dry together, like the Syriphian frogs in Pliny, whose challenge was, Mihi terra tacusque, —I have land and sea for my walk ; but, alas ! if the water be true water of sin, believe it, the fire is but a false fire, the blaze of hyijocrisy. But the hermit turned his guest out of doors for this trick, that he could warm his cold hands with the same breath wherewith he cooled his hot pottage.

Foiirthfi/, Water is a baser element, and, I may say, more* elementary, more mixed, and, as it were, sophisticate with transfusion. Fire is in the highest region, the purest element, and next to heaven. This is the seat of grace, noii iiiferiora secuta, —scorning the lower things. Sin is, like water, of a ponderous, crass, gross, stinking, and sinking nature. They that have drank the 'cup of slumber' had need to be bidden ' awake, and stand up,' Isa. li. 17, for they are sluggish and laid. Grace, though in the orb of sin, yet hath her ' conversation in heaven,' Phil. iii. 20, and cor repositmn, uhi prc^ndum deposUum, —her heart laid up where her love and treasure is. Her motto is, N'on est mortale quod opfo. She huth a holy aspiration, and seeketh to be as near to God as the clog of flesh will let her. Sin is like water, though raging with the surges and swellings, and only bounded in with God's 7ion idtra, ' Here I will stay thy proud waves,' Ps. civ. 9, yet di'orsuni ruit, whiles these waters swim in the heart, the heart sinks down like a stone, as Nabal's.

Fifthli/, Physicians say that water ^s a binder. You may apply it, that men in these days are terrible water-drinkers, for the times are very restrictive. You may as well wring Hercules's club out of his fist as a penny from Avarice's purse. Men's hearts are costive to part with any thing in pi'os ifsits ; their hands clutched, doors shut, purses not open; nay, the most laxative prodigals, that arc lavish and letting-fly to their lusts, are yet heart-bound to the poor. It is a general disease procured by these waters, to be troubled with the gTiping at the heart. Such were the ' kinc of Ba.shan,' Amos iv. 1: soluble to their own lusts,—' Bring, let us drink,'—bound up and strait-laced to the poor; not refreshing, but oppressing; not helping, but crushing the needy. They 'grieve not for Joseph,' Amos vi. 6 ; nay, they grieve Joseph, 'i'hesc kine are dead, but their calves are in England, abundantly multiplied. These are not the days of peace, that ' turn swords mto sickles / but the days of pride, wherein the iron is knocked f»fT from the plough, and, by a new kind of alchymistry, converted into plate. The farmer's painfulness runs into the mercer's shop, and the toiling ox is a sacrifice and prey to the cunning fox. All the racked rents in the country will not discharge the books in the city.

Great men are unmerciful to their tenants, that they may be over-merciful

to their tendants, that stretch them as fa.st as they retch the others. The

sweat of the labourer's brows is made an ointment to supple the joints of

pride. Thus two malignant ])lanets reign at once, and in one heart, costive

* Qu., less ?— Ed.

covetousness and loose lavisliuess; like the serpent Amphisbcena, Avitli a head at each end of the body,* who, whiles they strive which should be the master-head, afflict the whole carcase : whilst covetise and pride wrestle, the estate catcheth the fall. They eat men alive in the coimtry, and are themselves eaten alive in the city. What they get in the hundred, they lose in the shire. Sic i)r(jedce pcdct esca sid, —They make themselves plump for the prey, for there are that play the rob-thief with them. Unius compendium, alterius dispendium, —If there be a winner, there must be a loser. Serpens serpentem devorando fit draco, —Many landlords are serpents to devour the poor, but what are they that devour those serpents 1 Dragons. You see what monsters, then, usurious citizens are. Thus whiles the gentleman and the citizen shuffle the cards together, they deal the poor commons but a very ill game.—These are the similitudes. I could also fit you with some discrepancies :—

First, Waters mundify and cleanse ; these soil and infect. The conscience grows more speckled by them, till men become not only spotted but spots, as Lucan said of the wounded body, Totum est pro vulnere corpus, —The whole body was as one wound.

Secondltj, Add, that waters quench the thirst and cool the heat of the body, but these waters rather fire the heart and inflame the affections, puff the spleen, which swollen, all the other parts pine and languish into a consumption. The heart is so blown with lusts that all the graces of the soul dwindle like blasted imps. These are aqua; soporiferoi, waters of slumber, that cast the soul into a dead sleep, whUst the devil cauteriseth and sears up the conscience.

Thirdhj, We say of water. It is a good servant, though an ill master ; but we cannot apply it to sin. It is not good at all; indeed less ill when it serves than when it reigns. If this false Gibeonite will needs dwell with thee, set him to the basest offices. So Israel kept in some Canaanites, ' lest tlie wild beasts should come in upon them.' Our infirmities and mastered sins have their use thus, to humble us with the sense of our weakness, lest the furious beasts of pride and security break into our freeholds. But sin of itself is good neither in egg nor bird, neither in root nor branch, neither hot nor cold, neither in the fountain nor in the vessel.

[4.] The plurality of these waters prolongs and determines my speech. Their nature is not more pernicious than their number numerous : indefinita locutio, infinita turha, —an undefined word, an unconfined number. If there were but one cup alone, it would cloy, and satiate, and procure loathing, as even luanna did to Israel ; therefore Satan doth diversify his drinks, to keep the wicked man's appetite fresh and sharp. If he be weary of one sin, behold, another stands at his elbow. Hath Dives dined 1 He may walk up to his study, and tell his money, his bags, his idols ; or call for the key of his wardrobe, to feed his proud eye with his silks : for divitice et delicioe, riches and pleasure, serve one another's turn. If Nabal be weary of counting his flocks, or laying up tlieir fleeces, he may go and make himself drunk with lua sheep-.shcarcrs.^ Hence it is that ex malis moribus oriuntur 2ylurimce lerje«,f—to meet with the multiplicity of sins there is required a multitude of laws ; as, when physicians grow rich, it is an evident sign of an infected commonwealth. Sin stood not single in God's view, when he threatens so fcarfid a punishment, as the whole book again cannot match it, Hos. iv. 3, ' 'I'hcrcfore the land shall mourn, and every one that dwelleth thereui shall h-uiguish, with the bcjusts of the field, with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fish

of the sea also sliall be taken away,'—a universal vastation. But as, first, privatively, there was no truth, yet if there had been mercy ; nay, no mercy ; somewhat yet, if knowledge had stood constant; no knowledge in the land : so, secondly, positively, there was swearing. Can swearing be without lying? No ; lying too. Is the tongue alone set on fire at the devil's forge ? James iii. No ; the hand is also a firebrand of hell, lulling, stealing, adultery, join their forces; and to give testimony against their singularity, ' blood toucheth blood.' How should reprobates else ' fill up the measure of their sins V Thus when the ungodly have eaten and drunk, they may ' rise up to play,' 1 Cor. x. 7.

Will you descend to personal instances ? Lo, some Judas is new come from this banquet; give hmi a vomit, and what lies on his stomach 1 Strange waters, and abundance of them. Behold, the Spani.sh waters of pride, the Romish waters of treason, the Italian waters of murder, the Jewish of hypocrisy, the Turkish of thievery, the Grecian of all villany. Ask Mary Magdalene what variety was at this banquet; she will tell you of seven vials, seven devils, "i'ou may hear another tell his name. Legion. Bid Absalom give you a tavern-bill or short inventory of these waters, and he will read you : In priyiiis, the swelling waters of pride. Item, the surfeiting waters of luxury. Item, the scalding waters of adultery. Item, the red waters of bloodiness. Item, the black waters of treason. And for the shot, ask him the total sum of the bill, and he will tell you, damnation. If sins be thus familiarly linked in one man, how do they tune in a concert ? How agree they in company ? Nothing better ; not a broker and a i)awn, not a dear year and a cormorant. Hence Christ calls the way to perdition ' the broad way,' Matt. vii. 13. You cannot stir a foot in the great road to the city of hell, Pluto's court, but you meet sins in throngs. Vanity is the largest and most beaten thoroughfare in the world. Some double in their companies, some treble, some troop, none go single. Vce soli; if one sin were alone, it would be easily vanquished. The devil knows that vis unita fortior, collected strengths are unconquerable, Eccles. iv. 10; and therefore drives his waters so that uncke super advenit unda, one wave seconds the fonner. Sometimes they go, like beasts, by couples : Rom. xiii. 13, * riot and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness, strife and envy;' Jer. xxiii. 10, ' Adultery and oatha;' and Jer. ii. 13, ' My people have committed two evils,' &c. Sometimes they dance in triads, by threes : Phil. iii. 19, ' gluttony, pride, covetousness ;' Gal. v. 2G, ' vain-glory, provocation, malice;' Amos i. 3-6, * For three transgressions and for'four,' &c.; if there be not rather a great number meant. St John abridgeth all the vanity of the world into a triplicity: 1 John ii. IG, ' All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lu.st of the eyes, the pride of life.' This is the trinity the world doth wor-sliip : Uccc t)ia pro trino numine mundus hahet. Sometimes they come by whole herds and droves, like the host of the Aramites. Gal. v. 19, you may read them mustered up : ' Adultery,' <tc.

Thus I have shewed you the multiplicity of these waters ; what remains but that the same fire of God's altar, that hath enlightened your understandings, do a little also warm your consciences ? I should prevent the method of my text, if I should yet shew you the direful, dismal operation of these waters; yet somewhat I must .say to make you loathe them. As captains provoke their soldiers per verimm vocale, per semivocale, 2yer nudum, —by vocal speeches, semivocal drums and trumpets, mute ensigns; so God dissuades you from these waters—1. P>y his words; viva et vivifica voce, —a living and enliving word : either in the thunders of Sinai or songs of Zion, which

tlie Word incarnate hath sp(-»ken. 2. Or by his semivocal writings; for at the beginning God talked with man himself, but after, fiudmg him estranged from his Creator, he sent him his mind in writing;* and this he makes sounding by his ministers. 3. Or by his dumb ensigns—wonders, terrors, judgments, upon tlic lovers of these waters.

IJge 1,—Trust not too much to these waters; they are not so virtual as the described inviters, the devil's prophets, tell you. Satan had long since his water-prophets ; such were the oracles Colophonium and Branchidicum,t wherein one ]>y drinkuig of waters, the other by receiving the fume of waters, foretold future things. Porphyry observes that antiquity called them fiaviav, madness : but the error and impudence of succeeding ages /xai/rs/ai/, divinations. These are the priests of Bacchus, welcome to the world, as those would have been to Israel, that ' prophesy of wine and strong drink,' Micah ii. 11. Men hear of strange fountains, famoused for wondrous cures, and run straight thither. The devil is a juggler, and would make men believe that if they drink at his fountain of idolatry, they shall have good luck after it; he blushed not to lay this battery of temptation to the Son of God, Matt. iv. 9. As good luck as Samson had, when he drank out of the ass's tooth, and presently after lost his eyes. Judges xv. ; or rather, as he that, to find his horse, must, by the mass-priest's direction, drink at St Bride's well, and accordingly found his horse, and riding home thereon broke his neck. Yield it a fable, the moral shall yield, us this ; That we trast nothing which hath not God's word for warrant. Charms, spells, conjurations, are all vanities, ' lying vanities; he that trusts thereto forsakes his own mercy,' Jonah ii. 8.

Use 2. —Fear these waters, for they are dangerous. Sin is not more cool in the taste than it is fiery in the operation. Affliction is hot to the relish, (' You cannot drink of my cup,' Matt. xx. 22,) but cool, easeful in the digestion ; but these waters are mel in ore, fel in corde, —sweet in the palate, bitter in the stomach. The oracle gave it: Ninum prius capi non posse, qunm fluvius ei fiat hostis,^. —Nineveh should not be taken before the waters became her enemy. She feared no inundation, the sea was too remote; yet in the third year of her siege, the w\aters of the clouds broke loose, and with abundant rain overwhelmed the walls,— muros dejecit ad stadia viginti, —to twenty furlongs. We live secure, and devour these waters of iniquity as fishes the water of the sea; but when God shall make our sins compass us at the> heels, Ps. xlix. 5, and raise up these floods against us, we shall cry, as the drowning world, ' Woe unto us, the waters are become our enemies !' the floods of our .sins overwhelm us. So the drunkard drinks a river into his belly, that drowns his vital spiiits with a dropsy.

Use 3.—Let us pump out these waters of sin which we have devoured. It is the only course we have left to keep our ship from sinking : Evomite, qiios l)ilnstis,flnvios. Cast them out by repentance,—this is a saving vomit,—or else God will give you a vomit of .sulphur, and ' shameful spewing shall be for your glory.' We have all drunk liberally of these waters; too prodigally at .sin's fountain, quando voluimus et quantum valuimus; when we would, a.s nnich as we were able; not only to drunkenness, biit even to sur-foit and madness : if we keep them in our stomachs, they will poison us. Oh, fetch them up again with buckets of sighs, and pump them out in rivers of tears, for your sins ! Make your ' heads waters, and your eyes fountains,' .J<T. IX. 1 ; weej. your consciences empty and dry again of those waters. Jtppintance only can lade them out. They that have dry eyes have waterish * C'lirys. Serm. de Je>uiiiH. f Alexius., lib. v., cap. 2.

+ Diodor. Sicul.

hearts, Ps. cxix. 136 j and the proverb is too true for many, ' No man comes to heaven witli dry eyes :' let your eyes gush out tears, not only in compassion for others, but in compunction for yourselves, ' that have not kept God's law.' Weep out your sullen waters of discontent at God's doings, your garish waters of pride, freezing obduracy, burning malice, foggy intemperance, base covetise. Oh, thuik how you have despised the waters of life, turned Jesus Christ out of your inn into a beastly stable, whUes pride sits uppermost at your table, malice usurps the best chamber in your minds, lust possesseth your eyes, oaths employ your tongue, ebriety bespeaks your tastes, theft and injury enthrone themselves in your hands, mammon ob-sesseth your affections. Sick, sick all over ! You may cry with the Shunam-mite's son, 2 Kings iv. 19, Caput dolet, —'My head, my head!' and with Jerusalem, Jer. iv. 19, ' ^My bowels, my bowels !' Oh, let faith and repentance make way, that the blood of our Saviour may heal you!

We are not only guUty of averseness from Gud, but of adverseness against God. Oh, where is our reverting to God. The waters of lusts are aquce rrj; avaia;, the waters of folly and madness; but our tears are aquoe rra //,£ra-Moiag, the waters of change of mind and repentance ! Poenitentia est quasi poemv ienentia, —Repentance is a taking punishment of ourselves. Oh, take this holy punishment on your souls ! Weep, weep, weep for your vanities. Achan cannot drink up his execrable gold, nor Gehazi devour his bribes, nor Ahab make but a draught of a vineyard mingled with blood, nor Judas swallow down his cozenage and treason, without being called to a reckoning. Nos quare non credimus, quod omnes astahimus ante tribunal ? * —Why account we not of our future standing before a judgment-seat 1 Omnium aures pulso. All we whom these Twalls compass have been drunken with these waters : some, that hate swearing, with dissembling; some, that abhor idolatry, with profancness; some, that avoid notoriousness, with hypocrisy; many, that pretend ill-will to all the rest, with those lares el lemures, household gods, or rather household goblins and devils, which almost no house is free from—fraud and covetousness. We know, or at least should know, our own diseases, and the special dish whereon we have surfeited. Oh, why break we not forth into ululations, mournings, and loud mournings for our suis ? Cease not tiU you have pumped out the sins of your souls at your eyes, and emptied your consciences of these waters.

Use 4.—And then, ])ehokl other, behold better, behold blessed waters, John iv. 14. You ta.ste of them in this life, and they fill your bones ^vith marrow and your hearts with joy; they alone satisfy your thirst, Matt. v. 6; without which, though you could vdth Xerxes' army drink whole rivers dry, your burning heat could not be quenched. Here drink. Cant. ii. 4, Bibite el inebriamiiii, — Drink and be drunken in this wine-cellar ; only, having drunk hearty di-aughts of these waters of life, retain them constantl3^ Be not queasy-stomached, Demas-like, to cast them up again : the token of a cold stomach not yet heated by the Spirit; for as the loathing of repast is a token that nature draws towards her end, so when these holy waters prove fastidious, it is an argument of a soul near her death. Take then and digest this water. Reci-pitur aure, retinetur corde, ])erjicitur opere, —The ear receives, the heart retains, the life digests it. But, alas ! we retain these waters no longer than the finger of the Holy Ghost keeps them in us; like the garden-pot, that holds water but whiles the thumb is upon it.

Leave then, b)eloved, the devil's wine-cellar, as venerable Beda calls it, ubi 710S dulcedo deleclationis invitavit ad bibendum,\ —where the sweet * Orig. Horn. v. in Levit. ■[ Bed. ExLorat. 139.

waters of delight tempt us to drink. But David, though lie longed for it, would not drink ' the water of the well of Bethlehem,' which his three worthies fetched, because it was 'the water of blood,' 1 Chron. xi. 19, brought with the danger of life. And shall we drink the waters of this fatal banquet, the venture of blood, with the hazard of our dearest souls? No, come we to this aqua coelestis, be we poor or rich, have we money or none, all that come are welcome, Isa. Iv. 1. And know, that having drunk liberally at the fountain of grace, you shall have yet a large and pleasant draught at the fountain of glory; that ' river of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb,' Rev. xxii. 1, to which the ' Spirit and the bride' are inviters, and 'say, Come.' It is a delightful banquet we enjoy here: ' The kingdom of heaven is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost,' Rom. xiv. 17. None know the sweetness of these joys but they that feel them. But the supper of joy, the banquet of glory, the waters of blessedness, are such as ' no eye hath seen,' &Co, 1 Cor. ii. 9. Illic heata vita in fonte* —There is the spring-head of happiness : they cannot want water that dwell by the fountain,

' Nam licet allata gratus sit sapor in unda, Dulcius ex ipso fonte bibuntur aquse;'—

That which is derived to us in pipes is pleasant; oh, what is the delight at the well-head ! The devil, like an ordinary host, ' sets forth his best wine first, and when the guests have well drunk, worse;' but thou, 0 Lord, 'hast kept the best wine till the last,' John ii. 10. They are sweet we taste here, but medio de fonte leponim surgit amari aliquid. There are some persecutions, crosses to embitter them, the sweet meat of the passover is not eaten without sour herbs ; but ' in thy presence, 0 Lord, is the fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore,' Ps. xvi. 11. There is no bitterness in those waters; they are the same that God himself and his holy angels drink of: so that, as for Christ's sake we have drunk the bitter cup of persecution, so we shall receive at Christ's hands the cup of salvation, and shall bless the name of the Lord. To whom, three Persons, one only true and eternal God, be all praise, glory, and obedience, now and for ever! Amen,

♦ August.

THE FATAL BANQUET.

THE SECOND SERVICE.

Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. — Prov. IX. 17.

We have already served in the first course at this Fatal Banquet, and feasted your ears with those waters, from which God keep your souls fasting. Some things are proposed to our practice, some things are exposed to our contempt and dislike. The more accurately the Scri2)tures describe sins, the more absolutely they forbid them ; where wickedness is the subject, all speech is declamation. As no spectator at those horrid tragedies, where Qildipus is beheld the incestuous husband of his own mother, or Thyestcs drunk with the blood of his own children, or at any of the bleeding banquets of the Medea, can receive those horrors at the windows of his senses, without terror to his bowels, and trembling to his bones : so when you hear the relation of the devil's cheer, all the flattering, petulant, insidious, nature-tickling dishes of delight,— the rarities of impiety, the surfeits of the world, horse-leeches to the blood, witches to the aflfectioni^, devils to the consciences of men,—think that they are related that they may be rejected. To bestow upon the devil's cats his owTi names : the glory of pride, the satiety of epicurism, the gallantness of ebriety, the credit of murder, the gi-eatness of scorn, the gracefulness of swear- • ing, the bravery of the stigmatic fashion, the security of usury, the singularity of opinion, the content of superstition; nunciantvr, id renuncientur. Think not they are prescribed for you when they are described to you. Monstran-tur ut monstra, —they are .sot forth as monsters, that they might be loathed ; they are advanced as traitors' lieads, in terrorem futuri proditoris, —to the terror of him that should be tempted to future treason.

God's intent in declaring this banquet of sin is to make you loathe it; and that which 'is written Is for our instruction,' 1 Cor. x. 11, to deter, not to conunond : as some of the heathen had a custom in their solemn feasts, to make a bi)nd-slave drunk, and then set him forth as a ridiculous object to their children. This banquet, then, perhibetur una et prohibetur, is at once declared and declaimed, spoken of and forbidden; lest through ignorance you should like and eat it, you are more fidly made acquainted with the vileness of it. Hence our royal preacher draws the curtain of the world, and

shews you all tlie delicates of her table; not to whet your appetites to feed on them, but to cool your courage, dishearten your opinions, alienate your aflFections; giving you a true censure of their worth : ' All is vanity, and vexation of soul,' Eccles. i. 14. They are detected, that they might be detested. Therefore if any of Gracchus's brood shall like a CatUinary disposition the better because Tully hath indicted, interdicted, condemned it; if any son of Belial shall more affectedly devour some morsel of damnation at this feast, because the preacher hath execrated it, and derive at once notice and encouragement from our terrifying censures, testimonium sihi ferat con-demnationis, —let him bear in himself the evidence of his owti condemnation. They are wretched men that most impetuously pursue what all good men dissuade ; running with Ahimaaz the more eagerly, because their friend Joab forbids them, 2 Sam. xviii. 22. So blasphemously spake the sacrilegious S])OLlcrs of Proserpine's temple in Locris, whose ringleader was Dionysius : Videtisne cnnici, qiiam bona navigatio ah ipsis dds sacrilegis tribuatur?* — saihng home, and now arriving at the haven safe, ' See you not, my friends,' saith Dionysius, ' how fair and fortunate a navigation the gods vouchsafe to sacrilege V As if they therefore robbed the church because they were by the oracle expressly inhibited; so gens humana ruit in vetitum nefas, —■ man's nature precipitates itself into forbidden wickedness. This is a horrid sin : 2)^ccatum 2)>'i'>nce impressionis et sine nomine adcequato, —a wickedness of that nature that there is no name significant enough to express it.

The manners of the heathen might justify, and exemplarily make good that verse:—

' Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata;'— <

' We hunt for things unlawful with swift feet. As if forbidden joys were only sweet.'

But such a report among Christians is so strange, thsit Jidum non factum esse videatur, —it would seem rather a fable than a fact, a tale than a deed. 2 Sam. i. 20, ' Publish it not in Gath, nor tell it in the streets of Askelon,' that any Israelite should the more desperately cleave to Baal because Elias hath cursed it. There are none such ; neither is there rain in the clouds. Indeed, charity would not believe it, for it is even the order of nature that tarda sold magnis rebus adesse fides, —slow faith is given to great reports ; but, alas ! we are forced to see, what we would not believe, such refractory recusants to all Christianity, living and speaking kutu rac, l-Tridv/Miug, ' according to their own lusts.' That would not be so ill, if they had not been taught to be better: Quihus res divince lusus sunt, Us et voluptas pro vita, et libido pro rations est,i-—They that play with divinity, and make religion a mock, guide their life by pleasure, and their reason by lust. Time was, ' the kingdom of heaven suffered violence, and men took it by strong hand,' Matt. xi. 12; now it offers violence, and men by strong hand repel it: before it so was l)reciou.s, that ' every man pressed and crowded into it, Luke xvi. IG ; now it pressetli upon us, and we are glad to be rid of it, as covetousness of poverty at his door. And as the fountains would not be so cold if the sun had nut heated the air, and forced the contrary quality into such abstruse corners, many woukl have been less outrageous in their lilthiness if the gospel of grace had not so universally spread his beams. Their whole life is a continual prevarication ; and it is the cordial j^hysic to fat their spleens, that they can be cross to God.

J Jut lex in sermone ienenda.—l speak to Christians, of whom we cannot • Valer. Max., lib. i., cap. 2. f Marl, iu 2 Pet. iii.

but hope better things. If there bo any here that hath sold his faith for his pleasure, as Adam did his life for an apple, or Esau his birthright for a mess of pottage, and will venture himself a guest at the dcvil'.s banquet, maugre all devitation; let him stay and hear the reckoning, for there is a shot to be piud, which cannot be avoided. As Circe's cup turns men into beasts, so it brings them to a beastly end; it fats them against the shiughter-day of judgment

(2.) We leave then the prescription of the waters, and come to the description of their natures : stolen. It is a word of theft, and implies, besides the action of stedth, some persons active and passive in tliis business : some that do wrong, and steal; some that suffer wrung, and are robbed. Robbery is a sin, literally forbidden only in one commandment, but by inference in all. What sin is committed, and some person is not robbed ] Doth not idolatry rob God of his worship ? Blasphemy of his honour ? Sabbatli impiety of his reserved time ? Doth not irreverence rob our betters % Murder rob man of his life ? Theft of his goods 1 False testimony of his good nan^e or right ? Doth not the harlot here knit the eighth precept to the seventh, and call adulterium, furtuin, —the pleasure of a forbidden bed, ' stolen waters 1' ' Let us solace ourselves with loves, for the goodman is not at home,' <tc. Justice gives cuique suum : Deo religionem, sihi munditiam, parentihus hono-rem, famiiiaribu& providentiain, filiis coirectionem, fratribus amorem, dominis suhjectls henignitatem, cequitalem omnibus*

Since, then, all sins are waters of stealth, it is an inevitable consequent that every sin robs some; let us examine whom. The parties robbed are God, man, ourselves; and there be divers sins rob either of these. Of every circumstance a little, according to the common liking; for some had rather hear many points than learn one : they would have every word a sentence, and every sentence a sermon; as he that wrote the Paternoster iii the compass of a penny. Only I entreat you to observe, that this is a thievish banquet, where is nothing but stolen waters; all the cates be robberies : the guests cannot drink a drop but there is injury done. Accordingly, I will jointly proceed to describe the waters of sin at this feast; and withal, to prove them stolen waters, such as rob either our God, our brethren, or ourselves. I need not clear the feast from an opinion of coarseness, because the prime service goes under the name of waters; this alone doth enforce the delicacy. Neither is all water, for the bread of secrecy is one half of the banquet. Let us not be too nice in the letter and shadow : the substance is, the devil invites and tempteth men to feed on vanity, to feast on sin. Those sins I have laboured to display, so far as the metaphor would give me leave; only let your affections follow me, that as I fear not to make the iniquities hateful to your understandings, so I may hope they will be loathed of your hearts, eschewed of your lives : in confidence whereof I proceed.

The Jlrst course of these waters are such sins as more immediately rob God; and here, as it is fit, Atheism leads in the rest, a principal vial of these stolen waters.

[1.] Atheism is the highest theft against God, because it would steal from him not sua, sed se, his goods, but himself; proceeding further than '■ Deus luvc non curat,' to ' Deus non est' —than to say, ' God will not regard it,' Ps. X. 11-13; but, ' There is no God to regard it,' Ps. xiv. 1. These ofi"er not only a wicked hand to their own conscience, to scrape out the deep-engraven and indelible characters of the Divinity there, but a sacrilegious hand to * Ardena. VOL. X. M

beaven, as if they would empty it of a Deity, and pull Jehovali out of his throne, and make him a non ens. All, with them, is begun and done either by the necessity of fate or contingency of fortune. Te facimus fortuna cleam. If any strange vice be committed, the planets shall be charged with it: Mercury told the lie, ilars did the murder, Venus committed the whoredom. Thus, by looking to the inferior causes, producing necessary efiects, they rob God, who is prima causa creans catisas, —the causing cause, and the ori-inal mover of all things. These are worse than the devil; for if at first he doubts and tempts Christ, yet seeing, feeling his power and miracles, he confesseth : only impudent Caiaphas saw and knew, yet tempts, Matt, xxvi 63. Thus often the instrument excels the agent; and there be Macliiavels, politicians, atheists, have tricks beyond the devil. The devil ' believes and trembles,' James ii. 19 ; these have neither faith nor fear. The devil quakes at the day of judgment: Matt. viii. 29, ' Torment us not before the time;' these deride it: ' Where is the promise of his coming ?' 2 Pet. iii. 4. Strange ! Even the father of sins comes short of his children; and that there should be atheists on earth when there is none in hell!

These monsters are in the wilderness ! No, they buiTow in Zion : if seldom such as say, ' There is no God,' yet frequent that call religion a fable, or at least testify no less of it in their lives; for quorum est commune syviholum, facillhmis est transitus, —How many make that their gospel which they can spell into their purses, and embrace no other creed than their lord and master's humour ! That turn articles of piety to particles of policy ; and sojjhisticate old singleness into new singularity ! If a Seminary's argument shall be more gold-weighty than the best sermon of ours, they are for Rome the next tide : any. religion that can enrich their coffers shall have their applauses. What differ these from atheists, or that Pope * who, hearing Cardinal Bembus speak of the gospel, burst forth into this blasphemy : Quantum nobis ac nosti'o ccetui profuerit ea de Christo fahula, satis est omni-hus secidis no(um,f —How gainful the fiction or tale of Christ hath been to us and our crew, the whole world may know and witness 1 All religion is with them a foble, or at best fallible. They would fit religion to their own humours, as Procrustes dealt with his guests : X for all that came he had but one bed. If they were shorter than his bed, he racked them out to make them long enough; if longer, he would cut them shorter till they were fit. These are cruel thieves, that would rob God of himself.

[2.] The second vial is Heresy: a dangerous water, because it soon tickles the brain, and makes the mind drunk. This sin robs God of his truth. There are many of these thieves, though contrary among themselves, whose opinions are as cross one to another as Samson's foxes, but their tails meet to scatter the fire of dissension in the church. No lawyers wrangle more in public, nor more lovingly feast one another in private with the gains of their dissimulation. How bitterly the Brownists on the right hand, the Papists on the left, rail at each other ! how friendly agree they, like Herod and Pihite, to alllict Clu-ist! How in effect do they sing both in one tune, to build up devotion with ignorance, to wrangle with the prince for his supremacy !

In elder times, you had Ccrinthus and Arius robbing Christ of his divinity, Manicluous and Marcion of his humanity, the Nestorians of the unity of both natures in one person. They are dead; oh, bmy them, bury them ! Let their liercsies rot. Alas ! how are the spirits of them all, by a kind of transanimation, come into Ronnsts ! Christ is there robljcd of his truth, of * Leo X. t Baleus. J Met., lib. vii.

his garments, of his peace, of his life, as well as at Jerusalem ; and that without show of being his enemies : Spoliastis amid, —You are my friends, yet rob me. Bones rob Christ of his adoration, stones of his prayers, the Pope of his power. Remission of sins, validity of merits, ease of pains, the Pope must give—who would give the world that he had them fur himself Too much shall be given to the name of Jesus, more than he would have : that a wicked man shall by it ca.st out devils; to whom, if the devils reply not, as they did once to the audacious sons of Sceva, Acts xix. 15, ' Jesus we know, and Paul we know, but who are ye 1 ' yet God answers them, Quis hcec, &c., —'"Who hath required this at your hands?' Isa. i. 12. Too little to the truth of Jesus : man's merits shall share with him in justification, penance in satisfaction, angels and saints in intercession. These are subtle thieves, that have their bodies for a communion, their consciences for a mass, their voices for the prince, their hearts for the Pope, their souls for anybody.

[3.] The third vial of this course is Sacnlege: a water like some ^\'inding ^Meander, that runs through our corn-fields, and washeth away the trath, God's part. This sin robs God of his goods : Mai. iii. 8, ' Will a man rob God 1 Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say. Wherein have we robbed thee ? In tithes and oflferings.' Oh that none among us durst druik of these stolen waters ! But, alas ! what law can be given to rob-altars ? If Blind A sinus be a man of gifts, so justified by the sensible presenter, what should cross his admission ? Is not a Quare impedit his special friend 1 Yes : and yet not more than a Prohibition is often a good minister's foe. Hence now there is little diflference l^etwixt serving at the altar and starving at the altar. Ministers have midtos laudatores, paucos datores, —many praisers, few raisers; many benedictors, few benefactors.

Plead not that they are not stolen, because conveyed by the ministers' consent; for the right is originally in God. Spoliastis me, —' You have robbed me,' saith the Lord. The incumbent consenting is not robbed, God is. They zealously require a learned ministry, when themselves embezzle the rewards of learning : they complain of an ignorant, not of a beggarly clergy. They are content we .should stand in the pulpit, so long as they may sit in a tithe-shock ; and seem wonderfully affected with the oraculous voice of their minister, but the creaking noise of a tithe-cart into their own barn is better music. Oh the fearful cry of this sin in the ears of God against this land f He hath sprhikled some drops of his angry vial for it: droughts, blastings, witherings are but his Distiingis. He destroys all, because we will not pay some : Si domino decinmm nan dederis, ad decimam reverteris,^ —lie doth justly take away the nine when we deny liim the tenth. Indeed, I confess that m;my an Eliashib compacts with Tobiah to steal holy thing.s, Neh. xiii. 5 : a Gnostic patron, a Paphian priest; so the one have ease, let the other take benefit. Tobiah must have the tithe-corn, the glebe land, and perhaps the veiy house for a dairy ; and his cousin Eliashib shall have the tithe-geese and the eggs at Easter. ' Shall not the Lord visit for such wickedness as this ? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation ?' Jer. v. 9.

Whiles the rewards of knowledge are diverted to profane uses, God and his heaven is robbed of thousand thousand souls. Oh, pray we, {quid enim nisi vota supersunt /)^pray we, with that most reverend bishop,t that God would rather convert; if not, confound those that rob him of liis goods, the church of her right, the people of understanding. But if no contestation of * Augustine. t B. Babing in Gen., cap. 47.

GckI, nor protestation of man, can stint their swallowing these stolen waters. Jet some good Xchemiah be revived, to remforce from their felonious hands that holy rent which God hath from every tenant of his reserved : let the zeal of some Phinehas turn away God's wrath from our Israel. Decimate, quihus debetis, et divites Jietis, —Pay your tithes to whom you should pay them, and you shall be enriched. Mai. iii. 10, 'Bring ye all your tithes into the dtoreliouso, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.' Read and ponder HeUodorus's deed and doom, 2 Mace, iii., and quake at it. You cannot steal waters from the living God, but they will poison you.

[4.J The fourth vial is Faction : a water of trouble to the drinker; this robs God of his order and peace. The waters of schism are stolen waters; yet such as many a separatist loves to drink of: they steal peace from the church. Christi tunica must be unica, —Christ's coat was without seam, his truth must be without rent: we must be all at one, lest at all none. Let us not plead so hard for parity in the church, till we bring anarchy into the commonwealth. Let our dispositions be like Abraham's, Gen. xiii. 8, ' I pray thee, let there be no strife between me and thee, for we are brethren.' Let not God's eulaxij, order, by our frivolous scruples be brought to ataxy, confusion. Let Calvin's rule overrule our turbulent and refractory spirits : Omnia indifferentia in ecclesice lihertate posita sunt,^ —AH indifferent things are put to the disposition and ordering of the church. O you, whom Christ hatli made fishers of souls, fish no longer in troubled waters ! Let us not wrangle any more about colours, as the Constantinopolitans did once in the days of Justinian, about blue and green, till they were all neither blue nor green, but red ; the streets swimming in blood, and the emperor himself endangered. So the factions of the Bianchi and J^eri, about the two colours of black and white, cost the dukedom of Florence dear, even the beauty and peace of the country. What, have we all been deceived ? Hath God been a stranger to us all this while ? John xiv. 9, ' Have I been so long time with you, and have you not known me 1 ' saith Christ to Philip. Hath the truth been hid in corners, that we must grope for it in a sectary's budget 1 Or are not such men rather sick of Donatism 1 That every novelist with a whirligig in his brain must broach new opinions, and have those made canons, nay, sanctions, as sure as if a general council had confirmed them ! Wretched men, that shake off the true, comely habit of religion, to bespeak them a new-fashioned suit of profession at a humorist's shop ! Oh that their sore eyes could, before they left us", have seen what sacrilegious breaches they have made into God's freehold; robbing his church of her peace, and waking ' the spouse of Christ' with their turbulent noises! Factions are stolen waters.

[5.J The last vial of this first course is Profaneness : a compounded water, whereout no sin is excluded. There was no poison the devil could think on left out when he tempered this water. It robs God of his glory. We are born to honour God ; it is his due, and that he will have, either a te or de f^, —^y thee or upon thee. Irreligion robs him of his honour, solummodo hoc habet, ic.; oidy he hath this to help himself, that he can make it shine in thy just confusion. So Menaheni destroyed Tipsah, because they would not open unto him, 2 Kings xv. 16; but these wUl open to Christ knocking, if he will be content—

♦ Instit., lib. iv., cap. 17, sec. 43.

Stramineaa habitare casas,' &c.;—

* Ba.sely to dwell in the divided part Of the foul, sluttish, and polluted heart.'

If Christ will dwell with Belial, and share part of the conscience with. wickedness, let him come, and welcome; but he scorns to be an inmate, and let Satan be lord of the house. lie that accepted a stable for his presence-chamber in his humiUty, doth justly disdaui such abodes now in his glory. Though the walls be but clay, if the furniture be good, humility and repentance, and the cheer answerable, faith and charity, he wUl enter in and feast. Rev. iii. 10. But as his womb was wherem born, and his tomb wherein buried, so must his temple be now he is glorified. He was conceived in a womb where none else was conceived, received into a tomb where none else was interred ; so he will temple himself in a heart where no affected sin shall be his equal. The profane among the heathen were thrust from their sacrificial solemnities :—

' Innocui veniant: procul hinc, procul impius esto. Casta placent superis; pura cum mente venite;'—

' Pure, innocent, and spotless sprites Are welcome to these holy rites : To the profane and sensual state. Be ever shut the temple-gate.'

But now our profane save that labour; they thrust from themselves aU pious rites. They smg not with the church, a Tenebo te, Domine, I will hold thee fast, 0 Lord, Cant. iii. 4 ; but with Simeon, a Nunc dimittis, though with another spirit: they are glad to be gone. Christ is as welcome to them as Caesar's taxers to the Jews, or the beadle to the brothel-house ; so the Gergesites tell him to his face, .Matt. viii. 34: Sir, to be plain with you, you are no guest for us; our secure lives and your severe laws will never cotton.

Men live without considering themselves: unde, ubi, quomodo, quo, — whence they are, where they are, how they do, whither they go : that all these mathematical lines have earth for their centre. Whence are we ? From earth. Where are we 1 On earth. How live we 1 Unworthy of the earth, or any Ijlessing upon it. Whither go we 1 To earth. Terrain terra teget, —' Earth to earth.' We are composed of four elements, and they strive in us for mastery ; but the lowest gets the better, and there is no rest till earth have the ptcdominance. These men live as if there was neither earth to devour their bodies, nor gulf lower than earth to swallow their souls.

This is profaneness. The world is rank and manured with sin. Atheism grows up as a tree, error and ignorance are the leaves, profaneness and rebellion the fruit, and the end is the axe and the fire, Matt, iii 18. Their best is verbal devotion, seconded with actual abomination. Dividunt opera ajide, et utrumque perimitur, —They separate works from faith; they divide the child and kill it. Works are dead without faith, and faith is not alive without works. They take away that visible distinction betwixt Christians and infidels, whiles they live as honest men. Oh that I could cut this point short, and yet keep my discourse but somewhat even with the subject; but the world drinks too greedily of these profane waters, which rob God of his glory. Most men are no longer tenants to the devil, and retailers of his wares, but proprietaries; perverted and perverse persons, they strive to be a.s deep sharers as himself Machiavel will no longer work journey-work with the devil, he will now cut out the garment of damnation himself. The vices

of these men are so monstrous, that they no less benumb in all good men tba tenderness of affection, than in themselves the sense of all humanity. Vox faucibus hceret, —It is a shame to utter, an amazement to hear, yet they blush not to commit such execrable impieties. Impudence is only in fashion, and there is no forehead held so graceful as that the prophet calls graceless, and 'harlot's forehead,' that cannot blush, Jer. iii. 3. Swearing s\Yagger3 out admonition; drunkenness guzzles down sorrow and penitence; usury flouts at helL

It was epitaphed on Pope Alexander's tomb, Jacet hie et scelits et vitium, —Here lies wickedness itself; it could not be so buried up. He was vile enough: 2'hais AlexandriJllia, sponsa, nuriis. Lucrece was his daughter, his whore, his son's wife. Horrid! that viper went not to hell issueless. What is the common profession but infidelity and atheism, though not in antecedente, yet in consequente, —if not verbal, yet real; under the ' form of godliness,' an implicit renegation of 'the power,' 2 Tim. iii. 5. Midti adorant crucem exterius, qui criicem spiritualem per contemptum concidcant* —Many superstitiously adore the crucifix that are ' enemies to the cross of Christ,' Phil. iii. 18, and 'tread his holy blood under their scornful feet,' Heb. X. 29. Nay, they are not wanting that brag with Pherecides,t that they have as much prosperity, though they never sacrifice, as they that offer whole hecatombs. They will be wicked, if it be for nothing else, to scape the rod of affliction. Job xxL They make sport with the book of God, as Daphias with the Delphic oracle,J who inquired of it whether he should find the horse which he had lost, when indeed he had none. The oracle answered, inventuruvi quidem, sed ut eo turhatus periret, —that he should fijid a horse, but his death withal. Home he is coming, joj-ful that he had deluded the oracle ; by the way he fell into the hands of the wronged King Attalus, and was by his command thrown headlong from a rock called the Horse, and so perished. As fabulous as you may think it, the moral of it will fall heavy on the deriders of God.

These are the sins that immediately rob God, fitly called by our whor-ish sorceress ' stolen waters,' which shall be carried away without account. The -second sort of stolen waters are those sins which mediately rob God, inmiediately our brethren, depriving them of some comfort or right which the inviolable law of God hath interested them to ; for what the law of God, of nature, of nations, hath made ours, cannot be extorted from us without stealth, and may be, even in most strict terms, called stolen waters.

[1.] Here, fitly. Irreverence is served in first: a water of stealth that robs man of that right of honour wherewith God hath invested him. Even Abi-melech, a king, a Gentile king, reverenced Abraham, Gen. xxi.; even stately Herod, poor John Baptist, Mark vi. Yes, let reverence be given to superiority, if it be built on the basis of worthiness ; and to age, if it be ' found in the way of righteousness,' Prov. xvi. 31. Indeed it should be so, that fenlores ainiis should be sanio7'es animis, va\di prcefeclus, perfectm, —that emi-nency of pUice and virtue should concur, that greatness and goodness should dwell together ; but the ' conscience of reverence ' is fetched from God's precept, not man's dignity, llom. xiii. 5, and therefore the omission is a robbery. The neglect of honour to whom it belongs is a stolen water. Prov. xxx. 17 ' The eye that mockoth at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother,'—doth he thmk them worthy, or not ?—'the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles eat it.' But, alas! these are those unreverent days, where infalix lolmm, et steriles dominantur avence, — invectives, railings, • GuiA CarthuB. + /EUan. Var. Hist., lib. iv. X Cic. de Fato.

calumnies, grow up among sober and wholesome admonitions : the same ground produceth both herl)s and weeds, and so nourisheth both sheep and serpents.

' Terra salutiferas herbas, eademque nocentes Nutrit, et urticac proxima saepe rosa est.' *

The nettle grows up with the rose, and the lamb must graze in the wolf's comi)any. These are like furious beasts, that, ranging for their prey, and being hampered in the snare, when they caimot break loose to forage, they lie down and roar.

From this foul nest have fluttered abroad all those clamorous bills, slanderous libels, malicious invectives, seditious pamphlets, whence not only good names have been traduced, but good thhigs abused. Self-conceit blows them up with ventosity ; and if others think not as well of them as they of themselves, straight like porcupines they shoot theh- quiUs, or like cuttles vomit out ink to trouble the waters. That impudent and insolent claim is made ordhiary m these days : ' With our tongue we will prevail; for our lips are our own,' Ps. xiL 4. WTieu the eagle in the air, panther in the desert, dragon in the deep, leviathan in the ocean are tamed, yet ' the tongue can no man tame; it is an miruly evil, fuU of deadly poison,' James iii 8. It is fired, and with no weaker fire than hell's, ver. 6. Their hearts are ovens, heated with malice, and their tongues burning peels; they are never drawn but there is a batch for the devil. These are not only the geese in the Capitol, to gaggle at statesmen in the commonwealth, but foxes also about the temple, that, if they be seen stealing the grapes, fall a-bitiug their decriers by the shins. Because the church hath not heretofore given some the keys of her treasure, nor called for them when bishoprics and promotions were a-dealing, they will indict her of incontmency with Pome. Miserable sons, to slander their mother with adultery ! What they would and cannot do themselves, they blame in others; with Korah, Num. xvi. 3, ' Ye take too much upon you, ye sons of Levi.' Libels are stolen waters.

[2.] Murder usuq^s the second room : red water, that robs man of his life. Whether they be Popish commissions to cut tlu-oats, for the whore of Babylon can drink nothing but blood ; or the monstrous illuminations of the Anabaptist.s, deriving revelation from the spirit of horrid murder, that the brother should cut otf the brother's head by a command from heaven, the father and mother standing by,—Luther calls this a gross devil, Est hcec rudis cacodcevionis techna ; or the sudden quarrels of our age, where evidences of pusillanimity, or, at best, inconsiderate fury, are produced as arguments of valour, a cross word is ground enough for a challenge : and what issue hath streamed from these devils, who can think and not quake ? ' The land is defiled with blood,' Ps. cvi. 38; not shed by an alien hand,—God hath been content ta/em nobis avertere pestem, to free us from that plagiie,— but civU, uncivil broUs. We fail out for feathers; some lie dead in the channel, whiles they stood too much for the wall. Others sacrifice their hearts' blood for the love of a harlot. Not to pledge a health is cause enough to lose health and life too. Oh, who shall wash our land from these aspersions of blood 1 Murder is but manslaughter, and man.slaughter no more than dog-slaughter. Farce civiuni sanguini should be our condition (f Ufe, as it is a .sanction of nature to spare the blood of citizens, connatural, collateral, connational with ourselves ; but now it is not spared sangaini vel civiuni vel sanctorum, —to spill the blood of either citizens or stunts. Yet •• Ovid, de Remed. Amor., lib. i.

' precious in tlic siglit of tlie Lord is the blood of his saints,' when the blood of his enemies shall not be impunely shed.

There is not a drop of blood thus spilt upon the earth but swells like an ocean, and nothing can dry it up till it be revenged. The most excellent of God's creatures on earth, the beauty, the extract, the abstract, or abridgement of the world, the glory of the workman, the confluence of all honour that mortality can afford, and, what is above all the rest, the image of the almighty God, with pain bom, with expense nurtured, must fall in a moment; and by whom 1 One son of Adam by another. The proverb is exiled, floyno homini deus, —]\Ian is a god to man ; nay, it is rare, saith the philosopher, to find a man to man. For want of using reason, how many are beasts ! and for not using it well, how many devils! Hear the law, ye lawless brood of Cain, that ' slay a man in your anger:' ' Blood for blood.' You think to scape vdih a pardon, but there is no pardon of earth can ease the bleeding conscience. ' Let none kill Cain,' that so every day kills himself As in that great plague on Egypt, ail the waters in their rivers, streams, ponds, pools, vessels were changed into blood, Exod. vii. 19, so shall it be in the conscience of the murderer. His eyes shall behold no other colour but red, as if the air were of a sanguine dye ; his visions in the night shall be all blood ; his dreams sprinkling blood on his face ; all his thoughts shall flow with blood. If any David scapes the wounds of man's sword to his body, or God's to his soul, let him thank the blood of the crucified Jesus,, whose wounds must intercede for his, and procure a pardon. This is that blood which doth xps/rrova Xa'kuv, ' speak better things,' Heb. xii. 24, and stint the ceaseless cry of ' the blood of Abel.' But all this to none but those that bleed in soul for those sins.

Purge the land of this blood, ye magistrates; for * the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of them that shed it,' Num. xxxv. 33.

' They that in spilling blood such pleasure have, Let them not go but bleeding to their grave.'

Purge it, then, lest God in revenge make his arrows ' drunk with blood.' Fear not to find them, ye jurors, lest whiles you save a murderer, you ex-})ose, object, hazard your own throats to his sword. Hear this also, ye physicians ; think it is the life of man is questioned. The epigram comes here to my mind :—

' Furtum non fades; juristae scribitur hssc lex Kicc, non occides, pertinet ad medicum;'—

' Thou shall not steal, the lawyers' square to right them; Thou shalt not kill, is the physician's item.'

Sell not insufficient drugs, nor pitch so high a price on your ignorance. Let it not be true of you that pessimus morbus est medicus, —the worst disease is the physician. That emperor (Adrian) found it true, by a mortal experience, that (urOa medicnrum interfecit recjan, —physicians killed him. Blood is j)roci()U8, let it be preserved.

[3.] Adultery knows her place : a filthy water, yet in special account at this fo;ust. It may well be called a stolen water; for it robs man of that comfort which the sacred hand of heaven hath knit to him ; unravels the bottom of that joy which God hath wound up for him ; suborns a spurious seed to inherit his lanls ; damps his livelihood, sets paleness on his cheek, and im-p;u4turc8 griff in his heart. It is that special instanoc of wickedness whereby

Solomon here expresseth all the rest. The whorish woman calls the pleasures of a forbidden bed, stolen waters. ■ Woe is to him that is robbed,—I mean the bitter woe of a temporal discontent, which is an inseparable consequent of conjugal affection wronged,—but more woe to the robber, who, besides the corporal strokes of heaven's angry hand in this life, shall feel the fearful addition of an eternal woe in hell : Heb. xiii. 4, ' Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.' If a present punishment be suspended, the future shall never be dispended with. Our firmament hangs too full of these falling stars, Jer. xxiiL 10 ; corrupt meteors, wandering planets, that only glinnner in the night, when the sun of vigilancy is set. This cursed weed begins to grow almost as rank in England as in Italy; only no authority gives toleration to it: they are here aquce siirreptitice, waters of stealth; but there, invitant adaperta vivos male limina spurcos, —the open doors invite their entrance, whiles the law doth not only wink but warrant. There is no hope to keep out Venus, when Drunkenness, her gentleman-usher, and Dice, her old company-keeper, are let in. Many nightingales have sung sad lamentations, woe and ruin against these ra})cs and whoredoms ; but the unclean sparrows, chirping the voice of lust on the house-tops, are suffered to have nests in the roof, when the good nightingale is driven to the woods.

There are not wanting by report, (and those no beggars,) that justify this, and clear it from sin by arguments; strong wits, and those sublimed; the Avittier, the wickeder. I will give them a double answer, which no distinction shall evade. God hath charged, ' Thou .shalt not commit adultery.' Hazard thyself to dispute against and enervate God's prohibition, and try if the second confute thee not—the black poison of thy own conscience, which is set on fire by lust here, and though it have the fire of hell added to it, shall never be wasted. The devil was modest when he came to Eve with iVoe-cepitne Deus, &c., 'Hath God charged you not to eatf &c.. Gen. iii. 1, Now bluntly, Non prcecepit Deus, ' God hath not concluded adultery a sin.' Inaudita oracula fundit. Impudence in the highest degree, to give God the lie, and except against the absoluteness of his precept.

I intend brevity in the broaching these stolen waters; the matter forceth me to prolixity against my will. Lust hath many friends in these days; many promoters whereby she insinuates herself to the world- Among all, those in print do most mischief; Libri Sijbarilici, as the same-sin-guilty ]Martial calls them; books of epicurism and sensuality. Ovid's Amatories have bright and trite covers, when the book of God lies in a dusty corner. The devil plays with us, as Hippomenes with Atalanta ; seeing us earnest in our race to heaven, throws us here and there a golden ball, an idle pamphlet. If Cleanthes open his shop, he shall have customers. Many a traveller there sets down his .staff, though he pulls off his eyes with Ovid's dole. Cur aliquid vidi, cur noxia luminafeci ?*—Why have I so covetously beheld these vanities] Faucis de philosophia gustanduin, was the oM charge,— Let few drink at the fountain of philosophy; but we are drunk with that which all philosophy condemned. The stationer dares hardly venture such cost on a good sermon as for an idle play; it will not sell so well: wicked days the whiles ! Oh that they were all condemned to an Ephesian fire! Acts xix.; that we might say, as Alcibiades of that Athenian heaj) of burning scrolls, Nunquam vidi ignem clariorem, —We never saw a clearer fire.

[4.] Thievery needs no more than the name to prove it a ' water of stealth.' This robs man of his goods, those temporal things whereof God hath made him a proprietary : a sin which usurers and moneymongers do bitterly rail * Trist. 2.

jgg THE FATAL BANQUET. [SbRMON XIV.

at. They that are of no religion, yet plead religion hard against thieves; they can lay the law to them, that have no conscience themselves; they rob a countiy, yet think themselves honest men, and would hang a poor petty-robber for forty pence. Let him answer them in the Satire— ' 0 major, tandem parcas, insane, minori.'

As no theft can scape condemnation, so yet different degrees shall be punished with different torments. Extortion, usury, fraud, injustice, are not less thefts because less manifest. Antiochus could make a black horse which he had stolen seem white, and a white black; so these thieves have tricks to make ' evil good, and good evil,' Isa. v. 20; especially tacente lege, so long as the law holds her peace. But as the other escape not the gallows, so one day dabit Deus his qiioque funem, —God will give these also condign punishment. They say that the dung of the blackbird falling on the oak turns into slime; of that slime is made birdlime; of that birdlime is the bird herself snared. So these grand thieves twine a cord of three strings, injury, usury, fraud. Covetousness twists them into a rope, the devil makes the noose, and of tliis cord they are strangled; •' A threefold cable is not easily broken.' Whiles they steal from others the interest, they rob themselves of the principal, their souls. They please the world with their baits, ready money; but there is a hook under the bait:—

' Munera magna quidem misit, sed misit in hamo; Sic piscatorem piscis amare potest.' *

I have read of an Athenian, such another fisher, that he had in an apparition a net given him to catch whole cities in; but for all that, he died a beggar. These thieves have such nets to catch whole towns, commons, churches, steeples, and all; but in the end the net breaks, and the fisher topples into the deep, whence he never comes out again ; for these swine so root into the earth, till they eat themselves into hell.

I do not spare with connivance the junior thieves, because I bring their fathers to the bar first. He that shall with a violent or subtle hand, lion-like or fox-like, take away that which God hath made mine, endangers at once his body to the world's, his soul to heaven's, sword of justice; and shall pass from a temporal bar to the judgment tribunal of Christ. Let not misconstruction hear me : there are more of these die honest men than of usurers ; for one usurer's repentance I will produce you ten executed thieves'. Only here it is, the great thieves agree one with another : ' Claw me, and I will claw thee ;' wink at mine, and I will not see thy faults. They tune like bells, and want but hanging. For these thieves, I might indeed be silent and spare my breath to the conversion of more hopeful sinners; but we must free our consciences from the guiltiness of not repro\dng, lest they curse U3 on their death-beds, as that u.surer made his will, wherein he bequeathed his soul to the devil for extorting, his wife for inducing, his deacon for enduring, or not reproving. Though every usurer makes account to walk to hell,— yet since l)oth hell and heaven be equally set to his choice, why should he choose the worst way 1—let not his minister, for silence, bear him company.

Well, the thief knows his doom, a double banishment—out of the territories of earth, out of the confines of heaven; therefore, Eph. iv. 28, ' let him tliat hath stolen steal no uiore.' Repentance shall be sure of mercy. And let not the great tliief think to scape ; as he is a gallimaufry of all sins, so he shall have a rendezvous of all punishments. His house is the devil's * Alart. Epig.

tavern ; the guests have sweet wine, but a sharp reckoning. The devil's fence-school ; all the stabbings, woundings, hackings, rackings, wliich torture the commomvealth, are tliere experimentally taught. The devil's brothel-house; where the usurer is tlic bawd, and his moneys the harlots: only they differ fri.m harlots in their pregnancy and teeming, for they lay, like pigeons, every month. Marry, because the devil is landlord, his rent eats out all their gains. [5.] Slander is a water in great request; every guest of the devil is continually sipping of tliis viaL It robs man of his good name, which is above all riches, Prov. xxii. 1. There be some think to scape this censure ; though they speak evils of others, yet true evils ; but Ham is cursed for declaring his father's nakedness, though true. Gen. ix. 22-25. These are like vultures, ad male olentla fevuntur, —they pass over meadows and flowers to fall upon carrions; like flies, they leap over all a man's good parts and virtues to light upon his sores. If Noah had not been once drunk, Ham had lost his sport. There are many of these Ziphims, 1 Sam. xxiii. 19, that to curry favour with Said betray David; but in my opinion, Doeg's truth, 1 Sam. xxii. 19, was worse than Rahab's lie. Josh. ii. 5. A man's good name is dear. Plenque famam qui non conscientiam verentur, —Many stand upon their credit that neglect their conscience. Vdium est hominum alios viles facere, et qui suo merito placere non possunt, placere velle aliorum compara-tione, —It is the part of vile men to viUfy others, and to climb up to unmerited praise by the stairs of another's disgrace. This is no new dish at some novelist's table, to make a man's discredit as sauce to their meat; they will toss you the maligned's reputation, with the rackets of reproach, from one to another, and never bandy it away tUl they have supped. If they want matter, jealousy is fuel enough ; it is crime enough for a formalist, (so they term him,) that he is but suspected guilty. But the matron of the cloister would never have sought the nuns in the vault if she had not been there herself. It was Publius Clodius's best policy, lest Cicero should accuse him justly of sacrilege, to step in first and tell the senate that Tully profaned all religion in his house. Thus he that hath most corrupt lungs soonest complains of the unsavoury breath of others.

The calumniator is a wretched thief, and robs man of the best thing he hath, if it be a true maxim that the efficacy of the agent is in the apt disposition of the patient; whiles thou deprivest man of his credit, thou takest from him all power to do good. The slanderer wounds three at one blow: uno idu, uno nidu —(1.) The receiver, in poisoning his heart with an uncharitable conceit. (2.) The reputation of the slandered : for a man's name is like a glass, if it be once cracked it is soon broken; every briar is ready to snatch at the torn garment. (3.) The worst blow lights on his own soul; for the arrow wUl rebound : malediji:it sibi. The slandered scapes best: ' for God shall bring forth his righteousness as the light,' tfec, Ps. xxxvil 6. These are those hogs in a garden, which root up the flowers of a man's good parts. But if there were no receiver there would be no thief; men would not so burden themselves with the coals of contumely, if they had nowhere to unload thenL It were well for Mcphibosheth that Ziba dwelt a good way from court. If Saul were deaf, or Doeg dumb, no matter which ; for these are two whelps of that litter that must go to hell; one liath the devil in his ear, the other in his tongue. It is a good general rule of St Bernard, to govern our tongues by : Sint verba tua vara, vera, ponderosa. : yura, contra muUiloquium; vera, contra faUiloquiiun; ponderosa, contra vaniloquium, —Let thy words be few, true, substantial: many words, false words, vain words, become not a Christian's lips. Invectives against other

men are ever evil, but then worse when they be false. A man may sin even in speaking the truth, when just circumstances forbid it; but he cannot but sin in lyin"', and there is no circumstance can clear him. Cor Unguce fosderat naturae sandio, veluti in quodam certo connubio ; ergo aim dissonent cor et lo-cutio, sermo concipitur in adulterio, —Nature hath knit the heart and the tongue together in the bands of marriage; that which the tongue brings forth without (or contrary to) the heart is the birth of adultery. Speak then ' the truth from thy heart,' but wrong not thy brother with a needless truth. Thus calumnies are stolen waters ! Beware then, you diaboli, accusers of your brethren, dogs with arrows in your thighs, that are troubled with sore mouths, and cankers in your teeth ; you drink stolen waters, and minister them to others also ; both physician and patient shall die for it.

[6.1 The last vial of this course is Flattery, a water taken out of Narcissus's well; whereof when great men drink plentifully, they grow mad in their own admiration : and when self-love hath once befooled the brains, the devil himself would not wish the train of consequent sins longer. This is a terrible enchantment, that robs men with delight; that counts simplicity a silly thing, and will swear a falsehood to please a Felix. This man outruns the devil: he is the ' father of lies,' yet we never read that he swore to a lie; for he that swears acknowledgeth the being that he swears by greater than himself, which the devil scorns to do. The flatterer, in announcing a lie and swearing to it, hath a trick beyond the devil. The superlative titles of these men cause others to overvalue themselves. Pride derives her encouragement from the flatterer's artificial commendations. Thou art far in debt, and fearest arrests; he that should come and tell thee thou art rich, able to purchase, swimmest in a full and flowing stream, thou givest no credit to him, though he would give too much credit to thee. Thy soul's state is more beggarly, broken, bankrupt of grace, and run in arrearages with God, Rev. iii. 17 ; yet the flatterer praiseth the riches of thy virtues, and thou believest him. It is a fearful and fanatical blindness for a man to carry his eyes in a box, like Plutarch's Lamia?, and only look into himself by the eyes of his para-.sites; as if he desired to read the catalogue of his own good parts through the" spectacles of flattery, which makes the least letter of a great show, and sometimes a cipher to be mistaken for a figure. The sycophant's language is a false glass, and represents thy conscience white when thou mayest change beauty with the Moor, and lose not by the bargain. Let Herod be as hollow as a kecks, and as light as air, yet weighed in his parasites' balance, he shall poise with solid virtue, nay, with God himself

Oh for some golden statute against these Aristophanes' fawners and Hero-diau pickthanks, that cry, 'Eu, ev, and Vox Dei, like the churchwardens' bills. Omnia bene, everything is as it should be, when ' all the foundations of the earth are out of course:' these Italianate apes, and French parrots, that can s[)in themselves silken suits, ex assentando, on the voluble wheels of their j)leasing tongues! Oh tliat we could think, when these beasts play and skip above their wont, that there is some tempest a-coming ! The flatterer is a delightful cozenage, smooth perjury, rumour's friend, conscience's adversary, honesty's murderer. He allures to vice unkenned; colours vice perpetrated ; the horriblest sin is but an error in his verdict. He can ' bless and curse with one mouth,' James iii.; laugh and cry with one look ; kiss .111(1 betray with the sign, Luke xsM. 48. Bion compares him to a beast; I'lato to a witch ; all to a thief; some to a devil. Plus nocet lingua adula-torit quam manus persecutoris* There is no foe to the flatterer. The gram-• August in Tsal. Ixvi.

marians fitly, moldle cum fixo; like the adjective, he varies case and gender with his substantive. A chameleon tetigit quoscunque colores, to all colours, except red and white, saith Pliny; red signifying modesty, white innocency.

• Natio comocda est: rides ? majore cachinno Concutitur,' &c.;—*

If thou sayest it is hot, he wipes his forehead ; if cold, he quakes of an ague. As in the Delphic oracle, Pythia did never prophesy but when she was set on a trivet and the wind blew intelligence into her; so this devil's prophet is dumb till you set him on the tripod of ease, credit, gain, and stroke him on the head like a spaniel, and then he will lick your hand, and fill your ears with the oracles of hell. He is sihi natus, multis notus, omnibus nocuus; mundi nothus, inferni nixus, —He is born to himself, known to many, hurtful to all; the world's bastard, hell's true-born cliild. Patiiur dum potitur, —He sutlers much that he may put up somewhat; when he speaks of the absent, he knows no case but the accusative, loves none, from his patron, but the dative. Hie laudes numeral, dum ille munerat, —He will multiply thy praises, if thou wilt divide to him thy goods. There is a monstrous fable in the Alcoran, that the earth is placed upon the sharp end of an ox's horn, the weakness whereof is the cause of earthquakes; but he that fixeth his estate on a flatterer's sharp tongue will put an earthquake into it, and soon run to ruin. Our chronicles report of Canutus, that when his flatterers styled him ruler of sea and land, he commanded his chair of estate to be brought to the sea-side; and when the waves beat on him, he cried, ' I command you to return ;' the sturdy waves, scornful of such a control,—as the devils were of the sons of Sceva, Acts xix. 15, ' Jesus we know, but who are ye 1' God we know, calming floods, quieting the winds, but who art thou 1 —beat on him more furiously. Then, Lo, saith Canutus, what a goodly god I am ; and behold my command ! convincing his flatterers. Oh that some strong west wind would rid our land of these locusts ! Exod. x. 19. The third and last sort of vials served in at this course are stolen waters which immediately rob ourselves. The devil finds us cheer at our own cost; and with cates stolen from our own possessions, he makes us a bounteous feast. Truth is, every cup of sin we drink of is a water that, at least indirectly, robs ourselves : neither can we feed on atheism, heresy, sacrilege, murder, adultery, but we rifle our souls of grace, our consciences of peace; for the devil's banquet never makes a man the fatter for his feeding. The guests, the more they eat, the more lean and meagre they look : their strength goes away with their repast, as if they fed on nothing but sauce; and all their sweet delicates in taste were but fretting in digestion, like vinegar, olives, or pulse; neither doth batten and cherish, becau.se it wants a blessing imto it. Only it gets thera a stomach : the more heartily they feed on sin, the greater appetite they have to it. Though custom of sin hath brought them ' past feeling,' Eph. iv. 19, and they have long since made a deed of gift of themselves into the hands of licentiousness, yet behold in them still an eager prosecution of .sin, even with greediness. Though miscliief was the last thing they did when they went to bed, nay, the only action of their bed, yet ' they rise early, so soon as the morning is light, to practise it,' Micah ii. 1. They may be sick of sin's incurable surfeit, yet feel themselves hungry stUl; that the cup of their wickedness may be filled to the brim, and so receive a portion and proportion of torment accordingly. Thus as the gyruvayi equi, molam trahentes, multum ambulant, parum promovent, —the mUl-turn-* J liven. Sat. iii.

]90 THE FATAL BANQUET. [SeRMONXIV.

ing horse, conjured into his circle, moves much, but removes little ; or as the poet of Ixion, Volvitur Ixio}i,quise sequiturque/ugitgue : so the more these guests eat, the more unsatisfied they rise up : Micah vi. 14, 'Ye shall eat, and not be satisfied; ye shall drink, and not be filled ;' as he that dreameth of good cheer, but awakes with an hungry soul. All the delights of sin put not the least drop of good blood into the veins, nor bless the heart with the smallest addition of content. They browse like beasts on these sweet boughs, but they look thin after it, as if they had devoured their own bowels.

[1.] The fir.st vial of this nature is Pride : a stolen water indeed, but derived from thine own fountain. It may strike God, offend thy brother, but it doth immediately rob thyself. The decoration of the body is the devora-tion of the substance : the back wears the silver that would do better in the purse. Armenta vertuutur in omamenta, —The grounds are unstocked to make the back glister. Adam and Eve had coats of beasts' skins, Gen. iii. 21 ; but now many beasts, flesh, skins, and all, will scarce furnish a prodigal younger son of Adam with a suit. And as many sell their tame beasts in the country to enrich their wild beasts in the city, so you have others that to revel at a Christmas will ravel out their patrimonies. Pride and good husbandry are neither kith nor kin ; but Jabal and Jubal are brethren. Gen. iv. 20, 21 : Jabal, that dwelt in tents, and tended the herds, had Jubal to his brother, who was tlie father of music, to shew that Jabal and Jubal, frugality and music, good husbandry and content, are brothers, and dwell together. But Pride and Opulence may kiss in the morning, as a married couple, but will be divorced before sunset. They whose fathers could sit and teU their Michaelmas-hundreds, have brought December on their estates, by wearing May on their backs all the year.

This is the plague and clog of the fashion, that it is never unhampered of debts. Pride begins with Habeo, ends with Debeo ; and sometimes makes good every syllable gradatim. Debeo, I owe more than I am worth. Bco, I bless my creditors; or rather, bless myself from creditors. Eo, I betake me to my heels. Thus England was honoured with them whUes they were gallants; Gerniany or Rome must take them, and keep them, being beggars. Oh that men would break their fasts with frugality, that they might never sup with want. What folly is it to begin with Plaudite, ' Who doth not mark my bravery?' and end with Planglte, 'Good passenger, a penny !' Oh that they could from the liigh promontory of their i-ich estates foresee how near pride and riot dwell to the Spital-house ! Not but that God alloweth both garments for necessity. Gen. iv. 21, and ornaments for comeliness, Esther vi. 11, according to thy degree; but such must not wear silks that are not able to buy cloth. Many women are iJropter venudatem invenusta\ saith Chry-sostom,—s(i fine that they are the worse again. Fashions far-fetched and dear-bought fill the eye with content, but empty the purse. Christ's re[)roof to the Jews, Luke xi. 47, may fitly be turned on us, 'Why do ye kill the prophets, and build up their tombs V Why do ye kill your souls with shis, and garnish your boLlies with braveries? The maid is finer than the mistress, which, St Jerome saith, would make a man laugh, a Christian weep to see. Hagar is tricked uj), and Sarah put into rags ; the soul goes every day in Ler work-day clothes, unhighted with graces, wldlcs the body keeps perpetual holiday in gayness. The house of Saul is set up, the fiesh is graced ; the huuse of David is persecuted and kept down, the spirit is neglected.

I know that pride is never without her own pain, though she will not feel it; be her garments what they will, yet she wdl never be too hot nor too cold. There Is no time to pray, read, hear, meditate; all goes away in

triminiiig. Tliere is so much rigging about the ship, that, as Ovid wittily, pars minivia est ipsa puella sui, —a woman for the most part is the least part of herself. Foemina culta nimis, foemina casta minus, —Too gaudy bravery argues too slender cha.stity. 'The garment of salvation,' Isa. Ixi. 10, is slighted i and the ' long white robe,' liev. vii. 9, of glory scorned ; the Lord Jesus Christ, a garment not the worse, but the better for wearing, Horn. xiiL 14, is thrown by; and the ridiculous chain of pride, Ps. Ixxiii. G, is put on. But ornamentum est quod ornat; ornat, quod lionestiorem facit, —that alone doth beautify which doth beatify or make the soul ha])py; no ornament doth so grace us as that we are gracious. Thus the substance is emptied for a show; and many rob themselves of all they have to put a good suit on their backs.

[2.] The next cup of these stolen waters is Epicurism: a water which whiles we sup of, we suck ourselves; a sin that whiles men commit it, it connnits them, either to the highway or the hedges ; and from thence, either by a writ or a warrant, an arrest or a mittimus, to the prison. Solomon saith, Prov. xxi. 17, ' he shall not be rich.' The gut is a gulf that will easily swallow all his comings in. Meat shoidd be, as wise Agur prayed, ' food convenient for thee,' or as the Hebrew phrase is, the food of thy allowance. This dish is to feed on all dishes that may please the appetite, or rather may delight surfeit, for appetite dares not lodge in an epicure's house. This sin is instar omnium, like the feast itself, save that the glutton feeds on God's good creatures corporally; but on Satan's mystical board is set nothing but what is originally evil, and absolutely baneful. So that here, gluttony, that feeds on all dishes, is but a private dish itself, and though perhaps for the extent and largeness it takes up the greater room, yet for the number it is but one.

It is most rank idolatiy, says Paul; and so near to atheism, with a no God, that it makes a carnal god, Phil. iii. 19. In mea patria Deus venter: as profound and profane as the Babylonians' sacrifice; they to their Bel, these to their belly. Perhaps, you will say, they are more kind to themselves ; not a w-hit, for they wrap up death in their full morsels, and swallow it as pills in the pap of delicacy. They overthrow nature with that should preserve it, as the earth that is too rank mars the corn. They make short work with their estates, and not long with their lives; as if they knew that if they lived long, they must be beggars : therefore at once they make haste to spend their hvings, and end their lives. Full suppers, midnight revels, morning junkets, give them no time to blow, but add new to their indigested surfeits. They are the devil's crammed fowls, like yEsop's hens, too fat to lay, to produce the fruits of any goodness. They do not dispen-sare, but dissipare Imia Domini —wisely dispense, but blindly scatter the gifts of God. They pray not so much for daily bread as for dainty bread; and think God wrongs them, if they may not. Dives-like, ' fare deliciously every day.' Sense is their jmrveyor; appetite their steward. They place paradise in their throats, and heaven in their guts. Meantime, the state wastes, the soul pines, and though the flesh be puffed and bhjwn up, the spirits languish; they love not to live in a fen, but to have a fen in them.

It is not plague enough that God ' withal sends leanness into their souls,' but their estates sink, their lives fall away; they spin a web out of their own bowels : worse than the uMdiuTiCtpayoi, men-eaters, they are ahrofuyoi, self-eaters. They put a pleurisy into their bloods, a tabe and cojisumption into their states, an apoplexy into their souls. ' The meat that perislieth not,' John vi. 27, is fastidious to their palates; that they may feed on that which

■|92 THE FATAL BANQUET. [SeRMON XIV.

feeds on them : and so at once devour and be devoured; drink of a cup that drinks up them.

[;}.] The third vial is Idleness : a filching water too, for it steals away our means, both to get goods and to be good. It is a rust to the conscience, a thief to the estate. The idle man is the devil's cushion, whereupon he sits and takes his ease. He refuseth all works, as either thankless or dangerous. Thus charactered, he had rather freeze than fetch wood; he had rather steal than work, and yet rather beg than take pains to steal; and yet in many things rather want than beg. Ignavi sunt fures, saith Melancthon,—sluggards are thieves; they rob insensibly the commonwealth, most sensibly themselves : ' Poverty comes on him as an armed man,' Prov. xxiv. 34. The Idiesby* is poverty's prison; if he live without a calling, poverty hath a calling to arrest him. When the cistern of his patrimony is emptied, and seems to invite his labour to replenish it, he flatters himself with enough still, and looks for supply without pains. Necessity must drive him to any work, and what he cannot auferre, he will differre —avoid, he will delay.

Every get-nothing is a thief, and laziness is a stolen water. If the devil can win thee to ply hard this liquor, he knows it will whet thy stomach to any vice. Faction, thievery, lust, drunkenness, blood, with many birds of this black whig, offer themselves to the idle mind, and strive to prefer their service. Would you know, says the poet, how -^gistus became an adijlterer ? In promptu causa est ; desidiosus erat, —The cause is easy, the answer ready : he was idle. He that might make his estate good by labour, by idleness robs it. This is a dangerous water, and full of vile efi"ects; for when the lazy have robbed themselves, they fall aboard and rob others. This is the idle man's best end, that as he is a thief and lives a beast, so to die a beggar.

[4.] The fourth cup is Envy : water of a strange and uncouth taste. There is no pleasure in being drunk with this stolen water; for it frets and gnaws both in palates and entrails. There is no good reUsh with it, either in taste or digestion. Only it is like that acidula aqua that Pliny speaks of, which makes a man drunk sooner than wine. Envy keeps a register of injuries ; and graves that in marble which Charity writes in the dust, wrong. It cannot endure that any should be conferred with it, preferred to it.

* Nee quemquam jam ferre potest Pompeiusve parem; '—

Cffisar can brook no greater, Pompey no rival, John Baptist was of another spirit: John iii. 29, when he heard that the people had left him to foUow Christ, he spake with the voice of content, ' My joy is fulfilled. He must increase, and I must decrease.' Invidus non est idoneus auditor,^ —The envious man is an incompetent hearer ; his ears are not fit to his head. If he hears good of another, he frets that it is good; if HI, he is discontent that he may not judge him for it. If wronged, he cannot stay God's leisure to (put him : he is straight either a Saul or an Esau; by secret ambushes, or by open ho.slility, he nuist carve himself a satisfaction. No plaster will heal his pricked linger, but his heart-blood that did it; if he might serve himself, he would take unreasonable pennyworths. St Augustine would cool his heat. Vis vi/ulicari, Christiane ? —Wilt thou be revenged of thine adversary, O Cliristian ( Tarry a wliile : 7iondum vindicatus est Chnstus, —thy Lonl and Saviour is not yet avenged of his enemies.

Malice is .so mad, that it will not spare friends to wreak vengeance on foes. So Carnot told the powder-traitors, that some innocent might bo destroyed

• I Buppoa.', a ijIucu for tbu coufiucmcut of idlois and vajjranta.— Ed. f Ariflt.

with many nocciit, if the public good could not otherwise be perfected. His instance was, that iu a town besieged, though some friends were there, yet no wrong nor offence, at advantage to cut all their throats. Hence, if there had been Papists in the rarliameut-house, yet rather than lose so holy a massacre, they must have flown up with others. Call you these saints ] Tan-tcene aniinis ccelestihus ira; ? It was God's reservation in the Old Testament, for accursed Sodom, Gen. xviii. 32, Si decern jusli, —' If ten righteous persons be found there,' &c. It was Christ's suspension in the New, Matt. xiii. 29, 'Let the .tares alone till harvest, lest the wheat be plucked up withal.' Thcodosius was taxed that insonies una cum sontibiis tnicidasset, —that ho had slain the good with the guilty, and might not be suffered to enter into tlie temple. In the primitive church the bishops stayed process against the Priscillian heretics, ne cathoUci cum illis perirent, —lest some good Christians shoiUd perish with them. Jehu, intenduig due destruction to the worshippers of Baal, made a special search that ' none of the Lord's servants were amongst them,' 2 Kings x. 23. But malice is ever blind, to sec what sequel attends her courses. The envious man is content to lose one eye of his own, so \\>i may put out both his neighbour's; nay, which is worse, he will lose botli his own to put out one of his. The least trespass shall not pass without suit. The de\il can send him on a very sliglit errand to Westminster Hall. Be the case never so broken, if the la-\Ayers' wit can stitch it together, that it may hold to a nisi prius, it is enough. I may, with a little inversion, read his destiny from the poet^—

' Hunc neu dira venena, nee hosticus auferet ensis. Nee laterum dolor, aut tussis, vel tarda podagra; Garrulus hunc quando consumet;'—

Let him not fear domestical poison, nor foreign sword, nor a stitch in his sides, nor a cough in his lungs, nor the gout in his joints : Hunc propritcs livor consumet, —He will fret himself to dust. His pra^cordia are steeped in vinegar. Prov. xiv. 30, ' A sound heart is the life of the flesh ; but envy is the rottenness of the bones.' The drunkard rots his flesh, the malicious his bones; he burns up his blood in the furnace of hatred.

' Insanit; cum aliena nequit, sua pectora rodit;'—

' Mad, that his poison will not others kill. He drinks it off himself, himself to spill.'

Envy is thrown like a ball of wild-fire at another's bam; rebounds and fires thine own. The swallow having crossed some lands and seas returns next summer to her old chimney; the arrow of malice shot far off turns upon his heart that set it flying. Bless yourselves; you know not whither you will be carried if once you be horsed on the back of the envious man. Forbear, then, this water, as thou lovest thy health, blood, life, and peace.

[5.] The fifth cup is Drunkenness : a vial of the waters of stealth, alitpiid food literally taken. For that Avhich ebriety sins withal is wine and strong drink. V^fortihus ad2)otandum ! —'Woe to them that are mighty to devour drink !' Isa. v. 22; and strong to carry it away, for their habUity en-courageth their more frequent sinning. But drunkenness, as it is a cup of this service, is a special water of itself at the devil's banquet. Tliis sin is a horrible sclf-tlicft ; God hath passed his word against him : ' The drunkard and the glutton shall come unto poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags,' Prov. xxiii. 21. He that drinks more in a day than he can earn in a week, what wHl his gettings come to at the .year's end ? There is no

VOL. L N

remedy; he must shake hands wdth beggar)^ and welcome it into his company. How many, in the compass of our knowledge, have thus robbed themselves, and been worse enemies to their own estates than the most mischievous thieves! Thieves cannot steal land, unless they be Westminster Hall thieves, crafty contenders that eat out a true title with a false evidence ; but the drunkard robs himself of liis lauds. Now he dissolves an acre, and then an acre, into the pot, till he hath ground all his ground at the malt-quern, and run all his patrimony through his throat. Thus he makes himself the living tomb of his forefathers, of his postcrit3\ He needs not trouble his sick mind with a will, nor distrust the fidelity of executors. He drowns all his substance at the ale-fat, and though he devours much, is the leaner every way. Drunkenness is regius mo?-bus, a costly sin. It is like gunpowder, many a man is blown up by it. He throws his house so long out at windows, till at last his house throws him out at doors. This is the tippler's progTess: from luxury to beggary; from beggary to thievery; from the tavern to Tyburn; from the alehouse to the gallows.

[0.] The last vial of these self-stolen waters is Govetousness : a dish of drink at this banquet which more come for than for all the rest. The covetous is a cruel thief to himself, Avorse than the devil, for the devil would give much for a soul. How much would he give for himself'? The covetous man loves money better than his own soul. This mercenary soldier is fit for any ofiice in the devil's camp. There is no sm so ugly, so hideous, but sent to the covetous man's door in a golden vizor, it shall have entertainment. This shi is like a great beast, which, violently breaking upon God's freehold, makes a gap wide enough for the whole herd to follow. Friiitur mundo, utitur Deo, —The covetous posscsseth the world, and makes use of God; but if a man cannot serve ' God and Mammon,' he can much less serve ' Mammon and God.' God scorns to be set after the world. He heavens himself on earth, and for a Uttle pelf cozens himself of bliss. He steals quiet from his own bones, peace from his conscience, grace from his soul. Is not this a thief]

How much of fame, liberty, peace, conscience, is laid out to purchase gold ! Some for love of it would pluck down heaven, and empty it of a Deity; others, to overtake it, run quick to hell. And they that seek it find it; for if a man -will sell heaven for pelf, he shall not fail of his purchase. Hence Mammon is the god of no beggars, but the merchants, and gentles, and cormorants, and usurers, and chufis. ' The idols of the heathen were silver and gold.' It is but inverting the sentence. Their idols are silver and gold, and silver and gold are our idols.

Many a wretched father plays the thief with himself, and starves his own carcase to leave wealth to his babe. He lives on roots that his prodigal heir may feed on pheasants ; he keeps the chimney corner that his heir may frequent ordinaries; he drinks water that his heir may drink wine, and that to drunkenness. Though he be richer than Dives, he lives like an alchymist. Miserable fathers make wretched sons; none often have more undone them than they tliat have done most for them. They make heritages, but God makes heirs : the children of such churls seldom roast what their fathers ' took in hunting,' Prov. xii. 27. Now, what thief can more spoil another than such a man doth himself? He cannot find in his heart to put a good morsel into his belly. He dares not eat an egg lest he should lose a chicken. A poor bi'ggar is in better estate than a rich miser. He wants many things, but this wants all things. Corpus extenuat, ut lucruvi extendat, —He wrinkles and contracts his body that he may enlarge and replenish his purse. Ho pincheth his carcase to stiUf his cap-case. No marvel if that he hear not

the moans of the poor, when he is deaf to the complaints of his own belly. Whereas, Prov. xvi. 26, ' He that laboureth, labonreth for himself, for lus mouth craveth it of him.' It is the voice not only of God's Spirit, that so it should be, nor of reason only, that so it must be, but even of nature, that so it is ; unless in such unreasonable beasts as the covetous, or rather—worse than beasts, for the)/ serve the necessity of nature—unnatural wi-etches, dressing, like cooks, much good meat, and not vouchsafing to lick their own fingers. ' There is an evil,' saith Solomon, ' under the sun,'—and such an evil that the sun can scarce see a worse,—' a man to whom God hath given riches,' and that so abundantly ' that he wanteth nothing of all that his soul can desire, yet God giveth hira not the power to eat thereof, but a stranger eatetli it : this is vanity, and an evil disease,' Eccles. vi. 1, 2. A disease it is, and fitly called the dropsy.

Thus the covetous man pines in plenty, like Tantalus, up to the chin in water, yet thirsty. He that hath no power to take part of God's blessings, which he keepeth, plays the thief finely, and robs himself. His extortion hath erst stolen from others, and now he plays rob-tliief, and steals from himself. They say the rule of charity should be fetched from home. He that is miserable to himself will never be liberal to others ; he that pines himself, God bless me from begging at his door ! It is miserable living at this man's finding, for, like a chymist, ho turns everything into silver, what he should wear and what he should eat, and so robs both back and belly of warmth, of sustenance. All to conjure a little money into the circle of his purse, which he will do, though he fetch spells from the devil to do it; yet keeps it only to look on, not to use. Nemini bonus, sibi jjessimus, —As he is good to none, so, let it be liis plague, he is worst to himself. He is ever in debt to his belly; the purest metal is for his coffer; the coarsest meat is good enough for his stomach. He doth so cross the vanity of pride, which esteemeth the dearest things the best, that he thinks nothing sweet but what is cheap. If ever he satisfy his complainmg stomach with a good morsel, it shall be from his neighbour's trencher.

He hath not so much idle time as to sleep, but either he dreameth of his gold or riseth to see if the doors be fast. So Claudian, amongst others, describes the covetous's dream: Et vigil elapsas qucerit avarus opes, — He seeks that in his .sleep which he could not find waking. The covetous give better ear to the priests of Janus than to the apostles of Jesus. Qucvrenda j)eci(nia primum est, —First seek money, hath thrust out Qucerite primum regnum Dei, —' First seek the kingdom of God,' Matt. vi. 33. They will hear us willingly, if our text be commodity, and our sermon policy. A bill that contains the sale of a lordship, or the news of a mortgage, or the offer of good security for ten in the hundred, is more heeded than a book on the stationer's shop with The Waij to Heaven for the title. Neither let us, as is said, judge him only to drink of this water that extorts from others, but even him that pincheth himself. So St Augustine, Nan solum avarus est qui rapit aliena, sed qui cupide sei-vai sua, —He is not only covetous that raketh from others, but he also that taketh from himself The niggard's looks to his entering guests are like Diana's image in Chios, which frowned with a lowering countenance on all that came into the temple, but looked blithe and smiled on them that departed. This is he that thinks there are no such angels a.s his golden ones ; no such paradise as in his counting-house. He cares not to run quick to the devil of an errand, so gain sends him, and pays him for his pains. He is a special guest at the devil's board, and never misseth his ordinary, which he affects the more because he pays nothing.

The more he devours, the hungrier he is ; a full supper of profit gives him the more eager appetite to his morrow's breakfast, Mic. ii. 1. All he eats is like physic to him; he looks thinner after it. He takes great pains to go to hell; whither since he will go, he might do it wdth more ease. He hath no heaven, neither present nor future; and having sold bliss for riches, as iEsop's dog did the flesh for the shadow, behold he loseth both. Other sinners, for their damnation, have somewhat which they call delightful: the covetous man buys hell with hell; eternal, with present anguish. Thus he robs himself of all content; and when all is done he is a man undone, and ' pierced through with many sorrows,' 1 Tim. vi. 10.

We have now ended the service of the waters with, (1.) The prescription of their being, waters ; and, (2.) The description of their natures, stolen. The vices which under this smooth name the devil tempts his guests to surfeit on, are to your hearing odious. I will step no further to fetch in application than from the word stolen.

AH stolen things are accountable for ; the law of all nations hath provided that cuique suum, every man may enjoy his own. God is a just judge, a retributor of every man his own. No thief can scape the apprehension of his pursuivants, the appearance to his sessions, the penalty of his sentence. He hath appointed a general assizes, a day ' wherein he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained,' &c., Acts xvii. 31. To which there is a necessity of appearance: ' For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body,' &c., 2 Cor. v. 10. At which time an account is not avoidable: ' God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil,' Eccles. xii. 14. What, then, will be the success of these stolen waters 1 We carry out our robberies now without question; we invade our brethren, we evade the law: but behold 'at evening-tide trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us,' Isa. xvii. 14.

Felony is the indictment, a rebellion against our Sovereign's crown and dignity. i\.mbitious thieves in the court, simoniacal thieves in the church, hollow-hearted thieves in the city, oppressing and men-eating thieves in the country—all must be summoned, their debts summed, their doom sentenced. The impartial conscience from the book of their lives shall give in clear evidence. There is no retaining of counsel, no bribing for a partial censure, no trick of demur, no putting off and suspending the sentence, no evading the doom, The cursed generation of thefts are now easily borne, and borne out. Subtlety can give them the help of a conveyance, and money purchase a connivance. But then, alas ! what shall become of them, and of many souls for them 1 What shall become of all the traitors, gory murderers, im-j)udent atheists, secret church-robbers, speckled adulterers, rusty sluggards, nasty drunkards, and all the defiled wretches that have sucked damnation from tlie breasts of black iniquity 1 An impenetrable judge, an impleadable indictment, an intolerable anguish shall seize upon them. Mountams of sand were lighter, and millions of years shorter, than their torments, Kev. vi. IG.

Oh, think, think of this, ye sons of rapine, that with greediness devour Btolen waters: you cannot rob God of his glory, man of his comfort, yourselves of your happiness, but God, man, your own souls, shall cry against you! Wiiat tluuulcr can now beat into you a fear of that which then no power shall case you of? Why strive we not, Nineveh-like, to make the message of our overthrow the overthrow of the message, and so work, that.

PrOV. IX. 17.] THE FAT.\L IJ.VNQUnT. lOJ

according to Samson's riddle, 'the destroyer may save us?' Wherefore are we -warned, but that we might be armed 1 and made acquainted with hell in the speculation, but that we may prevent the horror of it in jtassion ? Let lie tell you, ye thieves that sit at Satan's board, there is a thief shall steal on you, steal all fi-om you: 2 Pet. iil 10, 'The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a graat noise,' etc.;—xXscr^jr, a thief; a^ri roD xXstthv, to take away privily, or by stealth; or kto t-oD xaXurmv, of hiding or covering. Fur a furuo, quia in obscuro venit, —a thief as well for stealing on us, as for stealing from us. He comes m the dark, when nobody sees; treads on wool, that nobody hears; watcheth an hour, that nobody knows.

This thief shall steal on you, perhaps, banqueting at this feast of vanity, as the flood came on the old world whiles they ate and drank, and were merry, Luke xvii. 27. ' Watch therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord doth come,' Alatt. xxiv. 42. So Chrysostom on that place, from our Saviours comparison of the goodman of the house : i\\m hederetur illefurto, si sciret ven-turum: vos scitis, paratiores esse debetis,^' —The thief should not hurt him, if lie knew of his coming: you know he wiU come, prepare for his welcome. We are all householders: our bodies are our houses; our souls our goods; our senses are the doors and windows; the locks are faith and prayer. The day of our doom wiU come as a thief; let our repentance watch, let it never sleep, lest we perish. Si prccscirent homines quando morituri sint, dili-gentiani super earn rem ostenderent, —If men foreknew the time of their death, they would shew carefulness in their preparation: how much more being ignorant ? But, alas ! ignorance covenants with death; and security ' puts far away the evil day, and causeth the seat of violence to come near,' Amos vi. .3. When the prophets of our Israel threaten judgments, you flatter yourselves with the remoteness,—Ezek. xii. 27, ' The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off,'— as if it concerned you not what ruin laid waste the land, so ' peace might be in your days.' But, Isa. Ivii. 21, 'There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.' Our rosebuds are not withered, our dances are not done: sleep, conscience; lie still, repentance. Thus, with the sentence of death instant, and in a prison of bondage to Satan present, saith St Augustine, maximo gaudio debacchamur, —we are drunken, we are frantic with pleasures. There may be other, there can be no greater, madness.

Lo the success of these stolen waters. You hear their nature: time hath prevented their sweetness. God of his mercy, that hath given us his word to inform our judgment, vouchsafe by his Spirit to reform our consciences,' that we may conform our lives to his holy precepts! For this let us pray, &c.

' What here is good, to God ascribed be. What is iufirm belongs of right to me.'

• Horn. 78.

THE FATAL BANQUET.

THE BEEAKIN6-UP OE THE EEAST.

Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. — Peov. IX. 17.

The custom of sin hath so benumbed the sense of it, and the delighted affections brought the conscience so fast asleep in it, that he 'troubles Israel,' 1 Kings xviii. 17, who would waken Israel; and his speech is harsh barbarism that speaks against the devil's Diana, Acts xix. 34, the idol of vice, which many worship. Our understandings think well of heaven; but our affections think better of earth. Alexander, after his great conquests, wrote to the Grecian senate, ut se deuni facerent, —that they would accept him into the number of their gods. With a resolute consent, they denied it. At last a right politician stood up, and told them, that videndum est, nc, dum caelum nimis custodirent, terram amitterent, —they should look well to it, lest, whiles they were so religious for heaven, they lost their part of earth.* Hence they made, though but a perfunctory and fashionable decree, Quoniavi Alexander deus esse vult, dens esto, —Since Alexander will be a god, let him be one. God commends to us his heavenly graces; Satan, 'his lying vanities,' Jonah ii. 8. Our judgments must needs give assent to God; but because his precepts go against the grain of our affections, and the devil tells us that curiosity for the uncertain joys of heaven will lose us the certain pleasures of earth, wc settle upon the Grecian resolution, though more seriously, not to be so troubled for our souls as to lose a moment of our carnal delights. This is the devil's assertion, in calling stolen waters sweet; the truth whereof I am bold, though a little I disquiet your lusts, to examine. You have heard the prescription, rvaters; the description, stolen.

(3.) The ascription of the quality, in itself, or effect to others, of these waters, if we may believe temptation, is sweet: ' Stolen waters ai'e sweet.'' It is the speech of the ' father of lies,' and therefore to carry little credit with us. Sweet! to none but those that are lust-sick; like them that arc troubled with the green sickness, that think chalk, and salt, and rubbish, .savoury. It is a strangely-affected soul that can find sweetness in sin. Sin is the depravation of goodness. The same that rottenness is in the apple, ♦ yElian. Var. Hist., lib. ii., cap. 19.

sourness in the wine, putrefaction in the flesh, is sin in the conscience. Can that be sweet whicli is the depraving and depriving of all sweetness 1 Let any subtlety of the devil declare this riddle. The pre-existent privations were deformity, confu.sion, darkness. The position of their opposite perfection.s was the expulsion of those foul contraries. Sin comes like l)leak and squalid winter, and drives out these fair beauties; turns the sunshine to blackness, calmness to tempests, ripeness to corruption, health to sickness, sweetness to bitterness.

They desperately thrust themselves on the pikes of that threatened woe, Lsa. v., that dare say of 'bitter, It is sweet;' and consent to the devil in the pleasantness of his cheer, when the impartial conscience knows it is ' gall and wormwood,' Jer. ix. 15. Yet such is the strong enchantment whereby Satan hath wrought on their affections, that bloodiness, lust, perjury, oppression, malice, pride, carry with these guests an opinion of sweetness. If frothy and reeling drunkenness, lean and raking covetousness, meagre and blood-wasted envy, keen and rankling slander, nasty and ill-shapen idleness, smooth and fair-spoken flattery, be comely, what is deformed'? K these be sweet, there is no bitterness. But though the devnl be not ' an angel of light,' yet he would be like one, 2 Cor. xi. 14. Though he never speaks truth, yet he would often speak the colour of truth, Matt. iv. 6. Therefore, let us observe what fallacies and deceitful arguments he can produce to make good this attribute, and put the probability of sweetness into his stolen waters. For the devil would not be thought a dunce ; too weak to hold a position, though it be never so absurd. Stolen waters, iniquities, are sweet to the wicked in three respects :—[1.] Because they are stolen ; [2.] Because they are cheap ; [3.] Because they give deUght and persuaded content to the flesh.

[1.] Stolen or forbidden. Even in this consists the approbation of their sweetness, that they come by stealth, and are compassed by dangerous and forbidden pains. Furia 2)lacent, etiam quod furia, —Theft delights, even in that it is theft. The fruits of a wicked man's own orchard are not so pleasant-tasted as his neighbours' ; neither do they reserve their due sweetness if they be freely granted. But as the proverb hath it, Dulcia sunt poma, cum abest cicsfos, —Apples are sweet when they are plucked in the gardener's absence. Eve liked no apple in the garden so well as the forbidden, Gen. iii. 6. An-tiochus scorns venison as base meat if it be not lurched. It is a humour as genuine to our afl"ections as moisture is uiscparable to our bloods, that tiki-mur ill vdilitm semper, —we run mad after restrained objects. We tread those flowers under our disdainful feet, which, mured from us, we would break through stone walls to gather. The liberty of things brings them into contempt; neglect and dust-heaps lie on the accessible stairs. Diflaculty is a spur to contention; and there is nothing so base as that which is easy and cheap. iSol spedatorem, nisi cum deficit, non habet: nemo observat lunani nisi laborantem, —The two great lights of heaven, that rule in their courses the day and night, are beholden to no eyes for beholding them so much as when they are eclipsed. We admire things less wonderful, because more rare. If the sun shoidd rise but once in our age, we would turn Persians, and worship it.

Wines would be less set by, if our own lands were full of vineyards. Those things that nature hath hedged from us we long and languish for; when manna itself, because it lies at our doors, is loathed, Virtutem prasentem fere in nostris odimus; sublatam ex oculis procul quarimwi invidi. The more spreading good things are, the more thought vilo ; and, though against that old and true rule, the community shall detract from the commodity. It

is the pervcrscness of our natures, till sanctification hath put a new nature into us, that God's yoke, Matt. xi. 30, is too heavy for our shoulders. We cannot draw in the gears of obedience. We can travel a whole day after our dogs ; but if authority should charge us to measure so many miles, how often •would we complain of weariness ! The bird can sit out the day-measuring sun, see his rise and fall without irksomeness, whiles she is hatching her eggs; if her nest were a cage, with what impatience would she lament so long a bondage ! So the usurer, though he began his first bag with the first hour, and pulls not off his hands or his eyes till the eye of heaven is ashamed of it, and denies further light, he is not weary; let him sit at church two hours, the seat is uneasy, his bones ache, either a cushion to fall asleep with or he will be gone : that Christ may justly and fitly continue that his reproof upon such, Matt. xxvi. 40, ' Can ye not watch with me one hour V

Thus the command makes things burdensome, and prohibition desirable. The wicked would not so eagerly catch at vanities if God had not said, Nolite langere, —Touch them not. Rapine, lust, ebriety, sacrilege, would sit idle for want of customers, if God's interdiction had not set a ne ingrediaris on their doors : 'Enter not,' Pro v. iv. 14. Rome, I know not how truly, brags—and let her boast her sin, Phil. iii. 19—that she hath the fewer adulterers because she sets up the stews. It is reported that Italy did never more abound with students than when Julian had shut up the school-doors, and turned learning into exile. He had fellows in that empire of so contrary dispositions, that some restrained all things, some forbade nothing, and so made their times either tyrannous or licentious ; insomuch that it was a busy question in those times, whether of those emperors were worse—one that would let every man do as he list, and the other that would suffer no man to do as he would.

It is observed of the Jews, that whiles the oracles of heaven were open, and religion leaned on .the shoulders of peace, they fell frequently to idolatry; but with the Babylonian bridle in their mouths, they eagerly pursue it: their persecution for it increased their prosecution of it. So the blood of martyrs feeds the church; as if from their dead ashes sprung, phcsnix-like, many professors.

If trodden virtue grow so fast, like camomile, how then doth restrained vice thrive ! Sure this hydra rather multiplies his heads by the blows of reproof. True it is, that ex malis moribus oriuntur pluri7nre leges, —if men were not prone to infinite sins, a more sparing number of laws would serve our turns. And the more dangerous the law hath made the passage of injustice, the more frequently, fervently they love to sail after it. What they quake to suffer, they tickle to do; as if their itch could not be cured till the law scratch them : so perverse is their disposition, that only coaction must force them to good, only correction bind them from evil. Now, as it is shame that necessity should draw us to that whereunto our own good should lead us, so it is past shame to war for that which God hath charged us to ware of Malum est agere quod prohibetur, sed agere quia jyrohibetw pes-simum,—'ile tliat doth that which is forbidden is evil; he that doth it because it is forbidden is a devil. But as the honest man, that hath somewhat to take to, is in uiost care to come out of debt; so he that hath neither honesty nor lands takes care only to come into debt and to be trusted.

Thus we all long for restrained things, and dote on difficulties; but look with an (jverly scorn and winking neglect on granted faculties. Pharaoh is sick of God's plague ; the peacealtle dismission of Israel will cure him : he Becg his medicine; no, he will be sicker yet, Israel shall not go, Exod. vui. Oh that these who wrestle with God would think that the more fiercely and

fiorily they assault him, they are sure of the sorer fall! The harder the earthen vessel rusheth upou the brazen, the more it is shivered in pieces. But nothing doth give the ungodly such content as that they dangerously pull out of the jaws of difficulty. No flowers have so good a smell as the stolen ; no repa.st .so .savoury as the cates of theft.

* Quoe venit ex tuto, minus est accepta voluptas;'—

Facility and liberty only takes off the edge of lust; and what God doth restrain, man pursues. The adulterer cares not for the chaste society of a fair and lo\-ing wife, but the lusts of uncleanness, which he steals with hazard from another's bed, are sweet in his opinion. Ahab's whole kingdom is despised ill his thoughts, whiles he is sick of Naboth's vineyard, 1 Kings xxi. 4. Hear Esau, Gen. xxv. 32,' What is my birthright to me, when I cannot taste of those red pottage V Oh the crossness of our refractory dispositions, that are therefore the more earnestly set upon the pro because God hath more clearly charged them with the contra .' as if our natural course was crab-like, to go backward ; and our delight was to be a second cross to Christ, whereby though we cannot crucify his tiesh, yet we oppose and oppugn his Spirit; as if cynically we affect snarling, or, like the giants, would tiy our strengths with Cod.

Thus we have examined the devU's reason, and find the natures of the wicked actually disputing for the truth of his assertion; and so, interdicta placetit, the waters of sin seem sweet, and are more greedily swallowed, because they are stolen. The ' prince of the air so rules in the hearts of the cliildren of disobedience,' Eph. ii. 2, that their appetites only covet prohibited meats, and theii- affections languish after discharged objects. But ' your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay,' Isa. xxix. IG. And, 'those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me,' Luke xix. 27. God hath a hook for Sennacherib, a curb for Saul, a bridle for these horses and mules, Ps. xxxii. 9 : the highest mover overrules the s^^^ft motion of these inferior spheres, that they cannot fire the world ; but as they deUght to make other men's possessions theirs by stealth, so they shall one day be glad if they could put off that is theirs upon other men, and shift away the torments that shall for ever stick on their flesh and spirits.

[2.] The second argument of their sweetness is their cheapness. The sins of stealth please the wicked because they are cheap; what a man gets by robbery comes without cost. The ungodly would spare their purse, though they lay out of their conscience. Farcatur sumptui. They will favour the temporal estates, though their eternal pay for it. Judas had rather lose his soul than his purse; and for thirty silverlings he sells his Master to the Pharisees, and himself to the devil. Yet when all is done, he might put his gains in his eye. It is but their conceit of the cheapness ; they pay dear f()r it in the upshot. The devil is no such frauk chapman, to sell Ms wares for nothhig. He would not proffer Christ the kingdoms without a price ; he mu-st be worshipped for them, Matt. iv. The guests carry not a draught from his table, but they must make courtesy to him for it. His worship must be thanked at least ; nay, thanks \vill not sei-ve,—affected, obeyed, honoured. He is proud still, and stands upon it, beyond measure, to be worshipped. He will part with an ounce of vanity for a dram of worship; but the worshiiiper had better part with a talent of gold.

The devil indeed keeps open house ; nodes atqne dies, (fee. He makes the world believe that he sells llobin Hood's pennyworths ; that he hath manum

expansam, a prodigal hand, and gives all gratis: but viis et moclis, lie is paid for it; and suck a price tliat the whole world comes short of the value. Only he is content to gave day, and to forbear till death; but then he claps up his debtors into everlasting prisonment, and lays a heavy execution on them, that even the Spanish Inquisition comes short of it. Thus as the king of Sodom said to Abraham, Gen. xiv. 21, Da mihi animus, ' Give me the souls,' take the rest to thyself; the prince of darkness is content that thou shouldest have riches and pleasures cheap enough ; only give him thy soul, and he is satisfied. The devil would have changed his arithmetic with Job, and rather have given addition of wealth than subtractioji, if he could have so wrought him to blaspheme God.

Satan seems marvellous frank and kind at first: munera magna quidem prcebet, sed pnebet in hamo. They are heneficia viscata, —ensnaring mercies; as the tree is the bird's refuge when she flies from the snare, and lo, there she finds bircUime, that tears off her flesh and feathers. Convivia, quai putas, insidicB sunt, —They are baits which thou takest for banquets. The poor man is going to prison for a small debt: the usurer lends him money, and rescues him ; two or three winters after, his fit comes again, and by how much a usurer is sharper than a mere creditor, he is shaken with the worse ague. That kindness plungeth him into a deeper bondage ; the fir.st was but a threaden snare, which he might break, but this is an infrangible chain of iron. Men are in want, and necessity is durum telum,, a heavy burden; the devil promiseth supply. Behold, the drunkard shall have wine, the thief opportunity, the malicious revenge; if they be hungry, he hath a banquet ready : but, as I have seen empirics give sudden ease to a desperate and inveterate grief, yet either with danger of life, or more violent revocation of the sickness; so theii- misery ere long is doubled, and that which was but a stitch in the side is now a shrewd pain at the heart. The stag and the horse, saith the fiction, were at variance : the horse, being too weak, desires man to help him ; man gets on the horse's back, and cliaseth the stag tisque ad fugam, usque ad mortem, —to flight, to death. Thus the horse gets the victory, but is at once victor et victns, captain and captive; for after that he could never free his mouth from the bit, his back from the saddle : Ron equitem dorso, 7ion frcenum dejndit ore. Man is beset with exigents; he waUs his weakness ; the devil steps in -with promises of succour. Judas is made rich, Gehazi gets change of suits, Nero is crowned emperor; but withal he gets possession of their affections, w^hence all the power of man cannot untenant him. Thus ' the last slavery is worse than the first,' Matt. xii. 4.5, and the cheer is not so cheap at sitting down as it is dear at rising up.

This is the devil's cheapness; no, ' every good and perfect gift is from above,' James i. 17. The devil gives nothing, but ' God gives to all 'jXousiug, richly,' or abundantly, 1 Tim. vi. 17, so that when he gives, he takes nothing back; for ' the gifts of the Spirit are dfJATu/j^'sXyira, without repentance,' Horn. xi. 29. ' Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters of life, and he that hath no money,' Ac, Isa. Iv. 1. God hath waters, no stolen waters, but waters of freedom ; and other blessings, if ye love liquid things, of answerable nature' greater virtue ; and those whereof he is a true proprietary : wine and milk—milk to nourish, wine to cherish the heart of man : ' buy them without money,' let not your poverty keep you back; here is dicapness, if you have a saving desire ; come freely and take your fills. ' The gospel is preached to the poor,' Matt. xi. 5. Think not ' to buy the graces of (Jod with money,' lest ' you and your money perish,' Acts viii. 20. Only take your time, and come whiles God is a-giving; for there is a time when

the door of bounty is shut. Though he stretch forth hi.s hand of mercy all the day, E,oni. x. 21, yet the night comes when he draws it back again. They that answer him, proflFering graces, as Daniel to Belshazzar, chap. v. 17, ' Keep thy rewards to thyself, and give thy gifts to another,' may knock at liis gates, and be turned away empty. Now, spare to sjieak, and spare to speed. Then, though you cry unto me, I wiU not hear; ' To-day, then, harden not your hearts,' Heb. iii. 7. Pray unto him, and ' he will give good things to them that ask him,' Matt. vii. 11. He doth not sell, but give; not the shadows, but the substances of goodness. The conclusion then is clear: blessings and graces are truly cheap, Ps. Ixxxiv. 11, 'And no good tiling will God withhold from them that walk uprightly;' ' All things shall work to their good' that are good, Rom. viii. 28. The devil gives nothing, but sells aU for price ; neither are they good things he gelleth, but jigaras boni, the mere forms and counterfeits of goodness.

But if the cheapness of sin so affect men, what mean they to run to Rome for it ? Where I do not say only, that sin and damnation hath a shrewd price set upon them, but even bUss and comfort.; and no pilgrim can get the least salve-plaster to heal his wounded conscience, but at an unreasonable reckoning. But soft! It is objected, that Rome is still baited in our sermons ; and when we seek up and down for matter, as Saul for his asses, we light upon the Pope stilL I answer, that I can often pass by his door and not call in ; but if he meets me full in the face and affronts me, for good manners' sake, non pra^lereo insalutatum, —I must change a word with him.

The Pope is a great seller of these stolen waters; yet his chapmen think them cheap. He thrusts his spear into the mountains, and sluiceth out whole floods ; as it is fabled of J^olus. He usurps that of God, that he can ' span the waters in his fist;' that he hath all the graces of God in his own power, and no water can pass besides his mill : as if he could ' call for the waters of the sea, and pour them out upon the face of the earth,' Amos v. 8 ; or as Job speaketh of behemoth, chap. xl. 23, ' Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not; and trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.' As if aU the graces of God were packed up in a bundle, or shut into a box, and the Pope only was put in trust to keep the key, and had authority to give and deny them. So ^olus, the god of wuids, saith the poet, gave Ulysses a mad, wherein aU the winds were bound and wrapped up together, except the western wind, which he must needs occupy to carry himself home. The Pope brags that all waters are banked up into his fountain, and none can drink but by his leave; except the supremacy, and perfect sanctity; which is the wind and the water he must use himself, thereby to sail to heaven,—a haven tliat few Popes arrive at,—but otherwise there is no grace to be had but from the mother-church of Rome, whose uncontrollable head is the Pope. A miserable engrosser, that would shut up all goodness into his own warehouse. Yet when he lists, he will undertake to ' pour floods on the solid ground,' Isa. xliv. 3, and ' make rivers run in dry places,' Ps. cv, 41.

He hath a huge pond of purgator}', whereout whole millions drink, and are pleased. But as Darius, pursued, drank puddle-water, and said it was the best drmk that ever he tasted • so it is the menaced terror, and the false alarms that the Jesuits ring in ignorance's ear, that make men drink so greedily at the Pope's puddle-wharf. He is a great landlord of these stolen waters : 'He sits upon many waters,' P^ev. xvii. 1. Some he steals from the Jews, some fi-om the Turk.s, some from the Pagan.s, much from idolatry, all from hei-esy. That, as John dc Rupe ScLssa in a jxipular sermon, if every

bird should fetch her own feathers, you should have a naked Pope. Let every river challenge her own waters, you will have a dry Eome. But now— ' Expatiata runnt per apertos flumina campos ;' —

His waters spread over the face of the earth; neither are they cheap, believe but a bird of their own cage: —

' Temples aud priests are merchandised for pelf, Altars, prayers, crowns, nay, heaven aud God himself.*

* Vendit Alexander cruces, altaria, Christum:

Vendere jure potest; emerat ille prius.'

* Rome's sea is sold, to quench the Pope's mad thirst: Well might he sell it; for he bought it first!'

• But is the shop never opened but to the mart of so good commodities 1 Yes, if their penance-parlour was opened, you might find a rate for stolen waters: pardon for offences committed, nay, indulgences for future sins, which but for an impregnable toleration might not be done. And let the traffickers speak from their own feeling how cheap they are. They have a pecuniary patronage, and are warranted from the Pope's exchequer rather than his chancery. Even that corrupt justice gives such sins no connivance but when the dusts of bribery have shut his eyelids. It is their carefulness, qicod hujusmodi dispensationes non concedantur pauperibus, —that such dispensations be not granted to the poor.

If this doctrine were true, it was time to rase Christ's speech out of the Scriptures, Matt. xix. 23, •■ It is hard for a rich man to enter into heaven;' for it is easy for the rich, that can open the gate with a golden key, and the poor are only in danger of exclusion ; and, that which would be most strange, hell should be peopled with none but beggars. Not a usurer, not an epicure, not a cormorant, not a vicious potentate, should grace the court of Satan ; for the Pope will for money seal them a passport for heaven. Nay, how doth this disgrace purgatory, when none but beggarly wretches shall be in danger of drowning in that whirlpool, whence all their friends, being equally poor, have not money enough for their redemption ! These are the rotten posts whereon the fabric of Rome stands. Think not these stolen waters cheap: your purses must pay for them. Yet happy were you, if no higher price was set on them. All is not discharged with your ready money; there is another reckoning : your souls must pay for them. The devil ties his customers in the bond of debts, and woe to them that are too far in his books; for if Christ cancel not ' his handwriting against them,' CoL ii. 14, he will sue them to an eternal outlawry, and make them pay their souls for that they boasted they had so good cheap.

[3.] The third argument of these waters' sweetness is derived from our corrupt affections. Sin pleaseth the flesh, Omne simile nutrit simile. Corra[)tion inherent is nourished by the accession of corrupt actions. Judas's covetousness is sweetened with unjust gain. Joab is heartened and hardened with blood, 1 Kings ii. 5. Theft is fitted to and fatted in the thievish heart with obvious booties. Pride is fed with the oflicious compliments of observant grooms. Extortion battens in the usurer's affections by the trolling in of his moneys. Sacrilege thrives in the church-robber by the pleasing distinctions of those sycophant priests, and helped with their not laborious profit. Nature is led, is fed with sense. And when the citadel of the heart is once won, the turret of tlic uuderstandhig will not long hold out. As the .suffuniigations of the oppressed stomach surge up and cause the headache ; or

as the thick spumy mists, which vapour up from the dank and foggy eartli, do often suffocate the brighter air, and to us more than eclipse the sun ; the black and corrupt affections, which ascend out of the nether part of the soul, do no less darken and choke the understanding. Neither can the fire of grace be kept alive at God's altar, (man's heart,) when the clouds of lust shall rain down such showers of impiety on it. Ferit omne Judicfum, cum res transit ad affectum, —Farewell the perspicuity of judgment, when the matter is put to the partiality of affection.

Let, then, the taste be judge at this feast, and not the stomach ; lust, and not conscience ; and the cates have unquestionable sweetness. He is easily credited that speaks what we would have him. 1 Kings xxii. 12, 'Go up to Eamoth-gilead and prosper,' was pleasing music in Ahab's ears. Gen. iii. 4, ' Ye shall not die,' though you eat, delighted Eve. The Sirens' song is more esteemed than the oracle of Pallas, because it is sung to lustful, not wise auditors. The strange distinctions which they give in these days, that claw the devil, flatter a usurer for gain, are believed, before the sermons of the sons of the prophets, of the Son of God. Let a factious novelist maintain the justness of impropriations at the church-wronger's table for a meal, his talk is held arguments, when the Scripture arguments are held but talk. As Micali, chap. ii. 11, .speaks of the prophets, that would preach for drunkenness; so these sell their conscience for countenance, and feed men's humours whiles they have a humour to feed them. Quod nimis miseri volunt, hoc facile cre-dimt* —Though they be prophets for profits, yet they are readily believed. So easily the brain drinks poison which the affection ministers. It is not then strange if these cates be sweet, when concupiscence tastes them. Fas-citur libido conviviis, nutritur deliciis, lino accenditur, ebrietateJlammatur,f —Lust is fed with banquets, nourished with delights, kindled with wine, set on fire and flame with drunkenness.

What could make the religion of Rome so sweet and welcome to many but the congruence and pleasingness of it to corrupt nature ? "Whiles nature finds ascribed to herself freedom of will, validity of merits, the latitude of an ignorant and cursory faith, she runs mad of conceit. That indulgences for all sins may be derived from that open exchequer ; that if a man wants not money, he needs not lose heaven; that the bare act of the sacraments confers grace without faith; and the mere transient sign of the cross, whoever makes it, can keep off the devil. O religion sweet to nature ! Nay, to speak nearer to our district instance, lust not only affectual, but actual, is dispensed wdth. Priests are licensed their concubines, though inhibited wives. Adultery is reckoned among their petty sin.s. I have read it quoted out of Pope Innocentius the Third of their priests, Mcnie Filium virginis offe-runt in choro; node Jilium veneris agitant in tlioro. The priests do not engross all the market of venery to them.selves, yet they do prettily well for their allowance. One benefice with one wife is unlawful, but two benefices and three whores are toleraljle. But the stew.s, like the common bath, is afforded to the laity, and, if their states will maintain it, a private supply besides. Urhs est jam tola lupanar, —The whole city is become a mere stews. As the prophet Isaiah said once of Jerusalem, chap. i. 21, so we may say of Rome, ' The holy city is become a harlot.' Full of harlots, they will not stick to yield, and so full of adulterers, Jer. v. 7. Nay, the city itself is a harlot, and ' hath left her first love,' Rev. ii. 4. She commits idolatry, which is the vilest adulter)', with stocks and stones.

Thus nature drinks pleasant waters, but they are stolen. Lust cncroacheth * Sen. I Ambr. de Pccnit.

upon the law, and concupiscenco's gain is God's loss. Some of them, saith Bishop Jewell, have written in defence of tilthincss. What black vice shall want some patronage '? But causa patj-ocinio non bona, j^/ejor erit. Powerful arguments, no doubt, yet powerful enough to overcome the yielding spirit. Strong atiection gives credit to weak reasons. A small temptation serves to liis perversioh that temjits himself, and would be glad of a cloak to hide his leprosy, though he steal it. How can it then be denied that sins are sweet, whiles lust doth take, taste, censure them 1

The devil's banquet is not yet done ; there is more cheer a-coming. The water-service is ended. Now begin cates of another nature ; or, if you will, of another form, but the nature is all one : the same method of service, the same manner of junkets. It may be distinguished, as the former, into, (1.) A prescription, de quo, bread. (2.) A description, de quanta, bread of secrecies. (3.) An ascription, de quali, bread of pleasure.

(1.) Bread hath a large extent in the Scriptures. Vnlt sufficientiam vitce et prcesentis et futurce. Under it is contained a sufficiency of food and nourishment—[1.] For the body; [2.] For the soul. Therefore some would derive the Latin word, panem, from the Greek word, cT-av, and so make it a general and comprehensive word, to signify omne quod nobis necessarium, —■ all things needful, whether to corporal or animal sustenance.

[1.] Corporal: the fourth petition in that absolute prayer, lessoned to us by our Master, implies so much : ' Give us tliis day our daily bread.' Where, saith St Augustine, Omnem necessariam corporis exhibitionevi petimus, —We beg all necessary sustentation to our temporal life. So, Gen. iii. 19, in sudore vultus vesceris pane tuo, —all thy repast shall be derived from thy travail. ' Set bread before them,' saith Elisha to the king of Israel, 2 Kings vi. 22; and ' he made great provision for them,' ver. 23. Job's kindred ' did eat bread,' Job xlii. 11 ; that is, feasted with him. ' He that ate of my bread,' saith David, Ps. xli. 9, or did feed on the delicacies of my palace.

[2.] For the soul: ' I am the living bread which came down from heaven : if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever,' John vi. 51. It is not straitened of this sense. Matt. xv. 26, ' It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to throw it to dogs.' Christ and all his benefits are shadowed forth by bread. The loss of the word is called by the prophet Amos, chap. viiL 11, a ' famine,' or loss of bread.

Bread, then, implies midtitudinem sahitum, magnitudinem solaminum, plenitudinem onuiium bonortim, —much health, great couiforts, fulness of all requisite good things. And what t Will Satan brag that he can give all these, and that his bread, intensive, is so virtual in its own nature; and extensive, that it shall afford so mu.ch strength of comfort, validity of nutriment, and never fail the collation of health to his guests 1 This is in him a hyperbolical, and almost a hyperdiabolical impudence, to make the bread of sin equal with the ' bread of life,' and to ascribe unto'it ■potentiam virtutis and virtutevi dulcedinis, —that it is bread, and sweet bread, nourishing and well-ta.sted. As Cures must be taken and worshipped for the goddess of corn, and Bacchus for the god of wine, when they were, at the utmost, but the first inventors of grinding the one and pressing the other,—for God is the God of both fields and vineyards,—so the devil would seem owner of bread and water, when God only is Lord of sea and land, that made and blesseth the corn and the rivers. His power containcth all, and his providence continueth all that is go(jd unto us.

Ob:icrve how the devil is God's ape, and strives to match and parallel him,

both in his words and wonders. He follows him, but, not passibiis cequis, with unequal steps. If Christ have his ' waters of life' at the Lamb's wedding-feast, the devil will have his waters too at lust's banquet. If ' the Highest give his thunder, hailstones, and coals of fire,' Ps. xviii. 13, (as to Elias's .sacrifice,) the red dragon doth the like : Rev. xiii. 13, ' He niaketh fire to come down from heaven in the sight of men.' If Moses turn his rod to a serpent, the sorcerers do the like ; but yet they fall short, for Moses's rod devoured all theirs, Exod. vii. 12. Must Abraham sacrifice his son to the God of heaven 1 Gen. xxii. 2. Agamemnon must sacrifice his daughter to the prince of darkness. A ram redeems Isaac, a hind Iphigenia. For Jehovah's temple at Jeru.salem, there is great Diana's at Ei)hc,sus, Acts xix. 27. It is said of the Son of God, that he shall 'give sight to the blind,' Isa. xlii. 7, and heal the sicknesses of the people. The son of Jupiter, yEsculapius, shall have the like report. Ovid and Hesiod have their chaos, in imitation of sacred Moses. Noah's deluge shall be quitted with Deucalion's. For our Noah, they have Janus ; for our Samson, a Hercules ; for our Babel-builders, they that lay Pelion upon Ossa, giants. If Lot's wife be turned to a pillar, lo, Niobe is metamorphosed to a stone. Let God historify his Jonah, Herodotus will say more of Arion. Of which St Augustine well: We may suspect the Greek tale of the one means the Hebrew truth of the other.' * Thus, if Christ at his table offer to his saints his own body for bread, blood for wine, in a mystical sort; the devil wUl profier some such thing to his guests, bread and waters, waters of stealth, bread of secrecy. He is loath to give God the better; he would not do it in heaven, and therefore was turned out; and do you think he will yet yield it ? No, m spite of God's water of crystal, Rev. xxii., peace and glory, he will have Iris waters of Acheron, guilt and vanity. But, by Satan's leave, there is a bread that nourisheth not : Isa. Iv. 2, ' Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread 1 and j'our labour for that which satisfieth not 1 ' It seems, but is not, bread ; and, if it be, yet it satisfies not. Say it could, yet, Matt. iv. 4, ' man lives not by bread only, but by the word' and blessing of God. Tec 6-^\y'Mvia, all the de-licates that sin can aflford us, are but ai-yus-ia -^vyji;, the bane of the soul : Fahnla peccati, pocula lethi. 'O-^ov properly signities Tdc rw rriiii xura-(>x.rjaaot/,£vov sg idudrjv, —all meat prepared with fire.t There is no cheer at this banquet dressed without fire ; either present of lust, or future of torment.

Now, since the devil wiU put the form of bread upon his tempting wickedness, let us examine what kind of bread it is :—

[1.] The seed is corruption: 'an unclean seed,' Lev. xi. 38. No other, than the tares which the enemy sowed, Matt. xiii. 28. God sowed good corn, but ' whence are the tares t ' The seed whereof this bread is made is not wheat or good corn, but cockle, darnel, tares—dissension, rebellion, lies, vanities. The devil is herein a seedsman, but he sows corrupt seed, that infects and poisons the heart which receives it.

[2.] The heat of the sun, influence of the air, sap and moisture of the ground, that ripens this seed, are temptations. The seed once sown in the apt ground of our carnal aifections, is by the heat of Satan's motion soon wrought to ripeness. So that it is matured si({f(jerendo, imprimeiido, ten-tando, —suggestion, impression, tentation hasten the seed to grass, to a blade, to spindling, to a perfect ear, to growth in the heart; and all suddenly, for an ill weed grows apace. Rather than it shall dwindle and be stunted, he

* De Civit. Dei, lib. i.

t Eraamus says tliat to oi\fa>via signifies that victual whereby aoldiera were allured to fijjLt. Thu captain of the black guard gives bia soldiers thid diet.

will crush the clouds of hell, and rain the showers of his malediction upon it. Before he sows, here he waters.

[3.1 The seed thus ripened is soon cut down by the sickle of his subtlety; whose policy to preserve his state Florentine is beyond Machiavers. His speed is no less, else he could not so soon put a girdle about the loins of the earth. But what poUcy can there be in shortening the growth of sin 1 This trick rather enervates his power, weakens his kingdom. The devil doth not ever practise this cunning, but then alone when he is put to his sliifts.''' For some are so vUe that the devil himself would scarce wish them worse. Such are atheists, rob-altars, usurers, traitors, &c. But some living in the circumference of the gospel are by man's awe and law restrained from professed abominations. What would you have him now do 1 Sure Satan is full of the politics : Dccmonas grammatici didos volunt, quasi Burj/xovag, id est, peritos ac rerum scws.t He is a devU for his craft. I call therefore the reaping his subtlety; for he might seem therein to dissolve his kingdom, and spoU the height of sin by cutting it down. But the sequel and success proves he doth it rather to corroborate the power thereof, by making it fitter for application. Thus ' he transforms himself to an angel of light,' 2 Cor. xi. 14, and is content to top the proud risings of palpable and outward impieties, that he may more strongly possess the soul by hypocrisy. Thus there may be an expulsion of Satan from the house of the heart quoad veterem entj^tionem, when his repossession is made stronger quoad novam cor-mptionem. Common grace throws him out, but ' he finds the house empty, swept, and garnished,' Matt. xii. 44,—that is, trimmed by hypocrisy,—and therefore enters and fortifies with ' seven other spirits more wicked than the first.' What he cannot do by notorious rebellion, he performs by dissimula-' tion. So that, as sorcerers and witches converse with evil spirits in plausible and familiar forms, which in ugly shapes they would abhor; so many would not endure him, ut rudis cacodoivion, as a rough and gross devU, in manifest outrageous enormities, who yet, as a smooth, sleek, fine, and transformed devil, give him entertainment. This, then, is his harvest.

[4.] ]5eing thus reaped and housed, he soon thresheth it out with the flail of his strength. He is called ' the strong man,' Luke xi. 22. Where he takes possession, he pleads prescription ; he will not out. His power in the captivcd conscience scorns limitation. He is not content to have the seed lie idle in the heart; he must thresh it out, cause thee to produce some cursed efi'ects. He doth not, to speak for your capacity in the country, hoard up his grain; but with all his might, and the help of all his infernal flails, he thresheth it out, and makes it ready for the market. If any Cain or Judas be so hasty that he will not stay till it be made bread,—tarry for tentation,—but tempt himself, the devil is glad that they save him a labour: howsoever, he will have his grain ready; his suggestion shall not be to seek when he should use it. He would be loath that the lustful eye should want a harlot, the corrupt ofiicer a bribe, the Papist an image, the usurer a mortgage, the thief a booty. He knows not what guests will come, he will thresh it ready.

[5.] Being threshed out, it must, you know, be ground. Satan hath a water-mill of his own ; though founded on viare moHuum, a dead sea, (for all sins arc 'dead works,' Hcb. ix. 14,) yet the current and stream that drives it runs with swifter violence than the Straits of Gibraltar. The flood of concupiscence drives it. The mUl consists of two stones, delicice et divitice, —

• ' Sajpc facit opus, quod non est suuui, ut ita faciat opus tiuod est suum.'— Cijprian. fLacunt. luatit., lib. ii., cap. 15.

rP.OV. IX. 17. ] THE FATAL E.VNQUET. liOO

jileasure and profit. There is no seed of sin wLirli these two cannot grind to powder, and make fit for bread, when concupiscence turns the miU. Rapine, sacrilege, murder, treason, have been prepared to a wicked man's use by these instruments. Quid non mortalia pectora cogunt? Covetousness and canial delight bid any sin welcome. Only pleasure is the nether stone. Idleness •would lie still, but covetousness is content to trudge about, glad when any sack comes to the mill. These two grind all the devil's grist, and supply him with tentations for all the world. All the ugly births of sins, that have shewed their monstrous and stigmatic forms to the light, have been derived from these parents, carnal pleasure and covetousness. You see how the devils grmd.

[6.] It is ground you hear; it wants leavening. The leaven is the colourable and fallacious arguments that persuade the sweetness of this bread. This is either the ' leaven of the Pharisees,' Luke xiL 1, or the leaven of the Sadducees, or the leaven of the Herodians. The leaven Pharisaical is described by Christ himself to be hypocrisy; a tradition to ' make clean the outside of the cup,' Matt, xxiii. 2-5, but no devotion to keep the inside pure from extortion and excess. The ' leaven of the Sadducees' is the ' doctrine of the Sadducees:' as the mistaken apostles (about bread) corrected their own errors, .Alatt. xvi. 12. This doctrine was a denial of resurrection, of angel, of spirit, Acts xxiii. 8. The Herodian leaven, Mark viii. 1-5, was dissolute profaneness, derived from the observation of fox-like Herod. These pleadings for sin, by the devil's mercenary advocates, put, like leaven, a better taste into his bread. Tlius it is leavened.

[7.] It lacks now nothing but baking. Sure, the oven that bakes this corrupt bread is our own evil affections, which the devil heats by his temptations, and with supply of fuel to their humours. Thus by sin he makes way for sin, and prepares one iniquity out of another. He strikes fire at the covetous heart of Judas, and so bakes both treason and murder. He hath made Absalom's affections so hot by ambition, that incest and parricide is easily baked in them. The prophet Hosea speaks the sins of Israel in this allegory, chap. vii. 4 : ' They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened;' ver. 6, 'They have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire. They are all hot as an oven,' (fee.; yea, ver. 8, Ephraim itself is a ' cake half-baked.' Thus, when our affections are made a fiery oven, through the greediness of sin, there is soon drawn out a batch of wickedness.

Thus the devil runs through many occupations before his bread be baked, his banquet prepared for his guests. He is a seedsman, a waterer, a reaper, a thresher, a miller, a moulder, a baker. A baker here for his bread, a.s before a brewer for his waters. And to conclude, a host, that makes the wake, invites the guests, and banquets them with their o-vvn damnation.

(2.) You have heard how this service may be called bread ; and therein the subtlety of the devil's prescription. Let us as justly poise the next in the balance, and see how it holds weight—secret bread, or the bread of secrecy, nay, of secrecies; for sin is not like the rail that sits alone, but like the partridges, which fly by coveys. Secret: this will be found a fraudulent dimension ; for 'there is nothing so secret that shall not be made manifest,' ]\lark iv. 22; Luke xii. 2. The speeches of whispering, the acts of the closet, shall not scape publishing. The allegory of uncleanness is prosecuted : forbidden lusts, stolen by snatches, and enjoyed in secret, are sweet and ple;^ VOL. I. 0

fc;uit. It is instanced in this particular, but hath a general extent to all the parallels, every sister of that cursed stock. I will hold with it thus far, that sin loves secrecy; and I will testify against it a degree further, that no sin is so secret as the tempter here affirms it, or the committers imagine it. And from these two roots I will produce you a double fruit of instruction.

Fird, Unjust things love privacy. The adulterer, saith Job, ' loves the dark.' Thais draws Paphnutius into the secret and more removed chambers. The two wicked elders thus tempt the emblem of chastity : Ostia pomerii claiisa sunt, —The gates of the orchard are shut, and nobody sees us.* Hence the generation of sins are called 'the works of darkness,' Rom. xiii. 12; and reformation of life is compared to our ' decent walking in the day,' ver. 13. Though the light of grace shines, saith the Sun of brightness, yet ' men love darkness better, because their deeds are evil,' John iii. 19. Ignorance and the night have a fit similitude :—

[1.] Both seasons are still and hushed : no noise to waken the Sybarites, unless the cocks, the ministers,— nuncii Dei et diei, —and their noise is not held worth the hearing. Few will believe Christ's cock, though he crows to them that the day is broken.

[2.] Both seasons procure stumbling. The way of our pilgrimage is not so even but that we need both light to shew the rubs, and eyes to discern them. The gospel is the day, Christ is the light; faith is the eye that apprehends it. Light without eyes, eyes without light, are defective to our good. If either be wanting, the stumbling feet endanger the body. In the spiritual privation of either gospel or faith, the affections are not able to keep upright the conscience.

[3.] Both are uncomfortable seasons. A^ox et erroris et terroris plenissima, —The night is full of wondering, of wandering. Imagine the Egyptians' case in that gross and palpable darkness, Exod. x. 23, the longest natural night that the book of Cod specifies. A silent, solitary, melancholy, inextricable season : in which ano-on ovdilg ovB'sv o'Jdivog; no murmur disquiets the air; no man hears his name ; no birds sing, except the owl and the night-raven, which croak only dismal things.

[4] Both are fit seasons for foul spirits to range in. It hath been fabled of night-walking spirits. Let it be false, yet this is true : the devil is the 'prince of darkness,' Eph. vi. 12 ; his kingdom is a 'kingdom of darknessj' and his walks are the walks of darkness. In the caliginous night of superstition and ignorance, he plays Hex, and captivates many a soul to his obedience. His children, as it is fit, have the same disposition with their father. They are tenebrious, and love nocturnos conventas, —meetings in the dark; as the powder-traitors met in the vault. But the eyes of Jehovah see not only things done on the tops of the mountains, but could spy the treason of the vault.

Secondly, And this is the consequent instruction which I woidd the devil's blinded guests should know : God sees.

UavT Efoja, 'juvT um-jh, xai 'javra /Ssa/SHiis/.t

There is nothing secret to his eye. He sees out sins in the book of eternity, before our own hearts conceived them. He sees them in our hearts when our mventions have given them form, and our intentions birth. He sees their action on the theatre of this earth, quite through the scene of our lives. He sees them when his wrathful eye takes notice of them, and his hand is lift up to punish them. There is nothing so secret and abstracted from the * licferriug to the Apocryplial 8toi7 of Susauua aud the Elders.— Ed, + Orph,

senses of men, ut Creatoi'is ant lateat cogitationem, aut effugiat potestatem* —that it may either lurk from the eye, or escape from the hand of God. Ko master of a family is so well acquainted with every corner of his house, or can so readily fetch any casket or box he pleaseth, as the Master of ' the whole family in heaven and earth,' Eph. iil 15, knows all the angles and vaults of the world.

' Jupiter est, quodcunque vides, quocunque moveris/—

Acts xvii. 28, ' In him we live, move, and have our being.' The villany of the cloisters were not unseen to his revenging eye. Perhaps they took a recluse life that they might so preclude all su.spicion ; promising to the world contemplation, to their own thoughts close wickedness. They thought themselves secure, shadowed from the eye of notice, and fenced from the hand of justice. So they were in opinion out of the world; but in proof the world was in them : they were not more iwliti, strict in profession, than jioUuti, loose in conversation. But as dark as their vaults were, the all-seeing God descried their whoredoms and destroyed their habitations, or at least emptied them of so filthy tenants. The obscurity of their cells and dorters, thickness of walls, closeness of windows, with the cloak of a strict profession thrown over all the rest, could not make their sins dark to the eye of heaven.

Our impieties are not without witness. Te videt angelus melius, videt te bonus, videt et via/is major angelis, Deus.f —The good angel, and the bad, aud he that is better than the angels, ' far above all principalities and powers,' Heb. i. 4, sees thee. . The just man sets forth his actions to be justified. Lucem et athera petit, et teste sole vivit,X —He loves the light, and walks with the witness of the sun. It is recorded of Jacob, Gen. xxv. 27, ' He was a plain man, dwelling in tents.' Nathanael, by the testimony of the best witness, was ' an Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile,' John i. 47. It was the Piabbiu's counsel to his scholar : Remember, there is a seeing eye, a hearing ear, a book written. Sic vive cum hominihus quasi Deus videat: sic loquere Deo quasi homines audiant,^ —So converse A\ith men as if God saw thee: so speak to God as if men heard thee. For, non discessit Deus, quando recessit, —God is not absent, though thou dost not feel him present. Corporeal substances are in one j)lace locally and circumscriptively; incorporeal created substances, neither locally nor circumscriptively, but definitively. God, the creating substance, is every whit in every place ; not circumscriptively as the bodies, nor definitively as angels, but repletivcly, (Jovis omnia plena,) filling every place by his essence. He is hypostatically in Christ, ■ graciously in his saints, gloriously in heaven, powerfully in hell. You see then the falsehood of the devil's assertion; sins would be secret, but they are not.

(."5.) The bread of secrecy being described, I should come, in the third and last place, to the ascri})tion, ' It is })leasant.' But because the former adjunct of sweetness doth but little diversify from this of pleasure, and I shall have just occasion to convince the promised delicacy from the proved misery, and for conclusive ajtplication, give me the leave of your patience to examuic the truth of the (former) secrecy.

Application. —It is the devil's policy, though he cannot blind His eyes that made the light in heaven and the sight in man, yet he would darken our sins with the veil of secrecies from the view of the world. And are they so 1 No; the suffering eye sees them, and can point them out; nay, sensible

* Augu.st. Civitat., xiii. cap. 10. f Bern, de Convers. ad Cler., oap. 16.

I Sen. § Sen. Epist. xi.

demonstration speaks them to the ears, and objects them to the sight of man. The iniquities of these days are not ashamed to shew their faces, but walk the streets without fear of a serjeant. The sins of the city are as pert and apart as the sons of the city. I would iniquity was not bolder than honesty; or that innocence might speed no worse than nocence. Absit ut sic, sed nfi-nani ut vel sic, saith St Augustine, in the like case; God forbid it should be so bad ; yet I would it were no worse. For the times are so wheeled about to their old bias, that vix licet esse bomim, it is scarce safe to be an honest man. Suspicion makes the good evil, and flattery makes the evil good; the first in the opinion of others, the last in the opinion of themselves. Our faith is small, and led with reason; our life evil, and led without reason. Corniptio morum tollit scientiam ethicam^" —Our evil manners shut up philosophy, and divinity too, into the cave of ignorance.

This forest of man and beast, the world, grows from evil to worse; like Nebuchadnezzar's dreamed image, Dan. ii. 32, whose ' head was golden, silver arms, brazen thighs, but his feet were of iron and clay.' What Ovid did but poetize, experience doth moralise, our manners actually perform. This last stage is (as it must be) the worst. Our covetise saith. It is terrea cetas, an earthen age; our oppression, ferrea cetas, an iron age; our impudence, ahenea cetas, a brazen age. Neither aurea nor argentea, saith necessity. For the poor may say as the priest, ' SUver and gold have I none,' Acts iii. 6. Let me say, our sins have made it worthy to be called inferna octets, a hellish age.

Sin is called by Paul, Eph. iv., 'the old man;' but he is stronger now than he was in his infancy, diebus Adami, —in the days of Adam. Most men's repentance is in the knee or tongue, but their wickedness in the heart and hand. Money mars all; for this, and the pleasures this may procure, Esau sells his birthright, Heb. xii. 16; Judas sells his Master, Matt. xxvi. 15; Ahab sells himself to work wickedness, 1 Kings xxi. 25. Sin was wont to love privacy, as if she walked in fear. The tippler kept his private ale-bench, not the market-place; the adulterer his chamber, not (with Absalom, 2 Sam. x\d.. 22) the house-top ; the thief was for the night, or sequestrate ways ; the corrupt lawyer took bribes in his study, not in the open hall; but now fcccata nullas petitura tenebras —our sins scorn the dark. Men are so far from being ashamed of their fruitless lives, Rom. vi. 21, that mala comittunt, commissa jactant, jactata defendimt, —they commit evil, boast that they committed, and defend that they boasted. ' Pride is worn as a chain, and cruelty as a garment,' Ps. Ixxiii. 6; conspectu omnium —as proud of the fashion. They talk of a conscience that seeks covers, like Adam's fig-leaves ; but these ' glory in their shame, whose end is damnation,' saith St Paul, Phil, iii. 1!). The very harlot comes short of them ; she wipes her lips, and saith she hath not sirmed. Better fare those that yet would be accounted honest.

We may justly parallel these times and our complaints to the prophet Isaiah's, chaj). iii. 9, ' The show of their countenance doth witness against them; they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. But woe be to their .souls ! for they have rewarded evil to themselves.' So the Jews answered God, pleading hard to them : ' There is no hope : no ; for I have loved strangers, and after them I will go,' Jer. ii. 25. Nay, resolutely they discharged God of further pains : ver. 31, 'We are lords, we will no more come unto thee.' Therefore Ezekiel denounceth their destruction, chap. xxi. 24, ' For this cause ye shall be taken with the hand' of judgment, 'because your sins arc discovered ; and in all your doings your transgressions do ap-• Arist,

pear.' So the same people to the Son, as they had erst to the servants : ' We will not come unto thee.' ' How often would I have gathered you, but you would not!' 'Ye will not come at me, that you might have life,' John V. 40. The way is easy ; you shall have life for coming ; it is worth your labour ; you can have it nowhere else ; tlien ' come to me.' No ; you will not come at me : as Daniel answered Belshazzar, ' Keep thy rewards to thyself, and give thy gifts to another,' Dan. v. 17.

These are sins with lifting up the hand and heel against God : the hand in opposition, the heel in contempt. There are two ladders whereby men climb into heaven—the godly by their prayers, the wicked by their sins. By this latter ladder did Sodom and Nineveh climb. God grant our sins be not such climbers, that jtress into the presence-chamber of heaven, and will be acquainted with God, though to our confusion. Are our wickednesses done in this region and sphere of sin, the earth ; and must they come to heaven first ? Must the news be in the court of what is done in the country, before the country itself know of it ? Our consciences take no notice of our own iniquities ; but they complain in the aucUence-court of heaven, and sue out an outlawry against us. So impudent and unblushing is our wickedness, that with the prophet we may complain, ' Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination 1 nay, they were not at all ashamed ; neither could they blush,' Jer. vL 15, viii. 12, (both places in the same words.) Our sins keep not low water, the tide of them is ever swelling; they are objects to the general eye, and proud that they may be observed. And let me toll you, many of the sins I have taxed, as secret and silent as you take them, and as hoarsely as they are thought to speak, are no less than thunder to heaven, and lightning to men. They do vocally ascend, that would actually, if they could.

The labourer's hire cries in the gripolous landlord's hand, James v. 4. The farrows of the encloser cry, complain, nay, weep against him ; for so is the Hebrew word, Job xxxi. 38. The vain-glorious builder hath ' the stone crying out of the wall against him, and the beam out of the timber answering it,' Hab. ii. 11. The blasphemer's 'tumult cries, and is come up hito the ears of God,' 2 Kings xix. 28. The oppressor's rage and violence reacheth up to heaven, and ' is contmually before me, saith the Lord,' Jer. vi. 7. These are crying sins, and have shrill voices in heaven ; neither are they submiss and whispering on the earth.

To be short : most men are either publicans or Pharisees,—cither they will do no good, or lose that they do by ostentation. Many act the part of a religious man, and play devotion on the world's theatre, that are nothing beside the stage ; all for sight; angels in the highway, devils in the byway ; so monstrous out of the church that they shame religion. It was proverbeil on Nero, ' It must needs be good that Nero persecutes:' their wicked lives give occasion to the world to invert it on them, ' It must needs be evU that such wretches profess.' Others are like publicans. Only thoy were christened Avhen they were babes, and could not help it; but, as angry at that indignity, they oppose Christ all their lives.

Take heed, beloved ! hell was not made for nothing. The devil scorns to have his court empty : you will not bend, you shall break; you will not serve God, God will serve himself of you. Hoav many stand here guilty of some of these sins ! How many may say with iEneas, Ei quorum pars magna fui, whereof I have a great share ! Many ciy out, 'The days are evil,' whiles they help to make them worse. All censure, none amend. If every cme would pluck a brand from this iirc, the flame would ^r> out of itself.

But whiles we cast in our iniquities as fuel, and l)low it with the bellows of disobedience, we make it strong enough to consume us; yea, and all we have. For God will not spare ever; he is just, and must strike.

Shall we loosen our hands to impiety, and tie God from vengeance 1 I have often read and seen that ' mercy and truth meet together,' that 'righteousness and peace kiss one another,' Ps. Ixxxv. 10. But mercy and sinfulness keep not the same house; peace and wdckedness are mere strangers. To reconcile these is harder than to make the wolf and lamb live together in quiet, Isa. Ivii. 21. Think not that God cannot strike. Mars ultor gaJeam quoque perdidit, et res non potuit servare siias* The heathen gods could not avenge their own quarrels; but our God can punish a thousand ways—fire, plague, war, famine, &c. Alille nocendi artes. Our sins may thrive a while, and batten, because they live in a friendly air and apt soil ; but in the end they will overthrow both themselves and us. Civi-tatis eversio est morum, non murorum, casus,f —A city's overthrow is sooner wrought by lewd lives than weak walls. Were the walls of our cities as strong-turreted and inexpugnable as the wall that Phocas built about his palace, yet it may be really performed on them, as the voice in the night told him. Did they reach the clouds, they may be scaled : the sin within will mar alL Graviores sunt irdmici mores pravi, quam hostes infesti. ^ Our worst enemies are our sins. And though these punishments faU not suddenly, yet certainly, if repentance step not between. Adam did not die presently on his sin; yet God's word was true upon him: for he became instantly mortal, sure to die, and fell, as it were, into a consumption that never left him, till it brought him to the grave. God hath leaden feet, but iron hands. Take heed, ye feasting robbers : when God struck that secret thief Judas, he struck home; he took away the world from him, or rather him from the world, and sent him ' to his own place,' Acts i. 25. Feast, revel, riot, covet, engross, extort, hoard, whiles you will. Earth is not your house, but your bridge ; you must pass over it, either to Canaan or Egypt, heaven or hell; every man to his own place.

Grant, 0 dear Father, that we may so run our short pilgrimage on earth, that our dwelling-place may be with thy majesty in heaven, through the merits and mercies of our Saviour Jesus Christ! Amen.

* Juven. Sat. iv. f August. J Ambr.

THE FATAL BANQUET,

THE SHOT; OE, THE WOEFUL PRICE WHICH THE WICKED PAY FOPt THE FEAST OF VANITY.

But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.— Froy. IX. 18.

Satan's guests are unhappily come from the end of a feast to the beginning of a fray. As the Sodomites ate and drank till the fire was about their ears, so these are jovial and sing care away; but it seems by the sequel that the devil will not be pleased with a song, as the host in the fable ^vith the singing guest. He cries out, as the usurer at his spawning hour, ' Give me my money.' Arguments are held compliments; persuasions, entreaties, jiromises of speedy satisfaction, will do no good on him that hath no good in him : he is Like the cuckoo, always in one tune, ' Give me my money.' The debtor may entreat, this creditor will not retreat; he will to war, (you know the usurer's war,) except he may have his money. So the great usurer, the. devil,— I hope usurers do not scorn the comparison,—when the feast is done, looks for a reckoning. The usurer, perhaps, will take .security; so will the devil. Security and deadness of heart will a gi-eat while please him. But when Dives hath dined, the devil takes away. Death is his knife, and hell his voider. He takes away one dish more than he set down : instead of the reversion, the feasters themselves, nay, the feastmaker too ; for Dives is the founder and Satan is the confoundcr : the one pro\ddes meat for the belly, the other, by God's sufferance, 'destroys them both,' 1 Cor. vi. 13. Satan, according to the tricks of some shifting hostess, bids many friends to a feast, and then beats them with the spit. Dainty cheer, but a saucy reckoning. The feast is vanity, the shot vexation, Eccles. i. Thus tliey that worship their belly as god, tensile themselves in hell; and as ' their end is damnation,' Phil. iii. 19, so their damnation is without end. ' Therefore shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed,' Amos vi. 7.

I would willingly lead you through some suburbs before I bring you to the main city of desolation, and shew you the wretched conclusion of tliis

banquet, and confusion of these guests. All which arise from the contermi-nate situation, or, if I may so speak, from the respondent opposition of these two sermons, Wisdom's and Folly's,—that is, God's and Satans. For this sad sequel is, if not a relative, yet a redditive demonstration of their misery; for after the infection of sin follows that infliction of punishment. The turrets I would lead you by are built and consist of farewells and welcomes; of some things deposed, and some things imposed; positive and privative circumstances ; valedictions and maledictions : they take their leaves of temporal and affected joys, and turn upon eternal and cursed sorrows. I will limit these general observations into four.

QIjs. 1.—All sinful joys are dammed (if not damned) up with a hut. They are troubled with a 6^<^plague, like a bee with a sting in her taO. They have a worm that crops them, nay, gnaws asunder their very root; though they shoot up more hastily, and spread more spaciously than Jonah's gourd. There is great preparation of this banquet, properation to it, participation of it; all is carried with joy and jouisance : there is a corrective hut, a venin-tamen spoils all in the upshot; a little coloquintida, that embitters the broth ; a perilous, a pernicious rock, that spUts the ship in the haven. When all the prophecies of ill success have been held as Cassandra's riddles, when all the contrary winds of afflictions, all the threatened storms of God's wrath, could not dishearten the sinner's voyage to these Netherlands, here is a but that shii)-wTecks all; the very mouth of a bottomless pit, not shallower than hell itself

It is observable that Solomon's proverbial says are so many select aphorisms, containing, for the most part, a pair of cross and thwart sentences, hantUed rather by collation than relation, whose conjunction is disjunctive. The proverbs are not joined with an et but an at, with a hut rather than with an and. ' Stolen waters are sweet,' &c.; ' but he knoweth not,' ifec. It stands in the midst, like a rudder or oar, to turn the boat another way. ' Eejoice, O young man,' kc. ; ' but know that for all these things God will bring thee to judgment,' &c., Eccles. xi. 9. AU runs smooth, and mclines to the bias of our own affections, tiU it lights upon this rub. The Babel of iniquity is built up apace, till confusion steps in with a hut. It is like the sudden clap of a Serjeant on a gallant's shoulder. He is following his lusts, fuU scent and fuU cry ; the arrest strikes him with a hut, and all is a,t a loss.

As in a fair summer's morning, when the lark hath called up the sun, and the sun the husbandman ; when the earth hath opened her shop of perfumes, and a pleasant wind fiins coolness through the air ; when every creature is rejoiced at the heart, on a sudden the furious winds burst from their prisons, the thunder rends the clouds, and makes way for the ligiitning, and the .spouts of heaven stream down showers ; a hideous tempest sooner damps all the former delight than a man's tongue can well express it. With no less content df) these guests of sin pass their life ; they eat to eat, drink to drink, often to sleep, always to surfeit; they carol, dance, spend their jjrcsent joys, and promise themselves infallible supply. On a sudden this hut comes like an uidookcd-for storm, and turns all into mournhig, and such mourning as Jiachel had for her chikh-cn, that will )iot be comforted, because their joys are not.

A wicked man runs licadlong in the night of his unwakcd security after his wonted sports, and because he keeps his old path, which never interrupted )iim with any obstacle, he nothing doubts but to speed as he had wont; but Ilia enemy hath <liggc<l a pit in his way, and in he topples, even to the depths of hell. Thus wicked joys end with wretched sorrows, and as man hath his

sic, so God hatli his sed. If we -will have our will in sin, it is fit he should have his will in punishing. To this sense, Solomon frequently m his Proverbs. They will pursue wickedness, but they shall bo plagued. I have forbidden usury, adultery, swearing, malice, as unclean meats; you will feed on them; but you shall be punished. There is a reckoning behind, a butt they never shot at; but they shot besides the but the whiles. God hath prepared them as the miserable marks. Job vii. 20, that shall receive the arrows of his vengeance, till they are drunk with blood. They shall suffer that in passion which Job spake in apprehension : chap. vi. 4, ' The arrows of the Almighty shall be within them, the poison whereof shall drink up their spirits; and the terrors of God shall set themselves in array against them.' So Moses sung in the person of God against the wicked, Dcut. xxxii. 42, ' I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall cat flesh,' &c. They forget that when God shall ' rebuke them in his wrath, and chasten them in his hot displeasure, his arrows shall stick fast in them, and his hand shall press them sore,' P.s. xxxviii. 1, 2. This is their sad epilogue, or rather the breaking off their scene in the midst. The bancpict of stolen waters and secret bread is pleasant; but ' the dead are there, and the guests be in the depths of hell.'

Obs. 2. —The devil doth but cozen the wicked wdth his cates : as before in the promise of delicacy, so here of perpetuity. He sets the countenance of continuance on them, which indeed are more fallible in their certainty than flourishable in their bravery. Their banqueting-house is very slippery, Ps. Ixxiii. 18 ; and the feast itself a mere dream, ver. 20. Let the guest pre-scr\-e but reason, and he shall easily make the collection : that if for the present gmidia plus aloes quani mellis habent, to the compound of his joys there go more bitter than sweet simples, what will then the end be ? Even such a one as at once consumit delicias, consummat miserias, —makes an end of their short pleasures, and begins their lasting pains. This my text salutes them as the mason was wont to salute the emperor at his coronation, with a lapful of stones :—

' Elige ab his saxii?, ex quo, augu.stissinie Cscsar, Ipse tibi tumiilum me fabricare velis;'—

' Choose, great emperor, out of this whole heap, wdiat stone thou best likest for thine own sepulchre.' You that crown your days with rosebuds, and flatter your hearts with a kingdom over pleasures, think of a low grave for your bodies, and a lower room for your souls. If is the subtlety of our corar mon enemy to conceal this woe from us so long, that we might see it and feel it at once. For if we could but foresee it, we would fear it; if wc tridy feared it, we would use the means not to feel it.

Our most fortified delights are like the child's castle, done down with a fillip : ffx/a, nay, axia; ovup, a shadow, the very dream of a shadow ; a rotten post, slightly painted; a paper tower, which the least pufi' overturns.

' Cuncta trahit .secum, vertitque volubile tempua;'—

Time whirls about the world, and makes all inferior things to travel and spend themselves together with him. Sinful and earthly delight is well called amiable, fragile, feeble, a thing soon loved, sooner ended; but long, very long, lamented : a rotten nut, fair, but hollow. Though philosophy saith there is no vacuity in rerum nntura, yet divinity .saith there is nothing but vacuity in natunv rebus. Nature, as it is not only corrupt of itself, but made more foul in the evil man's use, hath nothing in it but vanity; and

vanity is notliing, a mere emptiness, a vacuity. Hence, if Aristotle commends the ' nature of things,' the better philosopher, Solomon, discommends the ' things of nature,' especially in their base and bad usage. Only the devil's feast-house hath a foir bush at the door, (yet if the wine were good, what needs the ivy I) and ' therefore his people turn in thither, and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them,' Ps. Ixxiii. 10. But when they are once in, they find themselves deceived, for ' the dead are there,' &c.

Then put no trust in so weak comforts, that will be unto you, as Egypt to Israel, a reed, which when you lean upon, it will not only fail you, but the splinters shall run into your hand. ' You shall be ashamed of your weak confidence. The burden of the beasts of the south : into the land of trouble,' &C., Isa. XXX. 5, 6. I am no prog-nosticator; yet if cosmography affirm that we live in a southern climate, and experience testify that we have many beasts among us, methinks the words lie as fit for us as if they were purposely made. How many in our land by loss of conscience are become atheists, and by loss of reason, beasts; who run so fast to this Egjrptian feast of wickedness, that he speaks easiest against them that speaks but of a burden ! These having found Satan's temptations sweet for the daintiness, judging by their own lusts, dare also take his word for the contmuance. But if the great table of this earth shall be overthrown, w^hat shall become of the dahities that the hand of nature hath set on it 1 To wliich purpose saith Jerome, Oh si possemus in talem ascendere speculum, de qua universam terrain sub nostris pedibus cerneremus, jam tibi ostenderem totius orbis ruinas, &c.,*—If it could be granted us to stand on some lofty pinnacle, from which we might behold the whole earth under our feet, how easy a persuasion would make these earthly pleasures seem vile in our opinion ! You say, your pleasures are for number manifold, for truth manifest, for dimension great; grant all, though all be false; yet they are for time short, for end sour. Breve est, quod dilectat: ceternum, quod cruciat, —It is short, that pleaseth them ; everlasting, that plagueth them. Pleasure is a channel, and death the sea wheremto it runs. Mellifluus ingressus, fellifluus regressus, — Yield your joys sweet at the porch, so you grant them bitter at the postern. Securus et securis must meet; wickedness and wretchedness must be made acquainted. The lewd man's dinner shall have that rich man's supper, Luke xii. 20, ' Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.' The devil then, you see, is a crafty and cheating host, whose performance falls as short of his promise as time doth of eternity. Let then the Apostle's caveat, Eph. V. G, be the use of tliis observation : ' Let no man deceive you with vain words; for because of these things cometh the wrath of God on the children of disobedience.'

Obs. 3.—The punishments of the wicked are most usually in the like; proper and proportional to their offences. Solomon here opposeth the ' house of mouniing' to the 'house of feasting ;' as in express terms, Eccles. vii. 2 : for as it is fit in the body that surfeit should be followed with death, so those that greedily make themselves sick with sin become justly dead in soul. They have affected the works of hell, therefore it is just that hell should expect them, and that every one should be granted their own place. Acts i. 25. As they would not know what they did till they had done it, so they fitly know not the place whither they go till they are in it. Nescit, —' he knoweth not,' &c. For the high places, which their ambition climbed to, ver. 14, they are cast down, like Lucifer, to the lowest place, the depth of hell. As Simon Magus would fly with arrogance, so he came down with a vengeance, * Hicr. lib. ii., Epist. ad Heliod.

and broke liis neck. Sec how fitly they arc requited, * They cat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence,' Prov. iv. 17 ; now they are scanted of both, except they will eat the bread of gall, and drink their own tears.

Thus Pharaoh drowns the Hebrew males in a river, Exod. i. 22 ; therefore is drowned himself with his army in a sea, Exod. xiv. 28. He had laid insupportable burdens on Israel; God returns them with full weight, number, measure. When Israel had cut otf the thumbs and great toes of Adoni-bezek, hear the maimed king confess the equity of this judgment: Judges i. 7, ' Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table : as I have done, so God hath requited me.' As proud Bajazet threatened to serve Tamerlane, being conquered,—to imprison him in a cage of iron, and carry hhn about the world in triumi)li,— so the Scythian having took that bragging Turk, put him to the punishment which himself had lessoned ; carrying and carting him through Asia, to be scorned of his own people. Thus Haman is hanged on his own gallows, Esth. vii. 10. Perillus tries the trick of his owni torment.

The Pai)ists, that would have fired us in a house, were themselves fired out of a house. Gunpowder spoiled some of their eyes, musket shot killed others, the engines of their own conspiracy; and the rest were advanced higher by the head than the Parliament-house, that would have lifted us higher, of purpose to give us the more mortal faU. God hath retaliated their works into their own bosoms. ' They travailed -with, iniquity, conceived mischief;' and, lo, the birth is their own sorrow. ' They have digged a pit for us,' — and that low, unto hell, —' and are fallen into it themselves,' Ps. vii. U, 15.

' Nee enim lex scquior uUa est Quam necis artifices, arte perire sua;'—

No juster law can be devised or made,

Than that sin's agents fall by their own trade.*

The order of hell proceeds with the same degrees; though it give a greater portion, yet still a just proportion of torment. These wretched guests were too busy with the waters of sin; behold, now they are in the depth of a pit, ' where no water is.' Dives, that wasted so many tuns of wine, cannot now procure water, not a pot of water, not a handful of water, not a drop of water, to cool his tongue. JDesideravit guttam, qui non dedit viicam* A just recompen.se ! He would not give a crumb; he shall not have a drop.-Bread hath no smaller fragment than a crumb, water no less fraction than a drop. As he denied the least comfort to Lazarus living, so Lazarus shall not bring him the least comfort dead. Thus the pain for sin answers the pleasure of sin. Where now are those delicate morsels, deep carouses, loose laughters, proud port, midnight revels, wanton songs 1 Why begins not this fellow-guest with a new health, or the music of some ravishing note ? or, if all fail, hath his fool-knavish para.site no obscene jest that may give him delight ? Alas! hell is too melancholy a place for mirth. All the music is round-echoing groans; all the water is muddy with stench ; all the food angui-sh!

Thus damnable sins shall have semblable punishments; and as Augustine

of the tongue, so we may say of any member: Si non reddet Deo facioido

quce debet, reddet ei }xdiendo quce debet, —If it will not serve God in action,

it shall serve him in passion. Where voluntary obedience is denied, in-

* Aug. Horn. 7.

voluntary angiiisli shall be suffered. Kaow this, thou swearer, that as thy tongue spitsabroad the flames of hell, so the flames of hell shall be poured on thy tongue. As the drunkard will not now keep the cup of satiety from Lis mouth, so God shall one day hold the cup of vengeance to it, and he shall drhik the dregs thereof. As the usurers are tormentors of the commonwealth on earth, so they shall meet with tormentors in hell, that shall transcend them both in malice and subtlety, and load them with bonds and executions, and (which is strangely possible) heavier than those they have so long traded in. The church-robber, encloser, engrosser, shall find worse prowling and pilling in hell than themselves used on earth ; and as they have been the worst devils to their country's wealth, so the worst of devils shall attend them. The unclean adulterer shall have fire added to his fire. And the covetous wretch, that never spake but in the horse-leech's language, and carried a mouth more yawning than the grave's, is now quitted with his nun-quani satis, and finds enough of fire ' in the depths of hell.'

Obs. 4.—The devil hath feasted the wicked, and now the wicked feast the devil, and that with a very chargeable banquet. For the devil is a dainty prince, and more curious in his diet than Vitellius, He feeds, like the cannibal, on no flesh but man's flesh. He loves no venison but the heart, no fowl but the breast, no fish but the soul. As the ' ungodly have eaten up God's people as bread,' Ps. xiv. 4, so themselves shall be eaten as bread: it is just that they be devoured by others that have devoured others. As they have been lions to crash the bones of the poor, so a lion shall crash their bones; they are Satan's feast, he shall ' devour them,' 1 Pet. v. 8. Thus they that were the guests are now the banquet: as they have been feasted with evils, so they feast the devils.

Make a little room in your hearts, ye fearless and desperate wretches, for this meditation. Behold, now, as in a speculative glass, the devil's hospitality. Once be wise ; believe without trial, without feeling. Yield but to be 'ashamed of your sins,' Rom. vi. 21, and then I can, with comfort, ask you ' what fruit they ever brought you.' Let me but appeal from Philip of Macedon when he is drunk, to Philip of Macedon when he is sober,—from your" bewitched lusts to your waked consciences,—and you must needs say, that hrevis hcec, non vera voluptas. All ' the works of darkness are unfruitful,' Eph. V. 11, except in producing and i)rocuring 'utter darkness,' Matt. viii. 13. Sin is the devil's earnest-penny on earth; in hell he gives the inheritance. Temptation is his press-money : by rebellion, oppression, usury, blasphemy, the wicked, lil^e faithful soldiers, fight his battles. When the field is won, or rather lost, (for if he conquers, they are the spoil,) in the depth of hell he gives them pay. Who, then, would march under his colours, who, though he promise kingdoms. Matt. iv. 9, cannot perform a hog 1 Matt. viiL 31. Alas, poor beggar ! he hath nothing of his own but sin, and death, and hell,.and torment. Nihil ad effedum, ad defectum satis, —No positive good, enough privative evil.

J']ven those tliat pass their souls to him by a real covenant, he cannot enrich : they live and die most peimrious beggars, as they do pernicious villains. And they upon whom God sufi'ers him to throw the riches of this world, as a snare over their hearts, which he cannot do but at second-hand, have not enough to keep either their heads from aching or their consciences from despairing. Thus, though God permit them, to help ' the rich man to fill his hani.s,' Luke xii., the u.surcr to .swell his coflTers, the luxurious to poison his blood, the malicious to ^iiaw his bowels, the sacrilegious to amplify his revenues, the ambitious to advance credit; yet there is neither will in God, nor

willingness in the devil, that any of these should be a blessing unto them. All is but borrowed ware, and the customers shall pay for day : the longer they abuse them, the larger arrearages they must return. Only here I may say, that bona sunt quce dona sunt, —they are goods that are gifts. God. gives his graces freely, the devil his junkets falsely ; for the guests must i)ay,' and that dearly, when the least item in the bill, for pains, is beyond tho greatest dish of the feast, for pleasures.

Solomon's sermon spends itself upon two circumstances:—

I. The persons.

II. The place.

I. The persons are—

1. The tempter; she, a right harlot, as appears—(1.) By her prostitution; (2.) By her prodition ; (.3.) By her perdition.

2. The tempted; the dead. All death, whether, (1.) corporal, (2.) spiritual, or, (3.) eternal, is from sin.

3. The attempted; he knoweth not. Whose ignorance is either—(I.) natural; (2.) invincible; (3.) aifected; or, (4.) arrogant.

II. The place. Where their misery is amplified, 1. In part personally; ;5er injirmitatem, by their weakness to resist; soon in. 2. In part locally—(1.) Per infernitatem, in hell; (2.) Per profunditatein, in the depth of hell.

I. 1. Tho person tempting, or the harlot, is vice ; ugly and deformed vice : that with glazed eyes, sulphured cheeks, pied garments, and a Siren's tongue, wins easy respect and admiration. When the heat of tentation shall glow upon concupiscence, the heart quickly melts. Tlie wisest, Solomon, was taken and snared by a woman ; which foul adultery bred as foul an issue, or rather 2)rogeniem vitiosiorem, a worse, idolatry. Satan therefore shapes his temptation in the lineaments of a harlot, as most fit and powerfid to work upon man's aflfections. Certain it is that all delighted vice is a spiritual adultery.

The covetous man couples his heart to his gold ; the gallant is incontinent with his pride ; the corrupt oflicer fornicates with bribery ; the usurer sets continual kisses on the cheek of his security. The heart is set where the hate should be ; and every such sinner spends his spirits to breed and see the issue of his desu'es. Sin, then, is the devil's harlot, which being tricked up in tempting colours, draws in visitants, 2)ra^mittendo suavia, pro-mittendo perpetua, —^giving the kisses of pleasure, and promising them perpetual. We may observe in this strumpet—

(1.) Prostitution. Prov. vii. 13, 'So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him,' &c. Shame now-a-days begins t-o grow so stale, that many vices shall vie in impudent speeches and gestures with the harlot. ' Come, let us take our fill of love,' ver. 18 ; as Potiphar's wife to Joseph, wthout any preparatory circumlocutions or insinuations, ' Come, lie with me.' Sin never stands to untie the knot of God's interdiction, but bluntly breaks it; as the devil at first to the roots of mankind, Gen. iii., ' Ye shall not die.' The usurer never loseth so much time as to satisfy his conscience; it is enough to satisfy his concupiscence. A good mortgage lies sick of a forfeit, and at the usurer's mercy. It is as surely damned as the extortioner will be when he lies at the mercy of the devil. These are so far from that old quaere of Christians, Quid faciemus /—What shall we do 1 that they will not admit the novel question of these toyt-headed times, What shall we think ? They will not give the conscience leave, after a tedious and importunate solicitation, to study of the matter ; but are more injurious and obdurate to their own souls than that unjust judge to the widow.

A cheat is oflfered to a tradesman, an enclosure to a landlord, an underhand fee clapped in the left hand of a magistrate ; if they be evil, and corruption hath lirst marshalled the way, the field is won. They never treat with sin for truce, or pause on an answer, but presently yield the fort of their 'conscience. No wonder, then, if the devil's harlot be so bold, when she is so sure of welcome. It is our weakness that gives 8atan encouragement; if we did resist,* he would desist. Our weak repulses hearten and provoke his fiercer assaults. He would not shew the worldling his apparent horns, if he did not presume of his covetous desire to be horsed on the back of Mammon, and hurried to hell. Hence sin is so bold as to say ' in the wicked heart,' Non est Deus, —' There is no God,' Ps. xiv. 1 ; and so peremptorily to conclude to itself, Ps. x. 6, 'I shall not be moved; for I shall never be in adversity.' Hence, Ps. xlix. 11,' Even their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever,' &c. This is presumptuous and whorish prostitution, to set out iniquity barefaced, without the mask of pretexts to hide her ugly visage : an impetuous, a meretricious impudence, that not with a feminine ra|)ture, but rather with a masculine rape, captives the conscience. You see folly's prostitution.

(2.) Prodltion is the rankling tooth that follows her ravishing kisses. Judas kissed his Master with the same heart. Iniquity hath an infectious breath, if a fair countenance. All her delights are like fair and sweet flowers, but full of serpents. The vanquished concludes with a groan—

' Sic violor, violis, oh violenta, tuis;'—

Thy soft flowers have stung me to death. For indeed it.is most true, Nemo tpsitm pecccUum amat, sed male amando illud quod amat, illaqueatur peccato* —No man loves sin for its own sake ; but by an irregular and sinister love to that he doth love, he is snared with sin. The devil knows that his Ephe-sian harlot, vice, would want worshippers, if treason and death were written upon the temple door ; therefore health and content are proclaimed, and as on the theatre presented; but there is hell under the stage, there is treason in the -vault.

Thus temptation misleads the navigators with a pirate's light; deceives the living fowls with a dead bird : a )Siren, a Judas, a Jebusite, a Jesuit. For were the Jesuit to play the devil, or the devil the Jesuit, on the stage of this world, it would be hard to judge which was the Jesuit, which the devil, or which played the part most naturally. As iniquities are Satan's harlots to corrupt the affections, so Jesuits are his engines to pervert the brains ; for if the new guest here be heart-sick, so their proselyte is brain-sick. Both are made so dissolute, till they become desolate, robbed, and destitute of all comfort.

Sin deals with her guests as that bloody prince, that having invited many great states to a solemn feast, flattered and singled them one by one, and cut oS all their heads. As fatal a success attends on the flatteries of sin. Oh, then, fufje exnlcemtncem hanc,—tiy this harlot, that carries death about her. Go aloof from her door, as, they say, the devil doth by the cross; but (lest that savour of supposition, nay, of superstition) do thou in sincere devotion fly from sui, (jiiasi u facie colubri,—as from a serpent. She hath a Siren's voice, mermaid's face, a Helen's beauty to tempt thee ; but a leper's touch, a serpent's sting, a traitorous hand to wound thee. The best way to conquer sin is by Parthian war, to run away. So the poet—

* August.

' Sed fuge; tutus adhuc Parthus ab hoste fuga est.'

Tunc peccata fugantur, cum fufjiantur,—\NQ then put sin to a forced flight, when it puts us to a voluntary flight. That poetical amoris artifex et viedi-(us so counsels : Fuge conscia vestri concuhitus, tkc. But beyond all exception, the holy Apostle gives the charge, ' Flee fornication.' Shun the place, suspect the appearance of evil You see her prodition.

(3.) Her perdition follows. She undoes a man; not so much in estate of his carcase, as of his conscience. The gniest is not so much damnified in respect of his goods, as damned in respect o^s grace. Every man is not undone that is beggared; many, like Job, Mnime jjermnt, cum maxima perire videniur,—are indeed least undone, when they seem most undone. Nay, some may say with the philosopher, Periemm, nisi periissem,—U 1 had not sustained loss, I had been lo.st. So David's great trouble made him a good man; Naaman's leprous flesh brought him a white and clean spirit. But the perdition that vice brings is not so visible as it is miserable. The sequel of the text will amplify this ; only now I apply it to the harlot. The harlot destroys a man many ways :—

[1.] In his goods. It is a costly sin. Tamar would not yield to Judah without a hire. The hire makes the whore.

' Stat meretrix certo quovis mercabilis sere, Et misera.s jusso corpore quaerit opes;'—

' Compared with harlots, the worst beast is good : No beasts, but they, will sell their flesh and blood.'

The old proverb conjoins venery and beggary. The prodigal returned not from his harlot without an empty purse. Sin doth no less undo a man's estate. It is a purgatory to his patrimony. It is objected : it rather heliis him to riches, and swells his purse. Doth not a bribed hand, a sycophant tongue, a covetous and griping palm, make men wealthy ? Yield wealthy, not rich. He is rich that possesseth what he got justly, and useth what he possesseth conscionably. Other wealthy men are not unlike either the Capuchins or the Seculars. Some, like the former, profess beggary, though they possess the Indies; these had rather fill their eye than their belly, a'lid will not break a sum though they endanger their healths. The other sort are like the Seculars, that will fare well, though ^\ith a hard farewell. But as the harlot, so often vice ' brings a man to a morsel of bread,' Prov. vi. 26. Thus tibijit damno, vitio lucrosa voluptas, —pleasure is no less than a loss to thee, than a gain to sin. It is not amiss to answer Satan's inviters to this-feast, as the vicious poet his cockatrice—

' Cur sim mutatus quajris ? quia munera poscis. Hajc te non patitur causa placere mihi;'—

It is even one reason to,dissuade us from sin, that it is costly.

^ [2.] In his good name. No worldly undoing is like this shipwreck. Goods may be redeemed, but this se7>iel amissa, jyostea null us eris, once utterly lost, thou art nobody. It is hard to recover the set, when a man is put to the after-game for his credit. Though many a man's reputation be but hypeuemium ovum, a rotten egg, whiles he is a great dealer with other men's goods, and of himself no better than a beggar ; and though the most famous are but astmatici, short-breathed men, and their reputation no better than Ephraim's righteousness, but ' a morning dew ;' yet actum est de homine, cum actum est de nowtne,—when a man's good name is done, himself is undone.

A man intleed may lose Lis good name AvitLout cause, and be at once accused and abased, when slanders against liim are maliciously raised and oasiiy accei^ted; but ' God shall bring forth his righteousness as the light, and his judgment as the noon-day,' Ps. xxxvii. G. Contrarily, another man hides the ulcers of his sore conscience with the plasters of sound repute. But to be puffed up with the wrongful estimation of ourselves, by the flatter-inc breath of others' blown praises, is a ridiculous pride. Scepe Jlagellatur incorde prop)-io, qui laudatur in ore alieno, —Many that are commended in others' mouths are justly aubdued in their own conscience. Such a one cozens his neighbours, thcy^e another, and all himself. And as originally the deceit came from him, so eventually the shame will end in him. Hence they whose fames have been carried furthest on the wings of report, have been after, by the manifestation of their wickedness, more dead in men's thoughts than in their own carcase; for ' the name of the wicked shall rot,' Prov. X. 7.

This is the mischief which sin in general, as whoredom in particular, works to the name : a rotten reputation, an infamous fame, a reproach for a report; that their silent memories are never conjured up from the grave of oblivion, but, as the 'son's of Nebat,' for their own disgrace, and to deter men from the imitation of their wickedness. It were well for them, if Time, which unnaturally devours his own brood, could as well still their mention as it hath stayed their motion ; or that their memorial might not survive their funeral. Now, though it be no evident demonstration, yet it is a very ominous and susjjicious thing to have an ill name. The proverb saith, he is half-hanged, A thief before the judge speeds the worse for his notorious name. Is this all ? No ; but as he whose breath is stifled with a cord is wholly hanged, so he that hath strangled his own reputation, which is the breath of his breath, with a lewd life, is at least half suspended. His infamy hangs on the gibbet of popular contempt till it be recovered. He is half alive, half a corpse. It was the plain meaning of the proverb.

Now, that a bad name is a broad shame, it appears, because no stews-hunter would be called a whoremonger, no Papist an idolater, no usurer a usurer. All sinners are ashamed to be accounted what they have assumed to be. But it is certain that if a man be ashamed of his name, his name may be ashamed of him. As thou lovest thy reputation with men, seek the testimony of thine own conscience. It is the best fame that carries credit with God. Let men say what they list, 0 Lord, thou knowest mine innocence. Yet, because it is hard to do good unless a man be reputed good, therefore dare not to darken the light of thy name by the gross clouds of thy impieties. This is the second destruction that continued vice brings her lovers. Prov. vi. 3.3, 'A wound and dishonour shall he get, and his reproach shall not be wiped away.' When he hath done it, he is undone by it. Perdit honorem, perdendo honestatem, —The dishonesty in him shall bring dishonour to him : he builds, Haman-like, a gallows for his own credit.

[3.] In his health. The precepts of Wisdom, practised with obedience, 'bring health to the flesh, and are life to tliose that find them,' Prov. iv. 22 ; but sin is ' rottenness to the bones.' ' He that committetli fornication,' saith St Paul, 1 Cor. vi. 18, 'sinneth against his own body.' Let it be inevitably true in this sin, it is, at least accidentally, tnie in all sins. For tliDUgh God sufl'ers some reprobates to keep 'firm health,' and to escape 'common ])lagHos;' that they have 'fat eyes,' Ps. Ixxiii. 4, 5, 7, and clear lungs, 'merry liearts' and 'nimble loins,' Job xxi. 13 ; and can stroke their grey hairs, vcr. 7 ; yet often he cither puts them on the rack of some tcr-

rible disease, or quite puts out their candle. ' Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days,' Ps. Iv. 23. All sickness originally proceeds from sin, all weakness from wickedness. As Mepliibosheth caught his lameness by falling from his nurse, so all men their diseasedness by falling from their Christ. The evil disposition of the soul mars the good composition of the body. There is no disaster to the members but for disorder in the manners. All diseases are God's real sermons from heaven, whereby he accuseth and punisheth man for his sins.

The harlot is a plague to the flesh : she is worse than a fever, more infectious than the pestilence. Every nation hath his several disease ; but the harlot is a universal plague, whereof no nation is free. She makes the strong man glad of potion, brings health acquainted with the physician; and he that stoutly denied the knowledge of liis gate, now stands trembling at his study door, with a bare head, a bending knee, and a humble phrase. She is the common sink of all corruptions, both natural and preternatural, incident to the conscience or corpse; and hath more diseases attending on her than the hospital.

The Midianitish harlot. Num. xxv., sin, leads in a train of no fewer nor weaker plagues. Consumptions, fevers, inflammations, botches, emerods, pestilences, are peccatl peJissequcc, the observant handmaids of iniquity. As it is, then, wicked to * take the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot,' 1 Cor. vi. 15 ; so it is wretched to divorce the afi'ections of the mind from God, and wed them to any impiety. Thus do these pair of harlots impair the health.

[4.] They both concur to spoil a man's soul; wMes the Soul of the soul, God's Spirit, quo agitante calescimus, is by this bereaved us. Acts xviL 28, ' In him we Uve, move, and have our being.' In illo vivimus: vivimus per naturaiii, bene vivimus per gratiam. In illo movemus, vel movemur potius, ad humana, ad divina opera suscipienda. Ka/ 'iaiMiv; essentiam habemus, quoad esse, et quoad bene esse ; —In him all live naturally, some graciously. In him we move, or rather are moved, to the performance, all of human works, some of divine. In him we have our being ; both that we are at all, and that we are well. This better life is the soul spoiled of when sin hath taken it captive. ' The adulteress will hunt for the precious life,' Prov. vL 26. She is ambitious, and would usurp God's due, and claim the heart, the soul. ' He that doth love her destroyeth his own soul,' ver. 32 : which she loves not for itself, but for the destruction of it; that all the blossom.s of grace may d^^indle and shrink away, as blooms in a nipping frost; and all our comforts run from us, as flatterers from a falling greatness, or as vermin from a house on fire. Nay, even both thy lives are endangered. The wicked man ' goeth after her, as a fool to the correction of the stocks; till a dart strike through his liver, as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life,' Prov. vii. 23. It is as inevitably true of the spiritual harlot's mischief; for ' the turning away of the simple shall slay them,' Prov. i. 32. Save my life, and take my goods, saith the jjrostrate and yielding traveller to the thief But there is no mercy with this enemy : the life must pay for it. She is worse than that invincible navy, that threatened to cut the throats of all, men, women, infants; but I would to God she might go hence again without her errand, as they did, and have as little cause to brag of her conquests.

2. Thus have we described the temptress. The tempted follows, who are here called the dead. There be three kinds of death—corporal, spiritual, eternal: corporal, when the body leaves this life; spiritual, when the soul

VOL. I. P

forsakes and is forsaken of grace; eternal, when both shall be tlirown into hell. The first is the separation of the soul from the body; the second is the separation of body and soul from grace ; and the third is the separation of them both from everlasting happiness. Man hath two parts by which he lives, and two places wherein he might live if he obeyed God : earth for a time, heaven for ever. This harlot, sin, deprives either part of man in either place of true life, and subjects Mm both to the first and second death. Let us therefore examine in these particulars, first, what this death is; and, secondly, how Satan's guests, the wicked, may be said to be liable thereunto.

(1.) Corporal death is the departure of the soul from the body, whereby the body is left dead, without action, motion, sense; for the life of the body is the union of the soul with it. For which essential dependence the soul is often called and taken for the life : ' Peter said unto liim, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now ? I will lay down my soul for thy sake,' John xiii. 37,— Trjv -^^x^v, his soul, meaning, as it is translated, his life. And, ' He that findeth his soul shall lose it; but he that loseth his soul for my sake shall find it,' Matt. x. 39. Here the soul is taken for the life. So that in this death there is the separation of the soul and the body, the dissolution of the person, the privation of life, the continuance of death ; for there is no possible regress from the privation to the habit,* except by the supernatural and miraculous hand of God. This is the first, but not the worst, death which sin procureth. And though the special deadness of the guests here be spiritual, yet this, which we call natural, may be implied, may be applied; for when God threatened death to Adam's sin. In illo die morieris, —' In the day that thou eatest thereof thou slialt surely die,'—yet Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years after. There was, notwithstanding, no delay, no delusion of God's decree ; for in ipso die, in that very day, death took hold on him. And so is the Hebrew phrase, Gen. ii. 17, ' dying, thou shalt die:' fall into a languishing and incurable consumption, that shall never leave thee till it bring thee to thy grave. So that he instantly died, not by present separation of soul and body, but by mortality, mutability, misery, yea, by sorrow and pain, as the instruments and agents of death. Thus said that father, * After a man beginneth to be in this body,' by reason of his sin,' he is even in death.'

The wicked, then, are not only called dead because the conscience is dead, but also in respect of God's decree, whose inviolable substitution of death to sin cannot be evaded, avoided. It is the statute-law decreed in the great parliament of heaven. Statutum omnibus semel mori, —' It is appcnnted unto men once to die,' Heb. ix. 27. This is one special kindness that sin doth us; one kiss of her lips. She gives her lovers three mortal kisses. The first kills the conscience; the second, the carcase; the third, body and soul for ever. Kom. v. 12, 'Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.' So Paid schools his Corinthians : 1 Cor. xi. 30, ' For this cause many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.' And conclusively, Horn. vi. 23, Peccati stipendium '/«o/-s,—' The wages of sin is death' This death is to the wicked death indeed, even as it is in its own full nature the curse of God, the suburbs of hell. Neither is this unjust dealing with God, that man should incur the death of his body that had rejected the life of his soul. Nisi pmcessisset in j>eccato mors animce, nunquam corporis mors in siipplicio ser/Heretur,f—Ii sin had not first wounded the body, death could not have killed the soul. Hence saith Augustine, 'Men shun the death of the flesh • That is, Laving.— Ed. j. Fulgent.

rather than the death of tlie spirit; that is, the punishment rather than the cause of the punishment.'*

Indeed death, considered in Christ, and joined with a good life, is to God's elect 'an advantage,' Phil. L 21 ; nothing else but a bridge over this tem-pestu(ms sea to paradise. God's mercy made it so, saith St Augustine.'f ' not by making death in itself good, but an instrument of good to his.' This he demonstrates by an instance : ' As the law is not evil when it increa.seth the lust of sinners, so death is not good though it augment the glory of sufferers.' The wicked use the law ill, though the law be good. The good die well, though the death be c^il. Hence saith Solomon, Eccles. vii. 1, ' The day of death is better than the day of one's birth.' For our death is non ohitus, sed abitus, —not a perishing, but a parting, Non amittitur anima, proemit-titnr tantum,—Th(i soul is not lost to the body, but only sent before it to joy. Si dwius seponitur, melius reponitur, —If the soul be painfully laid off, it is joyfidly laid up. Though every man that hath his Genesis must have his Exodus, and they that are born must die; yet, saith Tertullian of the saints, Profectio est, quam putas mortem, —Our dying on earth is but the taking our journey into heaven. Simeon depart.s, and that in peace. In pace, in pacem. Death cannot be eventually hurtfid to the good ; for it no sooner takes away the temporal life but Christ gives eternal in the room of it.

Alas ! au,aara, -TTTuiixara, corpora, caclavera. Our graces shall as surely be coffins to our bodies, as our bodies have been coffins to our souls. The mind is but in bondage whiles the body holds it on earth; au/j-a, qimsi cniMa, as Plato affirms. Of whom saith an author, that when he saw one too indulgent to his Hcsh in high diet, he asked him, What do you mean, to make your prison so strong? Thus, qui gloriatur in viribus corporis, glori-atur in viribus carceris, —he that boasteth the strength of his body, doth but brag how strong the prison is wherein he is jailed.

ZM'MO!, Ttti

hi ->\,uyjii, abr;c, (m7^\ riy^Oog, avayyjri, —+

The body is the disease, the grave, the destiny, the necessity, and the burden of the soul.

' Hinc cupiunt, metiumtque, dolent, gaudentqne; nee auras Respiciunt clausse tenebris et carcere cseco;'—

' Fears, joys, griefs, and desires man's life do share: It wants no iUs that in a prison are.'

It was a good observation that fell from that Stoic, § Homo calamitatis fabula, ivfelicitatis tabula, —Man is a story of woe, and a maj) of misery. So the Mantuan :—

* Nam quid longa dies nobi.s, nisi longa dolorum Colluvies? Longi patientia carceris, retas?'

It appears, then, that death is, to the good, a procurer of good. Mors in-termittit vitam, non eripit: venit iterum, qui nos in lucem reponat diesM Their death is but like the taking in sunder of a clock, which is jjulled a-pieces by the maker's hand, that it may be scoured and repohshed, and

• De Trin., lib. iv., cap. 12.

t De Civit., lib. xiii., cap. 4 :—' Non quia mors bonum aliquod facta est, quam vita constat esse contrariam; sed ut instrumentum fieret, per quod traueiretur in vitam.'

+ Hom.

§ Epictet.:—' Qui tolerandaa esse injurias, et abstinendum ik voluptate docuit.'

II Lactaut.

made go more perfectly. But death to the wicked is the second step to that infernal vault, that shall breed either an innovation of their joys, or an addition to their sorrows. Dives, for his momentary pleasure, hath insufferable pains. Judas goes from the gallows to the pit ; Esau from his dissolution in earth, to his desolation in hell. ' The dead are there.' Though the dead in soul be meant literally, yet it fetcheth in the body also. For as original sin Ls the original cause of death, so actual sins hasten it. Men speed out a commission of iniquities against their own lives. So the envious man rots his own bones ; the glutton strangles, the drunkard drowns himself The malecontent dries up his blood with fretting. Tlie covetous, whiles he Italianates liis conscience, and would Romanise his estate, starves himself in plain English, and would hang himself when the market falls, but that he is loath to be at the charges of a halter. Thus it is a feast of death, both for the present sense and future certainty of it. ' The dead are there.'

(2.) Spiritual death is called the death of the soul; which consisteth not in the loss of her understanding and will, (these she can never lose, no, not in hell,) but of the truth and grace of God, wanting both the light of faith to direct her, and the strength of love to incite her to goodness. ' For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace,' Rom. viii. 6. The soul is the life of the body, God of the soul. The spirit gone utterly from us, we are dead. And so especially are the guests of Satan dead. ' You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins,' Eph. ii. 1. And the widow ' that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth,' 1 Tim. V. 6. This divorcement and separation made betwixt God and the soul by .sin is mors animce, —the death of the soul. ' But your iniquities have separated between you and your God,' Isa. lix. 2. But ' we live by faith,' Heb. X. 38, and that ' in the Son of God,' GaL ii. 20. ' His Spirit quickens us,' Eph. ii. 5, as the soul doth a lump of flesh, when God infaseth it.

Now, because these terms of spiritual death are communicated both to the elect and reprobates, it is not amiss to conceive that there is a double kind of spiritual death, both in regard to the subject that dieth, and in regard to the object whereunto it dieth. Spiritual death in the faithful is threefold:—

[1.] They are dead to sin. Rom. vi. 2, ' How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein ?' A dead nature cannot work. He that is dead to sin cannot, as he is dead, sin. We sin indeed, not because we are dead to sin, but because not dead enough. Would to God you were yet more dead, that you might yet more live ! This is called mortification. Wliat are mortified ? Lusts. The wicked have mortification too, but it is of grace. Matt. viii. 22, they are both jointly expressed : ' Let the dead bury the dead.' Which St Augustine expounds, ' Let the spiritually dead bury those that are corporally dead.' The faithful are dead to sin; the faithless are dead in sin. It is true life to be thus dead. Moi'tificatio concupiscentice, vivificatio animce, —So far is the spirit quickened as the flesh is mortified. So true is this paradox, that a Christian so far lives as he is dead ; so far he is a conqueror as he is conquered. Vincendo se, vincitur a se, —By overcoming himself, he is overcome of himself. Whiles he overrules his lusts, his soul rules him. When the outward cold rageth with greatest violence, the inward heat is more and more effectual. When death hath killed and stilled concupiscence, the heart begins to live. This war makes our peace.

This life and death is wroiight in us by Christ, who at one blow slew our sins and saved our souls, (hia eadenvjue mamis vulnus opemqne tnJit, —One and the same hand gave the wound and the cure. Vtdneratur concupis-

centia, sanatiir comcientla, —The deadly blow to the concupiscence hath revived the conscience. For Christ takes away as well dominandi vim as damnandi vim, —the dominion of sin as the damnation of sin. He died 'that sin might not reign in our mortal body,' Rom. \-\. 12; he came 'to destroy' not only the devil, but ' tlie works of tlie devil,' 1 Jolin iii. 8. Hence if you would, witli the spectacles of the Scriptures, read your own estates to God, ' reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord,' Kom. vL 11. This triumph consists not ia being free from lusts, but in bridling them ; not in scaping tentation, but in vanquishing it. It is enough that ' in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us,' Iloni. viii. 37.

[2.] They are dead to the law. ' For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God,' Gal. ii. It); wiicrein he opposeth the law against the law, the new against the old, the law of Christ against that of Moses. This accuseth the accusing, condemneth the condemning law.* The Papists understand this of the ceremonial law , but Paul plainly expresseth that the law moral, which would have been to us a law mortal, is put under : we are ' dead unto it." As Christ at once came under death and overcame death, et snperit, et superat, so we, in him, are exempted from the condenni-ing power and killing letter of the law, and by being dead unto it are alive over it. Indeed, the law still abides. As Christ when he rose from the dead, the grave remamed still ; Peter freed from the prison, the palsied from his bed, the young man from his coffin, the prison, bed, coffin remain still; the persons are delivered : so the law abides to mortify our lusts still more and more, but our conscience is freed from the bondage of it. ' We are dead unto it.'

[3.] They are dead to the world. This death is double— active and passive.

Active. —The world is dead unto us. The vanity of carnal joys, the variety of vanities, are as bitter to us as pleasant to the cosmopolite or worldling. And since we must give our voices either to God or Mammon, when God asketh, as Jehu, ' Who is on my side, who ?' we stand out for our God. Angustum est stratum jjectoris hmnani, et utrumipie operire non ])otest, — Plan's heart is too narrow a bed to lodge both God and the world in at once. Qui utrimi'iue ambit, in utroque dejiciet, —The hound that follows two hares Avill catch neither. A'^emo potest duobus dominis, neque dominii-.<i, imervire, — 'No man can serve two masters,' Matt. vi. '2\, with true service ; especially when they command contrary things. Thus is the world dead to us. For, since the world is not so precious as the soul, we leave the world, to keep our soul, since both cannot well be affected at once; therefore ' we account all things dross and loss for the excellent knowledge of Christ,' Phil. iiL 8.

Passive. —We are dead to the world. As we esteem it dross, it esteems us filth : 1 Cor. iv. 13, ' We are made as the filth of the world, and as the offscouring of all things unto this day.' As we, in a holy contempt, tread it under in our works, and vUify it in our words, so it looks w\)Qn us betwixt scorn and anger, and offers to set his foot on our necks. But vicimus, we have conquered : 1 John v. 4, ' Who.soever is born of God overcometh the world : and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.' Let us rejoice, therefore, in ' our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to us, and we to the world,' Gal. vi. 14.

These are good deaths ! Blessed souls, that are thus dead ! Their death is mortification, and, like the phtjenix, they are no sooner dead but they are ♦ Luth. in GaL

new-born. Their old man's autumn is their new man's spring-tide. There are none thus dead at this feast.

The dead here have seared consciences, poisoned affections, warped, withered, rotten souls. ' Twice dead,' saith St Jude; and some, -without hope of growing, ' plucked up by the roots.' Though the Pythagorean eiTor, the transanimation or the departure of the soul from man to man, was brought to the BasUidean heresy ; nay, which was more gross, though the poets feigned that the souls of men departed in beasts,—Orpheus into the swan, Ajax into the lion, Agamemnon into the eagle, politicians into bees and ants,"the luxurious into hogs, tyrants in wolves ; which were positions for Machiavel, and articles of Lucian's faith : yet they might rather (and that more favourably to their o\\ti credits, speaking according to men's lives) have affirmed that the spirits of beasts might rather seem to have entered men, If at least the beasts do not preserve their nature better than men. They live whiles they live; men are dead even living, hnpie vivere est diu mori, —A wicked life is a continual death. And we may say of an old wicked man, not that he hath lived, but that he hath been long. Deus vita, ct qua qui distinguitur perit, —God is the true life, without whom we cannot live.

The heart of a wicked man thus becometh dead. The devil works by suggesting, man by consenting, God by forsaking. He forsakes thus :—[1.] By suffering a hard heart to grow harder. [2.] By givuig success to ill purposes, which he could have disappointed. [3.] By not imparting the assistance of his Spirit. Thus he leaves them in darkness that would not choose the light; and finding their hearts undisposed to believe, delivers them up to infideUty. His not willing to soften is enough to harden; his not 'wiUiug to enlighten is enough to darken. Dei claudere est clausis non aperire, —God is then said to shut up when he doth not open to them that are shut up. God is able to soften the hard heart, open the blind eye, pierce the deaf ear. When he doth, it is mercy; when not, it is justice. Only our falling is from ourselves. Hos. xiii. 9, ' 0 Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help.' For God is ever foremost in love, but last in hate. He loved us before wc loved him; but we hate him before he hates us. 3fuUi ne labe-rentur detenti, nulli ut laberentur impidsl, —God preserves many from falling, but he thrusteth none down. By his strength we stand; through our own weakness we fall.

As in the sickness of the body, so of the soul, there are critical days, secret to ourselves, but well known to God ; whereby he sees our recovery unlikely, and therefore turns us over to the danger of our sickness : that now, too late, Jerusalem knows what was offered her ' in the day of her visitation.' God blinds the soid, blinded before by Satan; and hardens again Pharaoh's self-hardoiied heart: Et quia non faciunt bona qua; cognosctint, non cogno-scent mala quw faciunt, —Because they would not do the good they knew, they shall do the evil they know not. Thus is the soul's death degreed up. Sin gathers strength by custom, and creeps like some contagious disease in the body from joiiit to joint; and, because not timely spied and medicined, threatens universal hazard to the whole. It swells like the sea : tmda levis, majora volHmma,Jliidus ad coeliim. An egg, a cockatrice, a serpent, a fiery flying serpent. Custom indeed kills the soul. The curse that the Cretians used against their enemies was not fire on their houses, nor rottenness on their bea.sts, nor a sword at their hearts, but that which would treble to them all mischief—that they might be delighted with an evil custom : Ut mala consueludine dtlectentur. Temptation assaults the heart; consent wounds it: it lies sick of action ; it dies by delight in sui; it is buried by custom.

The bell hath tolled for it; God's word hath mourned; the church hatii prayed for it; but quid valcant sif/na jn-ecesve ? —what good can signs and prayers do, when we voluntarily yield our heart fo hiin that violently kills it ? Thus God leaves the heart, and Satan seizeth on it, whose gripes are not gentler than death.

Thus the habit of sin takes away the sense of sin ; and the conscience, that was at first raw and bleeding, as newly wounded, is now ' seared up with a hot iron,' 1 Tim. iv. 2. The conscience of a wicked man first speaks to him, as Peter to Christ, ^Matt. xvi. 22, ' Master, look to thyself.' But he stops her mouth with a violent hand. Yet she would fam speak to him, like the importunate widow, to do her justice. He cannot well be rid of her, therefore he sets her a day of hearing, and when it is come fiiileth her. She cries yet louder for audience ; and when all his corrupt and bribed atfcctions cannot charm her silence, he drowns her complaints at a tavern, or laughs her out of countenance at a theatre. But if the pulse beats not, the body is most dangerously sick; if the conscience prick not, there is a dying souL It is a lawless school where there is an awless monitor. The city is easily surprised where the watch cannot ring the alarms. No marvel if numbness be in the heart when there is dumbness in the conscience.

These are the dead guests; dead to all goodness. Deaf ears, lame feet, blind eyes, maimed hands, when there is any employment for them in God's service. * Eyes fuU of lust,' void of compassion ; ears deaf to the word, open to vanity; feet swift to shed blood, slow to the temple ; hands open to extortion, shut to charity. To all religion the heart is a piece of dead flesh. No love, no fear, no care, no pain can penetrate their senseless and remorseless hearts. I know, that accordhig to the speech of the philosopher, nemo Jit repente miser, —this is no sudden evil : they were born sick, they have made themselves dead. Custom liath inveterated the ulcer, rankled the conscience, and now sin flouts the physician's cure, knowing the soul dead. Through many wounds they come to this death. At first they sin and care not, now they sin and know not. The often taken potion never works. Even the physic of reproof turns now to their hardening. Oh that our times were not full of this deadness ! How many never take the mask of religion but to serve their own turns ! And when piety becomes their advantage, yet they at once counterfeit and condemn it. If a wished success answer the intention of their minds and contention of their hands, God is not worthy of the praise; either their fortune or their wit hath the glory of the deed, and thanks for it. But if they be crossed, God shall be blasphemed under the name of destiny; and he shall be blamed for their iU to whom they \vill not be beholden for their good.

God is not thought of but in extremity, not spoken of but in blasphemy. O dead hearts ! whose funeral we may lament, whose reviving we can almost not hope. But what 1 WiU this deadness never be a little wakened l Tnie it is, that God must miraculously raise up the soul thus dead, and put the life of his grace into it, or it is desperate. The conscience, I confess, will not ever lie quiet in these dead guests; but as they have jailed up that for a while in the darkness of security, so when God looseth it, it ^\'ill rage as fast against them, and dog them to their graves. For as there is a heaven on earth, so a hell on earth. The dead to sm are heavened in this world ; the dead in sui are helled here, by the tormenting anguish of an unappeasable conscience. As Bishop Latimer, in a sermon, toid these guests of a feast in hell, wliich will afl'ord them little mkth ; where weeping is served in for the first course, gnashing of teeth for the second : so, after their fe;ist on

earth,—which was no better than Numa's, where the table swam with delicate dishes, but they were swimming dishes, spedandce non gmtanche dapes, —let them prepare for another banquet where groans shall be their bread, and tears their drink, sighs and sorrows all their junkets; which the Erynnis of conscience and the Megajra of desperation shall serve ia, and no everlastingness of time shall take away.

But these spiritually dead giiests do not evermore scape so long; sometimes God gives them in this life a draught of that vial of his wrath which they shall after sup off to the bottom. The wicked man, that had no fear, now shall have too much fear. He that began with the wanton comedy of presumption and profaneness, ends with the tragedy of horror and despair. Before, he was so asleep that nothing could waken him ; noAv, he is so waking that nothing can bring him asleep. Neither disport abroad nor quiet at home can possess him ; he cannot possess himself. Sin is not so smooth at setting forth as turbulent at the journey's end. The wicked have their day, wherein they run from pleasure to pleasure, as Job's children from banquet to banquet ; their joys have changes of variety, little intermission, no cessation; neither come they faster than their lusts call for them. So God hath his day: Amos V. 18, 19, ' And woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you 1 The day of the Lord is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.' Such is the unrest of a conscience brought to fret for his sins. So Augustine (in Psal. xlv.): Fugii ah agro in civitatem, ct, publico ad domum, d, domo in cubicidum, —He runs from the field into the city, from the city to his house, and in his house to the privatest chamber; but he cannot fiy from his enemy that cannot fly from himself

At first the devil's guest pursues pleasure so eagerly, that he would'break down the bars that shut it from him, and quarrel with venture of his blood for his delights, nay, for the conditions of his own sorrow and damnation. Now pleasure is offered him ; no, it will not down. Music stands at his window; it makes him as mad with discontent as it did once with joy. No jest can stir his laughter, no company can waken his unreasonable and unseasonable melancholy. Now he that was madder than Nero in delights, ' fear compasscth him on every side.' He starts at his own shadow, and would change firmness with an aspen leaf. He thinks, like the BurgTindians, every thistle a lance, every tree a man, every man a devil. ' They fear where no fear was,' saith the Psalmist. They think they see what they do not see. This is the wicked man's alteration: time is, he will not be warned ; time comes, ho will not be comforted. Then he is satisfied with lusts that thought such a satisfaction impossible. Riches weary hiui now to keep them more than they wearied him once to get them ; and that was enough. So I have read the oppressor's will: Lego omnia bona mea domino regi, corpus sepultum, animavi diabolo, —I bequeath all my goods to the kiiig, my body to the grave, my soul to the devil. He that did wrong to all would now seem to do right to some : in giving his coin to the prince, whom he had deceived ; his soul to the devil, whom he had served. Wherein, as lie had formeriy injured man, now he injures both God and himself too.

{."}.) I have dwelt the longer on this spiritual deadncss, because the guests at this banquet have this death in present: the precedent and subsequent are both future ; the one naturally incurred by sin, the other justly inflicted for unrrix'iited sin. For all Khali die the corporal death : Eccles. ix. 2, ' He that fcaroth an oath,' as well as ' he that sweareth;' the religious as the pro-

fane. But this last, ^vliich is etenial death, shall only seize on them tliat have beforehand with a spiritual death slain themselves. This therefore is called the ' second death.' Kev. xx. 6, ' Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection,' which is the spiritual life by grace ; ' on such the second death hath no power.' He that is by Christ rai.sed from the first death shall by Christ also scape the second. But he that is dead spiritually, after he hath died corporally, shall also die eternally. This is that everlasting separation of body and soul from God, and consequently from all comfort. ' Fear him,' saith our Saviour, Matt. x. 28, ' that is able to destroy bt)th body and soul in hell.' Dan. xii. 2, ' And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.' This is that death that Grod doliglits not in, Ezek. xxxiii. 11. His goodness hath no pleasure in it, though his justice must inflict it.

Man by sin hath offended God, an infinite majesty, and therefore deserves an infinite misery. Now, because he is a nature finite, he ciinnot suSer a punishment infinite in greatness, simul et sernel, together and at once ; he must therefore endure it successive sine fine, successively without end. The punishment must be proportioned to the sin ; because not in present greatness, therefore in eternal continuance. Christ for his elect suffered in short time sufficient punishment for their sins; for it is all one for one that is eternal to die, and for one to die eternally. But he for whom Christ suffered not in that short time must suffer for himself beyond all times, even for ever.

This is the last death: a li\nng death, or a dying life, what shall I term it ? If it be life, how doth it kill ? If death, how doth it live 1 There is neither life nor death but hath some good in it. In life there is some ease, in death an end ; but in this death neither ease nor end. Prima mors animam dohntem peUit de cnrpore; secunda vwrs animam nolentem tenet in corpore* —The first death drives the soul unwillingly from the body; the second death holds the soul unwillingly in the body. llev. ix. 6, ' In these days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall fly from them.' ' Their worm shall not die.' Thus saith the Scripture : Morientur mortem, ' They shall die the death.' Yet their death hath too much life in it. For there is a perfection given to the body and soul after this life; as in heaven to the stronger participation of comfort, so in hell to the more sensible receiving of torment. The eye shall see more perspicuously, and the ear hear more quickly, and the sense feel more sharply, though all the objects of these be sorrow and anguish. Vermis conscien-tiam corrodet, ignis carnem combnrct, quia ft corde et corpore deliqnemnt, — The worm shall gnaw the conscience, the fire burn the flesh, because both flesh and conscience have oft'endcd. This is the fearful death which these guests incur; this is the shot at the devil's banquet. God in his justice suffers him to reward his gue-sts as he is rewarded himself; and, since they loved his w^ork, to give them the stipend due to his service. These are the tempted guests—dead.

The Vulgar translation, I know not upon what ground, hath interpreted here for mortui, Gigantes: thus, ' he knoweth not that the giants arc there.' Monstrous men, that would dart thunder at God hijnself, and rai.se up mountains of impiety against heaven. As if they were only great men that feasted at Satan's banquet, whose riches were able to minister matter to their pleasure. And surely such are in these days : of whose sins when we * Aust. de Civit. Dei, lib. xxi., cap. 3.

have cast an inventory account, we might thus with the poet sum up themselves—

' VLs dicam quid sis ? magnus es Ardelio;'—

* Thou hast great lands, great powers, great sins; and then Dost ask me what thou art '! Th' art a great man.'

The giants in the Scriptm-e, Gen. vi, 4, were men of a huge stature, of a fierce nature. The poets feigned their giants to be begotten and bred of the sun and the earth, and to ofier violence to the gods : some of them having an hundred hands, as Briareus was called centimanus, meaning they were of great command ; as Helen wrote to Paris of her husband ilenelaus: An nescis longas regibus esse manus ? This word giants, if the original did afford it, must be refen-ed, either to the guests, signifying that monstrous men resorted to the harlot's table, and that it was giganteum convivium, a tyrannous feast; or else, and that rather, to the tormentors, which are laid in ambush, to surprise all the comers in, and carry them as a prey to hell. But because the best translations give no such word, and it is far fetched, I let it fall as I took it up.

3. The third person here inserted is the attempted, the new guest whom she strives to bring in to the rest. He is described by his ignorance: Nescit, —' He knoweth not' what company is in the house, ' that the dead are there.' It is the devil's policy, when he would ransack and rob the house of our conscience, like a thief to put out the candle of our knowledge; that we might neither discern his purjjoses nor decline his mischiefs. He hath had his instruments in all ages to darken the light of knowledge. Domitian turns philosophy into banishment. Julian shuts up the school doors. The barbarous soldiers under Clement the Seventh burned that excellent Vatican library. Their reasons concurred with Julian's prohibition to the Christians: ha firi oht'ioig -rrgso/s (SaXXoJ/^iSa., —lest they kill us with their own weapons. For it is said even of Gentile learning : Ilic est Golice gladius, quo ipse Go-liah jugidandus est: Mc Jlerculis clava, qua rahidi mter Ethnicos canes per-cutiendi sunt; —This is that Goliah's sword, whereby the Philistine himself is wounded : this is that Hercules's club, to smite the mad dogs amongst the heathen. Habadallus, Mohammed's scholar, that Syrian tyrant, forbade all Christian children in his dominions to go to school, that by ignorance he might draw them to superstition. For roug d(piXoa6poug sv rw sxorsi opy^sladai, —to be destitute of learning is to dance in the dark. These were all Satan's instruments; yet they come short of the Pops, whose policy to advance his; hierarchy is to oppress men's consciences with ignorance ; teaching that the fulness of zeal doth arise from the emptiness of knowledge,—even as fast as fire flasheth out of a fish-pond.

There are degrees in sin, so in ignorance. It is a sin to be ignorant of that we should know ; but a greater sin to be ignorant of that we have means to know. Ignorance may be distinguished into five kinds : human, natural, affected, invincible, proud and puffed up.

The /rst is human. This is not sinful, as in Adam not to know his nakedness nor Satan's subtlety. So in the angels, yea, even in the Head of the angels, Christ himself, as man, not to know the latter day, Mark xiii. 32. Proprium est natural humance futura iguorare* —It is a thing simply proper to the nature of man, to be ignorant of future things. No legal injunction binds us to it; no censure shall pass against us for the want of it. This is called ignorantia jusla, an unfaulty ignorance. * Cyril.

The second is natural : called ignorantia infinnitatis vet imperilice, —the ignorance of infirmity, incident to man's nature .since his fall. For desiring to know more, he knew less. This is the effect of sin, sin in itself, and the cause of sin. It was bred by tran.sgression, it doth breed transgression, and Ls no less than transgression of its own nature ; for God's law bhids us to the knowledge of his law. The blind swallows many a fly ; the ignorant cannot be iimo-cent. This is ignorcDitia simplex, involuntaria, privata, as the school calls it: a sin which the Papists generally, and, I fear, many Protestants particularly, never repent of. David doth. It is this that makes us aliens from God: ' Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, and through the blindness of their heart,' Eph. iv. 18. St Paul calls liis ignorance the cause of his sbis, 1 Tim. i. 13. Et nescias servus jioenas luet, .saith Christ,—even ' the ignorant servant shall be beaten with some stripes.' ' Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge,' Isji. v. 13. A prophecy mystically fulfilled in these days, in respect of our spiritual bondage to Satan; ' the god of this world having blinded the minds of unbelievers,' '2 Cor. iv. 4. This ignorance cannot excuse, for we are bound to know. The breach of our national statutes cannot go impune by the plea of ignorance. It may [a tanio, not ct toto) a little qualify and allay our punishments, not annihilate them. This is a^oia, folly ; and he that drinks of folly's cup shall have little cause to lick his lips after it. Nature is a common schoolmaster; and the Gentiles, sinning against that monitor, justly perish. For ' the invisible things of God may be understood by things that are made : so that they are without excuse,' Rom. L 20. Even the errors of the Jews had their sacrifices, and shall not the ignorances of the Christians cry God mercy ? This ignorance is sinful, yea, even in those that cannot have the means of knowledge.

The third is an affected ignorance. John iii. 19, * This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.' These shut their ears when God calleth ; and, being housed in their security, will not step to the door to see if the sun shines. This ignorance, if I may say so, doth reside rather hi their affection than understanding part. ' They wilfully know not,' saith St Peter, 2 Pet. iii. 5. They know, but will not know, and run with broad eyes to destruction. Tell them that Christ is at Jerusalem : no, it is too far off. Nay, venit ad limina virtus, —' the kingdom of heaven is among you :' then, if they must needs go to church, they will go hooded. Prejudice of affections shall muffle the eyes of knowledge. Thus the devil carries them quietly to hell ; as the falconer his hooded hawk, which barefaced woidd bite, and be too wild to sit on his fist. These sometimes have grey hairs and green affections. Like a man that being bom near a great city, yet never travelled to it, he can direct others the way he never went. Those, to avoid that fault which the traveller found ui England, horologia non bene ordinata, —that our clocks were not well kept, (he meant our hours were ill spent,)—will have no clock at all in their house to tell them how their time passeth; no infonner of their errhig ways. And, as if a candle would set their house on fire, they live perpetually in the dark. Micah was glad he had got a priest; these are glad they are got far from a priest, and had as lief go to hell darkling as with a torch.

The fourth is an invincible ignorance : when God hath naturally darkened the understanding, by a sore punishment of original sin,— idioticum hoc. No art nor eloquence can put knowledge into that heart which nature hath not

opened to receive it; as no mind can be opened whicli God hath locked up. He keeps the keys : Rev. iii 7, ' He openeth, and no man shutteth; he shutteth, and no man openeth.' The door of this mind is so fast barred up that no help of man can open it. Neither can there be, in this, a complaint against God's justice, since that our first sin hath deserved a greater punishment.

The last is a proud ignorance : whereof there is no hope, saith Solomon, Prov. xxvii. 1. The other is invincible, indeed this more invincible ; a fool is sooner taught. So Christ foiled the Pharisees with their own weapons, and proved their weakness by the arguments they brought for their own strength. John ix. 41, 'If you were blind, you should have no sin : but now you say. We see; therefore your sin remaineth.' The Pharisees, though blind, will be seers : Nicodemus ' a master in Israel,' and yet knew nothing of regeneration, John iii. 10. Nihil gravius, quam si id, quod ignorat quis, scire se o'edat* —There is nothing more grievous than that a man should be persuaded he knows that soundly whereof he is totally ignorant. Therefore saith Chrysostom, Prcestat proha ignoratione detineri qtiam falsa opmione 7)iancipan,f —It is better to be held in with an honest ignorance than to run out with a false opinion. It is hard plougliing in the ground not stocked ; ill writing on a paper full of lines. These fly from instruction as the tiger from the trumpet. Others are comprehended of the light; these think they comprehend the light, when, as the Apostle saith, ' they are held of darkness.':[

Let us now see which of these ignorances are here meant. I answer, exempting the first, Satan's harlot, vice, hath guests of all these sorts: many that ' go after her as an ox to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks,' Prov. vii. 22. Some run to the banquet, and know not ; some know, and run : all are fools, and destitute, if not of natural, yet of spiritual understanding. To this purpose she apteth her speech here : ver. 16, 'Who is simple, let him turn in hither; and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith,' &c. Knowledge is good, yet if disjoined from grace, ovd-v hriti, ' it is nothing,' 1 Cor. xiii. 2. Nihil in esse graiice, quamvis aliqitid in esse naturoi, —Nothing in grace, though something in nature. Knowledge human is a good stirrup to get up by to preferment; divine, a good gale of wmd to waft us to heaven; but charity is better. ' Knowledge often bloweth up, but charity buildeth up,' 1 Cor. viii. 1. Aristotle calls knowledge the soul's eye; but then, saith our Saviour, ' If the light be darkness, how great is that darkness ?'

True it is that knowledge without honesty doth more hurt. The unicorn's horn, that in a wise man's hand is helpful, is in the beast's head hurtful. If a man be a beast in his affections, in his manners; the more skilful, the more wilful. Knowledge hath two pillars, learning and discretion. The greatest scholar without his two eyes, of discretion and honesty, is like blind Samson ; apt to no good, able to much mischief Prudence is a virtue of the soul, nay, the very soul of virtue, the mistress to guide the life in goodness. All moral virtues are beholden to Wisdom. She directs bounty what to give, wlien to give, where to give ; and fortitude, with whom, for what, and how to fight. Knowledge is excellent to prevent dangers imminent, and to keep us from the snares of this ' strange woman.' But if tlie devil in our days should have no guests but those that arc merely ignorant, his rooms would be more empty than they are, and his ordinary break for want of customers. But now-a-days,—alas ! when was it much better, and yet how can it be much * Clem. t Chrys. in Math., Horn. 76. X Tenebrac, a teueudo.

worse ?—we know sin, yet affect it, act it. Time was, we were ignorant and blind ; now we have eyes and abuse them. Tyre and Sidon bum in hell, and their smoke ascends for evermore, that had no preachijig in their cities; but our country is sown with mercies, and ourselves fatted with the doctruie of life. Who shall excuse our lame, lean, and ill-favoured lives ? Let us beware Bethsaida's woe. If the heathen shall wring their hands. f(jr their ignorance, then many Christians .shall rend tlieir hearts for their disobedience. Heb. X. 28, ' He that despised Moses's kw died without mercy under two or three witnesses.' He that despiseth, not he that transgresseth, for so do alL He that rejected and departed from the law and church of Israel ' died without mercy' eternally, for other transgressors died without mercy temporally. Ver. 29 : 'Of how much sorer punishment sludl he be thought worthy that treads under his foot,' not Moses, but ' Chri-st, and counts,' not the ' blood' of goats, but of ' God's Son unholy; and despiteth,' which is more than despiseth, ' the Spirit,' not of fear and bondage, but ' of grace ?' * All the learning of the philosophers was without a head, because they were ignorant of God : seeing, they were blind ; speaking, they were dumb ; hearing, they were deaf, like the idol-gods in the psalm. We want not a head, but a heart; not the sense of knowledge, but the love of obedience : we hear, and see, and say, and know, but do not.

If you know that God's cheer is so infinitely better, why do you enter commons at Satan's feast ] The school calls one kind of knowledge scientia contristans, a sorrowful knowledge. Though they intend it in another sense, it may be true in this, for it is a woeful knowledge when men with open eyes run to helL This is Uriah's letter, containing his own death. These tell Christ, Luke xiii. 2G, ' We knew thee :' Christ tells them, Matt, vii. 23, ' I know not you.' These times are sick of Adam's disease, that had rather eat of the tree of knowledge than of the tree of life : speculative Christians, not active and obedient saints. You cannot plead that you * know not the dead are there ;' behold, we have told you : quit yourselves. But many men's ignorance is disobedience : they will ' not know that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell.' Which now presseth upon us to be considered.

II. Solomon hath described the persons feasting and feasted. The place remains, ' the depths of hell.' This is the banqueting-house. It amplifies the misery of the guests in three circumstances :—1. Their weakness ; they are soon in. 2. The place ; hell. 3. The unrecoverableuess of it; the depth of heU.

1. Per infirmitatem, —In regard of their weakness. No sooner come to the banquet, but presently in the pit; they are in, they are soon in. They would not resist the temptation when it was offered; they cannot resist the tribulation when it Is to be suffered : they are in. No ^\Testling, no contending can keep them from falling in. Into the pit they run against their •will, that ran so volently, so violently to the brink of it: as a man that hath taken his career, and runs full fling to a place, cannot recoil himself, or recall his strength on the sudden. He might have refused to enter the race, or recollected himself in time, but at the last step he cannot stop, nor revo-care gradiim, rescue him.self from falling. The guests that hasten themselves all their life to the feast of vanity, and neither in the first step of their youth nor in the middle race of their discreetest age return to God, do at last (without Christ's help) precipitate themselves into the depth of hell. Think, oh think, ye greedy dogs, that can never fast enough devour your sinful plea-♦ Lactant.

sures, if in the pride of your strength, the May of your blood, the marrow and vii-tue of your life, when you are seconded -with the gifts of nature, nay, blest with the helps of heaven, you cannot resist the allurements of Satan; how unable will you be to deal with him, when custom in sin hath weakened your spirit.s, and God hath withdrawn his erst afforded comforts ! They that run so fiercely to the pit are quickly in the pit. ' The guests are Lq the depths of hell.'

2. Per infernitatem, —In regard of the place, it is hell. The prophet Isaiah, chap. xxx. 33, thus describes it: ' Tophet is prepared of old ; he hath made it deep and large : the pile thereof is fire and much wood ; the breath of the Lord, like a flame of brimstone, doth kindle it.' Tophet was a place which the children of Israel built in the valley of Hinnom, to burn their sons and daughters in the fire to Moloch, 2 Kings xxiii. 10; which valley was near to Jebus, afterwards Jerusalem, as appears Jo.sh. xviil 16. The council of Jerusalem, whiles their power lasted, used to punish certain offenders in that valley, being near their city. By this is hell resembled; and that, in Peter Martyr's opinion, for three reasons. (1.) Being a bottom, a low valley, it resembleth hell, that is believed to be under the earth. (2.) By reason of the fire wherewith the wicked are tormented in hell, as the children were in that valley burnt with fire. (3.) Because the place was unclean and detestable, whither all vile and loathsome things were cast out of the city Jerusalem, Jer. vii. 31, 32. So hell is the place where defiled and wicked souls are cast, as unworthy of the holy and heavenly city.

This place shall begin to open her cursed jaws, when the Judge of all men and angels shall have given his last sentence : at that day, when qucesitor sceleriun veniet, vindexque reonim, —the Searcher of all, and Punisher of wicked hearts, shall give his double voice of dread and joy; when, having spoken peace to his saints, he shall thunder out condemnation to the wicked: * Go ye into everlasting fire.'

' Dent ocius omnes, Quas meruere pati, sic stat sententia, pcenas.'

And if here on earth se jiidice, nemo nocens ahsolvititr, a man's own conscience condemn him for his sins, how much greater shall be the just sentence of God ■? 1 John iii. 20. Then all murdering Cains, scoffing Hams, persecuting Sauls, thievish and sacrilegious Achans, oppressing Ahabs, covetous Nabals, drunken Holofernesses, cruel Herods, blasphemous Rabshakehs, unjust Pilatcs, shall reap the seed in their eternal deaths which they have sown ill their temporal lives. There shall be scorching heat and freezing cold: ex vehementissimo calore, ad veherneiiiissiimcm frigus, —without either act of refreshing or hope of releasing. Every day hath been their holiday on earth : every day shall be their work-day in hell. The poets feigned three furies—

' Scindet latus una flagello : Altera tartareis sectos dabit anguibus artus : Tertia fumantes iucoquet igue geuas;'—

'One brings the scorpion, which the conscience eats: Another with iron whips the black flesh beats : Whiles the third boils the soul in scalding heats.' '

Nemo ad id sero venit, unde nunquam, cum semel venit, poterit reverti* —No man can come too late to these sufferings, from whence, being once come, he can never return.

This is hell; where darkness shall be their prison, everlastingness their • Sen.

fetters, flames their torments, angry angels their tormentors : xibi nee tor-tores dejiciant, nee torti miseri moriantur* —where the scourgcrs sliall never be weary of afflicting, nor the scourged faU in their suffering; but there shall be always torments for the body, and a body for torments. Fire shall be the consummation of their plagues, not the consumption of their persons. Ubi per millia niillia annoruin crudandi, nee in secula seoilorum Uherandi,i —Myriads of years shall not accomplish nor determine their punishments. It shall be their misery, semper velle quod nunquam erit, semper nolle quod nunquam, non erit, % —to have a wiU never satisfied, a mil never gratified.

3. Pel' profunditatem, —The depth of hell. The Scripture is frequent to testify hell a deep place, and beneath us. Luke x. 15, Capernaum 'shall be cast down to hell.' Solomon so speaks, Prov. xv. 24, ' The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath.'' And of this harlot, chap. vii. 27, ' Her house is the way to hell, (joing down to the chambers of death ; ' chap. v. 5, ' Her feet go doivn to death, her steps take hold on hell.' Dotvn and beneath do witness the depth of helL There are three places—earth, heaven, hell. Earth we all enjoy, good and bad, promiscuously. Heaven is prepared for the good ; and it is upwards : Col. iii. 1, 'If ye be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above.' Hell is ordained for the wicked; and it is downward, called here prvfandum, a depth. To define the local place of hell, it is too deep for me ; I leave it to deeper judgments. I do not give Demonax's answer, being asked where hell was : Ex-pecta simul ac iliac venero, et tibi per literas signijicabo,^ —Tarry till I come thither, and I will send thee word by letters. I only say this, there is one, we are sure of it; let us by a good life be as sure to escape it.

But to confine my speech to the bounds of my text: I take it, that by hell, and the depth of it, here, is meant the deep bondage of the wicked souls; that they are in the depth of the power of hell, Satan having by sin a full dominion over their consciences. For hell is often allegoricaUy taken in the Scriptures. So Jonah ' cries unto God out of the belly of hell,' chap. ii. 2. David sung De profundis, Ps. csxx. 1, ' Out of the depth have I cried unto thee, 0 Lord.' So Christ spake of the unbehever, John iii. 18, that he is ' already damned.' And the reprobate arc here afiirmed in the depth of hell. This exposition I esteem more natural to the words. For as the godly have a heaven, so the wicked a heU, even upon earth; though both in a spiritual, not a literal sense. The reprobates' heU on earth is double, or of two sorts :—

(1.) In that the power of hell rules in his conscience : Eph. ii. 2, ' He-walks according to the course of this world, and according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now workcth in the children of disobedience.' He is taken and led captive of the devil; as hereafter in the chams of damnation, so here in the bands of dominion ; which Solomon calls/«?ifs peccatorum : as he hath ' drawn iniquity with the cords of vanity,' Isa. v. 18, so he ' shall be holden with the cords of his sins,' Prov. v. 22.

(2.) There is a hell in his conscience. So St Augustine,]] Sunt duo tor-tores aninuc, Timor et Dolor, —The soul hath two tormentors even in this life—grief for evil felt, fear of evil to be felt. Whereof the poet—

' Sic mea perpetuos curarum pectora rnoraus, Fine quibua nuUo conficiantur, habent.'

These are the fearful terrors whereof the guilty heart cannot be quitted, cannot

♦ Aug. t Ibiil. t Isiod.

§ Eras. Aphor., hb. viiL II De Verb. Dom. sec. Job., Semi. 42.

be quieted, though pleasure itself were his physician, and the whole world his minstrel. Domino privante suo gaudio, quid esse potest in gaudium V^ —• When God withholds his music and peace, what can make the heart merry ? Polidore Virgil thus writes of Richard the Third's dream the night before Bosworth-field : that he thought all the devils in hell pulled and haled him, in most hideous and ugly shapes ; and concludes of it at last: Id credo, non fuit somnium, sed coiiscientia scelerum, —I do not think it was so much his dream as his wicked conscience that brought those terrors. When this evil spirit comes to a wicked Saul, let him go to his merriest good-fellows, beguile at once the time and himself with plays and sports, feast away Ms cares at his own table, or bury them together with his wits at a tavern : alas ! these are piteous shifts, weaker than walls of paper.

Sleep cannot make his conscience sleep ; perhaps the very dreams are fearful. It will not leave thee till it hath shewed thee thy hell; no, not when it hath shewed thee it, will it leave thee quiet. The more thou offerest to dam up this current, the more ragingly it swells and gusheth over the resisting banks. This wounded conscience runs, like the stricken deer vdth the arrow of death in the ribs, from thicket to thicket, from shelter to shelter, but cannot change her pain with her place. The wound rankles in the soul, and the longer it goes on, the worse still it festers. Thus sin, that spake thee so fair at her inviting to the banquet, now presents to thy wicked soul her true form, and plays the makebate betwixt God and thee, betvdxt thee and thyself. So long as security hath kept thee sleeping in thy delighted impieties, this quarrel is not commenced. The mortalest enemies are not always in pitched fields one against another.

This truce holds some till their deathbeds ; neither do they ever complain till their complaints can do them no good. For then at once, the sick carcase, after many tossings and turnings to find the easiest side, moans his unabated anguish ; and the sicker conscience, after trial of many shifts, too late feeleth and confesseth her unappeased torment. So Cain, Judas, Nero, in vain seek for foreign helps when their executioner is within them. The wicked man cannot want furies so long as he hath himself. Indeed, the soul may fly from the body, not sin from the soul. An impatient Judas may leap out of the private hell in himself into the common pit below, as the boiling fishes out of the caldron into the flame ; but the gain hath been the addition of a new hell without them, not the riddance of the old hell witliin them. The worm of conscience doth not then cease her oiEce of gnawing, when the fiends begin their office of torturing. Both join their forces to make the dissolutely wicked desolately wretched. If this man be not in the depth of hcl], deeply miserable, there is none.

Lo now the shot at the devil's banquet! A reckoning must be paid, and this is double :—(1.) The earnest in this life; (2.) The full payment in the life to come. The earnest is, whUes hell is cast into the wicked; the full satisfaction is, when the wicked shall be cast into hell. Rev. xx. 15, 'Whosoever was not fuund written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.' I will take leave to amplify both these a little further :—

(1.) The earnest is the horror of an evil conscience, which sparkles with the begiiniing of future torments. I know that some feel not this in the j)ri(le of their vanities, or at least will not seem to feel it. Some ' whorish ioieheads' can outface their sins, and laugh them out of countenance, Jer, iii. 3 ; wide gorges, th;it can swallow peijuries, bloodiness, adulteries, usuries, extortions, without trouble. But it may be, the heart doth not laugh with * Cyril.

the look, 2 Cor. v. 12. He dares be a hypocrite that durst be a villain. If he would speak truth of himself, he would testify that his thoughts will not afford him sleep, uor his sleep afford him rest; but whiles his senses are bound, his sin is louse. No command of reason can quiet the tempest in hi.s heart. No son of Sceva, no help of the world, can cast out this devil. The blood of the body, often being stopped in the issue at the nostrils, bui-sts unt at the moutli, or finds way into the stomach. The conscience thus wounded will bleed to death, if the blood of Jesus Christ do not stanch it.

'Think of this, ye that forget God,' Ps. I. 22, and are only indulgent to yourselves : the time shall come you shall remember God, neither to your thanks nor ease, and would forget yourselves. Hajipy were it for you, if you, having lost your God, could also lose yourselves ! But you cannot hide yourselves from yourselves. Conscience will neither be blinded in seeking, nor bribed in speaking. You shall say unto it, as that wicked Ahab to Kli;us, 1 Kings xxi. 20, ' Ha^t thou found me, O thou mine enemy 1 ' Yet, alas ! all this is but the earnest. A hell, I may call it, and a deep hell; and, a.s I may say, a little smoke reeking out of that fiery pit, whereby the afflicted may give a guess at hell, as Pythagoras guessed at the stature of Hercules by the length of his foot. But else, par nulla Jiff mn gehenna', —nothing can truly resemble hell.

(2.) The earnest is infinitely .short of the total sum. Matt, xviii. 31, ' And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, tUl he should pay all that was due unto him.' The guest must endure a death not dying, live a life not li^dng : no torment ends without the beginning of a worse. The sight is afflicted with darkness and ugly devils ; the hearing with shrieks and horrible cries ; the smelling with noisome stenches; the taste with ravenous hunger and bitter gall; the feeling with intolerable, yet unquenchable fire. Thousands pointing at, not one among thousands 2)itying, the distressed wretch. I know this earth is a dungeon in regard of heaven, yet a heaven in respect of hell; we have misery enough here, it is mercy to what is there. Think of a gloomy, hideous, and deep lake, full of pestilent damps and rotten vapours, as thick as clouds of pitch, more palpable than the fogs of Egypt, that the eye of the smi is too dull to pierce them, and his licat to weak to dissolve them. Add hereunto a lire flashing in the reprobate's face, Avhich shall yield no more light than with a glimpse to shew him the torments of others, and others the torments of liimself; yet withal, of so violent a burning, that, should it glov/ on mountains of steel, it would melt them like hills of snow.

This is the guest's reckoning : a sore, a sour payment, fur a short and scarce sweet banquet. All his senses have been pleased, now they are all plagued. Instead of perfumes and fragrant odours, a sulphurous stench shall strike up into his nostrils; instead of his lascivious Delilahs, that fathomed him in the arms of lust, behold adders, toads, serpents, crawluig on liis bosom; instead of the Dorian music ciianuing Ids ears, mandrakes and night-ravens still shrieking to them the rcverberatuig groans of ever and never dymg companions, tolling their funeral—not final—knells and yells round about him; instead of wanton ki.sses, snakes ever suckhig at his breath, and galling his fle.sli with their never-blunted stings.

Think of this feast, you riotous feasters in sin. There is a place called hell, wluther, after the general and last a.ssizes, the condcnnied shall ha sent through a black way,—death Ls l)nt a shiulow to it,— \\\i\\. many a sigh and sob, and groans, to those cursed fiends that must be their tormentors, as they have been their tempters. Behold now a new feast, a fatal, a final one. VOL. L Q

To .sui) in the vault of darimcss with the princes mid .subjects of hoiTor, at the table of vengeance, in the chair of desjieration : where the difference on earth betwixt master and .servant, drudge and commander, shall be quite abolished ; except some atheistical Machiavel, or traitorous Seminary, or some bloody delegate of the Inquisition, be admitted the upper end of the table. But otherwise there is no regard of age, beauty, riches, valour, learning, birth. The usurer hath not a cushion more than his broker. There is not the breadth of a bench between Herod and his parasites. The Pope himself hath no easier a bed than the poorest mass-priest. Corinthian Lais speeds no better than her chambermaid. The cardinal hath not the upper hand of his pander. There is no priority between the plotter and the intelligencer, between the vestal and the nun, between the proud prodigal and his unconscionable creditor.

Indeed, the greatest sinner shall have the greatest punishment; and he that hath been a principal guest to the devil on earth, shall—and that on earth were a strange privilege—hold his place in hell: Rev. xviii. 6, 7, ' Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her.' Dives, that fed so heartily on this bread of iniquity, and drank so deep draughts of the waters of sin, reserves his superiority in torment that he had in pleasure. Behold, he craves, with more floods of scalding tears than ever Esau shed for the blessing, but' one drop of water to cool his tongue,' and could not be allowed it, Luke xvi. 25. But what if all the rivers in the south, all the waters in the ocean, had been granted him, his tongue would still have withered and smarted with heat, himself still crying, in the language of hell, a Non sufficit, —It is not enough! Or what if his tongue had been cased, yet his heart, liver, lungs, bowels, arms, legs, should stUl have fried !

Thus he that ate and drank with superfluity, the purest flour of the wheat^ the reddest blood of the grape, his body kept as well from diseases as soft linen and fine raiment could preserve it, here finds a fearful alteration: from the table of surfeit, to the table of torment; from feeding on junkets, to gnaw his own flesh; from bowls of wine, to the want of cold water; from the soft folds of fine silks, to the winding lashes of furies; from chains of gold for ornament, to chains of iron for torment; from a bed of down, to a bed of flames; from laughing among his companions, to howling with de\ils; from having the.poor begging at his gates, to beg himself, and that, as that rich man, for one drop of water. Who can express the horror and misery of this guest?

' Non mihi si coutum liugute sint, oraquo centum, Fen-ea vox, omnes sceleruni compreuderc formas, Omnia pocnarum perciu-rere nomina possim.' *

' No heart of man can think, no tongue can tell. The direful pains ordain'd and felt in hell.'

Now sorrows meet at the guest's heart as at a feast; all the furies of hell leap on the table of his conscience. Thought calls to fear, fear to horror, lion-or to despair, dcsjiair to torment, torment to extremity—all to eternity: Conic aTid help to afllict this wretch. All the parts of his body and soul leave their natural and wonted uses, and .S})end their times in wretchedness and confusion. He runs through a thousand deaths, and cannot die. Heavy * iEneid, vi.

irons arc locked on him: all his lights and delights are put out at once, ilo hatli no soul capable of comfort. And though his eyes distil like foxuitains, yet God is now inexorable: his miUimus is without bail, and the prison can never be broken. God Avill not hear now, that might not be heard befora

That you may conceive things more spiritual and remote by passions nearer to sense, suppose that a man, being gloriously robed, deliciously feasted, prince-like served, attended, honoured, and set on the proudest height of pleasure that ever mortality boasted, should, in one unsuspected moment, be tumbled doAvn to a bottom more full of tme miseries th;ui his promontory was of false delights; and there be rmged about with all the gory murderers, black atheists, sacrilegious church-robbers, and incestuous ravishers, that have ever disgorged their poison on earth, t<j reassume it in hell: nay, add further to this supposition, that this depth he is thrown into was no better than a vast charnel-house, hung round with lamps burnmg blue and dim, set in hollow corners, whose gUmmeruig serves to discover the hideous torments; all the ground, instead of green rushes, strewed with funeral rosemary and dead men's bones; some corpses standing ui)right in their knotted winding-sheets, others rotted in their coffins, which yawn wide to vent their stench; there the bare ribs of a father that begat hiiu, here the hollow skull of a mother that bare him;—how direfid and amazing are these things to sense !

Or if imagination can give being to a more fearful place, that, or rather worse than that, is hell. If a poor man, suddenly starting out of a golden slumber, should see his house flammg about him; liis loving -wife and loved infants breathing their spirits to heaven through the mercUess fire; himself infringed with it, calling for despaired succour; the miserable churl, his next neighbour, not vouchsafing to answer, when the putting forth of an arm might save him;—such shall be their miseries in hell, and not an angel nor a saint shall refresh them with any comfort. These are all but shadows, nay, not shadows, of the infernal depth here expressed. You hear it; fear it, fly it, scape it. Fear it by repentance, fly it by your faith, and you shall scajje it by God's mercy.

This is their poena sensus, positive punishment. There is also pcena damni to be considered, their privative punishment. They have lost a place on earth, whose joy was temporal; they have missed a place in heaven, whose joy is eternal. Now they find that ' a dinner of green herbs, with God's love, is better than a stalled ox, and his hatred withal,' Prov. xv. 17. A fejvst of .salads, or Daniel's pulse, is more cherisliing, with mercy, than Belshaz-zar's banquet without it. Now they find >Solomou'a sermon true, that though ' the bread of deceit be sweet to a man,' yet the time Is come that ' the mouth is filled with gi'avel,' Prov. xx. 17. No, no; ' the blessing of God only maketh fat,' Prov. xxviii. 2.5; and 'he addeth no sorrow imto it.' Waters the A\-icked dcsii'ed, and bread they lusted after; behold, after their secure sleep and dreamed joys on earth, with what hungry souls do they awake in hell!

But what are the bread and the waters they might have enjoyed A\itli the saints in heaven? Such as .shall never be dried up, Isa. Iviii. 11. 'In thy. presence is the fulness of joy; and at tliy right hand are pleasures for evermore,' Ps. xvi. 11, Happy is the undeiiled soul, who is innocent from 'the great offence;' all whose sins arc washed 'as white as snow,' in that blood wluch alone ' is able to purge the conscience from dead works!' ITeb. ix. 14. 'He that walketh righteously,' (kc, 'he shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the muuitioiis of rocks: bread shall be gi\cn him; his waters

^ii THE FATAL BANQUET, [SeRMON XVI.

shall be sure,' Isa. xxxiii. 15,16. His joys are certain and stable; no alteration, no alternation, shall impair them. The wicked, for the slight breakfast of this world, lose the Lamb's supper of glory, Rev. xix. 9 ; where these four things concur that make a perfect feast: Dies lectus, locus electus, coetus bene collectus, apparatus non neglectus, —A good time, eternity; a good place, heaven; a good compan)', the saints; good cheer, glory.

(1.) God himself is the feast-maker: he is landlord of the world, and 'fill-eth every living thing with goodness.' The eagles and lions seek their meat of God. But though all the sons of Jacob have good cheer from Joseph, yet Benjamin's mess exceeds. Esau shall have the prosperity of the earth, but Jacob goes away with the blessing. Ishmael may have outward favours, but the inheritance belongs to Isaac. The king favoureth all his subjects, but they of his court stand in his presence, and partake of liis pruicely graces. God's bounty extends to the wicked also, but the saints shall only sit at his table in heaven. This is that feaster qui est siiper omnia, et sine quo nulla sunt omnia. ' Of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever,' Rom. xi. 36.

(2.) The cheer is beyond all sense, all science: 1 Cor. ii. 0, ' Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the tilings God hath prepared for them that love him.' The eye sees much, the ear hears more, the heart conceives most; yet all short of apprehension, nuuli more of comprehension, of these pleasures. Therefore ' enter thou into thy Master's joy,' for it is too great to enter into thee.

(3.) The company is excellent: the glorious presence of the blessed Trinity— the Father that made us, the Son that bought us, the Holy Ghost that brought us to this place; the holy and unspotted angels, that rejoiced at our conversion on earth, much more at our consolation in heaven ; all the patriarchs, prophets, saints, before the law, in the law, in the gospel; the full communion of saints. Here, the more the merrier, yea, and the better cheer too. Oh the sweet melody of hallelujahs, which so many glorified voices shall sing to God in heaven! the hoarseness of sin and the harshness of punishment beuig separated from us with a bill of everlasting divorce.

(4.) Admirable is the banqueting-place : the high court of heaven, where our apparel shall be such as beseemeth the attendants on the King of Idngs, even ' the fashion of the glorious body of Christ,' PhU. iii. 21. The pm-est things ax-e placed highermost. The earth, as grossest, is put in the lowest room, the water above the earth, the air above the water, the tire abt)ve the air, the spheres of heaven above any of them; and yet the place where tliis feast is kept is above them all, the lieaven of heavens. TalvC here a slight relish of the cheer in God's kingdom, where your welcome shall be answerable to all the rest: ' Eat, O my friends ; and make you merry, O well-beloved,' Cant. v. 1. And then, as those that have tasted some delicate dish find other plain meats but unpleasant, so you that have tasted of heavenly things cannot but contemn the best worldly pleasures. And therefore as some dainty gaiost, knowing there is so pleasant fare to come, let us reserve our ap})etitcs for that, and not suff"er ourselves to be cloyed with the . coarse diet of the world. Thus as we fast on the eves that we may feast on the holidays, let us be sure that, after our abstinence from the surfeits of sin, we .shall be everlastingly fed and fatted with the mercies of God. Which resolution the Lord grant us here; which banquet the Lord give ua hereafter! Amen.

THE FOOL AND HIS SPORT.

FooU male a mock at sin. — Pro v. XIV. 9.

The Proverbs of Solomon are so many select aphorisms, or divinely moral says, without any mutual dependence one upon another. Therefore to .study a coherence, wei'C to force a marriage between unwilling parties. Tlie words re.ad s])end tliemsclves on a description of two thing.s—I. The fool ; and, II. His sport. The fool is the wicked man ; his sport, pastime, or bauble is sin. Mocking is the medium or connexion that brings together the fool and sin. Thus he makes himself merry ; they meet in mocking. The ' fool makes a mock at sin.'

I. Fools. —The fool is the wicked. An ignorant heart is always a sinful heart, and a man without knowledge is a man without grace. So Tanuir to Amnon under his ravisliing hands : 2 Sam. xiii. 13, 'Do not this folly;' if thou docst it, ' thou slialt be as one of the fools in Israel.' Ignorance cainiot excitsare it toto ; wilful, not d, tanto. 2 Thcss. i. 8, ' Christ shall come in liam-ing fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God.' The state of these fools is fearful. Like hooded hawks, they are easily carried by the infernal falconer to hell. Their lights are out, how shall their house scape robbing? These fools have a knowledge, but it is to do evil, Jer. iv. 22. They have also a knowledge of good, but not scicntiatn oppmhatiDiiix, —they know, but they refuse it. So God justly quits them ; for though he know tliem ad sdentiam, he will not know them ad approlaiionem, but gives them a JJiscedite, nescio vos: Matt. vii. 23, ' I know you not: depart from me, ye workers of iniquity.' A man may be a fool two Avays : by knowing too little, or too much.

1. ]3y knoAving too little : when he knoweth not those things whereof lie cannot be ignorant, and do well. 1 Cor. ii. 2, ' I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.' But every man saith he knows Christ, If men knew Christ's love in dying for them, they would love him above all tlung.s. How do they know him that love their money above him 1 Nemo vere novit Christum, qui noii vere amat Christum, —No man knows Christ truly that lf)ves him not sincerely. If men knew Christ, that he .should be judge of (piick and dead, durst they live so lewdly 1 Non novd Christum qui iion odit pc.ccntum, —He never knew Christ that doth not hate hii([uity. Some attrilnite too much to themselves, as if they would have a share with Christ in their own salvation. Ncscinnt ct Chridum

et sdpsos, —Tliey are ignorant of both Christ and themselves. Others lay-too much on Christ, all the burden of their sins; which they can with all possible voracity swallow down, and with blasphemy vomit up again upon him. But they know not Christ who thus seek to divide aquam a scm-(/uine, —his blood from his water; and they shall ftiil of justification in lieaven that refuse sanctification upon earth.

2. By knowing too much. When a man presumes to know more than he ought, his Icnowledge is apt to be pursy and gross, and must be kept low. iioni. xii. IG, * Mind not high things,' saith the Apostle. Festus slandered Paid, Acts xxvi. 24, that ' much learning had made him mad.' Indeed, it might have done, if Paul had been as proud of his learning as Festus was of his honour. This is the 'knowledge that puffeth up,' 1 Cor. viii. 1. It troubles the brain, like undigested meat in the stomach, or like the scum that seethes into the broth. To avoid this folly, Paul forbids us'to ' be wise in our own conceits,' Rom. xii. IG : whereof I find two readings, ' Be not wise in yourselves;' and ' Be not wise to yourselves.'

Not in yourselves. Conjure not your wit into the circle of your own secret profit. We account the simple, fools; God accounts the crafty, fools. He tliat thinks himself wise is a fool ijiso facto. It was a modest speech that fcU from the philosopher :* Si qimndo fatuo deledari volo, non est mihi longe qmerendtis ; vie video. Therefore Christ pronounced his woes to the Phari-.sees, his doctrines to the people. The first entry to wisdom is scire quod nescias, —to know thy ignorance. Sobriety is the measure for knowledge, as the gomer was for manna. Curiosity is the rennet that turns our milk into curds.

Not to yourselves. ' Let thy fountain be dispersed abroad,' saith the wisest king, Prov. V. IG; communicate thy knovvledge. Matt. v. 15, Christians must be Ukc lights, that waste themselves for the good of those in God's liouse. Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter, —He that will be Avise only to himself takes the ready way to turn fool. Non licet habere pri-vatam, ne j^rivemur ea, —The closer we keep our knowledge, the likelier we are to lose it. Standing water soon puddles; the gifts of the mind, if they be not employed, will be impaired. Every wicked man is a fool; by comparing tlieir properties:—

(1.) It is a fool's property futura non prosjiicere, to have no foresight of future thmgs. So he may have from hand to mouth, he sings care away. So the grasshopper sings in harvest when the ant labours; and bogs at Cliristmas when the ant sings. The wicked takes as little care what shall become of his soul, as the natural fool what shall become of his body. Modo j)oiiar, saith the epicure,—Let me have pleasure now ; ' It is better to a living dog than to a dead lion,' Eccles. ix. 4. They do not in fan- weather rcpaii' their house against storms; nor in time of peace provide spiritual armour against the day of war. They watch not; therefore ' the day of the Lord shall come upon them as a thief in the night,' and spoil them of all tlioir pleasures. The main business of their soul is not thought of; nor dr(?ani they of an audit, till they be called by death away to thek reckoning.

(2.) Jt is a fool's property to affect things hurtful to himself. L^ulit cum Kpinis, —he loves to be playing mth thorns. Neither yet q7(od nocuit, do-ctiii, hath that which hurt him taught him caution, but he more desperately desires his own mischief. The wicked do strongly appropriate to themselves this (piality. Cum illis ludunt, quoi illos loiduut, —They hover to dally with their own vexation who else would dote ou the world; and hover like * Son., Ep. xiii.

wasps about the gallipot, till for one lick of honey they be drowned in it. What is your ambition, O ye worlJ-affectors, saith Augustini.', but to be atiocted of the world l What do you seek, but per multa pencula pervenire adplura? per piurima ad pessimal* —but through many dangers to find more ? through easier to find the worst of all ? Like that doting Venetian, for one kiss of that painted harlot, to live her perpetual slave. The world was therefore called the fool's paradise ; there he thmks to find heaven, and there he sells it to the devil. Noxia <pirerunt improhi, —' They haste as a bird to the snare,' Prov. vii. 23. The devil doth but hold vanity as a sharp weapon against them, and they run full breast upon it. They need no enemies ; let them alone, and they will kill themselves. So the envious pines away his own marrow; the adulterer poisons liis own blood; the prodigal la\isheth his own estate; the drunkard drowns his own vital spirit. Wicked men make war upon themselves with the engines of death.

(3.) It is a fool's property to prefer triiics and toys before matters of worth and weight. The fool will not give his bauble for the king'.s exchequer. The wicked prefer bodies of dust and ashes to their soul of eternal substance ; this sin-corrupted and time-spent world, to the perfect and permanent joys of heaven ; short pleasures to everlasting happiness; a putf of fame before a solid weight of glory. What folly can be more pitiable, than to forsake corn for acorns ; a state of immortality for an apple, as Adam did ; a birthright, with all the privileges, for a mess of pottage, belly-cheer, as Esau did; a Idngdom on earth, yea, in heaven too, for asses, as Saul did ; all portion in Christ, for bacon, as the Gcrgesites did, JNIatt. xxii.; a royalty in heaven for a poor farm on earth, as the bidden guest did! This is the worldling's folly: villa, boves, uxor, &c.—

' Mundus, cura, caro, ccelum clauaere vocatis;'—

To esteem grace and glory less than farms, oxen, wives ; manna than onions; mercy than vanity ; God than idols. They may be fitly paralleled with the prodigal, Luke xv. He forsook, [1.] His father's house for a strange country: these the church, God's house, for the world; a place wherein they should be strangers, and wherein, I am sure, they shall not be long dwellers. [2.] His father's inheritance for a bag of money: so these will not tarry for their heritage in heaven, but take the bags which Mammon thrusts into theu* hands on the present. Who but a fool will refuse the assured reversion of some great lordship, though expectant on the expiration of three lives, for a ready sum of money not enough to buy the least stick on the ground ? This is the worldling's fijlly, rather to take a piece of slip-coin in hand than to trast God for the invaluable mass of glory. [3.] He forsakes his lovuig friends for harlots, creatures of spoil and rapine : so these the company of saints for the sons of Belial; those that .sing praises, for those that roar blasphemies. [4.] Lastly, the bread in his fixther's house for hu.sks of beans : so these leave Christ, the true bread of life, for the draft' which the swine of this world puddle in. Here is then* folly, to fasten on transient delights, and to neglect the ' pleasures at the right hand of God for evermore,' Ps. xvi. 11.

(4.) It is a fool's property to run on Ins course with precii)itation. Yet can he not outrun the wicked, whose ' driving is lilce Jehu's, the son oi Nimshi,' 2 Kings ix. 20 : he driveth as if he were mad ; as if he had received that commi.ssion, ' Salute no man by the way.' ' The wise man seetli the plague, and hideth himself; Init the fool rmineth on, and is punished/ ♦ Confess., lib. iii.

Prov. xxvii. 12. He goes, he runs, he flies; as if God, that rides upon the ■R-ings of the Avind, should uot overtake him. He may pass apace, for he is beuefited by the way; wliich is smooth, without rubs, and down a hill, for heU is a bottom, Prov. xv. 24. Facilis descensus Averni. Haste might be good, if the way were good, and good speed added to it. But this is cursus celenimus prceter riam. He needs not run fast; for inniquam sero ad id venitur, ct quo nunquam receditur, —the fool may come soon enough to that place froui whence he must never return. Thus you see the rcspondency of the spiritual to the natural fool in their quaUties. Truly the wicked man is a fool. So Solomon expounds the one by the other : Eccles. vii. 17, ' Be not overmuch ■wicked, neither be thou foolish ; Avhy shouldest thou die before thy time?'

Fools. —Observe, this is plurally and indefinitely spoken. The number is not small; siullonim plena sunt omnia. Christ's ' flock is little,' but Satan's kingdom is of large bounds. Flu-rima pessima, —vile things are ever most plentiful. Wisdom flies, like the rail, alone; but fools, like partridges, by wbole coveys. There is but one truth, but iunuracrable errors; which should teach us—

1. Not to ' follow a multitude in evil.' In civil actions it is good to do as the most; in religious, to do as the best. It shall be but poor comfort in hell, socios habuisse doloris. Thou pleadest to the judge, I have done as others ; the judge answers, And thou shalt speed as others.

2. To bless God that we are none of the many; as much f(3r our grace, whereby we difi"er from the fools of the Avorld, as for our reason, whureby we differ from the fools of natiire.

Now as these fools are many, so of many kinds. There is the sad fool and the glad fool; the haughty fool, and the naughty fool:—

1. The sad or melancholy fool is the envious, that repines at his brother's good. An enemy to all God's favours, if they foil besides himself. A man of the worst diet; for he consumes himself, and delights in pining, in re-phiing. He is ready to quarrel with God because his neighbour's flock scape the rot. He cannot endure to be happy, if with company. Therefore envy is called by Prosper,'"' de bono alterius tabescentis animi cruciatus, —the vexation of a languishing mind, arising from another's welfare. Tantos in-mdus habet justce poence tortores, quantos invidiosus habuit laudatores, —So many as the envied hath praisers, hath the envious tormentors.

2. The glad fool—I might say the mad fool—is the dissolute ; who, rather than he will want sport, makes goodness itself his minstrel. His mirth is to sully every virtue with some slander, and with a jest to laugh it out of fashion. His usual discourse is filled up with boasting parentheses of his old sins ; and though he cannot make himself merry with their act, he will with their report: as if he roved at this mark, to make himself worse than he is. If repentance do but proft'er him her service, he lacks her out of doors; his mind is perpetually drunk; and his body lightly dies, like Anacreon, with a grape in his throat. He is stung of that serpent, whereof he dies laughing.

3. The haiif/h(// fool is the ambitious; who is ever climbing high towers, and never forecasting how to come down. Up he will, though he foil down headlong. He is weary of peace in the country, and therefore comes to seek ti-ouble at court, where he haunts great men, as his great spirit haunts him. When he receives many disappointments, he flatters himself still with success. His own fancy jiersuadcs him, as men do fools, to shoot away another aiTow, thereby to fhid the first; so he loseth both. And, lastly, because his pride will admit of uo other punisher, he becomes his own torment; and

* Lib. iii. dc Virtut. ct Yitiis.

having at first lost bis honesty, he will now also lose his wits : so truly becomes a fool.

4. The naiighty fool is the covetous. This is the folly that Solomon ' saw under the sun.' You heard before of a mcrrif fool, but the very fool of all is the avarous; for he will lose his friends, starve his body, danui liis soul, and have no pleasure for it. So saith the prophet, Jer. xvii. 11, 'Ho shall leave his riches in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.' He wastes himself to keep his goods from wiuste; he eats the worst meat, and keeps his stomach over chiding, lie longs, like a fool, for everything lie sees; and at last may habere quod volitU, non quad vull, —have what he desired, never what he desires. He fears not the day of judgment, except for preventing the date of some great obligation. You would think it were petty treason to call a rich man Jool; but He doth so that dares justify it: Luke xii. 20, 'Thou fool, this night shall they fetch away thy soul from thee ; then whose shall those things be which thou hiist provided V

11. We have anatomised the fool; let us behold his sport: ' lie maketh a mock at shi.'

The fathers call this wjimum uradnm, and liinen. inferni, —the lowest degree of sin, and the very threshold of hell. It is ^edes ■pestilentUc, —* the scorner's chair,' Ps. i. 1, wherein the ungodly sits, blaspheming God and all goodness. Nemo fit repenie pessimus, —No man becomes worst at lirst. This is no sudden evil. Men are born sinful; they make themselves profane. Through many degrees they climb to that height of impiety. This is an extreme progress, and almost the j<nirncy's end of wickedness. Improha lu'tari affectn. Thus Abner calls fighting a sport: 2 Sam. ii. 14, ' Let the young men arise and play before us.' ' They glory in their shame,' saith tlio Apostle, Phil. iii. 19; as if a condemned malefactor should boast of his halter. ' Fools make a mock at sin.'

We shall the more clearly see, and more strongly detest, this senseless iniquity, if we consider the object of the fool's sport— sin.

1. *S/7i, which is so contraiy to goodness; and though to man's cnn-upt nature pleasing, yet even abhorred of those sparks and cinders which the rust of sin hath not cpiite eaten out of our nature as the creation left it. The lewdest man, that loves Anckedness as heartily as the devil loves liun, yet hath some objurgations of his own heart; and because he will not condemn his sin, his heart shall condemn him. The most reprol)ate wretch doth commit some contraconscient iniquities, and hath the contradiction of his own soul, by the remnants of reason left in it. If a lewd man had the choice to be one of those two emperors, Nero or Constantine ; who would not rather be a Constantine th.an a Nero 1 The most violent oppressor that is cruel to others, yet had rather that others should be kind to him than cruel. The bloodiest murderer desires that othei-s should u.se him gently, rather than strike, kill, or butcher him. Nature itself prefers liglit to darkness ; and the mouth of a sorceress is driven to confes.s, Video meliora, pro-bofpie. The most rigid usurer, if he should come before a severe judge, would be glad of mercy, though himself will shew none to lus poor boiul-men.

' 111 bcno vivendo requiem natura fatcri Cogitur.'

It is then first a contranatural thing to 'make a mock at sin.*

2. Sin, which sensibly brings on present judgments. 'Thou art made whole : sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee,' John v. 11. Sui procured the former, and that was grievous—thu'ty-eight }e;irs bedrid : sin

is able to draw on a greater punishment; ' Lest a worse thing come unto thee.' If I should turn this holy book from one end to the other; if I should search all fathers, yea, all writers, whether divine or human, I should evince this conclusion, that sin hales on judgment. Fedisseqiius sceleris supplicium. If there be no fear of impiety, there is no hope of impunity. Our Machiar-vellian politicians have a position, that summa scelera indpiimtur cum peri-culo, peraguntur cum jyrcemio, —the greatest wickedness is begun with danger, gone through with reward. Let the philosopher stop their mouths : Scelus aliquis tutum, nemo securum tulit, —Some guilty men have been safe, none ever secure.

This every eye must see. Let adultery plead that nature is the encourager and dirccter of it, and that she is unjust to give him an affe(;tion, and to bar him the action; yet we see it plagued, to teach us that the sin is of a greater latitude than some imagine it: unclean, foedifragous, perjured. Broad impudence, contemplated bawdery, an eye fidl of whores, are things but jested at: the committers at last find them no jest, when God pours vengeance on the body, and wrath on the naked conscience.

Let drunkenness stagger in the robes of good-fellowship, and shroud itself under the wings of merriment, yet we see it have the punishment, even in this life. It corrupts the blood, drowns the spirits, beggars the purse, and enrichcth the carcase with surfeits : a present judgment waits itpon it. He that is a thief to others is at last a thief also to himself, and steals away his own life. God doth not ever forbear sin to the last day, nor shall the bloody ruffian stiU escape; but his o\m. blood shall answer some in present, Ps. Iv. 23, and his soul the rest eternally. Let the Seminary pretend a warrant from the Pope to betray and murder princes, and build his damnation on their tetrical grounds, which have pavum rationis, minus honestatis, religionis nihil, —little reason, less honesty, no rehgion ; yet we see God reveals their malicious stratagems, and buries them in their own pit. Percy's* head now stands sentinel where he was once a pioneer.

If a whole land flow with wickedness, it escapes not a deluge of vengeance. For England, have not her bowels groaned under the heavy pestilence ? If the plague be so common in our mouths, how should it not be common in our streets ? With that plague wheremth we curse others, the just God curscth us. We shall find in that imperial state of Eome, that till Constantino's time almost every emperor died by treason or massacre; after the receiving of the gospel, none except that revolter Julian. Let not sin then be made a sport or jest, which God will not forbear to punish even in this life. 3. But if it bring not present judgment, it is the more fearful. The less punishment Avickedness receives here, the more is behind. God strikes those here whom he means to spare hereafter; and corrects that son which ho purposeth. to save. But ho scarce meddles with them at all whom he intends to beat once for all. The almond-tree is forborne them who arc bequeathed to the boiling pot. There is no rod to scourge such in present, so they go with whole sides to hell. The purse and the fiesh scapes, but the soul pays for it. This is misericordia puniens, a grievous mercy, when men are spared for a wliHe that they may be spilled for ever. This made

* Thomas Percy, cousin of the Earl of Northumberland, was the chief conspirator iu the Gunpowder Plot. It was he who rented the cellar under the Parliament-house, procured the powder from Holland, and was engaged to kill the young Duke of Yoi-k as s(K)n as the explosion should take place. On the failure of the project, he and some of his accomplices flod to Hulbuach, in Staffordshire, where he was killed after a desperate defence. It would appear from the text that his head was placed in front of the Parliament-house, though I do not find this mentioned ia the histories.--ED.

that good saint cr}', Lord, liore allUct, cat, burn, torture mc, ut in aiermini parcas, '—so that for ever thou wilt save mc. No sorrow troubles the wicked, no disturbance embitters their pleasui-es; but * rcnieml)er,' saith Abraham to the merry-lived rich man, ' thou loeii delighted, but thou art tormented,' Luke xvi. 25. Tarditas supplicii (jnivitate ptnsatur; and he will strike with iron hands that came to strike with leaden feet. Tuli, nunquid semper foxim ? No; their hell-lire shall be so much the hotter, as God hath been cool and tardy in the execution of his vengeance. This is a judgment for sin that comes in\isible to the world, insensible to him on whom it lights : to be ' given over to a reprobate mhid, to a hard and impenitent heart,' Rom. i. 2S, ii. 5. If anything be vengeance, this is it. I have read of plagues, ftiminc, death, come tempered with love and mercy : thi.s never but ill anger, ilany taken with this spiritual lethargy, sing in taverns, that should howl with dragons; and sleep out Sabbaths and sermons, whose awaked souls would rend their hearts with anguish. ' Fools,' then, only' make a mock at sin.'

4. Kiin, that shall at last be laid heavy on the conscience : the lighter the burden was at first, it shall be at last the more ponderous. The wicked conscience may for a while lie asleep ; but tranquiliitas ista tempestas est,\ —this calm is the greatest storm. The mortalest enemies are not evermore in pitched fields, one against the other; the guilty may have a seeming truce, true peace they cannot have. A man's debt is not paid by slumbering ; oven while thou sleepest, thy arrearages run on. If thy conscience be quiet without good cause, remember that cedat ivjustissivia jxur Jusiissimo hello, —a just war is better than unjust peace. The conscience is like a fire under a i)i]e of green wood—long ere it burn, but once kindled, it flames beyond quench-mg. It is not pacifiable whiles sin is within to vex it; the hand will not cease throbbing so long as the thorn is within the flesh. In vain he striveth to feast away cares, sleep out thoughts, drmk down sorrows, that hatli his tormentor within him. When one violently ofi'ers to stop a source of blood at the nostril, it finds a way down the throat, not without hazard of sutft)oa-tion. The stricken deer runs into the thicket, and there breaks ofl' the arrow; but the head sticks still within him, and rankles to death. Flitting and shifting ground gives way to further anguish. The unappeased conscience wiU not leave him till it hath shewed Mm hell; nor then neither. Let then this fool know, that his now seared conscience shall be quickeneil; his deathbed shall smart for this; and his amazed he;irt shall rue his old wilful adjournings of repentance. How many have there raved on the thought of their old sins, which in the days of their hot lust they would not think sms ! Let not, then, the ' fool make a mock at sin.'

5. Si7i, which hath another direful effect of greater latitude, and comprehensive of all the rest: divinam incitat iram, —it provokes God to anger. The ' wrath of a king is a mes.senger of death ;' what is the wrath of the King of kings ! ' For our God is a consumhig lire,' Ileb. xii. 29. If the fire of his anger be once tliorougldy incensed, all the rivers in the .south are not able to quench it. What pillar of the earth, or foundation of heaven, can stand when he will shake them ? lie that in his wrath can open the jaws of earth to swallow thee, .sluice out floods from the sea to drown thee, rain down fire from heaven to consume thee. Sodom, the old world, Korah, drank of these wrathful vials. Or, to go no further, he can set at jar the elements within thee, by whose peace thy spirits are held together ; drown thee with a dropsy bred in thy own flesh; burn thee with a ]K\stilence begotten

* Aug, t Jerom.

in

thy own blood; or hnry thee in the earthly gnave of thine own melancholy. Oh, it is a fearful thing ' to fall into the hands of the living God!' It is then wretchedly done, thou fool, to jest at sin that augers God, who is able to anger all the veins of thy heart for it.

6. Sin, which was punished even in heaven. Auf/ell detniduntur propter peccatuvi, —2 Pet. ii. \, ' God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell.' It coiUd bring down angels from lieaven to hell; how much more men from earth to hell 'I If it could corrupt such glorious natures, what jiower hath it against dust and ashes ? Art thou better or dearer than the angels were 1- Doest thou flout at that which condemned them 1 Go thy ways, make thyself merry with thy sins; mock at that which threw down angels. Unless' God give thee repentance, and another mind, thou shalt speed as the lost angels did; for God may as easily cast thee from the earth as he did them from heaven.

7. Sin, which God so loathed that he could not save his own eleet because of it, but by killing his own Son. It is such a disease that nothing but the blood of the Son of God could cure it. He cured us by taking the receipts himself which we should have taken. He is first cast into a sweat; such a sweat as never man but he felt, when the bubbles were drops of blood. Would not sweating serve ? He comes to incision ; they pierce his liands, his feet, his side, and set life itself abroach. He must take a potion too, as bitter as their malice could make it, compounded of vinegar and gall. And lastly, he must take a stranger and stronger medicine than all the rest— he must die for our sins. Behold his harmless hands pierced for the sins our harmful hands had committed! his undefiled feet, that never stood in the ways of evil, nailed for the errors of our paths ! He is spitted on, to purge away our uncleanness ; clad in scornful robes, to cover our nakedness ; wliipped, that we might escape everlasting scourges. He would thirst, that our soids might be satisfied; the Eternal would die, that we might not die etemaUy. He is content to bear all his Father's wrath, that no piece of that burden might be imposed upon us ; and seem as forsaken a while, that we by him might be received for ever. Behold his side become bloody, his heart dry, his face pale, his arms stiff, after that the stream of blood had run down to his wounded feet. Oh, think if ever man felt sorrow like him, or if he felt any sorrow but for sin !

Now, is that sin to be laughed at that cost so much torment ? Did the pressure of it lie so heavy on the Son of God, and doth a son of man make light of it ? Did it wring from him sweat, and blood, and tears, and unconceivable groans of an afflicted spirit ; and dost thou, O fool, jest at it 1 Alas ! that which put our infinite Redeemer, God and man, so hard to it, must needs sw\allow up and confound thee, poor sinful wretch ! It pressed him so iar that he cried out, to the amazement of earth and heaven, ' M}' God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me 1' Shall he cry for them, and shall we laugh at them % Thou mockest at thy oppressions, oaths, sacrileges, lusts, frauds ; for these he groaned. Thou scornest his gospel preached ; he wept for thy scorn. Thou knowest not, O fool, the price of sin; thou must do, if thy Saviour did not for thee. If he suffered not this for thee, thou must suffer it for thyself Passio aterna erit in te, si jxissio jEterni non ernt pro tc, —An eternal passif)n .shall be upon thee, if the Eternal's passion were not for thee. Look on thy Saviour, and make not ' a mock at sin.'

8. Lastly, Sin shall be punished with death. You know what death is the wages of it, Horn. vi. 2.'}; not only the first", but ' the second deatli,' Ilev. XX. G. Inexpressible are those torments, when a reprobate would give all

the pleasures that ho ever enjoyed for one drop of water to cool his tongue: where there shall be unquenchable fire to burn, not to give li;:;ht, s<ave a glimmering; nd agfjravationem, ut videant unde doltaut: hdu ad consola-tionem, ne videant xinde gandeant,* —to shew them the torments of others, and others the torments of themselves.

But I cease urging this terror ; and had rather win you by the love oi God than by his wrath and justice. Neither need I a stronger argument to dissuade you from sin than by his passion that died fur us being enemies. For if the agony, anguish, and hoart-blood of Jesus Christ, shod for our sins, will not move us tt) repentance, we are in a desperate case. Now, therefore, I fitly leave Paul's adjuration, so sweetly tempered, in your bosoms; commending that to your consciences, and your consciejiccs to God : Rom. xii. 1,' I beseech you, brctlu-en, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God.'

* LsiiL lib. L de Sum, Bon.

MYSTICAL BEDLAM;

OB,

THE WOELI) OF MADMEN

Tlie heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live: and after that they go to the dead. — Eccles. IX. 3,

The subject of the discourse is man; and the speech of him hath three points in the text:—I. His comma; II. His colon; III. His period. I. ' Men's hearts are full of evil;' there is the comma. II. ' jMadness is in their hearts while they live;' there is the colon. III. Whereat not staying, * after that they go doAvn to the dead ;' and there is their period. The first begins, the second continues, the third concludes, their sentence.

Here is man's setting forth, his peregrination, and his journey's end. I. At fir.st putting out, ' his heart is full of evil.' II. ' Madness is in his heart' all his peregrmation, 'whiles they live.' III. His journey's end is the grave, ' he goes to the dead.'

I. Man is born from the womb, as an arrow shot from the bow. II. His flight through this air is wild, and full of madness, of indirect courses. III. The centre, where he lights, is the grave.

I. His comma begins so harshly, that it promiseth no good consequence in the colon. II. The colon is so mad and inordinate, that there is small hope of the period. III. When both the premises are so fiiulty, the conclusion can never be handsome. Wickedness in the first proposition, madness in the second, the ergo is fearful; the conclusion of all is death.

So then, I. The beginning of man's race is full of evil, as if he stumbled at the thre.'ihokl. II. The further he goes, the worse ; madness is joined tenant in his heart witli life. III. At last, in his frantic flight, not looking to his feet, he drops into the pit, goes down to the dead.

I. To begui at the uppermost stair of this gradual descent; the comma of tliis tripartite sentence gives man's heart for a vessel. ^AHierein observe—

1. The ow7iers of this vessel; juen, and derivatively, the sons of men.

2. The vessel itself is earthen, a pot of God's making, and man's marring; the heart.

3. Tlie liquor it holds is evil; a defective, privative, abortive thing, not instituted, but destituted, by the absence of original goodness.

4. The measure of this vosscrs pollution with ovil lif|uor. Jt is not 8aiil Bprinkled, not seasoned, with :i moderate and sparinij; iiuaiitity ; it hatli not an aspersion, nor iiubution, but impletion ; it is lilled to the briin, ' iuU of evil.' Thus, at first putting forth, we have man in his best member corrupted.

1. The owners or jmssessors — sons of men. Adam was called the son of God, Luke iii. 38, ' Euos was the son of Seth, Seth the son of Adam, Adam the son of God :' but all his posterity the sons of men; we receiving from him both flesh and the corruption of ilesh, yea, and of soul too; though the substance thereof be inspired of God, not traduced from man : for the purest soul becomes stained and corrupt when it once toucheth the body.

The soJis of vien. This is a derivative and dimimitive speech ; whereby man's conceit of himself is lessened, and himself lessened to humility. Man, as God's creation left him, was a goodly creature, an abridgement of heaven and earth, an epitome of God and the world : resembling God, who is a spirit, in his soul; and the world, which is a body, in the composition of his. JJeiis ma,rimiis invisi/jilium, mutidus maximus visihilium, —God the greatest of mvisible natures, the world the greatest of visible creatures ; both brought into the little compass of man.

Now man is grown less; and as his body in si/.e, his soul in vigour, so himself in all virtue is abated : so that ' the son of man' is a phrase of diminution, a bar in the arms of his ancient glory, a mark of his derogate and degenerate worth.

Two instructions may the sons of men learn in being called so :—(1.) Tlieir spuitual corruption ; (2.) Their natural corruptibleness.

(1.) That coi^ruption and original pravity which we have derived from our parents. Ps. li. 5, ' Behold,' saith David, ' I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.' The original word is, ' warm me ;' as if the first heat derived to him were not without contamination. I was bom a sinner, saith a saint.

It is said. Gen. v. 3, that ' Adam begat a son in liis own likeness, after liis image, and called his name Seth.' This image and likeness cannot be understood of the soul: for this Adam begat not. Nor properly and merely of the body's shape ; so was Cain as like to Adam as Seth, of whom it is spoken. Nor did that image consist in the piety and purity of Seth : Adam could not propagate that to his son which he had not in himself; virtues arc not given by birth, nor doth gi-ace follow generation, but regeneration. Neither is Seth said to be ' begotten in the image of Adam ' because manldud was continued and presen'od in him. But it intends that corruption which descended to Adam's posterity by natural propagation. The Pelagian error was, peccatum primoi transgressionis in alios homines, non propagatione, sed imilatione transisse, —that the guilt of the first sin was derived to other men, not by propagation, but by imitation ; but then could not Adam be said to beget a son in Ids own image, neither could death have seized on infants, who had not then sinned. But all have sinned : Pom. v. 12, 'As by one man sin entered hito the world, and death by sui : so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.'

This title, then,' the sons of men,' puts us in mind of our original contamination, whereby we stand guilty before God, and liable to present and eternal judgments. Dura tremenda refers. You will say witli tlie disciples, John vi. GO, ' This is a hard saying; who can hear it?'—bear it; nay, be ready to conclude with a sadder inference, as the same disciples, after a particular instance, Matt. xix. 25, ' Who then can be saved V

I .in.swei-, We derive from the first Adam sin and deatli; but from the second Adam, grace and life. As we are the sons of men, our state is wretched ; as made the sons of God, blessed. It is a peremptory speech, 1 Cor. XV. 50, ' Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.' It is a reviving comfort in the 6th chapter of the same epistle, ver. 11, ' Such we were; but we are washed, but we are sanctified, but we are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.' The conclusion or inference hereon is most happy : Rom. viii. 1, ' Now therefore there is no condemnation to them which arc in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.' We may live in the flesh, but 'if after the flesh, we shall die,' ver. 13,— si voluiitati et voluptati carnis satisfacere conemu7\ if our endeavours be wholly armed and aimed to content the flesh; but if we be ' led by the Spirit,' cum dilec-lione, cum delectallone, with love, with delight, we are of the sons of men made the sons of God, ver. 14.

It is our happiness, not to be born, but to be new-born, John iii. 3. The first bu'th kills, the second gives life. It is not the seed of man in the womb of our mother, but the seed of grace, 1 Pet. i. 23, in the womb of the church, that makes us blessed. Generation lost us; it must be regeneration that recovers us. ' As the tree falls, so it lies ;' and lightly it falls to that side which is most laden with fruits and branches. If we abound most with the fruits of obedience, we sliall fall to the right hand, life; if with wicked actions, afi'ections, to the left side, death.

It is not, then, worth the ascription of glory to, what we derive naturally from man. David accepts it as a great dignity to be son-ui-law to a king. To descend from potentates, and to fetch our pedigree from princes, is held mirabiie et memorabile decvs, a dignity not to be slighted or forgotten; but to be a monarch—

' Imperiiim oceauo, famam qui terminat astris,'—*

' Wlio.se fame and empire no less bound controls. Than the remotest sea, and -both the poles'—

oh, this is celsissima gloria mundi, —the supremest honour of this world! Yet ' princes are but men,' saith the Psalmist. Ps. cxlvi. 3, ' Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath gocth forth, he rcturneth to his earth.' They may be high by tlieir calling, ' princes;' yet they are but low by their nature, ' sons of men.' And merely to be the son of man is to be corrupt and polluted. They are sinful, ' the sons of men;' weak,' there is no help in them;' corruptible,' their breath goeth forth;' dying, ' they return to their e»rth.'

It is registered as an evident praise of Moses's faith, Heb. xi. 24, that, ' inr the rebuke of Chiist, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.' There is no ambition good in the sons of men, but to be adopted the sons of God : under which degree there is no happiness; above which, no cause of aspiring.

(2.) Our corniji/i.bleuess is here also demonstrated. A mortal father cannot beget an immortal son. If they that brought us into the world have gone out of the world themselves, we may infallibly conclude our own following. ^ He that may say, I liove a man to my father, a woman to my motlicr, in his life, may in death, with Job, chap. xvii. 14, 'say to corruption. Thou art my fatlicr : to the worm, Tliou art my mother, and my sister.'

It hath been excepted against the justice of God, that the siu of one man * Virg. A'ln., ii.

is devolved to Lis posterity; and that for ' the fathers' eating sour grapes, the children's teeth are set on eilge,' Ezek. xviiL 2, according to the Jewish proverb, Jer. xxxi. 29. As if we might say to every son of man, as Horace sung to his friend : Delida majorum immentiis lues, —Thou being innocent, dost suffer for thy nocent superiors. This a philosopher objected against the gods; strangely conferring it, as if for the father s disease physic should be ministered to the son.

I answer, Adam is considered as the root of mankind ; that cornipt ma.ss, whence can be deduced no pure thing. Can we be born ^lorians without their black skins ? Is it possible to have an Amorite to our father, and a Hittite to our mother, without participation of their corrupted natures J If a man .slip a scion from a hawthorn, he will not look to gather from it grapes. There is not, then, a son of man in the cluster of mankind, but eodem modu et nodo, vinctus et victus, —is liable to that common and equal law of death.

' Unde superbus homo, natus, satus, ortiis ab humo ?'—

' Proud man forgets earth was his native womb, Whence he waa born; and dead, the earth's his tomb.'

Morieris, non quia cegrotas, sed quia vivis, saith the pliilosophcr,*—Thou shalt die, O son of man, not because thou art sick, but because the son of man. Cui nasci contijit, mori restat, —Who happened to come into the world, must upon necessity go out of the world.

It is no new thing to die, since life itself is nothing else but a journey to death, Quicquid ad summum pervenit, ad exitum properat, —He that hath climbed to his highest, is descending to his lowest. All the sons of men die not one death, for time and manner; for the matter and end, one death is infallible to all the sons of men. The corn is sometimes bitten in the spring, often trod down in the blade, never fails to be cut up in the ear, when riijc. Quisquis queritur hominem mortuum esse, queritur hominem fuisse,i —Who laments that a man is dead, laments that he was a man.

When Anaxagoras heard that his son was dead, he answered without astonishment, >Scio me gcnuisse mortalem, —I know that I begat a mortal man. It was a good speech that fell from that shame of philosophy, Epic-tetus : Non sum ceternitas, sed homo : particiila imivei-si, ut hora diei: venire igitur oportet ut horam, praterire ut horam, —I am not eternity, but a man : a little part of the whole, as an hour is of the day : like an hour I came, and I must depart like an hour.

' Mors dominos servis, et sceptra Hgonibus scquat: DLssimiles simiU conditione hgat;'—

'Death's cold impartial hand.s are used to strike Princes and peasants, and make both alike.'

Some frait is plucked violently from the tree, .some drops with ripeness; all must fall, because the sons of men.

This should teach us to arm ourselves with patience and expectation, to encounter death . Soepe dehemus mori, nee volnmus : monmur, nee volnmiis, —Often we ought to i)rei)are for death, we will not: at last, we die indeed, and we would not. Adam knew all the bea.st.s, and called thorn by their names; but his own name he forgot—Adam, of earth. What bad memories have we, that forget our o^ti names and selves, that we are the sons of men, corniptible, mortal! Incertum est, quo loco temors expectat; itaque lu ilUuu * Sen. Ep. 99 ad Lucil. t '''cu. ibid.

VOL. L K

omni loco expeda, —Thou knowest not in what place death looketh for thee ; therefore do thou look for him in every place. Matt. xxiv. 42, 'Watch therefore; for you kitow not what hour your Lord doth come.'—Thus for the owners.

2. The vessel itself is the heart. The heart is man's principal vessel. We deske to have all the implements in our house good; but the vessel of chief-est honour, principally good. Quam male de ie ipse mentisti, &c., saith St Augustine,—How mad is that man that would have all his vessels good but his own heart! We would have a strong nerve, a clear vein, a moderate pulse, a good arm, a good face, a good stomach, only we care not how evil the heart is, the principal of all the rest.

For howsoever the head be called the tower of the mind, the throne of reason, the house of wisdom, the treasure of memory, the capitol of judgment, the shop of affections, yet is the heart the receptacle of life. And spirit us, which, they say, is copula animce et corporis, a virtue uniting the soul and the body, if it be in the liver natural, in the head animal, yet is in the heart vital. It is the member that hath first life in man, and it is the last that dies in man, and to all the other members gives vivification.

As man is microcosmus, an abridgment of the world, he hath heaven resembling his soul; earth his heart, placed in the midst as a centre ; the liver is like the sea, whence flow the lively springs of blood; the brain, like the sun, gives the light of understanding; and the senses are set round about, like the stars. The heart in man is like the root in a tree : the organ or lung-pipe, that comes of the left cell of the heart, is like the stock of the tree, which divides itself into two parts, and thence spreads abroad, as it were, sprays and boughs into aU the body, even to the arteries of the head.

The Egyptians have a conceit that man's growing or declining follows his heart. The heart of man, say they, increaseth still till he come to fifty years old, every year two drams in weight, and then decrcaseth every year as much, tUl he come to a hundred; and then for want of heart he can live no longer. By which consequence, none could live above a hundred years. But this observation hath often proved false. But it is a vessel, a living vessel, a vessel of life.

It is a vessel properly, because hollow : hollow to keep heat, and for the more facile closing and opening. It is a spiritual vessel, made to contain the holy dews of grace, which make glad the city of God, Ps. xlvi. 4. It is ever full, either with that precious juice, or with the pernicious liquor of sin. As our Saviour saith. Matt. xv. 19, ' Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.' ' Know ye not,' saith the Apostle, 1 Cor. iii. 1G, ' that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you 1 ' If our corpus be templum Domini, sure our cor is sanctum sanctonwi. It was the answer of the oracle, to him that would be instructed what Avas the best sacrifice:— 'Da medium luoae, solem simul, et canis ircam ; '— ' Give the half-moon, the whole sun, ami the dog's anger;'

wliich three characters make cor, the heart. The good heart is a receptacle for the whole Trinity; and therefore it hath three angles, as if the three Persons of tliat one Deity would inhabit there. The Fatlicr made it, the Son bought it, the Holy Ghost .sanctifies it ; therefore they all three claim a riglit in the heart. It hath three cells for the three Persons, and is but one heart for one God. The world cannot satisfy it: a globe cannot fill a triangle. Only God can sufficiently content tlie heart.

God is, saitli a father, no7i cortkis, sed cordis Deus* —not regarding the rind of the lips, but the root of the heart. Hence Satan directs his malicious strength against the heart. The fox doth gripe the neck, the mastitf flics at the throat, and the ferret nips the liver, but the devil aims .it the heart, injicei-e^ interjlcere. The heart he desires, becauses he knows God desires it ; and his ambition still inclines, intends his purposes and plots, to rob God of his delight. The heart Is the chief tower of life to the body, and the spiritual citadel to the whole man : always besieged by a domestical enemy, the flesh; by a civil, the world \ by a professed, the devil. Every perpetrated sin doth some hurt to the walls; but if the heart be taken, the whole corporation is lost.

How should Christ enter thy house, and * sup with thee,' Rev. iii. 20, when the chamber is taken up wherein he would rest, the heart ? hS\. the faculties of man follow the heart, as servants the mistress, wheels the poise, or links the first end of the chain. When the sun riseth, all rise ; beasts from their dens, birds' from their nests, men from their beds. So the heart leads, directs, moves the parts of the body and powers of the soul; that the mouth speaketh, hand worketh, eye looketh, ear listeneth, foot walketh, all producing good or evil * from the good or evil treasure of the heart,' Luke vi. 4-5. Therefore the penitent publican beat his heart, as if he would call uj) that, to call up the rest.

It is conspicuous, then, that the heart is the best vessel whereof any son of man can boast himself possessor; and yet (proA dolor I) even this is corrupted. To declare this pollution, the next circumstance doth justly challenge ; only one caveat to our hearts, of our hearts, ere we leave them. Since the heart is the most precious vessel man hath in all his corporal household, let him have good regard to it. Omni custodia custodi cor iuiim, —' Keep thy heart with all diligence,' saith Solomon. God hath done much for the heart, naturally, spiritually.

For the former; he liath placed it in the midst of the body, as a general in the midst of his army : bulwarked it about with breast, ribs, back. Lest it should be too cold, the liver lies not far oif, to gave it kindly heat; lest too hot, the lungs lie by it, to blow cool wind upon it. It is the chief, and therefore should -wisely temper all other members: by the spleen we are made to laugh, by the gall to be angry, by the brain we feel, by the liver we love, but by the heart we be wise.

Spiritually, he hath done more for the heart, giving the blood of his Son ■ to cleanse it, soften it, sanctify it, when it was fdl both of hardness and turpitude. By his omnipotent grace he unroostcd the devil iwm it, who liad made it a stable of uncleanness; and now requires it, being created new, for his own chamber, for his own bed. The purified heart is God's sacrar}', his sanctuary, his house, his heaven. As St Aug^istine glosseth the first words of the Faternoster, * Our Father which art in heaven'—that is, in a heart of a heavenly disposition. Quam propit'ui dignatio ista, that the King of heaven will vouchsafe to dwell in an earthly tabernacle !

The heart, then, being so accepted a vessel, keep it at home ; having but one so precious supellectile or moveable, part not with it u]ion any terms. There are four busy requirers of the heart, besides he that justly owneth it— beggars, buyers, borrowers, thieves.

(1.) He that begs thy heart is the Pope; and this he doth not by word of mouth, but by letters of commendations,—condemnations rather,—his Seminary factors. He begs thy heart, and ofl'ers thee nothing for it, but crucifixes, • Ambroa.

images, &c.,—mere images or shadows of reward,—or Ms blessing at Rome ; which, because it is so far distant, as Lf it lost all the virtue by the way, doth .13 much good as a candle in a sunshine.

(2.) He that would Uuj this vessel of us is the devil; as one that distrusts to have it for notliing : and therefore, set what price thou wilt upon it, he will either pay it or promise it. Satan would fain have his jewel-house full of these vessels, and thinks them richer ornaments than the Babylonian ambassadors thought the treasures of Hezekiah, 2 Kings xx. 13. Haman shall have grace with the king, Absalom honour, Jezebel revenge, Amncm his lusts satisfied, Judas money, Demas the world, if they will sell him their hearts. If any man, like Ahab, sell his heart to such a purchaser, let him know that qui emit, interimit, —he doth buy it to butcher it.

(3.) The flesh is the borrower, and he would have this vessel to use, with promise of restorhig. Let him have it a while, and thou shalt have it again; but as from an ill neighbour, so broken, lacerated, deformed, defaced, that though it went forth rich, like the prodigal, it returns home tattered and torn, and worn, no more like a heart than Michal's image on the pUlow was like David. This suitor borrows it of the citizen, till usury hath made him an alderman; of the courtier, till ambition hath made him noble; of the officer, till bribery hath made him master ; of the gallant, tUl riot hath made him a beggar; of the luxurious, tUl lust hath filled him with diseases; of the country churl, till covetise hath swelled his barns ; of the epicure, till he be fatted for death; and then sends home the heart, like a jade, tired with imreasonable travel. This is that wicked borrower in the psalm, 'which payeth not again.' Thou wouldest not lend thy beast, nor the worst vessel in thy house, to such a neighbour; and wilt thou trust him with thy heart? Either not lend it, or look not for it again.

(4.) The world is the thief, which, like Absalom, ' steals away the heart,' 2 Sam. XV. G. This cunningly insinuates into thy breast, begiiiling the watch or guard, which are thy senses, and corrupting the servants, wliich are thy affections. The world hath two properties of a thief:— First, It comes in the night time, when the lights of reason and understanding are darkened, and security hath gotten the heart into a slumber. This dead sleep, if it doth not find, it brings.

' Sunt quoque qua3 faciunt altos medicamina somnos, Vivaque Lethsea lumina nocte premunt;'— *

* The world's a potion; who thereof drinks deep. Shall yield his soul to a lethargic sleep.'

Secondly, It makes no noise in coming, lest the ftimily of our revived thoughts wake, and our sober knowledge discern his approach. This thief takes us, as it took Demas, napping ; terrifies us not with noise of tumultuous troubles, and alarum of persecutions, but pleasingly gives us the music of gain, and laps us warm in the couch of lusts. This is the most perilous oppugncr of our hearts; neither beggar, buyer, nor borrower could do much without this thief; It is some respect to the world that makes men either give, or sell, or lend the vessel of their heart. Astus poUentior armis, — Fraud is more dangerous than force. Let us beware this thief

First, turn the beggar from thy door; he is too saucy in asking thy best

moveable, whereas beggars sliould not choose their alms. That Pope was

yet a little more reasonable, that shewed himself content with a king of

Spain's reumncration : The present you sent me was such as became a king

• Ovid. Amor.

to give, and St Peter to receive. But da pauperibus, the Pope is rich enough.

Then reject the buyer; set hira no price of thy heart, for he will take it of any reckoning. He is near driven that sells his heart. I have heard of a Jew that would, for security of his lent money, have only assured to him a pound of his Christian debtor's living flesh; a strange forfeit for default of paying a little money. But the devil, in all his covenants, indents for the heart. In other bargains, caveat emptor, saith the proverb,—let the Iniyer take heed; in this, let the seller look to it. Make no mart nor market with Satan.

' Non bene pro multo libertas venditur auro/— ' The heart is ill sold, whatever the price be.'

Thirdly, for the borrower: lend not thy heart in hope of interest, lest thou lose the principal. Lend him not any implement in thy hou.se, any affection in thy heart; but to spare the best vessel to such an abuser is no other than mad charity.

Lastly, ware the thief; and let his subtlety excite thy more provident prevention. Many a man keeps his goods safe enough from beggars, buyers, borrowers, yet is met withal by thieves.

Therefore lock up this vessel with the key of faith, bar it with resolution agamst sin, guard it vnih. supervisiting diligence, and repose it in the bosom of thy Saviour. There it is safe from all obsidious or insidious oppngna-tions, from the reach of fraud or violence. Let it not stray from this home, lest, like Dinah, it be deflowered. If we keep this vessel ourselves, we endanger the loss. Jacob bought Esau's birthright, and Satan stole Adam's paradise, whiles the tenure was in their own hands. An apple beguiled the one, a mess of pottage the other. Trust not thy heart in thine own custody; but lay it up m heaven with thy treasure. Commit it to Him that is the Maker and Preserver of men, who will lap it up with peace, and lay it in a bed of joy, where no adversaiy power can invade it, nor thief break through to steal it.

3. The liquor this vessel holds is evil. Evil is double, either of sin or of punishment; the deserving and retribution ; the one of man's own afi"ecting, the other of God's just inflicting. The former is simpliciter malum, simply evil of its own nature; the latter but secundum quid, in respect of the sufferer, being good in regard of God's glory, as an act of his justice. For the, evils of our sufferings, as not intended here, I pretermit. Only, when they come, we learn hence how to entertain them : in our knowledge, as our due rewards; in our patience, as men, as saints; that tribulation may as well produce patience, Rom. v. 3, as sin hath procured tribulation. A'^on sentire mala sua non est hominis, et non ferre non est viri,* —He that feels not his miseries sensibly is not a man ; and he that bears them not courageously is not a Christian. ,

The juice in the heart of the sons of men is e\il; all have corrupted their ways. Solomon speaks not here in individuo, this or that son of man, but generally, with an universal extent, the sons of men. And leaving the plural with the possessors, by a significant solecism, he names the vessel in the singular,—the heart, not hearts,—as if all mankind had cor unum in unitate malitice, one heart in the unity of sin ; the matter of the vessel being of one polluted luniji, that every man that hath a heart, hath naturally an evil heart. Adam had no sooner by his one sin slain his posterity, but ho beg(\l. * Sea

a son that slew Ms brother. Adam was planted by God a good vine, but his apo.stasy made all his children sour grapes. Our nature was sown good; behold, wc are come up evil. Through whose default ariseth this badness 1

God created this vessel good; man poisoned it in the seasoning. And being thus distained in the tender newness, servat odorem testa diu, —it smells of the old infection, till a new juice be put into it, or' rather itself made new. As David prays, Ps. li. 10, ' Create in me, O Lord, a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.' God made us good, we have marred ourselves, and,"behold, we call on him to make us good again. Yea, even the vessel thus recreated is not without a tang of the former corruption. Paul confesseth in himself a ' body of death,' Piom. vii., as well as David a native ' uncleanness,' Ps. li. The best grain sends forth that chaff, whereof, before the sowing, it was purged by the fan. Our contracted evil had been the less intolerable if we had not been made so perfectly good. He that made heaven and earth, air and fire, sun and moon, all elements, all creatures, good, surely would not make him evil for whom these good things were made. How comes he thus bad 1 Deus hominem fecit, homo se interfecit. In the words of our royal preacher, Eccles. vii. 29, ' Lo, this only I have found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.' Man was created happy, but he found out tricks to make himself miserable. And his misery had been less if he had never been so blessed ; the better we were, we are the worse. Like the posterity of some profuse or tainted progenitor, we may tell of the lands, lordships, honours, titles that were once ours, and then sigh out the song, Fuimus Trees, —We have been blessed.

If the heart were thus good by creation, or is thus good by redemption, how can it be the continent of such evil liquor, when, by the word of his mouth that never erred, ' a good tree cannot bring forth bad fruits T Matt, vii. 18. I answer, that saying must be construed in sensu composito: a good tree, continuing good, cannot produce evil fruits. The heart born of God, in quanto renatum est, non peccat, —' doth not commit sin,' 1 John iii. 9, so far as it is born of God. Yet even in this vessel, whiles it walks on earth, are some drops of the first poison. And so—

' Dat diilces fons unus aquas, qui et prsebet amaras;'—

The same fountain sends forth sweet water and bitter; though not at the same place, as St James propoimds it, chap. iii. 11.

But Solomon speaks here of the heart, as it is generate or degenerate, not as regenerate ; what it is by nature, not by grace; as it is from the first Adam, not from the second. It is thus a vessel of evil. Sin was brewed in it, and hath brewed it into sin. It is strangely, I know not how truly, reported of a vessel that changeth some kind of liquor put into it into itself, as fire transforms the fuel into ^re. But here the content doth change the continent, as some mineral veins do the earth that holds them. This evil jviice turns the whole heart into evil, as water poured upon snow turns it to water. ' The wickedness of man was so great in the earth,' that it made ' every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil continually,' Gen. vi. 5.

Here, if we consider the dignity of the vessel, and the filthiness of the evil it holds, or is rather lioldcn of, (fur non tarn tenet, quam tenetur,) the comparison is sufficient to astonish us.

' Quam male couveuiuut vas aureum, atrumquc veuenum 1'

Oh, ingratc, inconsiderate man ! to whom God hath given so good a vessel, and he fills it with no cvU sap. ' In a great house there be vessels of honour, and vessels of dishonour,' 2 Tim. ii. 20 ; some for better, some for baser uses. The heart is a vessel of honour, sealed, consecrated for a receptacle, for a habitacle of the graces of God. 1 Cor. vi 15, * Shall we take the member of Christ, and make it an harlot's 1 ' the vessel of God, and make it Satan's 1 Did God infuse into us so noble a part, and shall we infuse into it such ignoble stuff 1 AVas fraud, falsehood, malice, mischief, adultery, idolatry, variance, variableness ordained fur the heart, or the heart for them ? When the seat of holiness is become the seat of hollowncss; the house of innocence, the house of impudence ; the place of love, the place of lust; the vessel of piety, the vessel of uncleanness; the throne of God, the court of Satan, the heart is become rather a jelly than a heart: wherein there is a tumultuous, promiscuous, turbulent throng, heaped and amassed together, like a wine-drawer's stomach, full of Dutch, French, Spanish, Greek, and many country wines; envy, lust, treason, ambition, avarice, fraud, hypocrisy obsessing it, and by long teiuire pleading prescription : that custom, being a second nature, the heart hath lost the name of heart, and is become the nature of that it holds, a lump of evil.

It is detestable ingratitude in a subject, on whom his sovereign hath conferred a golden cup, to employ it to base uses; to make that a wash-pot which should receive the best wine he drinketh. Behold, the King of heaven and earth hath given thee a rich vessel, thy heart, wherein, though it be a piece of flesh or clay of itself, he hath placed the chief faculties of thy spirit and his. How adverse to thankfulness and his intent is thy practice, when thou shalt pour into this cup lees, dregs, muddy pollutions, tetrical poisons, the waters of hell, wines wluch the infernal spirits drmk to men ; taking the heart from him that created it, from him that bought it, from him that keeps it, and bequeathing it, in the death of thy soul, to him that infects, afiiicts, tempts, and torments it; making him thy executor which shall be thy executioner, that hath no more right to it than Herod had to the bed of his sister ! What injury, what indignity, is offered to God, when Satan is gratified with his goods, when his best moveable on earth is taken from him and given to his enemy !

The heart is ^os solis, and should open and shut with the ' Sun of righteousness,' Mai. iv. 2. To him, as the landlord duplice jure, it should stand open, not suffering him to knock for entrance till ' his locks be wet with the dew of heaven,' Cant. v. 1. Alas ! how comes it about that he which is the owner can have no admission ? that we open not the doors of our hearts that the King of glory might enter, who will then one day open the doors of heaven that a man of earth may enter ? Did God erect it as a lodging for his own majesty, leaving no window in it for the eye of man so much as to look into it, as if he would keep it under lock and key to himself, as a sacred chalice, whereout he would drink the wine of faith, fear, grace, and obedience, ^\ine which himself had sent before for his own supper. Rev. iii. 20 ; and must he be turned forth by his own steward, and have his chamber let out for an ordinarj', where sins and lusts may securely revel ? Will not he that made it one day ' break it with a rod of iron, and dash it in pieces like a potter's vessel 1 ' Ps. ii. 9.

Shall the great Belshazzar, Dan. v. 2, that tyrant of hell, sit drinking his wines of abomination and wickedness in the sacred bowls of the temple, the vessels of God, the hearts of men, without ruin to those that dfliglitfully suffer him 1 Was it a thing detestable in the eyes of God to profane tho

vessels of the sanctuary; and will he brook with impunity the hearts of men to be abused to his dishonour ? Sure, his justice will punish it, if our injustice do it. The very vessels under the law, that had but touched an unclean thing, must be rinsed or broken. "Wliat shall become of the vessels under the gospel, ordained to hold the faith of Christ, if they be—more than touched—polluted with uncleanness ? They must either be rinsed with repentance, or broken with vengeance.

I am willingly led to prolixity in this point. Yet in vain the preacher amplifies, except the hearer applies. Shall none of us, in this \isitation of hearts, ask his own heart how it doth 1 Perhaps security will counterfeit the voice of the heart, as Jacob did Esau's hands, to supplant it of this blessing ; saying, I am well; and stop the mouth of diligent scrutiny with a presentment of Omnia bene. Take heed, the heart of man is deceitful above measure. Audebit dissimulare, qui audet malefacere, —He will not stick to dissemble, that dares to do evil. Thou needest not rip up thy breast to see what blood thy heart holds, though thou hast been unkind enough to it in thine iniquities; behold, the beams of the sun on earth witness his shining in heaven; and the fruits of the tree declare the goodness or badness. Non exfoliis, non exjloribiis, sed ex fructibus dignoscitur arbor.

What is lust in thy heart, thou adulterer 1 Malice in thine, thou envious 1 Usury in thine, thou covetous 1 Hypocrisy in yours, ye sons of Gibeon ] Pride in yours, ye daughters of Jezebel ? Falsehood in yours, ye brothers of Joab 1 And treachery in yours, ye friends of Judas 1 Is this wine fit for the Lord's bowl, or dregs for the devil to carouse of 1 Perhaps the sons of Belial will be filthy; ' let them be filthy still,' Piev. xxii. 11. Who can help them that will not be saved 1 Let them perish.

Let me turn to you that seem Christians,—for you are in the temple of Christ, and, I hope, come hither to worship Kim,—with confidence of better success. What should uncleanness do in the holy city, evil in a heart sanctified to grace, sealed to glory? The vessel of every heart is by nature tempered of the same mould ; nor is there any (let the proud not triumph) quorum pra;cordia Titan de meliore luto jinxit. But though nature knew none, grace hatb made difi"erence of hearts ; and the sanctified heart is of a purer metal than the polluted. A little living stone in God's building is worth a whole quarry in the world. One poor man's honest heart is better than many rich e\41 ones. These are dead, that is alive ; and ' a living dog is better than a dead lion.' Solomon's heart was better than Absalom's, Jvide's than Judas's, Simon Peter's than Simon Magus's : all of one matter, clay from the earth; but in regard of qualities and God's acceptance, the richest mine and coarsest mould have not such difference. There is with nature grace, with flesh faith, with humanity Christianity in these hearts.

How ill becomes it such a heart to have hypocrisy, injustice, fraud, covet-ousness seen in it! Let these bitter waters remain in heathen cisterns. To the master of malediction, and his ungodly imps, we leave those vices; our hearts are Hot vessels for such liquor. If we should entertain them, we give a kind of warrant to others' imitation. Whiles polygamy w\as restrained within Lamech's doors, it did but moderate harm, Gen. iv. 19 ; but when it once insinuated into Isaac's family, it got strength, and prevailed with great prejudice, Gen. xxvi. 34, 35. The habits of vices, wliilcs they dwell in the hearts of Belial's children, arc merely sins; but when they have room given them in the hearts of the sons of God, they are sins and examples; not .simply evil deeds, but warrants to evil deeds; especially with such despisers CJid dcspiters of goodness, who, though they love, embrace, and resolve

to practise evil, yet are glad they may do it by patronage, and go to hell by example.

But how can this evil jiiice in our hearts be perceived 1 "Wliat beams of the sun ever pierced into that abstruse and secret pavilion ? The anatomising of the heart remains for the work of that last and great day, Eccles. xii. 14, Rom. ii. 16. As no eye can look into it, so let no reason judge it. But our Saviour answers, ' Out of the heart proceed actual .sms ;* the water may be close in the fountain, but will be discerned issuing out. The heart cannot so contain the unruly afl'ections, but like headstrong rebels they will burst out into actions ; and works are infallible notes of the heart. I .say not that works determine a man to damnation or bliss,—the decree of God orders that,—but works distinguish of a good or bad man. The saints have sinned, but the greatest part of their converted life hath been holy.

Indeed, we are all subject to passions, because men; but let us order our passions well, because Christian men. And as the skilful apothecary makes wholesome potions of noisome poisons, by a wise melling and allaying tliem ; so let us meet with the intended hurt of our corruptions, and turn it to oiu: good. It is not a sufficient commendation of a prince to govern peaceable and loyal subjects, but to subdue or subvert rebels. It is the praise of a Christian to order refractory and wild affections, more than to manage yielding and pliable ones. As therefore it is a provident policy in princes, Avhen they have some in too likely suspicion for some plotted faction, to keep them down and to hold them bare, that though they retain the same minds, they shaU not have the same means to execute their mischiefs ; so the rebellious spirit's impotcncy gives most secmity to Ids sovereign, whUes he sees afar off what he would do, but knows (near at hand, that is, certainly) he cannot. So let thy heart keep a strait and awful hajid over thy passions and affections, ttt, si moveant, non removeant, —that if they move thee, they may not remove thee from thy rest. A man then sleeps surely, securely, when he knows, not that he will not, but that his enemy cannot hurt Idni. Violent is the force and fury of passions, overbearing a man to those courses which in his sober and collected sense he would abhor. They have this power, to make him a fool that otherwise is not; and him that is a fool to appear so. If in strength thou canst not keep out passion, yet in wisdom temper it; that if, notwithstanding the former, it comes to whisper in thine ears thine own weakness, yet it may be hindered by the latter from divulging it to thy shame.

Thou scest how excellent and principal a work it is to manage the heart, which indeed manageth aU the rest, and is powerful to the carrying away with itself the attendance of all the senses; who be as ready at call, and as .speedy to execution, as any servant the centurion had, waiting only for a Come, Go, Do, from their leader, the heart. The car will not hear where the heart minds not, nor the hand relieve where the heart pities not, nor the tongue praise where the heart loves not. All look, listen, attend, stay upon the heart, as a captain, to give the onset. The philosopher saith, It is not the eye that seeth, but the heart; so it is not the ears that hear, but the heart.

Indeed, it sometimes falleth out, that a man hears not a great sound or noise, though it be nigh him. The reason is, his heart is fixed, and busily taken up in some object, serious hi his imagination, though i>crliaps in itself vain ; and the ears, like faithful sei-vants, attending their master, the heart, lose the act of that auditive organ by some suspcnsidu, till the heart hath done TYith them and given them leave. Curious and rare sights, able to

ravish some with admiration, affect not others, whiles they stand as open to their view; because their eyes are following the heart, and doing service about another matter. Hence our feet stumble in a plain path, because our eyes, which should be their guides, are sent some other way on the heart's errand. Be then all clean, if thou canst; but if that happiness be denied on earth, yet let thy heart be clean; there is then the more hope of the rest.

4. The measure of this vessel's infection— full. It hath not aspersion, nor imbution, but impletion. It is not a moderate contamination, which, admitted uito comparison with other turpitudes, might be exceeded; but a transcendent, egregious, superlative matter, to which there can be no accession. The vessel is full, and more than full what can be? One vessel may hold more than another, but when all are filled, the least is as full as the greatest. Now Solomon, that was no flatterer, because a king himself, without awe of any mortal superior, because servant to the King of kings, and put in trust with the registering of his oracles, tells man plainly that his heart, not some less principal part, is evU, not good, or inclining to goodness; nay, full of evil, to the utmost dram it contains.

This describes man in a degi'ee further than nature left him, if I may so speak; for we were born evil, but have made ourselves full of evd. There is time required to this perfecting of sin, and making up the reprobate's damnation. Judgment stays for the Amorites,' tUl their Avickedness becomes full,' Gen. XV. 16; and the Jews are forborne tUl they have 'fulfilled the measure of their fathers,' Matt, xxiii. 32. Sin loved, delighted, accustomed, habituated, voluntarily, violently perpetrated, brings this impletion. Indeed, man quickly fills this vessel of his own accord; let him alone, and he needs no help to bring himself to hell. Whiles God's preventing grace doth not forestall, nor his calling grace convert, man runs on to destruction, as the fool laughing to the stocks. He sees evil, he likes it, he dares it, he does it, he lives in it; and his heart, like a hydropic stomach, is not quiet till it be fuU.

Whiles the heart, like a cistern, stands perpetually open, and the devU, like a tankard-bearer, never rests fetching water from the conduit of heU to fill it, and there is no vent of repentance to empty it, how can it choose but be full of evil ? The heart is but a little thing; one would therefore think it might soon be full; but the heart holds much, therefore is not soon filled. It is a little morsel, not able to give a kite her breakfast;' yet it contains as much in desires as the world doth in her integral parts. Neither, if the whole world were given to the Pellaian monarch, woidd he yet say, My heart is full, my mind is satisfied.

There must then concur some co-working accidents to this repletion. Satan suggests; concupiscence hearkens, flatters the heart with some persuasion of profit, pleasure, content; the heart assents, and sends forth the eye, hand, foot, as instruments of practice; lastly, sin comes, and that not alone—one is entertained, many press in. Mala sunt contigua et continua inter se. Then the more men act, the more they affect; and the exit of one sin is another's hint of entrance, that the stage of his heart is never empty till the tragedy of liis soul be done.

This fulness argues a great height of impiety. Paul amply delivered the wickedness of Elym;us, Acts xiii. 10, ' 0 full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness,' ttc.; a wretched impletion. So is the reprobate estate of the heathen described, Rom. i., to be ' filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, covetousness,' &c. The same apostle, in the same einstle, speaking of the wicked in the words of the

psalm, saitL, ' Their moutli is full of cursing and bitterness,' Pioni. iii, 1 i. Here the heart is ' full of evil' The commander being so filled with iniquity, every member as a soldier, in his place, fills itself with the desired corrui>-tion. 'The eye is full of adultery and lust,' saith the Apostle, 2 Pet. ii, 14; the 'hand full of blood,' Siiith the prophet, Isa. i. 15; the foot full of averse-ness ; the tongue fidl of curses, oaths, dissimulations. Every vessel will be full as well as the heart; full to the brim, nay, running over, as the vessels at the marriage in Caua, though ^vith a contrary liquor. And when all are replenished, the heart is ready to call, as the widow in 2 Kings iv. 6, ' Bring me yet another vessel,' that it may be filled.

This is the precipitation of sin, if God doth not prevent, as Satan doth provoke it; it rests not till it be full. Sinful man is evermore carr}'ing a stick to his pile, a talent to his burden, more foul w\ater to his cistern, more torments to be laid up in his hell: he cetuseth not, without a supernatural interruption, and gracious revocation, till his measure be full.

Thus I have run through these four circumstances of the comirui, or first point of man : observing—1. From the oivners, their corniptible fragility ; 2. From the vessel, the heart's excellency; 3. From the liquor contaiued in it, the pollution of our nature ; 4. And lastly, from the plenitude, the strength and height of sin. The sum is, 1. the heart, 2. of man, 3. is full, 4. of evil.

I should now conclude, leavmg my discourse, and you to the meditation of it, but that you should then say I had failed in one special part of a physician; that having described the malady, I prescribe no remedy. Since it is not only expedient to be made expcrient of our own estate, but to be taught to help it; give me leave therefore briefly to tell you that some principal intentions to the repair of your hearts' ruins are these:—1. Seeing this vessel is full, to empfi/ it. 2. Seeing it is foul, to wash it. 3. Since it hath caught an ill tang, to sweeten it. 4. And when it is well, so to preserve it. With these four uses go in peace.

1. There is, first, a necessity that the heart, which is full of e\il by natiure, 2nust be emptied by conversion, and replenished with grace, or not saved with glory; what scuppet have we then to free the heart of this muddy pollution ] Lo, how happily we fall upon repentance : God grant repentance fall upon us ! The proper engine, ordained and blessed of God to this purpose, is repentance : a grace without which man can never extricate himself from the bondage of Satan; a grace w^hereat, when it lights on a sinful soul, the devils murmur and vex themselves in hell, and the good ' angels rejoice in heaven,'Luke xv. This is that blessed engine that lightens the hearts of such a burden, that rocks and mountains and the vast body of the earth, laid on a distressed and desperate sinner, are corks and feathers to it, Rev. vi. 16.

This is that which makes the eternal Wisdom content to admit a forgotful-ness, and to remember our iniquities no more than if they had never been. This speaks to mercy to separate our sins from the face of God, to bind them up in heaps and bundles, and drown them in the sea of oblivion. This makes Mary Magdalene, of a sinner a saint; Zaccheus, of an extortioner charitable ; and of a persecuting Saul a professing Paul. This is that mourning master that is never without good attendants : tears of contrition, prayers for remission, purpose of amended life. Behold the office of repentance ; she stands at the door, and ofl'ers her loving sei-vice : Entertain nie and 1 will unlade thy heart of that evil poison, and, were it full to the brim, return it thee empty. If you welcome repentance, knocking at your door from God, it shall knock at God's door of mercy for you. It asks of you amendment, of God forgiveness. Receive it.

2. The heart thus emptied of that inveterate corruption, should fitly be washed before it be replenished. . The old poison sticks so f;ist in the grain of it, that there is only one thing of validity to make it clean—the blood of Jesus Christ. It is this that hath bathed all hearts that ever were, or shall be received into God's house of glory. This ' blood cleanseth us from all sin,' 1 John L 7. Paul seems to infer so much, in joining to ' the spirits of just men made perfect, Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and the blood of sprmkling, that speaketh better things than the blood of Abel,* Heb. xii. 23, 24; as if he would prove that it was this blood which made them just and perfect. In vain were all repentance without this : no tears can wash the heart clean but those bloody ones which the side of Christ and other parts wept, when the spear and nails gave them eyes, whiles the Son of eternal joy became a mourner for his brethren. Could we mourn like doves, howl like dragons, and lament beyond the wailings in the valley of Hadadrimmon, quid prosunt lachrymce, —what boots it to weep where there is no mercy? and how can there be mercy without the blood of Christ?

This is that ever-running fountain, that sacred ' pool of Bethesda,' which, without the mediation of angels, stands perpetually unforbidden to all faithful visitants. Were our leprosy worse than Naaman's, here is the true water of Jordan, or pool of Siloam : ' Wash, and be clean.' Bring your hearts to this bath, ye corrupted sons of men. Hath God given you so precious a laver, and will you be unclean still ? Pray, entreat, beseech, send up to heaven the cries of your tongues and hearts for this blood ; call upon the ' preserver of men,' not only to distU some drops, but to wash, bathe, soak your hearts in this blood. Behold, the Son of God himself, that shed this blood, doth entreat God for you; the whole choir of all the angels and saints in heaven are not wanting. Let the meditation of Christ's mediation for you give you encouragement and comfort. Happy son of man, for whom the Son of God supplicates and intercedes ! What can he request and not have!

He doth not only pray for you, but even to you, ye sons of men. Behold him with the eyes of a Christian, faith and hope, standing on the battlements of heaven, having that for his pavement which is our ceiling, offering his blood to wash your hearts, which he willingly lost for your hearts; denying it to none but wolves, bears, and goats, and such reprobate, excommunicate, apostate spirits that tread it under their profane and luxurious feet, esteeming that an 'unholy thing wherewith they might have been sanctified,' Heb. X. 29. Come we then, come we, though sinners, if believers, and have our hearts washed.

3. All is not done with this vessel when washed. Shall we empty it, cleanse it, and so leave it ? Did not Satan re-enter to the ' house swept and garnished, with seven worse spirits,' Matt. xii. 44, whiles it was empty ? Behold then, when it is emptied, and washed, and sweetened, it must be filled again : a vacuity is not allowable. It must be replenished with somewhat, either evil or good. If God be not present, Satan will not be absent. When it is evacuated of the ' works of the flesh,' Gal. v. 24, it must be supplied with the ' fruits of the Spirit.' Humility nuist take up the room which pride had in the heart; cliaritablencss must step into the seat of avarice ; love extrude malice, mildness anger, patience murnuirhig; sobriety must dry up the floods of drunkeimess ; continence cool the inflammations of lust; peace must quiet the head from dissensions; honesty pull oft' hypocrisy's vizor; and religion put jirofanencss to an irrevocable exile.

Faith is the hand that must take these jewels out of God's treasury to furnish the heart; the pipe to convey the waters of life into these vessela This infusion of goodness must follow the effusion of evil. God must be let in when Satan is locked out. If our former courses and customs, like turned-away abjects, proffer us their old service, let us not know them, not own them, not give them entertainment, not allow their acquaintance. But in a holy pride, as now made courtiers to the King of heaven, let us disdain the company of our old playfellows, opera tenebrarum, ' the works of darkness,' Let us now only frequent the door of mercy, and the fountain of grace; and let faith and a good conscience be never out of our society.—Here is the supply.

4. We have now done, if, when our hearts be thus emptied, cleansed, supplied, Ave so keep them. Non minor est virttis, &c. ; nay, let me say, I^on minor est gratia. For it was God's preventing grace that cleansed our hearts, and it is his subsequent grace that so preserves them ; that we may truly sing—

' By grace, and grace alone, Ail these good works are done.'

Yet have we not herein a patent of security and negligence sealed us, as if God would save us whiles we only stood and looked on; but ' he that hath this hope purgeth himself,' 1 John iii. 3. And we are charged to ' keep and possess our vessel in sanctification and honour,' 1 Thess. iv. 4; and to ' live unspotted of the world,' James i. 27.

Return not to your former abominations, ' lest your latter end be worse than your beginning,' Luke xi. 2G. Hath God done so much to make your hearts good, and will you frustrate his labours, annihilate his favours, y\\\-pend his mercies, and reel back to your former turpitudes ? God forbid it ! and the serious deprecation of your own souls forbid it!

Yea, 0 Lord, since thou hast dealt so graciously with these frail vessels of flesh,—emptied them, washed them, seasoned them, supplied them,—seal them up with thy Spirit to the day of redemption, and preserve them, that the evil one touch them not. Grant this, O Father Almighty, for thy Christ and our Jesus's sake ! Amen.

II. Man's sentence is yet but begun, and you will say a comma doth not make a perfect sense. We are now got to his colon. Having left his heart full of evil, we come to his madness. No marvel if, when the stomach is full of strong wines, the head gi-ow drunken. The heart being so filled with that pernicious liquor, evil, becomes drunk with it. Sobriety, a moral daughter, nay, reason, the mother, is lost; he runs mad, stark mad; this frenzy possessing not some out-room, but the principal seat, the heart.

Neither is it a short madness, that we may say of it, as the poet of anger, furor brevis est; but of long continuance, even during life, ' while they live.' Other drunkenness is by sleep expelled, but this is a perpetual lunacy.

Considerable then is, 1. The matter; 2. The men; 3. The time. Quid, in quo, quamdiu, — What, in whom, and how long. Madness is the matter; the place, the heart; the time, whUes they live. The colon, or medium of man's sentence, spends itself in the description of—1. A tenant, madness; 2. A tenement, the lieart; 3. A tenure, while they live.

1. Madness, 2. holds the heart, 3. during life. It is pity, 1, so bad a tenant, 2. hath so long time, 3. in .so good a house.

1. The TENANT, madness. There is a double madness, corporal and spiritual. The object of the former is reason; of the latter, religion. That obsesseth the brain, this the heart. That expects the help of the natural

physician, this of tlie mystical. The difference is, this spiritual madness may insanire cum ratione, cum religione nunquam. The morally frantic may be mad with reason, never with religion.

Physicians have put a difference betwixt frenzy and madness, imagining madness to be only an infection and perturbation of the foremost cell of the head, whereby imagination is hurt; but the frenzy to extend further, even to offend the reason and memory, and is never without a fever. Galen calls it an inflammation of the brains, or films thereof, mixed with a sharp fever. My purpose needs not to be curious of this distinction.

To understand the force of madness, we must conceive in the brain three ventricles, as houses assigned by physicians for three dwellers—imagination, reason, and memory. According to these three internal senses or faculties, there be three kinds of frenzies or madness :—

(1.) There are some mad that can rightly judge of the things they see, as touching imagination and fantasy; but for cogitation and reason, they swerve from natural judgment.

(2.) Some being mad are not deceived so much in common cogitation and reason; but they err in fantasy and imagination.

(3.) There are some that be hurt in both imagination and reason, and they necessarily therewithal do lose their memories. That whereas in perfect, sober, and well-composed men, imagination first conceives the forms of things, and presents them to the reason to judge, and reason discerning them, commits them to memory to retain; in madmen nothing is conceived aright, therefore nothing derived, nothing retained.

For spiritual relation, we may conceive in the soul, understanding, reason, will. The understanding apprehendeth things according to their right natures. The reason discusseth them, arguing their fitness or inconvenience, validity or vanity; and examines their desert of probation or disallowance, their worthiness either to be received or rejected. The will hath her particular working, and embraceth or refuseth the objects which the understanding hatli propounded, and the reason discoursed.

Spiritual madness is a depravation, or almost deprivation of all these faculties, quoad coelestia, —so far as they extend to heavenly things. For understanding; the Apostle saith, 1 Cor. ii. 14, ' The natural man perceives not spiritual things, because they are spiritually discerned.' And the very ' minds of unbelievers are blinded by the god of this world,' 2 Cor. iv. 4. For reason; it judgeth vanities more worthy of prosecution when they are absent, of embracing when they salute us : Mai. iii. 14, 'It is in vain to serve the Lord; and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and walked mournfully before him ?' This is the voice of distracted cogitation, and of reason out of the wits. Ver. 15, ' We call the proud happy ; and the workers of wickedness are set up : yea, they that tempt God are delivered.' For will; it hath lost the propenseness to good, and freedom of disposing itself to well-doing ; neither hath it any power of its own to stop and retard the precipitation to evil.

Now, whereas they distinguish the soul in vegetabilem, that giveth life; in sensibilem, that giveth feeling; in rationaleyn, that giveth reason : the first desiring esse, to be ; the second bene esse, to be well; the third opiime esse, to be blest, so not resthig till it be with God : behold, this spiritual madness enervates this last action of the soul, as the corporal endeavours to extinguish the two former.

They attribute to the soul five powers :—(1.) Feeling, whereby the soul is moved to desire convenient things, and to eschew hurtful. (2.) Wit, wliercby

she knoweth sensible and present things. (3.) Imagination, whereby she be-holdeth the likeness of bodily tilings, though absent. And these three virtues, say philosophers, be common to men with beiusts. (-1.) Ratio, whereby she judgeth between good and evil, truth and falsehood. (5.) Intellediis, whereby she comprehends things, not only visible, but intelligible, as God, angels, &c. And these two last are peculiar to man, abiding with the soul, living in the flesh, and after death. It beholdeth still the higher things per intelledum, and the lower per ratlonem.

As corporal madness draws a thick obfuscation over these lights, so spiritual corrupts and perverts them ; that as they are strangers to heaven, quoad intellectum, so at last they become fools in natural things, quoad rationem. As the Apostle plainly, Horn. i. 28, ' Even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, so God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things that are not convenient.' They that forget God shall forget nature. Hence ensue both these frenzies, and with them a dissimilitude to men, to Christian men. It is reckoned up among the curses that wait on the heels of disobedience : Deut. xxviii. 28, 'The Lord shall smite thee with madness, blindness, and astonishment of heart.' But it is a fearful accumulation of God's judgments and our miseries, when spiritual frenzy shall possess the soul, and scatter the powers of the inner man, evacuating not only imagination, but knowledge; not reason, but fiiith; not sense, but conscience : when the opinion of the world shall repute men sober and wise, and the scrutiny of God shall find them madmen.

To draw yet nearer to the point of our compass, and to discover this spiritual madness; let us conceive in man's heart, for therein this frenzy consists, in answerable reference to those three faculties in the brain and powers of the soul before manifested, these three virtues, knowledge, faith, affections. The defect of grace, and destitution of integrity, to the cornipt-ing of these three, cause madness. "We will not inquire further into the causes of corporal frenzy ; the madness which I would mmister to is thus caused : a defective knowledge, a faith not well informed, affections not well reformed. Ignorance, unfaithfulness, and refractory desires make a man mad.

(1.) Ignorance as a cause of this madness ; nay, it is madness itself,— sup-plicii causa est, suppliciumque sui. How mad are they then, that settling their corrupted souls on the lees of an afifected ignorance, imagine it an excusatory mitigation of their sinfulness! But so it beftdls them as it doth the frantic : hi dementiam, illi ignorantiam suani ignorant, —these are ignorant of their own ignorance, as those of their madness: avoia and dfc/iicc arc inseparable companions. Wickedness is folly ; and ignorance of celestial things is either madness, or the efficient cause, or rather deficient, whereupon madness ensueth. Ps. xiv. 4, ' All the workers of iniquity have no knowledge.' The wicked, in the day of their confusion, shall confess that the madness of their exorbitant courses, and their wildness, ' erring from the way of truth,' arose from their ignorance of the way of the Lord : ' Therefore have we erred from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness hath not shined upon us,' Wisd. v. G. WiU you hear their acknowledged reason 1 ' For the way of the Lord we have not known.' So, Wisd. xiii. 1, from the absent knowledge of the true God, and for want of understiinding, and confessing by the works the workmaster, the madness of idolatry is hatched. Ver. 18, ' For health, he calleth upon that which is weak : for life, he pray-eth to that which is dead : and for a good journey, ho asketli of that whivh cannot set a foot forward.' Through this error, they were so mad as to ascribe, first, to stocks and stones, insensible creatures; secondly, to men,

dust and aslics ; thirdly, to wicked men, the worst of those that had a reasonable soul; fourthly, to devils, the malicious enemies of God and men, 'that incomparable name of God,' Wisd. xiv. 21.

Beyond exception, without question, the authority, patronage, and original fatherhood of spiritual madness is the nescience of God. No marvel if ' the people do err in their very heart,' saith the Psalmist, the local seat of this madness, when 'they have not known the ways of the Lord,' Ps. xcv. 10. The true object oT divine knowledge is God; and the book wherein we learn him is his word. How shall they scape the rocks that sail without this compass 1 When the frenzy hath turned the edge of common sense, frustrated the power of reason, and captivated the regent-house of understanding, a man dreads not fire, mocks the thunder, plays at the holes of asps, and thrusts his hand into the mouths of lions : ignoti nee timor, nee amor; he knows not the danger.

So, whiles the supreme justice is not known, nor the avenger of wickedness understood, the ungodly are so mad as to ' mock at sin,' Prov. xiv. 9, to play at the brinks of the infernal pit, and to dally with those asps and crocodiles, the stinging and tormenting spirits; to precipitate themselves into that un-quenched fire, to fillip the darts of thunder back again to the sender, and with a thirsty voracity to swallow down the dregs of the wrathful vial. Quid in causa nisi ignorantia ] —What hath thus distempered the heart, and put it into this wildness, that, without fear or wit, men run into the evident danger of vengeance, if not ignorance ? Prov. xxii. 3, ' A prudent man foreseeth the plague, and hideth himself, but the foolish run madly on, and are punished.'

If the Romists were not madmen, or worse, they would never set up ignorance as a lamp to light men to heaven ; assuring it for the dam to produce, and nurse with her cherishing milk to batten devotion ; when it is indeed an original cause of madness, the mother of error and wildness, making man's way to bliss more uncertain than Hannibal's on the Alps, or a lark's in the air. The truth is, know to know, and be wise ; know to obey, and be happy. * This is eternal life, to know God, and his Son whom he hath sent, Jesus Christ.' Labour to understand the Bible, lest thou undergo the curses of it. Lege historiam, ne jias historia. St Paul, after the recitation of many fearful judgments, concludes: ' Now all these things happened unto them for en-samplcs, and are written for our admonition,' &c., 1 Cor. x. 11. If we will not be admonished by these ensamples, we may become ensamples ourselves, histories of madness to future generations. Let the Papists call ignorance by never so tolerable and gentle names, it is ignorance still, still cause of madness. If madness may bring to heaven, there is hope for these Avilfully ignorant.

(2.) Unfaithfulness is a sufficient cause of madness. Faith is the Christian man's reason. Now on the privation of reason must needs follow the position of madness. For shall the Creator of heaven and earth, the eternal Justice, and infallible Truth afltirm ? Shall he swear, will you put him to his oath, and that by ' two immutable things,' the best in heaven and the best on earth ? Will you have him set his hand to it, and write it with his own finger? Dare you not yet trust him without a seal? Must he seal it with that bloody wax in the impression of death on his Son 1 Must you have witnesses, three on earth and as many in heaven, when the King of kings might well write. Teste meipso ? And will you not yet believe him ? !■=; there no credit from your hearts to all these promises, attestations, protestations, signs, seals t Will not these, all these, signify, certify, satisfy your souls of

that uncliangeable truth ? Surely you are mad, haplessly, hopclcs.sly mad, uumeasurably out of your spiritual wits. Were you as deeply gone iu a corporal frenzy, I would sigh out your desperate case :—

' Hei mihi, quod nullis ratio est medicabilis herbls I'

Shall the Lord threaten judgments ? Woe to him that trembles not! Non sapient, sentient tamen. Hell was not made for nothing. The vanguard of that accursed departing rabble, the ringleaders of the crew that daiu-e to hell, are unbelievers, Rev. xxi. 8. An unsettled heart, accompanied with incredulity : ' If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be establishetl,' Isa. vii. 9. Neither are they that believe not gathered within the pale and fold of the church, but wander like straggling goats and wild beasts on the mountains and forests of this world. Hereupon through the improvident and incircumspect courses that mad infidelity keeps, the soul stumbles at the rock, and is broken by that which might have been her eternal safety, 1 Pet. iL 7, 8. They that wander from the mounds and bounds of faith, madly invite dangers to salute them. Suh dypeo Jidei, et suhsidio virtiitis vir tutus, —But where faith is not our proctor, nor is providence our protector, what shall shield us in the absence of faith ? Not Solon, not Solomon, a wise man among the GeutUes, a wiser among the Christians ; but grow mad in the deficiency of faith.

Men see by unanswerable arguments that the hand of God is too strong for sinners; that the least touch of his finger staggers their lives, their souls ; that he sends his executioner, death, to call the wicked away, and that in a more horrid shape than to others; arming him with plague, murder, distraction, destruction, and that often with suddenness. They behold that cadit corpus, inde cadaver ; sepelitur, seponitur, —the body dies and turns to rottenness. They know their own building to be made of the same loam and dust, and therefore liable to that common and equal law. Frequent examples of God's immediate vengeance are added to the ancient trophies and monuments of his former desolations; spectacles set up in the vast theatre of this world, whereof, quocunque sub axe, whithersoever thou tumest thine eyes, thou must needs be a spectator. Shall we still think that solumviodo pereunt, ut pereant, vel ut pereundo cdios deterreant, —they only perish to perish, and not to terrify others, threatening the like wretchedness to the like wickedness ? Surely the judgments of God should be like his thunders : poena ad paucos, terror ad omnes, —whilst some fidl, others should fear. They that will not take example by others shall give example to others.

But we see those that are as ripe in lewdness draw long and peaceable breaths; neither is" it the disposition of a singular jiower, but the contingency of natural causes that thus worketh. Take heed ; it is not the Ie\-ity but the lenity of God, not the weakness of his arm, but the mercy of his patience, that thus forbeareth thee. ' The Lord is not slack, as some count slackness ; but is long-suffering to us-ward,' itc, 2 Pet. iii. 9. If this gentle physic make thee madder, he hath a dark chamber to put thee in,—a dungeon is more lightsome and delightsome,—the grave ; bands of darkness to restrain thy outrages, and potions of brimstone to tame and weaken thy per-verseness. Then will he demonstrate actually, Nemo me impune lacessit, —No man shall provoke me unpunished.

Infidelity of God's judgment is madness ; imbelief of his mercies hath

never been counted less. What is it else to refu.se the offer of that ' Lamb

which takes away the sins of the world,' John i. 29, and to cut oflf ourselves

from that universal promise ? Moritur Chiistus pro indiyenis, pro indi</nis ;

VOL. L s

and spreads out his arms on the cross to embrace both. Jew and Gentile. Why does not God give faith ? I answer with that father,* Non ideo non habes /clem quia Deics non dat, sed quia tu non accipis, —Thou dost not therefore lack faith because God doth not offer it, but because thou wilt not accept it.

The name of Jesus Christ is, saith St Augustine, nomen, sub quo nemini desperandum est, —a name able to defend us from desperation. But there are many implacable threatenings against our giiiltiness. There are none implacable to faith; none without reservation of mercy to repentance. Every conditional proposition hath two parts : the former suspendeth the sentence, and is called the antecedent; the latter concludeth the sentence, and is called the consequent. The first, nil ponit in esse, as a conditional promise in-ferreth nothing, but deriveth all force and virtue from the connexion, whereof it dependeth. So in menaces, there is either some presupposed cause or after concession, wherein it inferreth a consequence: If thou hast sinned; if thou dost not repent. There is place for remission with God, if there be place for repentance in thy own heart.

If, then, distrust of God's mercy be not madness, what is? when it causeth a man to break that league of kindness which he oweth to his own flesh, and offers to his hand engines of his own destruction, evermore presenting his mind with halters, swords, poisons, pistols, ponds; disquieting the heart with such turbulent and distracting cogitations, till it hath adjured the hands to imbrue themselves in their own blood, to the incurring of a sorer execution from the justice of God 1 Is he not mad that will give credit to the father of lies rather than to the God of truth 1 When God promiseth to penitence the wiping away her tears, the binding up her wounds, and healing her sores; and the devil denieth it, giving it for impossible to have the justice of God satisfied, and thy sins pardoned; behold, darkness is believed rather than light, and falsehood is preferred to truth.

Be not thus lion-like in your houses and frantic in your hearts, mad in your desperate follies ; to shut up heaven when the Lord hath opened it; to renew that score which he hath wiped ; and when he hath pulled you out of the fire, to run into it again : like tigers, to tear and devour your own souls, which that blood of eternal merit hath freed from the dragon of hell. It is not a light and inferior degree of madness, but a desperate, when the physician (even he of heaven) shall promise help to a sore, and apply plasters of his own blood to it, the patient shaU thrust his nails into it, and answer. Nay, it shall not be healed. This sin is like that fourth beast, in the 7 th of Daniel, without distinction of name or kind : ' dreadful, terrible, exceedingly strong ; and it had great iron teeth,' &c. The lion, bear, leopard are tame and gentle in regard of this beast. It is desperate madness ; that grinds the poor -with his iron teeth, and stamps his own heart under his malignant feet, and dasheth against God himself with his horns of blasphemy.

It is, then, clearer than the day that the darkness of infidelity is frenzy, whether (as it hath been instanced) it be presumptuous against God's justice, or desperate against his mercy. For who but a madman would hope for impunity to his wilfully-continued sins, where he visibly perceives that jjecca-tum peccantem necessitat morti, —that iniquity gives soul and body liable to condemnation, and objects them to the unappeasable WTath of God ? And yet who but a madman, having sinned, will despair of forgiveness, when the mercy of God hath allowed a place to repentance ? ' Turn and live,' saith the Lord j ' for I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth,' EzeL xviii. 32. • Aug.

(3.) Refractory and perverse affections make a man frantic. This is a speediDg cause, and fails not to distemper the soul whereof it hath gotten mastery. There may be, first, a sober knowledge, that the patient may s;iy, Video meliora, I see better things; and, secondly, a faith, (but such as is incident to de\ils,) Proboque, I allow of them; but, thirdly, where the whole man is tyrannised over by the regent-house of irrefragable alTocts, De-teriora sequor, he concludes his course with, I follow the worse. Observe the Philistines crying, 1 Sam. iv. 7, ' God is come into the camp ; woe unto us !' (fee. Yet they settle, hearten, harden themselves to fight against him. Ver. 8, ' Woe unto us ! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods?' Yet, ver. 9, 'Be strong, and quit yourselves like men, O ye PliilLs-tines : quit yourselves like men, and fight.' Twice they behold their Dagon ' fallen down before the ark,' chap, v., yet Dagon must be their god still, and the ark is only reverenced for a ne noceat.

How many run mad of this cause, inordinate and furious lusts ! If men could send their understandings, like spies, down into the well of their hearts, to see what obstructions of sin have stopped their veins, those springs that erst derived health and comfort to them, they should find that male afficiitn-tur, quia male afficiunt, —their mad affects have bad eff"ects; and the evil-disposedness of their souls ariseth from the want of composedness in their affections. The prophet Jeremuvh, chap. ii. 24, compareth Israel to *a swift dromedary, traversing her ways,' and to a ' wild ass used to the wilderness, that snufleth up the wind at her pleasure.' ' Be ye not,' saith the Psalmo-grapher, ' as the horse and mule, which have no understanding; whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle,' Ps. xxxii. 9. Men have understanding, not beasts; yet when the frenzy of lust overwhelmeth their senses, we may take up the word of the prophet and pour it on them : ' Every man is a beast by his own knowledge.' And therefore man that is in ' honour, and understandeth not, is like unto beasts that perish/ Ps. xlLx. 20. Did not the bridle of God's overruling providence restrain their madness, they would cast off the saddle of reason, and kick nature itself in the face.

This is that which Solomon calls the wickedness of folly, foolishness, and madness, Eccles. vii. 25 ; a contiimal deviation from the way of righteousness ; a practical frenzy; a roving, wandering, vagrant, extravagant course, which knows not which way to fly, nor where to light, except like a dor * in a dunghill; an opinion without ground, a going without a path, a purjjose to do it knows not what, a getting and loshig, bending and breaking, building up and pulling down ; conceiving a multitude of thoughts with much anxiety, and with a sudden neglect scattering them. As that woman who, being long barren, by studying and practising physic, became pregnant to the bearing of many children; upon whom she afterward exercising the same skill, brought them all to an untimely grave: so

* Per eandem redditur artem Hacc Meda;a ferox, qua) inedicaca fuit.'

So madly do these frantics spend their time and strengths, by doing and imdoing, tying hard knots and untying them, affecting the issue of their own brains not a day together, and destroying much seed in the birth of their thoughts, because the conccpticm now pleaseth them not. The proverb saith, that the most wild are in least danger to be stark mad; but here, wild-ncss is madness, and indefatigal)le frenzy ; an erring star resen'cd for the black darkness; a rolling stone that never gathers any moss to stay it; an * I suppose, a dormouse.— Ed.

incessant and impetuous fury, that never ceaseth roving and raving till it come to the centre, hell.

Thus I have endeavoured to demonstrate madness, in the true definition, form, and colours. But as a man cannot so well judge of a sum whiles it lies in the heap, as when it is told and numbered out; if this united and contracted presentation of madness be not so palpable in your conceits as you would desire it, behold, to your farther satisfaction, I come to particulars. The whole denominates the parts: as all of water is water; all of flesh, flesh; so every wilfid sin is madness. Doubtless, when we come to this precise distribution and narrow scrutiny, to the singling out of frenzies, you will bless yourselves that there are so few bedlam-houses, and yet so many out of their wits.

Stultorum -plena sunt omnia, —It were no hard matter to bring all the world into the compass of a fool's cap. I dare not go so far; only magna est fleniiudo hominum, magna solitudo sapientu7n, —there is great plenty of men, and no scarcity of madmen. Plurima pessima, —The most are not the best. Pretiosa non numerosa, —Vile things breed as plentifully as mountain-mice. Goodness, like the rail, flies alone; but madmen, like partridges, by coveys. Nay, we may say. Magna solitudo hominum, if it be true that Lactantius says : Nemo potest jure did homo, nisi qui sapiens est, —He is not a man that is a madman. The fool is but imago hominis, —the shadow or resemblance of a man. The world is full of madmen, and the madder it is, the less it is sensible of its own distraction. Semel i7isanivimus omnes, —We have been all once mad, is too true a saying; some in youth, others in age. The first is more obvious and common, wildness is incident to youth; the latter more perilous, and of less hope to be reclaimed. If we must be mad, better young than old; but better not to be born than be mad at all, if the mercy of God and grace of Jesus Christ recollect us not. In the words of a poet—

'All are once mad; this holds for too strong truth: Blest man, whose madness comes and goes in youth !'

I promised to particularise and set open the gates of bedlam, to leave madness as naked as ever sin left the first propagators of it and mankind. The epicure shall lead the ring, as the foreman of this mad morisco :—

(1.) The Epicure. —I would fain speak not only of him, but with him. Can you tend it, beUy-god 1 The first question of my catechism shall be,

* What is your name 1 ' ' Epicure.' ' Epicure ! what is that ? Speak not so philosophically, but tell us, in plain dealing, what are you 1' ' " A lover of pleasure more than of God," 2 Tim. iii. 4,— <pi\rjhovoi ju^aXKov ?5 <piX6dioi. One that makes much of myself; born to live, and living to take mine ease. One that would make my belly my executor, and bequeath all my goods to consumption, for the consummation of my own delights.' ' Ho ! a good fellow, a merry man, a madman ! What is your summum honum ? ' ' Pleasure.'

* Wherein consists it 1 Rehearse the articles of your belief.' ' I believe that delicacies, junkets, quotidian feasts, suckets, and marmalades are very delectable. I believe that sweet wines and strong drinks—the best blood of the grape, or sweat of the corn—are fittest for the belly. I believe that midnight revels, perfumed chambers, soft beds, close curtains, and a Delilah in mine arms, are very comfortable. I believe that glittering silks and sparkling jewels, a purse full of golden charms, a house neatly decked, gardens, orchards, fish-ponds, parks, warrens, and whatsoever may yield pleasurable stuffing to the corpse, is a very heaven upon earth. I believe that to sleep till dinner, and play till supper, and quaff till midnight, and to dally tiU

morning, except there be some iiitennission to toss some painted papers, or to whirl about squared bones, with as many oaths and curses, vomited »jut in an hour, as would serve the devil himself for a legacy or stock, to bequeath to any of his children : this is the most absolute and perfect end of man's life.'

Now a deft creed, fit to stand in the devil's catechism. Is not this madness, stark and starmg madness I What is the Hesh which thou pam[»urest with such indidgence i As thou feedest beasts to feed on them, duesl thuu not fat thy Hesh to fat the worms? Go, Heliogabalus, to thy pru^iarcd muniments, the monuments of thy folly and madness; thy tower is pohslied with precious stones and gold, but to break thy neck from the top <>f it, if need be ; thy halters enwoveu with pearl, but to hang thyself, if need be ; thy sword enamelled, hatched with gold, and embossed vnth margurites, but to kill thyself, if need be. Yet, for all this, death prevents thy preparation, and thou must fall into thine enemy's hands.

Thou Lmaginest felicity to consist in liberty, and liberty to be nothing else but putestas vivendi ut veils, —a power to live as thou list. Alas, how mad art thou ! Thou wilt not live as thou shouldst, thou canst not live as thou wouldst; thy life and death is a slavery to sin and hell. Tut, post vwrttni nulla voluplus; and here, ver. 4, ' It is better to be a Living dog than a dead lion.' Thou art mad; for, 'for all these things thou must come unto judgment.'

Ho\v many of these madmen ramble about this city !—that lavish out their short times in this confused distribution of playing, dicing, drmking, feasting, beasting ; a cupping-house, a vaulting-house, a gaming-house, share their means, lives, souls. They watch, but they pray not; they fast when they have no money, and steal when they have no credit : and revelling the whole week, day and night, only the Sunday is reserved for sleep, and for no other cause respected. Be not mad, as the Apostle saith : Eph. v. G, ' Be not deceived : for because of these things cometh the wrath of God on the children of disobedience.' Are not these madmen, that buy the merry madness of an hour with the eternal agonies of a tormented conscience ?

(2.) The PKOUD is the next madman I would have you take view of in this bedlam. The proud man, or rather the proud woman, or rather h<xc aquila, both he and she : for if they had no more evident distinction of sex than they have of shape, they would be all man, or rather all woman ; for the Amazons bear away the bell: as one wittily, hic mulier will shortly be good Latin, if this transmigration hold ; for whether on horseback or on foot, there is no great difference, but not discernible out of a coach. If you praise their beauty, you raise their glory ; if you commend them, command them. Admiration is a poison that swells them till they burst,—

' Laudatas extendit avis Junonia pennas.'

Is not this madness] De ignorantia tui, venit in te superhia* —Self-ignorance is the original of pride. Is not he mad that knows not himself? Quanta quis humilior, ianto Christo similior, —Humility is Christ's resemblance, pride the devil's physiognomy. Is he not mad that would rather be like Satan than God ? Humility is begun by the information of Chri.st, wrought by the reformation of the Spirit, manifestetl in conformation to obedience. But pride, saith Augustine, nU mentem possederit, erigcinlo dfjidt, injlainmando evacuat, d dontina dcstniif, (i>iain inhabitat, —Pride castL-th down by lifting up, by filling emptieth, and destroys the house where it mhabitetb. * Bern.

If superhire be supra regulam ire, then is pride extravagancy and madness : a pernicious, perilous sin, that entraps even good works; quod bonis ope-ribiis insidiatur*

Do you think there is no pride, no madness in the land 1 Ask the sUk-men, the mercers, the tirewomen, the complexion-sellers, the coachmakers, the apothecaries, the embroiderers, the featherers, the perfumers, and, above all, as witnesses beyond exception, the tailors. If you cast up the debt-books of the others, and the fearful bills of the last, you shall find the total sum, pride and madness. Powders, liquors, unguents, tinctures, odours, ornaments derived from the livmg, from the dead,—palpable instances and demonstrative indigitations of pride and madness. Such translations and borrowing of forms, that a silly countryman walking the city can scarce say. There goes a man, or. There a woman. Woman, as she was a human creature, bore the image of God ; as she was a woman, the image of man ; now she bears the image of man indeed, but in a cross and mad fashion, almost to the quite defacing of the image of God. Howsoever, that sex will be the finer, the prouder, the madder; for pride and madness are of the feminine gender. They have reason for it. Man was made but of earth; woman of refined earth, being taken out of man, who was taken out of the earth; therefore she arrogates the costlier ornaments, as being the purer dust. Alas, how incongruous a connexion is fine dust, proud clay ! The attribute is too good for the subject.

A certain man desired to see Constantine the Great; whom intentively beholding, he cried out, I thought Constantine had been some greater thing, but now I see he is nothing but a man. To whom Constantine answered with thanks, Tu solus es, qui in me ocidos apertos hahuisti, —Thou only hast looked on me with open and true-judging eyes. 0 nohiles magis quam fcelices pannos, may many great men say of their stately robes; nay, 0 hono-randa, magis quam honesta, vestimenta, may proud creatures say of theirs. What is a silken coat to hide aches, fevers, imposthumes, swellings, the merited poisons of lust, when we may say of the body and the disease, as of man" and wife, for their incorporation of one to the other. Duo sunt in cai'ne una,-—They are two in one flesh !

There is mortality in that flesh thou so deckest, and that skin which is so bepainted with artificial complexion shall lose the beauty and itself. Detra-hetur novissimum velamentum cutis. You that saU betwLxt heaven and earth in your four-sailed vessels, as if the ground were not good enough to be the pavement to the soles of your feet, know that the earth shall one day set her foot on your necks, and the slime of it shall defile your sulphured bodies. Dust shall fill up the wrinkled furrows which age makes and paint supplies. Your bodies were not made of the substance whereof the angels, nor of the nature of stars, nor of the matter whereof the fire, air, water, and inferior creatures. Remember your tribe, and your father's poor house, and the pit whereout you were hewn. Hannibal is at the gates, death stands at your doors; be not proud, be not mad—you must die.

(3.) The LUSTFUL is not to be missed in this catalogue. The poet calls amantes, amentes ; taking, or rather mistaking, love for lust. Indeed it is insana libido, a witch that with her powerful charms intoxicates the heart. A father contemplating in liis meditations how it came to pass that our forefathers in the uifancy of the world had so many wives at once, answers himself, Certe cum/uit consuetudo, -non fuit cidpa, —Whiles it was a custom, it was scarce held a fault. We may say no less of our days. Lasciviousnesa * August.

ECCLES. IX. 3.] MYSTICAL HEDL^VM. L'7'J

is SO wonted a companion for our gallants, that in their sense it hath lust tho name of being a sin. They call it majtiatum Uidum, and su derive to themselves authority of imitation.

But still, Quce te dementia cepit ? Thou art mad whiles incontiueut. Is it not malum sui diffusicum, —a saucy sin, a costly disease 1 Yet, were it cheap to the purse, is it not the price of blood ? Can all your provocatives, eidiveniugs, and fomenting preservatives prevent the wasting of your marrows ? Chamber-work will dry the bones. ' If my heart,' saith Job, ' hath been deceived by a woman, it is a fire that consumeth to destruction, and would root out all mine increase,' chap. xxxL 9, 12. Luxur'uuii sequitur dimpatio omnis, —Luxury is attended on by a general consumption:—Fiist, of substance, Pro v. vi. 2(j, ' By means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread.' Secondly, of body. Tremores pedum, et articulorum general depnvationem, —It weakens the limbs and unties the joints, those knots whereby the body is trussed together. St Paul calls it a ' sin against a man's own body,' 1 Cor. vi. 18. Thirdly, of name. ' A wound and di.s-honour will he get, and his reproach shall not be wiped away,' Prov. vi. 33. Even when he shall depart his place, the world, he leaves an evil memorial, a bad savour, behind him.

I would mention the loss of his soul too; but that he cares not for : the other he would seem to love, then how mad is he to endanger them ] If thou be not mad, away with these /omenta luxuiioe; feed nature, not appetite. Naturoi nihil parum, appetitui nihil satis. Qui minus tradit corpori, (£uam debet corpori, civem necat: qui tradit plus corpori, quani debet corpori, haste in nutrit, —As he that allows less to his body than he owes to his body, kills his own friend ; so he that gives more to his body than he owes to his body, nourisheth his enemy. Thou complainest of original evil in thy flesh, yet nourishest what thou complainest against. Caro non est mala, si malo careat. But Christ was more favourable to the adulteress, and sent her away with impunity; yet not in allowance to the \'ice of the accused, but to convince the wickedness of the accusers, John viii. 7-11. Putacit lapidandam, non ct lapidandis. Noluit talem, noluit a talibus; —He might think her worthy to die, but not by them that were worthy to die. He would not have her polluted, nor yet to perish by so polluted hands. I conclude the madness of these men with the poet—

^ ' Ludit amor sensus, oculos perstringit, et aufert

Libertatem animi, et mira nos fa^cinat arte. Credo, aliquis diemon subiens praicordia tiarumam Concitat, et raptam tollit de cardine mentem. Amor est et amarus et error.'

* Lust blinds the senses, and with witching art Brings into fatal servitude the heart. A subtle fiend, the cause and plague of badness. Poisons the blood, and fills the brain with madnese.'

If they will not see this yet, (as what frantic man perceives his own madness ]) they shall feel it under the hands of an HI surgeon on earth, or a worse in hell.

(4.) The HYPOCRITE plays the madman mider covert and concealment. He is proud under the shadow of humility. But he cannot .siiy with David, Ps. cxxxi. 1, ' Mine heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty ;' ('<"• ct ocuU, fons et rivuli. The tongue that brags of humility deserves little credit Frons, vultus, oculi sa'pe mentiuntur; lingua veru supissime, —The forehead, eyes, and countenance do often deceive, the tongue most commonly. The

worst iun hath sometimes the bravest sign, and the baser metal the loudest sound. Turpiora sunt vitia cum virlutum i<per.ie celantur* —Vices are then more ugly when they have put on the robes of virtues. Ilypocrita solus vult omnibus videri melior, et solus est omnibus pejor,\ —The hypocrite would seem bettor than any man, and is indeed the worst of all men. His respect is not to the reward of virtue, but regard of men ; as if virtue were not sibimet pulchemma merces, —a sufficient compensation to itself Being the sou of a handmaid, and a bramble indeed, as Jotham spake of Abimelech, Judges ix., he brags as much of his shadow as either vine, olive, fig-tree, or the tallest cedar in Lebanon.

He mourns for his sins, as a hasty heir at the death of his father. Hoeredis luctus sub larva, risus est, —He is at once a close mourner and a close re-joicer. When the wicked man counterfeits himself good, he is then worst of aU. Dissembled sanctity is double iniquity, quia et iniquitas est et simw-latio, —because it is both sin and simulation. Hypocrites are like jugglers, that shew tricks of legerdemain, seeming to do the tricks they do not, by casting a mist before men's eyes. Howsoever it was once said, Stultitiam, simulare loco, i^^'udentia summa est; I think it not so intolerable as the speech of Protagoras in Plato, somewhat agreeing to Machiavel: He is a madman that cannot counterfeit justice and dissemble integrity. I am here rather occasioned to say, He is a madman that doth counterfeit good things, because he doth but counterfeit. And in that great epiphany and manifestation of the secrets of all hearts, he shall be found a madman. Meantime, he is a frantic too, for he incurs the world's displeasure in making a shew of godliness, God's double displeasure in making but a shew. He that would purchase the hatred both of God and man, is he less than mad ?

(5.) The AVAEOus is a jDrincipal in this bedlam. Soft! if it were granted that the covetous were mad, the world itself would run of a garget; for who is not bitten with this mad dog % It is the great cannon of the devil, charged with chain-shot, that hath killed charity in almost all hearts. A poison of three sad ingredients, whereof who hath not (to speak sparingly) tasted? Insatiability, rapacity, tenacity. In concupiscendo, acquirendo, retinendo. Covetousness hath three projierties, saith Ambrose, Coticupiscere aliena, capita invadere, celare quod invadit, —to covet not her own, to get what she covets, and to keep what she gets. And yet, O Avarous ! why art thou so mad after money ? Non habentes inficit, habentes non reficit, —it hurts them that it possesseth, and helps not them that possess it. The brood that covetousness hatcheth is an offspring intricated with cares terrestrial, infected with desires carnal, blinded with passions, subjected to affections, infirmed by tentations, informed by lusts, enfolded in errors, in ambiguities difficidt, obnoxious to suspicions. Is he not mad that will foster in his bosona a dam with such a damned litter 1

Tria retia hahet diabolus in mundum extensa: ut quicquid evaserit de retibus f/ulce, inddat in retia inanis glorioe; et quicquid evasei'it his, callidius capiatur retibus avaritias. De his nullus perfecte evasit; :{:—The devil's three nets are riot, vain-glory, covetousness. The second catcheth them that scape the first; and the last misseth not to apprehend them that are delivered from both the former : ' He that flies from the lion, the bear meets hun,' A.mos v, 19; and those that escape both these, the serpent (covetousness) bites : not unlike the prediction of God to Elias, 1 Kings xix. 17, concerning Hazacl, Jehu, and Elisha, whom he was commanded to anoint: * It

* Jerom. ad Celant. f Hugo de vita claustrali.

X CIiryB. Horn. 6 in Math,

shall come to pass, that he that escapeth the sword of HazacI shall Jehu slay; and him that scapeth from the sword of Jehu shall l^lisha slay.'

If this be madness, who are well in their wits ? And yet madness it is, and infatuate frenzy. What is it else, to forsake Paradise for Sodom, heaven for earth, God for Mammon, whenas (by most irreconcilable enmity) they caimot be embraced at once ? Howsoever, you will say, those tilings you covet are good creatures, and call them goods ; yet no good man will account those goods good for him that cannot command his affections to their sober usage. He that shall prefer profit to virtue, his body to his soul, his purse to his body, his eye to his purse, time to eternity, let him go for a madman.

The epicure feeds one fowl a hundred times, that it may feed him but once; the covetous feeds his purse a thousand times, and starves himself. He cares not to destroy his soul to please his lu.st, yet for the salvation of his soul will not hold his purse short of the smallest gain. To conclude: the god whom he serves cannot help him; the God whom he should serve will not help him, because he hath forsaken him. There is no other help or hope to reclaim the avarous, but ' Lord, have mercy on them, for they are lunatic and sore vexed ;' as that f;ither spake of Ids possessed son, ^Matt. xvii. 15. ' Lunatic' they are perpetually, and not at some fits by the moon, as that word seems to intimate. ' Sore vexed,' with the implacable, insatiable, turbulent distraction of their own spirits; not without accession of all those solicitations which the infernal spirits can suggest; all for gain. ' Oft-times they fall into the fire, and oft into the water :' their epileptic courses now drive them into the fire of malice and dissension, now plunge and drown them in the floods of oppression, tUl the inundation of their cruelty have spoiled the whole country, and themselves at last are suffocated in their own deluge. They may be ' brought to the disciples,' the ministers of Christ, but ' they cannot cure them,' ver. 16. Alas ! this frenzy is hard to heal. Though they be neither faithless nor perverse, negatively; though they strive by fasting and prayer, aflSrmatively, ver. 17; avoid they evil impediments, or use they good means; this kind of devil will not out, covetousness wUl not be expelled. Only ' Lord, have mercy on them,' ver. 21; convince them, convert them, for they are madmen.

(6.) The USTJEER would laugh to hear himself brought into the number of madmen. He sits close, and is quiet at home, whiles madness rambles abroad. He holds others in bonds, is in no bonds himself; he stands so much upon law, you cannot judge him lawless. He would not come near a tavern door, where madness roars; he keeps a succinct course, and walks in an even pace to hell. Slander him not for one of bedlam; yet he is mad, raving, roaring mad ; and that by the verdict of God in the pen of Solomon: Eccles. vii. 7, ' Surely oppression maketh a man mad.'

It is indeed a thriving occupation. Usury is like that Persian tree, that at the same time buds, blossoms, and boars fruit. The moneys of interest are evermore, some ripe for the tnmk, others drawing to maturity, the rest in the flower approaching, all in the bud of hope. But he is mad ; for his sin at once buds, blossonis, and brings forth the fruit of vengeance. Every bond he takes of others enters him into a new obligaticm to Satan ; a.s he hopes his debtors will keep day with him, the devil expects no less of himself. Every forfeit he takes scores up a new debt to Lucifer; and every mortgaged land he seizeth on enlargcth hi.s dominions in hell.

But why do you call this benefit made of our money usury and madness? It is but usance, and husbanding of our stocL So by a new name given to your old sins, you will think to escape the censure of madmea Thus I have

read of the people of Bengala, who are so much afraid of tigers that they dare not call them tigers, but give them other gentle names : as some physicians, that will not call their impatient patients' disease madness, but melancholy. But let the Bengalans call them what they will, they are tigers still; and give usury what name you please, (for what usurer is not ashamed to be called so ?) it is mere madness. He is mad that * calls evil good,' and sour sweet, Isa. v. 20; but he is no slanderer that calls usury madness. It is no less, when the eternal God in his word shall condemn usury to heU, still to prosecute it with hope of heaven.

But many learned men are patrons and patterns for it. They are as mad as you ; and learn you by their madness to become sober. A liquid auxilii est, aliena insania fnii, —There is some benefit usefully to be made by another man's exemplary madness. Were it more questionable, yet he is no less mad, that will venturously do what he is not sure is safe to be done, than he that, having a whole field to walk in, will yet go on a deep river's dangerous bank. He is in more danger to topple in, and therefore a madman. It were good for the commonwealth if all these madmen, the usurers, were as safe and fast bound in a local, as they are in spiritual bedlam.

(7.) The AMBITIOUS man must be also thrust into this bedlam, though his port be high, and he thinks himself indivisible from the court. Whiles he beholds the stars, with Thales, he forgets the ditch; and yawning so wide for preferment, contempt is easily thrown into his mouth. I have read of Menecrates a physician, that would needs be counted a god, and took no other fee of his patients but their vow to worship him. Dionysius SjTacu-sanus hearing of this, invited him to a banquet; and to honour him according to his desire, set before him nothing but a censer of frankincense; with the smoke whereof he was feasted till he starved, whiles others fed on good meat. This shewed the great naturalist a natural fool, a madman. Sapor, a Persian king, wrote himself. Rex regum, frater solis et lunce, particeps siderum, &c.,—King of kings, brother to the sun and moon, and partner with the stars. Yet, alas ! he was a man; therefore a macbnan, in the arrogation of his style.

Let the Eoman canonists turn their Pope into a new nature, which is neither God nor man; they are mad that give it him, and he is mad to accept it. Let Edom exalt herself as the eagle, and set her nest among the stars, Obad. 4; yet, saith God, the pride of thine heart hath deceived thee. Let the prince of Tyrus imagine himself to sit in the seat of God, Ezek. xxviii. 2; ' Wilt thou yet say before him that kdleth thee, I am God 1 but thou shalt be a man, and no God, before him that slayeth thee,' ver. 9, Let Sennacherib think to dry up rivers with the sole of his foot; and Antiochus to sail on the mountains—

* Quid sibi fert tanto dignum promissor hiatu?'—

What events have answered their grand intendments but madness ?

Eusebius reports of Simon Magus, that he would be honoured as a god, and had an altar with this inscription, To Simon the holy god j which it seemed his harlot Helena did instigate. But when, by the power of the devil, he presumed to fly up to heaven, at the command of St Peter, the unclean spirit brake his neck. He climbed high, but he came down with a vengeance. His miserable end shewed Mm an ambitious man, a madman. Soar not too high, yc sons of Anak ; strive not to attain heaven by multiplying of earth, like Babel-builders : Feriunl summosfidyura montes. Though you aspu-e m glory, you shall expire hi ignominy. If you were not frantic, you would sistere c/radum, keep your stations, know when you are well, and

give a fiat to liis will tliat hath placed you in a site happiest for you. You arc mad to outnui lain.

(8.) The DRUNKAUD \\'ill, sure, wrangle with nic that hi.s name comes so late in this catalogue, that deserved to be in the front or vanguard of madmen. Demens ebrietas is an attribute given him by a heathen. It is a voluntary madness, and makes a man so like a beast, that whcre;is a beast hath no reason, he hath the u.se of no reason ; and, the power or faculty of reason suspended, gives way to madness. Nay, he is in some respect worse than a beast; for few beasts will drink more than they need, whereas mad drunkards drink when they have no need, till they have need again.

' Quscris, quia sit homo ebriosus? atqui Null us est homo, Msevole, ebriosus;'—

* Shew me a drunken man, thou bid'at. I can Not do't; for he that's drunken ia no man.'

To prove himself a madman, he dares quarrel with every man, fight with any man ; nay, with posts and walls, imagining them to be men. Bacchtis ad anna vocat* —Wine makes them bold, without fear or wit; hazarding themselves into dangers, which sober, they would tremble to think of. Nee enim hcecfaceret sohrius iinquam.f Are not these mad ? If you should see them, like so many superstitious idolaters, drinking healths on their bare knees to their fair mistress,—which, may be, is but a foul strumpet,—swearing against him that will not pledge it, or not pledge it off to a drop; would you in your right wits take these for other than madmen 1 No ; let them go among the rest to bedlam,

(9.) The IDLE man, you will say, is not mad; for madmen can hardly be kept in, and he can hardly be got out. You need not bind him to a post of patience, the love of ease is strong fetters to him. Perhaps he knows his own madness, and keeps his chamber; both that sleep may quiet his frenzy, and that the light may not distract him. He lives by the sweat of other men's brows, and will not disquiet the temples of his head. If this be his wit, it is madness ; for by this means his field is covered with nettles and thorns, his body overgro\vn with infirmities, Ms soul with vices ; his conscience shall want a good witness to itself, and his heart be destitute of that hope which in the time of calamity might have rejoiced it.

Seneca could say. Mala viihi male esse, quam violliler, —I had rather be sick than idle." And, indeed, to the slothful, ease is a disease; but these men had rather be sick than work. These are mad ; for they would not be poor, nor want means to give allowance to their sluggishness; yet by their refusal of pams, they call on themselves a voluntary and inevitable want. Oh that the want of grace thus procured were not more heavy to their souls than the other to their carcases ! Complain they of want ? Justly may they, should they, shall they ; for the want of diligence hath brought them to the want of sustenance. Thus their quiet is frenzy, their idleness madness.

(10.) The SWEARER is ra\-ingly mad : his own lips so pronounce liim ; as if he would be revenged on his Maker for giving him a tongue. It is so blistered with his hot breath that he spits fire at every sentence. He swears away all part of that blood which was shed for his redemption ; and esteems the wounds of his Saviour but only a complement of his speech, wherein he doth his best to give him new ones. He never mentions God but in his oaths, and vilipends his great name as if he heard him not.

♦ Virg:. t' I"! prselia trudit iuermcm.'— Ilor.

What freiizy exceeds his? for he calls his bread, his drink, his clothes, the day, sun, stars, plants, and stones, to testify his truth ; indeed he calls them to testify against him. How shall the name of that God do him good which he so either disallows or dishallows ? God will not give him that blessing which he is so mad to vilify. And for a full exemplification of his madness, by oaths he thinks to get credit, and by oaths he loseth it.

(11.) The LIAR is in the same predicament with the swearer; let them go together for a couple of madmen. As he now is excluded out of all human faith, so he shall at last out of God's kingdom. Rev. xxi. 27. Lies have been often distinguished ; the latest and shortest reduction is into a merry lie and a very lie : either is a lie, though of different degree ; for the malicious lie exceeds the officious lie. The proverb gives the liar the inseparable society of another sin : Da milii mendacem, et ego ostendam tibi furem* — Shew me a liar, and I will shew thee a thief. He is mad, for, Wisd. i. 11, ' the mouth that speaketh lies slayeth his own soul.' This is not all; he gives God just cause to destroy him further. Ps. v. 6, ' Thou shalt destroy them that speak lies.' This is his madness. He kills at least three at once. The thief doth only send one to the devil; the adulterer, two ; the slanderer hurteth three—himself, the person of whom, the person to whom he tells the lie. Lie not in earnest, lie not in jest; if thou dost accustom it, get thee into bedlam.

(12.) The BUSYBODY all will confess a madman; for he fisks up and down, like a nettled horse, and will stand on no ground. He hath a charge of his own properly distinguished; yet he must needs trouble his head with alien and unnecessary affairs. He admits all men's businesses into his brain but his own ; and comes not home for his own till he hath set all his neighbours' ploughs a-going. He hurries up and down, like Jehu the son of Nimshi in his chariot, or as a gallant in his new caroch, driving as if he were mad.

He loves not to sleep in his own doors ; and hinders the commonwealth with frivolous questions. He is a universal solicitor for every man's suit, and would talk a lawyer himself mad. There is not a boat wherein he hath not an oar, nor a wheel wherein he will not challenge a spoke. He lives a perpetual affliction to himself and others, and dies without pity, save that they say. It is pity he died no sooner. He is his neighbours' malus genius, and a plague to melancholy. He is the common supervisor to all the wills made in his parish; and when he may not be a counsellor, he will be an intelligencer. If you let him not in to interrupt, he will stand without to eavesdrop. He is a very madman ; for he takes great pains without thanks, without recompense, of God or man, or his own conscience. He is luxurious of business that concerns him not. Lay hands on him, shackle him ; there are some less mad in bedlam. I will be rid of him with this distich—

' He cleaves to those he meddles with like pitch; He 'b quicksilver, good only for men's itch.'

(13.) The FLATTERER is a madman : Prov. xxvi. 18, 19, 'Asa madman who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith. Am I not in sport ?' He displeaseth his conscience to please his concupiscence; and to curry a temporary favour he incurreth evcrlasthig hatred. For his great one, once awaked from his lethargicd olumber, will say of him, as Achish did of David, counterfeiting himself distracted, ] Sam. xxi. 15, 'Have I need of madmen, that you have brought * Erasm.

this fellow to play the madman in my presence ? Shall tliis fellow come into my house V

(14.) Ingratitude is madness ; for the unthankful man both makes himself unworthy of received favours and prevents the hope of future. For every man can say, Quod fad's iiif/rato, peril, —What you do to a madman is lost. But if he be unthankful to God, he turneth his former blessings into curses, and shuts up heaven against his o\vn soul. Cessat cursus gratUwum, iibi nonfuerit recursus, —The course of grace, where it hath no recourse, is soon stopped. All waters come secretly from the sea, but return openly thither: though fiivours have a secret and invisible derivation from God, they must return openly to him in praises, and in a thankful acknowledgment. Thou art mad, O elate and puflfed spirit, that usest, abusest, takest, swaUowest the blessings of heaven without gratitude. Non es dujnm pane, quo vesceris : for, non est dignm dandis, qui non agit gratias de datis, —Ho is unworthy of more benefits, that is unthankful for those he hath. The in-grateful man must needs be one of this number, and salute bedlam.

(15.) The ANGRY man none wUl deny to be a madman, but they that are either mad or angry. The Scripture hath so condemned him, nature so censured him ; therefore he cannot shift this bedlam. ' Anger resteth in the bosom of fools ;' it is all one, of madmen. Ira furor, though but hrevis ; the longer it lasts, the madder it is. ' Be angry,' there is the reins ; but ' sin not,' there is the bridle. ' Let not the sun go down on your wrath,' if you must needs be angry ; ' neither give place to the devil,' Eph. iv. 2G, 27. If he suffer the sun to set on his wrath, the sun of mercy may set on his sold; and when he hath given the devil place, the devil at last will give him place, even 'his own place,' Acts i. 52, which his mad fury had voluntarily accepted. He is stark mad, for he spares not to womid himself; and with a violent fire, which himself kindles, he burns up his own blood.

(16.) The ENVIOUS man is more closely, but more dangerously, mad. 'Envy is the consumption of the bones,' saith Solomon. He doth make much of that which will make nothing of him ; he whets a knife to cut his own throat. The glutton feeds beasts to feed on ; but the envious, like a witch, nourisheth a devil with his own blood. He keeps a disease fat which wiU ever keep him lean; and is indulgent to a serpent that gnaws his entrails. He punisheth and revengeth the wrongs on himself which his adversary doth him. Is not this a madman ? Others strike him, and like a strangely penitential monk, as if their blows were not sufficient, he strikes himself. That physicians may not beg him when he is dead, he makes himself an anatomy living. Sure, he gives cause to think that all the old fables of walking ghosts were meant of him, and but for a little starved flesh, he demonstratively expounds them. If it were not for his soul, the devil could scarce tell what to do with his body. He would do much mischief, if he lives to it; but there is great hope that he will kill himself beforehand. If you miss him in a stationer's shop jeering at books, or at a sermon cavillmg at doctrines, or amongst his neighbour's cattle grudging at their full udders, or in the shambles plotting massacres, yet thou shalt be sure to find him iu bedlam.

(17.) The CONTENTIOUS man is as frantic as any. Hear him speak, his words are incendiary; observe his feet, they run nimbly to broils, not knowing the ' way of peace.' Look upon his eyes, they sparkle fire ; mark his hands, they are ever sowing debate. He will strike a neighbour in the dark, and lay it on his enemy; all to make work. Search his pockets, and they are stuffed with libels, invectives, detractions. He hates all men, and the

Lord Mm, being that * seventh abomination that his soul abhorreth, one that soweth discord among brethren,' Prov. vi. 19. There is a witness against him beyond exception : Prov. xxvi. 18, ' The debateful man is madder/ &c, Ter. 22, ' The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly,' &c. ; ver. 25, ' When he speaks fair, believe him not : for there are seven abominations in his heart.' He comes to a mart or market to breed quarrels, as if he were hired by some surgeon. He neither sees nor hears of a discord but he must make one; but ever covertly, cowardly, out of the reach of weapons. Ver. 17, 'He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears :' he will be soon weary of holding him ; and if he let him go, he is sure to be bitten. He is utterly mad; for having incensed, encouraged party against party,—as one claps on unwilling mastiffs,—when perceiving his villany, they become friends, both shall fall upon him. So he makes work for lawyers, work for cutlers, work for surgeons, work for the devil, work for his own destruction. To bedlam with him.

(18.) The IMPATIENT is a madman; for when the ties of softer afflictions will not hold him, he must be manacled with the chains of judgments. Patienter fevendum, quod non festinanter avferendum, —He makes his yoke more troublesome than it would be ; and by his struggling, forceth his gyves to make prints in his flesh. He is mad, for he longs for ease, and denies it hiuiself. It hath been said among men, Bear not wrong, and provoke greater; but I say. Bear one affliction from God well, and prevent greater. He is mad that is angry with God, that cares not for his anger, that will plague his anger. How HI had it gone with God before this, if such a man could have wrought his teen* upon him! Meantime, God is at peace, out of his reach, and he is plagued for his madness. Teach him patience in bedlam.

(19.) The VAiN.GLORious is a mere madman, whether he boast of his good deeds or his ill. If of his virtues, they are generally more suspicable ; if of his vices, he is the more despicable ; if of his wealth, his hearers the less trust him, this noise prevents him from being a debtor; t if of his valour, he is the more infallibly held a coward. In what strain soever his mountebank-ostentation insults, he loseth that he would find, by seeking it the wrong way. He is mad; for when he would be accounted virtuous, honourable, rich, valiant, in favour with greatness, and the world takes not ample notice of it, he sounds it with his own trumpet; then at once they hear it, and deride it. By seeking fame he loseth it, and runs mad upon it. Put him into bedlam.

(20.) Lastly, to omit our schismatics and separatists,—who are truly called Protestants out of their wits, liable to the imputation of frenzy,—the Papists are certainly madmen, dangerous madmen; mad in themselves, dangerous to us; and would happily be confined to some local bedlam, lest their spiritual lunacy do us some hurt.

Mad in themselves ; for who but madmen would ' forsake the fountaui of living water,' Jcr. ii. 1.3, the word of truth, and pin their faith and salvation on the Pope's sleeve ?—a prelate, a Pilate, that ' mingles their own blood with their sacrifices,' Luke xiii. 1. Think how that enchanting cup of fornication prevails over their besotted souls; and you will say they are not less than mad. Come you into their temples, and behold then- pageants, and

* Intention.— Ed.

t Ik'cause through Lis boasting of Lis wealth, hia hearers distrust him, and will not loud him.—Eu.

histrionical gestures, bowings, mowings, windings, and turnings, together with their ser\ace in an unknown language, and, like a deaf man that sees men dancing when he hears no music, you would judge them mad. Behold the mass-i)riest, with his baked god, towzing, tossing, and dandling it to and fro, upward and dovraward, backward and forward, till at last, the jest turning into earnest, he chops it into his mouth at one bite, whiles all stand gaping ^\'ith admiration; spectatum admisd, risH7)i teneatis amici i —would you not think them ridiculously mad ? But no wonder if they run mad that have drunk that poison. Many volumes have been spent in the discovery of their madness; I do but touch it, lest I seem to write Iliads after our learned Homers.

Surely madmen are dangerous without restraint. Papists are ready instruments of commotion, perversion, treason. These are a sickness—

' immedicabile viibius Ense recidendum, no pars sincera trahatur.'

Our land cannot be at ease so long as these lie on her stomach. They prick and wound her sides, not with praying against her,—for their imprecations, we hope, are irrita, vota, —but with prejing upon her; and when all stratagems fail, they are ready to fetch argiuuents from the shambles, and conclude in ferio* Whose religion is politic ; learning, bloody; affections, malicious, ambitious, devilish. The Inquisition is their grammar, fire and fagot their rhetoric. Fleet and fetters their logic, the cannon's roar their music, and poisoning is their physic: whose priests have such almighty power, that they can make their ]\Iaker; that whereas in their ' Sacrament of Order,' as they term it, God makes an impotent creature a priest, now in their ' Sacrament of the Altar,' the priest shall make Almighty God; yea, as he made them with a word, and put them in their mother's womb, so they can make Mm with a word, and put him in a box. They that thus blasi)heme their Creator, shall we trust them Tvith their fellow-creature ?

It was an ingenuous answer of a Spanish nobleman, commanded by Charles V. to lodge the Duke of Bourbon at his house in Madrid: ' I will obey thee; but set my house on fire so soon as the duke is out of it. My predecessors never built it to harbour traitors.' Did he think that a conspirator would poison his house, and shall we think that such are no infection to our land t Da\dd did counterfeit himself mad when he was not, for his own security; these are mad, and dissemble it, tUl by one frantic act they can bring us all to ruin. If they were foreign, public, and professed enemies, we would not blame, nor fear them. Wlule kingdoms stand in hostility, hostile actions are just: but these are domestical, intestine, secret adversaries, bred and fed in the same country; therefore the more intolerable, as the more pernicious.

Tut, they can satisfy their consciences by distinguishing of trea.sons. Indeed, all their religion is a religion of distinctions; such as that is, that an excommunicate prince may be dethroned, and being once uncrowned, may, on his penitent submission, be restored to the church: quoad animam, non quoad regnum. Thus they leave positive, textual, school-divinity, and fall to crown-divinity. Antichrist pleads, their religion is maintained by the

* Those readers who have not studied formal logic will not understand the play upon words here. For their benefit, it may be explained that the word fcrio, a« ci>ntaiiiing the three vowels, e, i, and o, is emj)l(.yed by logicians to designate a partioilar form of argument or syllogism, in which the first premiss is a universal negative proi^sition, the second a particular affirmative, and the conclusion a particul.ir negative. But the meaning oi ferio is, ' I strike;' hence to reason infmo, is to substitute force for argument.— Ed.

fathers. Did ever any father allow of treason ? Shame they not to aver it ? If any abused, wrested, falsified writing of the fiithers did seem to consent to their errors, yet we know that audiendi patres, non ut judices, sed ut testes, —the fathers are to be heard as witnesses, not as judges. It is God's scriptiim est, not their traditum est, that must give decision of all doubts.

They object, that those are birds of our own hatching that thus pollute their nest. Perhaps our country gave them breath and birth; but they drank this poison from the enchantmg cup of Rome. They are ever extravagant persons, that like rotten arms or legs have dropped from the body; men sine sede, sine fide, sine re, sine spe. They are desperate men, and destitute of fidelity, that seek Rome, where their former learning and the better learning of their conscience is perverted, poisoned; that, forgetting to speak the language of Canaan, enigmatical, epicene, spurious, and abortive equivocation is the main accent of their speeches : an ambiguous, ambagious, cozening voice, which Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley never knew, never practised to save their bloods. A strange, stigmatic, misshapen, half-born, half-unborn child, I know not where bred, nor by what pope, cardinal, or Jesuit gotten; but this I am sure, whosoever was the father, Rome keeps the bastard, and nurseth it with her best indulgence. So that now—

'Jurat? crede minus : non jurat? credere noli: Jurat" non jurat? hostis ab hoste cave;'—

' Their words are false, their oaths worse—neither just; Swear they, or swear they not, give them no trust.'

How else could it be, but to the sophisticating of true substances must be an access of false qualities ?

These are those critical, hypocritical cannibals, that make dainty at some seasons to eat the flesh of beasts, but forbear at no time to drink the blood of men. As the Pharisees, that stuck not to buy Christ's death—and their own withal—with money, yet would not admit that money into their treasury,- fearing to pollute the material temple, not the spiritual of their souls: the Romans make conscience in their fasting seasons to eat any flesh but bull's flesh, (I mean that which the Pope's bulls have made holy; for that which St Paul saith doth sanctify it, 1 Tim. iv. 5, is neglected;) but to cut throats, murder kings, blow up states, is not inter opera mala, no, nor adia-phora, but inter meritoria, —is not evil, nor indifferent, but a work of merit.

They say (and we, forsooth, must grant that improved, but never proved, assertion,) that they derive their chair from Peter; and what 1 Do they derive his doctrine too 1 St Peter exhorts to patience, 1 Pet. ii. 13, 14, 17, not to carving their own revenge. Neither are their murderous inventions and intentions of the lowest rank, but of kings, princes, senates, whole states; and that without any respect, as of their own conscience, so of the persons' goodness they strike at; aiming at the life of a king, a gracious king, under whom they enjoyed their lives, and that in abundant wealth and peace. So the conspiracy of Parry* is aggravated:—

' Quod regina scehis, scelus est quod virgo petatur, Quod pia virgo scelus, quod tibi grata scelus. Cum virgo, regina, pia, et tibi grata petatur;

Proh scelus! est, superat quod scelus onme, scelus.'

* William Parry was executed on the 2d of March 1585, on his own confession of having been engaged in a i)lot to murder Queen Elizabeth; to which he said that he was iii.itigated by the reading of Cardinal Allen's book, wherein he maintained it to be not only lawful, but honourable, to kill excommunicated princes.— Ed.

Which may be thus rendered:—

* It's treason that a queen should ruinM be;

That a mai.l, ill; That she was good, yet worse; that good to the«,

Jlore wick I'd stilL But when a queen, a maid, good, and thy friend.

Thou wouldst despatch. The treason that thy black heart doth intend

Dare hell to match !'

Neither is it wonder that they exercise thus upon us who have no mercy to their cmi bowels. The .short lives of the pope.s, as it wa.s once of the emperors in that scat, maiiil"t.'st that by treason the chair is got, by treason lost. It would then be a good degree toward our health if these dangerous madmen were shut up in some strong bedlam.

There are D^any other madmen, whom, though I particularly name not in this catalogue, j m shall find in bedlam. I desire not to say all, but enough. All are not taken into that taming-house in a day; it is filled at times. If this muster can work any reformation on these frantic patients, another discovery will not be lost labour.

You conceive the nature of the tenant; you may a little better understand his vileness, if you consider—

(1.) That he is a usurper, intruduig himself into God's freehold, which, both by creation and re-creation, he mny challenge for his own inheritance. If God should ask Madness, as he did that unbidden guest in the gos[)el, that came to the marriage without his wedding garment, ' Friend, how cainest thou hither?' Matt. xxii. 12, either, like that wretch, he would be mute, or else answer, Man let me into his heart. What a traitor is man, to let into his landlord's house his landlord's enemy !

(2.) That he doth not pay the rent of God's house. God, rich in mercies, lends, and, as it were, lets to farm divers possessions : as the graces of the Spirit, the virtues of the mind, gifts of the body, goods of the world; and for all these requires no rent, but thanksgiving : that we praise him in heart, tongue, and conversation. But so long as madness is in any of these tenements, God cannot have this little rent of his farm. They are mad that think they may enjoy God's blessings without rent, or due payment of an accountant tribute.

(3.) That he doth suffer God's tenement to decay; he doth ruinate where, he dwells. For the outhouses of our bodies, madness doth strive either to burn them with lust, or to drown them with drunkenness, or to starve them Avith covetousness. For the S2)iritual and inward building, the foundathin of God's tenement in our soul is hiith, the walls hope, the roof charity. Now madness continually endeavours to rase our foundation, to dig through our walls, to uncover our roof; that having neither faith in God nor love to men, our soul may be without hope, cxpo.scd to the tempests of the devil. Shall not madness account for these dilapidations ?

(4.) That he doth employ the Ik.u.sc to ba.se uses. It is ill done in a tenant to a fair house to make the best rooms stables for his horses, .stalls for Ills oxen, or sties for his hogs. But madness makes the memory a stable for malice and revenge; the understanding, a dungeon for blindness and ignorance; the will, a vault for hypocrisy and disobedience. So the body, which is the temple of God, is made a den of thieves.

This is the tenant, madness : a sorry iidiabitant, and unworthy of so good a lodghig, as by the next point appears ; wliich is— VOL. I. T

2. The TENEMENT, the heart. The heart is a mansion for God, not for madness. God made it, and meant to reserve it to himself: he never placed such a tenant in it as the frenzy of sin. Christ is said to have a fourfold house—anagogical, allegorical, corporal, moral.

(1.) The first is the church triumphant, that glorious and everlasting habitation of his deity.

(2.) The second is the church militant, wherein he dwells sacramentally by his holy ministry.

(3.) The third is corporal, that consecrated womb of the virgin, wherein he dwelt nine months.

(4.) The last is man's heart, wherein he hath a mystical and spiritual abode. Christ doth dwell in our hearts by faith and by love. As he loves the gates of Sion more than all the dwellings of Jacob, so he dclighteth in the heart of man more than in all palaces and pavilions of princes. When an adversary tyrant hath taken the chief fort in a country, and driven out their just and merciful governor; fear, sorrow, and expectation of ruin pos-sesseth the inhabitants. It can go no better with the little nation of man when Jesus Clirist is expelled his habitation, the heart, and so savage a tyrant is admitted to tenure as madness : a strong man, that will fortify the castle, and scorns to lose it, except strength itself, the unresistible grace of Christ, lays battery to it. But this theme is scarce cold since I last handled it. I must be forced to leave the tenement a while in the unmerciful hands of madness, and inquire, if perhaps with any comfort, how long this tenure lasteth.

3. The TENURE, while they live. Alas ! what gain we by searching further into this evidence I The more we look into it, the worse we like it. ' While tliey live.' The tenure of madness in the heart is for term of life. Too long a time for so bad a tenant. But you will say unto me, as the disciples to Christ, 'Who then can be saved V Nunquid daturus est Deus regniim ojeloi-nm stultia ?* —Will God give the kingdom of heaven to madmen i Fear not; all are not madmen that have madness a tenant in their hearts, but they that have it for their landlord. It is not my distinction, but St Paul's: Kom. vii. 17, sin may dwell, nay, sin will dwell, in your hearts, let it not reign there, saith the Apostle. It will be a household servant, it must not be a king. Aliud est habere insaniam, alizid haberi ab ituania, —It is one thing to have madness, another thing for madness to have thee. Since it will dwell in thee, wliiles thou dwellest in the flesh, make it a servant, a slave, a drudge, feet the Gibeonites to draw water,—let it make thine eyes lave thy body with repentant tears; and to cleave wood,—let it rend thy heart Avith sorrow. Keep that subtle deceiver, with whom thou ignorantly struckest the hand of covenant, under bit and bridle : velle, revelle, turn, restrain, command, control it at thy pleasure. Let it never be thy captain, thy landlord, thy king.

Though sin, the devil's mad dog, hath bitten thee, and thou at first be-ginnest to run frantic, yet apply the plaster of the blood of Christ to thy sores. This shall draw out the venom, and grace shall get the mastery of madness. Be of good comfort, thou shalt not die frantic. Encourage thyself with a holy violence against thy fleshly lusts ; intend, contend to enfeeble, and at length to extinguish the force of thy depraved nature. Kill madness, lest madness kill thee. Be sensible of the bane that lies in this spiritual frenzy, and do not laughing die. Madness is at first inimicus blandus, a fleering enemy; in the midst, duke venerium, sweet poison; at last, the ■ epithets of Uandum and dulce \mn<x lost, it is scorpio pungens, a stinging

* Aug.

serpent. Well, yet let it sting thee here, that it may not sting thee hereafter. Happy is he that learns to be sober by his owni madness, and concludes from / have sinned, I uill not sin ! Madness may be in his lieart, like a tenant; it shall never be like a tyrant. Innocent Adam was naked, and knew it not; sinful Adam was naked, and knew it. Then comes God, hearing his excuse of concealing himself deduced from his nakedness, Gen. iii. 11, * Who told thee that thou wast naked ?' Sure his guilt told him. We have been mad, and are now come to ourselves, to know our own nuulness. If it be asked, Who told us that we were mad ? I answer. Even the same grace of God's Spirit that reclaimed us from madness. For the wicked, since they love madness, be it unto them; and when they will never be recollected, let them be mad stilL But blessed be that God that helped us; praised be his holy name that hath recalled us ! He hath in this life freed us from madness as a t}Tant, and shall hereafter free us from it as a tenant.

Thus have you the mystery of this spiritual bedlam detected, and a crew of madmen let out to your view, whose house is the world, whose bonds are iniquities, whose delight is darkness, whose master is the devU : for those whom he keeps in this metaphorical bedlam, (without reclaiming by the }K)wer of the gospel,) he hath ready provided another material, local, infernal bedlam, a dungeon, not shallower than hell; wherein there is no light of sun or stars, no food but speckled serpents, no liberty to straggle, but the patients are bound with everlasting chains, and himself, with his same-suffering spirits, do eternally whip them with rods of burning steel and iron. One hour in this bedlam will tame the most savage madmen that were ever nursed among wolves, or sucked the breasts of inhumanity.

I hear them talk of some irrefragable * roarers ;' creatures, not men, whom no limits of reason can tether up : let them take heed, lest they become at that day roarers indeed, and roar for the very anguish of their hearts ; howling like dragons, that have lived like tigers. Think of this bedlam, ye madmen. Eccles. xi. 9,' Eejoice, O young man, in thy youth,' <fcc. ' Rejoice;' nay, it were somewhat weU, if no more than joy, be mad: ' in thy youth,' tempore insaniendi, a time of iUimited desires. ' Let thy heart cheer thee,' and do thou cheer thy heart,—that thee with lusts, thou that with wine and junkets,—'and walk,'franticly, inordinately, 'in thy ways,' by-ways and wry-ways, for the way of truth thou wilt not know; ' and in the sight of thine eyes,' such tempting and lust-provoking objects as those two sentinels of the body can light upon; or if thou canst not yet be madder, extend thy desires to find out experimental madness: ' but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment,'—remember, that there is an infernal bedlam, whereunto they that live and die spiritually madmen must be eternally confined.

He that should now tell the covetous, the ambitious, the voluptuous, <fec., they are madmen, should appear to them mad in sa}'ing so. They rather think us mad ; as Festus, though mad himself, without learning, could tell Paul that ' much learning had made him mad,' Acts xxvi. 24. But we may answer for ourselves, as Augustine of David's madness, 1 Sam. xxi. 13: Insanire videhatur, sed regi Achish insanire videbatur, —David seemed mad but to King Achish. We are judged madmen of none but madmen. Because ' we run not with them to the .same excess of riot,' 1 Pet. iv. 4 ; because wc cut short our atlections of their vain delights, and drown not ourselves in the whirlpool of their luxuries, but gird repentance to our loins with resolution; they imagine us frantic. They think us madmen, we know them .so. And they sliaii at last despairingly confess in this lower bedlam : ' We fools ac-

counted the godly man's life madness, and his end to be without honour : now is he numbered among the children of God, and his lot is among the saints,' Wisd. v. 4, 5. Be wise then in time, ye sous of men ; trust not spiritual madness, lest it bring you to eternal bedlam, from whose jaws, when you are once entered, be you never so tame, you cannot be delivered.

III. The Period. —We have ended man's comma and his colon, but not his sentence; the period contiiuies and concludes it. We found his heart fuU of evil; we left it full of madness. Let us observe at the shutting up what wUl become of it: ' After that, they go to the dead.' Here is the end of man's progress; now he betakes himself to his standing-house, his grave. The period is delivered—

1. Consequently, After that; 2. Discessively, they go; 3. Descensively, doivn to the dead.

The sum is, ' Death is the wages of sin,' Eom. vi. 23. 1. After that they have nourished e\\\ and madness in their hearts, this is the successive, not successful, event and consequence : 2. They go, they shall travel a new journey, take an unwilling walk ; not to their meadows, gardens, taverns, banqueting-houses : but, 3, To the dead ; a dismal place, the habitation of darkness and discontent, where fineness shall be turned to filthiness, lustre to obscurity, beauty and strength to putrefaction and rottenness.

If a man looks into what life itself is, he cannot but find, both by experience of the past and proof of the present age, that he must die. As soon us we are born, we begin to draw to our end. Life itseK is nothing but a journey to death. There is no day but hath his night, no sentence but hath his period, no life on earth but hath the death. Examine the scope of thy desires, and thou shalt perceive how they hasten to the grave, as if death were the goal, prize, or principal end wliich the vanity of human endeavours runs at. Be a man in honour, in wealth, in government, he stUl, ambitiously blind, languisheth for the time to come; the one in hope to enlarge his greatness, the other his riches, the last his dominions. Thus they covet the running on of time and age, and rest not till they have concluded their sentence, and attamed their period ; gone to the dead.

All men, yea, all inferior things, must be freed by an end: and as the philosopher answered to the news of his son's death, Scio me genuisse mor-talem; so God, the Father of all, may say of every man living, Scio me creasse mortalem, —I have made a man that hath made himself mortal. Man J3 a little world, the world a great man; if the great man nuist die, how shall the little one scape ? He is made of more brittle and fragile matter than the sun and stars ; of a less substance than the earth, water, A:c. Let him make what show he can with his glorious adornations; let rich apparel disguise him living; cere-cloths, spices, balms enwrap him, lead and stone innnure him, dead; his original mother will at last own him again for her natural child, and triumph over him with this insultation, He is in my bowels : Ps. cxlvi. 4, ' He returueth to his earth.' His body rcturneth not inmiediately to heaven, but to earth; nor to earth as a stranger to him, or an unknown place, but to his earth, as one of his most familiar friends, and of oldest acquaintance. To conclude :—

If we be sinful, we must die ; if we be fuU of evil, and cherish madness in our hearts, we must to the dead. We have sins enough to bring us all to the grave; God grant they be not so violent, and full of ominous precipitation, tliat they portend uur more sudden ruin ! Yea, they do portend it; but Oil niilluDt sit ill amine /londiis f

But I have been so prolix in the former parts of the sentence, that 1 must

not dwell upon the period. He needs not be tedious that reads a lecture of mortality. How many in the world, since this sermon began, have made an experimental proof of this truth ! This sentence is but the moral of those spectacles, and those spectacles the examples of this sentence. They are come to their period before my speech ; my speech, myself, and all that hear me,^all that breathe this air, must follow them. It hath been said, We live to die; let me a little invert it: Let us Uve to live ; live the life of grace, that we may Uve the life of glory. Then, though we must go to the dead, we shall rise from the dead, and live with our God, out of the reach of death for ever. Azuea

THE GALLANT'S BURDEN.

The burden of Dumah. He calls unto me out of Seir, Watchman, what was in the night ? Watchman, vjhat was in the night ? The watchman said. The m,orning cometh, and also the night: if ye ivill ask, inquire ; return, and come. — Isaiah XXI. 11, 12.

Quo brevior, eo obscurior, —The shorter this prophecy is, the more mystical. In holy writ, these two things ever concur, sententia brevis, res ampla, —a finite sentence, an infinite sense. As in a little map' we see a world of countries ; and what the foot cannot measure in many days, the eye peruseth in a moment: this is the little map of Idumea or Edom, wherein we may survey the state of that whole region; not much unlike the situation of it, standing in this chapter betwixt Chaldea and Arabia. The burdens against them both are heavy, and the plagues aggravated with more circumstances. 'The burden of Dumah,' though short, shall weigh with them grain for grain.

As you travel with me into this country, by the guidance of that enlightening Spirit, tie your considerations to two special things:—I. The map; II. The moral. In the map you shall find—1. An inscription; 2. A description. In the inscription : (1.) The name of the country; (2.) The nature of the prophecy. The description rests itself on three objects : (1.) A mountain ; (2.) A watchman ; (3.) An Edomite : where is shadowed, (1.) under the mountain, security ; (2.) under the watchman, vigilance ; (3.) under the Edomite, scorn. Now, if you ask, as did the prophet Ezekiel, what these things meant, the moral directs you, 1. by a question; 2. by an answer. The question would know what was in the night. The answer declares it, (1.) by a resolution ; (2.) by an advice. The resolution, Venit mane et vespere, —'The mornmg comes, and also the night;' the advice, 'If ye will ask, inquire : return, and come.'

I.—1. In the inscription we propounded to be considered, (1.) The name of the country; (2.) The nature of the prophecy.

(1.) For the country, there is some question what this Dumah should be. Some affirm it to be the country of the Ishmaclites, and to receive the name from Dumah, that son of Ishmael mentioned Gen. xxv, 14 ; but that Dumah, with other the sons of Ishmael, inhabited Arabia, which is burdened in the prophecy following, distinctly severed from this. This Dumali then was the country of the Idumeans or Edomites, the place where l*]sau and liis genera-

tiou dwelt. Tliis is clear by the mount Seir, which was a hill of tlio Edomites, Ez?k. xxxv. la.

This Idiu..ea is here called Dumah per aphaeresin. Thus God insinuates his contempt of that rebellious and accursed nation, by cutting short the name, as unworthy to stand in his book, graced with the full length. The estimation which the wicked bear with God is here expressed : he thinks the mention of them a blur to his sacred leaves. Now, shall their persons sit in his kingdom with honour, whose names may not stand in liis book without disgrace ? Sometimes they are concealed, as Dives, Luke xvi. 1 'J. That real parable gives no other title to the condenmcd churl. Christ allows the t}Tant Herod no other name than a fox : Luke xiii. 32, ' Go tell that fox,' ic. God calls those princes the ' bulls of Bashan on the mountain of Samaria,' Amos iv. 1. They would be blots to his holy book, if they were expressly named. Sometimes they are named, but with abl)reviations: Dumah for Idumea. Thus Aram is called Kam, Ruth iv. 1.5. Ephes-danmiim, a coast of the Philistines, never spoken of without contempt, is twice thus curtailed. In 1 Chron. xi. 13,. it is called Pasdammim; and, 1 Sam. xvii. 1, Danmiim.

Let not this observation slip from us without our use. If God take letters from the name, he intends to take blessings from the person. When Jeconiah's curse is written in the cuttiiig off his posterity from the throne of David, and himself from the prosperity of the earth, he is called Coniah, Jer. xxii. 18 ; the reason is added, ' He is a despised person,' let him have a shortened name : ' a broken idol, and an unpleasant vessel,' «fec.

Thus God crosseth the world's fashion by putting them in his chronicle which are not here thought of, and leaving those out which the world boasts of as her gloiy. To a soul that hath more affection in her than religion, it seems a great matter of pity that Cato, Alexander, and some of those mighty Roman Caesars, honoured with the graces of nature, the bounties of fortune, and the greatest glory the forced world could yield them, should yet want a name in God's book, a place in his kingdom. Greatness is the fairest object to the eye of the world; goodness to the eye of heaven. There is a glorious splendour in pompous honour, to draw the eyes of admiration after it; it little affects the sight of God, if ^■irtue gives it not a lustre. He that is goodness and gi-eatness itself (when others have it in the concrete, good and great, he hath and deserves it in the abstract) is pleased to prefer his title of Optimus before that of Maximus, and first to be called Good, and then Great, Exod XV. 11. His affections should be ours; he is the absolute precedent of our imitation.

There are infinite ways that conduct to seeming honour, excluding virtue; the end of them all is shame, since of a natural man it is true that quanta ornatior, tanto nequior, —the more adorned, the more wicked. Our bonnets veil, our knees bow to many whom the sight of heaven and virtue scorns. This imparity of men living is made even l)y death, who sweeps all, Ix'ggar and prince, with his impartial besom, into one bag : and when judgment comes, they are made odd and unequal again ; for then the least in the world's estimation shall sit down with the blessed kings and patri.U(-hs in lieaven, when kings and patriots without grace shall be excluded. If you desire your names to be registered with the pen of eternity, write thorn yourselves with the pen of charity. The book of grace is the counterpart to tlic book of election : they are written in heaven first, and there God reads them. We cannot see into this book through the thick clouds of the air and sun ; let us write them in the leaves of obedience, and there read them, 2 Tim. ii. 19 :

they stand sure with God before, not sure to us till now. Write them in the entrails of the poor, in tlie ruins of the church, by you bettered, repaired, maintained, 2 Pet. i. 10, {non norunt hcec monumenta mori,) and you shall one day hear the Judge himself read them in the audience of all the world, to your joy, crown, eternity of bliss. Matt. xxv. 34.

Christ diverted his apostles' triumph to another honour, Luke x. 17. They were little less than proud that the devils were subdued unto them through his name whom they served. True, saith Christ, ' I saw Satan fiiU from heaven like lightning; nevertheless rejoice not that the spirits obey you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven,' ver. 20. Rejoice not of your ennobled bloods, admired with living praises, and rescued from the jaws of oblivion by sumptuous sepulchres; there is small matter of joy that the name lives in bright honour on earth, when the soul lies in the rusting miseries of hell; but rejoice on your assurance of memorial with God : Prov. x. 7, ' The memory of the just shall be blessed ; but the name of the wicked shall rot.' A great name commonly ariseth either from blood, popular applause, or golden trappings. The last useth a man like a counter, that stands now for a million, instantly for a penny. The first finds honour, perhaps deserves it not, leaves it to succession. The middlemost is unconstant, as the causes are : the vulgar opinions, whose distracted voices seldom hit on the same tune, or never keep it long. The monarchs of the world have large and tedious titles, according to their several dominions : good luck have they with that honour which the hand of God reacheth forth unto them : there is a title that betters all theirs; those are folded up in time that perisheth; this brings honour without end or limits : to be a Christian. Such have their names producted in God's book, to shew that they stand written with golden letters in the Lamb's book of heaven : Abram shall be called Abra-liam; Jacob, Israel. The Hebrews well observed, that God, to those he loved, added a letter of his own name, that ietragravimaton, Jehovah : as the letter He to Abraham's and Sarah's name ; the letter Jod to Jehoshua's, who was before called Hoshea.

It was happy for Mordecai that his name stood in the Persian chronicles, that Ahasureus might read him : his service shall be found out with rewards. Array him with the king's robe, set him on the king's chariot, and proclaim his name through the popular streets : ' This is the man whom the king will honour,' Esther vi. 9. It is more blessed to stand in the chronicles of heaven, registered by the pen of that eternal Spirit. We shall one day sit with the king in his throne, Rev. iii. 21,— vincenti dabitur sedere, kc, —and put on his robe of glory ; ' be fashioned like his glorious body,' Phil. iii. 21. ' Such honour have all his saints,' Ps. cxlix. 9. It is the decree and promise of him whose word is more stable than the foundations of the earth,' Those that honour me I will honour.' Revolve then his sacred name in your sanctified mouths ; sing Hosannahs to it here, that you may sing Hallelujahs hereafter; and liiiving drunk hearty draughts of his waters of mercy, bless with David his great and glorious name. The honour of your own names is attained, nay, consists in this ; maintain the glory of it with your strengths, sound it with your praises, and (if need be) seal it with your bloods ; and God shall write your names, not shortened like Dumah's, but at full length, in a book never to be blotted out.

(2.) The nature of the prophecy follows, being that other branch of the inscription. A burden; a matter not easily portable, but will weigh heavy on whomsoever imposed. The burden is in two resi)ects : [1.] Of the prophets that bear it, [2.j Uf the people that were to sutfer it.

[1.] The word of the Lord is to the prophets a heavy burden till they are delivered of it : there is no rest in the bones to the surcharged conscience, no more than to the pregnant woman till she be eased. I confess that security, vanity, abundance of wealth, setting their shoulders to this burden, njake many a prophet forego all sense of the weight. Jonah, laden with his commission for Xincvch, lay as securely in the sides of the ship as if the God of Israel had laid no burden on him ; but himself was a burden to the ship, and the fury of the waves, winds, and his anger that moves all, was not ajv peased till the ship was disburdened of Jonah, that had disburdened himself of the message of God. Let me speak it with grief and fear. We are the sons of those prophets,—I mean their successors in God's ministerial work,— and the word of the eternal God is no lighter a burden to us than it was to them ; nay, let me add, (that which is not to be thought of without trembling,) there is the burden of a curse threatened to them that neglect this burden : ' Cursed is he that doth God's business negligently.' Lest I should seem bitter in applying this too generally, let me freely speak what Paul applies to his own person, if he slighted this ponderous charge : ' A necessity' (which is no less than a burden) ' is laid upon me, and woe unto me if I preach not the gospel !' 1 Cor. ix. 16.

I know that our harvest abounds with plentiful and j)ainful labourers, that bear the heat and burden of the day, and according to their several offices, (whether in overseeing, planting, or watering,) A\-ith the sweat of their brows they labour in God's vineyard; but to complain of the evil that i.s, is no wrong to the good that is : ' Many excellent things are spoken of thee, O thou city of God!' Ps. Ixxxvii. 3. O thou church of England! oh, might it be no wrong to thy perfections, no stain to thy beauty, to condole some wants in thy sons ! It is sin to be silent, where an impartial speech may take good effect. The sweet dews of holy admonitions may from this place, (as the liver,) spread into all the veins of the land.

The ministry is a matter of both honour and burden. Are there none that catch at honour, will not meddle with the burden ; whose pined flocks must either content themselves with a bare pasture, or else stray forth into neighbouring commons, whiles they forget to break their Master's bread; yea, perhaps, to set the whole loaf before his guests ? Are there none that load their minds with the burden of cares too heavy for a Christian soul to bear; the load of ambition, the burden of covetousness, so pressing them down, as if they were exonerated of the burden of the gospel ? But if any soul be sensible of this burden, (as one into whose bowels God hath put the compassion of distressed souls,) ' for Zion's sake he will not hold his peace,' Isa. Ixii. 1. Yea, let me speak it of him thnt Job of himself: ' He is full of matter, and the spirit within him compelleth liim : the word is in him, like new wine in bottles, which must be vented or will burst forth,' Job xxxii. 18. And if we slip our shoulders from under this burden, God can make the whole world too hot for us, and at last impose a burden of another nature on our then weaker and more unable souls; the mountains and rocks, if weighed in the balance, will be found lighter : the burden of all their sins whose souls have bled to death by our negligence. AVe may, through our impatience and weakness, with Jeremiah curse the day of our nativity, chap. XX. 14, and cry, Woe worth the time that ever we were horn to so troublesome an office ! But a greater woe and curse attends us if we attend it not. Passing corruptions in ourselves, active reproaches, injuries, oppositions of others, impulsive temptations of the devil, may make us weary of our callings: but his word is in our hearts as fire shut up in our bones, and wc

shall be weary of forbearing. We caiiuot smotlier tlie flames of it, but with terms of dehance to the stoutest that bear a forehead, we must declare it. God gives us the prevision of this burden beforehand, that we may stoop the shoulders of patience and zeal to it. Thus to Ezekiel, chap. ii. 3, ' Son of man, I send thee to Israel.' "VYhat are they 1 I will not dissemble with thee : * They are a rebellious house.' Contumelies against thyself, blasphemies against thy l^Iaker, the bitings, smitings, woundings of tongues, hands, and swords, that is the burden thou must bear; if any lighter and better things come, let them be praeter spem, beyond thy expectation. Thus is the word a burden to the person that bears it.

[2.1 It is no less to them that must suflter it: the judgments of Grod are heavy on whomsoever they light; a millstone bound to the sinner, and thrown with him into the sea, will not sooner sink him to the bottom than those bound to the soul will sink it to the depth of depths; therefore Christ says. Matt, rvdii. 6, ' Better a millstone,' because lighter. The wrath of the Lamb, at the consummation of the world, is acknowledged more heavy than rocks and mountains, Eev. vi. 16; and happy were it for those reprobates, if such intolerable pressures could dissolve them into emptiness ! These on the body are more sensible, on the soul more miserable. In the infancy of the world, God's blows were most outward ; in this ripe, or rather rotten, age of it, they are most inward and spiritual. We have no bears to devour the mockers, no fiery serpents to strike the murmurers. God's punishments reach most to the conscience :, triplex circa pra'cordia ferrum, a sensual and senseless heart, without apprehension of God's incensed anger, cor nullis violabile telis, not made of penetrable stuff. If God's finger touch the body, we groan under the weight; let his whole hand Lie on the soul, we feel nothing. If this be not our burden and misery, what is 1

Like curious visitors, will ye not believe this age to labour of this sickness, unless you behold some symptoms ? Let your eyes take notice, and that not without grief of soul, of the deadness of heart among us. We ply the world hard, dally with religion. We serve God in jest, ourselves with all respect and earnest. Our devotions are like winter, frosty, misty, and windy, of many natures, none other than cold. Nothing arms, charms, and confirms our senses with attention, spirits with intention, active powers with contention, but vanity. Are not the benches in taverns and theatres often well replenished when these seats are thin and almost empty ? Are not the alleys in this temple often fuller of walkers than the choir of petitioners 1 Conference Avith the profane, ostentation of clothes, perhaps plots of mischief, as frequent as suits to God, making it little less than a den of thieves'? If men stumble into the church, as company, custom, recreation, or, perchance, sleep invites many, they feed their eyes with vanities; if any drops be admitted into their ears, they are entertained under the nature of conceits. Judgments, they think, be none of thck lessons; they will not suffer their consciences to apply them. Mercies they challenge and own, though they have no right to them. If this estate be not a misery, judgment, burden, there is none. The fire of the pestilence is well quenched, the rumours and storms of war are laid, the younger brother of death, famine, doth not tyrannise over us. But here it is : our sms and God's wrath (for them) meet, and the heart is hardened; this is the sorest judgment. Let me s[)eak a paradox, but a truth : it is the plague of many that they are not, plagued; even this is their [)unishmcnt, the want of punishment; and the hand of God is then he;iviest when it is lightest—heaviest on the conscience. when lightest on the carcase. It is true of them what the philosopher said of

ISA. XXI. 11, 12.] THE C;ALLAXT'.S liUIlDEN. li'J'J

himself, Perieram niisi pfriissem, —They are undone that they arc not unJuiio. God suffers their bodies to possess and be possessed of reat: they sing to viols, dance their measures ; their Jieads ache not, much less their consciences ; but, as to Israel, fat with quails, God withal sends leanness into their soul.s; the present indulgence gives sufficient argument of future Wi.es ; they surfeit on pleasures till death puts them out of breath. That worthy father* saw this their self-commended estate, and prayed against it: iJomine, hic are, hie seca, ut in etenium parens, —Lord, here plague, cut, massacre, burn me, so that for ever thou wilt spare and save me. This is onus gravissimum, the most grievous burden. Security is the very suburbs of hell: miserim nihil est misero, se non miserante, —there is nothing more wretched than a wretched man that recks not his own misery • an insensible heart is the devil's anvil, he fashioneth all sins on it, and the blows are not felt.

You wonder at the frequency of burdens, and that the turtles of this land groan out of this place the sad tunes of woe and misery. Alas! how should we sing the songs of Sion to a strange people ? The pulpit, I confess, should be the mercy-seat; but your sins have made it a tribunal or bench of judgment. Nothing but the thunders of Sinai, and scarce tho.se, can waken us from oiu: dead sleep. This is ivia securitas, deep security, fitly applied to us, whose is sine cura cctas, an age without care; or rather, if you will, *e cicrans cetas, that love none but ourselves, and that not enough to seek our own peace. Let me speak it in the tune of Juvenal—

' ' Non habefc ulterius, quod nostris moribus addat

Posfceritas;'—

We flow with those sins to which no foUomng posterity shaU be ever able to add. So spreading an infection of sin is among us, that, as in a great plague, we wonder not so much at them which die as at them which scape ; so there is nothing a wonder, a mirror, a miracle in nature but he that lives unspotted of this world- If you think I .speak too bitterly, I would to God it w^re not worse than I speak. I would your reformation would convince us of shame, and give us cause to recant this in the pulpit. This turns the message of Edom upon us; the burden of Dumah, the burden of England. We cast from our shoulders the burden of the law, God lays on us the burden of judgment; we load God with our sins, and press him as a cart with sheaves, Amos ii. 13 ; we pack up a bundle of lies, blasphemies, adulteries, perjuries, extortions, frauds, and then hasten to the cross of Christ to unload-them, as if, pressing our souls to hell with wilful sins, yet Christ on the least warning must ease us. But the promise, Matt. xi. 28, is not to men laden with sin, but with sorrow for sins. It is such a load as must make us weary, or we have no promise to be eased.

But, alas! sin (which is burden enough to sink the world) is made light by custom : as if, resting in man's heart, it did quiescere in propriam sedi?n, settle itself in its o\ni natural place. It is a philosopliical axiom, Kiillnm elementum sxo loco ponderat, —No element Ls heavy in its proper place. Though sin be as weighty as a talent of lead, saith the prophet, ZecL v. 7, yet it is at the centre when got into the corrupted heart, and weighs liglit. And except the wrath of God fall upon the naked conscience, sin lies at the door, and Cain never cries, ' It is greater than I am able to bear.' Juda,s liad burden enough of treason, hypocrisy, malice, covctousnes.s, to sink him dt>wn; it was no burden till the finger of God's wrath touched the tender heartstrings, and then it pressed him down to his own place, Acts i 25. How • August.

many have incurvate and oppressed souls, bowed down with the ' spirit of infirnnty,' (nay, of rank iniquity,) more than eighteen years, that are not yet sensible of their own crookedness, nor the cause thereof? For it cannot be but the devoured patrimonies of many orphans, the ruins and depopulations of towns, the devastation of holy things, should be burdens too heavy for a poor crazy soul to stand under. Piles of usury heavier than Etna, burdens of bribes outbalancing the axle-tree, are more than the giants, Theomachoi, monsters of men and prorligies of nature, were able to bear. We could not see a corrupted lawyer, citizen, cormorant, go so nimbly and so bolt u[)right under such a mass of sin, if they had not some help. Here it is, the 'strong man Satan'(so it pleaseth Christ to term him) puts under his shoulder, and makes the vessel go tight and easy, with an equal balance, which could not else swim upon the waters without sinking. Pride could not else carry a whole township on his back, which his father, covetousness, had but newly devastate, clambering up to honour, as Jonathan to the garrison of the Philistines, by the ruggedness of these two rocks, Bozez and Seneh, 1 Sam. xiv. 4, so these by the desolation of our two main rocks, the church and commonwealth. The unmerciful monopolies of courtiers, the unreasonable prices of merchants, the hoards (if not transportation) of grain with cormorants, the advantages made of the poor's necessities, unconscionable fines, and rents, wringing the last penny from their purses and drop of blood from their hearts,— Oh durum et importabile 2^o}idus ! —an intolerable weight. These wretches were never able to bear it without the aid of the devil, who, Avhiles they draw with him in the same yoke, is content to bear all the burden.

At last, when presumption has left the stage, and desperation begins to knit up all with a direful catastrophe, the pulses beating slowly, the head aching vehemently, body and soul refusing all proffered comfort, then the devil casts the whole load on them, that at once they may despair and die; then that which was lighter than cork and feathers becomes heavier than lead"and earth. God hath often strove with them by his word; they would never yield a Vinces, ' Thou shalt overcome, O Lord.' Now, perhaps with Julian too late, they pant out a Vicisti, ' Thou hast overcome.' Our crying in the day could not wake them; that cry at midnight shall fetch them up, with the burden of envy, covetousness, drunkenness, &c. And as it was doomed to Babylon, ' Look how much her glory and pleasure hath been, give her so much torment and sorrow,' Rev. xviii. 7. Nay, then the devil gets up too, like a merciless jailor, with the addition of his own weight, to aggravate their woes. Strive then every one to abate the burden of judgment, by lessening the burden of sin. Every repentant tear that falls, wash-eth a talent from this burden; every remorseful sigh and faithful prayer diminisheth the load ; that which remains may press, shall not oppress, 2 Cor. iv. 9. Christ will put under his shoulder : ' Come, all ye laden,' exonerate anhnas, unload your souls : he bore them on his cross, and our believing souls shall never feel the weight of them. The cross only is left; heavy to blood and flesh, but to a heart made spiritual, ' thy yoke, O Lord, is easy, and thy burden light,' Matt. xi. 30 : our own heavy, but thine light.

2. We have perused the map to the end of the inscription : the description stands next to our speech ; where we have an Edomite standing on ]Mount Seir, and calling to the watchman, with the voice of derision, 'what he saw in tlie night,' (fee. A proud lulnmite, securing himself in the strength of his own arms, deriding the proplu^t of God, which came against liim with the burden of war. This is tlie sense I fasten on. I have read other exposi-

tions, as if it was a question of fear : I approve and dwell on the former. From the persuasion, then, of immunity, impunity, and safe standing out of the reach of earth, of hell, of heaven, proceeds this ciuestiun. Kduni hath shaken off the yoke of Israel, and begins to crown his days witli the rosebuds of peace, and not to fear the sword of Egypt, nor Ashur, nor (!od himself hi heaven. Their conceit was, though feignedly, as strong of this Mount Seir as the promise of God was really true to Mount .Sion—never t<j be moved, though the battlements of heaven shot thunder, and the pillars of the earth quaked.

(1.) There is question about the name of this Seir; some affirm it derived from Esau, as behig the place where he and his generation dwelt, (ion. xxxvi. 9. Indeed, the nature of Esau and the name of Seir agree fitly, for both signify bristled or hainj ; but it had the name of Seir before Esiiu came thither. Some Hebrews think the mountain w;is called Seir from the apparition of devils, who shewed themselves in the shapes oi hairy men ; such as the Fauns were imagined to be. But most like to take denomination from Seir the Horite, Gen. xxxvi. 20, who inhabited there long before Esau : ' And the Horites in their Mount Seir, unto the plain of Paran,' Gen. xiv. (J ; it being the country of the Horims or Horites. Esau was drawn hither for many reasons : as, because that corner of Canaan about Hebron, where lie and his brother Jacob dwelt, was too scant for their flocks; because Mount Seir fitted Esau's mind, being a place of excellent huntuig; his wives woie of that country; God's providence so disposed of Esau's removal that Jacob might live in safety. And even in this, God wrought Esau's good by putting him out of Canaan ; for then with the rest of the Canaanites they had been destroyed by Israel; but God made good that temporal blessing upon Esau and his seed which his father Isaac gave him, Gen. xxvii 31), -40. Indeed, the Amalekites, though derived from Esau, were destroyed by Israel; but the reason may be thus gathered, because Amalek was the son of Eliphaz, the son of Esau, by a concubine ', the Idumeans, that were legitimate successors, were preserved. Such was the different respect to the right and the bastard seed ; for God is said to give Mount Seir to Esau : * I gave unto Esau Mount Seir to possess it,' Josh. xxiv. 4- ; therefore the Israelites, among their spoils of Canaan, were expressly forbidden to destroy it: ' Ye shall not provoke them; for I will not give you of their land so much as a foot-breadth, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau for a possession.' Such was God's mercy to Esau for his father's sake, that his posterity was made great and honourable.

But if the Horites first inhabited Mount Seir, how comes the posterity of Esau to enjoy it ? It is answered in Deut. ii. 12, 'The Horims dwelt in Mount Seir beforetime, whom the children of Esau chased out, and destroyed them, and dwelt in their stead.' So doth sin quench the veiy cinders of natural affection, after it hath put out the flames of rehgion, that the children of Esau ceased not till they had extinguished their own kindred. The respect of blood must give way to rapine and malice. Too weak is nature to restrain the fury of sin, when it is stung by that fiery .'Serpent, the devil. The Romish mountain doth claun .some kin of this Mount Seir, at least in the opinion of the Jews. There is one place in Kdom called .Magdiel; tliis the Rabbins take for Rome, and say, that of the Idumeans came the Romans. It is not so locally, it may be well spiritually ; for, for persecution of the saints, there is no such Edom in the world as Rome. But Magdiel signifies 'praising God.' Oh, blessed were Rome if in this she could be called Magdiel ! This Seir was a mountain of great strength, not infertile ; and, as great

probability gives it, graced with either oue or many goodly cities : ' Who will bring me into Edom 1 who will lead me into the strong city 1 ' Ps. Ix. 9. Neither may Ave think that the offs])ring of Edom, when once made dukes, nay, kings, contented themselves to dwell in tents.

But what if a mountain, what if a city, or the strength of Edom; is it able to grapple with the wrath of God, or lauckle with his judgments? If any piece of the broad earth were shot-proof against the anger of God, as they feign the garden of Hesperides against the planets, it would not be unsought, imbought. There have been mountains and cities before and after Seir, prouder and stronger than she, that have measured their length on the ground, and been dissolved to dust and rubbish; and Edom herself hath danced the same measure. The world hath gloried, in her several ages, of many goodly cities : Nineveh, the pride of Assyria ; Troy, the pillar of Asia ; Babylon, more a region than a city; Carthage, graced with seventeen tributary kingdoms ; and let not Jerusalem be shut from both the glory and sadness of this relation. May we not say of them all now, Etiam penere ruince ? —That little of them is dissolved to nothing 1 Thus God cools and damps the glory of Israel: Amos vi. 2, ' Go you unto Calneh, and see ; and from thence go unto Hamath the great: then go down to Gath of the Philistines : be they better than these kmgdoms ? or the border of their land greater than your border]'

Constantius spake of old Rome, that nature had emptied all her forces on that one city; the time came, she was overthrown, and her walls made even with the ground. The titles of new Rome are greater, not her privileges. She is called, urbs ceterna; yet that eternal Babylon shall fall, and in the decree of heaven she is already fallen, for the more sureness; and all her merchants, petty leases taken out of her grand lease, shall mourn bitterly for her : she shall be made a cage of unclean birds, owls and vultures, as she is now a den of unclean beasts, lions and tigers. If any city on earth might boast her privileges, let Jerusalem speak ; she was called ' the holy city,' and ' the "city of God :' the temple in her, a figure of the church militant, as Solomon, the builder of it, was a type of Christ. ' Behold, her house is left unto her desolate !' Sin laid her pmnacles in the dust. At the murder of his Son, God with his own hands rent the veil, and after gave the whole fabric a spoil to the Gentiles. They that have travelled the lower provinces testify that the rude heaps of ruined churches, monasteries, and religious places are no less frequent then pitied spectacles. Devotion built them, kept them ; sin polluted them, hostility subverted them. Sin prepared the way for ruin and blood; the idolatry within overthrew the walls without. They could plead more than Dumah; they and their pleas are perished.

Let me not speak as a prophet, but as an admonisher. Is it impossible for the sin of England to have the like effect % We are ready to say in pride, what David sjiake in the assurance of faith, ' I cannot fall; thou, O Lord, of thy goodness, hast made my hill so strong.' Let us praise God for that we have, and pray that our sins subvert it not. Let Dumah speak with pride; though our privileges be more, let our presumption be less. It is wise and safe to possess more than we boast of. Though nature hath bound up the loms of our kingdom with a girdle of waves, and policy raised another fence of wooden walls, yet God must put about us a third girdle, the bands or circle of his providence, or our strength is weaker than the waters. It is an old and sure rule against the atheist, against the worldlings : That whole cannot be perpetual whose parts be alterable. If the members of this great body, the world, change, faint, and grow old, it argues a creeping decay to

the whole. Let Ibe cormonmt know, that woiild build his nest here for ever, that parts of this land are alterable, therefore the whole not permanent If the plague takes away men, the fields grow barren ; nay, the we;Lricd earth, after much industry, is dull in her fruits; like an unnatural step-dame, she produceth not good tluugs of herself: if a deluge overrun us, we and our glory vanish. God hath more means than one to inllict his judgments. It is with no less admiration th;ui truth reported, that a whole held in England is turned in one month from a fertile soil to a most barren waste. It lies from the danger of inundation, from the reach of the hand of war ; what then can turn it to a perpetual barrenness ( Thus : God raiseth a mighty wind, that uncovers a mountahi of sand, which oversjiread-s the fruitful valley to a great thickness ; and it is made worse than Carmel, which God thus threatens: ' I will turn Lebanon into Carmel, and Carmel into a forest." It lies in the power of maiVs sins to make God curse his very blessings.

The burden of Dumah is war. Mount Seir fears it not. If the book of our hearts lay open to be read, I think our fear of war is less than theirs. God grant our presumption, our security, be not as great! ' We sit under our own tig-trees, and eat the fruits of our own vineyards. Our children go out by flocks and dances, and flourish like the oUve branches round about our table. Our oxen aie strong to labour, our sheep bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets. There is no leading into captivity, no dashing of our children again.st the stones, no complaining in our streets.' If this one blesshig exceed not our thankfulness for all, my observation is deceived. But what a bold inference is this : There is no war, therefore may be none, iior can we be overthrown ] It is a speech as common as the stones in our streets, when consideration of war is offered : We need fear no enemies, if we be true amongst ourselves. Vain security, that is built upon ifs and ands I Who shall make us true to ourselves, that have been false to God ? Are there no sous of Beliid amongst us, that curse the prosperity of Zion, and gape for the day to cry, 'Down A\-ith it, down with it, even to the ground?' We know they have openly and privately, with coat of armour and coat of mail, assaulted the peace of Jerusalem, but, praise to our God, received shame in putting oft' their harness.

Let this make us thaidiful, not secure ; as if God could not reach his arm over our narrow seas. Behold France made a cockpit for massacres, by the uncivil civil wars thereof; think of the unquiet bread long eaten in the Low Countries; and when thou sayest, We lay our heads on the pillows of peace, and eat the bread of plenty, IcLss his hauil with jiraises that feeds thee with these blessings, but let not thy own strength make thee careless. The Papists thus re-hearten themselves against all the overthrows given them by this little island, that our time is not yet come, our sins are not yet full. That Ignatian sectary, Pererius, so notes in Gen. xv., 'The wickedne.ss of the Amorites is not yet fuU,' &c. He gives it by way of comment: but it is a false ghjss, I trust, and carries no more truth with it than other the fictions of Home. His words ;ire these : ' Let no man wonder why God sufl'crs the persecution of the Catholics in England : the sins of the Amorites are not yet full, their wickedness is not yet complete ; when it is, the divine revenge shall fall' They expected this day at the last change. God changed their expectation to folly ; and as it was our grief that sol occuhuit, our sun set, so it is our joy, wonder, nox nulla secuta est, no night followed.

' Mira cano : sol occubuit, nox nulla secuta est.'

I hope his prophecy is as false for the event, as I am sure his application is

for the tiling. We are neither those uncircumcised Amorites, unchristened Pao-aus, nor do we persecute the Catholics ; except to have liberty of law, grow rich, purchase lands, beard and brave the ministers of God to their faces, be called persecution. Here I cannot but mention, what is well observed by a most reverend and honoured judge of this land,* that whereas there have been three hundred burnt by Queen ]Mary for religion, there have scarce thirty Papists been executed by Queen Elizabeth for treason. Yet, I hope, there is some diflereuce betwLxt three hundred and thirty, rehgion and treason; betwixt the five years' reign of the one, and the forty-four of the other. I know then- rebellions, treasons, conspiracies, meet with execution; no persecution to their religion. Happy would our martyrs have thought themselves, if on such terms they might have i-edeemed their consciences ! No; the iniquities of Babel have filled up their measure rather, and their judgment long ago was far off, and their damnation sleepeth not. Pererius is his own prophet against us ; we speak not against them of ourselves, the Holy Ghost speaks for us, who ' shall shortly consume that man of sin with the breath of his nostrils.' Let their eyes stare for our overthrows till they fall out of then- unfortunate heads : God hath blessed, and the Balaam of Rome shall never be able to curse, Num. xxiii. 20. Only let not our zeal be wanting to our God, to our church, to ourselves, and God shall not be wanting to us, nor all the hosts which he fights Avith ; and once again, if need be, conjurati venient in classica venti, —the winds and seas shall take our part. Let not our peace make us wanton, nor our wealth proud ; our help stands ' in the name of God,' not in forts and swords.

To speak more particularly ; be not too confident, whosoever, in thy Mount Seir. Every wicked soul hath her Mount Seir to trust in; they that have no assurance of rest in heaven, have their refuges and mountains of help on earth. David so returns it upon the wicked, Ps. xi. 1, ' In the Lord put I my trust: how then say you to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain 1 ' Why should I seek to foreign helps, that have settled myself in the bosom of rest itself? Riches are a Mount Seir to the covetous ; they rest on them, as the ark on the mountains of Ai-menia. Honour is a Mount Seir to the ambitious, against all the besiegings of rivals. Sensuality to the voluptuous, against all the disturbances of a clamorous conscience. Pride, fraud, drunken-liCjs, are a Mount Seir to the lovers of them; but alas, how unsafe ! If stronger against, and further removed from the hand of man, yet nearer to God's hand in heaven; though we acknowledge no place procal d, Jove, or procul cbful-mine, —far from God, or from his thunder. But we say, it is not the safest sailing on the top of the mast ; to live on the mountainous height of a temporal estate is neither wise nor happy. Men standhig in the shade of humble valleys, look up and wonder at the height of hills, and think it goodly living there, as Peter thought Tabor, liomim est esse hie; but when with weary limbs they have ascended, and find the beams of the sun melting their spirits, or the cold blasts of wind making their sinews stark, flashes of lightning or cracks of thunder soonest endangering their advanced heads, then they confess, checking their proud conceit, the low valley is safest; for the fruitful dews that fail lir.st on the hills stay least while there, but run down to the valleys. And tlu)ugh on such a promontory a man further sees, and is further seen, yet in the valley, where he sees less, he enjoys more. Take laud, then, lest to raise thy Mount Seir high, thou dejectest thy soiil : ' Woe unto them tliat are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria !' Amos vi. 1. If we build our houses by unrighteousness, and our chambers * L. Coke.

without equity, thougli as strong as Mount Seir, they shall not be able to stand in the earthquake of judgment. God so threatens Jehoiakim : ' Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar ? did not thy father eat and drink and prosper, when he executed judgment and justice ?' ic, Jer. x.\iL 15. Think not your houses to be fortresses, when your souls are unarmed of Christian weapons—faith and obedience. You had, and shall liave peace, whiles you pursue it with righteous endeavours; whiles you guide all your actions by the line of the sanctuary, and steer your attempts by the compass of the gospel. Plenty shaU spread your tables, whiles cliarity takes away and gives to the poor. These holy courses shall make you ct)ntiiuie, hi despite of heU and Kome; your mountain shall be hedged about with the mercies of God, and your children shall defy their enemies in the gates.

(2.) The person must not be omitted to whom this scoffing question is moved : the watchman. It seems the prophet had denounced agauist Edom war; they deride his message as a leasing, and his person under the name of a watchman; nay, therefore they scorn him, because a watchman. I will not insist on the duties of watchmen; every common soldier can school the watchman. Many presume to teach us our duties, that will be ranged within no order themselves. That which a watchman is to the city, or sentinel to the leagure, a minister is to the people. To watch over yourselves is every particular man's duty; to watch over all, opu^ ministri, is the work of the ministry. If our eyes be bUnd in descrj'ing dangers, our tongues dumb to give warning, the city or fort is easily taken. Now, qnam clanioris vocem datunis est pjxeco mutus ? —what warnhig shall a dumb watchman give 1 Some wiU not speak; the fountain of their knowledge is, shut up, like Laban's w^ell, with a gTcat stone of security, saturity, stateliness : others ^\iU speak too much, making the pulpit a pasquil to case their spleens, to traduce superiors. Medio tutissimus ibis, —The mean and honest way is the safest.

Bui what say we to usurpers, wolves, t}Tants, that call themselves watchmen ? That hi-nominis, hi-linguis, double-named, doul ile-tongued, double-swordcd, and not single-hearted demi-god of Home, calls himself sometimes a watchman, sometimes a king, the servant of servants, the kuig of kings; as if there was no difference betwixt the serviceable watchman and the commanding prince ; betwixt the sentinel of the leagure and the general of the army. Ad duo qui tendit, non unum, nee duo prendit, —Whiles he claims both, usurps one, truth allows him neither. His actions shew him no ser-' vant. Ferioido non ferendo ogit, —Ho gives blows, but takes none. To be such a watchman as he desires, possibility is denied hhu, since his eyes cannot look so far as he would extend his arm ; not to watch over Home only, but so far as the world is christened. Behold, saith he, ' I have two swords.' One of them he lets mst,—I mean the sword of the Spirit,—the other he keeps bright \vith the blood of saints, and makes it shine with the gall of martyrs. Principalis principatits ct triplici corona, —The principal princii>ality is from the triple crown. As the sun exceeds the earth, so tlie Pope all Christian princes; other kings are but his bailiffs. Did you ever hear a watchman speak thus, or arrogate to himself such a reign : in foro poll, in foro pluli, in foro consdenlioi ? —in the court of heaven, in the court of hell, and in the court of every conscience? If any resist liis tyranny, ho snatcheth from Christ that his word and usurps it: * liring those mine enemies, that would not have me reigni over them, and slay them Itcforc n»e,' Luke xix. 27. If he cannot behold it in action, he will see it in picture, as the massacre of Paris on St Bartholomew's night was pictured in the Pope's

VOL. L If

palace to entertain his holy eye with pleasure. So would the powder treason have been, if the matter had hit right. As horrid as the thought of it is to an honest nimd, the hoisting up of buildings, shivering of bodies, tearuig up of monuments, dissipation, massacre, murder of old, young, prince, people, senators and senate, dra-wTi to the life by the art of the painter, would have been a contenting spectacle for so holy an eye to contemplate. Sure there is honesty in hell, if this be religion. If the devil can devise more execrable stratagems, let him change seats with the Pope. Christ meddled with neither Herod nor emperor, king nor Cajsar; no emperors held his stirrup, no kings kissed his blessed feet; he only fought with the weapons of tlie Spirit against sin and Satan. The Pope is a watchman indeed; but he watcheth to invade, besiege, enter, and spoil the city of God. He hath other watchmen under him, unclean birds, fluttering from that vidture of Babylon, and flying like bats and owls under the eaves of night, to vomit the poisons of heresy and treasons from their swollen gorges. Watchmen like the chaplains of Mars, at Rome, in the days of idolatry, that practised to toss firebrands from camp to camp, to inflame evd affections; that care not whose blood they sacrifice to their Pioman god, without distinction of Trojan, of Tyrian, nor out of whose sepidchres they dig themselves an estate. They watch indeed, for they keep a register of aU our proceedings against them in these halcyon days of ours; and if ever the sun of alteration shine on their faces, they wdl repay us ten blows for one upon our burgonets. Meantime (our praises to heaven !) they watch their own bane ; and, as one writes of Parry, so I may of the end of them all: Itala gens sceleri te dedit, Angla cruci, —Italy gives them their villany, England their gallows. This is thcu-malus, but merikis Jinis, —the evil, but deserved end of them aU. England is sinful enough, but she professeth not herself a schoolmistress of sins, as Eome doth of treason. There it is professed, taught, learned, and (as on the sandy theatre) exercised before it come to the fatal execution.

The priests of perverted Israel were but shadows of those of apostate Eorrie : ' As thieves wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent,' Hosea vi. 9. Hence that proverb carries no less truth than antiquity with it: ' An Englishman Italianate is a devil incarnate.' These are those Jesuits, Jebusites, incendiaries, traitors, and not less than devils, but that they have bodies. God bless us fi'om such watchmen ! If these be watchmen, who are enemies ?

We sec, then, the vanity of their labours that would undertake to bring us to a composition. If heresy can be made sincerity, idolatry true religion, treason obedience, we may be united ; but it is a sure rule—contraries in the ab.stract can never be reconciled. God put an unappeasable contention betwixt the two seeds, of the woman and serpent, when he put enmity between thorn; for an enemy may be made a friend, but enmity can never be made friendship : the air that is dark may be made light, but darkness cannot be made brightness: a Papist may be converted to a Christian, but Papistry can never be made Christianity, no more than Antichrist can become Christ. Our strife with them is not for the extension of limits, but for the possession (,)f the inheritance ; whether grace or nature, the Pope's law or God's, shall take place in the conscience. So I have read of that audacious and sotti.sh hermit, that would undertake to make God and the devil friends; the im-jxtssibility of which attempt the devil could tell him : God is all light, and I am all darkness, so that my foul nature cannot be hidden; our affections, seats, persons are so opposed, that I have no hope of peace. They will not, we m;iy not yield; except the sheep shall compound with the wolf, or tho

niice with the cat; which the old talc forbids, though the cat get on a monk'a cowl, and cries demurely through the crevices—

' Quod fueram, non sum, frater; caput aspicc tonsum.'

' Glood brother mouse, creep out thy house, come forth and let ua chat: Behold, my crown is shaven down ; I 'm now a priest, no cat. When cats say mass, the mice, al.a.s ! must pray agaiust their will: Kind puss, your pate is smooth of late; your heart is rugged stilL'

Experience would teach us the an.swcr of the verse, though we had never read it—

' Vix tibi prresto fidcm, cor tibi restat idem.'

To leave the incorrigible watchmen of Rome,—since we would have cured Babel, and she would not be cured,—let us look home to ourselves. The wolves of Rome have no more honour than the watchmen of England scorn : the Edomites of the world cannot abide ministers. The best is, they are but Edomites, heirs of Esau, and as profane as their father, that make religion their minstrel to procure them sport and sleep. No jest ends in such laughter as that which is broken on a priest; the proof is plain in every tavern and theatre. We serve indeed contrary masters : we, C?hrist; they, lust and Satan : and hinc ilhe rixce of theirs, hinc ilbc lachri/jwv of ours, —hence their flouts and our tears. We bite them with the salt of reproof, hence they storm ; we cast ink and gall on their tetters, hence they startle. Veritatem lucentem miilti diligunt, argnentem rejiciunt: dum se ostendit coli-mus, dum nos ostendit, ndio habemus, —The truth shining, many love; reproving, they reject: whiles it shews itself, we embrace it; whiles it shews us, we cannot endure it. Even in this consists at once our happiness, their danmation : our happiness, 'Blessed are ye when for me persecuted;' their danniation, ' That light being in the world, they embrace, and are glad of darkness;' though their WTongs done us be against the law of arms and nature, for an ambassador should be inter hostium tela incolumis, —safe among the weapons of enemies.

But do the Edomites only take up these weapons of scorn again.st us ? No,—I speak it betwixt shame and grief,—even the Israelites scorn the ])ro-phets. There are some sick of a wantonness in religion, .so hot about the question de modo, that the devil steals the matter of religion from their, hearts. If we cannot wrangle with forms and shadows, and shew ourselves refractory to established orders, we .shall viale aiidire ; our sennons shall be sliglited, our persons derided. This, tliis is the mischief: men of name, professors of note, when they speak bitterly of us, their credit carries it strong with owx scandals.* One arrow of these Israelites wounds deeper than a hundred cannon-shot of the Edomites. I confess, I speak stones; but if they hit as they are intended, they shall heal .some, hurt none. Dicatur vej'itas, rumpatiw invidia, —Let truth be spoken, and envy burst her galL Let all these Scomers remember that the contcmjit done to us, redounds to God himself: 'He that despiseth us, despiseth men; he that dcspi.seth Christ, despiseth his Saviour.' Js all this nothing? 'But he that (Uspistth me and you, despiseth him that sent me and you.' It comes to somewhat then ; and more than ever mortal m.-xn shall be able to answer. Is it not enough for them, that they have drawn out the life-blood of our livings, but they nuist expose our persons to contemi)t? So the Jews spoiled Christ of his vestments, and then mocked him with ba-scncss. Our poverty is flouted by them that have our livings. Surely, if repentance and nstitiitioii pre-

vent it not, tliey shall have tithe one day which they have more right to— the tenth sheaf of that harvest which is reserved for reprobates iu hell. The Turks lay it as an imputation on our religion, that we spoil our gods. For shame ! Do not the Turks, and shall the Christians 1 David would not have Araunah's threshing-floor without money; if these men should have no room in the church but what they pay for, I think they would quietly suffer themselves to be turned forth of doors.

(3.) The last branch of the map, and first of the moral, are not.unfitly conjoined—the Edomite, and his question.

II.—1. The question then calls me from the watchman, 'What is in the night V And to make the derision fuUer and fouler, it is doubled, like Pharaoh's dream, 'What is in the night?' Did they seek for some prodigy or portent? some divine revelation, which should be received by vision? Were they like Israel, of whom Christ thus testifies, 'This adulterous generation seeks for a sign?' Matt. xii. 39. Thus Dives despaired of his brethren's belief, except one rose from the dead. I confess we have some in the world sick of this disease; a Jewish infection: ' The Jews require a sign,' &c. Fhis oculo, quam oracido. Miseries shall work more on them than mysteries; palpable actions of God's mercy, justice, power, shall convince them, the contemplation of them all in the theory of the word moves them not; astonish them with wonders, heal their disease, open their blind eyes, raise their dead, and they will believe. Are there none among us that couch a willing and close ear to the charms of Rome, in admiration of their feigned miracles ? lying apostles, that work strange things by exorcisms ? But our church now is not in the cradle of her infancy. One cup of wine brought by Christ is worth all the cups of cold water by Moses : as St Augustine, alluding to that marriage in Galilee, says, 'AH the adumbrations, types, figures, signs, were but that cup of cold water; Christ reserved the good wine (of the gospel) till he came himself;' and they that wDl not beheve without a sign, without a sign must perish. But I travel no further in this, lest "it bring me out of my way.

It was no sign they inquke for, no prodigy they fear; they are only pleased to make sport with the menaces of God : ' You talk of a night, and an hour of calamity; but threatened men draw long breaths. You pretend visions in the night, which portend our ruin ; come, tell us the tale of the night: what is in the night?' There have been in all ages some of these frogs, to throat it out against God so long as the weather was fair, as if ho could not send a storm; the tempests of God's wrath have been derided to the last moment of a calm. The venom of prosperity so empoisons a carnal mind : Jilia divitiarum superhia, —the daughter of riches is pride. The philosopher could teach us that facilitas et humilkas dividuum habent con-tuberniam: raro bona mens et bona fortuna homini datur, —happiness and humbleness are chamber-fellows : seldom a good mind and a good estate is given to the same man. God seemed to mistrust this in Israel, that the increasing of goods, and multiplying of cattle would lift up their hearts against him, Deut. viii. 13, 14. The peaceable days of the wicked, and their luckly pro-ceeduigs in this world, by the testimony of Job, enrageth their impudence against heaven : 'Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?'chap. xxi. 15. 'Depart from us; we will none of thy ways.' That of the psalm is full of strength to tliis: ' His ways prosper : thy judgments are far above out of his siglit; therefore defieth he all his enemies,' Ts. x. 4. ]\Ian only ? No; God himself: ' I shall never be removed.' Let Malachi for all the prophets, Peter for all the apostles, make up this cloud of witnesses : 'It is

IsA. XXI. 11,12.] THE gallant's EuiiDEy. :i09

in vain to serve the Lord,' j\Ial. iii. 11; and, ' Where is the promise of his coming?' 2 Pet. iii. 4. AU things are still statu quo, continued in the same course; there is no alteration, no new thing done qnocuivfie sub axe, under heaven. We say, Noii bonum ludere cum Sanctis, —It is no safe jesting with holy things. It is dangerous for an Edomite to make hin)self merry with God; this is the way to come short home : thnu had.st better have mourned all thy life than made God thy playfellow. When the vessel of dust shall encounter with the arm of omnipotence, sive percnti<tt, sice, per-cutiatur, frangi necesse est, —whether it smite or be smitten, it is sure to be broken. The chair of the scorner is the seat of Satan, imus gradus et limen inferni, —the lowest stair and very threshold of hell, as David describes it: Ps. i. 1, ' Blessed is the man that doth not walk,' kc. His first plot is to get us to walk a turn or two Anth him; having persuaded this, he moves us to stand still a little : but so long as we are standing, we are going; therefore at last he entreats ns, for our ease, to sit down : but if we take our seat in that enchanted chair, we grow to that impudence to deride God and his judgments. I will single you out four sorts of these Edomites, scorners,— for I justly parallel them,—and propound their natures and conditions to your pity and detestation :—

(1.) Atheists: such as have voluntarily, violently, extinguished to themselves the sunlight of the Scripture, moonlight of the creature, nay, the sparks and cinders of nature, that the more securely, as unseen and un-chidden of their OAvn hearts, they might prodigally act the works of darkness : not, Athenian-like, dedicating au altar to an unknown god, but annihilating to themselves, and vilipending to others, altar, religion, God, and suffocatmg the breath of all motions, arguments, manifest con\'ictions that heaven and earth produced; for the reasons of hell only shall one day evince it, Deum esse, —that there is a God. They affirm it impossible that flesh should be turned to rottenness, rottenness to dust, and dust to glory. Against whom, well, St Augustine, Quipotuit formare novum, non poterit reparare mortuum i Facilior est restitutio consiituiione, —He that could form us of nothing, can reform us decayed : it is easier to repair than prepare. That atheism in the days of Solomon was the same m opinion that ours is in practice. AVe do not say, but live as if it was better to be ' a living dog than a dead lion.;' which I woidd yield tme among be;ists, but among men, a dead beast is better than a living atheist. Let them ask nature, it will tell them : In-Kculplum est ornnihus esse Deum, —It is engraven on all hearts that there is a Deity. Let them ask the creatures, they will witness they had a Creator. Nay, let the devil speak, to .shame and convince the atheist, who believes a God, and trembles at his own belief. The nature of his essence proveth it. To know there is a witch, may satisfy us that there is a God; for if the destroying power were not controlled, manacled, mastered, how stand we unde-voured ? Let them ask, lastly, their own dying hearts ; for the eyes that sin hath shut, damnation shall open. Qui negnt esse deum; mihi negat et tibi, non sihi, cLx. Oculos, quos culpa clausit, pcena aiieriet.

(2.) Epicures: that deny not a God atid a day of judgment, but put it far off, Amos vi. 3, with Aa.Ss aoi to /m'sXXov, Give me the i)rcsent, take th<iu the hope of future joys. These see a night coming, and therefore make haste to be drunk with pleasures : 1 Cor. xv. 32, ' Let ns eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die.' Cras ridendo morinntur, hodie biljendo sepeliuntur, —They will not die till to-morrow, but be buried in riot to-day. They sleep on their beds of down, rise to their tables of surfeit, and from thence to their sports of mischief; sleeping, playmg, eating, dancing, drinking, dallying: vwtu r/r."/."/ _tl,oy

run round in a ring. Only, nulla intcrvalla piando, —no time must be sjjared from Satan. They invert the order God hatli disposed to the times preposterously, making the night day, and the day night; at midnight they revel, at noon they sleep, though the day was created for labour, the night for repose. The sun is scarce beholden to their eyes to look upon him; the moon and stars have only their attendance; the works and the hour of darkness meet; they will be contrary to all men and all things but themselves, because they will be contrary. If ever they begin any work with the day, they dispose it on this fashion : first they visit the tavern, then the ordinary, then the theatre, and end in the stews; from wine to riot, from that to plays, from them to harlots.

' Iste dies pulchro distinguitur ordine reruin,'—

Here is a day spent in an excellent method. If they were beasts, they could not better scnsualise. It would be but lost labour to tell them that their course shall be so proportioned below : from snakes they shall turn upon adders, from both to scorpions, from all to unquenched flames ; where they spend not hours but ages, nay, that eternity of time, in wailings and bowlings, groans and torments; when for every ounce of vanity, they shall receive, down weight, a whole pound of sorrow. Smokes, blackness, boiling caldrons, fiery burnings of brimstone and sulphur, kindled and continued by the breath of an offended God, shall have their interchanged courses : oft this torment, and then that; and indeed all that a soul and body made immortal can suffer.

' Iste dies misero distinguitur ordine rerum,'—

Here is a day to be spent in a miserable method. Oh, how, yet, was it some happiness if in a day or set time these woes could be determined !— These are the epicures, not so impudent as to deny the night, not so honest as to part with their sins.

(o.) Libertines : that neither affirm no night, nor put it far off, but only the strength of sin prevails over all; and, come sorrow, death, grave, hell, they must have their pleasures. They have a pride in accomplishing their own wills, as she in the poet;—

' Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor;' —

' I see the good, and give allowance to it: The evil is my choice, I love and do it.'

They cannot bo noted for virtuous, but they will be famous, though for infamy -. as that wicked church-robber, that to do some memorable act, pulled all the lead off the church's roof and thatched it; they must be mentioned, though like a traitor's name in the chronicles. These swear away all re-pro(jfs, and drink away all the chidings of their own conscience. It shall be the worse for them that ever they had a conscience ; their hell shall be the hotter for the multitude of their neglected motions to good. Their mercies have not been more numerous than shall be their miseries. Their nature or learning (to omit those that never read any other book than vanity) at once makes them better and worse; better in understanding, worse in manners; whUes their contem[)lation is a theatre, and thcu- study new sports, new fasliions. Oh, how far better is the simple, honest, innocent soul without knowledge, than that which is beautified with learning and debauched with vices!

'Beatus illo qui procul negotus, Paterna rura bubus excrcet suis/—

More happy are those poor wretches, confined and contented with a rur;il charge. Whiles they know not so much of good, they knuw less of ill; tliey skill not what the studying of oaths, the tricks of }»rido, the policy of atheism means; they make not sense the rule of their belief, with the gallant, but their catechism. Religion is their queen, the gallant's dmdge. They have not so much of reason, tlierefore abuse the less. Their sins proceed most from ignorance, the gallant's from knowing wilfulness. Now, which of these shall be beaten wath most stripes 1 They work out a poor living with' the sweat of their brows and nerves; these can play out a rich one from the quickness of their wits. They know not the detractions of slander, underminings of envy, provocations, heats, enlurings of lusts ; the foul secrecies of idolatry, hypocrisy, sacrilege, cleave not to their consciences; they have a kind of happiness, in that they are not so miserable. Our impudent, imprudent, insolent youngsters look on these bet\^-ixt contempt and anger, call them clowns, idiots, and the dregs of nature, and think themselves angels if these be men, quorum prcecnrdia Titan de pejore luto Jinxit, —as if God had tempered them of a baser mould. But whiles Actaiou's bond-slave grinds securely (though laboriously) at the mill, his brave, rit)tous, gallant, hunting master is turned to a beast, and for his sensuaUty eaten up of his own lusts : you all know the story, this is the moral. This, this is the proper cause that the ancient houses fall ; and what long industry of the progenitt)rs liath gotten, the short riot of the gallant wastes. We are loath to hear of this; _/ but it is too true. He needs not drink up all the sea, that wdl judge of the taste : hence young gentlemen, by w^ild uuthriftiness, become sports to theatres, and cannot sit in their fathers' scats to do good in the commonwealth. They abound with the gifts of nature; but, Uke fig-trees growing over deep waters, full of fruit, but the jays eat them, llufhans, harlots, vicious companions, enjoy those graces that might honour God.

(4.) Common profane persons : that wiU sufier themselves to wear God's livery, though they serve the devU. These are they that make the profession of the gospel have an evil name; hence that jjroverb, Paternoster set up churches; ' Our Father' pulls them down. I wUl not favour with a i)artiid connivance these scorners, though they nestle themselves in the church's bosom. Nay, I win speak most plainly; these are the worst Edomitcs, if not to themselves, to us. Let the atheist deny, the ejMcure remove, the Ubertine forget, that there is any other day of peace or sorrow besides or beyond the present; what is this to believers ? We are ready to brand and hoot at them, as they did to the lepers in Israel; nay, to rain them to death with a shower of stones, as they sensed idolaters and blasphemer.s. Ihit be our own hands undefiled, that take up these weapons of death again.st othera, as Chiist charged the Jews, that charged the adulterous woman ? If we be sick, our sickness is more dangerous than theirs. The other disea.ses are without the body, but this comes nearer the heart of the church. We know what it is to have a sickness come near the heart: interius, et in cute malum. There is more grief to the mother of the family hi the miscarrying of one of the children, than of many strangers, Edomites, unbelievers or mlsbeUevers. These have learned to speak the language, to scorn the manners of Canaan; for their lives testify that they believe not our report.

2. We liave gone the better half of our journey, let not your attentions fail to the end. We have seen the nature of Edom and Mount Scir—atheism, scorn, abomination; we are now entering another mountain, the hill of Zion,

the city of God. The question of the Edomite was not more perverse than the answer of the watchman is grave and sober. The answers of God are not doubtful, like the heathen oracles; nor obscure and tetrical, as Mohammed's riddles; nor ambiguous, like the mixed, the motley, epicene, equivocating conclusions of Ptome; but plain, sweet, profitable.

(1.) I call, therefore, the first part of it a resolution. They ask as if they desi^ised to know; he resolves them justly, as if he would force them to know against their wills. They ask him what is spiritually seen in the night of vision; he tells them what shall really come in the night of actual desolation ; ' The morning cometh, and also the night.' Let your understandings keep pace with me through these four circumstances :—[1.] The length of their peace: one whole day, the space betwixt morning and evening; a short time ; finitxim pro indejinito, breviiatem temporis dies exprimit. [2.] The certainty of their judgment; ' The night' infallibly ' cometh.' [3.] The quality of it when it is come ; nox dicitur, it is called a night. [4.j The inversion of this to the righteous.

[1.] The happiness of Edom is but a day; ' The morning comes, and the night' follows : it is but the distance of the sunrising from the setting. There is to all things living such an alteration decreed : a morn, a noon, a night; a beginning, a strong age, a declination or full point. As the historians write of certain flies bred by the river Hispanis, that are generated in the morning, at noon in full strength, and at night make their ends, and are gone : Paul says, ' Our life is but a tabernacle,' it is all, if this stands a year; Isaiah calls it grass, which grows but in summer; David, a flower, hath but his month; here it is called a day, that hath but the sunrising and setting. Nay, Job compares it to a shadow, that hath neither year, nor summer, nor month, nor day, but an hour. Nay, Moses, to a thought, whereof there may be a hundred in an hour. This is none of the shortest comparisons, mane et vespere, the measure of one day.

What then mean those ' greedy dogs' in this prophecy, to bark so madly ? 'Bring"more wine,for to-morrow shall be as to-day; yea,much more abimdant,' Isa. Ivi. 12. Methinks I hear the gallant epicures, the christened atheists of this city, knock thus in taverns for yet more wine, crowning the day with riots, and blessing the morrow with promised surfeits, as if the night should never come. Alas! nescis quid serus vesper ferat, —thou knowest not what sad news the evening will bring. Thou braggest with Cajsar, the day is come ; we tell thee, as Caisar's friend, it is come indeed, and begun ; it is not ended. The lease of vanity is but a day, it may be not a moment; the tenure of this • world is uncertain.

' Medio de fonte leporum, surgit amari aliquid/—

From out of the midst of the fount of delicacies ariseth ever some bitterness. When you have spent your strengths, your estates, bloods, souls, upon vanity, all is but tinius diei hUaris insania, —the merry madness of a day ; which to buy with the eternity of insufi'erable torments is a dear purchase. If they be not short of content and satisfaction, I am sure they are of continuance. They do not always follow a man living, ever forsake him when he dies. lYon semper sequuntur vivcntcm, morienteni nunquam.

[2.] You have measured the shortness of their day; hear the certainty of their night. ' The monihig conies, and,' without prevention, * night follows.' You shall shake off the yoke of Israel, but put on you the yoke of Persia. Tlic Edomites were long tributaries to Israel, according to Isaac's prophecy in the blessing of Esau: ' Thou .slialt be thy brother's servant; but it shall

come to pass, when thou shalt get the mastery, thou shalt break liLs yoke from thy neck,' Gen. xxvii. iO. The proplict here a.s,sures them of this mxs-teiy. Israel rebels against God, therefore Edom against Israel. Isaac, as God's prophet, subjects Edom to Canaan, the seed of Esau to the seed of Jacob : intemperanti prcefecit sobrium* —he sets the sober man over the m-tempcrate ; and this service of the elder brother to the younger lasted in the posterity seven liundred years. Yet twice after, they shook off thia servitude : the first in Jorani's time, 2 Kings viii. 20, which liberty they made a troublesome shift to hold, till Ilyrcanus, who subdued them, and made them be circumcised-t This slavery they overcame again, and held it, even till Herod, the son of Antipater, an Idinna.>an born, obtained to be king of the Jews. Here Edom got the full masteiy. The first was this mornmg the prophet speaks of; this morning of freedom shall come, but last for a day, and then be overclouded with a night, a worse captivity, because to a worse people; qui Deum et misericordiam nesciunt, —that know neither God nor mercy: as those privations are inseparable, there is no mercy where no religion.

Edom is but a particular instance of a general doom, which all the sous of Adam and daughters of Eve—I mean all the glories of this world—shall bear : as sure as the evening succeeds the morning, death shall seize upon life, judgment on sin. You have the sap of health in your bones, the riches of the world in your coffers, your life is in the noon of pride, but, we say, praise a fair day at night. Happy are they whose ' life is hid with Christ in God,' Col. iii. 3, that this night may not find i hem out! Your sun shall set; beauty, riches, glory shall decay. As by the inviolable law of nature, night succeeds day, so by the eternal law of God, death sin. If you could indent with the sun to stand still, as in the days of Joshua, Josh. x. 12, or to go back ten degrees, as to Hezckiah, or with his orb to move slowly, yet it shall set. Be the day never so long, yet at last comes evening-song. The Son of God himself, in this condition of mortal descent, was equ;il to his brethren. That great Sun of righteousness had his rising and his setting. We must all walk into the west, as well as he ; and be our day longer or shorter, night must come; our privileges are not beyond others.

Hear this, ye Edomites, that flout our presagings of a night : You speak of a night and hour of judgment—when comes it ? We tell you again, 'The morning cometh, and also the night.' You have had a time of light and delight, and what your hearts could wish; you sliaU have a tune of sorrow and darkness, your noon shall be turned to midnight. Tender and delicate Babylon, that boasted herself ' a queen, free from mourning,' Isa. xlvii. 7, shall weep in the widowhood of her glory ; and hear at last, Advenil Jiiiis tuus, —Thy end is come. You that will not set your minds to these things, nor remember the latter end, miseries shall come <m you in their perfection, ver. 9; so absolute as the justice of God and the malice of Satan can make them. So Solomon schools the artless, heartless, supine courses of vain youth : Eccles. xi. 9, ' Rejoice, O young man,' &,c. Ilcjoice in your day of pride, let pleasure rock you on her indulgent knee, you shall be brought to the night of judgment. Tlie surfeits f)f the old worid, the mirth of the Philistines, when Samson was their laughingstock, the carousings of that Chaldean monarch in the sacred bowls of Jerusalem, had their night. Solomon with his thousand wives and concubines, Bclshazzar with his thousand prin<vs, Aliasue-rus with his hundred and twenty-seven provhices, had tluir night. High-looked honour and pursy riches, the one cli.seased in hLs eyes, tlie other in his lungs, shall have their night. The favour of noble men is the favour of * AmbroB. f Josephus.

moveable men,— favor nohilium, favor mohilium; the ignis fatuus of riches is long engendering, soon extinct. Let Joab and Job be our precedents in both these : the first was great and evil, the chiefest captain about David, yet by David designed to execution ; the second was great and good, yet, behold, the mightiest man of the east is poor to a proverb. What ever flourished and had not this night ? The rich churl enlarging his barns pro-portionably to his desires, had his night; he heard that soul-knell, ' Thou fool, this night shall they fetch away thy soul.' The world itself shall have this evening : the morning was in the days of the patriarchs, Christ bore the heat and noon of the day, and we are those ' upon whom the latter ends of the world are come.' 'The world groweth old,' 2 Esd. xiv. 10, and we grow old with it. The bodies of men in old age wax cold, and want the heat of nature ; the souls of men in this decrepit age grow cold in zeal,— deficiente fervore cha7-itatis. The nourishment of old age turns into crudity, through want of heat to concoct, digest, and drive it into the veins; the nourishment of our souls turns into vanitj^, because we want the heat of grace to digest it. By all these symptoms, you see the sun of this world ready to set, and the night drawing on, the declination of goodness, the fainting of religion, says that the world lies bedrid, drawing on, looldng for the good hour, (to some,) and fetching a thick, sick, and short breath. I am no prophet; or what if I were, yet unable to define the time; but this I conclude, though more particularly, from the rule of my text : We had our morning at the first preachmg of the gospel; it now flourisheth with us, as at high noon : who shall say the evening will not follow, or our sun is mthout setting 1

[3.] That it shall come, you hear : hear shortly the quality of it when it is come— a night. Misery is not fitlier shadowed than imder the name of a night: ' Sorrow lasts for a night,' says the Psalmist, ' but joy comes in the mornuig.' A sad, heavy, and discontented time, full of horror and amazement ; when there is no object to -withdraw the eye, thereby to divert the mind from the thought and meditation of bitterness. Satan himself is not said to be bound with any other cliains but those of darkness ; as the joys of heaven are described by that eternal daylight of glory and sunshine of the Lamb, and it is added in express words, ' There shall be no night there,' Rev. xxi. 25. So the torments of hell are called by Christ cy.orog i^uirB^ov, ' outer darkness,' Matt. xxii. 13. No marvel if there ensue weieping and gnashing of teeth, when misery shall Idc extreme, and no day-hole of hope to atford one glimpse of comfort. This is that ' night of nights,' worse than the palpable darkness of Egypt, as full of intolerable horror as caliginous blackness. I find not only the time of judgment general, but of temporal and particular calamities, termed by the 'night of horror:' the downfall of Dumah, 'a night;' the destruction of Israel, ' a season of blackness, darkness, clouds and obscurities,' Joel ii. 2. Therefore, as Christ to the Jews, ' Pray that your flight be not in the night;' pray that your departure out of this life be not in the night of your security and ignorance; and then fear not this night, for you are redeemed from the land of eternal darkness.

It was the foohsh pride of that Roman emperor, having made a bridge of grappled ships over a narrow arm of the sea, and triumphing at midnight with innumerable torches, to boast that he had wrought two miracles—made the sea dry land, and the night day ;* but our emperor of heaven and earth did

* Caligula, (in imitation of Xerxes, that passed his army over the strait of Helle-Bpont upon a wooden bridge,) upon ships moored together with cables and auehors, made a bridge of boards, with so much earth on it that it seemed firm ground, like one of the streets in Rome.—^Dt'on.

licrform it indeed, wlieii he dried up the red sea of his Father's wrath, and changed our present night of ignorance, and future of torment, into the eternal daylight of his grace and glory.

[•!,] The last part of this survey is the inverting of this upon tlic righteous : where, behold the ditforent beginnhigs and ends of both holy and unholy. To the children of disobedience, the morning is before the evening ; and this is Duniah's woe at sunset, fiiisse felicem, —that she had her day. To the faithful, the evenmg is before the morning , as at the creation, ' The evening and the morning w^ere the first day,' Gen. i. The Jews were commanded to begin their feast of reconciliation at even; and, ' From evening to evening shall you celebrate your sabbath,' Lev. xxiii. 32. It was Christ's comfortable answer to Jiis church, intending the date when the profanation of the temple shoidd cease, to set the morning of their peace after the evening of their troubles, by a sweet and mystical allusion : Dan. viii. 1-1, 'Unto the evening and the morning, two thousand and three hundred; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed ;' ' and the vision of the evening and morning is true,' ver. 2G. The evening of their sorrow precedes the morning of their joys. Our prophet so compares the tempest of the Assyrians' rage to a storm in the night, which vanisheth at the rising sun : Isa. xvii. 14, ' Lo, in the evening there is trouble, but before the morning it is gone.' Our night lasts during this wretched life : the troubles of miseries, storms of persecutions, and rage of that gi-eat le%dathan, distm-b our air, darken our day, and make it a gloomy night; clouds, tempests, obstacles, stumblingblocks, temptations, machinations of enemies, deceivings of friends;—

'Per varies casus, per tot discrimina rerum, Tendimus in ccclum ;'—

through so many dangers and difficulties sail we to our haven of peace ; our assurance is, that joy comes in the morning, when we shall rise in the east, and behold the sun of glory shine in our faces. The morning of the Edom-ites, atheists, reprobates, comes first smiling on their brows; but nox se-quitar, —they have a night behind.

This disparity consists not only in the counterjiosition of thehr order, but in the circumstantial diflerence of their length and shortness. Our night is irksome, but short: compcnsatur acerhitas hrevitate, — what is ill in the bitterness is cased by the shortness. But our day is everlasting; from new moon to new moon, from sabbath to sabbath, we shall praise the Lord. Myriads of years and ages shall be expired, and our sun as far from setting as at our first entrance ; for tune, and mortality, and distinction of age, shall cease : there is notliing but eternity above. It is not more l)lessed in being a day, than behig endless. Their jnorniug is short, their night everlasting, their debt never paid, their fire never quenched. Here is their unhai)piness: Jlorent ad tempus, ]>ereunl ui iitenium ; Jlarent falsis bonis, jiercunt veris tormentis, —they fiourish for a time, they perish for ever ; they fiourish witli false joys, perish with true and substantial torments. Things that are soonest bred have the shortest continuance ; a puff of wind r.-dseth the cliatf from the earth, and a pull' scatters it away; the wicked are soon raised, ami with like speed dcpres.sed, Ps. Ixjciii. IS, 19. How quickly is Esim's posterity atlvanccd to a kingdom ! How innnaturely cast down ! The crown is scarce warm on their temples, their eyes have scarce taken a passing glance of their glories, but all is dispersed. The godly arc long kept under covert; but when they do rise, their elevation is permanent.

Lo, now cast a sober and iutelligent eye on this strange opposition, and

let the very enemy of heaven and grace judge wlietlier tlic vain shadows of joy, and those for a day, liable to true and substantial torments, and those for ever, be comparable with, or desirable before, a momentary affliction, and that not without the best of comforts, followed with an excellent and eternal weight of glory. It is confessed; I speak for you, I think your consciences are convinced. But uhi signa ? —where are the signs of it ] If this be so, and you so acknowledge it, why lead you so dissonant lives ? Shall the voice of your own tongues censure your own hearts, witness against you 1 Tacitus reports that in the civil wars betwixt Vitellius and Vespasian, a soldier had killed his oavu father, which was of the enemy's army; no sooner was this published, but every man begins to abhor, condemn, execrate that war, the cause of such an unnatural fact: yet how little effect this wrought m their proceedings, that author describes; for their rage, rapine, cruelty, was not lessened in spoiling neighbour, friend, kinsman, brother, father, when they had slain them. We abhor the miseries and sins incident to this life ; we love it still, nay, prefer it to heaven : our condemnation will be easy and just, what need is there of more witnesses 1 Ex ore tuo, —thy own lips have spoken against thee. For shame; let our hearts and tongues be cut out of one piece, that what we aUow in opinion we may prosecute in practice.

You hear how the day slips from us and the night steals on. No marvel if men sleep in the night ; but in the broad day, to shut our eyes with the dormouse is unnatural. There is a night when thou shalt rest, even ' on thy bed of peace,' Isa. Ivii. 2; only walk, work, loiter not, in thy day. Christ taught and observed the rule himself, to travel his day, and all his day; ' for the night comes, wherein no man can work.' There are things which if the night finds undone, we are undone, because we have not done them : if we defer to provide lodging, sustenance, safety, the night finds and leaves us destitute. How mad is he, that being bomad to some special designment, confined to his day, and then furthered with light, aid, company, and con-veniepcy of all things, spends one hour in catching flies, another after feathers, and all the rest in several toys and leasings, that on a sudden the sun sets, and his chief work is not done, nay, not begun !

The work of our day is the working up our salvation ; it is a special work. Heaven and our souls are upon it, and Ave have but our day to work it. Tempus vitce, te)npus jxenitentioi, —T'he time of life is the time of repentance. We spend one piece of our day in covetous scrapings, another in adoring that we have scraped; some hours of our day in working vanity, and some in sleeping security; instantly the night of death comes, and we have neglected the main chance : our salvation is not finished; like courtiers, that having light to bring them to bed, play it out at cards, and go to bed darkling. Woe to them that go to their last rest thus ! How unworthy are we of a day, thus to spend it! It is pity that ever the sun of grace shone on our faces ! Quake and fear, whatsoever thou art, to suffer the sin of thy soul and the end of thy life to come so near together. If men stumble in the dark, it is not strange ; to fall argues wilful neglect, or want of eyes. It is enough for those poor Romanists, that live under that Egyptian darkness of the Inquisition, to fall into grievous absurdities • but Avhere the sun shines, to see men fall in heaps is astonishing. Oh that every bait of drunkenness, object of covetousness, presented glance of vanity, should make us to wander and stumble, stumble and fall, fall and content ourselves therein without rising ! What would we, what will we do if our sun sets ? For shame ! cast away the deeds of darkness with the time : Eph. v. 14, ' Awake and stand up, the light of Jesus Christ' shines on thy face; as men from sleep opening their

eyes and seeing day broke, cast away their clothes, wherein they were wrajit warm, and start up to their several callings. The sins and vanities of thw world have kept us warm, and Caiaphas kept Peter, whiles we were folded in them ; but our main work lay dead for want of execution. Provide, then, for this night, 0 thou whose cheek the sun of mercy and forbearance kisseth : * The sleep of him that travaileth is sweet, whether he eat little or much : but the satiety of the rich will not sutfer him to sleep,' Eccles. v. 12. If the day be well spent, the wearied bones rejoice in their earned repose, and the contented conscience applauds in the thought of her careful obedience : body and soul receive rest. WhUcs the day is slothfully spent, night brings no rejoiceful ease to either spirits or corpse. The day of thy life worn out into the well-disposed hours of a religious obedience, thy body shall rest in a perfumed grave, and thy soul in the bosom of Abraham, when night comes; but whiles pride, surfeits, oppressions, wantonness have shared the day, the night comes with no less suddenness than sorrow : thy rest shall be unrest, neither easier than smoke, and thorns, and liames, nor shorter than the eternity of all these can make it, Oh, then, what folly, madness, self-enmity is this, to play out our short day, and howl under the pressure of working torments for an everlasting night!

(2.) We are come to the last fruit that I shall gather you from this tree, an4 it grows on three branches; the whole body of it being ai)plied to the manner, not the matter of the question. The matter is first satisfied : ' The morning comes, and the night.' The manner is now touched: * If ye will ask, inquire; return, and come.' You ask in derision; keep the cloth, but reject the fashion. Ask still, but to repentance; let your demands manifest your desires of resolution. If ye will ask, and needs be acquainted with your sorrows, ' inquire' ^dth humility, reverence, faith ; ' return ' from your sins by repentance ; and ' come' home to God by obcLlience. Triplex ex ar-hore fructus, —here is a threefold fruit from this tree ; whereon let your souls feed, and then depart to refresh your bodies.

Inriuire. —Wo must not look that God should seek us with his blessing, .is Elias was charged to run by the way of the wilderness in quest of H;izael, to anoint him, 1 Kings xix. 15. No; 'Seek ye the Lord while he may be found.' The rule of the prophet is just: the rich man conies not to the beggar's door with relief in his hand ; but the bcgi^'ar to his for it. There is small reason to expect from God that he should both give and seek. I conr fess he doth, as Christ testifies of himself, Luke xix. 10, ' I came to seek and to save that which was lost;' but withal he conveys into our hearts a preventing grace to seek him. Hence the condition is annexed to the grant, by the giver himself: ' Ask, and you shall have :' inquire, and you shall be satisfied. But if any will be ignorant, let them be ignorant still.

If you ask me, first, Where you should inquire'? Our prophet directs you, ' To the law, to the testimony: where should a people inquire, but at their God?' Isa. viii. 20. Secondly, If how] With humility, reverence, and desire of knowledge. Inter juvenile judicium, et senile prajudiciuni, multa Veritas corrumpitur. There must be an equal avoiding of both rashness and prejudice. Young men apprehend not the necessities of knowledge, old men presume of a plerophory and abundance ; hence neither young nor old inquire. Thirdhj, If when \ The wise man an.swei-s, Inquire, .seek, ' Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth.' Pegin this search in the morning of thy years. Mane is the Lord's adverb, the devil's verb. The Lord saith. Early; the devil saith, Tarry: to whom you hearken, jiulge yourselves. One thing only, take heed you stay not too long. The devil is

a false sexton, and sets the clock too slow, that the night comes ere we be aware. Tarry not, then, till your piles of usuries, heaps of deceits, mountains of blasphemies, have caused God to hide himself, and -will not be found. There is a so-a nimis hora, time too late, wliich Esau fell unluckily into, when ' he sought the blessing with tears, and could not find it.' It may be the statutes, or the guides, or thy owoi eyes, may be denied thee, and then too late thou inquirest. Whiles the book of God is not perused, his temples not frequented, nor his throne solicited by prayers, hard-heartedness steals on us, and, like Samson bound by the Philistines, we would break their bonds and cast their cords from us ; but our Delilah, our folly, hath beguiled us.

Eetiirn. —Is this all 1 No ; there is a second fruit growing on this tree, of equal necessity, greater use. After inquiring, follows returning. You are gone wrong, return into the way of peace ; inquire it first, and having found it, return; put your feet into it. God warns you by the revelation of his word, as the wise men by the vision of a dream. Matt. ii. 12, to ' return into your own country,' whither you would arrive, and where only is your rest, ' another way.' If ever this exhortation was necessary for Edom, let me think it fitter for England. As smful as we are, let me yet say, there is more hope of our repentance than of Edom's. Our iniquities are as great, our instructions greater than theirs ; what remains, but our repentance ? Never more need. Our sins are not low, slow, few, or slightly done; negligence sins, security sins, contempt sins, presumption and hard-heartedness sins. Here is the scorner's chair, the drunkard's bench, the idle man's cushion, the usurer's study. Oh, where is repentance to rouse these ? God is angry ; we have been smitten, not in the skirts and suburbs of our commonwealth : our city, body, and whole unity hath been pierced to the soul. ' The whole head hath been sick, and whole heart heavy.' Where is the physic of repentance 1 I can shew you many actors, presenting themselves on the theatre of this world; I see not repentance play her part. I can point you to ■usur}=—robbing, grinding, sucldng blood, cutting throats, whiles he sits in the chimney-corner, and hears of his zanies, whelps, underhng-thieves ending their days at the gallows. I can shew you covetou&ness—swearing for gain, crouching, ramping, playing ape, lion, or de\il for money. I can discover to you drunkenness rising early to the wine; malice making haste to the death of Amnon; ambition running after honour, faster than Peter to the sepulchre; pride whirling in her chariot, wantonness shutting up the windows ; bribery creeping in at the key-hole, even when the door of justice is locked up against her. Among all these I see not repentance. Doth she stay till the last act ? I fear the tragedy of many souls will be done first. This land is full of sins,—let me speak impartially,—this city. As many lines meet at the centre, so all sins by a general confluence to this place. Glomerantur in unum innumerw pestes Erehi, —The mischiefs of hell are swarmed to one crowd, and we have it. I know there are some ' names in Sardis,' some that make conscience of their ways; the same air is drawn by men of as contrary disposition as is the opposition of the two poles : that I may say of tlie lives of this city, as one doth of Origen's writings, Uhi hene, nemo melius ; uhi male, nemo pejus, — Those that are good arc exceeding good, and those that are evil are un-measurably evil; nothing was ever so unhke itself. You are as contrary as fire to water; but all the water of the one's devotion will not quench the fire of the other's wickedness. This latter is so monstrously grown on us with the times, tliat it is all if the idolatry of Home, or the atheism of Turkey, can go beyond it. They are rare hearts that care not more to seem,

tlian to be holy, if perliaps they will either seem or be; rare hands that are free and clean from either blood or filthiness; rare toni^ues that do not vie oaths with words, making scotFs, scorns, tlatteries, vain speeches, the j^reater l)art of their tongues' exercise, that if their words could be weighed, their prayers of a year are not so substantial and ponderous :us their oaths of ono day. It were no wonder to see these abominations in Dumali, Egypt, IJaby-lon ; to find them in England is matter of amazement. It was an a!dmiralde and astonishing speech, (the prophet himself thought, by his advertisement prefixed,) ' The virgin Israel hatli done filthily,' Jer. x\-iii. l.'J. If harlots and brothels be unchaste, they do not degenerate from their kind ; in so pure a virgin, no imagination would have dreamed it. It is no news to find the devil in hell ; to have him thrust into paradise, tempting and [)revailing with our first parents, is horrible. Let Rome and Turkey swell with the lioisoua of Satan till they burst, who wonders ? To find the sputterings of liis venom in the church is grievous. If we be accused for accusing of sins, let the physician be blamed for discovering diseases in the sick body: we must speak. Oh, yet, si nostra sperem prcce posse movcri, that we could hoi)e with any sayings to move you 1 If the worst come, I can but speed as others before me. Be there not usurers that say to the gold in secret, Thou art my confidence 1 Populus me sihiJat, at mild plaiulo ipse domi, —The world hisseth at me, but I hug and applaud my own soul, and fat my spirits in the sight of my bags. Is there never a broker to comfort himself, in the distress of his conscience, with, ' Usury is no sin, many learned men are of this opinion.' But I ask him if his conscience can be so satisfied ; would he not willingly give one hundred-pound bag to be secured in this point ? Sure it is, at the least, not safe wading far in a cpiestionable water; if it could be safe to some, yet how many have been drowned in this whirlpool 1 I confess that flesh and blood puts the bladders of wealth and promotion undei: their arm-holes, and the dev\[ holds them up by the chin, till they come to the deepest, and then, as the priests served Judas, they bid them shift for themselves; and wanting the help of repentance to swim, down they sink in profundum inferni, to the bottomless bottom of hell. These two are not unfitly compared to two millstones : the usurer is the nether stone, that lies still; he sits at home in his warm furs, and spends his time in a devilish arithmetic, in numeration of hours, days, and moneys, in sul>traction from others' estates, and multiplication of his own, till they have divided the earth to themselves, and themselves to hell; the In-oker runs nmnd like the upper millstone, and betwixt l)otli these the poor is gTinded to powder.

Usury, you say, is exploded among saints. I would you would deal no worse with covetousness. But, alas ! this is too general a fault, and without any hope of amendment. He that railed on Beelzebub pulled all Ekrou about his ears; he that .slighted Melchom provoked the Ammonites; liut he that condemns ]\Iammon speaks against all the world. Tiiis is the delight, the love, the .solace of many, the god of some. Poverty, sickness, age, arc all the dcvUs they tremble at, and I'elial, Melchom, Mammon, ]tlea.sure.s, honours, riches, all the gods they worship. These three usurping kings, like the three seditious captains in Jcnisalem, or those three lloman tyrant.s, Cae.sar, Cras.sus, and romi)ey, have shared the world amongst them, and left God least, who owns all. Lactantius speaks of one Tullus Hostilins, that put Fear and Paleness into the number of gods. It is pity that ever his god.s should go from him. It is, not pity, but ju.sticc, that these gods, and the true God ton, should forsake such reprobates, that give the honour to creatures wherewith they should Wursh ip the Creator. But, alas! how is Pharai ih's

dream verified among us : ' The lean kine eat up the fat !' God's lean blessings, riches and pleasures, devour his fat ones, grace and religion. How-dishonours it God, disparageth ourselves and our creation, to put lead in a cabinet of gold, base desires in a fair and precious soul! We never yet attained the top of Mount Seir. He that stands on the tower of divine meditation will judge those pigmies, which below he thought giants ; but we desire not heaven, because we know it not; we never look beyond our horizon ; we live in our contented slavery of Egypt, and never dream of the freedom of Canaan. Uhi amor, ibi oculus, —Where the love is, there is the eye. This St Augustine shortly and soundly reproves : Si sursum os, cur deorsum cor 1 —Hath nature given us an upright face and a grovelling heart 1 This is a preposterous dissimilitude of the mind and countenance. Do but compare, as lifting ujj thy soul with thy eyes, heaven with earth, and thou wilt change thy opinion. Through want of these meditations, these earthly vanities carry away our enchanted hearts to neglect those better things of our eternal peace ; and by the testimony of our Saviour,' It is hard for a rich man to get into heaven.' The proverb saith, There is no earthly gate but an ass laden with gold can enter; and this only lading hinders our entering the gates of gloiy. A wealthy and great man, served up to God's table in his kingdom, is as rare as venison at our boards on earth : there are sometimes such services, not often.

Is this all % No ; Yidi ehriosorum sitim, et vomentimn fameni, —I have seen drunkenness reeling from tavern to tavern, and, not seldom, from thence to his stews. It was the sin, nay, the shame of beggars ; it is now the glory, the pride of gallants. They should daily be transformed to the image of God ; they come nearer to beasts, let me say, to devils ; for St Bernard saith, Ehrietas est manifestissimus dcemon, —Drunkenness is a most manifest devil. They that are possessed with Satan, or with drunkenness, fell alike into the fire, into the water; they gnash alike, alike they foam; and as all the disciples could not cast out that one sort of devils, so nor all the preachers this, Matt. xvii. 16, 21.

Gluttony is not much less general, no less evil. Drunkenness makes a man so giddy he cannot stand, and gluttony so pursy that he cannot go. That old verse and rule is forgotten in our feasts—

' Too soon, too fine, too daintily, Too fast, too much, is gluttony.'

There is an appetite natural; when the stomach can extract no more juice from meats received, it covets more. There is an appetite sensual; when the rich says, ' My soul, eat,' not my body. Nay, are not some in this city like those Horace speaks of? When their estate can reach but to herrings, they long for fresh salmon. We desire the strength of bodies and the length of clays; our full dishes forbid it. If ever that verse w^as true, now is the time—

' Non plurea gladio, quam cecidere gula;'—

' The enemy's sword kills not more than their own throat.'

Swcarhig and whoredom I will join together, as most sins go by couples: so the prophet, * The laud is fall of adulterers, and for oaths the land mourn-eth.' Add unto swearing the twin-born brother of it, cursing; a sin tliat makes God (the summiun honum) tlie base executioner of our revenge. How strange, when men grieve us, to turn our teen upon God, and rend him to pieces ! Blasphemers against mortal princes are killed with the sword, and all their estates confiscate; against the Prince of heaven it is not regarded.

I must not forget my Edomitc, the gallant. If you would see an impos-tliume, contiate and swollen up with all these and rank corruptions, all the former mischiefs reconciling themselves to a Avretchcd unity in one soul; a pack and bundle of sins, snatched from their several owners,—envy from the malicious, haughtiness from the proud, derision from the scorner, tire,—and engrossed to one heart; an emblem, a pageant, a conuuentary of all the (levil's proceedings; a map of his walks, plots, and actions;—behold the profone Edomite ! I tax not the generous si)irit whose birth and accoiitre-mcnts are worthy and high, his mind humljle. Oh, how comely are good clothes to a good soul, when the grace within shall beautify the attire without; and not gay rags impudently bear our wicked actions ! Far l)e it from mc to think these Edomites, or any other thing than the diamonds that grace our ring. No, they are the gallant Esauites, the proftuie roystcrs, to whom I speak, and that from a text of repentance; desiring from my soul that they may scape the burden of Dumah, by rejecting the manners, and make more account of their birthright than seU it for messes of pottage, lusts, and vanities. But if they will note themselves ■with the coal and brand of pro-faneness, they must not look to escape our censures. "We cannot hear their oaths, beating the invulnerable breast of heaven; nor see their pride, 'testifying to then- face,' Hos. vii. 10, if they shoiUd plead innocence; nor be unwillingly conscious of thou- atheistical jests, libertine feasts, worse than Pag.iu adulteries, and charm our tongues with sUence, when the glory of our God, the price of their redemption, and the danger of their own souls, lie at the stake.

There are other open, and infinite secret sins, wliich they think no eyq sees. But they arc Avitnesscs, the angels good and bad, the conscience of the connnitters, and the Judge of the conscience: Si nemo, iion iameii uulhrs, — If no man, yet not none. Therefore what thou darest not to do, thy fellow-servant looking on thee, that dare not to think, thy heavenly ^Master looking in thee: Quod non audes facere, aspiciente conseri'o: hoc ne cogiles, Inspicienie Deo. I confess, we have a face of religion and looks of profession, makuig toward Jerusalem; but how many make the noble livery of our ^Master a shelter to these abhorred corruptions! And, till the trial comes, it is not known Avhom many serve. A man that follows two gentlemen is not discerned which to serve till they part company: so long as wealth and religion go together, it is not apparent to which of them most adhere, till the cross parts them, and then it is plain and easy.

"Were these the sms of Edom, and are they not the sins of England i The sins, said I ? Nay, the gods of luigland ! For the usurer adores liis metals, the epicure his junkets, the drunkard his gallons, the voluptuous his lusts, the adulterer liis harlots, the proud and gallant Edomite his gay clothes and studied carriage: and as the IsraoJitcs cried to their calf made of golden ear-rings, ' These are thy gods, O Israel!' Ivxod. xxxii. i ; so we may si>cak it with horror and amazement of these foolish, bestial, devilish sms, * These are thy gods, 0 England !' "WVak, wretched, unhel[>ful gods! For .shame ! AVhat, where are we ? Could Edom ever be worse I Have we devoured so many years of peace, ease, plenty, and saturity (if I may so call it) of (iod's word, and are we still so lame, lean, and ill-favoured in our lives ? Wjiat shall I say I Ilath the sweet gospel, and the sober preaching of it, made us sensual, senseless, impudent, frantic, as the nature of that country is wonderful, if true, that rain causcth dust, and drought dirt ?"' Have the sweet dews of Ilermon made the hill of Zion more barren ? Hath the sun of plenty, * ' Siccitxs dat lutuui, imbrcs pulvcrcu.'—/Vi)». VOL. I. X

from the filth of security, bred monsters of sins 1 Have God's mercies made us worse ? What shall I say 1

Fathers and brethren, help. Pity the miscaiTying souls that have no mercy on themselves. Our words are thought air; let your hands compel them to the sendee of God. The word of information hath done his best; where is the rod of reformation 1 Let IMoses's rod second Aaron's word. The loves of sinners, the strength of sins, nay, principalities and powers, are at^ainst us, and we come armed with a few leaves of paper. The keenest sword is with us, but it is in our lips only, ' the sword of the Spirit;' and thou'di it can 'divide the marrow and the bones' of an awaked conscience, alas Tit moves not the stony hearts. It shall sooner double upon ourselves than enter such mailed consciences. Our blows are filliped back in contempt. Be not wanting, ye that have the ordinance of God. You are his sm-rof'-ates, and the preachers' hopes. Good laws are made; the life-blood of them is the execution. The law is else a wooden dagger in a fair sheath, when those that have the charge imposed, ancl the sword in their hands, stand like the picture of St George, with his hand up, but never striking. We complain not of the higher magistrates, from the benches of whose judgment impiety departs not without disgrace, without strokes. The blame lies on inferior officers, who think their office well discharged if they threaten offenders: these see, and will not see. Hence beggars laze themselves in the fields of idleness; hence taverns and tap-houses swarm with unthrifts, of whom, whether they put more sin into their bellies, or vomit more forth, is a hard question; I mean, whether their oaths or ebrieties exceed. Hence we look to have vagrants suppressed, idleness whipped, drunkenness spoke withal; but the execution proves too often like the judges' feast—the guests set, the tables furnished, meat in the dishes, wine in flagons; but putting forth their hands to take them, they apprehend nothing but air.

The medicine to heal all this, both for patient and physician, is repentance; not. a jaculatory cry of 'Lord, forgive me!' nor the flash of a melancholy passion, but a sound, serious, and substantial repentance. Konie hath a holy water, of virtue, they say, to purge and wash away all her spots; England hath her holy water too, which too many trust in for sufficient. We look up and cry, 'Lord, have mercy!' and wipe our lips, as if we had not sinned; yet by and by to our former vomit. But the repentance that resolves for heaven throws away all impediments: if gold, if pleasure, if a throne were in the way, she would fling them aside; she hath an eye bent on tlie mercy-seat, and a foot that runs straight to it; she turns i)ot into Samaria, because she is oftered lodging there; nor in the court of Egypt, to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; the pleasures of Babylon stay her not, the good-fellows of Sodom make her not look back; she forgets what is behind, and never rests, like the kine that carried the ark, till she come to the fields of Bcthshemesh, the harvest of grace and goodness, nor ccaseth lowing with sorrow till she bo sped of the mercies of God. She hath felt the weight of sin and sorrow, and abhors the cause of them both; she hateth not the devil worse than her former iniquities, and, if it were possible, she would never more offend. Tins is to return; what you want of this, you come short of repentance.

Come. —The third degree follows to make up om- perfection. If returning might serve, as labour of but indifferent trouble, we could afford it; but we must come. You have licard the whence; hear the tvJdlher. Thou hast not done with inquiring, with returning: ' Up and eat, Elias, thou hast a greater journey to go.' Streng-theu thy heart, 0 Christian, restat tibi teriia meta, —

ISA. XXI. 11, 12.] THE gallant's BURDEN. •^^23

thou hast a third mark to aim at! Cr>7ne home to tliy (iod l>y a i ha.st(^ and lioly life. It is not current pay with God to part with our vanities, execiit wc embrace a religioiLS conversation. Paul makes it as necessary ;i part of Christianity to 'put on the new man,' as to 'put off the old.' It Ls not enough to cease doing evil, but it is damnable not to do well: * Ho that gathers not with Christ, scattereth.' It was the threatening doom in Jnhn Baptist's sermon, not to the barren, but to the evil-fniited tree.* Christ's speech carries the same sense and force against the Pharisees, though : ' to his disciples: ' Except your riuhtcousness,' &c. Ho says not, ' i your unrighteousness be less than theirs,' but, ' Except your righteousi.- ., ... more,' exceed,' you shall not see heaven.' He that inquires the way to heaven, and turns toward it, hath passed two degrees of my text and his own pilgrimage ; but he gets little of cither praise or comfort except he come home to it. There is extreme wrong, extreme right, and mercy. Sumvia injuria, sumvuaa y«-s, et misenconlia. The two first shall be shut out of heaven; the liust only hath a promise of entrance. ' Judgment without mercy shall be to him that shews no mercy,' James ii. 13; not to the cruel only, but to him that is but merely just: the want of ju.stice is not only damned, Init. the want of mercy: the rich churl went to hell for not relieving Lazarus, though he wronged him not. If the usurer part with his extortions, the wanton with his minions, the cheater with his frauds, the tradesman with his oaths, he thinks himself by this time a high Christian, and that God must needs bless him, he is so repentant. If the long persuasions of many sermons can work this on us, that we abate of our former outrageous licentiousness, we strait sponge up ourselves j and with a conceit that we have done much for God, outface all reproofs : but ' he that hath much forgiven him loves much.' The prodigal docs not only turn from his harlots and vices, but comes home to his father's house. There was no stint in that sinful woman's penitence, till she had poured floods of tears on the feet of our Saviour. The conscience of Zaccheus was not disburdened by ceasing his extortion, but by restitution to the wronged, commiseration to the distressed, even to one hidf of his goods. And these are the commended penitents.

How sorts our practice with this doctrine % Shew me a sacrilegious patron, a pirate of the church, that, if his hand cease from spoiling God of his tithes, yet will repair the breaches his rapine hath made : shew me a brilie-guilty officer seek out wnth wet eyes, and reward with a full hand, the wronged suitors: how many are more ciiiel-hcarted than Judas, that neither on'repentance nor despair will bring l.iack the price of the poor's blood, which they have sucked ! Behold the earthly churl, to make liis son a gentleman, prostituteth his honesty, conscience, soul, and ' forsaketh his own mercy,' (as the proverb is, vile, if ever true, Happy is the son whose father goes to the devil!) After he hath mowed com, or fatted his ox, on the very place iM Trojafuit, where the towTi stood ; nay, kenneled his dogs within the walls of his sanctuary ;t and turned the hall (jf charity into the ])arlour of pride ; his body sinks to the grave, and (it is to be feared) his soul to hell, being rung thither with the peals of bells and curses. The better-instructed heir, (to omit those that exceed the tyranny of their fathers,) seeing and/letestiug his dead father's deader courses, withdraws his hand from extortion, from depopidor tion; but what reasons can make him a restorer ?J It is enough, he think.; to cease wronging. But,' Curse ye [Meroz, saith tlie angel of the Lord, cur.so

* The opposite is what the author meant to say: not to the ovilfruitetl, 1)tit to the barren, or not-good-fruited trec.^lin.

t Non jgnota cano. X Quia talia famlo tcmporct ii lacUrymifl T

the inhabitants thereof, because they came not forth to help the Lord in the day of battle,' Judges v. 23. Did they fight against God ? No, they helped hun not. The servant was condemned for claiming his own debt, ]\Iatt. xviii. The prayers and fostmgs of the Jews were despised for claiming their ovm debts, Isa. Iviii. 3, and standuig upon sacrifice with men^ whiles they would have mercy with God. Nehemiah threatened the same people with a stricter taxation, chap. v. : They must restore the extorted lands and houses of their brethren; nay, remit some part of the debt, or they were cursed with that feaiful sacrament, the shaking of the lap of his garment, so to be shaken out of Israel, all the congregation ciying. Amen. And, lastly, beyond all exception, the manner of the Lamb's coming to judgment testifies as much. ' Go, ye cursed.' For what cause ? Because ye denied the labourer his hire, or took bread from the hungry? ikc. No, these are crymg sins, and 'hasten before unto judgment:' but ' You gave them not,' therefore, Ite maledicti, — Go, ye cursed. So ' Come, ye blessed.' What, because ye dealt justly, and gave every man his due ? No, these virtues may be in mortal men that want faith and Christianity: but ' You f/ave them your own bread when they were hungry; and clad them, being naked, with your own clothes;' therefore, ' Come, ye blessed.'

What use you will make of this I know not; what use you should make I know. If the tree without good fruit shall be burned, what shall become of the tree that hath evil'? If barrenness be cast into the fire, what doth rapine and robbery deserve 1 If it be damnation enough to deny our own bread, what is it to take away the only loaf, coat, or cottage of our poor brother ? Woe to the back that wears the garment, to the belly that devours the food, they never sweat for ! I mean that by force or fraud took them from the owners. If Nabal and Dives burn for not giving their own, what shall become of Ahab and Jezebel for taking away the vineyard of Naboth 1 1 Pet. iv. 18, ' If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear'?'

Now if after this physic given, I should ask many how they feel the pulses of their consciences beat ? I presume on this reply : Notum loqueris, —You biit gild gold, and minister to us such physic as we have taken before. All this we know; and we do not evermore ply your understandings with new things; but lay old, almost dead and forgotten, afresh to the conscience. I ask further, how much of this have you practised 1 and stiU look for an affirmative answer, ' All this have I kept from my youth.'

Let us reason and discuss this matter a little. To inquire, is hearuig, or rather hearkening to the Avord : to return, is repenting ; to come, is believing, or rather looking more towards perfection, proceeding into the ripeness of faith. This latter is so necessary, that we cannot come to God with his acceptance or our comfort if Ave leave our faith behind us; Avithout tliis, ' impos.sible is it to please him,' to be ' rewarded of him.' This is our charter whereby Ave hold all our privileges, our title in capite to earth and heaven; but, suhjadice lis est, the great Judge of heaven shall one day censure it: meantime, give me leave to help thee peruse this evidence of thy faith, Avhcreon thou so prosumest, Christ dying, made a Avill, sealed it Avith his OAvn blood, Avhercin he bequeathed a certain inheritance to his brethren : the couA'cyance is the gospel, this his testament; the executor of this Avill is the Holy Ghost; our tenure and evidence is our faith. Noav, thou layest title to Jerusalem, for a child's part. What is thy title ? In Christ's name and right. What conveyance did Christ ever make thee of such a portion 1 Yes, ho conveyed it to me by Avill. What, by special name ? No, but by a

general title to all believers. That I am one of these, here is my evidence— my faith. Let God alone try thy faitli; if thou comcst to mo for counsel, jaith St James, thou must shew another evidence : ' Shew me thy f;uth by thy works.'

If thy heart bo corrupt, tliy hands fdthy, thy tongue false, thy evidence is but counterfeit; Christ gives no title of inheritance in heaven to such as have no holiness on earth : 1 Cor. vi. 9, ' Know ye not that the unrighteou.s shall not inherit the kingdom of God ? lie not deceived : neither fornicators,' A:c. llcv. xxi. 27, ' And there .shall enter into it no unclean thing, nor :uiy-thiug that worketh abomination or lies.' l\'rha[)S thou wilt not .staml upnii it { produce thy witnesses ; they arc only two—thy life, thy conscience. They cannot speak with thee, against their ^Maker and thine. Thy life speaks loud and plain : thy pride, drunkennes.s, oppression, cozenage, lusts, bhusphemies, manifest thou hast but a broken title; and Paul pleads against thee, frmii this clear advantage : Tit. iii. 8,' Protest to them that believe in God, that they be careful to shew forth good works.' They that have the evidence of faith, must have the witness of works. It is a poor deed without witnesses. Thy conscience speaks plainly too, that thy faith is but a carnal persuasion, bred of security; a forged evidence, made by a false scrivener, the devU, to deceive thine own eyes and the world's, not God's. Now, where is thy claim ? Stand upon good assurance, lest when that subtle winnower, Satan, comes to sift thee gi-ain after grain, thou provest chatl'. We may come with this carnal persuasion, little better than reprobate hope, to the temples, to the pulpits, to the sacraments ; but if we come so to the tribunal of Christ, woe unto us ! The too much trusthig to a verbal, lean, sick, starved faith, deceives many a soul. Whiles we covet to be solifidians in opinion, we prove nullifidians in practice. No matter for wisdom in the sold, grace in the conscience, honesty in the life, if the profession of faith be in the tongue ; but the poor may say as he in the comedy, Ocidalce mihi sunt i/ian/is ; rmbnii quod vident, —My hands have eyes, and they believe what they see. ^Vo carry the forms and outsides of Christians, and thuik Ciod beliolden to us for gracing his material, earthly temples, when in tlie temples of our own hearts Ave set up the idols of our own affections; yet are these the temples wherein he is best pleased to dwell. But if we be come to God by faith, lie is also come to us by grace : ' The Spirit of Christ is in us, if we be not reprobates,' 2 Cor. xiii. 5. And ' if tliis Si)irit be in lis, the body of sin is dead,' llom. viii. 9, 10 ; at least hath his death-wound. i5ut, alas, in how many of us doth sin live, dwell,—I would I might stay there,—nay, even reign ! As if Christ had come to destroy the devil, and not the works of the devil; to free us from the damnation, and not the dominion of sin. But he that took from sin the power to condemn us, took also from it the power to reign in our mortal bodies. And the second is but a con.se(|uent of the first, post-scribed with that word of inference, ' Now then,' Arc, Horn. vii. 2'), viii. 1. Thus Christ came not only to bind the devil, but to ' loose and dissolve his works,' 1 Jolm iii. 8,

I have read and observed in the history of Scotland, a certain controversy betwixt that kingdom and Ireland, for a little i.sland that lay between them ; either claims it as their due, and the strife growing hot, was falling from words to ])lows. But reason moderated both kinds, and they i)ut it to tlie decision of a Frenchman, who tlius judged it : he caused living .serpents to be put into that island; if they lived and thrived there, he judged it Scotland's; if they pined and died, he gave it for Ireland. Vou can apply it easily. If the venomous serpents, i)oLjons, and corruptions of our nature bat-

ten and thrive in us, we are Satan's; if tliey languisli and consume, we are God's. Thus is the title ended for the freehold of our souls, by which sure rule we may know whether they belong to hell or heaven. If our hearts be unstabled of these bestial lusts, and trimmed up with sanctimony to entertain our holy guest, there shall be a reciprocal and interchangeable coming of us to Christ, and Christ to us; and we shall as surely ' sup with him' in his court of glory, as he hath ' supped with us' in our house of obedience, Ptev. iii. 20.

Let us only fear lest our want of repentance hinder this. I should have erst observed it as a material instruction from this place; I could not find a iitter time to insert it than here, to draw your coming with more alacrity. There is a reservation to repentance, even to abhorred Edom; let the sons of the profanest Esau repent, and they shall not be forsaken of mercy. ' Return aud come,' and your night threatened shall be made a joyful morning. Though it had as certain and defined a time as ever had Jonah's doom against Nmeveh, the set bounds of forty days, with a non ultra ; yet be you humbled, and tins judgment shall be dispensed with. If there be such mercy to Edom, let me say boldly, repenting Israel shall not fail of it; the night shall linger, and the sun be kept from setting, if we will return in our day. The threatcnings of God have a condition included : that general, that promised, that never-refused interposition of repentance. As absolute as the speech might seem to Abimelech, withholding Abraham's wife, ' Thou art but a dead man ;' yet it bad but an implicit condition, * except thou restore her imde-filcd,' as appears by the sequel. It is a common fountain whereat every repentant soul may drink, ' at what time soever, what sinner soever, repents of what sin soeyer,' &c. And if yet any feel themselves thirsty, weak, and not thoroughly resolved, let him for ever confute the distrust of his own heart, the malice of Satan, the present difficulties, with that of Jeremiah, where in express words our repentance is said to make God repent, even of his threatened and intended plagues.

God hath threatened to all sinners a night of sorrow, and it shall as surely come as ever evening succeeded day ; but there is an exceipt, that shall save us, a seasonable and substantial repentance : if we turn from those winding labyrinths of sin, and come home to God, he will save us from this night, that we perish not. There is no coming to God but in and by Jesus Christ; through his Son must God look at us, and wc at him, that he may be merciful, we hopeful.

Come then, beloved, to Jesus Christ; behold him with the eyes of faith, standing on the Ijattlemcnts of heaven, and wafting you to him : come freely, come merrily, come with speed; come betimes, lest Avhen you would, you camiot for want of direction, dare not for want of acquaintance with him. He that comes not till the last gasp of extremity, knows not how to come, because he begins but then. How prone are our feet to forbidden paths ! The flesh calls, we come; vanity calls, we flock; the world calls, we fly : let Christ call early and late, and either we not come, or unwillingly, or late, or with no purpose to stay. How justly may he take up that complauit agauist us, as against the Jews : After all my promises, assurances, real performances of mercies, 'you will not come unto me that you might have life !' John v. 40. Perhaps, when we are weary of sin and sin of us, then let God take us; but he will none of the devil's leavings. Some would come but for some impediments ; that other child's portion to be made up, such a house to be buildcd, such a ground to be purchased. This same hut mai's their coming,

ISA. XXI. 11, 12.] THE gallant's BURDEN. .327

as he ill the gospel, hut for burjing his father ; and that other, hut for bidding his friends farewell: so, hut for ]\Iaminon, and that wc cannot be rich with a good conscience; hul for pleasures, that we cannot be wanton, yet nouri.sh the hope of salvation. But for these veruntamens, hutu, they would cunie, std vix sunt vuii, qui came renisl. Wc have all one hut, one exception or other, to keep us from Christ; yet Paul counts all these but dross, but dung. iVnd if anything seem fairer in thine eye than Christ, detur dl<jnloii, give thy soul to the worthier. We can extremely atiect no earthly thing, but the devil, at one time or other, will bring it into opposition with Christ, as the moon and the sun, to see which of them shall be eclipsed. Alas, how ordinary, yet how vile, is it postponere Christum hovihus, qui nos aquavit angdis, —to set Christ after oxen, that hath made us equal to the angels! Yet all those friends whom we so trust shall soonest fail us, and at our most need run from us, as vermin from a house on fire. Give me leave to shew you this indignity offered to Christ by a metaphor ; familiar comparisons give the quickest touch to both midcrstanding and conscience.

A certain gaUant had three friends: two of them iiattered him in his loose humours, if in this I may not rather call them enemies; the third lovingly dissuaded him from his follies. On the two flatterers he spent his jiatri-mony; the third he casts off with contempt. His riot and wealth gone, Ids friends went too, for they were friends to the riches, not to the rich man. Debt was required, he an'ested, arid the prison not to be avoided. In this calamity he studies refuge; hence he betluuks himself of his two friends, of whom lie desires relief. The first's answer is cold and short, ' AIjis ! I cannot spare it, you should have prevented this erst.' The other speaks a little more comfort, ' I have no money to help you, yet I wUl bear you company to the prison door, and there leave you.' The distressed man finds small satisfaction in all this ; therefore, as his last refuge, he calls to mind his third friend, w^hom he had ever scorned, wronged; and, after much wrestluig betwixt shame and necessity, he sends to him with no less earnestness than humility, discovers his exigents, requires help. The message scarce delivered, he comes with speed, pays the debt, sets him at liberty, nay, repairs the ruins of his estate. The rioter is man ; two flattering friends are riches and pleasures ; these the so\il of man embraceth, spends her strength and time, most precious riches, on them. The third friend, that rebukes Ins sins, is Christ; this, because distasteful to blood and flesh, without regard to his .saving-health, is rejected : at last, all the tune oi giace spent, the soul, so far in Cod's debt, is arrested by one of Cod's Serjeants—sickness, or calamity, »»r an ;ifllictcd con.science; then those friends begin to .slink. Tleiisure is gone suddenly, so soon as the head begins to ache, lliches, perhaps, will offer to go with him to the prison door, the gates of death, the preparation to the grave. The faulting sold, foreseeing their fidsehood, weakness, aggravation of his miseries, with du humbled heart, remorseful conscience, tears in his eyes, prayers and cries on his tongue, solicits his neglected Saviour to pity his distress, and have mercy upon huu. These mes-sengcrs have no sooner pierced tlie lu'a-vens, but down comes the Spirit of gi-ace and mercy, with pardon and free remission, payment of all debts, and discharge of all sorrows.

If ever you meet with friend more able, more willing, more certain, to do you good, reject this coun.sel: Ps. cxlvi.. The breath of men is in their nostrils, and there is no help in them, though they were prhices; when not only their material parts, flesh, blood, bones, and marrow, but even i)art of the inward man, so far as their worldly intendments went, ' thcii- thou;;Ut3 perisL'

But God was, is, and is to come; not only in power, but in mercy, sweetness, protection, 'Jesus Christ yesterday, and to-day, and tlie same for ever,' Heb. xiii. 8.

That Jesus Christ put into our mouths a tongue to inquire, into our hearts a purpose to return, into our lives a grace to come home to holiness and liiniself: this God grant for his mercy's sake, Jesus Christ for his merit's sake, the Holy Ghost for his name's sake ; to whom be ascribed uU honour and praise, for ever and ever! Amen.

THE SINNER'S PASSING-BELL;

OR,

A COMPLAINT FROM HEAVEN FOR MAN'S SINS.

Is there no halm in GUead; is there no physician there ? why then is not ihi', health of the daughter of my people recovered ? — Jer. VIII. 22.

This is a world to make physicians rich, if men loved not their purse better than their health. For the world waxeth old, and old age is weak and sickly. As when death begins to seize upon a man, his brain by Uttle and little groweth out of order, his mind becomes cloudy and truublod with fantasies, the channels of his blood and the radical moisture (the oil that feeds the lamp of his life) begm to dry up, all Ids limbs lose their former agility . as the little world tlms decays in the great, so the great decays in itself, that nature is fain to lean on the staff of art, and to be held up by man's industry. The signs which Christ hath given to forerun the world's ruin are called by a father," cegritudines mnndi, the diseases or sicknesses of the world ; as .sickness naturally goes before death. Wars dyeing the earth into a .siingniine hue, dead carcases infecting the airs, and the infected airs breathing out plagues and pestilences and sore contagions. Whereof, saith the siime father, nnUi inaijis quam nos tcdcs sumus, qiios rnnndi Jinis iuvenit, —none can be more certain witnesses than we, ' upon wIkjui the ends of the world are come.' That sometimes the influences of heaven spoil the fruits of the earth, and the fogs of earth soil the virtues of the heavenly bodies; that neither planets above, nor plants below, yield us expected comforts: so God, for our sins, bring.s the heaven, the earth, the air, and whatsoever was created for man's use, to be his enemy, and to war against him. And all because omnia qiiauid iisnm vilce accipwu(s,ad nsum vitii ro}n'cr(imHs,i —we turn all things to rorrui'tiou which were given for preservation. Therefore, what we have diverted to ■wickedness, God doth return upon us for revenge. We are .sick of sin, and therefore the world is sick of u.s.

Our lives shorten, a.s if the book of our days were, by God's knife «if judgment, cut less, and brought from folio, as in the patriarchs before the flood, to quarto in the fathers after the Hood; nay, to octavo, as with the * Ambros. t Clregor.

prophets of the law , nay, even to decimo-sexto, as with us in the days of the gospel. The elements are more mixed, drossy, and confused; the airs are infected; neither wants our intemperance to second all the rest. We hasten that we would not have, death; and run so to riot in the April of our early vanities, that our May shall not scape the fall of our leaf. Our great landlord hath let us a fair house, and we suffer it quickly to run to rum : that whereas the soul might dv^x'll in the body as a palace of delight, she finds it a crazy, sicldsh, rotten cottage, in danger, every gust, of dropping down.

How few shalt thou meet, if their tongues would be true to their griefs, without some disturbance or affliction! There lies one groaning of a sick heart , another shakes his aching head; a third roars for the torments of his reins; a fourth for the racking of his gouty joints; a fifth grovels with the falling sickness; a last lies half-dead of a palsy. Here is work for the physicians. They rufile in the robes of preferment, and ride in the foot-cloths of reverence. Early and devout suppliants stand at their study-doors, quaking, with ready money in their hands, and glad it will be accepted. The body, if it be sick, is content sometimes to buy U7iffuentum cereum, with iinrjuentum aureum, —leaden trash, with golden cash. But it is sick, and needs physic ; let it have it.

There is another physician, that thrives well too, if not best, and that is the lawyer. For men go not to the physician till their bodies be sick; but to the lawyer when they be well, to make them sick. Thus, whiles they fear an ague, they fall into a consumption. He that scapes his disease and falls into the hands of liis physicians, or from his trouble of suits lights into the fingers of his laAvyer, fulfils the old verse—

■ liicidit in Scyllam, dum vult vitare Charybdim;'

or is in the poor bird's case, that, flying in fear from the cuckoo, lighted into the talons of the hawk. These are a couple of thriving physicians. Alter•tuetar cegros, alter tuetur agros, —One looks to the state of the person, the other of the purse ; so the old verse testifies—

'Dafc Galenus opes, dat Justiuianus houoi-es;'—

Physic gives wealth, and law honour. I speak not against due reward for just deserts in both these professions.

These physicians are both in request: but the third, the physician of the soul, (of whom, I am now occasioned to shew, there is most need,) may st^and at the door with Homer, and, did he speak with the voice of angels, not to be admitted. The sick rich man lies patiently under his physician's hands; he gives him golden words, real thanks, nay, and often flattering observance. If the state lie sick of a consumption; or if some contentious empiric, by new suits, would lance the imposthumed swellings of it; or if, perhaps, it lie sullen-sick of Naboth's vineyard, the lawyer is, perchance, not sent for, but gone to, and his help implored, not without a royal sacrifice at least. But for the minister of his parish, if he may not have his head u)ider Ids gu'dle, and his attendance as servile as his livery-groom's, he thinks himself indigiii-fied, and rages, like the Pope, that any priest durst eat of his peacock. How short doth this physician's respect fall of both the others ! Let him ' feed his sheep,' John xxi. IG, if he Avill, with 'the milk of the word,' 1 Pet. ii. 2; his sheep will not feed him Avith the milk of reward. He shall hardly get from his patroii the milk of tlie vicarage ; but if he looks for the fleeces of the parsonage, ho shidl have, after the proverb, lanarn caprinam, contempt and scorn.

Haman was not more mad for JNIordecai's cap, Esther iiL :"), tlian the great one is, that as much observance ariseth not to him from the bhick coat aa from Lis own blue coat. The church is behohlen to him, tliat lie will tuni one of his cast servitors out of his own into her service; out of his chamber into the chancel; from the buttery-hatch to the pulpit. He that was not worthy enough to wait on his worship is good enough for Ciod. Yield this sore almost healed, yet the honour of the ministry thrives like trees in autumn. Even their best estimate is but a shadow, and that a preposterous one ; for it goes back faster than the shadow in the dial of Ahaz, Isa. xxrviii. 8. If a rich man have four sons, the youngest or contemnedst must be the priest. Perhaps the eldest shall be committed to his lands ; for if his lands should be comnaitted to him, his father fears he would carry them all up to London : he dares not venture it without binding it sure. For which purpose he makes his second son a lawyer : a good rising jirofession, for a man may by that (which I neither envy nor tax) run up, like Jonah's gcmrd, to preferment ; and for wealth, a cluster of law is worth a whole vintage of gospel. If he study means fur his third, lo, physic smells well; that, as the other may keep the estate from running, so this the body from ruining. For his youngest son he cares not, if he puts him into God's service, and makes him capable of the church-goods, though not pliable to the church's good. Thus having provided for the estate of his inheritance, of his advancement, of his carcase, he comes last to think of his conscience.

I would to God this were not too frequeiitly the world'.s ftishion. Whereas heretofore, j^^'^'^^ogeniti eo jure sacerdotes, —the first-boni had the right of priesthood,—now the yovmger son, if he be fit for nothiug else, lights upon that privilege: that, as a reverend divine saith, * Younger brothers are made priests, and priests are made younger brothers.' Yet, alas ! for all diseases nature provideth, art prepareth medicines. He is fed in this country, whom that refuseth. An estate lost by shii)wreck on sea, may be recovered by good-speed on land. And in ill-health, for every sore of the body there is a salve, for every malady a remed)% but for the conscience, nature hatli no cure, as lust no care. Ilei mild, quod nullis anima est medlcahilis licrhis, —There is no herb to heal the wounds of the soiU, thtmgh you take the whole world for the garden. All these professions are necessary, that men's ignorance might not prejudice them, either in wealth, health, or grace : God hath made men fit with qualities, and famous in their faculties, to preserve all these sound in us. The lawyer for thy wealth, the physicuin for thy health, the divine for thy soul. Physicians cure the body ; ministers the conscience.

The church of Israel is now exceeding sick ; and thercfi>re the more dangerously, because she knows it not. No physic is desired; therefore no health follows. She lies in a lethargy, and therefore speechless. She is so past sense of her weakness, that God himself is fain to ring her pa.ssing-bell. Aaron's beUs cannot sound loud enough to waken her; God tolls from heaven a sad knell of complaint for her.

It i.s, I tliink, a custom not unworthy of approbation, when a languishing Christian draws near his end, to toll a heavy bell for him. tSet a.sidc tlio prejudice of .superstition, and the ridiculous conceits of some old wives, whose wits arc more decrepit than their bodies, and I sec not why rea-sons may not be given to prove it, though not a necessary, yet an allowed ceremony :—

1. It puts into the sick man a sense of mortality; and llinugh many other objects should do no less, yet this seasonably performs it, If any particular flatterer, or other carnal friends, should use to him the susurration that Peter

did once to Clirist, ' jMaster, fiivour thyself: this shall not be unto thee,' !Matt. xvL 22 : though sickness lies on your bed, death shall not enter your chamber; the cvU day is far off, fear notliing; you shall live many years : or, as the devil to our grandmother, ' You shall not die,' Gen. iii. 4. Or if the May of his years shall persuade himself to the remoteness of his autumn. Or if the love of earthly pleasure shall deny him the leisure to think of death; as Epaminondas, general of the Theljans, understanding a captain of his army to be dead, exceedingly wondered how in a camp any should have so much leisure as to be sick. In a Avord, whatsoever may flatter him with hope of life, the bell, like an impartial friend, without either the too broad eyes of pity, or too narrow of partiality, sounds in his own cars his own weakness • and seems to tell him that, in the opinion of the Avorld, he is no man of the world. Thus, with a kind oi divinity, it gives him ghostly counsel: to remit the care of his carcase, and to admit the cure of his conscience. It tolls all in ; it shall toll thee into thy grave.

2. It excites the hearers to pray for the sick; and when can prayers be more acceptable, more comfortable? The faithful devotions of so many Christian neighbours, sent up as incense to heaven for thee, are very available to pacify an offended justice. This is St James's physic for the sick : chap. V. 14, 15, * The prayer of faith shall save the sick ; and the Lord shall raise him \xp : and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.' Now, though we be all servants of one ' family of God,' Eph. iii. 15, yet because of particular families on earth, and those so removed that one member cannot condole another's grief that it feels not,— 7i07i dolet cor, quod nan novit, —the bell, like a speedy messenger, runs from house to house, from ear to ear, on thy soul's errand, and begs the assistance of their prayers. Thy heart is thus incited to pray for thyself, others excited to pray for thee. He is a pharisee that desires not the prayers of the church; he is a publican that will not beseech God's mercy for the afflicted. Thy time and turn will come to starnd in need of the same succour, if a more sudden blast of judgment do not blow out thy candle. Make thy sick brother's case thine now, that the coiigTegation may make thine theirs hereafter. Be in this exigent even a friend to thine enemy, lest thou become like Babel, to be served of others ' as thou hast served others;' or at least, at best, in falling Nero's case, that cried, ' I have neither friend nor enemy.'

3. As the bell hath often rung thee into the temple on earth, so now it rings thee unto the church in heaven; from the militant to the triumphant place; from thy pilgrimage to thy home ', from thy peregrination to the standing court of God. To omit many other significant helps, enough to justity it a laudable ceremony, it doth, as it were, mourn for thy sins, and hath compassion on thy passion. Though in itself a dumb nature, yet as God hath made it a creature, the church an instrument, and art given it a tongue, it speaks to thee to speak to God for thyself ; it speaks to others, that they would not be wanting.

Israel is sick, no bell stirs; no balm is thought of, no prophet consulted, not God himself solicited. Hence, behold, a complaint from heaven, a knell from above the clouds; for though the words sound through the prophet's lips, who tolls like a passing-bell for Israel, yet they come from the mouth of the Lord of hosts. The prciphet Ezekiel uscth lilce words, and adds with them, * The Lord of hosts saith it,' chap, xviii. It is certain that the prophet Jeremiah speaks here many things in his own person, and some in the person of God. Now, ])y comparing it with other like speeches in the prophets, these words sound m i'rom a merciful and compassionate Maker:

* Why is not the health of my people recovered?' Mel pnpu/1, ?xni\i Cod, who indeed might lUonc speak positively. Mine; for he had chosen and culled them out of the whole world to be his people. ' Why arc not my pco[)le recovered?' There is balm, and there are physicians, as in Isaiah : ' What could I have done more for my vineyard i ' chap. v.

The words are divided to our hands by a rule of three. A tripartite metaphor, that willingly spreads itself into an allegory :—1. God's word is the balm; 2. The prophets are the physicians; 3. The people arc the patients, who are very sick. Balm without a physician, a physician without balm, a patient without both, is iiij'uv.xtd separati", an unhappy disjunction. If a man be ill, there is need of physic; when he hath physic, he needs a physician to apply it. So that, here is misery in being sick, mercy in the physic.

Not to disjoin or disjoint the prophet's order, let us observe, the words arc spoken—1. In the person of God ; 2. In the form of a question ; 3. By a conclusive inference. Only two things I woidd fir-st generally observe to you, as necessary inductions to the subsetpient doctrines; both which may naturally be inferred, not tyramiously ciiforced, from the words. That which Jlrst objects itself to our consideration, is the wisdom of God in working on men's affections; which leads us here from natural wants, subject to sense, to invisible and more secret defects. That, as if any man admired Solomon'.s house, they would be ravished in desire to sec God's house, which transcended the former so much as the former transcended their expectations: .so here we might be led frona man's work to God's work, from tilings material to things mystical; and, by the happiness of cure to our sick bodies, be induced to seek and get recovery of our dyhig souls. The second is, the lit collation of divinity and physic; the one undertaking to preserve and restore the health of the body, the other performing much more to the soul.

Obs. 1.—God leads us by sensible, to the sight of insensible wants; by calamities that vex our living bodies, to perils that endanger our dying consciences ; that we might infer upon his premises what would be an eternal loss, by the sight of a temporal cross that is so hardly brooked. If a ' famine of bread' be so heavy, how unsupportablc is the dearth of the word ! s;iith the prophet, Amos viii. 11. j\Ian may live without bread, not without the word. Matt. iv. 4. If a weary traveller be so unable to bear a burden on hi.s shoulders, how ponderous is shi in the conscience ! !Matt. xi. 28: which Zcchariah calls ' a talent of lead,' chap. v. 7. If blindness be such a misery, what is ignorance ! If the night be so imcomfortable, what doth the darkness of superstition afford ! If bodily disease so afUict our .sense, how intolerable wiU a spiritual sickness prove ! Thus all earthly and inferior objects to a Christian soul are lilce marginal hands, directuig his reading to a better and heavenly reference. I intend to urge this point the more, as it is more necessary, both for the prolit of it being well observed, and for the general neglect of it; because they arc few in these day.s that reduce Christianity to meditation, but fewer that produce meditation to practice and obedience.

Diseases, proceeding toward death as theii- end, perplex the flesh with much pain; but if diseases, which be death's capital chirurg<'ons, his preceding heralds to proclaim his nearness, his ledgers tiiat usurp his place till himself conies, be so vexatious and fuU tjf angui.sh, what is death in itself, which kills the diseases that killed us ! J-'or the perfection of sickncs.s is death. But, alas ! if the sickness and death of the body be .such, what are sin (the sickness) and impcniteucy (the death) of the soul! What is the

dimmed eye to the darkened understanding! the infected members, to the poisoned affections ! the torment of the reins, to the stitches, girds, and gripes of an aching conscience ! What is the child's Caput dolet, ' Isly head aches,' to Jerusalem's Cor dolet, My heart aches ! For the soul to leave the body with her offices of life, is not so grievous as for God's Spirit to re-Unquish the soul with the comforts of grace. In a word, it is far less miserable to give up the ghost than to give up the Holy Ghost. The soul, that enters the body without any sensible pleasure, departs not from it without extreme pain. He that is Animcms animas, the Soul of our souls, forsakes not our spirits, but our pain is more, though our sense be less; as in the wars, the cut of a sword crossing the fibres carries more smart with it, though less mortahty, than the fatal charge of a death-thundering cannon. The soul hath t\vo places : an inferior, which it ruleth, the body; a superior, wherein it rcsteth, God. Man's greatest sorrow is, when he dies upwardly, that God forsakes his God-forsaking soul; his greatest sense, when he dies downwards, and sickness disperseth and despatcheth his vital powers. Let, then, the inferior suffering waken us, to feel the inferior that doth weaken us.

Thus God draws our eyes from one object to another,—nay, by one to another,—by that which we love on earth, to that which we should love in heaven : by the providence of our bodies, to the provision for our souls. So our Saviour, having discoursed of carefulness for terrene things, draws his speech to the persuasion of celestial benefits j giving the coherence with a hut: Matt. vi. 33, ' But first seek ye the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these inferior things shall be added unto you:' ttt ad excel-lentiam divinaruin reruiti per corporalia homines attollat, —that at once he might lesson us to holy duties, and lessen our care for earthly things. Thus, qui OS homini sublime dedit, cor sublimius elevare voluit, —he that gave man a countenance lifted high, meant to erect his thoughts to a higher contemplation. For many have such grovelling and earth-creeping affections, that if their bodies' curvity was answerable to their souls', incederent quadrupedes, they woidd become four-footed beasts. It is a course preposterous to God's creation, disproportionable to man's fabric, that he should fix his eyes, and thoughts, and desires, on the base earth, made for Ms feet to stand on; and turn his feet against heaven in contempt, ' lifting up his heel against God.' He whose ill-balancing judgment thinks heaven light, and earth only wciglity end worthy, doth, as it were, walk on his head, with his heels upward. I have heard travellers speak of monstrous and preternatural men, but never any so contranatural as these.

Christ knew, in the days of his flesh, what easy q,pprehension worldly things would find in us; what hard impression heavenly would find on us : therefore, so often by plain comparisons he taught secret doctrines ; by histories, mysteries. How, to the life, doth he explain the mercy of God, and the misery of man, in the lost sheep, in the lost groat, in the lost son ! Luke XV. How sweetly doth he describe the different hearers of God's oracles in the parable of the seed ! Matt. xiii.; which howsoever it seemed a riddle to the self-blinding Jews, yet was a familiar demonstration to the believing saints. So the prophets found that actual applications pierced more than verbal explications. Nathan, by an instance of supposition, wrought David's heart to a humble confession. He drew the proposition from his own lip.s, 'The man that hath done tliis is worthy of death;' and then struck Avliile the iron was liot, by an inferred conclusion, ' Thou art the man,' 2 Sam. xii. 7. The proi>het Aliijah rent the new garment of Jeroboam in twelve pieces, and bade him reserve ten to himself, in sign ' that God had rent the king-

(lorn out of the hand of Solomon,' and given ten tribes to liim, 1 Kiiii^s xi. ;iO, Isaiah, by going 'naked and barefoot,' as by a visiljlu sign, lo»s<ins I'^gypt and Etliiopia that after tliis manner they should go captive to Assyria, Isa. XX. 3. Jeremiah, by wearing 'bands and yokes,' iind sending them to the kings of Edom, Moab, Amnion, Tyre, Sidon, .JucUih, gives them an actual representation, a visible sacrament of their Babylonish cai)tivity, Jer. xxni. 1. Ezekiel's portraying upon a tile the city Jerusalem, and the siege against it, is called by God ' a sign against them,' Ezck, iv. 1. Agabus ' took I'aul's girdle, and bound his own hands and feet:' a sign, and that from tlir Jloly Ghost, that ' he who owned the girdle should be so bound at Jerusidem, and delivered into the hands of the Gentiles,' Acts xxi. 11. God schooled Jonah in the gourd, by a Lively apophthegm, and real subjection to his own eyes, of his luijust impatience against God and Nineveh, Jonah iv.

It was God's usual dealing with Israel, by the afHietions wherewith he grieved them, to put into their minds how they had grieved him by their sms. So Paul, as our prophet here, ' For this cause ye are weak, sickly, and many die,' 1 Cor. xi. 30; drawhig them by these sensible cords of their plagues to the feeling of their sins, which made their souls faint in grace, sick in sin, dead in apostasy. ' For this cause,' (fee. This doctrine atibrds a double use—particiUar and general; particular to ministers, general to sdl Christians.

Use 1.—To the dispensers of God's secrets. It allows them in borrowed forms to express the meditations of their hearts. God hath given us this liberty in the periormance of our callings, not only nakedly to lay down the truth, but with the helps of invention, wit, ;ut, to prevent the loathing of his manna. K we had none to hear us but Cornelius or Lydia, or such sanctilied ears, a mere affirmation were a sufficient confirmation. But our auditt)rs arc. like the Belgic armies, that consist of French, English, Scotch, Gennan, Spanish, Italian, &c.; so many hearers, so many humours, the same diver-.sity of men and minds : that as guests at a strange dish, every man hath a relish by himself; that all our helps can scarce help one soul to heaven. But of all kjiids, there is none that creeps with better insinuation, or leaves behind it a deeper impres.sioii in the conscience, than a fit comparison. This extorted from David what would hardly have been granted : that as David slew Goliath with his own sword, so Nathan slew David's sui with his own word. Jotham convinced the Shechemites' folly in their approved reign of-Abimelech over them, by the tale of the bramble. Judges ix. 8. Even temporal occasions open the mines to dig out siuritual instructions. The jieojik^ tiock to Christ for his bread; Christ proacheth to them another bread, whereof ' he that eats, shall never die,' John vi. 47. The Samaritan woman speaks to him of Jacob's well; ho tells her of Jcsus's well, John iv., who.so bottom or foundation was in heaven, whose mouth and spring downwards to the earth, cross to all earthly fountains, containing 'water of life,' to be drawn and canied away in the buckets of faith. She thought it a new well, she found it a true well; whereof drinking, her soul's thirst was for ever satisfied. The crijiplc begs f<jr an alms; the Apostle hath no money, but answers his small request with a great bequest—health ' in the name of the Lord Jesus,' Acts iii. <J. Nihil addilnr vuirmpio, muUiim suhKi. His purse is nothing the fuller, his body is much the happier. This cour.'^o, you sec, both Christ and his apo.stles gave us in practice and precept.

In practice. When the woman 'blessed the womb that bare Christ, and the paps which gave him suck,' Luke xi. 27, he derived hence occasion to bless them which conceive him in their faith, and receive him in their obedi-

cncc : ' Blessed arc tlicy that hear the word of God and keep it.' Even as Mary herself was rather blessed percipiendo fidem, quam concipiendo carnem Chrisli, in receiving the faith, than conceiving the flesh of Christ; so the news of his kindred in the flesh ' standing at the door,' taught him to teach who are his true kindred in the Spirit.

In precept to his apostles. If they will not receive and believe you, ' wipe off the dust of their city,' that cleaveth to your feet, ' against them,' Luke X. 11. If they will not be moved with your words, amaze them with your wonders : ' Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils,' Matt. x. 8. We cannot now work miracles, yet we can speak of miracles. Even we must also, as obey his documents, so observe his doings; and follow him in due measure, both in his words and works, though non passi-hus cequis, not with equal steps. Our imitation must be with limitation; aptly distinguishing Avhat we must only admire in our minds, what admit in our manners.

Use 2. —To all Christians; that we climb up by the stairs of these inferior creatures, to contemplate the glorious power of the Creator. A good Christian, that like the bee works honey from every flower, suffers no action, demonstration, event, to slip by him without a question. All objects to a meditating Solomon are like wings to rear and mount up his thoughts to heaven. As the old Romans, when they saw the blue stones, thought of Olympus; so let every object, though low in itself, elevate our minds to Mount Zion. A mean scaffold may serve to raise up a goodly building. Courtiers weather-driven into a poor cottage, etiam, in caula, de aula loqu-imtiir, gather hence opportunity to praise the court. We may no less, even ex hara, de ara dicendi ansam sumere, from our tabernacles on earth be induced to praise our standing house in heaven, John xiv. 2. So, as the philosopher aimed at the ])itch and stature of Hercules, by viewing the length of the print of his foot, we may, by the base and dwarfish pleasures on our earth, guess at the high and noble joys in heaven. How can we cast up our eyes to that they were made to behold, and not suffer our minds to transcend it; passing through the lower heaven, which God made for fovls, vapours, meteors, to the firmament wherein he fixed his stars, and thence meditating of the empyreal heaven, which he created for himself, his angels, his saints : a place no less glorious above the visible, than the visible is above the earth ! Read in every star, and let the moon be your candle to do it, the provident disposition of God, the eternity of your after-life.

But if earth be at once nearer to yoiir standing and understanding ; and, like dissembling lovers, that, to avoid suspicion, divert their eyes from that cheek whereon they have fixed their hearts ; so you look one way and love another, heaven having your countenance, earth your confidence : then for earth, read this instruction in all things, the certain destruction of all things. For if the ratified and azure body of this lower heaven be folded up like a scroll of parchment, then much more this drossy, feculent, and sedimental earth shall be burnt.

' Uret cum terris, iiret cum gurgite pouti. Communis mundo superest rogus,' &c.

* The heavens shall pass away witli a noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also and the works that are therein shall bo burnt up,' 2 Pet. iii. 10. At least quoad Jiguravi, though not quoad ■nuturam. The form shall be changed, thougii not tlie nature abolished. Every creature on earth may teach us the fallibility of it. It is a hieroglyphic of

vanity and mutability. There is iiuthiiig on it that is of it, which is not become more vitial than vital, la all the corrujited parts of this decrepit and doting world, men's best lesson of morality is a lesson of mortality. As it was once said, Felix qui pot nit renuii cogni-scere causas; so now better, Felix qui potent rerum coynoscere casu^s, —It is good to know the causal beginnings of things; it is better to know their casual ends. It is good to be a natural philosopher, but better to be a supernatural, a Christian philosopher ; that whiles we iutcntively observe the creature, we may attentively serve the Creator.

That which is said of pregnant wits is more true of Christian hearts, that they can make use of anything. As travellers in foreign countries make every slight object a lesson, so let us thrive in grace by every presented work of nature. As the eye must see, and the foot walk, and the hand work, so the heart must consider. What ? God's doings, which ' are marvellous in our' (understandings')' eyes,' Ps. cxviii. 23. Grod looked upon his own works, saw they were good, and delighted in them; sure it is his pleasure also that we should look upon them, to admire his wisdom, power, providence, mercy, appearing both in their nature and their disposition. The least of God's works is worthy the observation of the greatest angel. Now what truants are we, that having so many tutors reading to us, learn nothing of them 1 The heathen were condemned for not learning ' the invisible things of God' from his ' visible works,' Kom. i. 20. For shall we still plod on the great volume of God's works, and never learn to spell one word of use, of instruction, of comfort to ourselves 1 Can we behold nothing through the spectacles of contemplation 1 Or shall we be ever reading the great book of nature, and never translate it to the book of grace ? The saints did thus. So have I read, that a reverend preacher sitting among other divines, and hearing a sweet concert of music, as if his soul had been borne up to heaveif, took occasion to think and speak thus : ' What music may we think there is in heaven !' A friend of mine, viewing attentively the great pomp and state of court, on a solemn day, spake not without some admiration : ' What shall we think of the glory in the court of God!' Happy object, and well observed, that betters the soul in grace ! But I have been prolLv in this point; let the brevity of the next requite it.

Ois. 2.—Physic and divinity are professions of a near affinity, both intending the cure and recovery, one of our bodies, the other and better, of our souls. Not that I would have them conjtnned in one person; as one spake merrily of him that was both a physician and a minister, that whom he took money to kill by his physic, he had also money again to bury by his priesthood. Neither, if God hath poured both these gifts hito one man, do I censure their union, or persuade their separation. Only, let the hound that runs after two hares at once take heed lost he catch neither : Ad duo qui tendit, non unum, nee duo prendit. And let him that is called into God's vineyard, hoc agere, ' attend on his ofhcc,' Rom. xii. 0-8. Ami beware, lest to keep hLs parish on sound legs, he let them walk with sickly consciences : whiles Galen and Avicen take the wall of Paul and Peter. I do not here tax, but rather praise, the works of mercy in those ministers that give all possible comforts to the distreased bodies of their brethren.

Let the professions be hetrrogeiieu, different in their kuids; only respon-^ deiitia, Hemhhihlo in their proooedings. The Lord ' created tlie pliysician,' so hath he 'ordained the minister,' Kjih. iv. 11. The Lord hath put into him the knowledge of nature, into this the knowledge of grace. All knowledge is derived from the fountain of God's wisdom. The Lord ' hath created Vf L. 1. . . •

medicines out of the earth,' Ecchis. xxxviii. 4; the Lord hath inspired his holy word from heaven, 2 Pet. i. 21. The good physician acts the part of the divine : ' They shall pray unto the Lord, that he would prosper that which the}''give, for ease and remedy to prolong life,' Ecclus. xxxviii. 14; the good minister, after a sort, is a physician. Only it is enough for the Son of God to give both natural and spiritual physic. But as Plato spake of philosophy, that it covers the imitations of God, within the limits of possibility and,sobriety; so we may say of physic, it is conterminate to di\dnity, so far as a handmaid may follow her mistress. The institutions of both preserve the constitutions of men. The one would prevent the obstructions of our bodies, the other the destructions of our souls. Both purge our feculent corruptions; both would restore us to our primary and original health : though by reason of our impotency and indisposition, both often fail. Both oppose themselves against death, either our corporal or spiritual perishing.

When ' the Spirit of God moved on the waters,' and from that indigested and confused mixture, did by a kind of alchymical extraction, sublimation, conjunction, put all things into a sweet consort and harmonious beauty, he did act a physician's part. God is in many places a physician: Exod. xv. 26, ' I am the Lord that healeth thee;' Deut. xxxii. 39, ' I kill, I make alive; I wound, and I heal;' Jer. xvii. 14, 'Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved.' Sometimes he is as a surgeon, ' to bind up the sores of the broken-hearted,' and to stanch the bleeding wounds of the conscience. Nay, David entreats him ' to put his bones in course again.' So Christ hath sent his ministers, sig KaTaoriSfx^ov, adcoanmentationem, as Beza reads it, ' to put m joint the luxate members of the church, that are compacted by joints,' Eph. iv. 12-16. And in the period or full stop of time, God will minister to the world the physic of fire, to purge the sick body of it, as he once gave it a potion of water to cleanse it.

* Quas olim intulerant terris contagia sordes,

Vos olim ultrices ablueratis aqua;. At nunc, cum terras, cum totas aequoris uudas

Polluerit majua quam fuit ante, scelus : Quid superest, ccelo nisi missus ut ignis ab alto,

Ipsas cum terris, devoret ultor aquas?'*—

'Once in God's sight the world so filthy stood, Tliat he did wash and soak it in a flood : But now it's gi-own so foul and full of mire. Nothing remains to purge it but a fire.'

Which Strabo, writing on the world's destruction by fire, would seem to gather from those two colours in the rainbow, ccernleo et y/neo, blue and red. The first cataclysm, of water, is past; the second deluge, of fire, is to come. So saith the apostle : 'The heavens being ou fire shall be dissolved; the elements shall melt with fervent heat,' 2 Pet. iii. 12. Novmn qualitafem induent manente suhstantia,f —All earthly things shall wax old and die ; 7)iors etiam saxis nommibusque venit, —but the substance shall remain. It is but the ' fashion of this world that passeth aAvay:' (s-)(j\(j.a, Jigiira, non natura. When all the putrified^'c^ces, dross and combustible matter, shall be refined in the fire, all things shall be reduced to a crystalline clearness. Thus, though the heathen profanely made the physician a god, yet the Christian may say truly, ' Our God is become our physician.' And his ministers are his deputies under him, bringing in their lips the saving medicines that God hath given them.

* Beza. f Calvin iu loc. prseced.

You see the willing similitnde of these professions. Indeed, the physician cannot so aptly and ably challenge or make bold with the minister's office, as the minister may with his. The clergyman may mini.stcr medicines ; the physician may not administer the .sacraments. It is true thus far. Every Cliris-tian is a priest to otier up prayers for liunself and the whole church, although not publicly and ministerially ; and none but a Cain will deny himself to be his ' brother's keeper.' Though exhortation be the minister's duty, yet ' exhort one another daUy,' Heb. iii. 13. And if we ' serve one anotlier in love,' we must carry, every one, a converting ministry, though God alone have the converting power : ' Turn one another, and live,' Ezek. xviii. 32. Now as this converting work is a convertible work,—I mean, reciprocal and mutual from one to another,—the physician may apportion to himself a great share in it. Who may better speak to the soul than he that is trusted with the body ? Or when can the stamp of grace take so easy impression in man's lieart, as when the heat of God's affliction hath melted it ? What breast is unvulne-rable to the strokes of death i The miserable carcase hath, then or never, a penetrable conscience.

This conscience is so deafed in the days of our jollity, •with the loud noise of music, oaths, carousiugs, clamours, quarrels, sports, that it camiot hear the prophet's cry, 'All tiesh is grass.' When sickness hath thrown him on the bed of anguish, and made his stomach too quea.sy for quaft's, too tine and dainty for even junkets; naked him of his silk.s, paled his cheeks, sunk his eyes, chilled his blood, and stunted all his vigorous spirits ; the physician is sent for, and must scarce be let out, when the minister may not be let in. His presence is too dull, and full of melancholy ; no messenger shall come for him, till his conung be too late. How justly, then, should the jjhysician be a divine, when the divine may not be a physician ! How well may he mingle recipe and resipisce, penitential exhortations with his medicinal applications and prescripts !

Thus memorable and worthy to be our precedent was that Italian physician's course : that when dissolute Ludovicus lay desolate in his sickness, and desired his help, he answered him in his own tune : ' If you shall live, you shall live, though no physic be given you : if you shall die, you shall die ; physic cannot help you.' According to the .sick man's libertine and heretical opinion concerning predestination : ' If I shall be saved, I shall be saved, howsoever I love or live : if I shall be damned, I shall be damned, howsoever I do or die.' The physician's an.swer gave him demonstrative conviction, taught him the use of means, as well for his .soul's as body's health, and so cured recanting Ludovicus of both his dise;ises at once. A godly practice, worthy the best physician's imitation.

But with many, ' grace waits at the heels of nature ;' and they dive so deep into the secrets of philosophy, that they never look up to the mysteries of divinity. As some mathematicians deal so much in Jacob's staff, that they forget Jacob's ladder ; so some physicians,—God decrease the number !—are so deep naturalists, that they are very shallow Christians. The best cure dei)ends upon God's care. It is poor and enervate help to which (iod's blessing hath jiot added strengi;h. If God doth not ' hear the heavens' for virtue, and 'heaven hear the earth' for influence, Hos. ii. 21, and earth the physician for ingredients, all their receipts arc but deceits, and the paper of their bills will do as much good as the prescripts in it. Simples are but simple things, and all compounds idle, when they want the best ingredient of God'a blessing. Let Plato, then, hold the candle to .Moses, and all phy.sicians drink at the well of the sons of the prophets. As their purpose aimeth ut our

liealtlis, so let tliem entreat God to level their hands; their direction and success stands ' in the name of the Lord of hosts.'

Obs. 3.—The form of the words is interrogatory : ' Is there no balm at Gilead 1 are there no physicians there V It is most true : balm is not scarce, nor are the physicians few, yet Israel is sick. God doth convince that by a question which might be without question affirmed, but would not be without question granted. The best insinuation or piercing assertion is ex intei'rogando, by way of question ; not only for explication, but for application, of truth. God doth as it were appeal to mans conscience, and fetch evidence from the impartial testimony of his heart; that here, what is true in God's reprehension, may appear true in man's apprehension. The first word that God spake to man after his fall was a question : ' Adam,' uhi es ? 'where art thou]' Gen. iii. 9. He contmues the same formam loquendi, normam arguencU, —form and method of speech : ' Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof,' &c., ver. 11. And to the woman : ' What is this that thou hast done ]' ver. 13. Before man fell to sin, God fell not to questioning. All his speeches were to him either commendatory or commandatory : approbationis, non exprobrationis, verba, —words of approval, not of exception. He createth, ordereth, blesseth man, and all things to him; but when man fell to sliding, God fell to chiding. Because man turned his heart to another object, God turned his voice to another accent.

God's questions are not of the nature of man's, the effects and helps of dubitation, according to the saying, 'Aircs/a /xrsrrjp ^rjryjgiMs, —Doubting is the mother of questioning. He that doubteth not will not ask. No ; God's demands are not to satisfy himself, but us : illations upon our actions; that from the proposition of our sins, and the assumption of his questions, we may conclude against ourselves, as David, ' I have sinned.' Neither can we give solution to his interrogatories. ' Who dares, who can answer God ? He is -not as man,' saith Job, ' that I should answer him,' chap. Lx. 2-14. The intent is, then, to justify himself; to put into our conscience a sense, a science of our own iniquities. God so apposed Jonah : ' Doest thou well to be angry V And again, ' Doest thou well to be angry for a gourd V Art thou discontent for so contemptible a thing, a poor vegetative creature ; and do-st thou grudge my mercy to so many rational creatures, brethren of thine own flesh ? God's question was a manifest conviction, as strong as a thousand proofs. Jonah sees his face in this little spring, as if he had stood by a full river.

Christ, that had the best method of teaching, and could make hearts of flint penetrable, moved his disciples' minds, removed his adversaries' doubts, frequently by questi(jns. He starts Peter, that Avas forgetful of his God, of himself, with a Quid, donnis 1 —What ! sleepcst thou ? He rectified the mistaking judgments of his a])ostles, that turned his spiritual dchortation from the ' rharisees' leaven' to the literal sense of forgotten bread, with a double demand : Obliti ne estis ? tkc,—' Do ye not yet understand, nor remember the five loaves of the five thousand?' &c.. Matt. xvi. 9, 10. Could so miraculous a banquet as quickly slip from your minds as it did from your mouths 1 So he informed their understandings concerning himself, which so much concerned them to know, ' Whom do men say that I am?" ver. 13. All which implied not his own ignorance, but helped their knowledge. He knew all things, and hereof he could no less be ignorant than of himself. Only he spake in a,catechising form, as the minister's question succour■; the catecliist's understanding. 1 lis reproofs to his enemies were often clothed

in these interrogatory robes: ' How say tbcy tliat Christ is David's son V Lnke xx. 41, 'when David himself calleth him Lord f confuting that false opinion that the ,Je\v.s had of their Messiah, wliose temporal nmiKuehy they only gaped for. K he was only to be the son of David in the tlcsh, how doth lie call him Lord, and equal him with the Fatlur ? A questi(»n tiiat did enforce the conclusion himself desired, and a confutation of their errors. The like, ver. 4; he cramped their critical and hypocritical exceptions with a question : ' The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men ( ' which confuted their arrogance, though they would have salved it with i:j;norance, ver. 7, ' We cannot tell.' Tiiis manner of discussing is not more usual with (Jod than effectual. It converteth the elect, it convinccth the reprobate. Wheresoever it is directed, it pierceth like a goad, and is a sharp stroke to the conscience ; and howsoever the smart is neglected, it leaveth a print behind it.

Obs. 4.—If we take the words spoken in the person of God, they manifest his complaint against Israel. When God complains, sin is grievous. We never read God breaking forth into this compassionate form of speech, but iniquity is grown proud of her height. She nestles among the cedars, and towers like Babel, when he that can thunder it down with fire, doth as it wxre rain showers of complaint for it. It argues no less goodness in the fiither, than wickedness in the children, when he doth plain that can plague ; and breathes out the air of pity before he sends the storm of judgment. So you may see a long-provoked father, that after many eludings lost upt)n his son, after some gentle chastisements inflicted, and intended to his calling home, he finds his errors growing wilder, his affections madder, his heart more senseless, his courses more sensual; he stands even deploring his wretchedness, that could not amend his wickedness : and whiles justice and mercy strive for mastery, as loath that his lenity should wrong his integrity, or yet that he should be as an executioner to him whom he had begotten to be an executor to himself, he breaks out into complaint. With no less pity, nay, with far greater mercy, doth God proceed to execute his judgments : unwilling to strike hard, for his mercy; yet willing not to double his blow, but to lay it on sure at once, for our sins and his own justice. Or, as some compassionate judge, that must censure, by the law of his country, a heretic, strives first with arguments of reason to convert him, that arguments of iron and steel may not be used against him ; and studying his refractory disposition, culpable of his own death, by wilfully not being capaVile of good counsel, proceeds, not without plaints and tears, to his sentence. So doth the most ju.st God of heaven with the most luijust sons of men ; pleading by reasons of gentle and gracious forbearance, and offering the sweet conditions of happy peace, and, as it were, wailing our refusal before he ' shoot his arrows and consume us,' or ' make his sword drunk with our blood.s.'

God hath armies of stars in the sky, meteors in the air, beasts on the earth, yea, of angels in heaven ; greater hosts and less : and whether he sends a great army of his little ones, or a little of his great ones, he can easily and quickly despatch u.s. Lo, he stays till he hath spoken with us ; and that rather by po.stidation than expostulation. He is not contumeUous against us, that have been contumacious against him. If his words can work us to his will, he will spare his blows. He hath as little delight in smiting as we in suffering ; nay, he suffers with us, condoling our estate as if it were, which caimot be, his own. ' For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,' Heb. iv. 1.'). He feels the griefs of his church : the head aches when the members siilTcr. I'ersccutors strike Christ through Christiana' sides. Saul strikes at Damascu.s, Chri.st.

Jesus suffers in heaven. Mediately he is smitten, whiles the blows immediately light on us. He could not, ' in that day of his flesh,' forbear bitter tears at Jerusalem's present sin and future judgment. How grievous is our iniquity, how gracious his longanimity! He that weeps for our aversion passionately, desires our conversion unfeignedly. How pathetically he per-suadeth his church's reformation : ' Return, return, O Shulamite ! return, return!' Cant. vi. 12. How lamentingly deplores he Jerusalem's devastation : ' If thou hadst known, at least in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace !' Luke xix. 42. Let us not think liim like either of those mimics, the player or the hypocrite, (who truly act the j)art one of another, but hardly either of an honest man,) that can command tears in sport. When Christ laments the state either of our sins or ourselves, he shews that one is at the height of rising, the other near casting down. Christ's double sigh over Jerusalem is, as I may say, fetched and derived from those double woes of hers : the immeasurable sin, ' that killest the prophets;' the tmavoidable judgment, ' thy house is left unto thee desolate,' Matt, xxiii. 37. Ingentia benejicia, ingentia 2)eccata, ingentes poence, —Great benefits abused occasion great sins, and great sins are the forerunners of great plagues. Gaudet Deus in misericordia sua, dolet in miseria nostra, —He rejoiceth in his own goodness, he grieveth at our wretchedness.

Horrid and to be trembled at are the sins that bring heaviness into the courts of happiness, and send grievance to the very thresholds of joy. That whereas angels and cherubims, the celestial choristers, make music before the throne of God for the ' conversion of one sinner,' Luke xv. 10,—of one ! what would they do at the effectual success of such a sermon as Peter preached ? —they do, if I may speak, grieve and mourn at the aversion of our souls, so hopeful and likely to be brought to heaven, and at the aspiration of our climbing sins.

But it may be questioned how God can be said to grieve, to complain, to be sorrowful for us. True it is that there is no passion in God. He that sits in heaven hath all pleasure and content in himself What is here spoken, is for our sakes spoken. He dwelleth in such brightness of glory as never mortal foot could approach unto ; the sight of his face is to us on earth insufferable ; the comprehension of the mvisible things in the Deity impossible. Therefore, to give some aim and conjecture to us what he is, he appears, as it were, transfigured into the likeness of our nature, and in our own familiar terms speaketh to our shallow understandings: hominem alloquens humano more loquitur, —as an old man speaking to a child frames his voice in a childish accent. Before a great vessel that is full, can pour liquor from itself into a little empty pot that stands under it, it must stoop and decline itself. Thus he descends to our capacities ; and that man may know him in some measure, he will be known as man. Sometimes by bodily members—eyes, ears, hands, feet. Sometimes by spiritual affections—anger, sorrow, jealousy, repentance. By which he signifies, not what he is indeed, but what is needful for us to know of him. For being well acquainted with the use, office, and effect of these natural things in ourselves, we may the better guess at the knowledge of that God to whom we hear them ascribed. All Avhich he hath per fignram, non naturain. Anger's effect in us is revenge. Nothing pleaseth a furious man's nature but wreaking himself on his provoker. The passion is anger, the effect revenge. Whiles God gives the second, we ascribe to him the first; and call that in him torath, which properly is his Btnking justice.

Complaints are the witness of a grieved soul : both are sufferings. God

is here said to complain. Why? he is giieved at our sins. Can he ho grieved indeed? No; uor need he complain that hath such power to right himself. Yet he is often said to be grieved,—' Grieve not the Spirit of God, by whom you are sc;ded uj) to the day of redemption," JOph. iv. 30,—and here, to complain. To speak properly, God cannot complain, because ho cannot be grieved. He cannot be grieved, because he cannot sutler. Eveiy blow of ours, though we were as .strong and high as the sons of Anak, lights short of him. If some could have reached him, it had gone ill with him long ere this. All is spoken per avO^c^jTO'zadiiav. He is sine ira irascens, iine ■poenitentia poemtens, sine dolore dolens, —angry without anger, grieving without sorrow. These passions are ascribed to him, ijiioad ejf'cctnm, mm <iHO(id affectum. They are perfections in liim, what are (iff'ertions in us. The complaint that once God made against a whole world, a.s he here doth against Israel, is expressed in more plain and significant terms : Gen. iv. G, ' It repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.' God so complains against man's sin, that he is sorry that ho made him. This, saith Augustine,* no)i est pertnrhatio, sed judicium, f/uo irrogatur pofna, —It is no disturbance in God, but only his judgment, whereby he inflicts punishment. And further, P<enitndo Dei est mutandoruni immutabilis ratio, —God's repentance is his unchangeable disposition, in things of a changeable condition. It is mutatio rei, non Dei, —the change of tlie thing, not of God. Cum ii quos curat mutantur, mutat ipse res, prout iis expedit, quos curat,\ —He willeth an expedient alteration of things, according to the alteration of them for whom he provides. So God is .said to ' rcitent that he made Saul king,' or that he threatened evil to Nineveh. In all which he changed, non affectum, sed pff'ectum, the external work, not his internal counsel. For as the school speaks, immutahiliter ir/noscit, he lui-changeably pardons whom he means to save, though they feel it not till conversion ; so immutabiliter non irjnoscit, he unchangeably retains their sins in his judgment-book which amend not, as Saul.

The nature of repentance is sorrow : the effect of repentance is the abrogation of something determined, or undoing, if it be possible, of sonie-thhig done. Repentance is not in God, in regard of the original nature «>f it,—he cannot sorrow,—but is, in respect of the eventual fruit, when he destroys that world of people he had made. Not that his heart was grieved, but his hands : his justice and power undid it. Aliud est inutare votnutatem, aliiid velle mutati.onem, —It is one thuig to change the will, anotlier thing to will a change. There may be a change in the matter and substance willed, not in the will that disposeth it. Our will desires in the summer a lighter and cooler garment, in winter a thicker and warmer ; yet is not our will changed, whereby we decree in ourselves this change according to the .season. Thus, quicquid superi voluere, peractum, ' Whatsoever God would, that did he in heaven and earth, in the sea and all deep places,' Ps. cxxxv. G. God is immutabilis naturce, voluntatis, comilii, —unchangeable in his nature, will, and decrees. Only these are verba nostra; pnrvitati ao:ominodata,X —wonls fitted to our weak capacities.

Well, in the meantime, they are grievous sins that make our gracious Gt>d thus seemingly pa.ssionate. There is great cause, sure, it .so patient and for-bsaring a God be angry, sorry, penitent, grieved that he hath jnade sncli rebellious creatures. It is long before his wrath be inccn.sed ; but if it bo thoroughly kindled, all the rivers in the south are not able to quench it. Daily man sins, and yet God repents not that he made hiin. Woe to that

* De Civit. Dei, lib. xv., cap. 25. t J"st. Mr»r. X Chrj-8.

man for whose creation God is sorry ! Woe to Jerusalem, when Christ shall so complain against her ! Stay the bells, ye sons of wickedness, that ring so loud peals of tumultuous blasphemies in the ears of God. Turn again, ye wheeling planets, that move only as the sphere of this world turns your affections, and despise the directed and dii'ect motion of God's stars. Eecall yourselves, ye lost wretches, and stray not too far from your Father's house, that your seekers come again with a non est inventus ; lest God complain against you, as here against Israel, or with as passionate a voice as once against the world—' It repeats me that I made them.'

Ohs. 5.—If we take the words spoken in the person of the prophet, let us observe, that he is no good preacher that complains not in these sinful days. Isaiah had not more cause for Israel than we for England, to cry, ' We have laboured in vain, and spent our strength for nought,' chap. xlix. 4. For if we equal Israel in our blessings, we transcend them in our sins. The blood-red sea of war and slaughter, wherein other nations are drowned, as were the Egyptians, is become dry to our feet of peace. The bread of heaven, that true manna, satisfies our hunger, and our thirst is quenched with the waters of life. The better law of the gospel is given us; and our saving health is not like a curious piece of arras folded up, but spread before our believing eyes, without any shadow cast over the beauty of it. We have a better High Priest, to make intercession for us in heaven, for whom he hath once sacrificed and satisfied on earth : actu, semel, virtute semper, —with one act, with everlasting virtue. We want nothing that heaven can help us to, but that which we voluntarily will want, and without which we had better have wanted all the rest—thankfulness and obedience. We return God not one for a thousand, not a dram of service for so many talents of goodaiess. We give God the worst of all things, that hath given us the best of all things. We cull out the least sheaf for his tithe, the sleepiest hours for his prayers, the chippings of our wealth for his poor, a corner of the heart for liis ark, when Dagou sits uppermost in our temple. He hath bowels of brass and a heart of iron, that cannot mourn at this our requital. We give God measure for measure, but after an ill manner. For his blessings, ' heapen, and shaken, and thrust together,' iniquities ' pressed down and yet running over.' Like hogs, we slaver his pearls, ' turn his graces into wantonness,' and turn again to rend in pieces the bringers.

Who, versing in his mind this thought, can keep his cheeks diy 1 * Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep night and day !' &c., Jer. ix. 1. No marvel if anirmis meminlsse horret, —the good soul tremble to think it; especially when all this wickedness ariseth, not from Sodom, and Sidon, and Edom, but from the midst of * the daughter of Zion.' Hinc illce lachrpmv. He that can see this and not sigh, is not a witness, but an agent; and sin hath obstructed his lungs, he cannot sorrow. Forbear, then, ye captious sons of BcKal, to complain against us for conLplaining against you. While this hydra of iniquity puts forth her still-growing heads, and the sword of reproof cannot cut them off, what should we do but mourn 1 Quid enini nisi threnoi supermnt 1 Whither can we turn our eyes, but we behold and lament at once some roving with lewdness, some raving with madness, others reeling with ebriety, and yet others railing with blasphemy ! If we be not sad, we must be guilty. Condemn not our passions, but your own rebellions that excite them. The zeal of our God, whom ' we serve in our spuits,' makes us, with Moses, to forget ourselves. ' We also are men of like passion with you,' Acts xiv. 15. It is the common plea of us all. If you ask us why we shew ourselves thus

weak, we return, with Paul, ' Why do you these things ?' Our God hath charged us not to see the funerals of your souls without sighs and tears : Ezek. vL 11, 'Thus saith the Lord, Smite with thy hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.'

Shall all complain of lost labours, and we brook the greatest loss with silence ? Merchants bewail the shipwreck of their goods, and comi)lain of pirates ; shepherds, of their flocks devoured by savage wolves ; husbandmen, of the tired earth, that quits their hope with weeds : and shall ministers see and not sorrow for the greatest ruin (the loss of the world were less) of men's souls ! They that have written to the life the downfall of famous cities, either vastate by the immediate hand of God, as Sodom, or by man, a.s Jerusalem, as if they had written with tears instead of ink, have pathetically lamented the ruins. ^Eneas Sylvius, reporting the fall of Constantiiuiple, historifics, together with her passion, his own compassion for it. The murdering of children before their parents' faces, the slaughtering of nobles like beasts, the priests torn in pieces, the religious flayed, the holy virgins and sober matrons first ravished and then massacred, and even the relics of tho soldiers' spoil given to the merciless fire. 0 miseram urbisfdciem! — O wretched show of a miserable city! Consider Jerusalem, the city of God, * the queen of the provinces, tell her turrets, and mark well her bulwarks,' carry in your mind the idea of her glories; and then, on a sudden, behold her temple and houses burning, the smoke of the fire waving m the air and hiding the light of the sun, the flames springing up to heaven, as if they would ascend as high as their sins had erst done ; her old, young, matrons, virgins, mothers, infants, princes and priests, prophets and Nazarites, famished, fettered, scattered, consumed; if ever you read or hear it without commiseration, your hearts are harder than the Romans that destroyed it. The ruin of great things wrings out our pity; and it is only a Nero that can sit and sing while Rome burns. But Avhat are a world of cities, nay, the whole world itself burning, as it must be one day, to the loss of men's souls the rarest pieces of God's fabric on earth ! To see them manacled with the chains of iniquity, and led uf) and do\^^J by the devil, as Bajazet by that cruel Scythian; stabbed and massacred, lost and ruined by rebellious obstinacies and impenitences ; bleeding to death like IJabel, and will not be cured, till past cure they weep like Rachel, and Mill not be comforted; to sec this and not pity it, is impossible for any but a Faux, but a devil.

Use 1.—To make some further use hereof to ourselves ; let us avoid sin as much as we may. And, though we cannot .stay ourselves from going in, let us stay ourselves from going on; lest our God complain against us. If Ave make him sorrowful for a time, he can make us sorrowful for ever. If we anger him, he can anger all the veins of our hearts. If, instead of serving God by our obedience, we ' make him serve with our sins,' Isa. .\liii. 24, ho will make us serve with Ins jilagues. If we drive God to call a ((tiivocation of heaven and earth : ' Iie;ir, G heaven ; hearken, O earth : I have nourished children, and they have rebelled against me,' I.«a. i. 2 ; if he rail on 'the mountains to hear his controversy,' Micah vi. 2, he will make us 'call on the mountains' to help and hide our miser}', Rev. vi. IG, 'And they said to the mountains and rock.s, Fall on u.s,' itc. If we put God to his (finrelam, controversy, and make him a plaintifl", to enter his suit ai^ainst u.s, Ho.sra iv. 1, he will put us to a complaint indeed. 'Therefore shall the land mouni, and every one that dwollpth thrroin .shall languish,' ver. .3. lb- will force us to repent the time and deeds, that ever made him to ' repent that he made

us,' Gen. vi. 7, He will strike us with such a blow that there needeth no doubling of it. ' He will make an utter end; destruction shall not rise up the second time,' Nahum i. 9. As Abishai would have stricken Saul at once: ' And I will not smite him the second time,' 1 Sam. xxvi. 8.

We cannot so wrong God, that he is deprived of jjower to right himself. His first complaint is, as I may say, in tears; his second in blood. I have read of Tamerlane, that the first day of his siege was honoured with his white colours, the second with fatal red, but the third with final black. God is not so quick and speedy in punishment, nor come his judgments with such precipitation. Nineveh, after so many forties of years, shall have yet forty days. He that at last came, with his fixii in his hand, and fanned but eight grains of good corn out of a whole barnfnl of chaff, a whole world of people, gave them the space of one hundred and twenty years' repentance. If Jerusalem Avill not hear Christ's words, they shall feel his hands. They that are deaf to his voice shall not be insensible to his blows. He that may not be heard will be felt.

Use 2.—If God complains against sin, let us not make ourselves merry with it. The mad humours, idle speeches, outrageous oaths of drunken atheists, are but ill mirth for a Christian spirit. Wickedness in others abroad should not be our tabret to play upon at home. It is a wretched thing to laugli at that which feasts Satan with mirtli, laughing both at our sins, and at us for our sins. Rather lament : ' Make little weeping for the dead, for he is at rest : but the life of the fool is worse than death,' Ecclus. xxii. 11. Weep for that. When Israel now in Moses's absence had turned beast, and calved an idolatrous image, Moses did not dance after their pipe, and laugh at their superstitious merriment with tabrets and harps, but mourned to the Lord for them, and pleaded as hard for their sparing as he would have done for himself; nay more, ' Spare thy own people, though thou rase my name out of the book of life.' They are only marked for God's, with his own privy seal, Ezek. ix. 6, that ' mourned for the abominations of Israel;' and their mournings were earnest, as the wailings of Hadad-rimmon in the valley of Megiddo.

Where are you, ye ' sons of the highest,' ye magistrates, put in power not only to lament our sins, but to take away the cause of our lamenting 1 Cease to beek yourselves, like Jehoiachim, bcft)re the fire of case and rest; rend your clothes with Josiah, and wrap yourselves in sackcloth, like Nineveh's kmg, as a corpse laid out for burial. Do not, Felix-like, grope for a bribe in criminal offences ; sell not your connivance, and withal your conscience, where you should give your punishment. Let not gold weigh heavier than Na-both's wrongs in the scales of justice. ' Weep, ye ministers, between the porch and the altar.' Lament your own sins, ye inhabitants of the world. England, be not behind other nations in mourning, that art not short of them in oifending. Picligion is made biit policy's stirrup, to get up and ride on the back of pleasure. Nimrod and Ahithophel lay their heads and hands together; and whiles the one forageth the park of the church, the other pleads it from his book, with a Statutum est. The Gibeonites are suffered in our camp, though we never clapped them the hand of covenant; and are not set to draw water and chop Avood, to do us any service, except to cut our throats. The receipt (1 had almost said the deceit) of custom stands open, maldiig the law's toleration a warrant, that many now sell their lands, and live on the use of their moneys; which none would do if usury was not an easier, securer, and more gainful trade.

How should this make us mourn like doves, and groan like turtles ! The

wild swallows, our unbridled youngsters, sing in the wanu chimneys; the lustful sparrows, noctivagant adulterers, sit chirping about our houses; the tilchiug jays, secret thieves, rob our orchards; the kite and the cormorant devour and hoard our fruits; and shall not, among all tlifso, ' the voice of the turtle be heard in our land,' Cant. ii. 12, mourning for these sinful rapines ? Have whoredom and wine so taken away our hearts, and hidden them in a maze of vanities, that repentance cannot find them out I Can these enormities pass without our tears] Good men have not spent all their time at home in mourning for their own sins ; sometimes they have judged it their work to lament what was others' work to do. That kingly prophet, that wept so plentifully for his own offences, Pa. vL G, had yet Hoods of tears left to bewaU his people's, Ps. cxix. 130. Jeremiah did not oidy ' weep in secret' for Israel's pride, chap. xiiL 17, but wrote a whole book of Lamentations ; and was not le.ss exact in his method of mourning, than others have been in their songs of joy. It was God's behest to Ezekiel, chap. xxi. 6, ' Sigh, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins, and with bitterness sigh before their eyes.' He mounied not alone at Israel's woe. She had a solemn funeral, and ever}- prophet sighed for her. ' Look away from me,' saith Isaiah ; ' I will weep bitterly, labour not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people,' chai;. xxiL 4. ' I am pained at my very heart,' saith Jeremiah, ' becau.s* thou hast heard, O my soul, tho sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war,' chap. iv. 19. Our sins are more ; why should our sorrows be less ?

Who sees not, and says not, that' the days are evil V Eph. v. 16. There is one laying secret mines to blow up another, that himself may succeed ; there is another buying uncertain hopes with ready money \ there is another rising hardly to eminence of place, and managing it as madly. There goes a fourth, poring on the ground, as if he had lost his soul in a muck-heaj), and must scrape for it; yet I think he would hardly take so much pains for his soul as he doth for his gold, were it there to be found and saved. He that comes to this market of vanity but as a looker-on, cannot lack trouble. Every evil we see doth either vex us or infect us. The sight and inevitable society of evils is not more a plea.sure to the Sodomites than a vexation to the righteous soul of Lot. One breaks jests upon heaven, and makes himself merry with God. Another knows no more Scripture than he ajtplies to the theatre ; and doth as readily and desperately play wilh God's word a.s with the poets. You cannot walk the street but you shall meet with a (luarrelling dog, or a drunken hog, or a blaspheming devil. One speaks villany, another swears it, a third defends it, and all the rest laugh at it: that we may t;iko cresset-light, and search with Jeremiah, chap. v. 1, tho 'streets and broad places of our country,' and not ' find a man,' or at least not ' a man of truth.' Who can say it can be wor.se ? Cease complaints, and fall to amendment. Ye deputies of Mose-s, and sons of Levi, sharpen both your swi^rd.s. Consecrate and courage your hands and voices to the vastation of Jericho-wall.s. Be not unmerciful to your countr}', whiles you are over-merciful to otfondens. An easy cost repairs the beginning ruins of a house ; when it is once droi)iKMi down with danger about our earn, it is hardly re-edified. Seasonable «isti-gation may work reasonable reforming. The rents and breaches of our Zion are manifold and manifest. Repair them by the word of men;y and .sword of justice. If Jerusalem's roof be cist down as low as Iut pavement, who shall build her up ? It is yet time, and not more than enough. If you cannot turn the violent stream of our wickedness, yet swim against it yourselyes-and provoke others by your precepts, by your i»attcrn3 : the success to God.

Use 3.—The all-wise God complains. He doth no more; what could ha do less ? He doth not bitterly inveigh, but passionately mourn for us. He speaks not with gall, but as it were with tears. There is sweet mercy even in his chidings. He teacheth us a happy composure of our reprehensions. We are of too violent a spirit, if at least we ' know what spirit we are of,' when nothing can content us but fire from heaven. He that holds the fires of heaven in his commanding hand, and can pour them in floods on rebellious Sodom, holds back his arm, and doth but gently loosen his voice to his people. I know there is a time when the ' still voice' that came to Elias, or the whisperings of that ' voice behind, This is the way, walk in it,' Isa. XXX. 21, can do little good; and then God is content we should derive from his throne thunderings and lightnings. Rev. iv. 5, and louder sounds. The hammer of the law must eftsoons break the stony heart of rebellion; and often the sweet balm of the gospel must supple the broken conscience. Let us not transpose or invert the method and direction of our office, killing the dying with the ' killing letter,' and preaching 'judgment without mercy,' lest we reap judgment without mercy to ourselves. Some men's hearts are like nettles ; if you touch them but gently they will sting, but rough handling is without prejudice; whiles others are like briars, that wound the hard-grasping hand of reproof, but yield willingly to them that touch them with exhortation. One must be washed with gentle baths, whiles another must have his ulcers cut with lancets. Only do all medentis animo, nou scevientis, —not with an oblique and sinister purpose, but with a direct intention to save. An odious, tedious, endless inculcation of things doth often tire those with, whom a soft and short reproof would find good impression. Such, whiles they would intend to edify, do in event tedify. Indeed there is no true zeal "without some spice of anger; only suhsit iracnndia, non prcesit* —give thy anger due place, that it may follow as a servant, not go before as a master.

It is objected that the thoughts of God are peace. He that is covered with thunder and clothed with lightning speaks, and the earth trembles; ' toucheth the mountains, and they smoke' for it, Ps. xviii.; sharpens not his tongue like a razor, but speaks by mournful complaint. What then mean our preachers to lift up their voices as trumpets, and to speak in the tune of thunder against us 1 We cannot wear a garment in the fashion, nor take use for our money, nor drink with a good-fellow, nor strengthen our words with the credit of an oath, but bitter invectives must be shot, like porcupines' quills, at these slight scapes. I answer, God knows when to chide, and when to mourn ; when to say, ' Get thee behind me, Satan,' as to Peter, Matt. xvi. 23, and when coolly to tax Jonah, ' Dost thou well to be angry V Jonah iv. 4. But he that here mourns for Israel degenerate, doth at another time protest against Israel apostate, and ' swears they shall never enter into his rest,' Ps. xcv. 11. We would fain do so too ; I mean, speak nothing but 'grace and peace to you ;' but if ever we be thorns, it is because we live amongst briars : if we lift up our voices, it is because your hearts are so sleepy that you would not else hear us.

Use 4.—God did thus complain against Israel; where are his complaints, you will say, against us 1 Sure our sins are not grown to so proud a height as to threaten heaven, and provoke God to quarrel. O ill-grounded flattery of ourselves ! an imagination that adds to the measure of our sins. Whiles we conceive our wickedness less, even this conceit makes it somewhat more. ' If we say that we have no sin, there is no truth in us,' 1 John i. 8. Nothing makes our guilt more palpable than the pleading ourselves not culp-* Greg.

able. Every drop of this counterfeit lioly water .sj>rinkletl on us brings new asi)crsions of filthiness. It is nothing else but to wash our spots in nunl. Yet speak freely. Doth not Gdd complain? Examine, (1.) The words of his mouth ; (2.) The works of his hand.

(1.) The voice of his minister is his voice. ' He that heareth you heareth me.' Do not the Jeremiahs of these days mouni like turtles, as well a.s sing like larks 1 Do they not mingle with the tunes of joy, the tones of sorrow ? When did they rejoice ever without trembling ] Vs. ii. 11; or lead you so currently to dance in God's sunshine, that they forgot to speak of his thunder ? It is good to be merry and wise. What sermon ever so flattered you with the fair weather of God's mercies, that it told you not withal, wla-n the wind and the sun meets there would be rain; wlien God's sunUke justice and our raging and boisterous iniquities shall come in ojiposition, the storm of judgment will ensue 1 Nay, have not your iniquities made the pulpit, the gospel's mercy-seat, a tribunal of judgment /

(2.) Will not these mournings, menaces, querulatioius, stir your hcart.s, because they are derived from God through us, his organ-pipes, as if they had lost their vigour by the way ? Then open your eyes, you that have deafed your ears, and see him actually complaining against us. Observe at least, if not the thunders of his voice, yet the wonders of his hand I could easily lose myself in this commonplace of judgments. I will therefore limit my speech to narrow bounds, and only call that to our memories, the print whereof sticks in our sides; God having taught nature even \>y her good to hurt, as some wa.sli gold to deprave the weight of it, even to drain away our fruits by floods. But, alas ! we say of these strokes, as the phllo.so-j)her in one sense, and Solomon's drunkard in another, JVon vianini me per-cussu7n, —We remember not that we are stricken; or as the prophet of the Jews, ' Thou hast smitten them, but they have not grieved ; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction,' Jer. v. 3 ; even Avhiles their wounds were yet raw, and their ruins not made up. Many are like the Stoics in equideo ; though the punishment lie on their flesh, it sliall not come near their heart. God would school our heavy-spirited and coldly-devoted worldlings, that ' sacrifice to their nets,' Hab. i. 10, attribute all their thrivuig to their own industry, and never enter that thought on the point of their hearts, how they are beholden to God. Here, alas! we find that we are beholden to the com and other fruits of the earth, they to the ground^ the ground to the influences of heavc;i, all to God, Hos. ii. 21.

When man hath done all in iiloughing, tilling, sowing, if either the clouds of heaven deny their rain, or give too nmch, how soon is all lost! The husbandman, that w^as wont to ' wait for the early and latter showers,' James V. 7, now casts up trembling eyes to the cloutls for a ne noceant. For your barns full of weeds, rather than grain,* testify that this blow did not only spoil the glory and benefit of your meadows, but even by rebound your cornfields also, lie not atheists, look higher than the clouds; it was no less than the angry hand of God. Thus can God every way punLsh us. It was for a time the speech of all tongues, amazement of all eyes, wonder of all hearts, to see the showers of wrath so fast pouring on us, as if the course of nature were inverted, our summer coming out in the robes of winter. 15ut as a father t •writes of such a year : ' Our devotions began and ended with the shower.'

' Nocte pluit tota, redeiint spectacula maiu'.' X

It rains, and we lament. But the sun did not sooner break out through the

* This wet summer, anu. 1013. Chrys. J Virg.

clouds, than we broke out into our former licentiousness. We were humbled, but not humble ; dressed of God, not cured. Though God withhold plenty, we withhold not gluttony. Pride leaves off none of her vanities. Usury bates not a cross of liis interest. The rioter is still as drunken with wine as the earth was with water. And the covetous had still rather ' eat up the poor as bread,' than they should eat of his bread ; keeping his barns full, though their maws be empty, as if he would not let the vermin fast, though the poor starve. No marvel if heaven itself turns into languishment for these impieties.

* Die, rogo, cur toties descendit ab sethere nimbus, Grandoque de cojlis sine fine cadit ? Mortales quoniam nolunt sua crimina flere, Ccelum pro nobis solvitur in lachrymas.'

' What mean those airy spouts and spongy clouds To spill themselves on earth with frequent floods f Because man swelling sins and dry eyes bears, They weep for us, and rain down showers of tears.'

Ohs. 6.—God hath done, for his part, enough for Israel. He hath stored their vials with balm, their cities with physicians. It was then their own fault that their health was not recovered. ' 0 Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thine help,' Hos. xiii. 9. Let even the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah themselves be umpires. ' And what could I have done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it 1 ' Isa. v. 4, Matt. xxi. 33. God is not sparing in the commemoration of his mercies to us, as knowing that of all the faculties of the soul the memory fii'st waxeth old, and of aU objects oT the memory a benefit is soonest forgotten. We write man's injuries to us in marble, but God's mercies in dust or waters. We had need of remembrancers. God hath done so much for us, that he may say to us, as once to Ephraim, ' O Ephraim, what shiiU I do (more) unto thee ?' Hos. vi. 9. What could Israel want which God supplied not 1 If they want a guide, God goes before them in fire. If they lack bread, flesh, or drink, mercy and miracle shall concur to satisfy them. Heaven shall give them bread, the wind quails, and the rock waters. Doth the wilderness deny them new clothes ? Their old shall not wax old on their backs. A law from heaven shall direct their consciences, and God's oracles from between the cherubims ."hall resolve their doubts. If they be too weak for their enemies, fire from heaven, vapours from the clouds, frogs and caterpillars, sun, air, waters, shaU take their parts. Nay, God himself shall fight for them. What could God do more for their presei-vation 1

If I should set the mercies of our land to run along with Israel's, we should gain cope of them, and outrun them. And though in God's actual and outward mercies they might outstrip us, yet in his spiritual and saving health they come short of us. They had the shadow, we the substance : they candle-light, we noon-day : they the breakfast of the law, fit for the morning of the world; we the dinner of the gospel, fit for the high noon thereof They liad a glimpse of the sun, we have him in his full strength ; they saw per fenestram, we sine medio. They had the paschal lamb to expiate sins cere-nionially, we the Lamb of God to satisfy for us really ; not a ty2)ical sacrifice for the sins of the Jews only, but an evangelical, ' taking away the sins of the world,' John i. 29; for this is that secret opposition which that voice of a crier intimates. Now what could God do more for us ? Israel is stung with fiery serpents; behold the erection of a strangely medicinal serpent of brass. So (besides the spiiitual application of it) the plague hath stricken

us, that have .stricken God by our sin.s; his iiuToy hath liealcd ua Humours of war hath hummed iu our ears the imuuiurs of terror ; behold he could not set his blootly foot iu f>ur coasts. Tiie rod of famine hath been shaken over us; we have not smarted with the deadly lashi-s of it. Even that we have not been thus miserable, God hath done nuich for us.

Look round about you, and whiles you quake at the plagues so natural to our neighbours, bless your own safety and our God for it. Behold the confines of Christendom, Hungary and Bohemia, infested and wasted with the Turks; Italy groaning under the slavery of Antichrist, which infects the soul worse than the Turk infests the body. Behold the pride of Spain, curbed with a bloody Inquisition ; France, a fair and nourishing kingdom, made wretched by her civil uncivil wars. Germany knew not of long time what peace meant; neither is their war ended, but suspended. Ireland hath felt the perpetual plague of her rebellions; and Scotland hath not wanted her fatal disasters. Only England hath lain, like Gideon's Heece, dry and secure, when the rain of judgments hath wetted the whole earth. When God hath tossed the nations, and made them ' like a wheel,' and ' as the stubble before the wind,' Ps. Ixxxiii. 13, only England that hath stood like Mount Zion, with unmoved firmness. Time was she petitioned to Home ; now she neither fears her bulls nor desires lier bulwarks. The destitute Britons thus mourned to their conquering Komans : j£iio ter coiisidi geniUus Britannorum. Jie-pellunt nos barbari ad viare; repellit nos mare ad bavbaros. llinc onuntur duo fanerum (jenera; qida aut jugidamur aut submergimur ; —To the liomaa consul the Britons send groaning, instead of greeting. The barbarous drive us upon the sea; the sea beats us back upon the barbarous. Hence we are endangered to a double kind of death ; either to be drowned or to have our throats cut. The barbarous are now unfeared enemies, and the sea is rather our fort than our sepulchre. A peaceful prince leads us, and the ' Prince of peace' leads him. And besides our peace, we are so hapi>y for balm and physicians, that if I should sing of the blessings of God to us, this should still be the burden of my song, ' What could the Lord do more for us I '

Obs. 7.—' There is balm inGilcad, there arc physicians there.' Will there be ever so? Is there not a time to lose as well as to get? If whiles the sanctuary is full of this holy balm, God's word; if whiles there is plenty of physicians, and in them plenty of skill, 'the health ()f I>rael Is not restored,' how dangerous will her sickness be in the privation of both these restoratives ? They that grow not rich in peace, what will they do in war? He that cannot live well in summer, will hanlly scape starving in winter. Israel, that once had her cities sown with prophets, could after .say, ' We see not our signs, there is not one prophet among u.s.' They that whilom loathed manna, would have been glad if, after nuiny a weary mile, they could have tasted the crumbs of it. He whose prodigality scornc-l the ' bread in his father's house,' would afterwards have thought himself refreshed with ' the husks for the swine.' i

The sun doth not ever shine; there is a time of setting. No day of jollity is without his evening of conclusion, if no cloud of disturbance prevent it with an overcasting. First God ci)in!>lains, men suig, dance, are jovial and neglectful; at la.st man shall complain, and * God shall laugh at their destructions.' Why should God be conjured to receive that spirit dyiii- that would not receive God's Spirit living ? All things are whirkd about iii their circular courses, and who knows whether the ne.\t spol.e of their wheel will not be a blank ? ' Even in laughter the heart is .sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heavhiess,' Prov. xiv. 13. If the black stones of I'ur miseries should

be counted with the white of our joys, we should find our calamities exceeding in number as well as they do in measure. Often have we read our Saviour weeping, but never laughing. We cannot choose but lament, so long as we walk on the banks of Babylon. It is enough to reassume our harps, when we come to the high Jerusalem. In heaven are pure joys, in hell mere miseries, on earth both, (though neither so perfect,) mixed one with another. We cannot but acknowledge that we begin and end with sorrow ; our first voice being a cry, our last a groan. If any joys step in the midst, they do but present themselves on the stage, play their parts, and put ofi" their glories. Successively they both thrust upon us, striving either who shall come in first OT abide with us longest. If any be more dainty of our acquaintance, it is joy. It is a frequent speech, Faimus Troes, —We have been happy. Cum miserum quenquam videris, scias eum esse hominem : cum vero gloriosum, scias eum nondum esse Hercidem, —If thou seest one miserable, that is a man; but if thou seest another glorying, yet that is no god. There is no prescription of perpetuity.

It is enough for the songs of heaven, where saints and seraphims ate the choristers, to have no burden, as no end belonging to them. Let that be the ' standing house,' John xiv. 2, where the princes of God shall keep their court, without grief or treason: our progress can plead no such privilege. We must glad ourselves here with the intermission of woes or interposition of joys : let that place above challenge and possess that immunity from disturbance, where eternity is the ground of the music. Here every day is sure of his night, if not of clouds at noon. Therefore mutet vitam, qui vult acci-pere vitam, —let him change his life on earth, that looks for life in heaven.

* Tu quamcunque Deus tibi fortunaverit lioram, Grata sume manu, nee dulcia difler in annum ;'—*

Take the opportunity which God's mercy hath offered thee. It is fit that God should have his day, when thine is past. 'Your salvation is now nearer' than you believe it ; but if you put away this ' acceptable time,' your damnation is nearer than you fear it. Mourn now for your sins, whiles your mourning may help you, Ezek. ix. Thau is the mourner's mark, yet the last letter of the al2)habet, for an tdtimum vale to sin. Every soul shall mourn either here with repentance, or hereafter in vengeance. They shall be oppressed with desperation that have not admitted contrition. Herodotus hath a tale of the piper, that, coming to the river-side, began to play to the fishes, to see if they would dance. When they were little affected with his lUusic, he took his net, and throwing it among them, caught some; which were no sooner cast on the dry ground but they fell a-leaping; to whom the piper merrily re])lied, that since they had erst scorned his music, they should now dance without a pipe. Let it go for a fable. Christ saith to us, as once to the Jews, ' We have piped to you the sweet tunes of the gospel, but ye would not danc| in obedience;' time will come you shaU run after us, as the hind on the barren mountains; but then you may dance without a pipe, and leap levoltoes in hell, that have danced sin's measures on earth. This is the time ; you shall hardly lay the spirit of ruin which your sins have raised. This world is a witch, sin her circle, temptation her charm, Satan the spirit conjured up, who comes not in more plausible forms at his first appearance, thm shews ugly and terrible when you would have him depart. Have nothing to do with the spells of sin, lest you pull in Satan with one hand, whom with both you cannot cast out. The door is now open, grace knocks * Hor.

at thy sleepy conscience, time runs by thee as a lackey, many things proffer their help. If all these concurrences do no good to purge thy soul, thou wilt at last dwell at the sign of the Lahour-in-vai/i, and at once be washed white with the Moor. For, 'if any will be unjust, let him bo unjust; if he will be filthy, let him be filthy still,' Rev. xxii. 11. If any man go into captivity, let him go. As he in the comedy, abeat, pereat, profundat, perdat, —let him sink, or swim, or scape as he can. God will renounce whom he could not reclaim.

01$. 8.—Lastly, observe, there is balm and physicians. What is the reiuson, saith God, that 'my people's health is not recovered,' or, as the Hebrew phrase is, ' gone up V The like is used in 2 Chron. xxiv. 13, where the healing of the breaches of Zion is specified : ' So the workmen wrought, and the work was perfected by them,'— Ueh., 'The healing went up upon the •work.' When a man is sick, he is, in our usual phrase, said to be cast down. His recovery is the raishig him up again. Israel Is cast down with a voluntary sickness; God sends her physicians of his own, and drugs from the shop of heaven; why is she not then revived, and her health gone up ] W^ould you know why Israel is not recovered by these helps ] Let your meditations go along with me, and I will shew you the reasons w'hy God's physic works not on her :—

(1.) She knew not her own sickness. We say, the first step to health is to know that we are sick. The disease being known, it is half cured. This is the diSerence betwixt a fever and a lethargy : the one angers the sense, but doth keep it quick, tender, and sensible ; the other obstupefies it. The lethargised is not less sick because he complains not so loud as the aguish. He is so much the nearer his own end, as he knows not that his disease is begun. Israel was sick, and knew it not; or, as Christ said of the Tharisees, would not know it. There is no surer course for the devil to work his pleasure on men than to keep them in ignorance. How easily doth that thief rob and spoil the house of our souls, when he hath first put out the candle of knowledge ! That tyrannical Nebuchadnezzar carries many a Zedekiah to his infernal Babel w^en he hath put out his eyes. No marvel ' if the gospel be hid to them' that are hid to it: ' Whose minds the god of this world hath blinded, lest the light of the glorious gospel of God should shine to them,' 2 Cor. iv. 3, 4. Who wonders if the blind man cannot see the shuiing sun 1 When Antiochus entered to the spoU of the sanctuary, the first tlungs he took away were the golden altar and the candlestick of light, 1 ^Macc. i. 21. When the devU comes to rifle God's spiritual temple, man's soul, the first booty that he lays his sacrilegious hands on are sacrifice and knowledge, the altar and the lamp. That subtle falconer knows that he could not so quietly carry us on his fist, without baiting and striving against him, if we were not hooded.

Thus wretched is it for a man not to see Lis wretchedness. Such a one spends his days in a dream ; and goes from earth to hell, as Jonah from Israel toward Tarshish, fast asleep. This Paid calls the 'cauterised conscience;' which when the devil, an iir surgeon, would scar up, he first casts his patient into a mortiferous sleep. And, that all the noise which God makes by his ministers, by his menaces, by his judgments, might not waken him, Satan gives him some opium, an ounce of securitj', able to cast Samson liim-self into a slumber, especially when he may lay his voluptuous head on the lap of Delilah. Israel is then sick in sin, and yet thinks herself righteous. Every sin is not this sickness, but only wickedness ; a habit and delightful custom in it. For as to a healthful man every ache, or grip, or pang Is felt VOL. 1. z

grievous, whiles the sicldy entertain them with no great notice, as being daily guests : so the good man finds his repentant heart griped with the least offence, whiles great sins to the wicked are no less portable than familiar. Neither doth their strength in sin grow weaker with their strength in age; but preposterously to nature, the older, the stronger. And as it is storied of Roman MUo, that being accustomed a boy to bear a calf, was able, himself grown a man, to bear the same, being grown a bull ;* so these, that in youth have wonted themselves to the load of less sins, want not increase of strength according to the increase of their burdens.

(2.) As Israel did not judge from the cause to the effects, so nor from the effects to the cause. For though she was now grievously pained and pined with misery, she forgot to go down by the boughs to the root, and dig out the ground of her calamity. Ill she was, and that at heart. God's sword from heaven had stroke their very flesh and sinews in several judgments, which came on them by short incursions before he joined the main battle of his wrath. Israel cries out of her bowels, ' she is pained at the very heart,' Jer. iv. 19. Her children went with clean teeth, lank cheeks, hollow and sunk eyes. Could she not guess at the cause of tliis bodily languishment ? So Paul schooled his Corinthians : ' For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep,' 1 Cor. xi. 30. There is no weakness but ori-gmaUy proceeds from wickedness. As Mephibosheth caught his lameness by falling from his nurse, so every one taketh his illness by falling from his Christ, Though sickness may be eventually a token of love, yet it is properly and originally a stroke of justice. For every disease God inflicts on us is a sermon from heaven, whereby he preacheth to us the vUeness of our sins, and his wrathful displeasure for them; that those whom God's vocal sermon cannot move, his actual and real may pierce. Indeed 'all things shall work to their good,' Rom. viii. 28, that are good. And the rough rocks of affliction shall bring them, as Jonathan to the garrison of the Philistines, by those stairs to glory. Miseries do often help a man to mercies. So the leper's incurable disease brought him to the physician of his soul. Matt. viii. 2, where he had both cured by one plaster, the saving word of Christ. A weak body may help us to a strong faith. ' It was good for me,' saith the Psalmist, ' that I was in trouble.' It was good for Naaman that he was a leper : this brought him to Elisha, and Elisha to God, 2 Kings v. It was good for Paul that he was buffeted by Satan. It is proverbially spoken of a grave divine, that, as pride makes sores of salves, so faith makes salves of sores, and, like a cunning apothecary, makes a medicinal composition of some hurtful simples. Of all herbs in the garden, only rue is the herb of grace. And in what garden the rue of affliction is not, all the flowers of grace will be soon overrun with the weeds of impiety. David Avas a sinner in prosperity, a saint in purgatory. The afflicted soul drives vanity from his door. Prosperity is the playhouse, adversity the temple. Rarce fnmant feli-cibus arce, —The healthy and wealthy man brings seldom sacrifices to God's altar. Israel's misery had been enough to help her recovery, if she had gathered and understood her offence to God by God's visitation on her, and guessed the soul's state by the body's. She did not; therefore her sickness abides. As Christ to the Pharisees : * You say you sec ; therefore be blind still.'

(3.) As she did neither directly feel it, nor circumstantially collect it, so she never confessed it. Prima pars sanitatis est, velle sanari,f —The first entrance to our healing is our own will to be healed. How shall Christ either search • Gc'Uiu.s, lib. XV. t Sen.

our sins by the law, or salve tlicm by the gospel, when we not acknowledge them? Ipse sibi denegat curam, qui medico non 2}ullicat causam* —He hath no care of his own cure tliat will not tell the physician his grief. What spiritual physician shall recover our persons, when we will not discover our sores'? Stultorum incnrala puJor 7}ialiis ^dcera celat, —Lay the guilt on yourselves, if you rankle to death. It is heavy in thy friends' ears, to hear thy groans, and sighs, and plaints forced by thy sick passion; but then sorrow pierceth deepest into their hearts through their eyes, when they see thee grown speechless.

' The tongiie then least of all the loss doth moan. When the life's spvl is going out, or gone.'

So there is some hope of the sinner whiles he can groan for his wickedness, and complaui against it, and himself for it; but when his voice is hoarsed,— I mean, his acknowledgment gone,—his case is almost desperate. Confession of sins and sores is a notable help to their curing. As pride in all her wardrobe hath not a better garment than humility,—]Mary, clad with that, was respected in the eyes of God, Luke i. 48,—so not humility in all her storehouse hath better food than confession. Diim agtwscit reus, ig^noscit Deus, —Whiles the unjust sinner repents and confesseth, the just God relents and forgiveth. The confident Pharisee goes from God's door without an alms. What need the full be bidden to a feast ? Tolle vulnera, tolle opus medici. It is fearful for a man to bind two sins together, when he is not able to bear the load of one. To act wickedness, and then to cipak it, is for a man to wound himself, and then go to the devil for a plaster. What man doth conceal, God will not cancel. Iniquities strangled in silence will strangle the soul in heavhiess.

There are three degrees of felicity:—[1.] Non offendere; [2.] Noscere; [3.] Agnoscere peccata. The first is, not to sin; the second, to know; the third, to acloiowledge our offences. Let us, then, honour him by confession whom we have dishonoured by presumption. Though we have failed m the first part of religion, an upright life, let us not fail in the second, a repentant acknowledgment. Though we cannot shew God, with the Pharisee, an inventory of our holy works,— item, for praying; item, for fasting; item, for paying tithes, (fee,—yet, as dumb as we are and fearful to speak, we can write, with Zechariah, ' His name is John;' ' Grace, grace,' and only ' grace.' Meritum meum misericordia iua Domine,-\ —My merit, 0 Lord, is only thy mercy. Or as another sung well—

* Til vere pius, ego reus: Miserere mei Deus;'—

' Thou, Lord, art only God, and only good : I sinful; let thy mercy be my food.'

Feccatum argumentum. soporis, confessio animce suscitatce, —Sinfulnes."? is a sleep, confession a sign that we are waked. Men dream in their sleeps, but tell their dreams waking. In our sleep of security, we lead a dreaming life, full of vile imaginations; but if we confess and speak our sins to God's glory, and our own shame, it is a token that God's Spirit hath wakened us. Si non confessus lates, inconfessiis damnaberis.^. The way to hide our iniquities at the last, is to lay them open here: ' He that covcrclh his sins shall not prosper: but he that confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy,'

• Aug. Epiat. 138. t Aug. t Greg.

Prov. xxviii. 13. This is true, though to some a paradox: the way to cover our sins is to uncover them. Quce aperiuntur in proesenti, operiiintur in ultimo die, —If we now freely lay open our iniquities to our God, he will conceal them at the latter day; else, crudant plus vulnera chntsa, sins that are smothered will in the end fester to death. The mouth of hell is made open to devour us by our sins; when we open our own mouths to confess, we shut that. Israel is not then restored, because her sickness is not declared.

(4.) The last defect of Israel's cure is the want of application. What should a sick man do with physic, when he lets it fust in a vessel, or s])ills it on the ground 1 It is ill for a man to mispose that to loss which God hath disposed to his good. Beloved, application is the sweet use to be made of aU sermons. In vain to you are our ministries of God's mysteries, when you open not the doors of your hearts to let them in. In vain we smite your rocky hearts, when you pour out no floods of tears. In vain we thunder against your sins, covetous oppressions of men, treacherous rebellions against God, when no man says, ' Master, is it I?' Quod omnibus dicitur, nemini dicitu?' ? —Is that spoken to no man which is spoken to all men ? Whiles covetousness is taxed, not one of twenty churls lays his finger on his own sore. Whiles lust is condemned, what adulterer feels the pulse of his own conscience ] WhUes malice is inquired of in the pulpit, there is not a Nabalish neighbour in the church will own it. It is our common armour against the sword of the Spirit: It is not to me he speaks. For which God at last give^them an answerable plague: they shall as desperately put from them all the comforts of the gospel, as they have presumptuously rejected all the precepts of the laAV. They that would apply no admonition to themselves, nor take one grain out of the whole heap of doctrines for their own use, shall at last, with an invincible forwardness, bespeak themselves every curse in the sacred volume.

Thus easy and ordinary is it for men to be others' physicians, rather than their own; statesmen in foreign commonwealths, not looking into their own doors; sometimes putting on Aaron's robes, and teaching him to teach ; and often scalding their lips in their neighbours' pottage. They can weed others' gardens, whiles their own is overrun with nettles; like that soldier that digged a fountain for Caesar, and perished himself in a voluntary thirst. But charity begins at home ; and he that loves not his own soul, I will hardly trust him with mine. The usurer blames his son's pride, sees not his own extortion; and whUes the hypocrite is helping the dissolute out of the mire, he sticks in deeper himself. The Pharisees are on the disciples' jacket for eating with unwashcn hands, whiles themselves are not blameworthy that eat with unwashen hearts. No marvel if, when we fix both our eyes on others' wants, we lack a third to see our own. If two blind men rush one upon another in the way, either complains of other's blindness, neither of his own. Thus, like mannerly guests, when a good morsel is carved us, we lay it liberally on another's trencher, and fast ourselves. How much better were it for us to feed on our own portion !

Go back, go back, thou foolish sinner; turn in to thine own house, and stray not with Dhiah till thou be ravished. ' Consider your ways in your hearts,' Hag. i. 5. If thou findest not work enough to do at home, in cleansing thy own heart, come forth then and help thy neighbours. Whosoever you are, sit not like lookers-on at God's mart; but having good wares proff'cred you, and that so cheap,—* grace, peace,' and remission of sins for nothing,—take it, and bless his name that gives it. Keccivc with no less

thankfulness the physic of admonition he sends you; apply it carefully: if it do not work on your souls effectually, there is nothing left that may do you good. The word of God is powerful as his own majesty, and shall never return back to himself again without sjjeediiig the conuuission it went for. Ap2)ly it, then, to your souls in faith and repentance, lest (Jod apjtly it in fear and vengeance. Lord, open our hearts with the key of grace, that thy holy word may enter in, to reign in us in this world, and to save us in the world to come ! Amen.

PHYSIC FEOM HEAVEN.

Is there no halm in Gilead; is there no 2^hysician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered ? — Jek. VIII. 22.

The allegory is tripartite, and propounds to our consideration, I. What is the hahn; II. Who are the 2^hysicians; III. Who are sick The balm is the word. The physicians are the ministers. The sick are the sinners. For the first:—

I. The balsam-tree is a little shrub, never growing past the height of two cubits, and spreading like a vine. The tree is of an ash-colour, the boughs small and tender, the leaves are like to rue.

Isidore thus distinguisheth it: The tree is called halsamum, the root oi^ilo-halsamum, the branches xylo-halsamum, the seed carpo-halsanium, the juice ojio-halsamum.

Pliny saith the tree is all medicinable : the chief and prime virtue is in the .juice, the second in the seed, the third in the rind, the last and weakest in the stock. It comforts both by tasting and smelling. It is most commonly distinguished by physicians into lignum, semeii, liquorem, —the wood, the seed, and the juice. This is the nature of the balsamum.

This holy word is here called balm : and, si fas sit viagnis componcix parva, if we may compare heavenly with earthly, spiritual with natural things, they agree in many resemblances. The unerring wisdom of heaven hath given this comparison. There is no fear to build on God's ground, whiles the analogy of faith limits us. It is the builder's first and principal care to choose a sure foundation. The rotten, moorish, quioksandy grounds, that some have set their edifices on, have failed their hopes and destituted their intents. How many able wits have spent their times and studies to daub up the filthy walls of Home with ' untcmpered mortar !' Ezek. xiii. 15. How well had they hvmted, if they had not mistaken their game ! How rich apparel have they woven for a Babylonish harlot! How avcII had they sailed, if Home had not guided tlicir compass ! But ' every man's work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is,' 1 Cor. iii. 13. Happy is he that hath a rock for his ground, that no gusts, storms, winds, waves, may overturn his house! Matt. vii. 24. Though ' other foundation none can lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ,' 1 Cor. iii. 11 ; yet blessed is he that i'Truxodo/Mriai ini rhv ''^iij.'fhiov rovrav, hath builded safely upon this ground.

God hath, here laid my ground ; I will be bold to build my speech on that whereon I build my faith. Only sobriety shall be my bounds. We may call God's word that balm-troe whereon the fruit of Life grows; a tree that heals, a tree that helps; a tree of both medicament and nutriment; like the ' tree of life, which bears twelve manner of fruits, and yieldeth her fruit every month,' Rev. xxii. 2. Neither is the fruit only nourishing, but even ' the leaves of the tree were for healing of the nations.' Now though the balm here, whereunto the word is compared, is more generally taken for the juice, now fitted and ready for application; yet, without pinching the metaphor, or restraining the Liberty of it, I see not why it may not so be likened, both for generiil and particular properties. It is not enough to say this, but to shew it. Let me say it now, shew it anon. For the bahu, you have the tree, the seed, the juice. God's word will, not unfitly, parallel it in resemblances, transcend it in effectual properties.

The tree itself is the word. We find the eternal Word so compared : * I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman,' John xv. 1. He is a tree, but arbor iyiversa, the root of this tree is in heaven. It was once ' made flesh, and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,' John i. 14. Now he is in heaven. Only this Word still speaks unto us by his word : the Word incarnate by the word written; made sounding in the mouth of his ministers. This word of his is compared and expressed by many meta^jhors: to leaven, for seasoning; to honey, for sweetening; to the hammer, for breaking the stony heart: Jer. xxiii. 29, ' Is not my word like as a fire 1 saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?' To a sword that cuts both ways: Heb. iv. 12, ' The word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword,' &.c. Another sword can but enter the flesh and pierce the bones, or at most divide the soul and the body; but this the soul and the spirit, where no other sword can come, no, not the cherubims' fiery sword, that kept the passage of paradise. Gen. iii. 24.

It is here a tree, a balm-tree, a salving, a saving-tree. Albumasar saith, that the more medicinable a plant is, the less it nourishcth. But this tree reddit cegrotum sanum, sanum vero saniorem, —makes a sick soul sound, and a whole one sounder. It is not only physic when men be sick, but meat when they be whole. Treacle to expel, a preservative to prevent poison. It is not only a sword to beat back our common enemy, but a bulwark to hinder his approach.

It carries a seed v;ith. it, carpohalsamum, an 'immortal and incorruptible seed,' 1 Pet. i. 13, which concurs to the begetting of a new man, the old rotting and dying away: for it hath power of both, to mortify and dead the flesh, to revive and quicken the spirit; that seed which the ' sower went out to sow,' JMatt. xiii. 3. Happy is the good ground of the heart that receives it! That little mu.stard-seed, ver. 31, wliich spreads up into branches, able to give the birds of heaven harbour. Discrimen hoc inter opera Dei et miindi, — This difference is betwixt the works of God and of the world : the works of the world have great and swelling entrances, but, malo fine clanduntur, they halt in the conclusion; the works of God, from a most slender beginning, have a most glorious issue. The word is at first a little seed ; how powerful, how plentiful arc the effects! how manifold, how manifest are the operations of it! ' casting down the highest things, that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God; and captivating every thought to the obedience of Christ,' 2 Cor. x. 5.

The juice is no less powerful to mollify the stony heart, and make it tender

and soft, as ' a heart of flesh.' The .seed cnnvinccth the understanding ; the juice mollifieth the affections. All is excellent; but still conspicmnn minus, quod maxime est prceclarum, the root that yields this seed, this juice, is the power of God. A tree hath manifest to the eye, leaves, and flowers, and fi'uits; but the root, most precious, lies hidden. In man the body is seen, not the purer and better part of him, his sold. ' The king's daughter,' though ' her clothing be of -wrought gold,' is most ' glorious within,' Ps. xlv. 13. In all things we see the accidents, not the form, not the substance. There are but few that rightly taste the seed and the juice; but who hath comprehended the root of this balm ?

The balsam is a little tree, but it spreads beyond a vine. The virtue of it, in all respects, is full of dilatation. It spreads—1. largely for shadow, 2. pregnantly for fruit, 3. all this from a small beginning. So that we may say of it, as the church of her Saviour, ' As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great dehght, and his fruit was sweet to my taste,' Cant. ii. 3.

1. It spreads. No sharp frosts, nor nipping blasts, nor chilling airs, nor drizzling sleet can mar the beauty or enervate the virtue of this spiritual tree. The more it is stopped, the further it groweth. Many mterdictions rung peals of menaces in the apostles' ears, that they ' should speak no more in the name and word of Christ,' Acts iv. 17, 18; they did all rather, like bells, toll them into the church, to preach it more fervently. The princes of the nations would have hedged it ia with their prohibitions; but the word of heaven and edict of God's spiritual court of glory scorned the prohibitions given by their temporaiy laws. They might easier have hedged in the wind, or pounded the eagle.

The Jews would have cut dowia this tree at the root; the Gentiles would have lopped off the branches. They struck at Christ, these at his ministers; both struck short. If they killed the messenger, they could not reach the message. The blood of the martyrs, spilt at the root of this tree, did make it spread more largely. There never died a preacher for Christ's cause, but almost every ash of his burned flesh bred a Christian. The old foxes of Rome studied, plotted, acted, by policies, stratagems, engines, to give a fatal, linal subversian to the gospel; yet they lived to see it flourish, and, because it flourished, died fretting themselves to dust. ' So let thine enemies perish, O Lord,' Judg. v. 31, and burst their malicious bowels that have evil will at Sion, and despite this balm.

It grew maugre all the adverse blasts and floods which the billows of earth or bellows of hell could blow or pour out against it. Let them loose a Barabbas from prison, whiles they shut a Barnabas m prison; let them give Demetrius liberty, whUes they shackle Paul; and at once burn the professors and reward the persecutors of the word: behold, for all this, this balm flourisheth, and sends forth his saving odours. The Philistines shut up Samson in the city Gaza, Judg. xvi. 2 ; they bar the gates, watch and guard the passages, and are ready to study for the manner of his death. The Jews shut up Christ in the grave, they bar it, they seal it, they guard it; sure enough, thinks the Jew, hopes the devil, to keep him fast. The Gentiles shut the apostles in prison, chain them, beat them, threat them with worse, that had felt already their bad usage : now they clap their hands at the supposed fall of the gt)spel. Behold, Samson carries away the gates of Gaza; Christ, the bands of death ; the word, the bars of the prison.

What shall I say? Still this balm flourisheth. Vivit, viget, liber est, supra hominem est. As Joseph incipit cl vinculis ferreis, finit ad torquem

aureuni, —begins at iron, ends at golden chains; so tkis balsam, the more it is struck at with the cudgels of reproach and persecution, the faster, the fuller, the further it groweth. The vine but only nourisheth; the balm both nourisheth the good and expellcth the evil that is in man. These two are God's trees. When every god, saith the pcK't, chose his several tree,— Jupiter the long-lived oak, Neptune the tall cedar, Apollo the green laurel, Venus the white poplar,—Pallas (whom the poets feign to be born of Jupiter's brain, and mytliologists interpret Wisdom) chose the vine. Our true and only God, that owneth all, hath more especially chosen the vine and the balm, one for preservation, the other for restoration of our health.

2. As it gives boughs spaciously, so fruit pregnantly, plentifully. The graces of God hang upon this tree in clusters. ' ]\Iy beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the \dneyards of Engedi,' Cant. i. 14. No hungry soul shall go away from this tree unsatisfied.

It is an effectual word, never failing of the intended success. What God's word affirms, his truth performs, whether it be judgment or mercy. Nee verhum ah intendone quia Veritas, nee factum d, verbo quia viiius* —His word differs not from his intent, because he is truth; nor his deed from his word, because he is virtue. What he intends he declares, or ratlier what he declares he intends—he is just; and what he declares and intends he performs— he is powerful. This is that Delphian sword, that universal instrument, whereby he made, whereby he supports the world, Heb. i. 3. It is not a fruitless and ineffectual word, as man's. Propter nostrum dicere et velle, nihil in re mutatur, saith the philosopher,—Our speaking or willing puts no change into any subject. A man is starved with cold, fomished with hunger; we advise him to the fire, to repast: is he ever the fuller or fatter for our word ? Not unless, like a chameleon, he can live by air. But God's word is fruitful, it feeds. ' Man Lives not by bread only, but by God's word,' Matt. iv. 4. Our word and will is like an idol's power : God's volo is sufficient. Voluntas ejus, potestas ejus, —His will is his power. One Jiat of his was able to make that was not, but had else lien in everlasting iiiformity; to constitute nature when it is not, to confirm or change nature when it is. When God was in the flesh, and went about doing good, a faithful centurion, for his servant so desperately sick, desired not the travel of his feet, nor a dram of his physic, nor so much as the imposition of his hands, but die verhum tantum : ' Lord, say the word only, and my servant shall be healed,' ]\Iatt. viii. 8. This word is so effectual, that it shall never fail of the purpose it first was sped for. The sun and moon shall fail in their motions, day. and night in their courses, the earth totter on her prop.s, nature itself shall apo.state to confusion, before God's word fall away unaccomplished, whether he dispenseth it to affect man's heart, or othermse dispo.seth it to eftect his will. Of so powerful efficacy is that word which the world despiseth.

3. As this balm spreads patently for shadow, potently for fruit, so all this ariseth from a little seed. God's smallest springs prove at length main oceans. His least beginnings grow into great works, great wonders. How stately the world begins, how lame it is at last! The tower of Babel is begun as if it scorned heaven and scared earth ; how easy a stratagem from above overthrows it, though God never laid finger to it! Nebuchadnezzar begins with, 'Who is God?' and anon scarce reserves to himself the visible difference from a beast. Another Nebuchadnezzar exterminates all gods from the earth, that himself might reign {solus Deus in solin, who was rather dcemon in folio) only god : behold, a silly woman overthrows him in his

* Bern.

great Holofernes. "Witli such proud entrance doth the Avorld begin his scenes ; with such ridiculous shame do they lag otf. Our God from small beginnmgs raiseth mountains of marvels to us, of praises to himself. Even Joseph, that is in prison, shall ride in the second chariot of Egypt. Drown-inf^ Moses shall come to countermand a monarch. Christ, that was buried in a grave, shall ' bruise the nations, and break them with a rod of iron,' Ps. ii 9, Peter, a fisher, shall catch whole countries; a little balm heal a world of people.

Well, it spreads; let us get under the shadow of the branches. Happy and cool refreshing shall the soul scorched with sins and sorrows find there. Never was shade more welcome to the sweltered traveller than this, word is to the afllicted conscience.

It is fructual: let it be so to us in operation. It gives us the fruit of life; let us return it the fruits of obedience. God's word is significative to all, operative to his.

It is a powerful voice, whether it give life or kill. Man and music have virtutem vocis, the power of voice; God only reserves to himself vuceyn virtutis, the voice of power. ' Lo, he doth send out his voice, and that a mighty voice. Ascribe ye strength unto God,' Ps. Ixviii. 33, 34. I might speak of his thunders in Sinai; but I turn to the songs of Sion, the sweet voice of his gospel, whereof I am an unworthy minister: the voice that speaks Christ and his death, Christ and his life, Christ and his salvation. He that was anointed pro consortihus and prcB consortibus, for his fellows, and * above his fellows ;' who is ' the way, the truth, and the life,' John xiv 6. Via sine devio, Veritas sine nuhilo, vita sine termino, —The way with out error, the truth without darkness, the life without end. Via in exilio Veritas in consilio, vita in 2:>rcemio, —The way in exile, the truth in counsel, the life in reward. ' Oh, whither shall we go from thee 1 Lord, thou hast the words of eternal life,' John vi. G8. All the word calls us to Christ. Post me, per me, ad me, —after me, by me, to me. After me, because I am truth; by me, because I am the way ; to me, because I am life."' Qua vis ire ? Ego sum via. Quo vis ire ? Ego sum Veritas. Ubi vis permanere 1 Ego sum vita, —How wilt thou go % I am the way. Whither wilt thou go ? I am the truth. Where -wilt thou abide ? I am the life.

Now, there is no action without motion, no motion without wlU, no will without knowledge, no knowledge without hearing, Rom. x. 14. Ignoti nulla cupido, —There is no afiection to unknown objects. God must then, by this word, call us to himself. Let us come when and whiles he calls us, leaving our former evil loves and evil lives ; for mali amores make malos viores, saith St Augustine. And let us shew the power of this balm in our confirmed healths. A sound conversion is proved by a good conversation. Perhaps these effects in all may not be alike in quantity; let them be in quality. God hath a liberal, not an equal hand; and gives geometrically, by proportion ; not arithmetically, to all alike. Only magis et viinus non tollit subsiantiam, —the dimensions of greater or less do'not annihilate the sul^stance. Our faith may be precious, nay, ' like precious,' 2 Pet. i. 1, though less and Aveaker. Sanctification admits degrees, justification no latitude. Luther saith, we are as holy as Mary the virgin, not in life, which is active holiness, but in grace of adoption, which is passive holiness. Come we then faithfully to this balm ; so shall we be safe under the shadow, and filled with the fruits thereof Thus in general; let us now search for some more special concurrences of similitude. * ' Post inc, quia Veritas sum; per me, quia via sum; ad me, quia vita sum.'— Aitgiist.

1. The leaves of the balsam arc white ; the word of God is pure and spotless. I'etcr saitli there is sincerity in it, 1 Tet. ii. 2. Perfection itself was tlie finger that v.rote it: neither could the instrumental pens blot it with any corruption ; the Spirit of grace giving inspiration, instruction, limitation, that they might say with Paul, Quod accepi d Domino, tradidi vobis, —' I received of the Lord that which 1 delivered to'you,' 1 Cor. xi. 23; neither more nor less, but just weight. It is pure as gold fined in a sevenfold furnace, Ps. xii. 6. ' Every word of God is pure,' saith Solomon, Prov. xxx. 5. There is no breath or steam of sin to iiifect it. The sun is darkness to it, the very angels are short of it. It is white, immaculate, and so unbleniish-able,- that the very mouth of the devil could not sully it. Even the known father of lies thought to* disparage the credit of the Scriptures, by taking them into his mouth ; he could not do it. They are too unchangeably white to receive the aspersion of any spot.

2. The balsam, say the physicians, is gtistu mordax et acre, —sharp and biting in the taste, but wholesome in digestion. The holy word is no otherwise to the unregenerate palate, but to the sanctified soul it is sweeter than the honeycomb. The church .saith, ' His fruit is sweet luito my taste,' Cant, ii, 3. It is ' folly to the Jews, and a stumblingblock to the Gentiles ; but to the called, both of Jews and Gentiles, the power of God, and the wisdom of God,' 1 Cor. L 24. Saluberrima raro jucundissima, —Relish and goodness are not ever in the same material. The gospel is like leaven, sour to the natural spirit, yet makes him holy bread. It is said of the leaven, to which Christ compares the word, that massam acrore grato excitat, —it puts into the lump a savoury sourness. It is aaw, but grains, —sharp, but acceptable. The word may relish bitter to many, but is wholesome. There cannot be sharper piUs given to the usurer than to cast up his unjust gains. The potion that must scour the adulterer's reins makes him very sick. He that will let the proud man's pleurisy blood, must needs prick him. To bridle the voluptuous beast, Avill make him stamp and fret. All correction to our corrupt nature runs against the grain of our affections. He that would bring Mammon to the bar, and arraign him, shall have judge, jury, sitters, and stand-ers, a whole court and sessions, against him. These sins are as hardly parted Avith of the owners, as the eye, hand, or foot, necessary and ill-spared member. Forbid the courtly Herod his Herodias; the noble Naaman his Rim-mon; the gallant Samson his IJelilah; the city Dives his quotidian feast; the country Nabal his churlishness; the rustical Gergesites their hoggish-ness; the Popish Laban his little gods; the Ahabish landlord his enclosings; and you give them bitter almonds, that wiU not digest with them : like the queasy mass-priest, whose god would not stay in his stomach. But let God work the heart with the preparative of his preventing grace, and then this balm will have a sweet and pleasing savour.

There are too many that wiU not open their lips to taste of this balm, nor their cars to hear the word. But as one mocks the Popish priest celebrating the mass, (who useth one trick, amongst other histrionioal gestures, f)f st(jpping his ears,) that he doth it lest he should hear the crackling of his Saviour's bones—

' Digitis tunc obserat aures, Ne collisa crepent Chriati, quern c

quern conterit, ossa;'—

so these become voluntarily deaf adders, and will not hear ' Chri.st crucified,' the ' preaching of the cross of Christ,' as Paul calls it; which is able to kill our sius and quicken our souls, Phil. iii. 18, Gal. iii. 1. I have read it re-

ported that the adders in the east, and those hot countries, did so subtlely evade the charmers thus : when she hears the pipe, she will couch one ear close to the ground, and cover the other with her taU. So do worldlings : they fill one ear with earth, as much covetous dirt as they can cram into it; the other ear they close up with their lewd lusts, as the adder with her winding tail; that they have none left for their God, for their good. And being thus deaf to holy and heavenly incantations, they are easUy by Satan overreached, overruled, overthrown.

So unwieldy is Christ's yoke to the raging mule; so heavy his burden to the reluctant horse, Ps. xxxii. 9 ; hard his law to the carnal Capernaite ; so sour his balm to the wicked palate; though to the godly his ' yoke is easy, and his burden light,' jMatt. xi. 30. ' Woe unto them, for they call sweet sour,' Isa. v. 20, God's balm distasteful; and ' sour sweet,' the world's poison savoury. They are not more propitious to vice than malicious against goodness. For others, they love a Barabbas better than a Barnabas. For themselves, every one had rather be a Dives than a Divus; a rich sinner than a poor saint. 'No marvel if the blind man cannot judge of colours, nor the deaf distinguish sounds, nor the sick relish meats. God's word is sweet, however they judge it; and their hearts are sour, however they will not think it. ' ]\Iy ways are equal, but your ways are unequal, saith the Lord of ho.sts,' Ezek. xviii. 25, 29.

3. They write of the halsamum, that the manner of getting out the juice is by wounding the tree : Sauciata arbor prcebet opohalsamum. Provided that they cut no further than the rind; for if the wound extends to the body of the tree, it bleeds to death. I have read no less of vines that are unjustly pruned; they bleed away their lives with the sap. The issuing balm is called opohalsavuim, as some from the Greek opo, which signifies a den, or rather of ottos, juice. A treble lesson here invites our observation:—

Obs. 1.—The balsam tree weeps out a kind of gum, like tears; the word of God doth compassionately bemoan our sins. Christ wept not only tears for Jerusalem, but blood for the world. His wounds gush out like fountains, and every drop is blood. Ecce in lachnjmis, in sanguine lociitus est mundo. His "whole life was a continual mourning for our sins. Ntinquam ridere diduSjJiere scepissime. He may adjure us to repentance and obedience by more forcible arguments than ever Dido used to ^neas : Ego vos per has lachrymas, p>er hos gemitus, per hcec vulnera, per corpus sanguine mersum, — I entreat you by tears, by groans, by wounds, by a body, as it were, droAvned in its own blood : by all these mercies of Christ, whereby we do not only persuade you of ourselves, Rom. xii. 1, but ' God doth beseech you through us,' 2 Cor. V. 20. If those tears, sighs, wounds, blood, move not our consciences, we have impenetrable souls. If the heart-blood of Christ cannot make thy heart to relent, and thy feet to tremble, when thy concupiscence sends them on some wicked errand; thy hands, tongue, and all parts and powers of thee to forget their office, when thou wouldst sin obstinately; thou art in a desperate case. These were the tears of this balm tree. The word doth in many places, as it were, weep for our sins, panting out the grievance of a conq)assionate God : ' Why wUl ye die, O ye house of Israel 1' Ezek. xviii. 31. What prophet hath written without sorrow? One of them threnos suspirat, sighs out a book of Lamentations, which Greg. Na-zianzen saith, Nuvquam ct se siccis ocidis lectos esse, —that he could never read with dry eyes. The other prophets also curas hominum gessenint, took on them the burden of many men's sorrows. Cyprian had so compassionate a sympathy of others' evil deeds, evil suff"crings, that cum singulis pectus meum

copulo, cum plangentibus planr/o, saith he,—I join my breast with others, and challenge a partnership in their griefs. A minister, saith Chiyso.stom, debet esse liKjens sua et aUena delicta* should be still lamenting his own sins, and the sins of his people. Monachus est plangentis offidnm,i —The office of a minister is the office of a mourner. All these are but as canes, to derive upon us the tears of this balm.

Obs. 2.—The way to get out the juice of balm from God's word is by cutting it, skilful division of it, which St Paul calls oiiloT-o/x&Sura rm XCyov rrig dXrjdsiag, ' rightly dividing the word of truth,' 2 Tim. ii. 15. It is true that God's word is panis vitce, ' the bread of life ;' but whiles it is in the whole loaf, many cannot help themselves : it is needful for children to have it cut to them in pieces. Though the spice unbroken be sweet and excellent, yet doth it then treble the savour in delicacy when it is pounded in a mortar. AU the balm-tree is medicinal, yet the effectual working is better helped by cutting the stock, by takuig out the juice, and distributing to every man a portion, according to the proportion of his wants. With no less heedfulness must the word be divided, that some may receive it gentle and mollifying, and others as a sharper ingredient. As there is a double composition in men, pride and humility, so there must be a double disposition in preaching the word, of meekness, of terror. Aaron's bells must be w'isely nmg, sometimes the treble of mercy, sometimes the tenor of judgment, sometimes the countertenor of reproof, and often the mean of exhortation. There is no less discretion required to application than to explication. As physicians prescribe their medicmcs by drams or ounces, according to the patient's strength or weakness, so divines must feed some with milk, others Avith stronger meat. The learned should have deeper points, the simple plainer principles. How easy is it for many a weak stomach to surfeit even on the food of life, though the fault lies not in any superfluity of the word, but in the deficiency of his understanding! The absence of sobriety in the speaker is more intolerable than m the hearer. The people must take such meat as their cooks dress to them. Let none of Eli's sons slubber up the Lord's saciifice or service. Let not good balm be maiTcd by a fusty vessel. Seasonable discretion must attend upon sound knowledge. Wisdom without wit is meat without salt; wit without wisdom is salt without meat. Some wells are so deep that a man can draw no water out of them; these bury their gifts in the grave of sullen silence. Some are shallow pits, that run so long open mouth till their sprmgs are quite dry ; whiles they will be prius doctores quam discipuli, —masters that never were scholars, and leap into Paul's chair when they never sat at the feet of Gamaliel. There must be therefore wisdom both in the dispensers and hearers of God's mysteries; in the former to distribute, in the other to apportion their due and fit share of this balm.

Obs. 3.—The balsam tree being wounded too deep, dies ; the word of God cannot be marred, it may be martyred, and forced to suffer injurious interpretations. The Papists have made, and called, the Scriptures a nose of wax ; and they wring this nose so hard that, as Solomon says, they force out blood, Prov. xxx. 33. As Christ once, so his word often is crucified between two thieves—the Papist on the left hand, the schismatic on the right. These would ra\ish the virgin-pureness of the gospel, and adulterate the beauty of it. They cannot cut, exceiit they cut a-pieces; nor distinguish, but they must extinguish. They divide fair, but they leave the quotient empty. They subdivide till they bring all to nothing but fractions, but factions. We may observe that among these, there are as few unifici in the church as ♦ Homil. 10 in Matt. v. t Jerom. Ep. 21

munifici in the commonwealth. They are commonly most miserable men of their purses, most prodigal of their opinions. They divide the word too plentifully to their turbulent auditors ; they divide their goods too sparingly to poor Christians. There are too many of such ill logicians, that divide all tilings, define nothing. As a modern poet well—

'Definit logicus res, non modo dividit; at nos Nil de&uimus, omnia dividimus.'

These pierce the balm too deep : not to strain out juice, but blood, and, in what they are able, to kill it.

4. When the balsam is cut, they use to set vials in the dens, to receive the juice or sap ; when the word is divided by preaching, the people should bring vials with them, to gather this saving balm. These vials are our ears, which should couch close to the pulpit, that this intrinsic balm may not be spilt besides. How many sermons are lost whiles you bring not with you the vessels of attention ! We cut, and divide, and sluice out rivers of saving health from this tree, but all runs besides, and so your health is not recovered. You come frequently to the wells of life, but you bring no pitchers with you. You cry on us for store of preaching, and call us idle drones, if we go not double journey every Sabbath, but still you go home with un-fallowed, with unhallowed hearts, Hos. x. 12. Our Gilead affords you balm enough, yet you have sickly souls. You hear to hear, and to feed either your humours, or your opinions, or your hypocrisies. You shall hear a puffed Ananias cry, Alas ! for his non-preaching minister; if, at least, he forbears his snarling and currish invectives of ' dumb dog,' &c. When, alas ! let many apostles come, ^dth the holy conjuration of prayer and preaching, yet they cannot cast out the deaf devil in many of them. They blame our dumb dogs, not their own deaf devils. They would seem to cure us that are sent to cure them, if at least they would be cured. ' We would have cured Babel;' nay, we would have cured Bethel, 'but she would not be cured.'

It wiU be said that most hearers bring with them the vials of attention. Yield it; yet, for the most part, they are either without mouths or without bottoms. Without mouths to let in one drop of this balm of grace; or without bottoms, that when we have put it in, and look to see it again in yotir lives, behold, it is run through you, as water through a sieve, and scarce leaves any wet behind it. And, to speak impartially, many of you that have vials with bottoms,—cars of attention, with hearts of retention and of remembrance,—yet they are so narrow at the top that they are not capable but of drop by drop. Think not yourselves so able to receive at the ear and conceive at the heart innumerable things at once. You are not broad glasses, but narrow-necked vials; and then best receive this balm of life when it is stilled from the limbec of preaching with a soft fire, and a gentle pouring in. So saith the prophet: ' Line must be added to line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.' When a great vessel pours liquor into a strait-mouthed vial, the source must be small and sparing, fit to the capacity of the receiver, that in time it may be filled. It is often seen that when this juice comes with too full and frequent a stream, almost all runs besides. I do not speak this vel jirohibendi, vel cohibendi animo, to curb the forwardness of godly ministers, or persuade the rarity of sermons,—God still, of his mercy, multiply 'labourers into,' and labours in, 'his harvest!'—but to correct your obstreperous clamours against us : not to chill the heat of your zealous hearing, but to enkindle the fire of your conscionable obeying. Do

not stand so much upon sacrifice, tliat you forgot mercy. Bo not so angry for want of two or three sermons in a week, when you will not obey the least doctrine of one in a month. You bless your Samuels in the name of the Lord, with protestation of your obedience to the will of the Lord : we reply, ' What means then the bleating of the shec[), and the lowing of the oxen in our ears ]' 1 Sam. xv. 13, 14,—the loud noise of your oaths, injuries, oppressions, frauds, circumventions 1 You come with books in your hands, but with no book for God's Spirit to write obedience in. A Bible under the arm, with many, is but like a rule at one's back, whiles all his actions are out of square. The history of the Bible is carried away easier than the mystery.

Philosophy saith that there is no vacuity, no vessel is empty; if of water or other such liquid and material sub.stances, yet not of air. So perhaps you bring hither vials to receive this balm of grace, and carry them away full, but only full of wind ; a vast, incircumscribed, and swimming knowledge, a notion, a mere implicit and confused tenency of many things, which lie like corn, loose on the floor of their brains. How rare is it to see a vial carried from the church full of balm, a conscience of grace ! I know there are many names in our Sardis; I speak not to dishearten any, but to encourage all. Only, would to God we would shew less, and do more, of goodness ! Yet shew freely, if you do godly. I reprehend not shewing, but not doing. We preach not to your flesh, but to. your spirits ; neither is this balm for the ear, but for the soul. Therefore I sum up this observation with a father: Quantum vas Jidei capax afferimus, tantum c/ratice itiuiulaiitis haurimus* —Look, how capacious a vessel of faith we bring with us to the temple, so much of this gracious and flowing balm of life we receive. Consider that this balm is animce languentis viedicina, —the physic for a sick soul. Come to it like patients that desire to be cured. Quidam veniunt ut nova perquirant, et hcec curiositas est; quidam ut sciantur, et hcec vanitas est,f —They abuse this word that search it only for news, and this is curiosity ; or to get themselves a name, and this is vanity; or to sell the truth, and this is simony; or to jest on it, and this is profaneness; or to confute it, and this is atheism.

You do well condemn, first, them that prefer Machiavel to Moses, Ishmael's scofis to Jeremiah's tears, Jericho to Jerusalem, the tower of Babel to the gates of Bethel. Or, secondly, those that put away the ministry as a superfluous office, and think they know enough to save themselves.

' Dux ero, miles ero, duce me, me milite solus Bella geram;'—•

They will be their own captains and their own soldiers, and without calling the assistance of man or angel, prophet or apostle, they will bandy with the devil and all his army, hand to hand. Or, thirdly, those that, like the collier, dance in a circular measure, and hang all their faith on the hooks of others' belief, exerci.sing all their religion by an exorcising mas.s, whiles they count the Old and New Testaments books of controversy, and that it is peremptory sacrilege to meddle with the Scriptures. You do well to abhor these dotages ; but still look that all be well at home. Love the word, and that with an appetite. Beati esurientes, —' Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied,' IMatt. v. G. But as you have love to it, so live by it. Non schohv, sed vitcv discendum, —We loarn not only to know good, but to live well. Audialis ut sciatis, saith St Bernard,i sciatis

* Cypri. apu<l Granat. Cone. i. t Hug. in Introd. Sacr. Scrip., cap. xiil.

X Seira. in Cant.

ui cedificemini, et hoc integritas est ; xd (Bclificetis, et hoc charitas est, —Hear to know, know to edify yourselves, this is integrity ; to edify others, this is charity. Bring then to this bahn vials of sincerity, not of hypocrisy, lest God till them with the vials of his indignation. It is not entuigh to have ears, but ' ears to hear.' Idle auditors are like idle gods, which have members not for i:se but show; like glass windows upon stone walls, to give ornament, not to receive light.

5. The balsam tree was granted sometimes to one only people—Judea, as Pliny* testifies. It was thence derived to other nations. Who that is a Christian doth not know and confess the appropriation of this spiritual balm once to that only nation 1 ' He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with other nations : and as for his judgments, they have not known them,' Ps. cxlvii. 19, 20. Now, as their earthly balm was by their civil merchants transported to other nations; so when this heavenly balm was given to any Gentile, a merchant of their own, a prophet of Israel, carried it. Nineveh could not have it without a Jonah; nor Babylon without some Daniels; and though Paul and the apostles had a commission from Christ to preach the gospel to all nations, yet observe how they take their leave of the Jews : Acts xiii. 46, ' It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you; but seeing you put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.' Other lands might brag of their natural and national benefits; only Jewry of both the balms. Non omnis fert omnia tellus. Nihil est omni paHe beatum.f

' India mittit ebur; molles dant thura Sabsei; Totaque thuriferis Panchaia dives arenis.'

Hiram had store of timber, Moab of sheep; Ophir was famous for gold, Chittim for ivory, Bashan for oaks, Lebanon for cedars; Plascon J had the best wines, Athens the best honey, Persia the best oil, Babylon the best corn, Tyre the best purple, Tharsis the best ships; the West Indies for gold, the East for spices : but of all, Jewry bore the palm for bearing the balm. Such grace had Israel for the temporal, much more for the spiritual balm, that all nations might make low courtesy to her, as the ' queen of the provinces,' and be beholden to her for the crumbs that fell from her table, as the Syro-phoenician desired of Christ. Yet .she, that transcended all in her blessings, descended lower than all in her disobedience. And as she lift up her head and gloried in her special privileges, so she might hang down her head for shame at her extraordinary wickednesses.

For it is observed, that there are sins adherent to nations, proper, peculiar, genuine, as their flesh cleaveth to their bones. That as for the climate of heaven, their bodies diff"er ; so for the. custom of their lives, their dispositions vary from others. So that many countries are more dangcsrous, either for sins or calamities. For of necessity they that live among tliem must either imitate them and do ill, or hate them and suffer ill, since amicitice pares ant (p.un'unt aut faciunt, —cohabitation of place seeks or makes coaptation of manners. St Paul notes the Cretians for liars, Titus i. 12 ; St Luke the Athenians for news inquirers and bearers. Acts xvii. 21. The Grecians were noted for light, the Parthians for fearful, the Sodomites for gluttons, like as England (God save the sample !) hath now suppled, lithed, and strctclieil their throats. If wc should gather .sins to their particular centres, we W(.)ukl appoint pride to Spain, lust to France, poisoning to Italy, drunkenness to

* Lib. xii., cap. 17. t Horat. % Qu. Faleruus ?— Ed.

Gei-many, epicurism to England. Now it was Israel's wickedness and wretchedness that they fell to idolatry. Not that other nations were not idolaters, but Israel vilest, because they alone were taught the true worship of God.

Jo.sephus holds that the Jews were the best soldiers of the world, both for ability of body and agility of mind, in strength, in stratagem. Divers people are now excellent fighters one special and singular way. Tlie luimans fight well in their councils, I had almost said fence-schools; the Italians in their shops, the Spaniards in their ships, the Frenchmen in a hold, the Scut with his lance, the Irishman on foot with his dart. But the Jews were, saith Josephus, every way expert, Alas ! thcii- victury came n(jt from their own strength; the Lord fought for them. So one of them chaseth ten of his enemies, a hundred chase a thousand. They had the shield of God's protection, the sword of his Spirit, the word of God; defence and offence against their carnal and spiritual enemies. And if ever they received wound to their fie.sh or spirits, they had here both the sovereign balms to cure them. But, alas ! they that were so every way blessed, lost all by losing their balm, and treading it under feet. For this cause their balm is given to us ; their aversion, their eversion, is our conversion. They were God's vine, but they lost their sweetness, Isa. v. 4. They were God's olives, but they lost their Witness, Rom. xi. 20. Therefore God took away his balm.

6. Pliny affirms, that even when the balsam tree grew only in Jewry, yet it was not growing commonly in the land, as other trees, either for timber, fruit, or medicine; but only in the king's garden. The prepared juice, or opobalsamum, was communicated to their wants; but the trees stood not in a subject's orchard. He saith further, that it grew in two orchards of the king's, whereof the greater was of twenty days' a-ring.* I force no greater credit to this than you will willingly give it, (which yet is not improbable,) but this I build on, and propound for truth, that this spuitual' balm grows only in the garden of the King of heaven. ' To liim that overcometh wiU I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God,' Rev. ii. 7. It grows in the paradise or heavenly orchard of God. The root of it is in heaven : there sits that holy tree ' at the right hand of liis Father,' CoL iii. 1. Hls fruit, his seed, his balm he sends down to us, written by his prophets and apostles, fead and preached by his ministers.

Mohammed would challenge this balm to gi-ow in his garden, and bids us search for it in his Alcoran. The apostate Jews affirm it to grow in their synagogTie, and point us to the Talmud. The Russian or Muscovitish turn us over to their Nicolaitan font, and bid us dive for it there. The Pope plucks us by the sleeve, (as a tradesman that would fain take our money,) and tells us that he only hath the bidm, and shews us his mass-book. If we suspect it there, he warrants the virtue from a general council. If it doth not yet smell well, he affirms, not without menacing damnation to our mistrust, that it is even in scrinio i)ectoris sui, —in the closet of his own breast, who cannot err. ' Tut,' saith he, * as it gi-ows in God's garden simply, it may poison you ;' as if it were dangerous to be meddled withal till he had played the apothecary, and adulterated it with his own sophistication.

WeU, it can grow in one only garden, and that is God's. There is but one truth, ' one Lord, one faith, one baptism,' &c., Eph. iv. 5. Even they that have held the greatest falsehoods, hold that there is but one truth. Nay, most will confess that this balsam tree is only in God's garden; but they presume to temper the bahn at their own pleasure, and will not minister * That is, circumference.— Ed. VOL. I. 2 A

it to the world except their own fancy hath compounded it, confounded it with their impure mixtures. No false religion, no fundamental heresy, but reserves to appropriation to God of the balm ; but they take to themselves the ministration, the adulteration of it. So in effect, they either arrogate the balm to themselves, or take it out of God's garden (as it were, whether he will or no) to plant it in their own. So they brag every one of this balm. But who will not suspect the wares out of a known cozener's shop ? It is unlawful and wicked to offer to God's church either another balm, or after another fashion, than he appoints.

But as Clusius writes of new balms, Peruvianum et halsamum cle Tolu, — from Peru and Tolu ; so demonstration is made us of new balms, some rather logical than theological. Germany knows my meaning. Others produce us balms of piety made up with policy; the coat of religion put upon the back of state, where there may be some balm, but it is so mixed that it is marred. For, to a scruple of that, they put in whole ounces of other ingredients: an ounce of oleu7n vulpinum, fox-like subtlety; as much oleum viperis, poisonable opinion; and no less oleum tartari, &c. A whole pound of policy, an armful of stinking weeds, frivolous and superstitious relics; all these are put to a poor dram or scruple of balm. Nay, and all these shall be dashed and slubbered together by a mass-priest, an idle and unskilful apothecary. And when any conscience is known sore, by auricular confession it shall have a plaster of this stuff.

Perhaps this is that they call their holy oil,'which is said to heal the sick body, if it recovers, or to cure the soul of her sins, at least of so many as may keep a man from hell, and put him into purgatory, where he shall have house-room and firewood free, till the Pope, with soul-masses and merits, can get him a plat of ground in heaven to build a house on. How shameful is it to match their oil with God's balm ! to kneel to it as God, to ascribe events to it which God works, and, to help the glory of it, to call those works miracles, whereas they might find fitter use for it about their boots ! Though it be newly invented, and every day more sophisticate than other, yet they make their patients believe that it is ancient, and derived from Holy Scriptures ; and enter the lists with the champions of God's truth, to maintain the purity and antiquity of it.

A great while they kept God's balm, the word, wholly from the pc?ople; now, because the cursings of the people have a little pierced their souls for engrossing this balm and denying it to their sores, they have stopped their mouths witli the Rhemish Testament. But as they erst did curse them for hoarding God's grain, so now their just anger is as sharp against them for the musty, mildewed, blasted stuff they buy of them. Their wickedness is no less now in poisoning them, than it Avas before in starving them. Before, no balm; now, new balm. Before, no plaster to their wounds; now, that which makes them rankle worse. So they have mended the matter as that physician did his patient's health, to whom, because he was urged to minister somewhat, he gave him a potion that despatched his disease and life at once. Thus the Popish balm is, as llenodteus calls one, vulgare balsamum, exoletum, 'hiodorum, vietum, rancidiim, —stale, unsavoury, rammish, rank, vile.

Such is the sophisticate doctrine of superstitious heretics; speaking for God's precepts their own prescripts ; preaching themselves, and in their own names, for ostentation, like the scribes; delivering falsehoods, and fixthering them on the Lord—' He hath said it;' abusing men's ears with old wives' talcs and old men's dreams, traditions of elders, constitutions of Popes, precepts of men, unwritten truths, untrue writings, cither ' withholding the

truth in unrighteousness,' or ' selling the word of God for gain,' or ' corrupting it,' 2 Cor. ii. 17, and dealing with it as adulterers do in their filthiness; for as these resi^ect not issue, but lust, so the other, not God's glory, but their own wantonness ; ministering medicines which God never prescribed to them. How can their ' feet seem beautiful,' Rom. x. 15, when, like monsters, they have too many toes on them, as the giant's son, 2 Sam. xxi. 20, or too few, as Adonibezek and those whom he maimed, Judg. L 7, oflendhig either in excess or defect ? But it is God's fearful protestation in the end of the book, summing and sealing up all the curses that went before it: 'If they add,' he that hath power to add plagues with an everlasting concatenation, will multiply their miseries without number or end. ' If they diminish,' he that can abate his blessings so low that not the least scruple shall remain, will return them their own measure, llev. xxii. 18. And for you, my brethren, hear the Apostle : ' Let no man beguile you with philosophy and vam deceit,' CoL ii. 8, or please you with false balm. You may say of their natural learning, as Albumazer of boleno, henbane : Whiles it grows, saith ho, in Persia, it is venomous; but if transplanted and growing in Jerusalem, it is not only good medicine, but good meat. "Well, if it were possible that ' an angel from heaven should preach another gospel, than that which God hath delivered and his apostles preached, anathema sit, let him be accursed,' Gal. i. 8; the true balm comes only from the garden of the King of heaven.

7. They WTite of the balsam tree, that though it spread spaciously as a vine, yet the boughs bear up themselves; and as you heard before that they must not be pruned, so now here, that they need not be supported : God's word needs no undersetting. It is firmly rooted in heaven, and all the cold storms of human reluctancy and opposition cannot shake it. Nay, the more it is shaken, the faster it grows. The refractory contentions of worldlings to pluck it down, have added no less strength than glory to it. Nor can the ministerial office of the dispensers of it be called an aicl or underpropping to it. It is not the balm, but you, that stand in need of our function. He that owns it is powerful enough to protect it. You cannot apply it to yourselves without the physician's help. If you could, or did not more want us, than that doth, you should see it flourish and spread without us. He that ' supports all by his mighty word,' Heb. i. .3, asks no supporter for that word.

The church of Home challengeth more than the church of God—that she bears up the word ; and because she assumes to carry the keys, she presumes that the door of heaven hangs upon her hinges. They say, the church is a l)illar : we may join issue with them, and yield it, as a reverend divine said. For a pillar, as it upholds something, so is upholdeu of something. If then the church be a pillar, Christ is the rock whereon it stands : now, take away the rock, down comes the pillar. The rock is well enough without the pillar, not the pillar Avithout the rock. They that would build all on their church, yet build their church on Peter; and not only on Peter, that was weak, but on his feifnied successor, who is weaker. Now this heir built on Peter, and this church built on this heir, must uphold the word, as they say Atlas did the world. But, alas ! if the word do not bear them, they will fall, like water spilt on the gTound, not to be saved or gathered uji. These are miserable, arrogant, impudent wretches, that think God's word could not hold up the hands,—like Moses, unless Aaron and Hur helped him,—if the Pope and his councils were not: forcing all our credit to the gospel for this, because their church allows it. C}od"s word nnist then stand or fall at man's approbation or dislike. 0 uidignity to the .stable ordinance of an eternal majesty!

It is enough for the laws of a temporal prince to have some dependence on his officers' promulgation. He that took no man nor angel to his counsel when he made it, demands the succour of none to preserve it. He is content to proj)agate the sound thereof through us his trumpets : if it had never been preached by man, it should not have lost the effect. Heaven and earth shall sooner run, like scorclied sldns, to heaps, than any iota, as small a character as the alphabet affords, shall ineffectually perish. If a man could deny his office, God could speak it by angels, by thunder, by lightning, confusion, terror ; by frogs, lice, caterpillars, blasting, plague, leprosy, consumption ; as he hath sometimes, holding his peace, preached actually to the world. It is his own balm, and shall spread to his pleasure, and hath no weakness in it, to need man's supportance. Blessed are we under the shadow of the branches, and wise if we buUd our salvation on it.

8. Physicians write of halsamum, that it is paratu facile et optimum, — easy and excellent to be prepared. This spiritual balm is prepared to our hands : it is but the administration that is required of us, and the application of you. Not that we should slubber it over, as the sons of Eli, in preaching ; nor that you should clap it negligently to yourselves in hearing, A mortal wound is not to be jested withal, though the physician hath in his hand the balm that can cure it. Your constitutions of body are not more various, and often variable, than your affections in soul. There must be some wisdom in us to hit the right box, and to take out that physic which God hath made fit for your griefs. We are sure the shaft that shall kill the devil in you is in God's c^uiver; indiscretion may easily mistake it, misapply it. This balm is ready, soon had, and cheaply: let not this make you dis-esteem it. Gallant humours vUipend all things that are cheap. But if in God's mart you refuse his wares, because their price is no greater, you may perhaps one day, when they are gone, curse your withstanding your markets; and being past obtaining, piize it the higher, because in the days of your satiety yon did undervalue it. The guests in the gospel, bidden to a supper gratis, make light of it: when the feastmaker had protested against them, that they ' should never taste of his supper,' Luke xiv. 24, they doubtless would have been glad if their money could have purchased it, though it cost one his farm, and the other his oxen.

9. Balm is uiilis ad omnium morhoruvi expugnationem, —good against all diseases. The receipt that Linus, Hercules's schoolmaster, gave him, when he taught him wrestling, was only a balm. Darius, saith Kenodceus, so esteemed it, that non viodo inter pretiosissimam supellectilevi reponeret, sed cunctis opihus pra^poneret, —he did not only lay it up amongst his richest treasures, but even prefer it before them all. This spiritual bahn is far more precious in. itself, and fructuous to all men, if they apprehend it in knowledge, apply themselves to it in obedience : possessing it in science, in conscience. Philosopliers, poets, physicians, historians have reported some one extraordinary thing exceeding all the rest in their observations. They talk of cornucopia, that it supplied men with all necessary food. They hammer at the philosopher's stone, wliich they affirm can turn baser metals into gold. Vulcan's armour, saith the poet, was of proof against all blows. Pliysicians tell us, that the herb panaces is good for all diseases, and the drug catholi-con instead of all puigcs ; as both their names would seem to testify. They come all short of this spiritual balm. It hath in deed and i)erfection what they attribute to those in fiction. Panace is an herb, whereof Pliny thus tcstifieth : Panace, ipso nomine, omnium morborum remedia pro7nittit, —The I'cry name of it promiscth remedy to all sicknesses. It is but a weed to our

balsam; which is a tree, a tree of life, a complete paradise of trees of life, flourishing and bearing every mouth, the fruit being delectable, the leave*: medicinable. It is a true purging virtue, to cleanse us from all corruption of si.irit, of flesh. ' Now are ye dam, through the word which I have spoken unto you,' John xv. 3. Catholicon is a drug, a drudge to it. It purilk'th our hearts from all defilings and obstructions in them. A better cornucopia than ever nature, had she been true to their desires and wants, could have produced : the bread of heaven, by which a man lives for ever, A very supernatural stono, more precious than the Indies, if they were consoli.hitu into one cpuirry; that turns all into purer gold than ever the land of Havilah boasted. A stronger armour than was Vulcan's, to slueld us from a more strange and savage enemy than ever Anak begot, the devil, Eph. vi. 11. It is a jxmtry of wholesome food, against fenowed traditions; a physician's shop of antidotes, against the poisons of heresies and the plague of miquities; a pandect of profitable laws, against rebellious spirits; a treasure of costly jewels, against beggarly rudiments.

The aromatical tree hath sometimes good savour in the rind, sometimes in the flower, sometimes ha the fruit. So it fareth in the cinnamon, that is a rind; the mace is the flower, and the nutmeg the fruit. Accorduig as the dry and earthy part, mingled with the su-btle watery matter, hath the mastery in any tree, more or less, that part smellcth best; as in common flowers, which savour in the flower, when from the stalk or root ariseth nothing. Only the balm smells well in every part. So the word is in every respect the sweet savour of life; though to some, through their own corruption, it becomes the savour of death. We may say of the word, as of the lamb, it is all good : the fleece to clothe, the flesh to eat, the blood for medicine. Thus ' all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works,' 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17. His scduhriter, et corriguntur jyrava, et nutriuntur parva, et magna ohlectantur inrjenia* —Evil wits are corrected, simple are enlightened, strong are delighted by the word. And, In his quotidie proficerem, si eas solas ah ineunte piieriiia, usque ad decrepitam senectutem, maxima otio, summo studio^ meliore ingenio conarer addiscere,—In these I should continually profit, if from the first day of my understanding, to the last of my old age, I should be conversant with them.

Other things may have in them sahibritatem quandam, a certain wholcsomc-ness ; but from this balm, sanitas et ipsa vita petitur, health and life itself is derived. ^ Human writings may, like the Alipt<e, put blood in our cheeks, but this is the true phy.sic to cherish our spark, to maintain our life. Other herbs, and plants, and roots may be toxica, and poison the broth; this is Elisha's salt, that only sweetens it. Lignum crucis is ligmnn vitce, like Moses's wood, to put a healthful taste into the bitter waters of human knowledge. These are the two Testaments of God, wluch no man shall interline Avithout certain judgnnent; like the two pillars of smoke and fire, one dark like the Old, the other bright as the New, only able to conduct us from Egypt to Canaan, and to furnish us with all necessaries by the way, if we depend thereon; the two chembims, that look directly toward the mercy-seat, both pointing to Jesus Christ; the treasure, that hath both old and new in it, sufticicntly able to ' instruct the scribe to the kingdom of heaven,' ]\Iatt. xiii. 52. This is that viedicamentum medicamentorum, as Pctrus Apjionensis. saith of the balm, uhi nihil deficit, quod in salutem sufficity —where there i& * Aug. Ser. 139 do Temp.

no want of anything requisite to salvation : cujus 2'>lenitudtnem adoroj^ — whose fuhiess I reverence and admire.

This is that light which can justly guide our steps; this is tliat measure of the sanctuary that must weigh all things; this is that great seal that must warrant all our actions. This gives at one sermon balm sufficient to heal divers diseases. Peter had auditors of divers nations, ' Parthians, Medes, Elamites, &c., Jews and proselj^tes, Cretes and Arabians,' Acts ii. 9 ; and no question but their affections were different, yet were three thousand won at one sermon, ver. 41. So the multitude, the publicans, the soldiers, had all their lessons at one time, Luke iii. 10 : so many in number, and such manner of men in nature, had their remedies together, and their several diseases healed, as it were, with one plaster. The people had a doctrine of charit}^, ver. 11 ; the publicans, of equity, ver. 13 ; the soldiers, of innocency, ver. 14. This was prophesied by Isaiah, fulfilled here, and often in Christ's kingdom : ' The wolf is turned to the lamb,' Isa. xi. 6, when the soldiers are made harmless; ' the leopard into a calf,' when the publicans are made just; the ' lion and bear into a cow,' when the multitude is made charitable.

Water searcheth, and wind shaketh, and thunder terrifieth even lions, but the word only is strong to convert the heart of man. Some, indeed, both in sense and censure, judge it weak; but they, alas ! shall find it, if weak to save them, yet strong to condemn them. If it cannot plant thee, it wdll supplant thee. This then is that sovereign balm, medicinable to all maladies. Physicians ascribe many healing virtues to their balsam : many, and almost what not ? This metaphysical doth more properly challenge that attribution.

1. They say that balm, taken fasting, astlimaticis valde confert, is very good against short-windedness. Truly, God's word lengthens and strengthens the breath of grace; which otherwise would be short, the conscience, as the lungs, being soon obstructed with iniquities. For goodness soon faints where the word is not. Without the gospel, the health of obedience loseth, and the disease of sin gathers strength.

2. They say that balm, tjiken inwardly, dissolves and breaks the stone in the reins. But Jeremiah, in God's physic-book, saith that our balm is as ' a hammer to break the stone in the heart,' chap, xxiii. 29. The stone in the reins is dangerous, in the bladder painful, but none so deadly as the stone in the heart. This balm supples the stony heart, and turns it into a * heart of flesh.'

3. They commend their balm for a special ease to the anger of a venomous biting. But our balm is more excellent in acideum draconis, imo moriis, — against the sting of that great red dragon, nay, of death itself: * 0 death, where is thy sting 1' 1 Cor. xv. 5-5. Three serpents give us venomous wounds : sin first stings us, the devil next, and death last. This balm of Christ fetchcth out all their poisons.

4. Others say of this balm, that it is good against the obstructions of the liver. I have heard the liver in the body compared mth ze;ii in the soul. The liver, according to the physicians, is the third principal member wherein rest the animal spirits. In the soul two graces precede zeal—faith and repentance. I say not this in thesi, but in hypnthesi, not simply, but in respect, and that rather of order than of time. For a man is begotten of immortal seed by the Spirit at once. Now, as the liver heats the stomach, (like fire under the pot,) and thereby succours digestion, so doth zeal heat a man's works with a holy fervour; which are, without that, a cold sacrifice

* Tertul.

to God. A soul without zeal doth as hardly live as a body without a liver. Haly calls the liver the well of moisture : we may say of zeal, it is the very cistern whence all other graces issue forth into our lives. The liver is called hepa)' and Jecur, because it draweth juice to itself, turneth it into blood, and by veins serveth the body, aa the water-house doth a city by pipes. Nay, it ministereth a surging heat to the brain, to the eyes, to the wits, saith Isidore. The pagan necromancers sacrificed only livers on the altar of their god Phojbus, before his oraculous answers were given. In the soul, other graces, as faith, hope, charity, repentance, did first rather breed zeal; but zeal being once enkmdled, doth minister nutrimental heat to all these, and is indeed the best sacrifice that we can offer to God. Without zeal, all are like the oblation of Cain.

Now, if any obstructions of sin seem to oppress this zeal in us, this balm of God's word is the only sovereign remedy to cleanse it. For zeal is in danger, as the liver, either by too much heat or too much cold, to be distempered. To overheat the liver of zeal many have found the cause of a perilous surfeit in the conscience : whUes, like the two disciples, nothing could content them but tire from heaven against sinners. ' If ever bishop was in the tune of Popery, away with that office now ! If ever mass was said in church, pull it down !' Though some depopulators have now done it in extreme coldness, nay, frozen dregs of heart, making them either no churches or polluted ones ; whiles those which were once temples for God's shepherds are now cots for their own : yet they in unmeasurable heat wished what these with unreasonable cold livers affected. Such miserable thieves have crucified the church, one by a new religion in \\tJ1, the other by a no religion in deed. They would not only take away the abuse, but the thing itself; not only the ceremony, but the substance. As the painter* did the ])icture of King Henry the Eighth, whom he had drawn fairly with a Bible in his hand, and set it to open view against Queen ]\Iary's coming in triumph through the city; for which being reproved by a great man that saw it, and charged to wipe out the book, he, to make sure work, wiped out the Bible and the hand too; and so in mending the fault, he maimed the picture.

This is the effect of preternatural heat, to make of a remedy a disease. Thus whiles they dream that Babylon stands upon ceremonies, they offer to raze the foundations of Jerusalem itself Well, this balm of God's word, if their sick souls would apply it, might cool this ungentle heat of their livers. For it serves not only to enkindle heat of zeal in the overcold heart, but to refrigerate the preposterous fervour in the fiery-hot. This is the saving balm that scours away the obstructions in the Uver, and prevents the dropsy; for the dropsy is nothing else, saith the philosopher, but the error of the digestive vu'tue in the hollowness of the liver. Some have such hollowncss in their zeal, whiles they pretend holiness of zeal, (as w;us in the iron horns of that false prophet Zedekiah, 1 Kings xxii. 11,) that for want of a])plying this balm, they are sick of the dropsy of hypocrisy.

Innumerable are the uses of balm, if we give credit to physicians— vel jyotum, vel inunciinn. It strengthens the nerves, it excites and cherisheth the native heat in any part, it succoureth the paralytic, and delayetli the fury of convulsions, «kc.; and, last of all, is the most sovereign help either to green Avounds or to inveterate ulcers. These, all these, and more than ever was untruly feigned or truly performed by the balsam to the body, is spiritually fulfilled in this happy, heavenly, and true intrinsic balm, God's word. It * Acts and Mon.

heals tlie sores of the conscience, wHch either original or actual sin have made in it. It keeps the green wound, which sorrow for si^ cuts in the heart, from ranlding the soul to death. This is that balsam tree that hath fructum uberrimum, usum saluherrimwn, —plenteous fruit, profitable use,— and is, in a word, both a preservative against, and a restorative from, all dangers to a believing Christian. It is not only physic, but health itself, and hath more virtue, saving virtue, validity of saving virtue, than the tongues of men and angels can ever sufficiently describe.

You have here the similitudes. Hear one or two discrepancies of these natural and supernatural balms. For as no metaphor should of necessity run like a coach on four wheels, when to go, like a man, on two sound legs is sufficient; so earthly things, compared with heavenly, must look to fall more short than Linus of Hercules, the shrub of the cedar, or the lowest mole-bank of the highest pyramids.

1. This earthly balm cannot preserve the body of itself, but by the accession of the spiritual balm. Even angels' food (so called, not because they made it, but because they ministered it) cannot nourish without God's word of blessing. For ' every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving : for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer,' 1 Tim. iv. 4, 5. If the mercy of God be not on our sustenance, we may die with meat in our mouths, like the Israehtes. If his pro%ddential goodness withhold the virtue, were our garnients as costly as the ephod of Aaron, there is no benefit in them. When many are sick, they trust to the physicians, as Asa, 2 Ghron. xvi. 12, or to this balm, fastening their ej^es and hopes on that; whereas balm, with the destitution of God's blessing, doth as much good as a branch of herb-John in our pottage. Nature itself declines her ordinary working, when God's revocation hath chidden it. The word without balm can cure; not the best balm without the word.

2. So this natural balm, when the blessing of the word is even added to it, can at utmost but keep the body living till the life's taper be burnt out; or after death, give a short and insensible preservation to it in the sarcophagal grave. But this balm gives life after death, life against death, life without death. ' To whom shall we go % Lord, thou hast the words of eternal life,' John vi. 68. The Apostle doth so sound it, the saints in heaven have so found it, and we, if we believe it, if we receive it, shaU perceive it to be the word of life. And as Augustine* of God, Oinne bonuin nostrum vel ipse, vel ab ipso, —All our good is either God, or from God; so all our ordinary means of good from God are vel verbum, vel de verbo, —either the word, or by the word.

Obs. —The prophet derives the balm from the Mount Gilcad, demanding if Gilcad be without balm. It seems that Gilead was an aromatical j)lace, and is reckoned by some among the mountains of spice. It is called in some places of Scripture Galeed, and by an easy varying of the points in the Hebrew writing, Gilead, Gen. xxxi. This mountaui was at first so called by Jacob, hy reason of that solemn covenant which he there made with his father-in-Livv, pursuing Laban. Though it be called j\Iount Gilead before in the chapter, ver. 21, 23, 25, ' He set his face toward Mount Gilead,' &c., yet it is by anticipation; spoken rather as the hill was called when the history was written by Moses, than as it was saluted and ascended by Jacob, who abode in it till Laban overtook liim, where the pacified father and the departing son made their covenant. Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed, ver. 47. It signifies ' a heap of witnesses,' a name imposed by * Lib. i. de Doct. Christ,, cap. 31.

occasion of the heap of stones pitched for tlie league between them : ' Lalian said, Tliis lieap is a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore vras the name of it called Galeed,' ver. 48. There was one ' Gilcad, son of Machir, son of Manasseh,' of whom, because it is said that ' Machir begat Gilcad,' Num. xxvi. 2i), and of Gilcad came the family of the Giloaditos, some ascribe the attribution of this name to Mount Gilcad. But this mount had the name long before the son of ;Machir was born. This appears, Num. xxxii. 39/40. We read of it tliat it was, (1.) A great mountain; (2.) Fniit-ful; (3.) Full of cities ; (4.) Abounding with spices.

(1.) It was a ffreat mountvin, the greatest of all beyond Jordan, in length fifty miles. But as it ran along by other coasts, it received divei-s names. From Arnon to the city Kcdar it is called Gilcad ; from thence to Bozra it is called Seir ; and after, Hermon; so reaching to Damascus, it is joined to Libanus. So Hierome conceiteth on these words of God * unto the king s house of Judah : Thou art Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon,' Jer. xxii. 6; and therefore Lebanon is the beginning of Gilcad.

(2.) Fruitful; abounding with great variety of necessaries and delights, yielding both pleasure and profit. This every part and comer thereof afforded, even as far as Mount Seir, which the Edomites, the generation of Esau, chose for a voluptuous habitation. This the children of Keuben, and the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, when they saw the land of Gilead, that the place was a place for cattle. Num. xxxii. 1, desired of Moses and of the princes of the congregation that they might possess it,— ' for it is a land for cattle, and thy servants have cattle,'—the condition that Moses required being by them granted, that ' they should go armed v.-itli their brethren,' till the expulsion of their enemies had given them a c^uiet seat in Canaan : ver. 25, ' Thy servants will do as my lord commandeth. Only our little ones, our Avives, our flocks, and all our cattle, shall be in the cities of Gilead;' Josh. L 12, 13. The fertility of Gilead contented them, though with the separation of Jordan from their brethren. Our Saviour describing the beauty of his spouse. Cant. iv. 1, 2, 'Behold, thou art fair, my love, behold thou art fair,' inwardly fair with the gifts of his Spirit, and outwardly fair in her comely administration and government: ' thou hast doves' eyes withbi thy locks,' thy eyes of understanding being full of purity, chastity, simplicity; he adds withal, that ' her hah-,' her gracious profession, and ap-pendances of expedient ornaments, are as comely to behold ' as a flock of well-fed goats,' grazing and appearing 'on the fruitful hills of Gilead;' which made them so pregnant, that, ' like a flock of sheep, every one brings out twins, and none is barren among them,' Cant. iv. 5, 6. The same praise is redoubled by Christ, chap, vi., &c.

(3.) It vfiia full of cities; a place so fertile, that it was full of inhabitants. ' Jair, the Gilcadite, who judged Israel, had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havoth-jair unto this day, which are in the land of Gdead,' Judg. x. 4. It was as populous as fructuous, and at once blessed with pregnancy both of fruits for the peo[)le and of people for the fruits. It was, before Israel conquered it, in the dominion of the Amorites, Num. xxxii. 39 ; and more specially of Og, king of Bashan, that remained of the remnant of the giants, Deut. iii. 11, whose ' bedstead was a bedstead of iron, nine cubits long, and four cubits broad, after the cubit of a man.' It was not only full of strength in itself, but guarded with cities in the plain: ' All the cities in the plain, and all Gilcad, and all Bashan,' Arc, Deut. iii. 10. So the inheritance of Gad is reckoned by Joshua, ' Their coast was Jazer, and all the cities of Gilead,' chap. xiii. 25.

It appears, then, that Gilead was full of cities, so blessed as if the heavens had made a covenant of good unto it, as Jacob did erst with Laban upon it. A hill of witness indeed, for it really testified God's mercy to Israel. God calls it his own : ' Gilead is. mine, Manasseh is mine,' Ps. cviii. 8. The principal or first name of kingdom, that usurping Ishbosheth was by Abner crowned over, was Gilead : ' And he made him king over Gilead, and over the Ashurites,' &c., 1 Sam. ii. 9.

(4.) It was, lastly, a mountain of spices; and many strangers resorted thither for that merchandise. Even when the malicious brethren, having thrown innocent .Joseph into the pit, ' sat down,' in a secure neglectfulncss, *to eat bread : behold'—surely the Lord sent and directed—'a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels, bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh,' Gen. xxxvii. 25. By which it appears to be mons aromatitm, a hill of spices. Therefore God here, ' Is there no balm in Gilead 1 '

Obs. —The Jews were near to Gilead, it was but on the other side of Jordan. The fetching over their merchandise was no long and dangerous voyage. Yet was this spiritual balm nearer to them ; it lay like manna at their doors. Ve)iit ad limina virtus. ' The kingdom of heaven is among you,' saith Christ. There needed no great journey for natural physic, but less for spiritual comfort. Behold, God himself gives his vocal answers between the cherubims. Yet, alas! as it was once justly reproved on the monks, and such spiritual or rather carnal convents, in tliat night of Popery, that the nearer they were to the church the further from God; so it was even verified of the Jews, that by how much they were of all next to the sanctuary, by so much of all remotest from sanctity. And therefore, he that once said, ' Gilead is mine,' Ps. Ix. 7, and of the temple in Judah, ' This is my house, called by my name,' Jer. vii. 10, afterward left both the hill of Gilead, and the Mount Zion, and the holy sanctuary, a prey to the Romans; who left not ' a stone upon a stone' to testify the ruins of it, or for succeeding ages to say, ' This was the temple of God.' Thus saith the prophet Hosea : ' Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity, and is polluted with blood,' chap. vi. 8. Therefore God turned that ' fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwelt therein,' Ps. cvii. 34. For not content with the fertility of their soil, they manured it with blood, saith the prophet. Hence no marvel if it became at last like the cursed mountains of Gilboa, that drank the blood of Saul and Jonathan, 2 Sam. i. 21.

II. You have heard the balm ; the next subject that offers itself to our speech is the physicians. 'Is there no balm at Gilead; is there no physician there V The prophets are allegorically called physicians, as the word is balm. So are the ministers of the gospel in due measure, in their place. To speak properly and fuUy, Christ is our only physician, and we are but his ministers, bound to apply his saving physic to the sickly souls of his people. It is he only that cures the carcase, the conscience.

1. No physician can heal the body without him. The woman with the bloody issue was not bettered by her physicians, Mark v. 26, though she had emptied all her substance into their purses, till Christ undertook her cure. The leper in the 8th of Matthew, ver. 3, was as hopeless, as hapless, till he met with this physician ; and then the least touch of his finger healed him. Physicians deal often, not by extracting, but protracting the disease ; maldng rather diseases for their cure, than cures for diseases; prolonging our sicknesses by art, which nature, or rather nature's defect, hath not made .so tedious. Therefore, as one saith wittily, the best physic is to take no physic; or, as another boldly, our new physic is worse than our old sickness. But when

oiu- diseases be committed to this heavenly doctor, and he is pleased to take them m hand, our venture is without all ])eradventure, we shall be healed. The least touch of his finger, the breath of his mouth, can cast out the evil in us, can cast out the devil in us; he can, he will cure us.

2. No minister can heal the conscience where Christ hath not given a blessing to it. Otherwise he may lament with the prophet, ' I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought,' Isa. xlix. 4 ; or, as the Apostle, ' I have fished all night, and caught nothing; yet at thy command,' etc. ' Who then is Paul, or who is ApoUos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man ? I have planted, ApoUos watered ; but God gave the increase,' 1 Cor. iii. 5, 6. If any be blind, he is the oculist; if any be lame, he sets the bones; if any be wounded, he Ls the chirurgeon ; if any be sick, he is the physician.

They write of the Indian physicians, that they cure the wound by sucking the poison. Christ heals after a manner, I know not whether more loving and strange, by taking the disease upon himself: ' Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree,' 1 Pet. ii. 24. ' He was wounded for our transgressions, he was braised for our iniquities, and with his stripes we are healed; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all,' Isa. liii. 5, 6. As the scape-goat was said to ' bear upon him the sins of Israel,' Lev. xvi. 22, so saith the prophet of his antity^ie, Christ, morbos portavit nostras, ' he hath borne our griefs,' Isa. liii. 4 ; too un.supportable a burden for our shoulders, able to sink us down to hell, as they did Cain and Judas, if they had been imposed. Tidit Jesus, —' Christ carried our sorro\ys.' Never was such a physician, that changed healths -n-ith his sick patient. But he was humbled for us. Man's maker is made man, the Avorld's succourer takes suck, the ' bread' is hungry, the ' fountain' thirsty, the ' light' sleepy, the 'way' weary, the 'truth' accused, the 'judge' condemned; health itself is become sick, nay, dead, for our salvation. For man's sake (such was our weakness) Christ descended, (such was his kindness,) and took on him to cure us, (such was his goodness,) and performed it, (such was his greatness.) It was not Abana nor Phaqmr, nor all the rivers of Damascus, not the water of Jordan, though bathing in it seventy times, not Job's ' snow-water,' nor David's ' water of hyssop,' not the pool of Bethesda, though stirred mth a thousand angels, that was able to wash us clean. Only fiisus sanguis medici, factum medicamentum phrenetici, —the blood of the physician is spilt, that it may become a medicine of salvation to all believers. Tliis is the pelican, that preserves her young with her own blood. This is the goat, that with his warm gore breaks the adamants of our hearts. This is ' that Lamb of God,' that with his own blood ' takes away the sins of the world,' John i. 29. When the oracle had told the king of Athens that himself must die in the battle, or his whole army perish, Codni.s, then king, never stuck at it, but obtruded his own life into the jaws of inevitable death, that he might save his people's. The King of heaven was more freely %\'illing to ' lay down his,' for the redemption of his .saints, when the eternal decree of God had pro pounded him the choice. Is there no means to recover the sick world, but I must die that it may live 1 Then take my life, quoth Life itself. Thus pro me doluit, qui non Juthuil, quod pro se doUret,* —he was made sick for me, that I might be made sound in him.

This then Ls our physician, in whom alone is saving health. As Sybilla sung of him—

* August.

^a^^a Xoyip rredrrojVj '^rajav rs vCaov '^nainhm.

'Virgineus partus, inagnoque sequseva Parent! Progenies, superas coeli quce missa per auras, Autiquam geueris labem mortalibus segris Abluit, obstructique viam patefecit OlympL'

* He wrought all things with his word, and healed every disease with his power.' To him let us resort, confessing our sores, our sorrows. ' They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick,' Matt. ix. 12. ' Foolish men, because of their iniquities, are afflicted; that their soul ab-horreth all manner of meat, and they draw near to the gates of death. Yet they cry unto this physician, and he delivers them from their distress,' Ps. cvii. 17-19. So he hath promised in the Testament, both of his law and of his gospel: ' Call on me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee,' Ps. 1. 15. ' Come to me, all that are laden, and I will give you rest,' i\Iatt. xi. 28. There never went sorrowful beggar from his door without an alms. No marvel if he be not cured, that is opinionated of his own health. They say that the tench is the physician of fishes; and they being hurt, come to him for cure. AH the fishes that are caught in the net of the gospel come to Christ, who is the King of physicians, and the Physician of kings. Come then to him, beloved, not as to a master in name only, as the la^vJ'er, Matt, xxii. 36, but as to a Saviour indeed, as the leper, Matt. viii. 2, ' Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.' Non tanquam ad Dominum, titularem, sed tanquam ad Dominum tutelarem, as one elegantly.

Ministers are physicians under Christ, sent only with his physic in their hands, and taught to apply it to our necessities. Neither the physician of the body nor of the soul can heal by any virtue inherent in, or derived from themselves. We must take all out of God's warehouse. God hath a double box—of nature, of grace; as man hath a double sickness—of flesh, of spirit.

1. The first box is mentioned Ecclus. xxxviii., 'The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them.' God hath not scanted earth of drugs and minerals, the sunples of physic, for such as tread on it. And howsoever our vanity in health transport our thoughts, earth hath no more precious thing in it than, as sustenance to preserve, so medicine to restore us. You that have digged into the entrails of the dead earth, and not spared the bowels of the living earth, the poor, for riches : you that have set that at your heart which was cast down at the apostles' feet, money. Acts iv. 35, as fit only for sanctified men to tread upon in contempt : you that have neglected heaven, which God hath made your glorious ceiling, and richly stuck it, like a bright canopy, with burning lights, and doted on your pavement, made only for your feet to tread upon ; fixing your eyes and thoughts on that which God hath indisposed to be your object; for man's countenance is erect, lessoning his soul to a just and holy aspiration : you that have put so fair for the philosopher's stone, that you have endeavoured to sublimate it out of poor men's bones, ground to powder by your oppressions : you that liave buried your gods so soon as you have found them out, as llaclicl did Laban's in the litter, and sit down with rest on them, saying to the Avedge, 'Thou art my confidence,' Job xxxi. 24 ;—when your heads ache, dissolve your gold, and drink it; wallow your crazy carcase in your silver, wrap it in perfumes and silks, and try what ease it will afford you. Will not a silly and contemptible weed, prepared by a skilful physician, give you more comfort? Doth not the common air, which you receive in and breathe out again, refresh you better? Mow eager are our desires of

superfluities, how neglectful of necessaries ! This box of treasures hath God given us, and endued some with knowledge to minister them, lest our ignorance might not rather prejudice than succour our healths. No physician, then, cures of himself, no nu)re than the hand feeds the mouth. The meat doth the one, the medicine doth the other; though the physician and the hand he unsparcd* instruments to their several purposes. Thus God relieves our health from the box of nature.

2. The other box is grace ; whence the divine draweth out .sundry remedies for our diseases of soul. This is not so common as that of nature. Once one nation had it of all the world, now all the world rather than that nation. But it is certain they have it only to whom the gospel is preached. It is indeed denied to none that do not deny their faith to it. Christ is ' that Lamb, that takes away rfiv ufzuoriav roij xoo/xou, the sin of the world,' John i. 29. But many want the physicians to teach and apply this. ' And how shall they preach except they be sent?' Rom. x. 15. Now, where these physicians are, is the people healed by any virtue derived from them ? Is it the perfumer that gives such sweet odours, or his perfumes ? ' Why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk V Acts iii. 12. * Be it known to you all, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth doth this man stand whole before you,' chap. iv. 10. ' Therefore,' saith St Paul, concludhig this doctrine so throughly handled, ' let no man glory in men; for all things are yours, whether Paul,' <kc.; ' all are yours, and ye are Clu:ist's, and Christ is God's,' 1 Cor. iii. 21, &c. It is the tidings we bring that saves you, not our persons. Moses, that gave the law, could not frame his own heart to the obedience of it. It lies not in our power to beget faith in our own souls. ' The heart of the king is in the hands of God, as are the waters in the south.' The souls of all, prince and people, prophets and Nazarites, preachers and hearers, learned and ignorant, are converted by God, by whom they were created. It was the voice even of a prophet, ' Turn us, 0 Lord, and so shall we be turned.'

Use. —This consideration may serve to humble our hearts, whom God hath trusted with the dispensation of his oracles. It is a sacrilegious sin for any spiritual physician to ascribe God's doing to his own saying, and to make his glory cleave to earthen fingers. As Menecrates, a natural one, wrote in a certain epistle to Pliilip of Macedon : ' Thou art king of Macedon, I of physic. It lies in thy power to take health and life from men, in mine to give it.' So monstrous was liis pride, yet so applauded by the besotted citizens, that he marched with a train of gods after him : one in the habit of Hercules, another of ^Mercury, a third in the form of Apollo ; whilst himself, like Jupiter, walked with a purple robe, a crown of gold, and a sceptre; boasting that by his art he could breathe life into men. Foolish clay ! he could not preserve himself from mouldering to dust. Ostentation in a spiritual physician is worse, by how nuich our profession teacheth us to be more humble. It Ls a high climbing pride in any pharisee, and injurious to the throne of God, to arrogate to himself a converting power. As in the fable, the fly sitting on the coach-wheel at the games of Olympia, gave out that it was she which made so great a du.st. Or as that malecontent in a deep melancholy, who hearing the winds blow furiously, thought it was only his breath which made all that blustering. It is God only that can turn the heart and turn the tongue, heal the body and help the soul. Let the instruments have just respect, God alone the praise. ' Honour the physician with the honour due unto him : for the Lord hath created him,' Ecclu.s. * That is, incli.si)unsable.—Eu.

sxxviii. 1 ; and * count the ■vvell-ruling elders wortliy of double Lionour,' 1 Tim. V. 17. But let God be glorified, as the author of all, above all, for all.

It hath pleased God to call his ministers by this title, physicians : many duties hence accrue to our instrviction. I cannot, I need not, dwell much on them; for every one can lesson us that will not be lessoned by us. Not that we refuse knowledge from any lips,—since nothing can be said well but by God's Spirit, who sometimes reproves a Jonah by a mariner, a Peter by a silly damsel, a Balaam by an ass,—but because they whose lips God hath seasoned, sealed to preserve knowledge, are held contemptible, and their feet foul that bring the fairest message ; so the frantic patient beats the medicine about his ears that brings it. The prophets would have cured Jerusalem, behold Jerusalem killeth them ! You kill us still, though not in our natural, yet in our civil life, our reputation. We feel not your murderings, but your murmurings. Ishmael's tongue made him a persecutor, as well as Esau's hands. Only our God comforts us, as he did Samuel: ' They have not cast thee away, but they have cast me away, saith the Lord.' A word or two, therefore, concerning their care of your cure.

1. The physician must apply himself to the nature of his patient: so the minister to the disposition of his hearer; leading the gentle, and drawdng the refractory ; winning some with love, and ' pulling others out of the fire ; having compassion on some, and saving others with fear,' Jude 22, 23, iledicmnenti dosis J)to coeli et soli natura mutanda, —The prescription of the medicine must be diversified according to the nature of the soil and the air. He shall never cure men's consciences that looks not to their affections, ' making a difference.' Paul testifieth of himself, ' I became to the Jews as a Jew, &c.; to the weak as weak, that I might save the weak : I am made all things to all men, that by all means I might save some,' 1 Cor. ix. 20-22. We must vary our speecih to their weak understandings ; 'judgment to whom judgment, mercy to whom mercy belongs.'

And you, beloved, must also apply yourselves to us; not scorning your own .preacher, and running with itching ears to others, delighting rather in the variety of teachers than in the verity of doctrines. It fares with ministers as with fish, none so welcome as the new come. Set aside prejudice. The meanest preacher whom God hath sent you can shew you that which, if you obediently follow, shall effectually save your souls. The word is powerful, what instrument soever brings it; and God's ' strength is made manifest in our weakness.' Hear all, despise none. And as we are bound to ' feed that flock whereof the Holy Ghost hath made us overseers,' Acts XX. 28 ; so do you content yourselves with that pastor whom God hath sent to feed you. Factions have thus been kindled, and how hardly are they extinguished ! Whiles one is for Paul, another for ApoUos, a third for Cephas : or rather, (for these preserved one analogy of truth in their doctrine, and only differed in plainness and eloquence of speech,) when some are for Cephas, and others for Caiaphas ; some for apostles, and others for apostates ; some for sincere preachers, others for schismatical sectaries; thus observing rather the diversity of instructors than the unity of truth ;—there arise, in the end, as many minds as men, as many sects as cities, as many gospels as gossips.

2. The physician must not commit his patient's health to the apothecary. God hath trusted thee with his people's welfare, whom ' he hath purchased with his own blood :' thou must not be at thy man, and impose all on hun. It was the reason that the Roman's horse was so ill tended, himself so well: £Jr/o euro meipsuvi, Staiius vero C'puon, —I look to myself, but my man looks

to my horse. Tlie like reason sometimes makes fat sliepberds and lean flocks. God hath placed us as mothers, to bear children unto him : now as we must not be barren, and bring forth none, Gal. iv. 19, so we must not, when we have them, put them furth to nurse. It is not more unkind in a natural, than unnatural in a spiritual mother. There is a necessary use of the apothecary, so of the reader. He that digs the ground is not to be despised, though a more exquisite gardener draws the knot. But it is dangerous to trust all on him, and do God's business by an attorney. God hath given thee the milk, that thou shouldest feed his sheep, and not put them over to an hireling, John x. 12, who sutlers the wolf to enter and tear the lambs, never breaking his sleep for the matter. Nut but that preaching may jacld to a more weighty dispensation. When the vaunts of some heretical Goliah shall draw us forth to encounter him with our pens against whcmi we cannot draw the swoi'd of our tongues; when the greater busuiess of God's church shall warrant our non-residence to the inferior; when one is called from being a mariner, and running about, to the office of a pilot, to sit still at the helm : then, and upon these grounds, we may be tolerated by another phy-.sician to serve our cures,—for so I find our charges, not without allusion to this metaphor, called,—a physician, I say; that is, a skilful divine, not an illiterate apothecary, an insufficient reader. That mere reading of the Scriptures hath, and may save souls, who ever doubted 1 But that preaching with reading is more effectual, can it be denied I Oh, then, that any of the ' sons of the prophets,' whom God hath blessed with laiowledge of his heavenly physic, should sit down on the chaii- of security, or shut themselves in the cells of obscurity, or chamber themselves perpetually in a college, or graze on the private commons of one man's benevolence, as Micah had his Levite to himself, whiles their gifts are not communicated to the church of God!

Every sjnritual physician must keep his right ubi. It is well observed by Aretius, upon the occasional calling of Peter and Andrew when they were fishing, that God is wont to bless men especially when they are busied in their proper element: working, as the father charged his son, ' in his vme-yard,' Matt. xxi. 2S. Not in the wilderness of the world, nor in the labyrinth of lusts, nor in the field of covetousness, nor in the house of security, much less in the chamber of wantonness, or in the tavern of drunkenness, or theatre of lewdness, but in God's vineyard, their general or particular calling. Our vocations must be kept and followed; not making ourselves magistrates in foreigTi commonwealths, bishops in others' dioceses, scalding our lii)s in our neighbours' pottage. When those shepherds heard the first glad tidings of Chri.st, they were ' attending their flocks by night in the field,' Luke ii. 8. Saul, going honestly about his fiither's business, met with a kingdom. And David was at the folds when Samuel came with the holy oil. We say, Fluribiis intentus, minor est ad singula sensus; and, 3Iiles equis, Piscator aquis, &c.

' Quod raedicoriim est Promittunt medici, tractant fabrilia fabri;'— *

Let none prescribe physic but practitioners in that faculty ; none plead at the bar but lawyers. Let the .shoemaker look to his boot, the fisher to his boat, the scholar to his book. The husbandman inforo, the minister in choro.

' Omnia cum facias, inimris cur facias nil ?

Posthurae, rem solam qui facit, ille facit;'—t

♦ Horat. t Martial. Epig., lib. iu.

He tliat would comprehend all tilings, apprehends nothing. As he that comes to a corn-heap, the more he opens his hand to take, the less he graspeth, the less he holdeth. Who would in omnibus aliquid, shall in toio nihil scire. When a man covets to be a doctor in all arts, he lightly proves a dunce in many. Let the natural physician apply his ministering, the spiritual his ministry. Quid enim in theatro renunciator turpium^''' Arc,— The idle sports of the theatre, the wicked crafts in the market, the gallant braveries of the court, must not hinder us, either to say service in the temple, or to do service for the temple. Clericus in ojjpido, jnscis in arido, as I have read. Rather, from the words of that father, if it be God's will that when Christ comes to judgment, inveniat me vel precantem vel prcedicantem, he may find me either praying, or preaching his holy word.

Well, we have every one our own cures; let us attend them. Let us not take and keep livings of a hundred or two hundred jDounds a-year, and allow a poor curate (to supply the voluntary negligence of our non-residence) eight or (perhaps somewhat bountifully) ten pounds yearly—scarce enough to maintain his body, not a doit for his study. He spoke sharply, (not untruly,) that called this usury, and terrible usury. Others take but ten in the hundred, these take a hundred for ten. What say you to those that undertake two, three, or four great cures, and physic them all by attorneys ! These physicians love not their patients, nor Christ himself, as he taught Peter; which St Bernard thus comments on : ' Unless thy conscience bear thee witness that thou lovest me exceeding much, that is, phis quam tua, 2^li''S quam tuos, plus quam te, —more than thy goods, more than thy friends, more than thyself,—thou art not worthy to undertake this office.' t God hath made us superintendents of our charges, and bound us, as Paul adjured Timothy: 'I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and dead at his appearing, to preach the word, and be instant,' &c., 2 Tim. iv. 1. Many are content with presidence, not with residence; ac si victuri essent sine ciira, cum pervenerint ad curam, —as if they had forgotten all care, when they have gotten a cure. This is not dispensanlis, sed dissijpantis offidxim gerere,% —to be a steward, but a loiterer in God's family. The physician sleeps in his study; the apothecary, for want of judgment, takes a wrong medicine, or no medicine for the sick. The pastor is absent; the hireling very often either preacheth idly or negligently, or not at all. And thus God's ' people are not recovered.'

3. Physicians must not deal too much with that they call hlandum medi-camentum,yfhich. physicians thus describe : Blandum dicitur, quod viediocri tantum quaniitaie 'sumptiim, almim pigre et henigne movendo, jmuca dejidt. Spiritual physicians must beware how they give these soothing and supple medicines, which rather confirm the humours than disperse the tumours, or purge the crudities of sins in their patients. Rohustum corpus, multis oh-structionibus impeditum, hlanda imbecillaque medicamenta asj)ernatur. A soul settled, lUce Moab, ' on the lees,' or frozen in the dregs of inveterate and obstinate suis, is not stirred by fair and flattering documents. God complains in this chapter against those : ver. 11, 'They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my })eople sliglitly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace.' Such are described, Ezck. xiii. 10, ' They have seduced my people, saying, Peace, and there is no peace : and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar.' God gives a terrible and universal threatening : ver. 15, 10, 'I will accomplish my wrath upon the wall, and upon them that have daubed it with mitempered mortar, and will say unto * AuLTust. t Scrm. 76 iu Cant. X Bern,

you, The wall is no more, neither they that dauhod it.' He proceeds to command Ezekiel ' to prophesy against the women that prophesy to Israel: "Woe to the women that sew ])illuws to all arm-holes,' 6:c. This is shamefid in a preacher, to wink ;rt idolatry in Bethel, because it is the king's chapel; and not to reprove the iniquity of Gilgal, the country of opprussinn, because himself feeds at an oppressor's table. Some are so weak that (as mulieres, quia moUiores, et pueri, quia ieneri, et ex longo morho remryentes, hlandiori^ bus egent medicinis) they cannot digest too strong a potion of reproof. Therefore, Jiede quod est rigidum, fove quod est frigidum, rege quod est devium, —bend the refractory, warm the cold, direct the wandering.

I have read in a physician, that among many sophistications of this balm, sometimes they feign it with water, and then it runs above the water like oil; sometimes with honey, which is thus perceived—if you put a drop thereof into milk, it runneth to curds ! When ministers shall adulterate God's pure and sacred word with the honey or oil of their own flatteries, and give it to a sick soul, it is sn far from nourishing, as the sincere milk of the gospel should do, that it curdleth in the stomach, and endangers the con-scieiice worse. It is enough for physic if it be Avholesome. Not pleasant taste, but secret virtue, commends medicines. The doctrine that is sweet to flesh and blood hath just cause of suspicion. It is, without question, harsh to the appetite of either soul or body, that heals either. Not that we should only blow a trumpet of war against opposers, but sometimes, yea, often also, pipe mercy and gospel to those that will dance the measures of obedience. We must preach as well liberty to captives, as captivity to libertuies; and build an ark for those that desire salvation, as pour forth a flood of curses against them that will perish ; and open the door to the penitent knockers, as keep the gate with a flaming sword in our mouths against the obstinate. If we harp somewhat more on the sad string of judgment, know that it is because your sins are rifer and riper than your obedient works. We must free our souls, that we have not administered soothing sermons, lest at once we flatter and further you in your follies. You are apt enough to derive authority for your sins from our lives, and make our patterns patronages of your lewdness. As I wish that our life were not so bad, so withal that you would not outgo, outdo it in evil. You go dangerously far, whiles you make our weakness a warrant to your presumption. But if you fasten so wickedly on our vices, you shall never find countenance from our voices. We condemn our own ills, and you for adventuring your souls to Satan on so silly advantage. Stand forth, and testify against us. Did we ever spare your usuries, depopulations, malice, frauds, ebriety, pride, swearing, contempt of holy things and duties ? Could any Pharisee ever tie our tongues with the strings of Judas's purse, and charm our connivance or silence with gifts 1 Wretched men, if there be any such, guilty of so palpable adulation; qui jyurpuram magis quam deum colunti Call them your own common slaves, not God's servants, that, to gain your least favours, are favourable to your greatest sins, and whilst they wm your credits, lose your souls.

We must follow our Master, who gave us a commis.sion, and gives us direction to perfonn it. He came once with Pax vobis, —' Peace be unto you,' Luke xxiv. 36 ; at another time with Vce vobis, —' Woe be unto you 1' Matt, xxiii. 13. We must be like him, (who was that good Samaritan,) putting into your wounds as- well the searching wine of reprehension, to eat out the dead flesh, as the oil of consolation, to cheer your spirits : sometimes, with Jeremiah's hammer, chap, xxiii 29, bniisiug your strength of

VOL. L 2 B

•n-ickedness; though here, with Jeremiah's balm, binding up your broken hearts.

And for you, my brethren, know that the things which cure you do not evermore please you. Love not your palates above your souls. Thou liest sick of a bodily disease, and callest on the physician, not for well-relished, but healthful potions : thou receivest them spite of thy abhorring stomach, and being cured, both thankest and rewardest him. Thy soul is sick; God, thy best physician, unsent to, sends thee physic, perhaps the bitter pills of affliction, or sharp prescripts of repentance, by his word : thou loathest the savour, and wilt rather hazard thy soul than oftend thy flesh; and when thou shouldest thank, grumblest at the physician. So far inferior is our love of the soul to that of our body, that for the one we had rather undergo any pains than death; for the other, we rather choose a wilful sickness than a harsh remedy.

Give, then, your physician leave to fit and apply his medicines; and do not you teach him to teach you. Leave your old adjuration to your too obsequious chaplains, if there be any such yet remaining, Loqidndni jyla-centia, —' Prophesy not unto us right things : speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits. Get you out of the way,' &c., Isa. xxx. 10, 11. Threaten your priests no longer with suits, and quereles, and expulsions from their poor vineyards, which you have erst robbed, because they bring you sour grapes, sharp wine of reproofs. Do not colour all your malice against them with the imputation of ill life to them, when you are indeed only fretted with their just reprehension of your impieties. Bar not the freedom of their tongues by tying them to conditions, This you shall say, and this not say, on pain of my displeasure. You may preach against sins, but not meddle with the Pope ; or you may inveigh against Rome and idolatry, so you touch not at my Herodias; or you may tax lust, so you let me alone with Naboth's vineyard. As if the gospel might be preached with your limitations, and, forsaking the Holy Ghost, we must come to fetch direction from your lips.

Jonah spared not great Nineveh, nor the great king of great Nineveh : why should we spare your sins that would save your souls ? You viill love us the better when you once love yourselves better. If any gain were more valuable than that of godliness, or any means more available than spiritual physic to your salvations, we would hearken to it and you. He that is wisest hath taught us it; we are rebels, if we not obey it. Your exulcerated sores cannot be healed with incarnative salves.

4. Spiritual physicians, no less than the secretaries of nature, must have knowledge and art. Empirics endanger not more bodies than idiotish priests souls, ilc that cannot pour healthful moisture and juice of life into the gasping spirit, and fill the veins that aflliction hath emptied, deserves not the name of a spiritual physician. Arts have their use, and human learning is not to be despised, so long as, like an obedient Hagar, she serves Sarah with necessary help. Only let the book of God stand highest in our estimation, as it is in God's elevation, and let all the sheaves do homage to it. But empirics cannot brook Craterus, saith the proverb ; sottish enthusiasts condemn all learning, all premeditation. This is to tie the Holy Ghost to a pen and inkhorn, &c. Tlicy nuist run away vnth their sermons, as horses with an empty cart. But now he that will fly into God's mysteries with such sick feathers, shall be found to flag low with a broken pinion, or soaring too high, without sober direction, endanger himself. Barbarism is gross in an orator, ignorance in a physician, dulncss in an advocate, rudeness in a minister. Christ chose fishermen, Init made them fishers of men : gave them a

calling, and virtues for it. Shall therefore any fantastical spirit think that Christ's singular action is our general pattern ? As if men were the more faulty, the more fit; the more silly, the more sufficient. Christ so furnished his with knowledge and language, Acts ii. 6, that the people ' wondered at their wisdom,' and knew, or rather ' acknowledged, that they had been with Jesus,' chap. iv. 13.

It is said of empirics that they have but one medicine for all diseases. If that cure not, they know not how to do it. But the ' scribe instructed from heaven,' and instructing for heaven, ' draws out his treasure, both old and new/ wliich he hath carefully laid up by his former study. High points for forward scholars; easier lessons for those in a lower form. To children, milk ; such things as may nourish, not oppress— apta, non alta : to the profound, as Demosthenes said he desired to speak, non mndo scripta, sed eliam sculpta, —matters of weight and diligence. The truth is, that we must preach Christ, not ourselves, and regard the people's benefit more than our own credit, being content to lose ourselves to win others to God. And to this purpose is required learning : as a physician is not less knowing because he gives an easy and common receipt to a certain patient, but rather out of his judgment finds that fittest for him. It is no small learning to illustrate obscurities, to clear the subtleties of the school, to open God's m3'steries to simple understandings, to buUd up the weak, and pull down the confident in their own strengths. This shaU discharge a man from the imputation of ^literature, as well as to preach riddles and paradoxes, which the people may admire, and not ai)prehend, and make that frivolous use of aU, ' This was a deep sermon.' Learning is requisite, or thou art but an empiric. How many Paracelsian mountebanks have been the worst diseases to the commonwealth they live in, whiles they purge away the good humours and leave the bad behind them ! Your Popish teachers were such ill purgers, draining out the good blood of religion from the veins of the land, and pouring in feculent corruptions, ridiculous fopperies, magical poisons instead thereof; giving a mass for a communion, an image for the Bible, stage-apishness for a sober sermon ; allo\ving cither no Scripture or new Scripture; so suppressing the words and stifling the sense, that hiding away the gold, they throw their people the bag.

5. Good physicians must not aim more at their own wealth than their patients' health. Indeed the spiritual ' labourer is worthy of his hire ;' but if he labour for hire only, he may. make himself merry with his reward on earth, heaven hath none for him. That good is well done that is done of conscience. The pastor feeds Christ's sheep for his own gain ; the sheep are fed; Christ gives him no thanks for his labour. Peter made three mannc? of fishings : he caught fish for money, fish with money, fish without money. The first was his temporal trade; the second, a miraculous and .singidar action ; the last, his spiritual function. Some are of all these sorts : the worst now is, to fish for the twenty pence. Piscantur ut adipiscantur, non homines, sed hominum, —They labour hard to take, not men, but men's, 2 Cor. xii. 14. Peter's successors called, Simon's* successors not doubted, have so fi.shod this many a hundred years, not with the draw-net of the gospel, but witli the purse-net of avarice. There are too many such sUver-fi.shers, that angle only for the tributary fish ; too many of those i)hysicians, that set up their bills and offer thou- service and cure, not where tlie people are sickest, but where they arc most liberal. Some will not practise except they have three or four parishes

* i.e., The Popes call themselves succeesors of Peter; we acknowledge them to bo successors of Simon Magus.— Ed.

under their cure at once : these are physicians, not for church, but steeples. Some are wandering empirics, that when they come to minister, spend all the time in a cracking ostentation of their cures, or demonstration of their skill in pictures and tables, never approving it to their credulous patients : these are bragging physicians.

Some minister only opium to their people, and so lull them in their sick security: these are dull physicians. Some minister medicines, not to ease their stomachs of the burden of their sins, but to put lightness into their brains, scaring religion out of the wits: these are schismatical physicians. Some minister antichristian poisons, to breed the plague of idolatry among the people: these are Seminary physicians. Others of this sect, living from us by a sea-division, yet send over venomous prescripts, binding princes' subjects to treasons and homicides: these are devilish physicians. Some will sell their knowledge for a meal's meat: these are table-physicians. Some minister in this place, in that place, in every place, in no place: these are ubiquitary physicians. Some minister nothing but what they glean from others' precepts, wanting skill to apply it: these are like physicians, but are none. Some ring the changes of opinions, and run a serpentine course; abjuring now what yesterday they embraced and warranted; winding from error to error, as dolphins in the water; turning like vanes on the housetop, with every new blast of doctrine; reeds shaken with every gust, contrary to the testimony of John Baptist: these are gadding, madding physicians. Some will minister nothing but what comes next into their heads and hands: these are enthusiastical physicians. Some again,—I will not say many,— practise only for commodity, and to purge others' wealth into their own purses: these are mercenary physicians.

Avarice, saith a grave divine, is a sin in any man, heresy in a clergyman. The Papists have an order that profess wilful poverty; but some of them profess it so long, till they sweep all the riches of the land into their own laps. The purse is still the white they level at, as I have read them described : the Capuchins shooting from the purse, the Franciscans aiming wide of it, the Jesuits hitting it pat in the midst. So with long, er at least tedious prayers, as the Pharisees, they prey upon the poor, and devour their houses. Spiiitual physicians should abhor such covetous desires. Sunt qui scire volunt, ut scientiam suam venclant, et turpis qucesius est* —They that get knowledge to sell it, make a wretched gain. IVon vitce docent, sed cnt-mence. Seneca affirms that the commonwealth hath no worse men: quam qui philosophiam, vet ut aliquod artijicium venale, didicerunt.\ Miserable men, that look to their own good more than the church's; serving God in their parts,, themselves in their hearts; working, like those builders in the ark, rather for present gain than future safety. But as they desire rather nostra quam nos, so they preserve rather sua quam se; winning, like Dcmas, the world, and losing, like Judas, their souls. I have read in the fable of a widow, that being thick-sighted, sent to a certain physician to cure her: he promiseth it to her, and she to him a sum of money for satisfaction. The physician comes and applies medicines, which being bound over her eyes, still as he departs he carries away with him some of her best goods; so continuing her pains and his labour till he had robbed the house of her best substance. At last he demanded of her, being now cured, his covenanted pay. She looking about her house, and missing her goods, told him that he had not cured her: for whereas before she could see some furniture in her house, now she could perceive none; she was erst thick-sighted, but now ♦ Bern, in Cant. f Sen., lib. xix., ep. 1.

purblind. You can apply it without help. Well, these spiritual physicians are only good that propound to themselves no gain but to heal the broken, recover the lost, and bring home the wandering lambs to the shcepfolds of peace; jeoparding a joint to save a sick conscience; -with ^foses and Paul, not respecting the loss of them.selves, whiles they may replenish the kingdom of Chri.st.

III. These are the physicians. It remains that I should shew who are the sich; for whose cause God hath prepared balm, and iu.spired phy.sicians with skill to minister it. But the time runs away so fa.st, and you are as hasty to be gone as it; and this subject is fitter for a whole sermon than a conclusion; and, lastl}', I have evermore declined your molestation by prolixity: therefore I reserve it to another opportunity. If you shall judge this that hath been spoken worthy your meditation,—laying it afl'ectionately to your hearts, and producing it eflfectually in your lives,—that God who gave me power to begin this work, will also assist me to finish it, without whom neither my tongue can utter, nor your ear receive, any saving benefit of instruction. A word or two for exhortation, and then I will leave all in your bosoms, and yourselves in the bosom of God. First, for us, the physicians; then for you, the patients, only so far as may concern you in the former point. For us—

1. "We must administer the means of your redress which our God hath taught us, doing it in cUlectione, with love, with alacrity. Though it be true that the thing which perisheth shall perish, John xvii. 11, and they which are ordained to perdition cannot by us be rescued out of the wolf's jaws; yet spiritual physicians must not deny their help, lest diim alios perdant, ipsi pereant, —whiles their silence damnifieth others, it also daiimeth themselves, ' When I say unto the wicked,' saith the Lord, ' Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him no warning to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but Ms blood will I require at thine hand,' Ezek. iii. 18. The phy.sician knows, that if the time of his patient's life be now determined by God, no art can presei-ve his taper from going out; yet because he know.s not God's hidden purpose, he withholds not his endeavour. To censure who shall be saved, who damned, is not judicium luti, scd jigidi^' the judgment of the clay, but of the potter, ' who only hath power of the same lump to make one vessel to honour, another to dishonour,' Rom. ix. 21. We know not this, therefore we cease not to ' beseech your reconciliation.' Nay, * we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God doth beseech you by us; and we pray you in Christ's .stead, be ye reconciled to God,' 2 Cor. v. 20. Thus having applied our physic, we leave the success to God, who alone can make his word the savour of death or of Ufe, preserving or condemning, destructive to your sins or yourselves, as his good pleasure wills it.

2. The physician that lives among many i)atients, if he would have them tenderly and carefully preserve their healths, nmst himself keep a good diet among them. It is a .strong argument to persuade the goodness of that he admmisters. The clergyman's strict diet of abstinence from enormities, of fasting and prayer against the surfeits of sin, of repentance for errors, is a powerful inclination to his people to do the like. Hahet, quantacumque granditcde dictionis, viajus pondu^ vita dice}i(is,f —The preaching of life is made more forcible by the good life of the preacher. Prava vita est qmedam machina ad subruendum mcjenia, &c.,—An evil conversation is an evil engine to overthrow the Walls of edification. Citharisante ahhatc, iripudiant mon-achi, —When the abbot gives the music of a good cxami)lo, tlic monks dance

* Aug. t Aug. do Doctr. Chiist.

after liim; as was their proverb : Plene dixit, qui bene vixit, —He liatli spoken fuEy that hath lived fairly. There are four sorts of these physicians :—

(1.) That neither prescribe well to others, nor live well themselves : these are not physicians indeed, but Italian quack-salvers, that having drunk poison themselves, minister it to tlie people ; and so destroy the souls that God hath bought with his blood. Wretched priests, that are indeed the worst diseases; allowing in precept, and approving in practice, the riot of drunkenness, or the heat of lustfulness, or the baseness of covetise, or the frenzy of contention. These, instead of building up Christ's church, pull it down with both hands ; not lux, but tenehrce mundi, —not the light, as ministers should be, but the darkness of the world, as the sons of Belial are. A foolish shepherd is God's punishment to the flock : ' Lo, I will raise up a shepherd which shall not visit those that be cut off, nor seek the young one, nor heal that which is broken ; but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces,' Zech. xi. 16.

(2.) That prescribe well in the pulpit, but live disorderly out of it; so making their patients believe that there is no necessity of so strict a diet as the)' are enjoined, for then sure the physician himself would keep it; since it cannot be but he loves his own life, and holds his soul as dear to himself as ours are to us. Thus like a young scribbler, what he writes fair with his hand, his sleeve comes after and blots it; this priest builds up God's tabernacle with one hand, and puUs it down with the other. Though this physician can make very good bills, preach good directions, yet, as sick as he is, he takes none of them himself.

(3.) That prescribes very ill, preacheth seditiously and lewdly, yet lives without any notorious crime, or scandalous imputation. This is a hypocritical trick of heretical physicians. ' Beware of false prophets, that come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves,' Matt. vii. 15. Thus the Popish friars, like the fiilse visionists in Zechariah's prophecy, will ' wear a rough garment to deceive withal,' chap. xiii. 4. Their austerity shaU be stricter than John Baptist's, but not with intent to bring one soul to Christ. This cautelous demureness in them so bcwitcheth their patients, that they receive whatsoever these administer, though it poisons them. Thus covered over with the mantle of sobriety and zeal, as a crafty apothecary vends his drugs, so they their dregs, without suspicion. To keep the metaphor : as a natural physician, out of honest policy, covers the bitter pill with gold, or delays the distasteful potion with sugar, which the abhorring stomach would not else take; so this mystical one (for he is a servant to the mystery of iniquity) so amazeth the people with a fair show of outward sanctimony, that whiles they gaze at his good parts with admiration, they s\^•allow the venom of his doctrine without suspicion.

(4.) That teacheth well, and liveth well: prescribeth a good diet of obedience, and keeps it when he is well; or a good medicine of repentance, and takes it when he is sick; thus both by preaching and practice recovering the health of Israel. We require in a good garment that the cloth be good, and the shape fitting. If we preach well and live ill, our cloth is good, but not our fashion. If we live well and preach ill, our fashion is good, but our cloth is not. If we both preach well and live well, our garment is good; let every spiritual physician weave it, and wear it.

This for ourselves. I'or you, I will contract all into these three uses, which necessarily arise from the present or precedent consideration :—

1. Despise not your physicians. You forbear indeed (as the Pagans at first, and the Papists since) to kill, burn, torture us —whether it be your

good-will, or the law you live uncler, that prevails with you, God kuow.s,— yet you proceed to persecute us with your tongues, as Islimael smote Isaac; to martyr us with your scorus iu our civil life, our good names. In discountenancing our sermons, discouraging our zeals, discrediting our lives, you raise civil, or rather uncivil, persecutions against us. By these you exercise our patience, which yet we can bear, whiles the blow given us, by a manifest rebound, doth not strike our God. But pe?- nostra latera petiiur ecclesia, impetUur Christus, —when as through our sides you wound the church, nay, Christ himself, it is stupidity in us to be silent. Christ, when the glory of his Father was interested, and called into question by their calumniations, took on him a just apology : ' I have not a devil, but I honour my Father,' John viii. 49. ' If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me V chap. x\'iii. 23.

We have comfort enough, that we can sufl'cr this martpdom for Christ's sake, being blessed by the peace of our times from a worse. The courtier cares not so much for the estimation of his fellows, so his prince approves and loves him. Let God be pleased with our innocency, and your base aspersions of scandals against us shall not much move our minds. ' The ministers of God must approve themselves in much patience, in afflictions,' &c., 2 Cor. vi. 4. Our war is ferendo, non feriendo. The mitre is for Aaron, not the smiter. We must encounter with beasts iu the shape of men, 1 Cor. XV. 32; with wolves in the coats of sheep. Matt. vii. 15; wth devils in the habit of angels; with unreasonable and wicked men, 2 Thess. iii. 2; therefore ' we have need of patience,' Heb. x. 36. Indignities that touch our private persons may be dissembled, or returned with Isaac's apology of patience, of silence. As Augustine answered Petilian : Fossianus esse in his pariter co-piosi, nolumus esse pariter vani, —You do in event not so much wrong us as yourselves. You ' foam out your own shame,' and bewray your wretched, I had almost said reprobate, mahce ; for such are ' set down in the scat of the scornful,' Ps. i. 1, which the prophet makes a low step to damnation. God shall ' laugh you to scorn,' Ps. ii. 4, for laughing his to scorn ; and at last despise you, that have despised him in us. In expuentls recidit facicm, quod in coelum expuit, —That which a man spits against heaven shall fall back on his own face. Your indignities done to your spiritual physicians shall not sleep in the dust wdth your ashes, but stand up against your souls in judgment.

2. If your physician be worthy blame, yet sport not, with cursed Ham, at your father's nakedness. Our life, our life is the derision that .sticks in our jaw.s, tiU you spet it out agauist us. I would to God our lives were no less pure than are—even these our enemies being judges—our doctrines. Be it freely acknowledged that in some it is afault. Our life should be the counterpart of our doctrine. We are vines, and should, like that in Jotham's parable, 'cheer both God and man,' Judg. ix. 13. The player that misacts an inferior and unnoted part, carries it away without censure ; but if he shall play some emperor, or part of observation, unworthily, the spectators are ready to hiss him off. The minister represents, you say, no mean person, that might give toleration to his ahsurdities, but the Prince of heaven ; and therefore .should be ' holy, as his heavenly Father is.' Be it confessed ; and woe is us, we cannot help it. But you should put difference betwixt habitual vices, nourished by custom, prosecuted by violence, and infirm or involuntary offences.

The truth is also, that you, who will not have ears to hear God's word, will yet have eyes to observe our ways. How many of you have sunlas

awes, oculos emissiiios, adders' ears, but eagles' eyes; together with critical tongues and hypocritical looks ! You should (and will not) know, that our words, not our works, bring you to heaven. Examples are good furtherances, but ex prceceptis vivitur, —we must live by precepts. If you have a Chiistian desire of our reformation, cease your obstreperous clamours and divulging slanders, the infectious breathings of your corruption and malice; and reprove us with ' the spirit of meekness,' to our foreheads. If we neither clear ourselves from imputed guiltiuess, nor amend the justly reproved faults, nor kindly embrace your loving admonitions, proceed to your impartial censures. But still know, that we are nothing in ourselves; though we be called lux mundi, ' the light of the world,' yet solummodo lex est Inx, God's word is the light that must conduct your believing and obeying souls to the land of promise. Did we live like angels, and yet had our lips sealed up from teaching you, you might stiU remaui in your sins. For it is not an ignorant imitatiqn of goodness, but a sound faith in Christ, never destitute of knowledge and obedience, that must save you in the day of the Lord Jesus.

3. Lastly, let this teach you to get yourselves familiar acquaintance with the Scriptures -, that if you be put to it, in the absence of your physician, you may yet help yourselves. We store our memories, and (perhaps not trusting them) our books, with divers receipts for ordinary diseases. Whom almost shaU you meet, whiles you complain of an ague, of the toothache, of a sore, but he will tell you a salve or a medicine for it 1 Alas ! are our souls less precious, or their wounds, griefs, sicknesses easilier cured, that we keep the closets of our consciences empty of medicines for them 1 The Jews were commanded to write the laws of God on their walls, &c. God writes them on the Christian's heart, Heb. viii. 10. So David found it: 'Thy law is within my heart.' This is true acquaintance with it. It is our Master's charge, if at least we are his servants : ' Search the Scriptures, for in them is eternal life,' John v. 39. We plead that our faith is our evidence for heaven ; it is a poor evidence that wants the seal of the Scriptures.

It was the weapon that the Son of God himself used to beat back the assaults of the devil. Many ignorant persons defy the devU,—' They will shield themselves from Satan, as well as the best that teach them ; the foul fiend shall have no power over them,'—yet continue an obstinate course of life. As if the devil were a babe, to be outfaced with a word of defiance. It is a lamentable way, to brave a lion, and yet come within his clutches. He will bear with thy hot words, so he may get thy cold soul. The weapon that must encounter and conquer him is * the sword of the Spiiit, the word of God.' No hour is free from his temptations, that we had need to lodge with God's book in our bosoms. Who knows where he shall receive his next wound, or of what kind the sickness of his soul shall be ? The minister cannot be present with every one, and at every time. Satan is never idle; it is the trade of his delight to spill souls. Lay all these together, and then, in the fear of God, judge whether you can be safe whUcs you are ignorant of the Scriptures. This is the garden of Eden, whence run those four rivers : of tvisdom, to direct us; of oil, to soften us; of comforts, to refresh us; of promises, to confirm us.

As lightly as you regard tlie word, and as slightly as you learn it, you shall one day find more comfort in it than in all the world. Lie you on your deathljeds, groan you with tlie pangs of nature-oppressing death, or labour you with the throbs of an anguished conscience, when neither natural nor spiritual physician stands by you to give you succour,—then, oh then.

one dram of your old store, taken from the treasury of the Scriptures, shall be unto you of inestimable comfort! Then well fare a medicine at a pinch, a drop of this balm ready for a sudden wound, which your memory shall reach forth, and your faith apjily to your diseased souls, afflicted hearts. Think seriously of this, and recall God's book from banishment and the laud of forgetfulness, whither your security hath sent it. Shake otf the dust of neglect from the cover, and wear out the leaves with turning; continually imploring the assistance of God's Spirit, that you may read with understanding, understand with memory, and remember with comfort; that your soul's closet may never be unstoned of those heavenly receipts which may ease your griefs, ciire your wounds, e.\[)el your sicknesses, preserve your healths, and keep you safe to the coming of Jesus Christ. Trust not all on your ministers, no, nor on yourselves, but trust on the mercies of God, and the merits of our blessed Saviour. Nothing now remains but to shew you in what need you stand of this physic, by reason of your ill healths, and the infected air of this world you breathe in. Meantime, preserve you these instructions, and God preserve you with his mercies! For which let us pray, &c.

ENGLAND'S SICKNESS.

Is there no halm in Gilead; is there no physician there ? why then is not tlie health of the daughter of my people recovered ? — Jer. VIII. 22.

Sick is the daughter of Sion; and the complexion of England gives her not to be sound. If she feel her own pulse, and examine the symptoms of her iUness, her Avorks of disobedience, she must confess that her health is impaired ; or if she feel it not, she is obstupefied.

The coast I am bound for is Israel; but, like faithful merchants, if I can traffic or transport thence any good commodity into our own country, I will venture the welcome of it. Israel and England, though they lie in a diverse climate, may be said right parallels; not so unfit in cosmographical, as fit in theological comparison. And, saving Israel's apostasy, and punishment for it, we need not think it harsh to be sampled. They could plead much of God's mercy; if we can speak of more, let us thankfully embrace our trans-cen^dent happiness.

Two main passages are directed my discourse to sail through, which shall limit my speech and your attention for this time :—I. The patient; II. The ]jassion: the sick, and the disease. The person labouring of grief is the ' daughter' of Israel; her imssion or grief is sickness : ' Why is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?' These two coasts will aff"ord us many subordinate observations, worthy both our travels.

I. The patient, whom we must visit, is described, 1. Qua; sit; 2. Cujiis sit. God speaks of her, 1. Positively; 2. Possessively : positivelj'", what she is of herself, ' the daughter of the people ;' possessively, what she is by relation, in regard of her owner, popmli mei, God's people.

1. Daughter. Tins title is usual according to Hebraism. 'Daughter of Israel,' for Israel; 'Daughter of Zion,' for Zion, Isa. Ixii. 11, 'Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh,' &c.; ' Daughter of Judah,' for Judah, Lam. i. 15,' The Lord hath trodden the daughter of Judah as in a wine-press ;' ' Daughter of Jerusalem,' for Jerusalem, Lam. ii. 13 ; ' Daughter of Babylon,' for Babylon, Ps. cxxxvii. 8, ' O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed,' &c. So Christ calls himself the Son of man, because he took on him man's nature : Isa. xxi. 10, ' O my threshing, and the son of my floor,' for the fioor itself, or the corn of it. And Augustine observes on the 72d Psalm, that by 'the children of the poor,' is meant the poor themselves. This is an abstractive phrase, and vox indulgentis; implying pro-

pcnse favour in tlie speaker, and tenderness in the person spoken of; filia popidi. It is a word of relation, simply taken; for daughter depends on the respect of parent. Here it is phrasical, and therefore not to be forced. Yet because cuncke apices, every letter and accent in holy writ is divinely significant, let us not neglectfully pass it over without some useful observar tion.

Ohs. 1.—There is somewhat in it that filia nonfiliiis dicilur, the name of daughter, not of son, is here given to Israel. Israel's offspring must be a daughter, that she may be married to the God of Israel's Son. Christ is the beloved, the church is his spouse : ' My beloved is mine, and I am his : he feedeth among the lilies,' Cant. iL IG. Betrothed to him m this life : ' I will betroth thee unto me for ever: yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness,' &c., Hosea ii. 19. Solemnly married hi the next: at what time the saints shall sing, ' Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him : for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready,' llev. xix. 7; and, ver. 9, * Blessed are they that are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.' Thus God the Father, that had a Son by eternal generation, hath now a daughter also by adoption. Hence the church is called the king's daughter—Ps. xlv. 13, ' The king's daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold'—because she is wedded to the king's Son. God is a Father in many respects :—

(1.) In creation : Deut. xxxii. 6, ' Is not he thy father that hath bought thee ? Hath he not made thee, and established thee ?' He gave us aU essentiani et foiinam, subsistence and form.

(2.) In education : Isa. i. 12, 'I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.' "We are brought up m the house of this world, and fed from the table of his blessings.

(3.) In comjMrison: Ps. ciii. 13, 'Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.' Yield that a mother (which is rare and unnatural) can forget the son of her womb; yet God cannot forget the children of his election.

(4.) In correction : Heb. xii. G, ' Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.' Qui excipitur d, numero Jlagel-latorum, excipitur d, numero filiomm, —He that scapes afiliction, may suspect his adoption. We are not exempted from misery, that we may not be excepted from mercy. The rod walks over us, lest we should grow wanton with his blessings.

{•).) In adoption, and that most principally: Eom. viii. 15, 16, * We have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father.' Gal. iv. 5, ' God sent his Son, made of a woman, that we, redeemed by him, might receive the adoption of sons.'

All these may be reduced to three : God is a Father, singularly, generally, specially. Singularly, the Father of Christ by nature ; generally, the Father of aU men and all things by creation; specially, the Father of the elect by adoption. The first privilege belongs only to Christ; the second to many who have made themselves by apostasy the children of Belial; the third is blessed, and never to be forfeited.

Tliis is a happy advancement, that the daughter of Zion is made the daughter of God; whom his equal and eternal Son hath vouchsafed to marry. It was no small preferment in David's opinion, by wcddhig Saul's daughter, to be made ' son-in-law to a king :' how far higher doth the church's honour transcend, that by marrying the Son of God is made daughter-in-law to the King of kings ! Specially, when this bond is indis-

soluble by the hand of death, uncancellable by the sentence of man, undi-vorceable by any defect or default in the spouse; for he that chose her to himself will preserve her from all cause why he may not ' take pleasure in her beauty.' And as Christ, now in heaven, dwells with his church on earth by grace; so she, though partly now on earth, dwells with him in heaven : all her members being burgesses of that celestial corporation, since animtbs est, uhi amat, non ubi animat. Phil. iii. 20, ' Our conversation is m heaven, whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.' Thus Augustine, Et ille adhuc deorsum est, et 'iios jam sursujii, —His mercies are still descending to us, our affections ascending to him. The desires of the faithful spouse are with her beloved. Such is the insolubility of that mystical union, which no eloquence of man can express, no violence of devUs shall suppress. Therefore ascendamus interim corde, ut sequamur corpore, —let us send up our affections before, that our persons may follow after. As Christ hath sent thee down his Spirit as a pawn and pledge of this assurance, so do thou send him up thy heart for a token of thy acceptance; yea, of thy hopeful expectation and desire to be with him. Minus aiiima promisit se Christo, quae non j^^'c^misit se Christo, —That soul hath nothing less than vowed itself to Christ, that hovers and hankers about the world, and is loath to come at him.

This is ineffable, inestimable happiness. Hence the daughter of Israel, (understand me not topically, but typically,) not Israel in the flesh, but the ' Israel of God,' Gal. vi. 16,—' children of that Jerusalem which is above,' chap. iv. 26, or at least 'from above,'—doth apportion all the riches of her husband. If it be vox amici, Tuus sum totiis, the voice of a friend, I am wholly thine; it is more lively, more lovingly vox mariti, the speech of a husband. The bride, among the heathen, on the first day of her marriage, chaUengcd of the bridegroom, Uhi tu Cuius, ego Gaia, —Where you are master,! must be mistress. Marriage is a strong bond by God's ordinance, and knows no other method but composition. God, that in creation made two of one, by marriage made one of two. Hence the daughter of Israel is made one. with the Son of God; by a union which the heart may feel, but no art describe. Those gracious and glorious riches, which the Master of all the world is proprietor of, are in some sort communicated to us. His righteousness, holiness, obedience, satisfaction, expiation, inheritance is made oius: as our sin, sorrow, sufferings, death, and damnation were made his, not by transfusion, but by imputation, 2 Cor. v. 21. His sorrow, pain, passion for us, was so heavy, so grievous, so piercing, such a sic that all the world could not match it with a sicut. Our joy by him is so gracious, shall be so glorious, that pro quali-tate, pro cequalitate ni/ul in comparationem admittitur, —^for quality, for quantity, it rcfuseth all comparison. O blessed mutation, blessed mutuation! What we had ill, (and what had we but iU 1) we changed it away for his good: what he hath good, (and what other nature can come froin goodness itself?) we happily enjoy vel in esse, vel in posse, either in possession or assurance. Our Saviour died our death, that we might live his life. He suffered our hell, to bring us to his heaven.

Obs. 2.—It is somewhat, not unworthy the noting, that Jilia dicitur, non Jiliw, Israel is called by the name of daughter, not of daughters. Zion hath but one daughter. The whole people is unica quia unita. As she is one, she must be at one, not jarring, not repugnant to herself. Confusion belongs to Babel: ' Let peace dwell in the palaces of Jerusalem.' They are refractory spirits, unworthy to dwell in the daughter of Zion's house, that are ever in preparation for separation from her. The church consists of a com-

munion of saints, a united flock under one shepherd, 1 Peter v. 4 ; not a company of straggling sheep, getting schism, and forgetting their chrism—the imity of the Si)irit, that makes men to be of one mind in one hou.se. But as the spirits in man cease to quicken any member sundered from the body, and the scattered bones in Ezckiel's vision received no life till they were incorporate into a body, Ezek. xxxvii. 7; so the Si>irit of God, which is anima corporis, the soul of his mystical body, forbears the derivation of grace and comfort to those that cut off themselves from it.

She is one, una, unica, that is ' mother of us all.' Though there be ' threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number ; yet my dove, my undeliled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, the choice one of her that bare her,' Cant. vi. 8, 9. There is one body, many members, 1 Cor. xii. 20. The eye must not quarrel with the hand, nor the head with the foot. If we be one against another, let us beware lest God be against all. We have one Lord, whose livery is love, John xiiL 35, ' By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if ye have love one to another;' whose doctrine is peace, Ei>h. ii. 17, 'He preacheth peace to you that were far off, and to them that were nigh.' Let us then serve him, [)ro-fessing one truth with one heart. It is wretched when sects vie numbers with cities, and there are so many creeds as heads; qui conantiir vel corrum-perejidem, vet disrumpere charitatem, —who strive either to corrupt faith or dissolve charity, none performing his function without faction. It is testified of those pure and primitive times, that ' the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul,' Acts iv. 32 : one mind in many bodies. ' Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!' saith the Psalmist, Ps. cxxxiii. 1; when i?iter multa corpora, nan multa corda, as Augustine sweetly,—when among divers men there are not divers minds: sic viventes in umim, ut unum hominemfaciant, —so loving and living together in one, that they all make but (as it were) one man.

There is no knot of love so sure as that which religion ties. It is able to draw together east and west, sea and land, and make one of two, of ten, of thousands, of all This is that which gathered the saints together, not to a local, but mystical union, whereby they are compacted under the government of one Lord, tied by the bonds of one faith, washed from their .sins in one laver, assigned, assured, assumed by one Spirit, to the inheritance of one kingdom. But the unity of brethren agreeing is not more entire than their dissen.sion, falling out, is violent: * A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city ; and their contentions are like the bars of a castle,' Prov. xviii. 19; but their own loss is the enemy's gain. It is usually seen that amiconim dispendia hostium compendia, —dissension is a Lent to friends, a Christmas to foes. They that so labour to untie imity, tliat true lovers' knot, which every Christian heart should wear and never be weary of, find at last by mi-serable experience that destruction doth follow where distraction went before ; when instead of the right hands of fellowship, struck for consent, they, like the Athenians, will .sacrifice for none but themselves and their neighbours of Chio.s. Needs must the daughter of Israel be disipiieted, when such oppres.sors, like Rebekah'.H twins, struggle in her womb. If the distraction of voices hindered the builduig of Babel, needs must the distraction of hearts hinder the building of Jerusalem.

Behold, ye working spirits that must be doing, though you have no thanks for your labour, behold the daughter of Zion, opposed on both .sides, as Christ was crucified between two malefactors; .straitened as the host of Israel once, betwixt the Aramites and the Syrians, 2 Sam. x. 11, when Joab and Abishai

disposed themselves to mutual help, as needs required : Atheists on one side, Papists on the other. Bend all your forces against them ttat make breaches in the walls of Zion, and seek, ensue, procure the peace of Jerusalem, who is the only daughter of her mother, and spouse of her Saviour.

Obs. 3.*—I might here infer to your observation, without any non-residence from the text, that the church is called Jilia Jerusalem, the daughter of the people, for her beauty, for her purity. I desire you to interpret by church, not only that church then visible in the Jews, but the cathoHc church also, whereof theirs was but a part; many things being figuratively spoken of the particular which properly belong to the universal. The church of God, then and ever, may be called the daughter of Zion, for her virgin fairness, matchless by all the daughters of women. The prophet, in those solemn lamentations of Israel's ruin, gives her the title of virgin, with this of daughter : Lam. i. 15, ' The Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress; ' and, chap, ii 13, ' What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee,

0 virgin daughter of Zion ?' The holy promise of God for her restauration is recorded by the same prophet to her, under this unstained title : ' Again

1 will build thee, 0 virgin of Israel; thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry,' Jer. xxxi. 4.

This may insinuate intemeratam pulchritudinem ecclesice, —the unpolluted beauty of the church. So Christ testifieth of his elected spouse. Cant. iv. 1, Tota indchra es arnica mea, —' Thou art aU fair, my love, and there is no spot in thee.' Now beauty consists in a sweet variety of colours, and in a con-cinne disposition of different parts. So the foreign congregations call her ' the fairest among women :' * Whither is thy beloved gone, 0 thou fairest among women, that we may seek him with thee 1 ' Cant. vi. 1. For her simplicity she is called a dove, for her fruitfulness a vine. Mount Zion for her steadfastness, for her royalty she is called a queen, for her brightness and eminence an ivory tower, for her beauty the fairest among women. As the cedar in the forest, the lily among the flowers of the valleys, Zion among the mountains, Jerusalem among the cities; as Dinah among all the daughters of the land, so the daughter of Judah among her sisters. None so fair as the Shu-nammite to content King David, none else can plead that the Son of David takes delight in her beauty. But ' the king's daughter is all glorious within,' Ps. xlv. 13. Omnis decor ah intus, —It consists not in outward face, but in inward grace. How comes she thus fair ? Hear her speak of herself : Cant, i. 5, ' I am black, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, but comely as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.' Black indeed by her own misery, white and fair by her Saviour's mercy. Every soul is black by nature ; oiiginally soiled, actually spoiled. We have all a natural corruption, that deprives us of all habitual goodness. We are born Moors, and have increased thii) swar-thiness by the continual tanning of unceascd sins. We have no nitro of our own virtual enough to whiten us. Job had no water of snow, nor David of hyssop, nor had the pool of Bethesda, though stirred with a thousand angels, power to cleanse us. Let nature do her best, we dwelt at the sign of the Lahour-in-vain. Only Christ hath washed us, that we might have part with him. A medicine of water and blood, John xix. 34, let out of the side of Jesus by a murdering spear, hath made the daughter of Zion fair. In this sacred fountain hath Christ l)athed her crimson sins and ulcerated sores, till she is become whiter than wool or the driven snow. He made her fair whom he found foul, that he ' might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any sucli thing; but that it should be holy and without

blemish,' Eph. v. 27. She must be pulchra, or not .tponsa, to him that is higher than the heavens and holier than the angels. His spouse must be no blouse. She is adorned by him, let him be adored by her.

The useful benefit of this observation teacheth us to make way through our own natural wretchedness to the admiration of our Saviour's gracious goodness. He loved tantillos et tales, parvos et pravos, —.so small in deserts, so vile in defects; without any precedent congruity or subsequent condignity, in nobis, quod ct nobis, in ourselves, that was or is of ourselves. For all the beauty of Zion's daughter is derived from God's' Son : ' Thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty : for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God,' Ezek. xvi. 14. God said once to Jerusalem, ver. 3, ' Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite.' Ver. 5, 6, &c., ' None eye pitied thee, but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the loathing of thy person.' But when ' I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I had compassion on thee :' I washed thee with water, clothed thee \vith broidered work, decked thee also ^vith ornaments, jtut a jewel on thy forehead, and a beautiful crown on thy head. We have all an Amorite to our fother, a Hittite to our mother : I mean, are conceived and bom in sin, so foul and full of corruption, that there could no temptation be shot from us to wound the breast of Christ with love. Spotted we were, and nothhig but nakedness was left to cover us; sick, but without care of our own cure; deformed and luxate with the prosecution of vanities; quadrupedated with an earthly, stooping, grovelling covetousness; not only spotted and speckled in concreto, but spots and blemishes in abstracto; pollution itself. As Micah calls Jerasalem and Samaria, not jyeccatores, but peccata: chap. i. 5, ' What is the transgression of Jacob ? is it not Samaria ? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem V Or as Lucan speaks of the wounded body, Totiim estj)ro vidnere corpus, —The whole body is as one wound. ' Blood touched blood,' and sore broke out into sore; all ulcers Avere coagulated into one by a general rupture, that even our righteousness was as filthy rags, Isa. Ixiv. 6. Oh, then, how ugly were our sins ! If old iniquities could provoke, or new ones revoke his favour, we had store to tempt him. If the raw and bleeding wounds of voluntary sins; if the haltmg foot of neutrality, the blear eye of ignorance, the ear deaf to his word, the tongue dumb in his praise; if the sullen brow of averseness, or the stinking breath of hypocrisy, if these could inflan\e his love, lo our beauty !

What moved thee then, 0 Saviour, to love us ? Besides the incomprehensible delight and infinite content which God hath in himself, ' thousands of angels stand about him, and ten thousands of those glorious spirits minister unto him.' ' Wliat tlien is man. Lord, that thou takest knowledge of him ? or the son of man, that thou makest account of him V Ps. cxliv. 3. The meditation of St Augustine* is pertinent to this consideration, and what son of man may not confess it with him 1 Neque enim eguisti vie, ant ego tale bonuin sum, quo tu adjuveris: nee minor sit 'potestas tua carens obssquio meo, —Neither didst thou lack me, O Lord : nor was there that good in me whereby thou mightest be helped : neither is thy power lessened through the want of my service. If we had been good, yet God needed us not: being bad, whence ariseth his love ? What a roughness of soul findest thou, 0 Christ, when thou embracest us ? What deformity when thou beholdest us 1 What stench of sin when thou kissest ? When thou discourscst, what * Coufesij., lib. xiii. cap. 1.

rotten speeches drop from us 1 "When thou takest us into thy garden, what contrariety of affections to thy expectation 1 Our embraces have been rougher than thy crosses ; our persecutions like vmegar, hidden in the sponge of our sacrifices; our words swords, our oaths as bitter as criicifige, our kisses have been treasonable to thee as Judas's, our contempts thy thorns, our oppressions a spear to gore thy side and wound thy bowels.

Such was our kindness to thee, O blessed Redeemer, when thou offeredst thyself to us, and to the Father for us. The best thing in us, yea, in the best man of us, had nothing of merit, nothing near it: our ' wages is death ; thy gift is life,' Rom. vi. 23, Bona naturae, melior gratke, optima glorias, — Thou gavest us a good life of nature, thou gavest us a better of grace, thou wilt give us the best of glory. Whether it be 2^fo via or j^ro vita, for the way or the end, it is thy gratuital goodness, who hast promised of thy mercy, both donare bona tiia, et condonare mala nostra, —both to give us thy good things, and to forgive us our evil things. We had misery from our parents, and have been parents of our own greater misery : Miseri miserum in hanc lucis miseriam indiixenmt,* —Miserable parents have brought forth a miserable offspring into the misery of this woi'ld. And for ourselves, even when we were young in years, we had an ' old man' about us. Col. iii. 9 : tantillus puer, tantus peccator, —a little child, a great sinner. Sic generavit }:>ater terrestris; sed regeneravit piater ccelestis,i —So wretched our generation left us, so blessed our regeneration hath made us. So beggarly were we till Christ enriched us.

If you ask still, what moved Christ ? I answer, his own free mercy, working on our great misery : a fit object for so infinite a goodness to work on. He was not now to part a sea, or bring water out of a rock, or rain bread from heaven, but, to conquer death by death, to break the head of the leviathan, to ransom captives from the power of hell, to satisfy his own justice for sin; and all this by giving his own Son to die for us; by making him man who was the Maker of man. This was dignus vindice nodus, —a work worth the greatness and goodness of God ; decet enim- magnum magna facere, —for it becometh him that is almighty to do mighty works. Thus to make the ' daughter of Jerusalem' fair, cost the Son of God the effusion of his blood.

This gives us strong consolation. Qui dilexit poUutos, non deseret politos. He that loved us when we were not, when we were nought, will not now lose us, whom he hath bought with his death, intcressed to his life. ' Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end,' John xiii. 1 : nsque ad Jinem, nay, absque fine, —unto the end, in the end, without end. He wUl not neglect David in the throne, that did protect him in the fold. He that visited Zaccheus a sinner, will not forsake him a saint, Luke xix. If ho bore affection to us in our rags, his love will not leave us when we are.heighted with his righteousness and shining with his jewels. If Ruth were lovely in the eyes of Boaz, gleaning after the reapers, what is she, made mistress of the harvest 1 He never meant to lose us, that laid out his blood to purchase us. Satan hath no trick to deceive him of us, us of him. As he hath no power to prevent the first, so none against the second redemption. Christ was agnus in passione, but leo in resurrectione, —a lamb suffering death, John i. 29, but a lion rising from death, Rev. v. 5. If he could save us, being a lamb, he will not suffer us to be lo-st, being a lion. * Fear not, thou daughter of Zion;' he that chose thee sick, sinful, rebellious, will preserve thee sound, holy, his friend, his spouse. There is ' neither death, nor * Bern, Mctlit., cap. ii. f Aug. Confess., lib. i., oap. 12.

life, nor principality, nor power, nor height, nor depth, that shall be able to separate us from his love,' Rom. yiii 38, or pluck us out of the arms of his mercy. But tremble, ye wicked ; if ye have not fought in his camp, ye shall never shine in his court.

To press this point too far were but to write Iliads after the Homers of our church. Besides there are many that otfer to sit down in this chair before they come at it; and presume of God that they shall not be forsaken, when they are not yet taken into his favour. Enow would be saved by this privilege, if there were no more matter in it than the pleading of it. But in vain doth the beggar's son boast liimself of the blood-royal, or the wicked soul of ' partaking of the divine nature,' 2 Pet. i. 4, when he cannot demonstrate his adoption by his sanctificaticju. So that as we give comfort to them that doubt themselves, so terror to them that prefer themselves when God doth not. Llake sure to thy soul that thou art once God's; and, my life for thine, thou shalt ever be his.

Obs. 4.—Lastly, from this titular phrase observe, that the ' daughter of Jerusalem' is our mother. Gal. iv. 2G, ' Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all'—/xjjrjja rravruv ij/xwv. The holy church is our mother, if the most holy God be our father. She feeds us with sincere milk, 1 Tim. iiL 15, from her two breasts, the Scriptures of both the Testaments ; those oracles which God hath committed to her keeping. God doth beget us ' of immortal seed by the word, which liveth and abideth for ever,' 1 Pet. i. 23, but not without the womb of the church. JS^ou enim nascimur, sed renascimur Christiani* —We are not Christians by our first, but by our second birth. Neither is she the mother of all, but ws all, wln)m God hath chosen before all time, and called in time to himself: qui sic sunt in domo Dei, ut ipsi sint domus Dei,\ —who are so in the house of God, that themselves are the house of God. ' He that overcometh, I wiU write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, that cometh out of heaven from my God,' Rev, iii. 12.

So that a quo dominatio, ah eo denominatio, —our name is given us according to her name that cherisheth and is mother unto us. Hence every believing soul is a daughter of Jerusalem, and a spouse of Christ. Anima credentis est sponsa redimentis, —The soul of him that believes is the .spouse of him that saves. As a multitude is but a heap of units, so the church is a congregation of saints. And as that which belongs to the body belongs to every member, so the privileges of our mother Jerusalem are the prerogatives of all her children : not only the daughter of Ziou herself, but eveiy daughter of hers, every fiiithful soul, is ' a pure virgin,' and so to be ' presented to Jesus Christ.' As Paul to his particular church of Corinth : ' I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for 1 have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ,' 2 Cor. xi. 2. plan's soul is of an excellent nature, and like a beauteous damsel, hath many suitors:—

(1.) First, the devil: who comes like an old dotard, neatly tricked and smugged up, his wrinkled hide smoothed and sleeked with tcntations ; he conies ever masked, and dares not shew his face. Take away his vizor, and the soul is worse than a witch that can affect him. And as when he tempts wretched sorceresses to some real covenant with him, he assumes the form of familiar and unfeared creatures, lest in a horrid and strange shape they should not endure him ; so in his spiritual ciicumveutions, for the more facile, sly, * Jerom, t Aug.

and .suspectless insinviatiou into mortal hearts, * he transforms himself into an angel of light,' 2 Cor. xi. 14.

The promises of this suitor are large and fair ; he offers the soul, if it ■will be his spouse, a great jointure. Judas shall have money, Esau pleasures, Nabal plenty. Christ himself shall be jointured in many kingdoms, Matt. iv. 9 ; but ever he indents that we must love him, and join with him in marriage. Doeg shall have a place in the court, so he will malign God's priests. Pilate shall be judge, so he will ply his injustice hard. The Protector shall be made an ecclesiastical judge, if he will i^romise more connivance than conscience, and suffer Master Bribery to give the censure. Every Balaam shall be promoted, that is readier to curse than to bless the people.

These things to the wicked doth Satan form in speculation, though not perform in action. He is an ill wooer that wanteth words. Hear his voice, and see not his face; believe his promises, and consider him not as a liar, as a murderer, and he will go near to carry thy heart from all. But he hath two infirmities, nay, enormities, that betray him : a stinking breath, and a halting foot.

For his breath; though it smell of sulphur, and the hot stream of sin and hell, yet he hath art to sweeten it. So he can relish covetise with thrifti-ness, voluptuousness with good diet, idleness with good quiet. Drunkenness, because it is very sour, and fulsome, and odious, even to nature and reason, shall be seasoned, sweetened with good-fellowship. Malice is the argument of a noble spirit, and murder the maintenance of reputation. Lust is the direction of nature; and swearing, a graceful testimony to the truth of our speeches. With such luscious confections he labours to conserve his lungs from stinking. If it were not for those mists and shadows, sin would want both fautors and factors.

But his lame foot cannot be hidden, (as they once foolishly fabled among the vulgar that his cloven foot could not be changed,) for his disobedience is manifest. If he saith, ' Steal,' and God saith, ' Thou shalt not steal;' ' Swear,' when God saith, 'Swear not;' 'Dissemble,' when he cries, 'Woe against hypocrites!' ' Be a usurer,' when God saith,' Thou shalt not then dwell in my glory :' what pretences soever gloss his text, his lameness cannot be hidden. All his policy cannot devise a boot to keep him from this halting.—This is the first and worst suitor,

(2.) The world comes in like a blustering captain, with more nations on bis back than crowns in his purse, or at least virtues in his conscience. This wooer is handsomely breasted, but ill backed : better to meet than to follow, for he is all vanity before, all vexation behind, by the witness of him that tried and knew him, Eccles. i. Sometimes trouble fellows him, but surely follows him. ' The desire of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows,' 1 Tim. vi. 10. He is like a bee or an epigram, all his sting is in his tail. He is troubled with a thousand diseases, and is attended on with more plagues than ever Galen knew remedies. He is now grown exceeding old, and hath but a few minutes to live. He is decayed both in stature and nature : specially he is troubled with a stooping and a stopping— a stooping in his joints, a stopping in his lungs; ho neither hath an upright face nor a light heart.

[1.] For the former; he is ever poring on the earth, as if he had no other heaven, or were set to dig there for paradise. His eye never looks up to heaven, but to observe what weather it Avill be. This is his curvity; he is a warped, .aged, and decrepit suitor. There is no straightnoss in hiui.

[2.] For the other; he oiiiinot be lightsome, because he never did give a good conscience one ni^^ht's lodging, which only truly can make ' the heart merr}',' Prov. xv. 15. He strives to be merry, but his mirth is madness. He cannot dance unless vanity be his mate, and iniquity his minstrel. All his joy is vel in vitiis, vel in. (Jivitiis, —either in his wealth, or his wickedness. He cannot be merry if God be in the company. For the good oidy keep Christmas all the ye;ir in their conscience, though not at their table. He hath three inducements to persuade, and three defects to dissuade, the soul from accepting his love. If the former induce any to him, let the latter reduce them froua him :—

His Jirst allurement is a mellifluous language, able to blanch mischiefl His words drop nectar, as if he had been brought up at court. And as by his logic he can make quidlihet ex qnolibet, —anything of everything; so by his rhetoric he can make stones, hard-hearted worldlings, dance to liis pipe, as it is fabled of Orpheus: Cujus ex ore non tarn verba, quam mellajluunt, as I have read of Origcn,—Every syllable is like a drop of honey from his lips. Magicis verhorura viribus, quasi transformat homines, —Tliere lies a magic in his tempting speech, able to enchant and transform men's hearts: making a voluptuous man a hog; an oppressor, a wolf; the lustful, a goat; the drunkard, a devil. His arguments are not empty, but carry the weight of golden eloquence, the musical sound of profit and pleasure.

Besides his captiving elocution, he mends the ill fabric of his person with rich accoutrements. He wears all his clothes, as St Paul saith, in the fashion, Rom. xii. 2. He Ir.ith change of suits. He puts on pride when he goes to the court; bribery, when he goes to the Hall; ebriety, when to a tavern; prodigality, when he shuffles in among gallants ; usury, when he would walk in the Exchange ; and oppression, when he would ride down into the country. Only avarice is the girdle of his loins; he is never without it. It is his fashion to be of any fashion, and to apply himself to thy humour whom he courts. He hath a suit fo speed his suit, to please thy affection.

This is not all; he tenders thee a fair and large jointure. Give him but marriage, and he will give thee maintenance. Jura, perjura, —Defraud, dissemble, swear, forswear, bribe, flatter, temporise, make use of all men, love only thyself; and riches, with preferment in his comjjany, shall seek thee out. Thou shalt hazard no straits, climb no AIjjs, prison not thyself in a study, nor apprentice thy life to the wars. Entertain but the world for thy husband, and thou art out of all hunger and cold : weidth shall come trolling in even whiles thou sleepcst. But happy is he that can be rich with honesty, or poor with content.

These are the glories whereof he would enamour thee; thus would he possess thee with his possessions. But he hath three deterrings: hear them:— He hath sore eyes, blear and raw with cares ; for he is ever in expectation, either of remedy to griefs, or supply to wants. What opulency can boast innuunity from sorrow, exemption from crosses 1 And such is the secure worldling's impatience, when he is once angered with afflictions, that a little misery makes him greatly miserable. He makes his yoke the more troublous to him, because he hath not learned to draw quietly in it. Though he hath already more than enough, he keeps his eyes sore with seekuig for addition. In the quest of wealth, he denies himself rest. Needs nmst his eyes be sore that sleepeth not.—This is one dLsea.se incident to the world.

He hath swollen legs, diseased with surfeits. For the world comprehends more than covetou.'^ness, by the testimony of St John : 'The lust of the llesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is i)f the world,' 1 Juhii ii. 15. We

renounced in our baptism, together with the world, pomps and vanities. Riot, lust, intemperance, epicurism, dissoluteness, are members of the world, as well as avarice. Tarn, I say, if not tantum. And therefore our Saviour, by that terrible sentence against rich men, intends not covetousness for a sole and singular obstacle, (yield it a principal,) but pride, ambition, lust, vain-glory, luxury, the effects of an opulent state, as weU as covetise. There are more burdens to load the camel, when he should pass through the small postern of grace, (that needle's eye,) than only avarous affections. What lesson of vice is not the rich man apt to learn ? Therefore this makes the world have swollen legs, as the other sore eyes. He is blind, he is lame; both ill qualities in a suitor.

He hath a very weak tenure of all he possesseth; he is God's tenant at will, and hath lease of nothing, but durante Domini beneplacito, —during the great Landlord of heaven and earth's favour. At utmost, his hold is but for term of life : and that a warish, short, and transient life, scarce so long as the first line of an indenture. Nay, he hath right to nothing ; for he holds not in capite, from the Lord of all, Jesus Christ. Therefore every worldling shall be accountant for each crumb of bread and drop of water which they have received. For the right of creatures lost in the first Adam, cannot be recovered but by the second. So that he enters on them as an intrudei-, and possesseth them as a usurper : his title being so bad, his tenure is certain in nothing but in being uncertain. Sic transit gloria mundi, —So ' the fashion of this world passeth away,' 1 Cor. vii. 31. What soul soever marries him, either he leaves his wife, or his wife must leave him, without ever being satisfied.

You see, then, the fraudulent proffers of your personable wooer, the world. What is there in him, that any daughter of Jerusalem should affect him ? Only be you simple as doves, in not loving him; but wise as serpents, in living by him. ' Love not the world,' saith St John, 1 Epist. ii. 15 ; yet make use of it, saith St Paul. Utere mundo, fruere Deo, —Use the world, but enjoy God ; for ' the world waxeth old as a garment, and fadeth away,' 1 Cor. vii. 31, Heb. ill; but 'Jesus Christ yesterday, and to-day, and the same for ever,' chap. xiii. 8. The world, like fire, may be a good servant, will be an ill master. Make it thy slave; it is not good enough to be thy husband. How base is it for a free woman to marry her servant!

(3.) The third is the flesh. This suitor comes boldly in, like a home-born child, and hopes to speed for old acquaintance. He can plead more than familiarity, even inherence, inheritance of what nature hath left us. He is not only collateral, but connatural to us. One house hath held us, one breath served us, one nutriment fed us, ever since one conception bred us. Like Hippocrates's twins, we should have inseparably lived together and loved together, if the prerogative court of grace and mercy had not divorced us. And even in the sanctified this impudent wooer cannot be quite shaken off, till death shall at once deliver that to death, us to life. For though ' with the mind I delight in the law of God, yet I see another law in my members, rebelling against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin,' liom. vii. 22, 23. His company is wearisome, his solicitings tedious, to the virgin-daughter of Zion. ' O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,' ver. 24, 25. So then, with the mind we serve the law of God, but with the flesh tlie law of sin.

He will perpetually urge his suit, and not, after many rejections, be said nay. Thy soul cannot be rid of him, so long as thou holdcst him in any

hope of success ; and so long he will hope as thou givest him a cold and timorous denial. Suitors are drawn on with an easy repulse, and take that as half-granted tliat is but faintly opposed. In whom this wooer prevails least, he wearies him with im[M)rtunity till a peremptory answer hath put him out of heart. This wavering and weakly-resisting spirit cannot sleep in the chamber of quiet, whiles innumerable lusts, (which are the solicitors and spokesmen of the flesh,) beat at the door with their early knocks, pressing more impudently for audience than instruments of villany to Machiavel, or wronged clients to an advocate. Remiss answers provoke his fiercer attempts. He is shameless when he meets not with a bold heart. He thinks that though

* Pugnabit primo forti^sis, et improbe dicet,

Pugnaudo vinci se tamen ilia volet;'—*

* Though at the first the soul refuse to yield. She means on further strife to lose the field.'

Only resolution can make him give back, give over.

His insinuations are many :—By promises. PoUicitis dives. He is neither a beggar nor a niggard in promising : they are the cheapest chaffer a man can part withaL By tedious and stintless solicitations, as if time could win thee.

* Quid magis est durum saxo? quid moUius unda?

Dura tamen teneris saxa cavantur aquis;'—

' The stone is very hard, the water soft; Yet doth this hollow that, by dropping oft.'

As if the strongest fort were not long able to hold out. By shadows (for real proffers) of friendship : Tula frequensque via est, per aviici fallere nomen, —It is a safe and common way, by name of friendship to shew false play. * It was not mine enemy,' saith David, ' but my familiar friend,' that did me the mischief By tendering to the soul pleasing and contentful objects; as if

' non vincere possit Flumina, si contra quam rapit unda, natet;'—

•The floods would easily master him. If he against the stream should swim.'

Therefore he forms his insidious baits to our inclinations, diversifieth his lusts according to the variety of humours. Hie procus inmnneris moribus aptus erit, —This wooer can vary his Protean forms, obsers'e all strains, reserve and conceal his own, till he be sure that the pill he gives will work.

This suitor is dangerous, and prevails much with the soul : a handsome fellow, if you pluck ofi" his skin ; for this, saith St Jude, is ' spotted all over.' A virgin, well-natured, well-nurtured, that sets ought by herself, will not fasten her love on a lazar, leper, or ulcerous Moor. Why, then, oh why, should the soul, so heavenly generate, thus become degenerate, as to wed her affections to the polluted flesh ] God, indeed, once married the soul to the body, the celestial to a terrene nature; but to the lusts of the body, which Paul calls the flesh, he never gave his consent. This clandestine match was made without the consent of parents—of God our Father, of the church our mother; therefore most sinful, most intolerable. Cashier, then, this .saucy suitor, who, like some riotous younger brother with some great heir, pro-miseth much, both of estate and love; but once married, and made lord of * Amor., lib. i.

aU, soon consumes all to our final undoing. He breaks open the cabinet of our heart, and takes out all the jewels of our graces, and stints not his lavishing till he hath beggared us.—This is the third suitor.

(4.) The last and best, and only worthy to speed, is Jesus Christ. ' What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women 1 ' say foreign congregations to the church, Cant. v. 9. To whom she answers, ver. 10, ' My beloved is white and ruddy :' he hath an exact mixture of the best colours, argiiments of the purest and healthfulest complexion. ' The chiefest among ten thousand :' infinitely fairer than all the sons of men, who alone may bear the standard of comely grace and personal goodliness among all. ' His head is as the most fine gold :' the Deity which dwelleth in him is most pure and glorious. ' His locks are curled, and black as a raven :' his Godhead deriving to his human nature such wondrous beauty as the black curled locks become a fresh and well-favoured coimtenance. ' His eyes are like doves',' &c. : who will, let him there read and regard his gi-aces. ' His name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love him.'

He hath a rich wardrobe of righteousness to apparel us ; a glorious house, a city of gold, to entertain us, whose foundation is jasper and sapphire, and such precious stones, Rev. xxi., the least of them richer than ten Escurials : his jointure is glory,—^jointure I may caU it, for so we are with him joined heirs, though not joined purchasers. If the house of this world be so esteemed, wherein God lets his enemies dwell, what is the mansion he hath provided for himself and his spouse, the daughter of Zion ! Rom, viii. 17. His fruition is sweet and blessed, ob eminentiam, ob permanentiam, —for perfection, for perpetuity ; a kingdom, and such a one as ' cannot be shaken,' Heb. xii., which no sin, like a politic Papist, shall blow up; no sorrow, like a turbulent atheist, shall invade.

This suitor is only beautiful, only bountiful : let him possess your souls, which with his blood he bought out, and with his power brought out from captivity. For him am I deputed wooer at this time, (for ' as though God did beseech you through us, we pray you hi Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God,' 2 Cor. v. 20,) who would fain ' present your souls pure virgins to Jesu« Christ,' chap. xi. 2. Forbear the prostitution of them to any ravisher, to any sin; for jyeccare, to sin, is to commit adultery. Quasi j)ellicare, id est cum pellice coire. Christ lays just title to you : give yourselves from yourselves to him ; yovi are not your own unless you be his.

2. We have heard the daughter of Zion described quce sit ; let us now hear ciijiis sit, ' the daughter of my people,' saith the Lord. God was pleased witli that title, ' the God of Israel.^ His own Scriptures frequently give it him : Jer. xxxii. 36, ' Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel,' &c. The children are usually called after the name of their father; here the Father is contented to be called after the name of his children : ' The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,' &c. So Darius proclaims in his decree, Dan. vL 26, 'The God of Daniel.' Isa. xliv. 5, ' One shall say, I am the Lord's; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob ; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel. Thus saith the King of Israel,' &c. And, chap. xlv. 4, ' For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name : I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.' Here might be inferred the inuttcrable compassiim of God to Israel. It is my people that is thus sick. But I have not scanted this observation before.

That which I would now direct my speech and your attention to, is the .strangeness of his complaint; cegrotat Israel. Others to have been sick

were not so rare. It had been no wonder in Egypt, Animou, Edoni, Babylon : Israel liatli the best means for health, therefore the more inexcusable her sickness. They should have been so mannered as they were manured, and brought forth grapes according to their dressing : Sidon shall judge Chorazin, Nineveh Jerusalem. In Sidon, where was no prophet, was less wickedness; in Nineveh, where less prophesying, greater repentance. This conviction was demonstrated in many particulars. The praise of the centurion is the shame of Israel; the mercy of the Samaritan, the priest's and Levite's condenmation. The very dogs licking Lazarus's sores confute the stony bowels of Dives. The returning of the strange leper, with a song of thanksgiving in his mouth, was an exprobration to all the nine; w hen Christ had the tithe of a person he least expected.

God reproacheth this ' daughter of Zion,' Ezek. xvi. 46, that SamarLa and Sodom were of her sisterhood ; yea, ver. 47, ' As if their abominations were a very little thing, thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways.' Nay, ver. 51, 'Thou hast justified thy sisters, in that their abominations came short of thine by the one half.' 'The people of thy holiness,' as the prophet Isaiah calls them, chap. Ixiii. 18, are become, by the same prophet's testimony, ' a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity,' chap. i. 4. ' They that were not called by thy name,' cha[). Ixiii. 19, are not so rebellious. Eo sunt deteriores, quo meliores Deus reddere conatus est. It is grievous that God's goodness should make men worse; and the more kind God hath been to them, the more unkind they should be to themselves, the more unthankful to him. Christ for the Jews turned their water into Avine, John ii.; the Jews for Christ turned their wuie into vinegar, and offered it him to drink, Matt, xxvii. 34. They that were the richest of God's own making, became the most bankrupts in religion. They changed cathedram mysterii, wherein God placed their doctors, in sedem pestilentice, into the scorner's chair, contemning his benefits ; they had a \ineyard at an easy rate, yet paid no fruits of obedience. It is hard to say whether God was more gracious to them, or they more grievous to him. This boldly, never was more pity requited vdth less piety. God sowed mercy, and reaped a crop of iniquity.

God can brook this in none; but as he forsook his temple in Zion when it became ' a den of thieves,' so he will take out his ornaments wherewith he graced the temple of the soul, when we set up the Dagon of this world in it; and withdraw his riches, as from a divorced spouse, running after other lovers. "WTiUes Adam served God, God, in a manner, served liim; he provides for him a mansion, a companion, and sustentation. We read of nothing that God did six days together, (and his works were not small nor few,) but work for Adam ; as if he had been hired to labour for him. Is it not strange that such a child should prove rebel to such a father ? Let none think his fault was small in eating an a])ple, or that his punishment weighed heavier than his trespass. His sin was so much the gi-eater, because against a God, and so good unto him. The more gloriously the sun and summer have apparelled a tree, the more we admire the blasting. When Ciod hath planted a soul in his own holy ground, watered it with those sacred, purifying dews of hLs graces, shone on it with the radiant beams of his soul-reviv-inrf mercies, spent much et operoi et olei, both of care and cost upon it, and hath his expectation requited, abused with a mere flourish of leaves,—with either a neqnam, or neqnicquam frndm, none or evil fruits,—there goes out a curse, ' Never fruit gi'ow on thee more.' AVTicn God hath [nit his grace into our unworthy vessels, how abusive is it to empty ourselves of that [)recious liquor, and swell our spirits with the poison of hell! How just is it with

him to take away what he gave, Luke viii. 18, and to put a consumption into our vital parts! Hence (without wonder) our judgment rusts like a never-drawn sword ; our knowledge loseth the relish, like the Jews' putrified manna ; our faith dissolves as a cloud; our zeal trembles, as if it were held with a palsy; our love freezeth the harder, as water that once was warm; our repentance turns to ice, and our hope to snow, which the heat of affliction melts to water, not to be gathered up : the image of death is upon all our religion.

Was this strange in Israel, and is it nothing in England 1 Look uix)n the inhabitants of the earth, somewhat remote from i;s, to whose face the sun of the gospel hath not yet sent his rays; people blinded with ignorance, blended with lusts. What were our desires or deserts, former matter or latter merit, congruity before conversion, or eondignity after, more than theirs, that might shew that God should put us into the horizon of his grace, whiles they ' sit in darkness and shade of death V Want they nature, or the strength of flesh 1 Are they not tempered of the same mortar ? Are not their heads upward toward heaven 1 Have they not reasonable souls, able for comprehension, apt for impression, if God would set his seal on them, as well as we 1 Eph. iv. 30. Are they not as likely for flesh and blood, provident to forecast, ingenious to invent, active to execute, if not more, than we ? Why have we that star of the gospel to light us to Christ Jesus standing over our country, whiles they neither see it nor seek it 1 It is clearly, merely God's mercy. Now why are our lives worse, seeing our knowledge is better ? Why devour we their venom, refusing our own healthful food ; whiles they would feed on our crumbs, and have it not 1 Woe unto us if we scant God of our fruits, that hath not scanted us of his blessings !

Bring presents to the King of glory, ye children of his holiness, and worship before him. Endanger not yourselves to the greater misery, by abusing his great mercy. He hath loved us much and long in our election, when we could not love him ; in our redemption, when we would not love him. His love was not merited by ours; let our love be deserved, inflamed by his. If God prevent us with love, we can do no less than answer him in the same nature, though not (it is impossible) in the same measure. Publicans will love those that love publicans, Matt. v. 46. The poet could say—

• Ut prsestem Pyladen, aliquis mihi praestet Oresten;

Hoc non fit verbis : Marce, ut ameris ama;'—*

* Give me Orestes, I shall Pylades prove; Then truly, that thou may est be loved, love.'

But God loved us, even being his enemies. JEjus charitas est substantia, nostra accidentalis,\ —His love is a substance, ours only accidental. His, ignis accendens; ours, ignis accensus. His love is that holy fire that enkindles ours. If we return not our little mite of love for his great treasures, his great love .shall turn to our great anger; and we shall fiire the worse that ever we fared so well. God, as he hath advanced us into his favour, so hath he set us as ' a light on a hUl,' among the nations; if darkness be on the hill, what light can be in the valley ? A small scar on the face is eminent. If one eyebrow be shaven, how little is taken from the body, how much from the beauty ! We are now the world's envy; oh, let us become their declamation !

Obs. —Is the daughter of God's people sick ? It may then be inferred,

* Martial, lib. vi., Epigr. 11. t Bern., Ep. 11.

that the church may be sick, though not die and perish ; die it cannot. The blood of an eternal King bought it, the power of an eternal Spirit preserves it, the mercy of an eternal God shall crown it, Ilob. ix. 14. The heathens have imagined to vaunt themselves and daunt us with the downfall of our church. Ad certum tempus sunt Christiani, postea perilntnt; redihunt idola, et quod fuit antea* —These Christians are but for a time; then they shall perish, and our idols shall be returned to their former adoration. To whom that father replies : Verinyi tu cum expectas, miser infidelis, vt transeant Christiani, transis ipse sine Chistianis, —But whilst thou, O wretched infidel, expectest the Christians to perish, thou dost perish thyself, and leave them safe behind thee, ^^^ules they boast in their self-flatteries, that we had a time to begin and shall have a time to continue, themselves vanish, and we remain to praise the Lord our God from generation to generation. Indeed, Matt. xv. 13, 'Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up.' But whom he loves, for ever he loves, John xlii. 1. Yet may this church, whiles it is not freed from militancy, be very sick in the visible body of it. jEgrotat Israel; yet in Israel was the true church of God. It was so sick in Elias's time, that, Rom. xi. 3, he eomplaineth, ' Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.' The church was sick, you see ; yet the next verse of God's answer frees it from being dead : ' I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, that never bowed the knee to the image of Baal.'

"What church since hath been so happy as to joy in her freedom from this cause of complaint 1 The church was from the beginning, shall be to the end, without limitation of time, of place. Yet she is a garden : Cant. iv. 12, ' A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse ;' sometimes by diligence kept neat and clean, sometimes by negligence overrun with weeds. She is a moon, eft clear and beautiful, eft waning, and waxing darksome, chap, vi 10. Die then it cannot, be sick it may. Time was, saith Chrysostom,t that ec-clesia ccelum fuit, Spiritit cuncta administrante, &c.,—the church was a heaven, the Holy Spirit governing all things, (fee. Now the very steps and tokens thereof do but scarcely remain. Mali projiciunt, boni dejiciunt, —■ Wickedness grows strong, goodness faints. The lambs are few, the goats swarm.

* Little faith shall be found When the last trump shall sound.'

We have read often the church compared to a body, cvjtis caput Christus, ' whose head is Jesus Christ.' In the 4th to the Ephesians, we have it likened to a man, cujtis anima Christus, whose soul is Christ: ' TiU all come to a perfect man,' <fec. Now the soul increaseth in a man, not aug-mentatively, but secundum vigorem ; transfusing into the body her virtual powers and operations more strongly. Christ ia semper idem ohjective, subjective, effective, —ever the same in himself, and to us, Heb. xlii. >s ; but this body grows up with the head, this man with the soul, this churcli ' increaseth with the increasing of God,' Col. ii. 19. Sickness, then, to the church cannot be mortal, yet may the body be distempered ; her doctrine may be sound, her members want health : ' Why is not the health of the daughter,' &c. But to descend from the universal to a particular, from the invisible to a visible church ; this may be sick, either by some inbred distemperature, or by the accession of some outward malady. There may be grievances in either respect to afflict the daughter of Israel.

• Aug. in Ps. lix. + In 1 Cor. Horn. 36.

Inwardly : corruption may gather on it by degrees and put it in need of physic. For as the natural body of man, when it is overcharged in the veins and parts -with rank and rotten humours, which it hath gathered by misdiet, surfeiting, or infest airs, the man grows dangerously sick, tUl by some fit evacuation he can be discharged of that burden : so the body of a church, being infected with humours, and swollen with tumours of unsound doctrine, of unsounder life, superstitious ceremonies, corrupting the vital pores and powers thereof; troubled with the cold shakings of indevotion, or taken with the numbness of induration, or terrified with windy passions of turbulent spirits, cannot be at ease till due reformation hath cured it. Now such a church sometimes is more swelling in bigness, and ostents a more bulky show; but once truly purged of such crude superfluities, it becomes less great and numerous, but withal more sound, apt and fit for spiritual actions.

Our particular church of England, now fined from the dross of Home, had a true substantial being before, but hath gotten the better being, by the re-purgation wrought by the gospel, maintained by our Christian princes, the true ' defenders of the faith' of Christ. God had doubtless his church among us before, for it is catholic and universal; but his floor was full of chafi". The Papists demand where our church was before Luther's time. We answer, it lay hid under a great bulk of chaff; and. Matt, iii., since Christ vouchsafed to come ' with his fan to purge it of the chafl",' it now shews itself with greater eminence, and is clearer both in show and substance. It was before a wedge of pure gold, but coming into the hands of impostors, was by their mixtures and sophistications, for gain and such sinister respects, augmented into a huge body and mass, retaining still an outward fair show" and tincture of gold. They demand, where was the gold 1 demonstrate th* place. I answer, in that mass. But for the extracting thereof, and purifying it from dross, God hath given us the true touchstone, his sacred word, which can only manifest the true church; and withal reverend bishops, and worthy ministers, that have been instruments to refine and purge it from the dross of superstitions, foul ceremonies, and juggling inventions.

The Papists brag themselves the true ancient church, and tax ours of novelty, of heresy. But we justly tell them, that ecdesice nomen tenent, et contra ecclesiam dimicant, —that they usurp the name of the church, yet persecute it. For the truth of our church, we appeal to the Scriptures. Nolo humanis documentis, sed divinis oraculis sanctani ecclesiam demondrari* —It is fit the holy church should be proved rather by divine oracles, than human precepts or traditions. We stand not upon numbers, (which yet, we bless God, are not small,) but upon truth. You see, as the church of the Jews, so any particular church, may be sick inwardly. To describe these internal diseases, I will limit them into four :—

(1.) Error. Indeed heresy cannot possess a church but it gives a subversion to it. El-rare possum, hereticus esse non possum, saith that fathei',+—I may err, a heretic I cannot be. Now, quicquid contra veriiatem sapii, hoiresis est, eliam vetus consuetudo;\. —What is diametrally opposed against the truth is heresy, yea, though it be an ancient and long-received custom. But logic, which is a reasonable discourse of things, shews a great difteronce between diversa and contraria. A church may be sick of error, and yet live ; but heresy (a wilful error against the fundamental truth, violently prosecuted and persisted in) kills it. Therefore, hceresis potius inors, qnam morbus, — heresy is rather death than sickness. When the truth of doctrine, or rather doctrine of truth, hath been turned to the falsehood of heresy, God hath re-* Aug. de Unit. Eccl. t August. J Tertul.

moved their candlestick, and turned their liiiht into darkness. Error may make it sick, but so that it may be cured. Tiie churches of Corinth, G:Ua-tia, Pergamos, had these sicknesses ; the Holy Ghost, by Paul and John, prescribeth their cures. If they had been dead, what needed any direction of physic ? If they had not been sick, to what tended the prescription of their remedy ?

To God alone, and to his majestical word, be the imimssibility of erring. That church, that man, shall in tl^s err palpably, that will challenge an immunity ; whosoever thinks he cannot err, doth in this very persuasion err extremely. I know there is a man on earth, a man of earth, (to say no more,) that challcngcth this privilege. Let liim prove it. Give him a term ad exhibendum, and then for want of wtness he may write, Teste meipso, as kings do,—Witness ourself, &c. Nay, ask his cardinals, friars. Jesuits. This is somewhat to the proverb, ' Ask the sons if the father be a thief.' But he cannot err in his definitive sentence of religion. Then belike he hath one spirit m his consistory, and another at home ; and it may hi some sort be said of him, as Sallust of Cicero : Aliud stans, aliiul sedens de i-epublica loi/uitur, —He is of one opinion sitting, of another standing. ' Let God be true, but every man a liar,' Horn. iiL 4. One of their own said, Omnis hovio errare potest in fide, etiamsi Papa sit, —Any man may err in faith, yea, though he were the Pope. If they will have Rome a sanctuary, let them take along with them Petrarcha's catachresical speech, calling it an asylum errorum, sanctuary of errors. "What particular church then may not err 1 Now can it err, and be sound ? Be the error small, yet the ache of the finger keeps the body from perfect health. The greater it is, the more dangerous ; especially, [1.] Either when it possesseth a vital part, and infecteth the rulers of the church. It is ill for the feet when the head is giddj^ [2.] Or when it is infectious and spreading, violently communicated from one to another. [3.] Or when it carries a colour of truth. The most dangerous ^'ice is that which bears the countenance and wears the cloak of virtue. [4.] Or when it is fitter to the humour, and seasoned to the relish of the people. Sedition, affectation, popukrity, covetousness, are enough to drive an error to a heresy. So the disease may prove a gangrene, and then ease reddendum, ne pars sincera trahatur, —no means can save the whole, but cutting off the mcurable part: Pereat unus potius (juam unitas.

(2.) Ignorance is a sore sickness in a church, whether it be in the superior, or subordinate members; especially when ' the priest's lips preserve not knowledge.' Ill goes it with the body when the eyes are blind. Devotion without instruction often wuids itself into superstition. When learning's head is kept under avarice's girdle, the land grows sick. Experience hath made this conclusion too manifest. Our forefathers felt the terror and tyranny of this afiliction; who had golden chalices, and wooden priests, who had either no art or no heart to teach the people. Sing not, thou Roman siren, that ignorance is the dam of devotion, to lireed it; it is rather a dam to stifle, restrain, and choke it up. Blindness is plansil'lc to please men, not possible to please God. Grant that our faults in the light are more heinous than theirs who wanted true knowledge. Ex furibus e/iim leges eos gravius puniunt, qui interdiu fnrantur,*—For the laws do punish those thieves most severely, that fear not even by day to commit outrages. Yet in all rcastm their sins did exceed in number, who knew not when they went awry, or what was ami&s.

Rome hath, by a strange and incredible kind of doctrme, gone about to * Chrysost. in Ps. ix.

prove that the health, which is indeed the sickness of a church, is ignorance. Their Cardinal Cusan saith, that ohedientia irrationalis est consummata obe-dieniia et perfectissivia, <fec.,—ignorant obedience, wanting reason, is the most absolute and perfect obedience. Chrysostom gives the reason why they so oppose themselves against reason : ILeretici sacerdotes daudunt januas veritatis, &c.,—Heretical priests shut up tlie gates of truth ; for they know that upon the manifestation of the truth their church would be soon forsaken. If the light, which maketh all things plain, should shine out, tit7ic hi qui prius decipiehant, nequaqiiam ad popidum accedere valebunt, postquam se seiiserint intellectos, —then they who before cozened the people could preserve their credits no longer, being now smelt out and espied. Hence the people aim at Christ, but either short or gone, and not with a just level. But nemo de Christo credat, nisi quod Christies de se credi voluit, —let no man believe other thing of Christ than what Christ would have believed of himself. Noil minus est Deum fingere, quam negare, saith Hilary,—It is no less sin to feign a new God, than to deny the true God. The priests call the people swine, and therefore must not have those precious pearls. And so the people amant ignorare, malunt nescire, quod jam oderunt* —had rather continue ignorant, as not loving to know those things, which they cannot love, because they know not.

But, alas! ignorance is so far from sanity and sanctity, that it is a spilling and killing sickness. Men are urged to read the Scriptures, that never-emptied treasure-house of knowledge : they answer, Non sum monachus ; uxorem haheo, et curam domus,f —I am no priest; I have a wife, and a domestical charge to look to. This is that pestilence (no ordinary sickness) that infects to death many souls; to think that knowledge belongs only to priests. This is a work of the devil's inspiration, not suffering us to behold the treasure, lest we grow rich by it. Dicis non legi; non est hcec excusatio, sed crimen, —Thou sayest, I have not read ; this is no excuse, but a sin. The Bomists stick not, as once the Valentinian heretics, veritatis ignorantiam, cognitionem vocare, by a paradox, pseudodox, to call the ignorance of the tnith, the true knowledge thereof. Like those, Wisd. xiv., that ' living m a war of ignorance, those so great plagues, they called peace.' But qui ea qua; sunt Domhii nesciunt, d, Domino nesciuntur, —they that will not know the Lord, shall not be known of the Lord. It is objected, 1 Cor. viii. 1, ' Knowledge puffeth up.' Let Irenseus expound it: Non quod veram scientiam de J)eo culparet, alioquin seipsum primum accusaret, —Not that he blamed the true knowledge of God, for then he should first have accused himself.

Beloved, ' let the word of God dwell in you plenteously,' Col. iii. 16. Do not give it a cold entertainment, as you would do to a stranger, and so take your leave of it; but esteem it as your best familiar and domestical friend : making it your chamber-fellow, study-fellow, bed-fellow. Let it have the best room and the best bed; the parlour of our conscience, the resting-place in our heart. Neglected things are without the door, less respected within, but near the door. tSed qu(e pretiosa sunt, non uno servantur ostio, —The more worthy things are not trusted to the safety of one door, but kept under many locks and key.s. Give terrene things little regard, preserve them with a more removed care. But this pearl of inestimable value. Matt. xiii. 46, this jewel purer than gold of Ophir, Ps. cxix. 127 ; lay it not up in the porter's lodge, the outward ear, but in the cabinet and most inward closure of thy heart. Deut. xi. 18, ' Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul.' Mary thought that place the fittest receptacle • Tertul. in Apologet. + Chrysost. ia Math. Horn. 2.

for such oracles. This is that physic which can only cure the sickness of ignorance: 2ibi ifpwrans invtnil quod adcli^scat, contumax i/uid timeat, laborans quo pnemletur, puni/la/iimis quo nutriatur, famelicus conviviuin, vulneratus remedium, —where the ignorant may find what to learn, the refractory what to fear, the labt)urer wherewith to be rewarded, the weak nourishment, the guest a banquet, the wounded a remedy to cure him. Be not ignorant, be not sick. ' Search the Scriptures,' read, observe. This is not all. Xon prodest cibus, qui statlni sumptus emitlitur* —The meat nourisheth not which tarrieth not in the stomach. It must be digested by meditation and prayer. Meditalio docet quid desit, oratio ohtinet ne desit, — Meditation shews our want, prayer procureth sui)ply. Let it not be said of our perfunctory reading, as it was of the Delphian oracle, quoties legitar, iolies negligitur, —that we disregard what we read. Read to learn, learn to practise, practise to live, and live to praise God for ever.

(3.) A third sickness, which may inwardly afflict a church, is dissension : a sore shaking to the joints, an enervating the strength, and dangerous degree to dissolution. The world being but one, teachcth that there is but one God that governs it; one God, that there is but one church, one truth. The church is not only coluinna veritatis, sed columba unitatis, —the pillar of truth, 1 Tim. iil 15, but also the dove of unity : Cant. vi. 10, ' My dove, my undefiled is alone,' Dissensions, like secret and close Judases, have given advantageous means to our common enemies, both to scorn and scourge the church. Clemens lUcxandrinus + brings the heathen exprobrat-ing our religion for untrue, unwarrantable : quia omnis seda Christianismi titulum sibi vindicat, tainen alia aliam execratur et condemnal, —because every sect challengeth to itself the title and right of true Christianity, yet one curseth and condemneth another. Within how much the narrower limits this distraction is pent, it so much the more violently bursteth forth, and strives to rend the bow-els of a church : like some angry and furious vapour or exhalation restrained, that shakes the very earth for vent and passage. Such hath been the distractedness of some times, that men have laboured to be neuters, and studied more to be indiiferently disposed to either side, than to be religious at all. Such a time doth Erasmus mention : quando ingeniosa res fuit esse Christianum, —when it was a point of policy and wit to be a Christian.

I confess, indeed, that unity is no inseparable and undoubted mark of the church; for there was a unity in those murdering voices, ' Crucify him, crucify him !' ' The kings of the earth have banded themselves together against the Lord,' Ps. ii. 2. Those favourers and factors of Antichrist, Rev. xvii., that make war against the Lamb, are all said to ' have one mind.' Nay, Chrysostom saith, that expedit ipsis dcemonibus obaudire sibi invicem in schismate, —it is necessary for the very devils to hearken one to another, and to have some mutuality in their very muthiy, a union in their distraction. Yet can it not be denied but that dissension in a church is a sickness to it. It goes ill -vvith the body when the members agree not: those that dwell in one house should be of one mind. It endangers the whole builduig to ruin, when the stones square and jar one with another. What detriment this hath been to ■whole Christendom, he hath no mind that considers not, no heart tliat condoles not. We may say with the Athenians, Auxiinus I'hilipjium noa ipsi Athenitnses, —We have strengthened King Philip against us by our own contentions. Christian nation fighting with Christian hath laid more to the possession of the Turk than his own sword. Where is the Greek church, once so ♦ Bern. f Stromat., Lib. vii.

famous ? GrcBciam in Grcecia qucerimus, saitli iEneas Sylvius,—We seek for Greece in Greece, and scarce find the remaining ruins. Behold, we have laid waste ourselves, who shall pity us ? Our own seditions have betrayed the peace of our Jerusalem. He hath no tears of Christian compassion in his eyes that will not shed them at this loss. If you ask the reason why the wild boar hath spoiled the vineyard, why the lim and Ziim, filthy and unclean birds, roost themselves in those sanctified dominions, why Mohammed is set up, like Dagon, where the ark once stood, and paganism hath thrust Christianity out of her seat, it is answered, Israel is not true to Judah; the rending of the ten tribes from the two hath made both the two and the ten miserable.

It is one of the sorest plagues, (oh, rather let it fall on the enemies of God and his church! let Ms own never feel it,) when men shall be ' fed with their own flesh, and shall be drunk with their own blood, as with sweet wine.' Isa. xlix. 26, frighting and fighting one against another, till an utter extirpation devour and swallow all. The malignity of this sickness hath been terrible to particular churches. They that have been least endamaged have little cause to joy in it. Our own home-bred jars have lately more prejudiced our peace than foreign wars. The Spanish blades have done less hurt unto us than English tongues. Our contentions have laboured about trifles, our damage hath been no trifle ; but I know not whether more to our loss or our enemy's gain. Look but on the effects, and you will confess this a dangerous sickness. Rome laughs, Amsterdam insults; whiles the brethren scuffle in the vineyard, atheists and persecutors shuffle in to spoil all. God's Sabbath, his worship, his gospel is neglected. Some will hear none but the refractory and refusers of conformity; others take advantage of their disobedience to contemn their ministry. Wicked hearts are hardened, good ones grieved, weak offended. Is this no sickness 1 Is it unworthy our deploring, our imploring redress 1

We are all brethren, both by father's and mother's side. It is more than enough that our fdlings-out have been a grief to both our parents. If we proceed, the brethren shall smart for all. Whether we be victors or vanquished, we may beshrew ourselves. Let us think we behold our mother calling us to stay our quarrels, and to lay down the cause at her feet. Otherwise, as Jocasta told her two sons—

' Bella geri placuit, nullos babitura triumpbos,'—

we undertake a war whose victory shall have a sorry triumph. Let every star in our orb know his station, and run his course without erring ; the inferior subjecting themselves to the higher powers, whiles the courses of superiors be wisely tempered with moderation and clemency. For etsi omnibus verbiministris commune idemque sit officium, sunt tamen Jionorisgradus* —though the office of all God's ministers be common and the same, yet they have different degrees and places.

We have adversaries enow at home to move our tongues and pens against. Oh that arguments of steel and iron might supply the weakness of the other! We have the Edomites with their no God, and the Babylonians with their new god; dissolute atheists, resolute Papists : the former scoffing us for believing at all, the latter for believing as we do, as we ought. These oppose (though under the pent-house of night) mass against service, sacrament against sacrament, prayer against prayer; confounding the language of England, as the Jews once of Israel. Whiles we are praying in one place,

* Calvin.

'O Lord God of Abraham,' etc., they are inunibliiig in another place, 'O Baal, hear us.' Wliiles we pray for fire to coiisumo the sacrifice, they for water to consume the fire ; we fur the propagation, thoy for the extirpation of the gospel; hathig us and our Christian i)rinces more mortally than if we were Saracens. For as no bond is so strong as that of religion, so no hostility is so cruel and outrageous as that which difference in religion occasioneth. Hence they cross, they curse, they persecute, they excoiiimuuicate. Nothing but our blood can stay their stomachs.

We know they hate us; let us the more dearly love one another. The manifestation of enemies .should confirm the mutual league and amity of brethren. ' Oh, pray for the peace of Jerusalem !' Pray we that the deceived may find their errors, correct their opinions, and submit their judgments and affections to the ride of tnith. Yea, that the wandering sheep, yea, that those who are yet goats may become sheep, and be brouglit into one fold, under one shepherd. Whiles they continue cockle there is small hope. Yet Paul was once a tare, who after proved good wheat, and is now in the gamer of heaven. Bede dicilur f/lacialem nivem calidum esse non posse: iiullo enim facto qiiamdiit 7iix est, calida esse potest^"' —It is truly said that the frozen snow can by no means be made hot, for so long as it is snow, and frozen, it admits not to be calefied. Yet if that snow be melted, the liquidity thereof may be made hot. God, that is able to turn a otony heart into a heart of flesh, work this change upon them ; unite aU our hearts to himself, to one another; and heal our souls of this sickness !

(4.) To omit many,—for sins, as they are innumerable for multitude, so diverse for quality; and many can define sin, but few decline sin,—the last of these inward sicknesses is irreligious profaneness; a grief of all times, a disease of all churches. Other times have been notable for this, ours notorious. Not that I praise the former, which doubtless were conscious of evds enough. They know theirs, we our own. ' The deeds of the flesh,' if ever, 'are now manifest,' Gal. v. 19, not only to God, 'before whom all things lie naked,' Heb. iv. 13, as a dissected anatomy, but even to the observing eye of man. Oppression shews itself in open field, depopulating, rummg city, country, church. Drunkenness reels in the street, and gluttony desires not to be housed. Malice not only discovers, but ostenteth her devUish eft'ects. Bribery opens his hand to receive in the very courts. Robbery and murder swagger in the highways. There is emulation in open school, superstition. in open temple, sects in open pulpit. Brokery stands, .like a sign, at the usurer's door, and invites foolish w'ant to turn in thither for a miserable supply. Whoredom begins to neglect curtains, and grows proud of an impudent prostitution. Pride holds the restraint of concealment a plague, and rather would not be, than be unnoted. Oaths are louder than prayers; men scarce spend two hours of seven days at their supplications, whiles they swear away the whole week. If profaneness be not our sickness, I will almost say we are sound.

' Niger omnibus aris, Ignis, et in nullis spirat deua integer extiB.' f

If this sickness be not lamentable, rejoice, triumph, and say you have no need to mourn. If a temporal loss fall on us, we entertain it with ululationa and tears. Let pirates and rocks spoil us at sea, the oppressing Sabeans in the field, the fire at home : see we our houses and towns flaming, our gold and goods (worldlings' gods) transporting, our wives, children, friends, shrieking . ♦ Aug. t Stat. Theb. 5.

under the hand of slaughter, we need not ' call for mourning women,' Jer. ix. 17, to wail for us; ' our own eyes would run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters,' ver. 18. Let profaneiiess lift up his wicked hand against God, to blaspheme his name, despise his truth, disallow his Sabbaths, abuse his patience, deride his treatings, his threatenings, his judgments ; this we see and suffer without compassion, without opposition. But ' knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, we not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them,' Kom. i. 32.

These sicknesses may afllict a church inwardly. She may be sick out-ivardly —(1.) By the persecution of man ; (2.) By the affliction of God.

(1.) By persecution of man. I need not call your thoughts back to elder times, and weary you with antiquities, to justify this assertion. This church of ours so well remembers this sickness in Queen Mary's days, as if she were but newly recovered. Whence descended those evils but cL culmine Pontificio, as one calls it,—from the top tower of the Pope ? Yet the Romists stick not to answer this, laid to their charge, by averring paradoxically that their persecution was in love, as Sarah to Hagar. In love they tyrannised, .slandered, beat, imprisoned, manacled, massacred, burned us; all in love. As Phihp-pides cudgelled his father, and pleaded it was in love. If this were charity, then sure the very 'mercies of the wicked are cruel;' their love is worse than others' hatred. Nunquid ovis lupum persequitur aliquando ? non, sed lupus ovem. Queni videris in sanguine persecutionis gaudentem, lupus est, saith Chrysostom;*—Doth the sheep ever persecute the wolf^ no, but the wolf the sheep. Whom thou seest delighting in the blood of innocence, let him plead what he will, he is a very wolf. We tell the Papists, as Augustine told the Donatists, notwithstanding their distinguishing by pretences, that their persecution exceeded in cruelty the very Jews'. For the Jews persecuted Christi carnem ambidantis in terra; these Christi evangelium sedentis in coelo, —the flesh of Christ walking on earth ; the Papists the gospel of Christ sitting in heaven. But their cruelty is our glory; we have sprung up the thicker for their cutting us down : plures efficimur, quoties metimur, — coiitrary to the rules of arithmetic, our subtraction hath been our multiplication. The church of God morte vivit, vulnere nascitur, receiveth birth by wounding, life by dying. Occidi possumus, vinci non possumus, —as the inevitable and invincible truth hath manifested. We may be killed, we cannot be conquered. ' For thy sake we are killed aU the day long,' as Paul saith, Rom. viii. 36, from the Psalmist, Ps. xliv. 22,—to shew that both the church of the Old Testament and of the New give experimental testimony of the truth,—yet ' in aU these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us,' ver. 37. If our plant had not been set up by the all-prospering hand of God, the malignancy of these enemies would have soon rooted it up. They have verified, in their persecutions against us, what one of their ownf writes of the Turkish Alcoran : Omnium quae in Alchorano continentur, ultima resolutio est gladius, —The last resolution, propagation, propugnation of all things contained xw the Alcoran (in the Pope's decretals) is (not the word, but) the sword. But blessed be our God, that hath limited this rage, and sealed us our quietus est. Though they will have no peace with us, we have peace with him that can overrule them.

But have we no persecutors still 1 Oh that no Israelite would ever strike his brother ! There are two sorts of persecutors remaining—Esaus and Ish-maels; nourished with the same air, borne on the same earth, and carried * lu Matth., Horn. 19. t Cusan.

in the indulgent bosom of the same church. But nohis ignominia non sit, pati It fratribiis quod passus est Chrijstus; ne'iue Hits gloria, facere quod fecit Jndas* —Let it be no more shame for us to suftor of our brethren what our Saviour suffered of his, than it is glory for them to do the works of Judas. Some persecute with the hand, others with the tongue. Exercent hi sapien-tiam, illi patientiam ecclesiw, —The hitter exercise the wisdom, the former the patience of the church. We are secured from Ahabs, and Herods, and Neroes ; the teeth of the dogs be broken, and the jaws of the wolves i)ulled out; the Bouners and butchers of the church are hushed in their graves. Oh that the serpents also, which hiss and spit their venom at our peace, when all the birds of our air sing acclamations to it, were at quiet! But ' as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now,' Gal. iv. 29 : now so, and will be so. We cannot see an end of these things without the end of all things. Our turn is still to suffer : we return not blow for blow; but instead of sounding a point of war, we cry one to another, Paliamur potius, —' Let us rather suffer.' Let the Roman affections, like so many pestilent rivers, run all in mare rubrum, or rather in mare raoriuum, —into the red sea, into the dead sea ; and snatching the sword of vengeance out of his hand that owns it, quit themselves on their imagined enemies with blood and death. Let him that is styled the servant of servants shew himself the tyrant of tyrants. Philosophy teacheth that external accidents change inward qualities, but without an absolute mutation ipsius speciei, they change no substances. A church may indeed at one time be better or worse disjiosjd than at another; more hot or more cold ; more sick or more whole. But as it were a strange fit that should transform Apuleius mto an ass, so it were a strange variation of accidents in a church, that should turn patience into cruelty, humility into pride, a tutor into a tormentor. Let their motto be ferio, the term whereon all their arguments rest; let ours be fero. It is far better to suffer than to offer wrong. Let savage persecution sit under the ensigns of wolves; meekness and patience be our arms and armours.

This outward malady of a church, persecution, discovers the malignity of itself in many extensions. Especially, [1.] In martyring her professors; [2.] In treason against her sovereigns; [3.] In seducing her seers.

[1,] ^lartyrdom. God hath in all ages of his church suffered some witnesses of his holy truth to be purified like gold in the fire. Though they, are blessed that have so suffered, and the church hath in conclusion gained by this loss; yet during the turbulent working of these thunder exhalations in our air, we have lamented miseram regumis faciem, the miserable state of our country, whose face hath been snatched and torn by the bloody nails of these persecuting bears. Needs must the land be sick, where the governors, like ill physicians, have purged away the good humours and left the bad behind them. When they have imprisoned, stripped, scourged, famished, dro\\nied, burnt the innocent, and rewarded the wretched instruments of such deeds : when the i)Oor infant falling out, by the midwifery of fire, from the mother's womb, liath been cast back again into the mothers flames: when the bodies and bones of the dead, which by the law of nature should rest in quiet, have been digged out of their sepulchres, violated, cursed, burnt, as if, saith the proverb, they would kill ' God have mercy on his soul:' when women have been dragged out of their houses, sick men from their beds; and the woods have abounded with saints, whiles the teuqfles with their persecutors ; wUd deserts have been frequented with true worshippers, Heb. xi. 38, and * Cypr., lil). i., ep. 3. VOL. I. 2 U

the consecrated churches with idolaters: when the holy book was either not had or must be hid;—is it no impeachment of a church's health to have these assaults goring her sides 1 Such a time will give cause to complam with Israel, ' I am in distress ; my bowels are troubled : mine heart is turned within me, for I have grievously rebelled : abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is death,' Lam. i. 20.—This is the main blow of persecution.

[2.] Treason is a fearful and prodigious evil. Needs must the body o£ that realm be in hazard whose head is broken. They mean Israel no good, that strike at the life of David. I confess that this evil is not so properly (in strict terms) a sickness as a danger. Yet as a man that hath ill humours in him, though by good diet and strength of nature they are kept from uniting their forces, and casting him down, cannot be said to be in health whiles those enemies remain within him, watching their time of mischief; so the church, though it be not sensitive of the fever which such raw and undigested crudities as traitors can put her into till it be upon her, yet can she not be perfectly well till she he purged of such pernicious and malignant adversaries. Were not the Fauxes of that horrid treason a disease and burden to the stomach of the land, tiU it had spued them out 1 Did not those pray against her, and prey upon her 1 Would they not as willingly have sacrificed through the fire, to their Moloch of Rome, the whole church, as those principal pillars of it they plotted to blow up 1 They wanted not will, but power. They would have swelled their vengeance till it had run over the verges, and comprised in one work mille actus vetitos, et mille piaciila, — iimumerable stratagems, the easiest whereof was the intention of murder,—till they had made a catholic end with a heretic church, as they call it. But the God of Jerusalem prevented the children of Edom : who is blessed for ever ! It appears then, regicides are no less than regnicides, Lam. iv. 20; for the life of a king contains a thousand thousand lives ; and traitors make the land 'sick which they live in.—This is the second dangerous blow of persecution.

[3.] The third is, seducing a church's seers, and perverting the children of the prophets, which is most commonly done rather with error than with terror; by beguiling than affrighting them. I have read, that Julians cruellest persecution was with rewards. How many have been wafted over the seas with golden hands ! Promotion rather than devotion hath cast many on the shores of Rome. There lies an exorcism, an enchanting powei' in gold, that conjures many weak spirits into that superstitious circle. Then at last home they come, and prove calthrops, to wound the country's sides that bred and fed them. Antichrist's spell is gold, and they that will wor-.ship a piece of red earth will not stick to adore that glorious beast. Self-conceit blows them up with a swellmg imagination of their own worth, and if our church doth not et numerare et rnunerare inter dignissimos, —give regard and reward, estimation and recompense according to their proud desires, they will shift realm and religion too for a hoped guerdon. You will say, there is little loss to the body in dropping off of such rotten members. It is true that the damage is principally their own ; yot what mother doth not grieve at the apostasy of her children 1 There is some hope whiles tliey are at home, little when revolted to the enemy. Meantime, let it not be denied but the seducers are persecutors, and great enemies to the church's health.

(2.) Thus may a church be outwardly sick by man's persecution : she may be sick also by God's affliction. This is diverse, accordingly as our sins deserve, and his judgment thinks fit to punish us: [!■] l^y war; [2.] ]}y famine; [3.] By pestilence : the easiest of them heavy enough, and able to

deprive a church of health. Though the first might seem to be man's weapon, and so titter to have been inserted among the former persecutions, as Israel termed her enemies, ' Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven : they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness,' Lam. iv. 19 -. yet because God calls Ashur his rod, and it is he that sends either peace or war, and no adversary sword can be lifted up against us but by more than his permi.ssion, for he hath a punishing hand in it; let us see how he can make his church of Israel sick :—

[1.] ]Va)' is that miserable desolation which finds a land before it like Eden, and leaves it behind like Sodom and Gomorrah, a desolate and forsaken wilderness. Hapi>y are we that cannot judge of the terrors of war but by report and hearsay; that never .saw our towns and cities burning, while the flume gave light to the soldiers to carry away our goods ; that never saw our houses rifled, our temples spoiled, our wives ravished, our children bleeding dead on the pavements, or sprawling on the merciless pikes ! We never heard the groans of our own dying, and the clamours of our enemies' insulting, confusedly sounding in our distracted ears ; the wife breathing out her life in the arms of her husband ; the children snatched from the breasts of their mothers, by the terror of their slaughters to aggravate the ensuing torments of their own. We have been strangers to this misery in passion ; let us not be so in compassion. Think you have seen these miseries with your neighbours' eyes, and felt them through their sides.

Let it somewhat touch us that we have been threatened. Octogesimus octai'us mirabilis annus, —Have we forgotten the wonderful year of '88 1 An enemy of a savage face and truculent spirit; whose arms were bent to harms, to ruin, to blood, to vastation ; whose numbers were like locusts, able to lick up a country, as the ox grass ; the ensigns of whose ships were assurance and victory ; whiles they cast lots upon our nation, and easily swallowed the hope of our destruction: a mortal enemy, an implacable fury, an ' invincible navy.' Lo, in the heat and height of all, our God laughed them to scorn, sunk them, drunk them up with his waves; tottered, scattered them on the waters, like chaff on the face of the earth, before the wind and tempest of his indignation. All their intentions, their contentions, their presumption of conquest were disappointed, dissolved, discomfited. These thing.s, though they have not seen, let our children's children, to the last generation that shall inhabit this land, never forget, that we and they may praise God, who ' hath made fast the bars of our gates, and hath settled peace in our borders,' Ps, cxlvii. 13, 14.

[2.] Famine is a sore outward sickness, an afliiction sent by the immediate hand of God. For it is he that withholdeth the influence of heaven, and the kindly heat of the sun, and the nourishing .sap of the earth : Amos iv. G, ' I have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places, saith the Lord.' As it is his blessing that * our valleys are covered over with corn,' Ps. Ixv. 13, so it is his plague that ' we have sown much, and bring in little,' Hag. i. G ; that the ' mower filloth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom,' P.s. cxxix. 7. When he is pleased, ' he will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth ; and the earth shall hear the com, and wine, and oil; and they shall hear us,' Hos. ii. 21. England hath felt the smart of this sickness, and she, that out of her abundance hath been able to lend others, hath also been glad to borrow of her neighbours. The 'fiit kine of Ikishan,' Amos vi., ^-ich gormandiscrs, have not been acquainted indeed with this misery, and therefore have not ' sorrt)wed for the affliction of Joseph.' But the uoor, the poor have grieved, groaned

under this burden; whiles cleanness of teeth and swarthiness of look were perceived in the common face. Whiles these ' arrows of famine' wounded our sides, Ezek. v. 16, and our staff of bread, whereon our very life leans, was broken, we could then cry, Ilic digitus Dei, —Here is the finger of God. In our plenty, saturity, satiety of these earthly blessings, wc acknowledge not manum expansam, Ids whole hand of bounty opened ,to us; though then we confessed digitum extensum, his finger striking us, and bewailed the smart.

Famine is terrible enough of itself; more dire and tetrical in regard of the company she brings along witL her. For—

' Sseva fames semper magnorum prima malorum Est comes,' *—

Raging famine is the prime companion of many fellow-mischiefs. Ex una grano oritur acervus, —Of one grain of this starving misery ariseth a whole heap of lamentable woes. The attendants of famine are murders, robberies, rapes; killing of children, that the same vessels become the wombs and tombs of little ones ; and innumerable stretchings of conscience, to the revoking of former, and provoking of future judgments. No marvel if hunger disregard the mounds and fences of God's laws and man's, when it breaks through stone walls. The poet describes famine— i

' Qusesitamque famem lapidoso vidit in antro,' &c.,—f

Behold hunger in her stony den, tearing up the grass with her long nails and sharp teeth, her neglected hairs grown rough and tangled, her eyes hollow, her cheeks pale, her skin rugged and swarthy, left only as a thin scarf to hide her lank entrails ; nothing clean about her but her teeth ; her dry bones starting up, her breasts hanging over in the air, her joints swollen big and huge, her sinews shrunk, as unwilling to hold her limbs together. This is that monster that turns men into cannibals, unnaturally to devour one another's flesh. I have read that at Turwyn;}: in France, the famine was so deadly that man's flesh was sold for food. This sickness is worse than death. Happy are we that God's mercy hath banished this plague from our land ; oh, let not our iniquities revoke it!

[3.] The pestilence we better know, as one that hath but a little while been kept out of our doors, and watcheth when our iniquities shall again let him in. He skulks about, and will not be rid away till repentance hath made our coast clear. This is God's pursuivant, that hath rode circuit in our land, and to whomsoever God hath sent him, he never returned with a non est inventus, but always brought, si non corpus, tamen animam cum causa, — if not the body, yet the soul, with the cause, before his judgment-seat. This is he that ' rides on the pale horse,' Rev, vi., and ' catcheth men as with a snare,' perhaps when they have most hasted from him. How hath this plague left the very streets of our cities empty, when they seemed to have been sowed with the seed of man; how astonied the living, frighted the dying, disjoined the mutual society and succour of friend to friend, and tliat in a tinic when comfort would have been most seasonably welcome ; trembling hands pulling dead V)odic3 into the graves with, hooks, or rolling them into pits I

Turn back your eyes, that now live in the Appcnine height of peace and health, and think you sec t|^e lamentable state of your country, as few years past discovered it. Imagine you behold the hand-wringing widows beating

* Luoan, lib. iv. t Metam., lib. viii. J TerouoiiiK;.— Ed.

their bosoms over tlicir departing husbands; the distracted mothers fidliiig into swoons, wliilcs they kiss the insen.sible cokl lips of their breathless infants ; poor desolate orphans, that now mourn the untimely loss of their parents, as being made by years more sensible of their want than when death's pestilential hand took them away; the loud gro;uis and strugglmg pangs of souls departing; servants crying out for masters, wives for husbands, parents for children, children for mothers; grief in every house striking up alarums : bells heavily tolling in every place, ringing out in another; numbers of people, that not many hours before had their several chambers delicately heighted, now confusedly thrust together into one close room, a little noisome hole, not twelve feet square. They have marble bosoms that wUl not be shaken with these terrors, and have sucked tigresses in the wilderness that cannot compassionate these calamities. How did they grieve a church to feel them, when they affect, afflict, and make us sick to hear them !

I know you have long looked for an end; I never delighted in prolLxity of si>eech. What remains, but the more terrible we conceive these sicknesses of a church, the more we bless God for the present health of ours ? Let not our sins call back these plagues; let us not provoke our God, lest earth, air, heaven, renew their strokes upon us. Wars and famines from the earth, plagues from the air, judgments from the clouds ; they arc all restrained at oiu' repentance, let loose at our rebellions. Oh, serve we the Lord our God with fear and obedience, that he may delight to do us good, and we to praise his name! that we ourselves, and our children after us, and the generations yet unborn, may see the ' peace of Jerusalem' all their days! that the golden bells of Aaron may be freely rung, and the trophies of victory over all antichristian enemies may still be seen amongst us ! even tiU this Easter and Feast of the Kesurrection of our Saviour Jesus overtake the resurrection of all his saints!

Grant this, 0 Father, for thy mercies'; 0 Christ, for thy merits'; O blessed Spirit, for thy holy name's sake : to whom, three Persons in glorious trinity, one only true and immortal God in unity, be aU power, praise, majesty, and mercy, acknowledged for ever ! Amen.

ENGLAND'S SICKNESa

(CONTINUED.)

Why is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered f— Jee. Vlli. 22.

II. We have described tlie person, the church of Israel, as she is her own, as she is her owner's; what in regard of herself, what in respect of her God. It remains now only to inquire how she is affected. She is sick; which is necessarily implied from God's complaint: ' Why is not the health of my daughter recovered V She was sick, and so sick that the prophet complains, ' Her wound is incurable, for it is come,' even to the heart, ' unto Judah,' Mic. i. 9 : incurable in regard of her own misery, not of her Saviour's mercy. She was low brought in the Babylonish captivity : ' Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and like imto Gomorrah,' Isa. i. 9. ' It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions,' though our obedience, ' fail not,' Lam. iii. 22. But her honour lay in the dust, when her apostasy had forfeited her happiness ; superstition taking the upper-hand of devotion, and the traditions of man getting the start and ascendency of God's precepts; when her disease grew to frenzy, and her sickness so far from all recoverable hope, that she had slain her physician, and killed him that should have cured her.

Whence it appears that a particular visible church might and may fall away from grace, and have the ' candlestick removed,' Kev. ii. 5. The Papists brag of their numerous multitude, and promontorious celsitude. Home boasts that her church stands upon a hill, Matt. v. 14 : so it doth, on six hills too many. Rev. xvii. 9. She is mounted high enough, if this could justify her. She had better bate of her height, and rise in her goodness. There may be a local succession, but if not in faith and doctrine, 77iole ruit sua, her top-heavy weight overthrows her. May it not be said of her, as Jeremiah of Egypt, ' Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt ; in vain shalt thou use many medicines, for thou shalt not be cured r Jer. xlvi. 11. It is no wonder then, no wrong, if we depart from her that hath departed from the truth of the gospel and faith of Christ.

I will not descend into the view of her apostasy, though just occasion may seem here offered; but turn my speech to ourselves, who are sound in

doctrine, sick in conversation; but, I trust, not without good hope of recovery.

But so soon as the Iloniish malignancy hears me eay, * We are sick,' they instantly insult, reproaching our doctrine. But do men try the faith by the persons, or the persons by the faith 1 It is a silly argument d, moribus ad doctrinam, from the life to the doctrine. Yet, though we desire and strive to have our own lives better, we fear not to match them with theirs. Our sickness would be esteemed less, if we would go to Rome for a medicine. For the Papist may better steal the horse, than the Protestant look on. But so long as we have approved physicians at home, what need we walk so far to a mountebank 1 It is a fiilse rumour, that there is no sound air but the Eoniish. Is it not rather true, that thence comes ill infection; and that they who have forsaken us to seek health there, have gone out of God's blessing into the warm sun ?

Our lives trouble them : this they object, this they exprobrate ad nauseam usque. But do they not stumble at our straws, and leap over their own blocks ? cavil at our motes, and forget, or justify, their own beams ? The swelling on the fox's head shall be a horn, if the Pope will so judge it; a Catiline, Lopus, Garnet, Faux, an honest man, a catholic, a saint, if he will so interpret, so canonise him. If I should but prick this rank vein, how woidd Rome bleed ! Would not hoec prodidisse be vicisse, as Erasmus said of Augustine dealing against the Manichccs,—the very demonstration of these things be a sufficient conviction ? Unnatural and hideous treasons; conspiracies against whole kingdoms; deposing, dethroning, touching with a murderous hand Christos Dei, the anointed of God; oaths, uncleannesses, perjuries,—from whom are they produced, by whom practised, if not mostly, if not only by Papists 1 They pry, search, deride, censure the forepart of their w\^llet, wherein they put our iniquities ; whiles their own sins are ready to break their necks behind them. The greatest evils we have are theirs; fathered by those that will not be mothered of our church : Ilcec non ad frumenta Christi, sed ad eonim paleam pertinent, —These belong not to Christ's wheat, but to the chaff of Antichrist. These are monsters bred of that viperous dam, that have shook hands with humanity, with civility, though they reserve the form of religion.

Si quid in his possem, facerem sterilescere viatrem, as one of their own said,— It were well if either the children would forsake their kind, or tlie mother become barren. Yet must these men be saints, and stand named with red letters in the Pope's calendar; red indeed, so dyed with the martyred blood of God's servants.

But I am not delighted to stand upon comparisons, if their exclamations had not put me to it; that, like blown Pharisees, cry out with ostentation of sanctity, ' God, I thank thee, that I am not as otlier men are, or as this publican,' Luke xviii. 11. What age, people, church, were ever yet so holy, that the preachers found no cause of reproof, of complaint against it 1 Chry-sostom speaketh of his times : ' Christians now arc become like pagans or worse.' Yet who will say that the religion of pagans was better than that of Christians. The priest and Levite had no mercy, the Samaritan had ; yet their religion was the true, and not the Samaritan's. If some Papists amongst us, and tho.se very few, live in more formal and moral honesty, yet this commendeth not their whole church. They are now in the time of their persecution, as they take it, though their prosperity and numbers evince the contrary ; we are in our peace, and who loiows not that an easy occasion of wantonness 1

I deny not that we have grievous offenders ; we mourn and pray for them. Do the Papists rejoice at this 1 Woe to him that is glad of God's dishonour I Let them brag their perversion of some which were ours, but such and so affected to viciousncss. If we had lost more of atheists, sacrilegious adulterers, licentious hypocrites, we had as little reason to complain as they to be proud. "VVe are the fewer, they not the better. We desire, endeavour, reprove, exhort, instruct all, with purpose of heart to save them in the day of the Lord Jesus; if they wish not the same, we are content to differ as far from them in our desires as we do in our doctrines. If there were none sick, we might lay aside our physic; but there are many, too many,—all in some measure, James iii. 2, some in aU measure, beyond measure,—therefore we must proceed.

Sickness is the subject, and the observations that shall limit my short ensuing speech are quadruple :—1. The precious benefit of spiritual health, which we shall the better discern if we compare it with corporal; 2. What sickness is incident to man ; 3. That the sickness of the soul is most dangerous ; 4. Lastly, who are the sick.

1. Health is precious ; chara est cuigue salus. Every man's health is dear to him. Exclude from this comparison the gifts of the mind, which are truly of a more pure and changeless condition, and then what earthly benefit will not give place to health 1 It is one of the positive virtues, graffed in man's nature with the creation. Weigh it in the balance with some rivals.

(L) Riches are the desire of many hearts, the special fruit which their hands reach to gather, (passing by all the better trees in God's orchard,) the object of most endeavours. How vain, how tedious, how odious, are they without health ! Let them bind gold to their aching head, drink Cleopatra's draught, (precious stones dissolved,) to ease their rasping stomach, involve and wrap their convulsed joints in furs and silks, empty their coffers in the physician's study; if nature and her ordinator, God, deny health, how un-valuable are their riches, how unavailable their projects! How complain they, after all experimented succours, their unabated anguish ! Therefore the son of Sirach truly saith, ' Better is the poor, being sound and strong of constitution, than a rich man that is afflicted in his body. Health and good state of body are above all good, a strong body above infinite wealth. There is no riches above a sound body, and no joy above the joy of the heart,' Ecclus. XXX. 14-16.

' The. poor man well, only admireth wealth; The rich man sick, only commendeth health.'

Health gives means to be rich, riches give no means to be healthful. Nay, they are rather traitors and adversaries to it; not scaffolds, whereby health is built up, but stairs to descend by to the grave. The rich man's quotidian delicacies rotted him for death. Where there is a full purse, and an ambitious appetite, there is a close and unsuspected conspiracy against the health. Thus wc do not more eagerly pursue opulency in our soundness, than in our sickness we contemptibly despise, loathingly dislike it.

(2.) Is there any ascendency in pleasure above health? Will not that carry up a brave forehead without being beholden to it ? Alas ! cold is the entertainment of delight to a warish and sickly carcass, Misera est voluptas, ubi i^ericuli memoria adest, —Pleasure is unpleasant to the memory guilty of instant danger. It is epicurean, profane, and idle physic to sorrow.

' The laying wine on cares to make thoni .sink : Who fears tlie tlireats of fortune, let him drink.'

Why doth not then that Chaldean monarch continue his enrousings, and wash away the characters of that fatal hand from his heart with iloods of wine ? Dan. V. 5. Alas ! sorrow will kec[) a man sol)or, and restrain him from any drunkenness but its own. To omit that mortem dahU Ipsd vultipUis, and ' the end of mirth is heaviness,' what pleasure can fasten her slippery hold on the afflicted heart ? It is loatheil whiles it objects and prostitutes itself to our sight, courting and wooing our atfections: the more greedily we draw on pleasure, the sooner it loseth the nature, and is turned into the contrary.* Miserable comforter, (as Job's friends were justly called,) whose requested mitigation turns to the aggravation of our misery. When pleasure opens the shop of all her delectable wares, and prays the sick hand to choose what best affects it,—shows, perfumes, colours, wine, junkets, sports, company, music, —she is answered with nothing but ' Away with them, away with them !' They are no medicines for the headache, one dram of health is worth a talent of pleasure.

How dotingly do men (in their wanton days) take it up ! Nay, how doth it take up them ! as the philosopher truly : Xoii nos voliiptatem, sed voluptas nos habet; ciijus aut inopia torquemur, aut copia straiujnlamur: misen, sideserimur ah ilia, miseiiores, si ohruimur;\ —"We possess not pleasure, but pleasure us; whereof we are either perplexed with the want, or strangled with the abundance : we are wretched if it leave us, more wretched if it overwhelm us. But sickness, when it comes, mars the relish of it to the mind, as of meats to the palate, and sends it away without a welcome, not without a check and defiance. Sickness, a stronger power (if weakness may be called strength) than pleasure, hath gotten possession of a man, and laughs at the vaui endeavour of vanity to remove it. This is the time to say to ' laughter, Thou art mad,' and to esteem mirth a tedious, odious, irksome gueat. They that nan voluptates sibi emunt, sed se voluptatihus vendunt, —buy not pleasure to themselves, but sell themselves to pleasure, as Esau did his birthright for it, find in sickness the memory of what they do love and must leave, an addition to their present malady. So felicitas hath no more left but the first syllable, fel, gall; and pleasure hath no plea sure but this, that it is short during the sweetness, long in the bitterness neces.sarily following it. Health then is beyond pleasure also, without which it is either not delightful, or is not at all.

(3.) Jjoth these have lost the prize; let us see if honour can win it. Alas ! what is it to sit groaning in a chair of state 1 or to lie panting on a bed of down ? It is little content to have many knees bow to thee, whiles thine bow to sickness; to have many uncovered heads attend thee, and thuie own, though covered, find no ease. How wouldest thou be glad to change places A\ith the meanest servant, on condition thou mightest change bodies Avith him ! How much of thine honour wouldest thou lay out for a little of this health! He that lives in the height of honour and wealth repines at nothing more than to see the hungry labourer feed on a crust, whiles his own nice and squeasy stomach, still weary of his last meal, puts him into a study whether he should eat of his best dish, or nothing.

How poor, how weak, how nothhig besides a name, is honour, when sickness hath dismounted it! when the coach is turned to a litter, the feather to a kerchief, public and popular magnificence to the close limits of a chamber, whither sicknciSs (like a great commander) hath confined him, the imperious tongue fainting and failing in the wonted tmies of ' Go, Come, Do,' ic, as the centurion spake, Matt, viii. 9 : the curious attire thrown,by Avith' * Sen. de Bcuef., lib. vii., cap. 2. t Seu. do Beat. Vit., lib. i., cap. 14.

neglect! Alas ! now what is honour but a mere property, a pageant, which health like the day sets out, and the night of sickness takes in again ? * Sickness hides pride from a man,' svaith Elihu, Job xxxiii. 17.

What inferior benefit shall we then match with health, that it may glory of equality, in comparison 1 This is precious and desirable, whether to body or soul. To the soul simply; to the body but secundum quid, in respect if it may not prejudice the health of the soul. For though corporal health be so good, that all other worldly good things are but troublesome without it; yet it is often seen that the worse part draws away the better, and a vigorous, strong, able body without any difficulty makes a wanton and diseased soul.

Bodily health is generally desired far more than endeavoured; it being an action of that natural propenseness, engrafFed in all men, to their own good. Parents are provident to the bodies of their children, even those who set so slight a thought on their souls, shewing herein plainly that they brought forth their bodies, not their souls. Large and lavish is our indulgence at all parts to this frail tabernacle ; yea, so profuse, and not withholding, that whiles we seek more health, we lose that we had. Qucerendo perdimus, we seek it in full dishes, and behold there we lose it; for pro-hibent grandes patince. Would we know how to preserve health 1 I am no physician, nor will I wade further in this argument than divinity and reason leads me. Let us observe moderation, labour in our calling, abstinence.

(L) Moderation. As the philosopher said that he never corrected himself with repentance for his silence, but often for his speech ; so our forbearing of junkets should not grieve us, but our immoderate devouring of them. Rcec est Sana et salubris forma vita;, ut corpori tantum indidgeas, quantum honm valetudini satis est^"'-—This is a wholesome form of living, that the body be so far pleased as the health be not displeased. It is certain that surfeit kills more than famine. It was one of Hippocrates's aphorisms, ' All immoderations are enemies to health.' It was one of Plato's monsters of nature, that he found in Sicilia a man eathig twice a day : a thing of so little admiration with us, that it is wonderful in him that doth not. Perhaps a breakfast goes before, and a banquet follows after both these. Neither is the variety less than the quantity. We plead, Nature bids us eat and drink : it is granted. Yea, a solemn festival invites us to more liberal feeding : it is not much denied, if rare, if seasonable for thy appetite, if reasonable for the measure. But many content not themselves only to steal the halter, except there be a horse at the end of it, as the shriven thief said in his confession to the priest,—only to feed and drink to pleasure, but to sleep, to surfeit, to ebriety, disabling themselves to any sober exercise. Turpe est stomachum non nosse 7nodum, —It is vile, and worse than bestial, when the stomach knows no measure.

Seneca's rule is good, Dandum ventri quod dehes, non quod jtotes, —Allow the belly what thou shouldest, not what thou mayest. I shame not to convince this error, even from the example of heathens ; that if religion cannot rule us as Christians, yet nature may correct us as men. Whiles others, saith Socrates, vivunt tit edant, ego edam nt vivam, live to eat, I will eat to live. It is perhaps easy to find some that abstain, but how few for conscience of God's precept! The sick, the poor, the covetous, the full, all moderate, but to what purpose 1 The sick man for his health's sake, the poor man for his purse's sake, the covetous for miserableness, the fuU for the * Sen. Ep. 8, ad Lucil.

loatliing of his stomacL But let us that are Christian.s moderate ourselves for conscience of God's commandment; because gluttony is a work of darkness, and the night is now past, Rom. xiii. 12, 13. So shall we at once provide well for our bodies, and better for our souls.

(2.) Labour in our callings is no small furtherance of our healths. The bread of him that laboureth, as Solomon says of his sleep, is sweet and relLsh-able, ' whether he eat little or much,' Eccles. v. 12. Therefore ' drink waters out of thine own cistern,' Prov. v. 15 : live of thine own labours; tlie bread thou hast earned shall never be gravel in thy throat. ' He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread,' Trov. xii. 11 ; whereas others shall either ' eat and not have enough,' Hag. i. G, or have enough and not eat. Hence surfeits light so frequently on the rich, and the gentle blood grows so quickly foul, because they thhik themselves bound to no labours, so long as they may live on their lands. It was the father s charge to his eldest son. Matt, xi. 28, ' Son, go and work to-day in my vineyard.' The privilege of primogeniture must not exempt him from labour. He sends him to the vineyard, to dress it before he hath it; he will keep it the better when he hath it. Industry in our vocation is not only a means in nature, but even by the ordinance and blessing of God, to the conservation of health.

(3.) Abstinence. I mean more than moderation ; that which we call fasting : jejunium jpjunantis, a free and voluntary fast, when the body refrain-eth such refections as nature taketh pleasure in, and that only for health's sake. As the tree by a gentle shaking knits faster at the root, this moderate weakening begets strength. So that at once it may be a help to devotion, (for repentance comes not before God with a fuU belly, and meat between the teeth,) and a perservative to health ; physic to defend from the need of physic, a voluntary medicine to prevent a contingent trouble.—Thus of the body.

The souVs sanity is not less precious, though more neglected. It was made in the image of the most high God; which image consisted in lumine mentis, rectitudine cordis, affeduum moderatione^^ as some,—in the brightness of the mind. Tightness of the heart, and just governance of the affections. Or, as others, it was lihertas arbitni, intelledus sapientice, et potentia obedienticp, —freedom of will, wisdom of understanding, kingdom or power of obedience; for here to serve was to reign. Herein consisted the health. The privation of these perfect habits is not less than the sickness of it. This health thus lost, cannot be recovered but by him that was sick to the death for us; neither is it hindered when he wUl bestow it. For grace is not refused of the hard heart, because it takes away the hardness of that heart it lights on, Christ madefies it with his water, and mollifies it with his blood, both which issued out of his side at one wound, and followed the murdering spear of a soldier, John xix. 34, to save them which fight under his standard.

Thus from man's sickness ariseth his better health, and he now stands surer by his first fall Such is the greatness and goodness of God, such his power and mercy concurring, that it works health out of sickness, good out of evil. There is an infinite good, but not an infinite evil. For the good cannot by any means be diverted into evil, but the evil may be converted to good. By the cons])iracy of Jews, Gentiles, Judas, devils, against Christ, is our salvation wrought. From the horridcst and most unnatural treasons, God hath advanced his own glory, advantaged his children's safety. We labour of three diseases—birth, life, death; all these are cured by those three answer-• Bern.

able ill Christ: our unclean birth is sanctified by his, so pure from the least spot of sin; our transgressing life is reformed by the virtue, informed by the example of his, so pure from the least spot of sin; that tyrannising, wounding serpent, death, hath the sting pulled out by his death, 1 Cor. xv., that we may embrace him in our secured arms. The conqueror of us all is conquered for us all, by him that foiled the giant in his own den, the grave. ' Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?' ver. 55, 57. This is our insultation and holy triumph; provided ever, that he be believed of us, that hath thus relieved us. Believe and fear not. A good conscience is never failed of a good confidence, of a good consequence. Hence ariseth the soul's sanity.

What can endanger, endamage this health ? No losses to the estate, no crosses to the flesh. The spiritually sound man values all the fortunes of the world less than the freedom and health of the mind. He that wants this armour is wounded by every blow of atfiiction. Other security is but a shield of wax against a sword of power. They cannot choose but fear, even ' where no fear is,' and testify their inward guilt and sickness by their pale and trembling looks. Tiviida nequitia dat testi7nonium condemnationis, et semper 2)i'cesiiniit scbvci, pertu7'hata conscientia, — Fearful wickedness gives testimony of its own damnation ; and the troubled conscience imposeth and presumes to itself terrible things. But the health of faith is health indeed ; yea, this health is life, a life angeUcal, a life evangelical, whether for obedience or peace : ins[)ired, sealed, assured by the ' word of truth,' ' which is life to ail that find it, and health to all their flesh.' No fear shall invade him, no troubles involve him so that he cannot be extricated. For 'the fear of the Lord tendeth to life, and he that hath it shall not be visited with evil,' Prov. xix. 23. His innocence may speed in the world, as deserts in a lottery—be rewarded with a blank. But he m whom he affies shall put the marrow of health into his bones, distil the sap of grace into his spirit.

Low in the world, lowly in himself, is his estimation. Wlio sees not that the" clambering goats get upon rocks and promontory places, whiles the humble sheep feed in the bottoms and dejected valleys ? Only one day the sheep shall be advanced above the sun and stars, and set in heaven Avith Christ; when the goats shall be cast down to the depth of depths. Kich Dives was well enough known to the world, yet nameless in the sacred records. So we brand our sheep, let the goats go unmarked; God sets his seal on his chosen,— Novit qui sui sunt, 2 Tim. ii. 19,—lets the wicked run without his cognisance.

Thus different is the state of God's servants and the world's slaves. They think none sick but we : we know none sick but they. If equal crosses befall us both, our estate is soon descried. We diff"er as the camel and the camomile : the one is stunted, the other thrives by his burden. Aftiictions that so scatter them, and loosen the joints of their vain hopes, do more knit and consolidate our healths. As sound as they take themselves, it is as easy to prove as to reprove their diseases. Though I confess, in the days of their joviality, he hath great wisdom that can make them sensible of their sickness. Were Solon, nay, Solomon, alive to declare it, they see it not, they will not feel it. If the want of health were perceived, how amiable, admirable would the benefit appear ! Gratior est sanltas reddita, quam retenta ; vix aliter quam penlendo cognoscimus, —Returning health is more wolcomo than if it had not been lost. We scarce know what health is but by the

want. Let others spend their times, wits, treasures, to jjrocure health to their bodies, which I embrace when it is offered, and would not lose by my own errors ; give me a sound and clear conscience, and let me not want this health, till I en^^ tlieir.s.

2. Thus having inquired what health is, lea^'ing a while the consideration thereof as it is in itself, let us descend into it as respectively; casting an oblique eye on that which is diverse from it or adverse to it. This is a significant and delightful demonstration or commentary, which one contrary nature gives to another, when they are diametrally opposed. The day would not seem so clear if the departing sun should not leave night to follow it. The foil adds grace to the jewel. It no less than glorifies learning, that the malicious tongue of ignorance barks at it. He knows the benefit of heat that hath felt the sharpness of a freezing cold. If there were no sickness to trouble us, health itself would be thought sickness. The very enmity of these repugnances helps the beholder's judgment either to embrace or reject them. Even their opposition is an exposition of their natures ; deformity, darkness, sickness, sin, all those privative, corruptive, destructive things, may illustrate their contraries. So that if any lewd, vain, ill-judging, worse-affecting mind shall still love the desolation of sin rather than the consolation of spiritual health, it may appear to be, not because this object is not wretched, but because he is blincl and bewitched.

There is a twofold sickness incident to man—(1.) In sin ; (2.) For sin. The former of these is only spiritual; the latter is not only corporal, but sometimes spiritual also : and of all tlie vials of God's wrath, holden to the mouth of miserable men by the hand of justice, it is the sorest, when sin shall be punished with sin, and the destitution of gi-ace shall permit a lapse to impenitency.

(1.) The sickness in sin is double, according to the cause, which is a defect either of right believing or straight living; a debility of confidence, a sterility of good works; lack of fiiith, wreck of charity. These effects, or rather defects, are produced by two errors in the soul's diet; the one excessive, the other deficient : [1.] By fasting too much from Christ; [2.] By feeding too much on the world. In what we would affect, we are abstinent; in what avoid, very indulgent.

[1.] The first cause is, by forbearing that sacred meat, living and life-giving bread, which ' came down from heaven,' John vi., to translate thither those that eat it. This is the Son of the most high God, not disdaining to become the food of the affamished sons of men. ' Out of the strong came sweetness;' the mighty is become meat; the lion of Judah yields honey such as never • came out of any earthly hive, Judg. xiv. 14. He is our invincible captain; to him we supplicate, as distressed Nerva to Trajan :—

' Telis Phoebe tuis lachiynias ulciscere nostras.'

O Saviour ! defend and keep us. Yet he that is victor, a conqueror for u.s, is also vichis, food to us. But this is cihics non dentis, sed mentis, —meat for our faith, not for our teeth ; manducamus inttis, non foris, —we eat it inwardly, not outwardly. Christ is verily panis veinis, non jMntis merits, — true, not mere natural bread. Thus our feeder is become our food, our physician our medicine. He doth all things for us—guide, feed, mediate, medicate ; let us meditate on him, and not di.sappoint the intention of his mercies by our averscness. No hoi)e but in him, no help but in him. The law could not satisfy our hunger, (not through its own, liut our insunicivncy;) the gospel gives not only present .satisfaction, but even impossibility of future

famine, John vi. 35. There is no abiding the law, except the gospel be by; not of that thunder, without this rain of mercy to quench it.

Who gives this food to us but he that gave himself for us ? That shepherd that feeds his lambs, not on his grounds, but with his wounds—his broken flesh and sluiced blood. Hence from this great parliament of peace (made in that once-acted, and for ever virtual sacrifice) derive we pardon for our sins, without impeachment to the justice of so high a judge as we had offended. Thus the King of eternal glory, to the world's eye destating himself, (though indeed not by putting off" what he had, but by putting on what he had not,) was cast down for us, that we might rise up by him. ' Learn of me to be humble,' Matt. xi. 29 ; wherein he gives us a precept and a pattern ; the one requiring our obedience, the other our conformity. The })eli-can, rather than her young ones shall famish, feeds them with her own blood. Christ, for the better incorporating of his to himself, feeds them with his own flesh, but spiritually. So that we eat not only panem Domini, as the wicked, but panem Dominum, —not only the bread of the Lord, but the bread the Lord, in a sacramental truth.

They that have ransacked the riches of nature, searched earth, sea, air, for beasts, fishes, birds, and bought the rarest at an inestimable price, never tasted such a junket. The fluid, transient, passing, perishing meats of earth neither preserve us, nor we them, from corruption. This banquet of his flesh, richer than that Belshazzar made to his thousand princes, Dan. v. 1; this cup of his blood, more precious than Cleopatra's draught, shall give vitam sine morte, life without death, to them that receive it. We perceive a little the virtue of this meat.

Now then, as the withdrawing of competent meat and drink from the body lesseneth that radical moisture, (which is the oil whereon the lamp of life feeds,) and makes way for dryness, whence the kindly heat, (which, like other fire, might be a good servant, must needs be an ill master,) getting more than due and wonted strength, for want of resistance, tyranniseth ; and not finding whereupon to work, turns on that substantial vividity, exsiccating and consuming it; this oversparing abstinence wastes, weakens, sickens the body, dangers it to a hectic or some worse disease, of no less hurt than too great repletion: so when the soul, either through a mad frenzy of wickedness, or duU melancholy darkness of ignorance, or sensual perverseness of affections, forbears, forbids herself, to feed on that sacred and vital substance, Jesus Christ; the vivid sap of grace and virtue, which keeps true life and soul together^ stilled into the heart by the Holy Ghost, begins to dry up, as a morning dew shrinking at the thirsty beams of the risen sun, Hos. vi. 4, and the fire of sin gets the predominance. Now where that unruly element ' reigns in a mortal body,' Eom. vi. 12, it hazards the immortal soul to death. There is then no marvel if the soul descends into the fall of sickness, into the valley of death, when she shall refuse the sustentation, health, and very life thereof, her Saviour; who is not only cibus, but ipsa saliis, meat, but health itself, as Paul calls him ipsam vitam, qua vivimus, qiiam vivimus, —the very life whereby we live, which we live. We live in Christ, Acts xvii. 18; we live by Christ, nay, we live Christ, for our very life is Christ. ' Now live not I, but Christ livcth in me,' Gal. ii. 20.

This is he that once ' suflered for our sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God,' 1 Pet. iii. 18. He ' suffered for our sins,' the cause mo.st odious; 'the ju.st for the unjust,' the persons most unequal; 'that he might bring us to God,' the end most absolute. How Avell, then, may we yield—and if there be any pride or glory ui us, it should be in our suftcrings

—to ' suflfer for him !' The apostles did so rejoicing, Acts v. 41. 0 Jesus, si adeo dulce est Jlere pro te, quam ditlce eint gaudere de te i —O Christ, if it be so happy to sufl'er for thoe, what will it be to rejoice in tliee ? It cost him much—oh, how much!—trouble, sorrow, beating, grinding, before he became bread for us. There may be a scarcity of other bread; there is none of this, to those that rightly seek it. It is dear in regard of the precious-ness,—they that have it will not part witlj it; not dear in regard of the price,—we pay nothing for it but faith and love. Tliough thousands pray at once with the disciples, ' Lord, evermore give us this bread,' John vi. 34, Jesus's storehouse can never be emptied. Joseph's may: ' Lest the world perish through famine,' Gen. xli. 3G. He only nee accipiendo liroficit, nee dando deficit, —grows not rich with receiving, neither grows poor with giving. Rejoice then, beloved, in dono, in Domino, —the Lord is the giver, the Lord is the gift. Let not your souls be starved with these inferior things, which are pauca, parva, ■prava, —few in number, small in measure, bad in nature, ' whiles there is bread enough in your Father's house,' Luke xv. 17. Why should we sicken our spirits in a voluntary want, and fa.st from that which is able to feast a world of faithful guests ?—This is the first degree of our spiritual sickness.

[2.] The excessive occasion to procure ill health to our souls is by feeding too heartily, too hastily, on the world. This is that too much oil which qucncheth our lamp. For as in a body overcharged with immoderate quantity of meats or drinks, when the moisture swells, like a tide above the verges, and extinguisheth the digestive heat, that their kindly embraces are turned to conflicts, and the superfluities want their former dissolution and egestion, the necessary event is distemperature and sickness; so the affections of the soul, overladen with the devoured burden of worldly things, suffer the benign and living fire of grace to be quenched, 1 Thess. v. 19. Hence the fainting spirits of virtue swoon and fall sick, and after some weak resistance, as a coal of iire in a great shower, yield the ^'ictory to the floods of sin, and are drowned. Neither are the affections only (wliicli they call the nether part of the soul, as if this dropsy were only in the feet) thus diseased; but the sickness taketh the head of the soul, the understanding, and the heart of it, the conscience, that faith (which is religious reason) is impaii-ed, and the instrument, the tongue, the organ of God's praise, is hindered. As we see in these corporal effects by drunken men, the feet are too light, and the head too heavy; the legs cannot stand, the tongue cannot speak : so both understanding and affections are stifled in this deluge, inward faith and outward profession falling sick to the death.

For how can it be otherwise, that the soul (of so high and celestial a creation) should thrive with the gross and homely diet of vanity ? Man is, saith the philosopher," cvy/ivr,i Qio^j, God's kinsman. And Paid, taking such a sense from the poet,t makes of a conceit of nature a sanctified truth: Tou yao y.ai yhog sV/xsc,—' For we are also his offspring,' Acts xvii. 28. And Peter saith that (though not really, but in regard of renovation) ' we are partakers of the divine nature,' 2 Pet. i. 4. Why, then, contemn we not, with a holy disdain, the rude, crude, and unwholesome morsels of the workl— sensual pleasures ? If we considered aright the natures eitlier tuv T^efovruv or ruv 7-f£jjo/x£twv, of the things nourLshing or things nourished, we should strive ant non admittere, ant cito emittere, either not to h't in or soon to throw out such unsavoury repast. For the nourishment of the body, if it be alienum, it is venenum, —if strange and contrary to nature, it is as poison to * Plato. t Aratua.

him that eats it: quae nutriuntur, familiaHbxis et naturalibus rebus nutri-untur, contrariis corrumpuntur, —for creatures that live by nourishment, with natural and familiar things are nourished; corrupted with their contraries. Otherwise the food makes work for the physician, and his elder brother, death.

Spiritual and celestial delicates, the diet of grace and sanctification, nourish and cherish the soul's health, and put the good blood of holiness into her veins, give her a fresh and cheerful look; roses and lilies (the pride of nature in their colours) make not so beautiful a mixture : but the world-affected and sin-infected delights pale her cheeks, drink up her blood and sap of virtue, dim her intellectual eyes, lame her feet, the affections, craze her health, crjsh her strength, and, (which is most wonderful,) for morte carent animce, even kill her immortality.

Now they are not simply the things of this world that thus sicken the soul, but our extravagant desires and corrupt usage of them; for all these were made for man's delight and comfort in the second place,—yield them immediately for the Maker's glory,—and we offend not to serve our necessities in them; it is their abuse which brings this sickness. It is with nutritive things to the soul, in some sort, as with all meats to the body. They are of three kinds: contraria, naturalia, neutralia, —contrary, natural, indifferent. Contraries hurt, natural and kindly help, neutral or indiSerent either hurt or help as they are received. Food merely contrary to the soul is sin—this kills; natural and proper to it is grace—this saves; indifferent, or of a middle nature, are the inferior things of this world, house, lauds, riches, &c.—these either hinder or further our souls' health, as they are used or abused: they may be consolations, they may be desolations, ladders of ascent or stairs of descent, as our regenerate or degenerate minds shall embrace them. Now the reason why earthly things do neither strengthen our spirits nor lengthen our joys is double—they be transitory, and they be not satisfactory.

First, They be transient. Meats of a washy and fluid nature, that slip through the stomach and tarry not for concoction, do no more feed a man's health than almost if he lived on air. They that have no other sustentation to- their souls but such light, slight, and empty food, except they live by miracle, cannot be, like David, ore rulicundo, nor, like Daniel, of a fresh hue and cheerful complexion ; I mean the constitution of their soul cannot thrive. The soul fed only with the frail, circumfluous, humid, cloudy vanities of this world, is so far from remaining sound and retaining health, that she i)ines, languisheth, dwihdleth aAvay, as a tree whose life-feeding sap is dried up. So perishable are all the things of this world ! ' Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not 1 for riches certainly make themselves wings ; they fly away like an eagle toward heaven,' Prov. xxiii. 5. Not like a tame bird, that returns; nor like a hawk, that vdll shew where she is by her bells; but like an eagle, whose wings thou canst neither clip nor pinion. Aut dese-rvnt, aut deseruntur, —Either they forsake, or are forsaken. All their cei'-tainty is in their uncertainty, and they are only stable in this, that they cannot be stable.

' lliches arc not for ever ; and doth the crown endure to every generation?' Prov. xxvii. 24. Hence they arc called ' riches of the world,' 1 John iii. 17, which is a bar in the arms of riches, to demonstrate their slippery hold; for the world itself being transitory, they must needs savour of the soil, 1 Tim. vi. 17. Our judgments must of necessity be convinced to confess this, though our affections will not yield it. Wherefore tend all those writings of covenants, if these earthly things were not uncertain 1 What are those labels

and appendances but bands and ties to keep close to us mad and starting riches? We plead, it is for the mortality of men; but we mean the mortality of riches. If, tlicn, these earthly things will boast of anything, let them boast, as Paul did, their frailties, 2 Cor. xi. 30. They are eitlier in 'journeying,' not got without labour ; or ventured on * the sea,' yea, together with goods, bodies, and souls too, to make such ill merchants full adventurers ; ' in perU. of robbers,' public and notorious thieves; ' in peril of false brethren,' secret and tame thieves, lawyers, usurers, flatterers ; fire ' in the city,' freebooters ' in the wUtlerncss,' pirates on the sea : for ' weariness, paiufuluess, watchfulness,' A:c., who doubts the miserable partnership betwixt them and riches ?

Could the world be thought thy ser^-ant, (which is indeed thy master, O worldling ! as Christ's maxim inferreth, ' No man can serve two masters;' none indeed, for he that hath God for his obeyed master, hath for his obeying servant tlic world,) yet is it but a vagrant and runagate servant. It hath a madding mind and a gadding foot. And though by the greatness of the stature and pro^jortion, it may promise able service, yet it will be gone when, thou hast most need of it. Neither will it slip aw\ay empty, but rob thee of thy best jewels; carry away thy peace, content, joy, happiness, soul, with it. Behold the cosmopolite, Luke xii. 17, planting, transplanting, rebuilding, studying for room to lay up his fruits. Non in viscerihus pau-peruyn, —Not in the bowels of the poor, but in the enlarged barns, if ever their capacity coidd answer liis enlarged heart. He builds neither church nor hospital,—either in cidhim Christi, or ctdticram Christiani, to the service of Christ or comfort of any Christian,—but barns. He minds oidy horreum suicm, et hordeum suum, —his barn and his barley. Behold, at last he promiseth his soul peace, ease, mirth, security ; but when his chickens were scarce hatched, Avhereon he long sat, and thought to sit long brooding, he hears a fatal voice confiscating his goods and himself too : ver. 20, ' Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee : then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided ?' No marvel, then, if the soul be famished, when she is only fed with such fugitive meat, which vanisheth like Tantalus's apples or Ixion's cloud in the poet; and like medicines rather than food, or like poisons rather than medicines, wash away the good they find, and leave the bad, made yet worse by their accession, behind them.

Secondbj, They be not satisfactory, and therefore confer no true content to the mind, no more than the dreamed bread of the sluggard, !Mic. vi. 14, who ' wakes with an empty stomach.' Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied: ' All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it : the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing,' Eccles. i. 8. There is nothing but emptiness, vanity, vacuity in them. Simul oriuniur et moriuntur, —They at once are born and die, as Plutarch said of the lightning, as Jonah found in his gourd. Like the mermaid^

' Virgo formosa puperne, Desinit in turpem piscem malesuada volnptas;'—

* Face-flattering pleasure, that so much deludes. Like that sea-monster, with sad ruth concludes.'

The motion of the mind, following these wandering planets of earthly delights, is ever errant, ever incessant. iVhab is sick of his neighbour's field, though he have a whole kingdom to walk in ; and Alexander, finding himself lord of the whole world, is discontent, as if he wanted elbow-room. The poor man is not more perplexed because he hath neither barn nor grain, than VOL. I. 2 K

the covetous wretcli because he hath not bams enough for his graiii, Luke xii. 17. What cosmopolite ever grasped so much wealth in his gripulous fist as to sing to himself a Sufficlt ? ' He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase,' Eccles. v. 10. His cares fill up as fast as his coffers. He hath much in his keeping, yet doth neither enjoy it nor joy in it.

It breeds a disease in the soul, like that in the body which they call caninwn aiypetitmn, an immoderate desire of meat; whereafter the body looks thin, wan, sickly, as if it were starved. The cold, feculent, \iscous, vicious humours of covetousncss desire an unreasonable quantity of worldly goods, yet leave the soul more weak, warish, sickly than if she neither had, nor had will to do, anything. This is the infallible effect of these coveted vanities; vel sequendo labimur, vel assequendo kedimur, —the soul either falls in the seeking, or fails in the finding. She is not the better, nay, she is the worse, for her longing after them.

' Luxuriant animi rebus plerunque secundis,'—*

The mind may riot and grow rank for a while with these puffings up, but how soon doth a tabe and consumption take it down, when the joy answers not the expectation of the heart! The world may set such a man in high estimation : ' The rich hath many friends; but the poor is separated from his neighbour,' Pro v. xix. 4.

' Aspicis ut veniant ad Candida tecta columbse, Accipiet nuUas sordida turris aves.'

But all this while others are more satisfied with the sight than he with the possession of his own. Still his soul is hungry, and he knows not how to appease it.

I persuade not all abjuration of the world, as if it could not be used but it must be abused. As the philosopher of old, that threw his money into the sea, purposing to drown that, lest that should drown him; or as the new found and fond votaries that profess a voluntary want, as if all coin were diseased, and had for the circumscription a N'oli me tangere: so the empiric, to cure the fever, destroys the patient; so the wise man, to burn the mice, set on fire his barn. Is there no remedy, but a man must make his medicine his sickness ? I speak of things as they are, not as they should be. He that feeds too hungrily on the world, falls with much ease to neglect Christ: as he that was once following him no sooner heard of his father s death, but presently left him; thinking perhaps that he should get more by his father's executorship than by his 'Saviour's discipleship; and therefore would leave to minister in Christ's service, that he might administer on his father's goods. Hence fall many souls into this spiritual sickness, when they forsake the solid and substantial nutriment of Jesus Christ, to gape for the fugitive and empty air of worldly riches : which, if they do carry to their deaths, yet they must then leave all, exuendo, expuendo, donee nihil vel inhts vel /oris manserit,—hy putthig off, by spuing up whatsoever their covetousncss hath devoured. Nature shall turn them out naked and empty. Thus ' the righteous eateth to the satisfying of his soul; but the belly of the wicked shall want,' Prov. xiii. 25. They are not satisfactory.

In a word, that we may a little perpend the effects, as we have perceived the causes, all spiritual sickness is either in faith or conversation.

First, In faith. This is a general and dangerous sickness. General: * Ovid.

jEgrotat fides jam prorima morli, —Faith is so sick, that it is ready to die. These are those hist and ajtostate times, wlierein faith is become so little, tlmt the scarcity gives expectation of the general doom. We swear away our faith at every trifle, and then no marvel, being so prodigal of such oaths, if our stock of faith be sworn and worn out. Dangerous : We ally the world, which we have vowed to defy ; and losing that confidence we should live by,—for 'the just lives by faith,' Heb. x. 38,—how can it be but the soul must become sick 1 Whiles ' the sliield of faith' is lost, we lie naked to ' the fiery darts of Satan,' Eph. vi. 16 ; and many wounds will let out the life-blood. The sun in the heaven passeth through twelve signs of the zodiac. Christ is our sun, Mai. iv. 2, the twelve articles of our creed, the twelve signs; faith is our /Axliac. Do you wonder why, in this day of the gospel, the sunbeams of grace live in so few hearts 1 They have lost their zodiac. Their faith is form, and the clouds of infidelity have eclipsed those signs. They believe not beyond the extension of sense ; they have a sensual, a senseless faith. It is the sorest shipwreck which the vast .sea of this world and the pirates of sin can put them to, the sinking of their faith. It was Paul's happy triumph that he had 'kept the faith,'2 Tim. iv. 7, though 'he bare about in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus,' CJal. vi. 17. Needs must the soul be sick, whose faith is not sound.

Secondly, The other degree of our sj)iritual sickness is in conversation. Our lives arc diseased : the ill beating of those pulses shew we are not well. The fruits manifest the tree, ^Matt. vii. 20. Ubi caro est repugnans, p>eccatum est prcegnam. —Sins are rife where the flesh reigns; plentiful effects will arise from such a working cause. In vain (and not without the more hazard) do we plead for our soundness, when the inf^xllible symptoms of our disobedience e^^nce the contrary. Saul stands upon his observation of God's charge. ' What then,' saith Samuel, ' meaneth the bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?' 1 Sam." xv. 14. Whence flow those streams of impiety, merciless oppressions, church-devouring sacrileges, bestial luxuries, cunning circumventions, detracting slanders, heaven-threatening blasphemies, malicious fires of rage and hatred, monstrous treacheries, behaviours compounded of scorn and pride, close atheism, open profancness, gilded hypocrisy ? Whence are these vicious corruption.s, if not from our ulcerous conversations? Shame we not to call sickness health, and to maintain the athei.stical paradox, pseudodox, 'which judgcth evil good, and darkness light?' I.sa. v. 20. If thy life be so unsound, suspect thyself; thou art not well.

(2.) Now (not unfitly) after the sickness of sin, follows the sickness for sin ; which distributes itself into a double passion, corporal and spiritual : —

[1.] All corporal sickness is for sin. The sick man heard it from his heavenly physician: 'Go thy ways ; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee,'John V. 14. So sung David in the psalm: 'Fools becau.se of their iniquities arc afflicted; their soul aljhorreth all manner of meat, and they draw near to the gates of death,' I's. cvii. 17, 18. This Elihu grounds against Job, that sin causeth sickness : ' So that his life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat. His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were not seen stick out,' chap, xxxiii. 20, 21. Weakness proceedeth from wickedness ; if the soul had not sinned, the body should not have smarted. Indeed this blow is ea.sy, if we respect the cause that drew it on us. For if ' the wages of sin be death,' T<.<)n\. vi. 23, sickness is a gentle payment. Sickness is the malady of the body, death is the malady of sickness. But such is God's mercy, that he is content to punish

.sometimes corjwraliter, non mortaliter; and to put into our liearts a sense of our sins, by casting us down, and by casting us away. But whether the afliiction be quoad introittim, or quoad interitum, —a more gentle entrance, or more piercing to death, all is produced by our sin.

You will say, that many afflictions, wherewith God scourgeth his children, are the ' fatherly corrections of love,' Heb. xii. G ; yet they are corrections, and their intention is to better us. Now, what need the bestowing such pains on us to make us good, if sin had not made us evil? Still sin is the cause, Avhether it be sickness, ' Therefore I will make thee sick in smiting thee, because of thy sins,' Micah vi. 13 ; or whether more despairful calamity, ' I will waU and howl, I will make a wailing like the dragons, mournings as the owls; for her wound is incurable,' Micah i. 8, 9. Still the reason is, ver. 5, ' For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel.' Oh that our sick bodies, when the hand of visitation hath cast them down, would convey this lesson to our souls—all is for our wickedness! Our stomachs loathe meat because we have overburdened them with God's abused blessings. We have made the creatures, ordained for our comforts, ' an occasion of our falling,' Ps. Ixix. 22. And now, lo, we abhor to be cheered by those things wherewith we have erst oppressed ourselves : that ' delicates poured upon a mouth shut up, are as messes of meat set upon a grave,' Ecclus. xxs. 18.

Our sins, that remain unpurged by repentance in our bosoms, are not only diseases themselves to our consciences, but vigorous and rigorous enough to engender diseases in our carcases. We are framed and composed of four elements—fire, air, water, earth; and have the kindly concurrence of those four original and principal qualities, heat and cold, moisture and dryness, to our making up. Their harmony and peaceful content preserve our little world in health; but if those brethren of one house fall at variance with themselves, their strife will undo us. So easy is it for God to take rods from our own bodies wherewith to whip us ! Though those outward elements, fire, water, and the rest, forbear to lay on us the strokes of vengeance, yet we have those primordial humours within us, whose redundance, defect, or distemperature are means able enough to take our breath from us. How evident is this, when—

Some have been burned in the pestilent flames of their hot diseases; the violence whereof hath set their blood on fire, wasted their bowels, scorched their veins, withered away their vital spirits, and left the whole hodyjlagran-tem ror/iim, as it were a burning pile.

Some have been choked with the fumes and vapours ascending from their own crude and corrupted stomachs, and poisoned their spirits no less than with the contagion of infected airs. How many obstructed lungs suck in far better air than they breathe out!

Others have been drowned with a deluge of waters in their own bodies, a flood running betwixt their skin and bowels, glutting and overcharging nature so violently, that the life hath not been able to hold up her head; and the S(ju1, like Noah's dove, returns unto God, the ' ark of her strength,' as not able to set her foot diy in her former habitation.

And yet others have buried themselves alive in the grave of their own earthly melancholy; which casteth such a thick fog and dark obscurity over the brain, that it not only chokes up the spirits of life, like the damp in a vault that extinguisheth the lights, but even otfers oflfonsive violence to the soul. Melancholy men are, as it were, buried before they be dead ; and, as not staying for a grave in the ground, make their own heavy, dull, chnuly,

cloddy earthen cogitations their own sepulchres. From what sink arise all these corrupt steams, but from the sins in our own selves, as proper and tit to engender these sicknes.ses as these sicknesses are to bring dissolution ! It is our own work to make ' death better than a bitter life, or continual sickness,' Ecclus. xxx. 17; that our meat gives no more scent nor savour than an ' ofl'ering doth to an idol,'ver. 19. 'He that sinneth before his ^lakcr, let him fall into the hands of the physician,' Ecclus. xxxviii. 1.5.

[2.] Spiritual sickness for sin is yet far more perilous and mortal; nay, well were it for some thus sick if it were mortal. If the disease would decease, the soul might revive and live. It varies (as some diseases do in the body, according to the constitution of the sick) thereafter as the soul is that hath it; whether regenerate or reprobate. The malignancy is great in both, but with far less danger in the former.

First, In the elect, this spiritual sickness is an afflicted conscience, when God will suffer us to take a deep sense of our sins, and bring us to the life of grace through the valley of death, as it were by hell-gates unto heaven. There is no anguish to that in the conscience : ' K. wounded s[>irit who can bear?' Prov. xviii. 14. They that have been valiant in bearing wrong.s, in forbearing delights, have yet had womanLsh and coward spirits in sustaining the terrors of a tumultuous conscience. If our strength were as an army, and our lands not limited save with east and west; if our meat were manna, and our garments as the ephod of Aaron; yet the afflicted conscience would refuse to be cheered with all these comforts. "When God shall rai.se up our sin.s, like dust and smoke in the eyes of our souls, and the ' arrows of his displeasure drink up our blood/ Job vi. 4, and ' his terrors' seem to ' fight against us;' when he buffets us from his presence, and either hides his countenance from us, or beholds us with an angry look; lo, then, if any sickness be like this sickness, any calamity like the fainting soul! Many offences touch the body which extend not to the soul; but if the soul be grieved, the sympathising flesh suffers deeply with it. The blood is dried up, the marrow wasted, the flesh pined, as if the powers and pores of the body opened themselves like so many windows to discover the passions of the distressed prisoner within. It was not the sense of outward sufferings, (for mere men have borne the agonies of death undaunted,) but the wrestling of God's wrath with his spirit, that drew from Christ that complaint, able to make heaven and earth stand aghast: ' My soul is heavy unto the death,' Matt, xxvi. 38.

There is comfort even in death, when the clock of our life runs upon her last minutes; but is there any ease during the torments of a racked conscience ? This wearisome guest doth God often lodge with his own children, suffering the eye of faith to be shut, and the eyes of flesh and blood open ; that sorrow is their bread, and tears their drink, and the still perplexed mind knows not where to refuge itself: always preserving to his children that never-dying grace of his Spirit in their hearts; ' a substance of blessing in the oak,' Isa. vi. 13, though it hath cast the leaves, though the barrenness of the boughs, dryness of the bark, give it for dead and withered. Faith being in a swoon, may draw the breath inwardly, not perceived; but ' destroy it not, for there is a blessing in it,' Isa. Ixv. 8.

Neither is this sickness and trouble of conscience properly good in itself, nor any grace of God, but used by God as an instrument of good to his, a.s when by the ' .<^pirit of bondage ' he brings us to adoption. So the needle tliat draws the thread through the cloth is some means to join it together.

This is the gudly soul's sickness for sin, full of sharp and bitter ingredients, but never destitute of a glorious event and victorious triumph. 1 may say of it as physicians speak of agues, (which make a man sick for a while, that he may be the sounder a long time after,) This sickness is physic to procure better health.

Secondly, Spiritual sickness for sin in the reprobate hath other effects. To restrain their number, they principally appear in two diseases, or disasters rather—impenitency and despair.

First, Impenitency, the symptom of an obdurate and remorseless heart. ' Who being past feeling, have given themselves over unto iasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness,' Eph. iv. 19. St Paul calls it ' a reprobate mind,' Eom. i. 28 : a death rather than a sickness. He that labours hereof is rather deceased than diseased. This is a heart so hard and impenetrable, that all the holy dews of instructions cannot soften it; all the blows of God's striking rod put no sense into it. It is invulnerable to any stroke save that which makes a fatal and final end with it. ' Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved/ &c., Jer. v. 3. It is just with. God, but fearful on whomsoever this judgment lights, to plague sin with sin, that peccatum sit poena peccantis. For there is evermore some precedent impiety in those ungracious persons, procuring God to deal thus with them. ' For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie : that they all might be damned that believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness,' 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12. First Pharaoh hardens his own heart, &c. God all this while holds his peace, gives him the hearing and looking on. In the end he saith, ' I wiU harden Pharaoh's heart ; ' and then puts iron to iron, adamant to adamant, and there is ijcrfected a relentless, repcntless obduracy.

This is that retaliation of sin, which God returns into their bosoms that foster it; that since ' they loved cursing, it shall be unto them,' Ps. cix. 17. So David in the psalm, (though indeed it was not in him j^t'ecantis votum, but pi'opltetantis vaticinium, —he did not desire it to be so, but he knew it would be so,) ' Add iniquity to their iniquity,' Ps. Ixix. 27. Neither doth God this by iiifusion of wickedness, but by subtraction of his Spirit. He is causa deficiens, non efficiens : as the revoking of sun from us causeth darkness; the privation of grace, the position of all ungodliness. It is in him not peccatum, sed judicum, —not sin, but judgment. When he leaves us to ourselves, it is no wonder if we fall into horrid and prodigious sins. Peccatum est malum in se: effectum prioris mali, et causa subseqneiitis: est et suppliciinn, et causa supplicii; —Sin is evil in itself, the effect of former evil, the cause of future: it is both punishment itself, and the cause of punishment. In all the storehouse of God's plagues there is not a greater vengeance. With other punishments the body smarteth ; the soul groaneth imder this. Hence sins multiply without limits, that the plagues may be without end. Every afiiiction is sore that offends us ; but that is direful which withal offends God. Such do at once act and sulTcr : it is both an active and a passive sin. The punishment they suffer is (in them) sin; the sin they do is (from God) a punishment.

There is nothing more WTctched than a wretched man not recking his own wretchedness. ^liserius nihil est viisero se non miseiunte. Either they do not feel, as blocks, or they will not feel, as Stoics. You know, a seared conscience is not sensible ; and usual whipping makes some careless of the rod, except it be a stroke that shall fetch blood of the soul. Indeed we are all of one mould, but some are more cloddy and hard, others more soft and re-

lenting. The best in their sorroAvs may be more than conquerors, not more tlian men. And lot the Stoic brag his tetrical conclusions to the world, that no pain can brhig sorrow to a wise man, etc. Let him, being put into that torturous engine of burning bra.ss called the horse, bite in hLs anguish, smother his groans, sigh inwardly, and cry to the spectators, S'on sentio, I feel not. The wicked may laugh out lighter punishments ; and like the dead rocks of the sea, not regard the waves of easier judgments beating on them, letting fall no tears of repentance for so many blows. But when God sees that thou digestest his physic as diet, and, with a strange kind of indulgenci', wUt neither grieve that thou hast offended nor that thou art offended, he will strike home, and sharpen at once both his blow and thy sense. Now thou shalt feel; even thy se*red heart shall bleed. In a word, the wicked may be senseless Stoics, they canuot be hisensible stones. There is in all men an impossibility of impassibility.

But these remorseless wretches, so spiritually sick, not of the stone in the reins, but in the heart, at least regard not to offend God, whiles God forbears to offend them. '.They speak loftily; they set their mouth against the heavens,' Ps. Ixxiii. 9. The reason is, ' They are not in trouble, nor plagued as other men,' ver. 5. At first they liberally sin and spare not. God lets them alone : lo, now they sin and care not. Impiety, impunity, impenitency, thus swiftly follow one at the heels of another. There are some sick of this disease, but not so far gone; of whose recovery there is a little, and but a little, more hope. These have, by the chidings of their accusing conscience, a notion, a relish, a guess of the number and nature of their own sins, which because they suspect to be monstrous, they would by no means admit a sight of. Hence they fly the temple, the society of the good, the voice of exhortation, whencesoever it soundeth, lest it should call the soul's eye home, to glance at its own estate, and so leave it amazed. Hence he hath animum inscium, inscitum, an ill-sighted mind.

So timorous is this patient, that because he knows his wound deep, he will not suffer the chirurgeon to search it; willing rather to kill his soul than to disquiet it. Such is the folly of his partial indulgence to his conscience, that whiles he would foster it, he doth fester it. They write of the elephant, that, as if guilty of his own deformity, and therefore not abiding to view his snout in a clear spring, he seeks about for troubled and muddy waters to drink in. This sick wretch, without question induced by the like reason, refuseth to look into the glass of the law, or to come to the clear springs of the go.spel, or any perspective that may represent his evil conscience to his eyes, but seeks to muddy and polluted chamiels,—taverns, theatres, societies of sin,—to dro\TO the thought of former iniquities with floods of new. And if he be enforced to any such reflection, he spurns and tramples that admonition, as apes break the glass that represents their deformity. He runs liimself prodigally into so deep arrearages and debts, that he cannot endure to hear of a reckoning. Whiles he despairs of sufficiency to pay the old, he recks not into what new and desperate courses he precipitates himself. And as it was in the fable with the blind woman and the physician : the physician coming often to her house, ever carried away a jiortion of her best goods; so that at la.st recovered, by that time her sight was come again, her goods were gone : so this wretch will not see the rausackijig of lus soul, and spoil of his graces, till his conscience bo left empty, and then he sees, and cries too late, as Esau for his blessing.

Secondly, That other spiritual sickness for sin, befalling a reprobate soul, is final and total desperation. Tliis is that fearful consequent which treads

upon the heels of the former sickness. Presumption goes before, despair follows after. Cain's fratricide, Judas's teachery, presumptuous, aspiring, heaven-dimng sins, find this desperate catastrophe, to cut themselves off" from the mercy of God. This is insanabilis jjlaga, when the physician promising help of the disease, the patient shall thrust his nails into it, and cry, ' Nay, it shall not be healed.' As if the goodness of God, and the value of Christ's all-sufficient ransom, were below his iniquity. As if the pardon of his sins would empty God's storehouse of compassion, and leave his stock of mercy poor. This is that agony, whose throbs and throes, restless, turbulent, implacable cogitations, cannot be quieted. Let rivers of those waters of comfort which ' glad the city of God' run with full streams unto it, they are resisted and driven back.

This is that sin which not only off'ers injury and indignity to the Lord of heaven and earth, but even breaks that league of kindness which we owe to our own fl«sh. To commit sin is the killing of the soul; to refuse hope of mercy, is to cast it down into hell. Therefore St Jerome affirms that Judas sinned more in despairing of his Master's pardon than in betraying him ; since nothing can be more derogatory to the goodness of God, which lie hath granted by promise and oath—two immutable witnesses—to penitent sinners, than to credit the father of lies before him. Januas ceternce felicitatis spes aperit, desperatio claudit, —Hope opens the door of heaven, desperation shuts it. As faith is heaven before heaven, so despair is damnation before the time.

Shall the blood and death of Christ put sense into rocks and stones, and shall man tread it under his desperate feet, enervate his cross, amiihilate his ransom, and die past hoj^e ? Did he raise three dead men to life,—one newly departing, another on the bier, a third smelling in the grave,—to manifest that no degree of death is so desperate that it is past his recovery ; and shall these men, as if 'twice dead, and pulled up by the roots,' Jude, vcr. 12, deny to the grace and glory of God a possibility of their reviving? Mn yhoiro, —God (and the unfeigned repentance of their own hearts) forbid it !

3. Thus we have heard the malignancy of spiritual sicknesses, whether in sin or for sin. Now let us take a short consideration how far spiritual sicknesses are more dangerous than corporal.

The soul is at all parts more precious than the body. It is that principal, most divine, and excellent half of man. Dum vivijicat, anima ; duni vuU, animus; dum scit, mens; dum recolit, memoria; dum judicat, ratio; dum spiral, spiritus ; dum sentit, sensus, —It is called for quickening, a soul; for knowing, mind ; for remembering, memory ; for judging, reason ; for breathing, spirit; for feeling, sense. When the soul is sick, all these are sick with it. The soul is compared to heaven, the body to earth. The heaven is glorious with sun, moon, stars; so the soul with understanding, memor}^, reason, faith, hope, &c. The body, like the earth whereof it was made, is squalid witJx lusts. The earth hath no heat nor nourishment but from heaven, nor the body comfort but from the soul. How then 1 Oh, how terrible is the soul's sickness or death !

How indulgently should we tender the health thereof! We keep our chicken from the kite, our lamb from the wolf, our fawn from the hound, our doves from the vermin ; and shall we yield our darling to the lions, our soul to those murdering spirits which endeavour to devour it 1 The soul may be well when the body is full of griefs ; but ill goes it with the body when the soul is sick. Nay, even corporal diseases are often a means to procure spiritual soundness. Therefore one calls it oplabile malum, cum

mali remedium sit maioris, —a happy e\-il, which is the remedy of a greater evil. We may say of many healthful bodies, tidius (pyrofasseiit, they might with less danger have been sick. Nusquam pejus quam in muo corpore, OEgev animus hahiiat* —A .sick mind dwells not rightly in a .sound body : but to find a healthful and .sound soul in a weak sickly body is no wonder; since the soul (before smothered with the clouds of health) is now suffered to see that through the breaches of her prison which former ignorance suspected not.

Corporal sickness is a perpetual monitor to the conscience, every pang a reproof, and every stitch reads a lesson of mortality, ready ever to check for evil, or to in\ate to good; which duly weighed, a man hath less reason to be over-fearful of sickness than over-glad of health. The si)iritual detriment that may ensue on health is more dangerous than the bodily pain that pursues sickness. If a man fear not death, what power hath sickness to make him misei-able? Tolerahilis est morhi prcesentia, si contempseris id quod ex-tremum minatur, —Sickness hath little terror in it, if thou shalt contemn that which it threateneth—death. If it teach thee by the sight of the first death instant, to prevent the fury of the second, behold it makes thee blessed. Such good use may the Avise soul make of the body's enemy. I have read it said, that sinffuhis morbus, parvula 7Hors,—every disease is a little death. Therefore God sends us many little deaths to instruct our preparation for the great death. The ofteuer a man dies, the better he may know to die well.

I j-ield, if in sickness we contract and narrow up the powers of our souls, and direct them (as our finger) to the grief of our bodies only, forgetting eithci- that God strikes us, or that we have first stricken God,—either flying to ill means, or aflfying to good means more than to God,—our sickness may be deadly to body and soul too. Asa was sick but of his feet, 2 Chron. xvi. 22: his feet stood far from his heart, yet because he relied more on his physicians than on his Maker, he died. Or if there shall be no less confusion and hurly-burly in the faculties of the soul than there is distempera-ture in the parts of the body; when reason, which should be the queen, and dwell in the highest and choicest room, is deposed from her government; when the .senses, which are court-guards and the princess's attendants, that give aU admission into the presence, arc corrupted ; when the supreme faculties, which are the peers, are revolted ; and the affections, which are the commons, perverted; and all this insurrection and disturbance, dethroning the queen, corrupting the guard, drawing from fealty the peers, and the commons from allegiance, wrought by those violent passions which are refractory and headstrong rebels, having once gotten liead,—alas, how far is this miserable distemper and perturbation of these spiritual parts above the distress or distraction of the corporal members ! Neither is the future peril hereof only more full of prodigious desolation, but even the present sense is also more tetrical, piercing, and amazing with horror.

We shall find the perjjlexity of this spiritual sickne.«s, how far exceeding the corporal, if we either compare them generally, or particularly by instance in any special disease.

First; generally. The excellency of health is measured according to the life which holds it, and the dignity of life is con,sidered by the cause that gives it. The life of the plant is ba.se3t, because it consists but in the juice which is administered by the earth to the root thereof, and thence derived and spread to the parts. The hfe of the brute creature excels, because it ia * Plutarch,

sensitive, and hath power of feeling. The life of nian is better than both, because it is reasonable, conceiving and judging of things by understanding. The life of a spiritual man is better than the former, and it hath two degrees : the life of inchoate regeneration, and it consists in grace; and the perfect life of imputed righteousness, conferred and confirmed by Jesus Christ. The life of glory exceeds all, whereof there are also two degrees : the fruition of glory in soul; and the full possession in the union of the body to it. These two last sorts of life transcend the former in two main respects : because the other may die, must die; these have a patent of eternity sealed them ; and because the other have transient causes; these have the grace and glory of God.

Now as by all consent the life of reasonable man is better than the vegetable of plants, or sensitive of beasts, so the health of man must needs be more precious; and as that virtue excels in goodness, so doth the defect exceed in miserableness. Respect man distinctively, as he is a body only ; and then to be sick and die are common to him with plants and beasts; and what suffering is there in the one more than in the other, save that as the beast is more sensible of pain than the tree, so man is more apprehensive than the beast ? The bodies of all ' return to the earth ;' but man hath a soul, wherein his reason is placed, which fainting or sickening through sin, or the punishment for sin, there is offered a passion and grief whereof the other are not capable. Death to the rest is not so terrible as this sickness. The goodlier the building is, the more lamentable the ruin.

Secondly; particularly. This will best appear if we single out some special disease, and confer the perplexity it can offer to the body with the sickness of the soul. Take, for instance, the plague of the leprosy. It wa.s a fearful and unsupportable sickness, every way miserable, as you may find it described. Lev. xiii. 45, 4G : * His clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry. Unclean, unclean. He shall dwell alone; without the camp shall liis habitation be.'

(1.) The leprosy infected their very garments and houses, sticking contagion in the very wool and walls. But our leprosy of sin hath (with a more vast extension) infected the elements, air, earth, beasts, plants, &c., sticking scars on the brow of nature, and making the whole ' creature groan' under the burden of corruption, Rom. viii. 22.

(2.) The leprosy was violent in spreading, running eftsoons over all the body, as in Gehazi, and making it all as an ulcer ; yet could it not penetrate and enter the soul; the mind might be clean in this general defiling of the carcase. Behold, the leprosy of sin hath not content itself to insult, pollute, and tyrannise over the body, but it defiles the soul also, and turns that purer part of man into a lazar. ' Our righteousness is become filthy rags,' Isa. xlvi. 6; our heart is poisoned, ' our consciences defiled,' Titus i. 15.

(3.) The leprosy was an accidental disease, casual to some, whiles other escaped it. it was God's pursuivant to single out and arrest some for their sin, his mercy sparing the rest. But the leprosy of sin is hcereditanus morbus, —an hereditary sickness. We derive it from our great sire Adam, with more infallible conveyance than ever son inherited his fiither's lands. It is original to us, born with us, born before us. So that natalis would be fatalis, the birth-day would be the death-day, if the blood of that immaculate Lamb should not cleanse us.

(4.) The leprosy was a dangerous disease, yet curable by natural means; but ours is by so much the worse, as it admits not man as physician, nor

nature itself as physic, sufficient to cure it. The medicine is supernatural; the ' blood and water' of that man who is God. Faith must lay hold on mercy ; mercy alone can heal us.

(5.) The leprosy is a sore disease, so entering and eating that it is even incorporate to the flesh ; yet still cum came ed-uitur, —it is put off with tho flesh. Death is a physician able to cure it. Mors una interimit et leprosum et lepram, —Death (the best empiric) kills at once the leper and tho leprosy. But the leprosy of sin cleaves so fast, not only to the flesh, but to the soul, Heb. xiL 1, that if spiritual death to sin do not slay it, corporal death shall neither mend it nor end it. It shall not fly from the soul -when the soul doth fly from the body, but Jis it accompanies the one to the judgment-seat of God, so it shall meet the other in heU, if they both cannot be rid of it, through Christ, on earth.

(6.) The leprosy makes man loathsome to man, that seorsim hahitaturus sit, —he must dwell alone. So was the law : Lev. xiii. 4G, ' He is unclean : he shall dwell ah)ne ; without the camp shall his habitation be.' Yea, though he were a king, he must content himself with an un\'isitod and removed lodging, 2 Kings xv. 5 ; yet what is it to be secluded from man's, and not to be destitute of the Lord's company ? God forsakes not the ' clean heart,' Ps. Ixxiii 1, though man abhors the leprous flesh. God alone is a thousand companions; God alone is a world of friends. He never knew what it was to be familiar with heaven that complains the lack of friends whiles God is with him. Were thy chamber a prison, thy prison a dungeon, yet what walls can keep out that infinite Spirit \ Even there the good soul finds the sun of heaven to enlighten his darkness, in comparison of whom all the stars in the sky are the snutf of a dim candle. Every cloud darkens our sun ; nothing can eclipse that. But the leprosy of sin separates a soul from God's fellowship, from the company of angels. 1 John i. G, ' We Lie if we say we have fellowship with him, and Avalk in darkness.' ' Your sms have separated betwixt me and you, saith the Lord of hosts.' They un-house our hearts of God's Spirit, and expel him from the temple of our souls, who will no longer stay there when the Dagon of sin is advanced, adored. It is customable with men to eschew the society of their poor, maimed, afflicted, diseased brethren, and to shew some disdain by their averseness ; but to keep company with drunkards, adulterers, swearers, usurers, ifec.—of Avhom alone we have a charge, de non tancfetulo, —they reck . not. ' Eat not with them ; turn away from them,' saith the Apostle, 1 Cor. v. 11, 2 Thu. ii. •'), from those so diseased in soul, not in body. But now melior est conditio viiii, quam morhi, —the estate of sin is better than of sickness. But God looks unto, and is with, Lazarus living, and takes him into his bosom dying, though he was full of sores ; and lets healthy, wealthy, flourishing Dives go by, unnamed, unaccepted.

(7.) The leprosy kept men but from the fading city, terrestrial Jerusalem. This leprosy, unpurgcd by repentance, restrains men from that ' Jerusalem which is above,' a city built uiK)n jaspers, and sajiphires, and precious stones, flowing, instead of milk and honey, with bliss and glory. For 'into it .shall enter nothing that defileth, nor whatsoever worketh abomination or lies, Rev. xxi. 19. Now as the pleasures and treasures of this city are more, so much worse is the cause hindering our entrance. You may judge by this taste how far spiritual sickness is more bitter than corporal. Every circumstance before hath refiectcd on this; but nimquam satis dicittir, </uod nun-quam satis addi^citur, —it is never taught enough that is not enough learned. 4. I should now, lastly, inquire who are the sick, wherein, as the philoso-

pher said of men, Kon tihi sunt, sed nhi non sunt, facile demonsfratur —I can easily shew you where they are not, not where they are.* It is a small matter to find out the sick, the difficulty is to find any sound. I know ' there are a few names in our Sardis that have not defiled their garments,' Eev. iii. 4 ; but they are so few that it is hard to find them. ' Run to and fro through the streets, and seek in the broad places of our cities, if you can find a man, if there be any that executes judgment, and seeketh the truth,' Jer. V. 1. The whole world is very old and sick, given over, as man in his dotage, to covetousness.

'Hajus adest setas extrema et ferrea mundi, Alget amor dandi, prajceps amor ardet habendi;*—

' Needs mast the world be sick and old, When lust gi-ows hot, and charity cold.*

Wonder you at this 1 Wonder is the daughter of ignorance, ignorance of nature. God hath foretold it, event hath fulfilled it. St Paul gives the symptoms of this general sickness : ' Redeem the time, for the days are evil,' Eph. V. 16. Our Saviour premonisheth the great decay of faith and love to ensue the apostasy of the latter times. His apostles testify no less. Paul to Timothy, ' Know that in the last days perilous times shall come. Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud,' &c., 2 Tim. iii. 1. Read and observe. Peter, with others, to make up a cloud of witnesses, prophesieth the like, if not Avith addition; that men shall be so debauched, as even to deride and scoff at goodness, as a thing rather derisory than necessary, 2 Pet. iii. 3, Jude 18. The plague of sin rankles, and, helped with fit instruments of dispersion, infects the times.

The scribe points to the publican, and thinks that destruction comes on the city for his sake. The ungodly Protestant lays the fault on the profane gallant that the days are evil, and says that pride devours all The proud on the covetous churl, the well-conceited h}^30crite on the dissolute, the dissolute on the hypocrites. Even the wicked think the godly the cause, but the godly know the wicked the cause. Atheists Avill live as they list. Loquuntur grandia. They ' lift up their mouths against heaven,' and acknowledge no other deity than their own guts. If good cheer be their sickness, they care not though gluttony be their grave. Grace is fain to give place to wantonness, religion to idolatry, honesty to profaneness. Many live, as the apostle saith of Hymeneus and Philetus, as if ' the resurrection was past,' 2 Tim. ii. 18, or would never come.

I know there was never age not complained of, not judged as worst. Laudamus veteres, &c. We see what is, not what hath been, Eccles. \'ii. 10. Some times have been evil, others worse, ours worst of all. We are so much worse than all, because we have more means to be better. We have atheists that serve no God, mammonists that serve their money, idolaters that serve creatures, apostates that forsake God, worldlings, temporisers, neuters, that serve many, serve all, serve none. Love is banished, temperance gives place to drunkenness, humility stoops to pride, hope yields to sense, and religion itself is used either for a show of good or for a cloak of evil. Men's words disagree from their deeds, their hearts from their words. If any say this world is not so sick as we give it, I durst tell them that they are a great part of the sickness ; and but for such we had less need to complain.

Satan's violence now doubling his forces, shews it to be the last and worst time. For the devil then ragcth most, when he knows he shall rage but for * Rather ' where they arc, not where thoy are not.'— Ed.

a while. The world is sick, * the days are evil.' You hear what makes them so. Shortly, either doing or suffering ill; sin originally, misery by consequent. If we would bate of our sins, God would decrease our miseries. What plagues the world with the sword, but malice and anil>ition i What turns the poor from their riglit, but injustice ? What brings famine but covctousness ? Proud courtiers make rich merchants, and both make miserable commons. We multiply sins against God ; God, punishments upon us : the former from our unrighteousness, front his righteousness the latter ; b(jth together make the world sick, the days evil. I would hope it were vain now to bid you loathe the world. Is he less than mad that can love and dote on such a cheek 1 The beauty of it is black without by the miseries, and more foul within by the sins ; if any wretch shall now make it his choice, ho is not worthy of emy, if of pity.

' There's only one way left not to admit The world's infection, to be none of it.'

Conclusion. —Seeing we are thus sick, why speed we not to means of recovery ? It was the sou of Sirach's counsel to use physic before thou be sick ; being sick, it is madness to neglect it. Yet as the physician is often fain to entreat his froward patient to admit of the potion ; so let me beseech you, nay, whiles I stand in the circle of your loves, let me conjure you, to accept of God's physic. God is our best physician. The .soul cannot miscarry that is under the tender hands of her Maker. His crosses are hi»medi-cincs. As therefore in bodily sickness we can be content to be let blood hx the arm or the foot, for the curing of the head or the heart; the health of the principal part is more joy to us than it is grief to be troubled in the inferior. Thy sound limbs carry a sick soul; God fits thee with proper recuring, recovering physic; afflictions, a singular medicine for diseased affections. Thou sayest, they are unpleasant; true, they are physic : who respects pleasure, but wholesomeness, in medicines ? Thou art happily displeased with the relish, when thy sick heart is thereby eased of the pangs. Wilt thou love thy palate above thy health ? Wilt thou refuse the implausible receipt of crosses, because they go against the grain of thy affections, and prefer thy lusts to thy soul'? Let him die that will rather choose a wilful sickness than a harsh remedy.

This great physician hath some substitutes under liim, ordained to minister to ouf sick souls. For besides the ministers of his word, applying that saving balm of the gospel, before largely specified, magistrates are his physicians, (of what degree soever,) to whom he hath committed the sword of-justice, as lancets to cut the ulcers of our soids, and to let out the imposthu-mate matter of our corruptions. Good laws are the phy.sic, and the just execution of them is the ministration. This aquafortis is fit for these iron days, to grave some characters and prints of goodness in them. Our knotted sins, like beds of eels, cannot be dissolved but by the thunder. You speak of all, if you say that the noise of this thunder can waken us. At first these laws may be, like the log which Jupiter in the fiible threw down to the frogs refjem petentifjus, to be their king, with much awe and reverence feared ; but afterwards, they get up and ride them in contempt. Subordinate officers are afraid to execute what the higher have wisely enacted.

I wish that no laws, like Draco's, should be writ in blood; yet withal, that the loosing of the reins of justice may not give encouragement to the already impudent fury of sin. Why should you fear to do right? Is it the lewdness of the time 1 whereof we may say, as it was once said of Rome,

that they could neither endure an ill governor, nor obey a good one. Is it because a great person is the offender 1 Shall therefore any deputed justicers, which should shine in the orb of this country like the seven stars, basely degenerate into the cowardly darkness of the seven deadly sins, partaking of others' wickedness ? A great man undoes the commons, depopulates towns, encloseth fields, breaks, hke a great beast, through all the hedges and fences of God's law and man's; treads justice, religion, honesty, conscience, under his proud feet. Will yoii, like beasts of the herd, follow him, and pass through the breaches and gaps of offence he hath made, and not oppose your strength to his oppressions 1 A great man is popishly addicted ; he havocs the church, abuseth the ministers, revUeth religion, maintains the Seminary, countenanceth secret treason, admits no tenants but those that will be tenants to Home, and puts not his own livery upon any back but that which withal accepts the Pope's—' the mark of the beast'—together with his cognizance. Dare you not oppose, hinder, stop, his wickedness 1 I say unto you, ' Your life shall go for his life, if you let him scape,' 1 Kings xs. 42. ' If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment in a province, marvel not at the matter; for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they,' Eccles. v. 8.

What hinders you 1 God, the supreme JMagistrate, the law, religion, conscience, is on your side. You cannot want seconds, whiles these take your part. Why should you fear the looks of man, who is dust and ashes, whiles you tremble not to disobey the Lord ? So a little dog running in the field amongst a whole flock of sheep, scares them all away; and when he is gone, they turn again and stare on him as if he were some fearful monster. So the little birds are afraid of the cuckoo, because he looks like a hawk. Because these tyrannous oppressors and Papists look as if they had horns of iron, like Zedekiah, 1 Kings xxii. 11, shall the arms and armour of justice be timorous to encounter them 'i But as in a diseased body, if the sickness once take the heart, how shall the members find comfort 1—how should the distressed commonalty be succoured in these oppressions, eased of these burdens, when the magistrates, which are as the heart, are infected with the same enormities ? Beloved, spare not your hands when God calls for them ; your remissness and connivance is not love, but hatred. He that bii-xds the frantic, and rouseth him that is sick of a lethargy, angers, but lovets, both. It is a happy necessity that enforceth to goodness.

Neither is this physician-office imposed only on the magistrates; every man must be medicinal to another. Who, but a Cain, is not his 'brother's keeper' 1 Reasonable exhortation, seasonable reproof, good example, ever timely and available, are mutual remedies to this sickness. ' Exhort one another daily, whiles it is called To-day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin,' Heb. iii. 13. There is first, dehitum chariiatis, the due of charity, 'exhort one another;' then iemporis opportunitas, the fitness of season, ' whiles it is called To-day;' then periculum ohstinationis, the danger of obstinacy, ' lest you be hardened ;' and, lastly, calliditas hostis, the subtlety of the enemy, ' through the deceitfulness of sin.'

Every man must be a physician to himself, as being best acquainted with his own hcai-t. If ago hath ri})ened thy discretion, thou art to thyself, saith the proverb, aut sttdtus aut tnedlcus, —either a fool or a phj-sician. Thou knowest where the soul's sickness lies; by one receipt make way to another, as physicians use, and by all to thy health : by rejientance to faith, by faith to virtue, &c. And in those works of devotion, medicinal intentions to the cure of thy soul, (as physicians prescribe in sweats and exercise,) do not

cease over suddenly. Let not thy jirayer, meditation, hearing of the word be broken oft" at the call of every vanity.

Good diet is in the ne.\t place neccs.sary to physic. In vain doth the potion work our recovery, if our evil behaviour after it sliall draw on us a relapse. Recidivatioti is so much more dangerous than our first sickness, as our natural strength is then the more fecbled, and unable to endure means of restoring. If the potion of repentance hath purged your hearts, you must observe the strict diet of obedience, which consists in refraining from the corrupt meats whereon your souls have surfeited; in restraining yourselves to the bread of heaven, the body and blood of Christ, the object of your faith ; and doing the will of God, the object of your conversation, which Christ calls his meat and drink.

The first is that spiritual fast which especially pleaseth God, Isa. Iviii. G, and which he calls 'a fast to himself,' Zech. vii. 5. This is that maynum et (jenerale jejuninm, —that lent of abstinence, which we nmst all keep, consisting in holiness of life. God hath ever from the beginning dieted our bodies, keeping in his own hand (as a master in his own house) the disposition of his creatures, for the use of man, that man might depend on his provident Maker for all needful blessings. In the first age, he appointed him for meat, ' every herb bearing seed, and every tree yielding fruit, upon the face of all the earth,' Gen. i. 29 ; whether he gave him liberty to eat flesh or no, we hold it uncertain. After the flood, the Lord renewed his gi'ant, and gave free use of his creatures, with free liberty to cat flesh, but restraining the flesh of the unclean, and the blood of all, Gen. ix. 3. At Christ's coming, he enlarged our patent, and gave license to eat all kinds of flesh. Acts x. 15 ; only, now, he restrains sin, allowing the use, and forbidding the abuse of all. ' Every ceature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if received with thanksgiving,' ifec, 1 Tim. iv. 4. Sin, then, sin is the only tiling from which we must perpetually fast: the hands fastmg from oppression, robbery, blood; the feet from perverse and erring ways; the ears from sucking in slanderous tales ; the eyes from gazing after vanities ; the thoughts from impurity. Let the blasphemer fast from oaths, the covetous from greediness, the malicious from hatred, the drunkard from liis full cups, every sinner from his lust-plea.sing iniquities.

They shall not repent this forbearance. The soul .shall not starve when it hath lost these acorn.s. Behold, for the other respect, ' there is bread, and bread enough in your father's house,' Luke xv.; if that content you not, lo, the fat calf is kDled, Christ is crucified; this banquet is eaten with music, mirth, and joy of heart; new garments are put on your souls, and a fresh blee will arise in your cheeks. The world's gross food could not give you true content; but ' hunger and thust' after this diet, and * blessed are you, for you shall be satisfled,' Matt. v. G. Our God is abundantly merciful; let not us be wanting to ourselves. Every one mend one, so shall the general health of all be perfected. Which health the Thysician of heaven, for his mercies' and merits' sake, vouchsafe unto us I Amen.

HEAVEN AND EAETH EECONCILED.

They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever.—DA-S. XII. 3.

These words are prophetically spoken, and turn over to us a golden leaf, whose ink is nectai', and the pen from the wings of angels; I mean, the matter expressed is wholly celestial: what shall be the end of the righteous, and of them that make them so. Porta patet coeli, procul, oh procul este, profani. I must in some sort open you the everlasting doors, and shew you the King of glory, and your glory in him. Let a holy reverence possess your souls, and say with Jacob, ' The place is fearful; none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven,' Gen. xxix. 17. Suppose that great Prince set on his throne of universal j udgment, and upon all creatures that have borne the image of God, summoned before him, having passed an irrevocable sentence, will you hear what shall become of the just 1 Open your intellectual sanctified eyes, able, with Stephen, to pierce through the curled clouds, and with meditations rapt to the third heaven, behold them as here described : ' The wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to rightecjusness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever.' A lofty metaphor, when the lowest part of it is not less high than the firmament, than the stars. Just men shall parallel the brightness of the azure sky, and ministers shall shine as stars in it; nay, they shall transcend both in glory. We shall then see the firmament and stars as far below us, as now our humbled mortality thinks them above us ; and could they shine as bright as ever their creation left them, the righteous shall outshine them; for, ' they shall be fashioned to the glorious body of Christ,' Phil. iiL 21.

The words may be distinguished, in opus, et mercedem, —into the work, and the wages. Here is earth and heaven in this text; our way and our country, dishonour and honour, trouble and peace. Our earth, way, trouble, goes thus far : ' They that turn many to righteousness.' Our heaven, country, peace, follows : ' sliall shine as the stars for ever and ever.'

I. We ministers on earth are not unfitly compared to logical copulatives, that must join together a subject and a predicate. 1. The subject we work on is men, many men. 2. The predicate we work them to is righteousness. 3. Ministers are the copulative, that unite these, convertentes, that make men and righteousness friends; which never naturally and heartily loved one another aince that apple set our first parents' teeth on edge.

II. Our heaven follows ; and there is nothing Imt joy in it. 1. ' We shall .shine ;' no more be counted dross and offscouriiv-; of the world, as Paul says ; no more be like low hedges, which every Ximn k\, hunter, persecutor, treads down for his sport; no more be like rejected and unthought-of things, which the eye of scorn looks over. We shall stand where we shall be seen ; ' we shall shine.' 2. Not meanly, and with a glimmering light, but ' as stars,' reserved to the Sun of righteousness his greater and chief glory; * we shall shine as stars.' 3. Tliis ' for ever ;' not meteors, whiles a gross, spumy, .squalid substance lasts; nor like stellce cadentes, falling stars, which .seem fixed in some sphere, but are not, as St John saitli, 'They went out from us, for they were not of us,' 1 Epist. ii. 19 ; but without passing the horizon of glory, without obscuring, without interposition of any clouds ; ' we shall shine for ever and ever.' This is our heaven ; but I must keep you on earth a while, though you long more for the other place.

I. 1. The Sniiject. —Tlie subject we must exercise our skill on are men, tempered of the same mould, having a soul inspired from the breath of the same God, as dear to him as ourselves, bought with no worse blood than his Son's, guarded with angels, protected by the same providence, and compassed about with the same mercies that we are. God made man after his own likeness, that there might be quoddam in terris Dei simulacruni, —a certain image of himself on earth, wherein he might be delighted : as it is natural to every being to affect that which received derivation from it; as Apelles was delighted with his tablets, Pj-graalion with his ivory statue. Narcissus with his form in the fountain, a woman with her face in the glass, and parents with the offspring of their loins. Socrates then is composed of no better metal than his scholars, nor the minister than the people. Think not yourselves lords over them, 1 Pet. v. 3 ; all persons are equally respected of God. Prasumus officio, pares sumus dignitate coram Deo, —We are above them in office, not in dignity with God.

Let this meditation suppress our pride, either naturally born with us, or accidentally contracted by a self-opinion; it is an easy fault, and soon incurred, for a minister to be proud of his gifts, of his place, as ^Miriam w:vs of the Spirit, and to prefer himself to those he teacheth, nay, to his fellow-teachers. Let me have no need to remember you of that, unum restat, one thing is wanting—a humbled souL Thou hast overcome many corruptions, subdued lusts, qualified infirmities; take heed lest vincenda superhia restat, —pride remains yet to be overcome. He that contemns others, makes himself most contemptible. But, Quorsinn hoecl —To what end is this ? No such vice cleaves to us. I would it did not; I would no star did envy the brighter shining of another. But alas I pride is a subtle insinuating sin, ever convensant in good things; it crept into paradise, nay, it stole into heaven. No sin is more saucy, none more bold with God, none less welcome. It took up Iddging in the Pli.»risce, tliat was^so jirecise in tithing, alms, j>rayer. Many a Pharisee is pnnid that he is not pnuul; so subtle is that temptation of our adversary, when a man will be humble, to make him highly conceited of his humility : not unlike the Cynic, that condenmed Plato's pride with a worse of his own. * I thank God, I am not as others,' says that Pharisee. He was not indeed, but had little reason to thank God for it. The em[>tiest barrel makes the loudest .sound. He that is truly learned hath learned this, not to boast it. It often befalls such, as it did that cardinal, who making a show of bringing much trca.^ure into the land, one of lii.'i nmlcs stumbled, and the portmantle broke, and there was a gnodly .show of mo.ss, and straw, and stones. They that look so big upon their bretlu'cn, were their cabinet opened, VOL. r. 2 F

all the great supposed treasure within would appear to be mere husks, froth, and ignorance. The sun excels the moon in glory, yet both are stars, without enaulation one of another. The highest cedar will suffer the lowest shrub to grow under it. He that digs the ground, hath his use in the garden, as well as he that draws the knot. Silver is metal as well as gold ; and the beggar may be as good a subject as the lord. Christ gave his life for his sheep, as well as for his under shepherds. Despise not thy fellow-servants, lest the Master of us all despise thee.

This subject is set down indefinitely, ' many.' Whence observe, that the power of God is here perspicuous, that designs a few to convert many; nay, one man to have the charge of a congregation. Compare the minister with his charge, and think the difference : one man to a multitude ; one without pomp to many mighty, wise, rich, noble; a weak man with a few leaves of paper, to those that are armed with a prejudicial opposition of nature against it; the message not promising liberty, ease, encouragement to lusts, but threatening jDcrsecution, cross, rod, trouble : yet to bind kings in chains, and nobles in fetters of iron; to recover the heathen from their ancient and national idolatries, and prostrate them to the name of Jesus; to make the drunkard sober, covetous merciful, malicious charitable; hie digitus Dei, — this is the finger of God. Thus, one Moses shall give precepts to six hundred thousand men able to bear arms; one Peter convert three thousand at a sermon ; one minister (full of weakness) affect a gTcat congregation, erect, depress, with either threats or promises, and persuade wild Japheth, as tame as a lamb, into the tents of Shem. Thus a dozen weak apostles passed once through legions of soldiers, prohibitions of laws, menaces of adversaries, oppositions of the flesh, pride, religions, Satan, into the courts of khigs, and overcame them with the gospel. What shall we say? We admire the conquest of Alexander, that with forty thousand men subdued all Asia. If his army had been greater, his victory, his glory had been less. If he had achieved it with fewer, we would have doubled his honour; but if with twelve, deified him. Jesus Christ hath, and doth daily, make greater conquests with fewer soldiers; subduing souls, which is a greater victory than that of bodies, sine vi et armis, without military engines. Yet who apprehends the immenseness of his power, or admires the depth of his wisdom 1

Indeed, it is admirable if any such thing be wrought in these days. Time was, one sermon could turn many; now many sermons cannot turn one. Many thirsty souls have drunk at one fountain, and been satisfied ; infinite fountains are now open, and none will drink. They come indeed to Jacob's well, but they bring no pitchers with them,—no fiuth, no attention, no conscience. God hath set open the doors of his mercy, grace, glory; only our hearts are shut up : we may as well preach to these material walls, and move the scats, as your cauterised and numbed consciences. When we have studied our colour into palenes.s, our strength into weakness, our bloods to jelly, and spoke away our spirits into air, you are the same still, and your sins in the same strength; not a ]\Iannnon, Belial, Melchom, changes their lodgings, or is unroosted out of your hearts. You come before the pulpit, but your faith and conscience is left behind you. Your closets, shops, fields, nay, perhaps taverns and tap-houses, plead possession of your affections: and all the law that comes out of the chair of Moses caimot give the devil a defeasance.

What then 1 Shall we not shine in this glory, because so few have been turned by us 1 Nothing less ; and we have precedent for it: ' Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord,' saith the

prophet, Isa. xlix. 5. Though when we have spent our strengths in Israel, the widow of Saropta is more charitable. Though the altar hath enjoyed our labours, we not her privileges, yet for us ' is 'aid up a crown of glory,' 2 Tim. iv. 8. Though it cannot but grieve us to be a savour of death to many, and to rise up condemning witnesses against those that would not believe our report; yet since God is glorified in both heaven and hell, and we have faithfully discharged the duties of our callings and consciences, leaving the success to God, though we have turned few to righteousness, yet we shall shine as stars for ever and ever.

2. 'The Predicate. —The predicate we work men to is righteousness. Righteousness is so fair an object, that a man would think there needs no great solicitation to it. What heart would not be enamoured on the beauty of righteousness if we saw it ] Even the most unrighteous men have been convinced to approve of righteousness. Surely integrity is not loved, because it is not seen. The devil so takes up our eyes with the flourishes of sin, and gay colours of lusts, that we are blind to the sight of goodness ; whose face if we could behold in that mirror of clearness wherein we were created, we would be in love with nothing else but God and that. But as an ill-affected stomach is best pleased with crudities, our poisoned and infected natures are dotingly taken with corruptions, and have no love to righteousness. No love, said I ? No familiarity, no knowledge, no acquaintance; that if God should suffer our blinded souls so to go on to our deaths, we should scarce ever dream of righteousness. Therefore he hath given us helps, his word, and the vocal organs, to make it sound to us ; his ministers, who may turn our hearts to righteousness. Here is offered to us this instruction.

The end of the ministry is to bring men to righteousness. Christ, ' when he had led captivity captive, gave gifts to men,' Eph. iv. What were they, and to what end ? Paul declares both the gifts, ver. 11, * He gave some to be apostles, some prophets,' etc. The end, ver. 12, 'For the repairing of the saints, and for the edification of the body of Christ;' a task hard enough. Ars artiiim, regimen animarum, —It is the cunning of all cunnings to govern souls. It is no easy work to make men righteous. If they could retain covetise, licentiou.sness, vainglory, in their service, and withal be righteous, there were some hope : but when you tell them that carnal lust and righteousness are two ends that shaU never meet; that ' flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven,' 1 Cor. xv. 50 ; when you bid them weep for and restore their injuries, usuries, sacrileges, charm their tongues from blasphemies, their hearts from vanities; you shall almost as good bathe a Moor in hope to whiten him. Men naturally love anything better than righteousness, and think any burden lighter than repentance. Hence it is that we are not so welcome as the ministers of Satan. Behold, thy mini-ster mourns to thee in the pulpit, and persuades thee by the blood of Christ, not without his own tears, to have mercy on thy own soul; not to cast away all the hopes and comforts of a better world ; to bewail and beware of sins, which will make a hell in thy bosom here, and sink thee to a worse hell hereafter : nihii agit, ho cannot prevail. Let but a ruftian hold up his finger, thou art gone. All auditors are not ruffians, and so addicted,— God forbid that our Sardis should not have ' a few names left in her,'—but many are thus, and more of a different disposition, but a worse. The most attend the world : ' Who will slicw u.s any good V Ps. iv. G. The minister's voice is not .so audible as profit's ; nor can divinity make so sweet music aa the world. If to condole this were to help it, and the di.sco\ery of the dis-

ease were no less than the remedy, I should soon cure it. But shall I tell you ? The general opinion of most in our parishes is this, (if the life do not belie the mind,) that a competent measure of righteousness is enough for heaven; and salvation doth not stand on so hard conditions as we teach. No bounds or measures of iniquity are enough, but a little righteousness serves. It is matter of amazement to see how the most live, as if they were neither in God's debt nor danger. Men strive who shall sin most, and give Jesus Christ the deepest wounds. They swear, bezzel,* covet, and laugh at him that tells them they sin. There is not so much shame left in their bloods as to give testimony of their guiltiness. If it were possible, they would annihilate their souls, and quench all difference betMdxt themselves anc beasts : ' Let us eat and drink, for we shall die.' It is soon said, and soon eaten ; but not so soon digested. They advance the colours of Satan, blasphemies and lies, in the very face of God ; as if they sent challenges to heaven, and dared their Maker to the combat. For the ministry of the word, whose intent is to beget in our souls righteousness, they make this the end of it, to pass the time, to keep holidays from sleep, and to move the hearts of idiots. They visit the temple for custom, as fools ; for example, as apes ; for necessity, as beasts ; for praises, as hypocrites ; or for peace, as politicians. How few think their minister placed over them to turn their hearts to righteousness !

I have shewed them the end of the ministry; we may not forget to appl}' it to ourselves. God's intent in sealing thee this commission is to work in men's hearts righteousness. Who knows not that 1 God grant none forget it! I am not worthy, fathers and brethren, to inform your understandings ; saltern concedatur refricare memorias, —only give me leave to rub your memories. It is i easy to propound sinister ends to our best, ordinate, and most regular works. There are five bitter herbs to spoil all the children of the prophets' pottage; five affections to distaste our ministry, I will not say to make it ineflectual: fame, flattery, ease, necessity, covet-ousness.

(1.) Are there none that catch at popular applause, and rather hunt themselves into fame than souls into heaven; se jyrcedicantes, non Christum, — preaching themselves, rather than Jesus Christ 1 Mancipia popularis aurce venalis, —Creatures bred of the people's breath, whose excellencies consist only in opinion; rare men in their own judgments, and the flattered multitude's, that speak more desperately against doubted and questionable actions, than against known and manifest sins; that inveigh against some to please the rest; and even curry favour by speaking bitterly : of whom he spake truly that said, ' They care not to be condemned of the learned for ignorant, so they may be commended of the ignorant for learned.'

' Quid petitur sacris nisi tantum fama poetis ?'

What gape these for but only fame 1 They intend not erection of hearts, direction of lives, correction of vices ; but they have a strange kind of pleasure to hold men by the ears, as the fisher the pike by the gills, and neither takes him nor lets him go; there is in these more affectation of fame tha)i affection of truth.

(2.) Are there none that mould their sermons with court dough, flattery ? Cushion-chaplains that carry their mistresses' fans, to keep the heat of rejiroof from their painted faces; that cry it is either cold or hot, as their patron lists to feel it 1

* That is, embezzle.— Ed.

' Si pranderet olus patienter, regibus uti Nollet Aristippus; si sciret regibus uti, Fastidiret olus,' &c.*

They get more by flattery than just men by their impartial censure. But it was xVristotle's : Amiens Plato, amicus Socrates, ma<jis arnica Veritas. Thy patron is thy friend, iuid the chief man of thy parish is thy friend; trutli is thy friend above all.

(3.) Are there none that leap out of the troubles of the world into the peace of the church, only to be fed at the altar and live idle ? that being entertained to build up God's house, and once sure of his pay, lay down their tools and fall to play ?

(4.) Are there none that make a virtue of necessity, and when all trades fail, turn priests, making that their last refuge that should be their best ? This is a rank custom among the Papists ; but I hope it hath not gotten over our seas. Oh, how vile is it, and an argument of a desperate mind, when divuiity is made but a shift! If to dig they are too lazy, to beg ashamed, to steal afraid, to cheat want wit, and to live raean.s, tlien thrust in for a room in the church ; and once crept in at the window, make haste to shark out a living; nay, and perhaps fly apace with the wings of gohlen ignorance into patrons' books, and presentations to good benefices, when learning is so ill horsed, riding upon penury, that the benefice is gone ere he comes. No matter how poor the stock of learning be, so the stock of money hold out, to the patron's content. Sometimes such beggars are made priests, when good priests are made beggars.

(5.) Are there none sick of the pearl in the eye 1 A shrewd disease, and no less common ; whose souls are taken up by i\Iammon's commission, as Demas, that gave religion the bag, when the world offered him the purse, and vowed to serve Christ no longer for nothing. I have shewed you many oblique, indirect, and sinister ends ; but among all, this carries it for custom, for hatefulness. Proh pudor ! that ever a minister should be covetous, as if we had lost all our former time, and were now to recover it with a jDrepo.s-terous emulation of the hungriest worldlings ! How should we reclaim others from the world, that cleave to it ourselves ] They must needs think we have a broader way to heaven than we teach others. It is observable that the creatures nearest to the earth are most greedy to accumulate. What creatures store up such heaps of provision as the ant ? But the birds of the air, that fly no.xt heaven, ' neither sow, nor reap, nor carry into the barn,' saith our Savit)ur, ^latt. vi. 2G. We are next to heaven in profession; let us hate to be furthest off in conversation.

These are all unblest and pernicious ends, and whereof, I trust, no soul is here guilty. I confidently use the words of Paul, ' I have persuaded myself better things of you, and such as accompany salvation, though I thus speak,' Heb. vi. 9. I hope the least feather can brush these dusts from our conscience. Let not fame, flattery, ease, neccs.sity, covetousness, task our endeavours to this holy work. We are then but adidterantex verbiim, such as adulterate God's word, 2 Cor. iv. 2: as the fornicator makes lust liis end, not generation, so such a minister intends not to beget souls to God, but fame or gain to himself If we do thu,s, the worst is our own. ' Whiles some ]>reach Christ of strife, some of good-wiU, yet so long as Christ is preached, I do joy, and will joy therein,' Phil. i. 15-18. It shall be the best for us that our intents sympathise with God's; his ordinance with our performance, to turn souls to righteoiisni'.s.s.

• llor.

3. The Copulatives. —This for the predicate. The persons whom God hath deputed to at-one these two contrary natures, sinful men and righteousncssj, are the ministers. There is no weak contentation between these, and the labour is hard to reconcile them : ' To us is committed this ministry of reconciliation,' 2 Cor. V. 18. God hath honoured us to tie this knot, though it be indeed digmis vindice nodus, a sacramental bond for the hand of the most high God to perfect. Yet he vouchsafes this honour to us, as his instruments, that we in his name and power shall tie a double knot on earth; a temporal knot of the husband to the wife, which none but the minister may do ; spiritual and eternal knot of the believing soul to her husband Christ: ' I have prepared you for one husband, to present you a pure virgin to Christ,' 2 Cor. xi. 2. He hath designed us to turn men to righteousness.

Is this possible 1 Est Deus in vohis, &c.,—God is in you if you can do this; no power rules, constrains, converts the heart of man, but God only. I say again, thus is God pleased to honour us, that we shall be said to convert sinners. ' He that converteth a sinner from going astray shall save a soul from death, and hide a multitude of sins,' James v. 20. And Paul thus chargeth Timothy, ' Continue in learning; for in doing this thou shalt save thyself, and them that hear thee,' 1 Tim. iv. 16. Yet, ahsit, far be it from us to think, or any superstitious soul to ascribe to us, that by our own arm we have gotten this victory. If the Psalmist denies power to any of rescuing his brother's body from the grave, he much more excludes the redemption of his soul. This, then, is true : when the external voice of man and the internal operation of the Spirit jump together, then John Baptist ' shall turn hearts,' Mai. iv. 6; then ' the priest shall make the soul clean,' Lev. xvi., when the agent of heaven and instruments of earth do concur, or are comprehensively taken : but when they be either compared in opposing, or opposed in comparing, then all is in God, then ' Paul can (but) plant, and ApoUos water, God gives the increase,' 1 Cor. iii. 6. Then John Baptist pours on water, and ' Christ baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, and with tire,' Matt. iii. 11. Will you hear them united? ' God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself; and hath committed to us the mhiistry of reconciha-tion,' 2 Cor. v. 19 ; else there is no power in my perishable voice to affect your conscience. Break away this analogy and virtual association of the Spirit from our preaching, and you depart from the temple with as foul hearts as ever you came thither. No, beloved; lift up your eyes higher than the pulpit, and know he dwells in heaven that pierceth the conscience : ' Behold, I stand at the door, and knock,' &c., Ptev. iii. 20. I, says the Son of the eternal God. It is he that clears the eye, undeafs the ear, unlocks the heart, and shakes the inmost powers of the soul, as the thunder shakes the wilderness. Were we all Boanerges, the sons of thunder, we were not able without him to turn your hearts to righteousness. Indeed the word is ' strong in operation, dividing the marrow and the bones,' Heb. iv. 12; and our ministry is ' not of the letter, but spirit,' saith St Paul, thus far exceeding the external commandment of Moses, whereunto he could not convert his own soul, that it shall not only require faith, but give it. Yet still vivtus cl Deo, —the virtue, life, spirit, is from God.

This clears us from that Popish imputation, that we build our faith on a silly minister. We build it on the testimony of the Spirit, and the word of eternal truth, delivered to us by such an organ. The truth examined, they rather build their salvation on a silly muiister. Thus far they and we go hand and hand : we agree that f;iith and conversion is wrought in the heart by an esi^ecial grace of God's Spirit. But here we part; they say, the 1 loly

Ghost useth the authority of the church to beget faith in our hearts. We say, he useth the ministry only, not the authority. Thus, -whereas they raise the credit of the doctrine from the minister, we raise the credit of the minister from the doctrine : so that of both, Papists may be trulier said to build their faith on the credit of men ; yea, and such men as some of them have been, Sodomites, some conjurers, some murderers, and scarce inferior to devils, imless now perhaps they lie as deep and low in hell. Thus are their blinded souls bound to believe, not by their ministry as Christians, but by their authority as Pythagoreans.

I confess, the word carries authority with it in any lips which God hath touched with a coal from his altar, and woe to the soul that disobeys it! There is an easy distinction betwixt the lawyer, the physician, and the divine. The lawyer begins with reason, and so descends to common experience and authority. The physician begins with experience, and thence proceeds to reason and authority. The divine begins with authority, and so to reason and experience. Our personal authority, then, is nothing; the authority of God's word not to be withstood. These, then, are the copulatives, and this the means to bring you to righteousness, or else despair it. If thou, living within the sunshine of the gospel, wilt not be enlightened by it, thou must perish in darkness. If the preacher convert thee not to righteousness, God must work miracles, or thy soul is in hazard.

II. We should now come to our reward, our bliss, our heaven : * shall shine as stars for ever and ever.' But I find it, Rev. i., ' The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches.' Ministers shall be stars hereafter, saith the prophet Daniel; they shall be stars here too, saith St John. Without question both speak truth, and there is a shining of this world goes before that of heaven. We must be stars in grace, that look to be so in glory. It was directed to the apostles, Vos estis lux miuidi, —' You are the light of the world,' and, ' Let your light so shine before men,' Matt. v. 14, 16. So God hath disposed, that lumen gratice antecedat lumen glorioe, —the light of grace shall precede the light of glory. And none shall .shine hereafter that have been dark here. First, then, consider what kind of stars we are ; then what we shall be. Ministers are said to be stars in five respects : in name, substance, site, motion, efiects.

1. In name. Stella a stanclo dicitur, —A star, quasi not stir, further than the orb carries it. God hath fixed them in their spheres, and confined them to stations. Like good soldiers, they know their ranks and their orders, and observe their non ultra. ' The sun knows his rising and his going down.' Ministers must be like stars fixed in their orbs; ours is a stable profession, not a gadding ministry. It was St Peter's counsel, or rather the Holy Ghost's charge, ' Feed that flock that dependeth on you,' 1 E[)ist. v. 2. He spake merrily that said, the tribe of Levi must have no mind to the tribe of Gad. The apostles, indeed, went through the world, but they had their passport for it: ' Go, teach aU nations,' &.c. It must not be so with us ; not that you, which are full, should grudge the hungry .souls some cmmbs from your tables. How many are yet in this land that would be heart-glad of those sermons which you sleep out and despise ! How many would clo.se the minister in the arms of joy, whom you contemn ! So easy is it for a full stomach to forget the benefit of meat! The feet of those that bring good tidings of peace are nowhere less beautiful than in their most frequented streets. Never found prophet less honour, less welcome, than where his perpetual pains have best earned it. Like pampered children, you play with your meat. Give us leave to gratify with .some comfort.s, I say not, with our

Sa\'iour, the dogs, but the children of our own Father, which want them. Theodoret writes, that when Valens, with his Arian heresy, had bepestered the Christian world, and stroke a deep wound in the white bos(Mn of the church, Aphraades, a certain monk, contrary to his order, came forth of his vowed and confining monastery to succour the endangered truth. Being asked by the offended emperor, what he did out of his cell 'I ' I did keep it,' saith he, ' so long as Christ's sheep were in peace; I cannot be cooped up and suffer them in hazard of ruin. If being a virgin, I were confined by my father to a closet, yet seeing the house on fire, I were bound to come forth to quench it.'

Thus it is when the affairs of the church call us forth ; but our own may not find us so ready. They are wretched stars that will be fixed in no orb, admit of no certain charge : nay, not stars, but mere meteors, exhalations, ignes fatid; comets portending delusion to others, confusion to themselves; unstable lights, ' carried about with every wind of doctrine;' ' wandering stars,' as Jude saith, ' for whom is reserved,' not this shining in glory, but ' the black darkness for ever,' Jude 13. They were such stars that the red dragon with his tail swept from heaven and cast down to the earth, that had no true location in the orb of the church; stellce erraticce, following their own fantasies. Let us beware of such wanderings, lest it be said of us, as the poet of that star, Etsi non cecidit, poterit cecidisse videri, —Though we have not fallen away, yet we have seemed so. Let no storms blow us from our charges ; menaces, miseries, gusts, waves, shall beat upon us, yet si fractus illahatuv o)bis, impavidum ferient ruince, —let us stick close and fast to our spheres : when God's general afflictions of plague, famine, mortality, are most frequent, our counsels are most seasonable. Oh, when will the iron hearts of men bow, if not when they are heat in the flames of judgments 1 They are wretched stars, then, and incapable of this glory, that are subito appa-rentes, subito disparentes, labantes et lahentes, —suddenly up and suddenly down; giving a glimmering, but no solid and certain light. Let no such stars shine in our firmament.

2. In subs'/ance. Stella est solida et pellucida viateries, non vetmtate, non puh-edine corrumpenda, non casu tdlo dissipanda, —A star is a more solid part of his orb, every way round, light, simple, and most pure. A minister must for substance be a star, possess a star-like and substantial light, not a flash of lightning, but a continual lamp of learning, which, like the fire of the sanctuary, must never go out. ' You are the light of the world,' saith our Master; 'but if the light be darkness, how great is that darkness?' Light, as well as place in the firmament, is essential to a star; and learnhig, as well as office, is requisite for a minister. They that handle the two-edged sword of the Spirit must have skill when to strike with it, when but to shake it, and when to sheathe it. An unlearned scribe, without his treasure of old and new, is unfit to interpret God's oracles. ' The priests' lips shall preserve knowledge,' Mai. ii. 7, is no less a precept to the minister than a promise to the people. We are unfit to be seers, if we cannot distinguish between Hagar and Sarah, but Ixion-like, take a cloud for Juno. We are poor stars, if light enough comes not from us whereby to distuiguish of colours, to discern the manna of Israel from the enchanted cup of Babel. A minister without learning is like a mere cipher, which fills up a place, and increaseth the number, but signifies nothing. There have been some niggardly affected to learning, calling it man's wisdom ; they thrust out the use of arts, as if, •mih Julian, they would shut up the school doors, and send all human knowledge into Vjanishment. If the moral says of a poet, or a philosopher, or ])erhaps some golden sentence of a father drop from us, it is straight called venenata

facundia, a poisoned eloquence; as if all these were not the spoils of the Gentiles, and mere handmaids unto divinity. They wrong us; we make not the i)ulpit a philosophy, logic, poetry-school; but all these so many stairs to the jiulpit. Parnassus waits on Zion, Helicon on the fountain of grace. Secular learning hath use, if it be washed in tlie soap of the prophets. Will you have it ? The fox dispraiseth the gra[)es he cannot reach. If they could beat down learning, they might escape censure for their own ignorance. For shame ; let none that have borne a book dispraise learning; she hath enemies enough abroad, though she be justified of her cliildren at home. Let Barbary disgrace arts, not Athens.

The Papists brag nmch of tlieir scholarship, though indeed all the salt of their learning cannot keep their doctrines from stinking. I should hardly be held an impartial judge, if I should censure them ; therefore I will be silent. Yet in one thing I cannot but commend them. They have one kind of learning beyond ours, and it consists in arguing ; their disputing is strong, victorious, and fall of desperate valour. That argument of his was but hereby : ' God rules the church triumphant in heaven; therefore the Pope rules the church militant on earth ;' and so as once divlsum impei-inm cum Jove C(emr habd, —Ca\sar is half with Jupiter,—the Pope is joined purchaser with Christ; but he will be sole possessor. This was but reasonably audacious, that holds from heaven to earth, from God to the Pope. They dispute with us yet stronglier; by a demonstrative argument, quod ex veris primis sed 710/1 necessariis secundis consistit, —which consists of true principles, but not of necessary consequences ; a syllogism in Barbara, a very barbarous one. I will shew you how, as the JeNvs reasoned with Stephen :—

Every blasphemer deserves to be stoned : But Stephen is a blasphemer : ergo, Stephen deserves to be stoned.

Stephen grants the proposition that a blasphemer is worthy to be stoned ; but denies the assumption, and says, I am no blasidicmer, therefore not to be stoned. They prove it, take up stones, and knock him on the head—an invincible argument. So the Papists with us :—

All heretics deserve to be burned : All the Protestants are heretics : ergo, All the Protestants deserve to be burned.

We stand not much upon the major, but resolutely and truly deny the minor, and say. We are no heretics, therefore deserve not to be burned. They prove it; tie us to strong stakes, lay ( 11 wood, put to fire, and burn us to ashes—an unanswerable syllogism. Yet we have answered it, and overcome it, et fortiores ignibus fadi sunt, —our martyrs were stronger iji faith than the fire in heat; and though, Lord, 'for thy sake we wtv killed all the day long, and counted as sheep for the .slaughter; yet hi all these things we were more than conquerors, through him that loved us,' Rom. viii. 36, 37. But otherwise for the substiuitial light of learning, our stars sh;dl compare with the stars of Rome ; yet, oh that there was no fault in us of ihis nature, worthy to be censured, deplored ! Take the district eye of a true-judging God, xai rrfog raZra. ri', ixcuc;! and 'who is sufficient for tliese things?' 2 Cor. il 16. All our learning, dexterity, sincerity, diligence, comes short of the required perfection. Let us treasure up what we can, and produce it to the edification of others. Do we think it enough to have learning, and not to shine in this dark world ? They are strangp .stars that will give no

light: if not here, then not hereafter. They are deep wells from which can be drawn no water, 2 Pet. ii. 17. 'Woe unto me, if I preach not the gospel!' If thou be called, and endued with answerable gifts, and wilt bury thy talent, Luke xix. 22, I need not tell thee the danger. I cannot say. Ex ore tuo, Out of thine own mouth, fjr thou sayest nothing; but, Ux silentio tuo, By thy silence, because thou sayest nothing, God will judge thee. If it may be said of him that would and cannot preach, He is a dumb dog, it may as fitly and justly be said of him that can and will not preach, that he is a dumb devil. It is not enough to wear a decent surplice, ifec, (though some out of their curiosity think that too much,) when the people's souls are starved for the bread of heaven. There be good injunctions for the comely ceremonies of the church, to preserve us in peace, in unity; so also good orders for weekly sermons : hcecfecisse, ilia non omisisse justum est. 'These ought you to have done, and not to leave the former undone,' Luke xi. 42. Let not the first be true canons, whiles the latter are only pot-guns.

A double beam, then, you must expect from your stars, your ministers— preaching and praising God, the means and the end; both, I say, not one only. Some of you are all for prayers, and care for no preaching ; some all for preaching, and care for no praying; if there be no sermon, they will sit still, and serve God at home, as if he had promised his presence to the chimney corner sooner than to the temple. Indeed saith St Paul, ' Despise not prophesying,' 1 Thess. v. 20; but, for aught I see, he allows nowhere the vilipending of public prayers, but rather seems to intimate, 'Magnify praising God,' for he prefixeth, if not preferreth, ' Pray continually,' and,' In all things give thanks,' &c., ver. 17, 18, adding under them, and 'Despise not prophesying.' I speak it not to vilify preaching, so principally a necessary means for our salvation ; ' I would ye did all prophesy,' was the speech of Moses, Num. xi. 29, and Paul. Neither would I hearten the common disestimation and contempt of public prayers : both are necessary; yet is the last best, if I be not deceived, so far as the end transcends the means. Your health is more precious than the physic that recovers you, though it come as far as the East. All our preaching labours and aims at this, to beget in you a knowledge and a conscience how to serve and praise God. Preaching is the work of our way; praising God, of our country : in heaven there shall be no sermons, but even then hosannahs and hallelujahs. We shall spend the time, nay, that eternity, in praising our Creator, and Saviour, and Sanctifier, when there shall be none to preach to us. Love then preaching, and do not despise praying; both are the lightful and delightful beams that come from your stars, your ministers.

3. In situation, the stars are placed in their orb, and thereof being circularly and regularljf carried, do finish their course in a determinate space of time. Philosophy saith, that the sun doth partly enlighten the stars of heaven. But divinity saith, the Sun of righteousness, Mai. iv., doth whoUy enlighten his stars of the church. The stars are placed high, the more com-modiously to shine to us. God hath put ministers in an eminent place, that their light might be more perspicuous. Candles once accensed, are not to be thrust into abstruse corners. If then Paul requires it of others, then much more of us that are stars, ' to have our conversation in heaven,' Phil. iii. 20. It is not required of the firmament to shine so bright as the stars: more holiness is expected of us than in the ordinary station of a Christian; whiles other men's places are less notable, their vices are less notorious; we nm not in a common line, Init are set forth as copies of sanctification ; every blot in us is so nmch more dangerous, as it is more observable; every learner is

apt to tax ills precedent, if faulty; Le hath need to be circumspect that saith to others, ' Be ye followers of me, and look on them that walk so as you have us for an cnsample,' Phil. iii. 17. We have all infinnitios, if not enormities; and let St Paul himself refer you to the most ab.solutc pattern, and reserve to your imitation certain limits: ' Follow me, as I follow Jesus Christ.' We must follow thee, O Saviour, and strive to be ' holy as thou art holy.*

This is our seat, in heaven ; and we should be like the stars, if it were possible—free from elementary cormptions. To speak by rote of repentance, faith, new birth, is seldom profitable, when no such thing is felt in our own bosoms or manifested in our lives. We, rather, trust our health into those physicians' hands whose drugs have recovered themselves. If thou hast an angel's tongue, and a devil's heart, thou art no better than a post in the cross-way, that rots itself to direct others; or a torch that, having pleasured others with the light, goes forth itself in smoke and stench. To speak weU and do ill, is to build up heaven with the voice, hell with the conversation : Sic dicamus, ut quce fuerunt verba, sint opera, —Let us so speak that those which have been our words may be our deeds. Indeed, it should be thus : Si bene dixerimiis, vestrum est, —If we have said well, it is your good; Si bene vixerimus, nostrum est, —If we have done well, it is our own good. And for ministers' words, dicunt, qua; Dei smit, —they speak that which is God's : for their lives, faciunt qxice sua sunt, —they do that which is their own; but our persons are in their sight, when our words are gone from their ears; and withal—

' Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures, Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus;'—*

There is a quicker perspicuity in the eyes, and a better retention of the received object, than in the ears. The thunder first breaks the cloud, and lets forth the lightning ; yet is the latter seen before the former is heard. Hence it is that examples teach soonest: Longum iter per verba, breve et compendio-sum 2>er exempla,f —It is a long way by precepts, a short by examples. The force of a hundred good sermons is lost by one enormity; so easy is it to weave Penelope's web. Let us, then, have some respect to our life as our doctrine. The credit is a thing next tender to the conscience, qua semel amissa, postea nullus eris, which once shipwrecked, thou art undone. It is a great difficulty to play an after-game of reputation. It was an excellent exhortation of Paul, 2 Tim. iv. 5, and implied no small difficulty to Timo-theus, 'Cause thy ministry to be throughly liked of;' adorn it with a pure and holy conversation. His charge was no less to Titus, chap. ii. 15, 'See that no man despise thee.' Say they did; can Titus helj) that '] Paul's meaning is. Give just cause to no man to despise thee. Let them, then, murmur till their tongues are hoarse with contumelies, so long as thou canst applaud thyself in the conscience of thy wcU-deservings, and .say with that persecuted, maligned, reviled, yet holy Psalmist, ' 0 Lord, thou knowest mine innocence.' Calumnies against the minister arc facile, frequent. If austere with John Baptist, they arc censured precise; if sociable as Christ, dis.solute. Our merriment is thought madness, when others' miulness is but merriment. It is guiltiness enough to us to be but ill reported : they will believe a scandal raised against us .sooner than against a ruffian ; and what they dream is so, no arguments shall evade it. Men are glad of colour to despise us; and great ones, at once to save their credits and their purses, pick quarrels with their minister. When all tricks fail to shake off him that hath earned thy love and boimty, this shall do it . accuse him to be • Horat. t Senea

tliine enemy, and so excuse thyself from being his friend. It is hard if the eye of malice cannot spy a mote in a black coat; or at least, say it is a mote, though it be but a white one, a work of honest simplicity. I fear I am too plain with the times, that are so subtle with us. I comfort myself and ail my partners in this common misery, Male de me dicunt,sed malt, —They speak evil of me, but they are evil men, and would speak better of me if I were worse. It hurts not to have no grace of them that have no grace. Let us proceed in the integrity of our conscience, that ' when they speak evil of us, as of evil-doers, they may' in the end ' be ashamed which slander our good conversation in Christ,' 1 Pet. iii. 16. Let us live well, the success to God ; a good word hath the time when to be sjjoken. There is a season to benefit, and a season to hurt by our speech; therefore it is preposterous in men to be consonants when th^y should be mutes, and mutes when they should be consonants. But a good life is never out of season. A high place, and a low and base life, have no analogy or correspondence. Our seat is in heaven like stars ; let not our conversation be on earth like beasts. Other men's inditferences are our rank evils; that which is scarce worth notice in others, in us is censured, taxed, condemned.—Tliis for the site.

4. The motion is fourfold—circular, incessant, swift, orderly.

(1.) Circular. The stars move roundly, according to their orbs. Our motion, that are ministers, is not unhke : a Deo ca^pimns, in Deo claudimus, —we begin from God, in God we end; Jehovah called us, and we strive to bring souls to him. As we are pastors, we must compass about our flocks, as watchmen surround the city, to fortify the breach : ' Satan compasseth the earth,' by his own testimon}', Job i. ' The roarmg lion goeth about,' by the description of Peter, ' watching whom to dovour,' 1 Pet. v. 8. Let our diligence match his, with a saving intent, that the tempted may have our antidotes, the doubtful our counsels, the erring our convictions, and the languishing our encouragements.

(2.) Incessant. Oar motion is without intermission; for the adversary never gives truce, or admits conditions of peace, without his sensible advantage. Therefore our calling allows us no time to sit still and sing requiems to our souls under our fig-trees of peace. A soldier should die in the wars standing, and a minister in the pulpit preaching. It was the Lord of the vineyard's reproof, ''Why stand ye here all the day idle?' It is not per-nutted to us to stand stiU. What! and all your day, and idle too ? Paul's example was other, and that excellent: ' I cease not to admonish every one night and day with tears,' Acts xx. 31. 'I ceased not,' ecce laborem, behold his labour; ' to admonish,' ecce ojicium, behold his duty ; ' every one,' ecce amorem, behold his love; ' night and day,' ecce vigilantiam, behold his watchfulness ; ' with tears,' ecce convpassionein, behold his pity.

(3.) Swift and speedy. Nescit tarda molimina Spiritus, —The Holy Ghost cannot abide delays. We may give warning too late, when the enemy hath sur^jrised the city. It was the master of the feast's charge, Luke xiv. 21, 'Go out quickly into the streets and lanes,' Ac. The angels are said to have wings for their speedier expedition of God's bests; and ' cursed is he that doth God's business negligently,' says the prophet. Indeed we may run too fast when God sends us not. Jonah made preposterous haste Avhen he took Tarshish for Nineveh; and they run curvo pede, with a swift, perhaps, but with no straight foot, that are in Moses's chair ere they be aware, and wonder too late how they came thither. I cannot call this motion speedy, but hasty ; and nruch haste is seldom encountered with good success. The stars move swiftly, but not madly. They that fly into the ministry without

viugs, run without leg3,—I mean, without knowledge,—move short of their own benefit, of others' expectation. The ck)uds pour down no rain till they have first sucked it up. Fra/mipera praxis, jira'jiostera lectio, —To practise first, study afterwards, is an ill habit in action, and no good figure in rhetoric. They that will so run that they may attain, have neither too many feet, nor too few. If they abound, as the monsters the sons of Anak, that had six toes on a foot, impediuntur necessariis aiixiliis, —their necessary helps are their hindrances. If they be defective, they can but limp. Tiicrcfore, in our motion, let zeal further discretion, that not too slow; discretion moderate zeal, that not too fast : but having thy commission, and being i)laced by God in thy orb, be not uuwillhig to move. Practice is like a wheel, the more it is turned, the better it goes.

(■i.) Orderly. We must keep, as the stars do, our known and equal distance : it is not to thy praise to run into other orbs, desiring there osiendere, nay, ostentare Incem tuam, —to shew, yea, to boast thy light, with a proud conceit, to darken the star which God hath there placed. Such an emulation is odious ; and thou mayest flash out, like a meteor, for a time, but at last God will ask thee, ' \Yho sent thee thither 1' Let every star be loved of his o-rni orb, though ' one star differs from another star in glory,' 1 Cor. xv. Nothing better becomes us than order; for our God is the God of order, and our ministry is called by the name of orders. Contention disables us, and enervates our ministry. So long as the water is stirred, the fisher can catch no fish. Love is the master-vein of the soul, and peace knits the joints, Eph. iv. 12. Are we called to put the luxate members of the body tif Christ into their places, and shall ourselves be disjointed ? Our peace is the milk of our land ; let not our strife, like rennet, turn it to curd. When tlie people were together by the cars, a fellow, as thick as long, got up into the theatre, and advancing himself, they began all to laugh. Go to, quoth he, laugh and spare not; I have a wife at home rounder than myself; (at this they laughed louder;) yet when we agree, one bed can hold us; when we are at variance, the whole house is too little for us. You can ap[)ly it.

5. The last circumstance of our sunilitude to the stars consists in the effects. These are three : injliiendi, illuminandi, ornatti deledandi, —our influence, our light, our delight.

First, Influence. Philosophy teacheth us, that the stars in elements, and elemental bodies, do stir up the first qualities, hot, cold, moist, and dry ; and cause other efl'ccts, serving to the inclination of man. Surely as we are stars, all the influence we can derive to men of ourselves is to incline them by our charity. This is no weak persuasion, but one of those three feedings' that at least they expect. If they find not hospitality the porter at our gates, they straight censure us for dark stars. Many of our people liked I'opery well, for nothing else but because they were fatted with the superfluities that fell from their libertine feasts. Now these that measure religion by their bellies will be tempted witli handfuls of barley and morsels of bread to speak well of us. As the Jews once in the prophet, so the.se cry now% ' When we served the queen of heaven, and might pray to our lady, we had bread enough. Now they have i)leaded so hard for faith, they have forgotten charity.' They say, we set faith at our own tables, but thrust charity out to dine with our servants. These are the scandalous clamours of their invincible ignorance, who, tus many of the Jews did Christ, follow the gosjjcl only for their bellies; they consider not in whose liands abbeys, and monasteries, and the best parsonages are. He was a friend to us that told the beggar, beating hard at the vicar's door for relief, that he knocked at the

wrong door : Here dwells, quoth he, the spawn, but yonder the pickerel. The Pope and his heirs * have got all; we have not the tenth of the tenth, the very interest left; yet they claim as much of us as of them that have the principal. Well, our reward is in heaven; let us give them what influence we can, and having fed their souls, spare also some relief to their bodies.

Secnndly, Light. This the second effect, to enlighten them ; the substance and nature of a star hath already taught us this duty; I will sparingly urge it. We illuminate them by speech, by conversation. Our doctrine is the light; life, the lantern. If we carry the light without the lantern, the .wind of malice will strive to blow it out. He went not far from this allegory that prescribed a minister's duty, Tonare voce, fulminare vita,f —Our words, thunder ; our lives, lightning. If we be ligttful in preaching, darksome in living, we do, as it were, propound our doctrines as impossible to be kept. If we have knowing minds, and dissolute affections, it may be said of us, as of that stigmatic Eoman emperor, Galba, who was both deformed and witty, that a good instrument is put in an evil case. If we hve within compass, and say nothing, we have an orb and seem stars, but are none; for God, sure, never placed stars in the firmament that give no light. Whether they be idle, or unable, like vEsop's hen, too fat to lay, they are but a burden to our orb, a disgrace to our church. Only do thou take heed (thy star not shining so bright as others) lest thy clouds darken it. The people's sins are not seldom the cause of the prophet's darkness ; to himself be his own negligence, ' He stands or falls to his own master.' Perhaps there is yet more in it than so; God hath his special work in all events. It may be, in thy minister's insufficiency thy sin is plagued, and God strikes thee through him. This is no light, though insensible, stroke : thou hast slighted his sacred and majestical word; behold, as to a swine unworthy of this pearl, he denies, Avithholds it. ' The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity,' Hos. ix. 7. Go, then, and bewail thy sins, and yviiy that ' the door of utterance may be opened to him,' Col. iv. 3, lest whiles he shines not, thou perish in darkness.

Tliirdly, Delight. The stars are the grace of the sky; so are ministers of the church, when they all move in peace and unity, orcline quisque sua, — every one in his own order. We often see the stars; their contemplation, their benefit is never tedious : no more is the society of ministers, to them that desire to read in those books, the constellations of heaven, the mysteries of salvation, and to know how to govern their souls and their bodies. God gave man an upright countenance, directing his mind together with his looks to the stars ; erectos ad sidera tollere vidtus. Look on them which walk like us, saith St Paul, Phil. iii. 17; not as some star-gazers, that stare on us only to entrap us : to whom we reply, as Diogenes did to him that so subtlely disputed of the stars : ' How long is it since you came down from heaven ?' Let them beware a success like Thales, who gazed so long at the stars above him, that he fell into the ditch below him. If, then, you look on us, keep the cripple's intent at the Beautiful gate of the temple : Acts iii. 5, G, ' Give heed to us, trusting to receive something of us ;' and then, ' Though silver and gold we have none, yet what we have we give you : In the name, and by tlie virtue of Jesus Clirist of Nazareth,' better things are derived from us. Fables and toys content us with a transient glance—

' Videtur Fabula, quae posci vult, et spectata reponi,'—

For so are impropriators. t Greg. Naz.

A fiible requires no more but to be seen and then thrown by. But here rion sutiatur oculus vim, —the eyes are not satisfied with seeing : such joy is the minister to the good man's soul, that he could be content to have him ever in his sight.

You have heard how we are called stars ; I would direct the application of this to three sorts of people—patrons, laity, ministers.

1. To speak much of patrons you will hold it frivolous : they hear not, being absent; neither would they believe, being present. But let not sin be balked, though it be not by to answer for itself, ^lany of them care not whom they present, if his purse can speak learnedly, though his tongue ignorantly. Ignorance, superstition, and simony, were once jtroper to the Romish see; I know not what unfortunate wind hath blown the last into our land, and defi.led the pure professors of reformation. But you will say, there is no simony wherein the minister is not one party. It is too true ; woe to us the whUe ! I mean not only the woe of misery, fatally forced on us by these evil days; but the woe of judgment, which we voluntarily call on us by this wickedness. I will not speak to excuse us a toto, sed a tanto: durum telum, necessitas. You that are the donors have the things consecrated to piety and faith committed to you upon trust, and you have sworn it a law in your bosoms, which you more strictly observe than the law of your !Maker, that we shall buy them at your hands or go without them. Chri.st threw out of the temple, not oiUy the buyers, but—let me say rather —the sellers : and though the law of the land makes you not pares poena, equal with us in the punishment, yet the law of heaven shall find you pares culpa, in equal fault. I think I might boldly say, under correction, you are in greater damnation ; as it had Ix'cn more heinous in St Peter to exact money of Magus than in Magus to offer it. The reason is impregnable : you sin through a voluntary covetousness, we through extreme necessity ; being constrained either to beg with our families, or study evasions for so strict and religious a law. If we therefore be condemned as simonists, your easiest censure is to be esteemed infidels.

Methinks I hear them reply. There is enough left to satisfy all, if there might be an equal division; but some have all, some nothing. To whom I Avill but report the answer of a grave divine ; ' Thus their fathers have played the thieves, and they come to compound the matter.' If we speak of this, we are censured for covetous, but how lewdly? Is this covetise, to desire our own 1 I say not the church's superfluities, which they called once bona pauperum, the goods of the poor; but even the church's necessaries, which are bona Christi, the goods of Christ; which now laid possident, profane men enjoy: for gentlemen have cut out their gallant suits out of the church's broadcloth, and left the church herself nothing but mere shreds. Shall I say, Who have more done it than they that stand so for the beauty of the church ? None more deface it than they that most pretend to adorn and polish it. Let them und(^ two or three ministers by their impropriations, and they will reward one (of their own humour) with the plasters of their bounty. Such corrupted patrons are of Dion}sius's mind, that robbed his god of his golden coat, as more fit for himself They say, Nero and Agrippa came into the world with their feet forward ; and what monsters proved they 1 Sure, never worse to the con)monwealth of Bouic than simoniacal patrons to the church of England. Well, if bribery, fraud, simony, will not carry them to hell, let them hope still to be .saved ; but (I would they heard me !) if they be saved so living, and so dying, there is hope for the devil to be saved. It is granted sin, but they may repent: true, but did ever man repent that, having time and means, could and would not restore ? Let them restore their ex-

torted money they have cruelly gotten by simoniacal contracts, to the poor minister, or if he be dead, to his wife and children; or I will sooner believe that Judas repented. Judas restored, yet repented not truly ; and shall they repent truly that restore not 1 Let them brag of their gains, that have thus cozened God, the church, their own souls. If ever they come with simony on their backs into heaven, I may be of the Indian's mind, who dying under the Spanish cruelty, and admonished to prepare for heaven and to escape hell, asked to what place the Spaniards went. They answered, to heaven. Then, quoth the Indian, let me never come there. For surely simonists and honest men do not belong to one house. There are three Fs in a line of relation— patrons, priests, people. Two of these Fs are made lean to make one P fat. Priests have lean livings, people lean souls, to make patrons have fat purses. I accuse not all in general, no one in particular, namque mihi nee equos, mihi nee rapuere juvencos; but'for Zion's sake I cannot hold my peace,' Isa. Ixii. 1, which is so sick of this disease, that she lies at the mercy of God for recovery.

2. Let me speak yet more particularly to you, over whom God hath placed a minister as a star, ' despise him not' at your peril; yoli despise God himself, and shall not go scot-free : on your souls be it, that hear me this day, whose table-talk is furnished up with jests, with invectives against ministers. Whatsoever thou art, God hath honoured the poorest minister above thee, and taken him as worthy to serve at his own table, but not thee, nor thy father s house. Were his head gold, his treasure richer than Hezekiah's, and every room in his house better furnished than Solomon's, he may stand in need of the minister : as great a potentate as Pharaoh was, and as despicable as he thought Moses, yet his courtiers often heard him, ' Send for Moses :' so was Themistoclcs ever banished in peace, but sent for home in war. We are passed over in the days of pride, as superfluous creatures of whom no use; but when the wrath of God falls on the naked conscience, then the minister is thought on; and the soul receives some comfort, whiles he feels the sick-beating pulse, or leans on the groaning pillow, speaking from us to heaven the humble devotions of a penitent heart, and from heaven to us the comfortable things of Zion, and the never-failing mercies of a tender Saviour. Thus, like some fruit-trees, in fair weather you throw cudgels at us; in foul, run to us for shelter.

I will not speak affirmatively to you, in these rotted days of ours, wherein nothing but privations are in force and frequent. Despise not, afflict not, impoverish not your stars ; I will not say magnify, bless, enrich them, because I cannot hope it : yet, oh, for shame, do not their contraries !

First, Despise not. Why should I entreat this 1 We might imitate the fashion, spernere se sperni, —scorn them that scom us; but I persuade you for your own sakes, since it is not possible you should honour the message of God, and despise him that God hath chosen to bring it. We shaU be your good ministers till unpleasing things drop from us, and then farewell good conceit; as Tcrtullian spake merrily of the heathen : ' Unless God please man, he shall be God no longer. Now man must be propitious to God.'* Ilc])roofs are good physic, though not so well relished. Indulgence is sweet, and you may think it better cheer; but you will not be well after it. In these misjudging days, it is exceeding hard to overreach the devil: if we let sin alone, his kingdom flourisheth; if we strike at him, and hit not the bough he sits on, we move him not; if we do, we are judged partial, per-

* * Nisi hoinini Deus placucrit, Deus non erit: homo jam Deo propitius esse deberet,' —TcrU

sonal, and wrcakors of our own spleen. There is scarce a man that can read English, scarce a woman that can make herself ready to church, but will presume to teach the minister; and either we must preach what you will hear, or you will not hear what we preach. In Heliogabalus'.s time, there was a senate of women : we have also such convocations; they consulted about tires, ours about religion. Let us take heed, it is one of the devil's subtlest and shrewdest tricks, to make us so zeaJ.ous in religion that we grow wanton ; and this sin is so much the'more dangerous, as it endures not the re[)roving. Thus if a holy impatience arm the minister's tongue to speak too smart against your sins, he is straight said to rage : so Shemaiah said of Jeremiah, Jehu of Elisha, the Jews of Christ, and the GentUes of Paul. Of those that never will be sober, we are called bedlams. But St Augustine well clears this, under the person of David, Insanire videbatur, sed regi Achis insanire videbatur, id est, stultis et ignorantibtts, —David seemed mad, but he seemed so to King Achish. We are called madmen, but of none save madmen. Their common exceptions against us, and contempts of us, are these four :— (1.) They say, we are men ; why doth not God send by worthier messengers, as by angels ? They had best teach him : ' Send by whom thou shouldest send,' Exod. iv. 13, (2.) They say, we are simple men: as the apostles were fishermen, and ^Vmos a herdman. Gallants scorn that a clown should teach them their duties. They call us idiots, iunocents, ax«jco/. The word signifies such as do no hurt, but taken for fools, that do neither good nor harm. (3.) They say, we die like men; we can neither keep ourselves from sin, nor our bodies from death. (4.) They say, all we say is but words. So Gallio called the gospel ' a question of words,' Acts xviii. 15. I answer—

(1.) Men indeed;—but men of God : so were the prophets received and called; and, ' Let a man so think of us as of the ministers of Christ,' 1 Cor. iv. L We are intelligent creatures by nature, but of divine understanding by grace : ' The things which no eye hath seen,' &:c., ' hath God's Spirit revealed to us,' 1 Cor. ii. 10. ' Surely the Lord will do nothing, but he re-vealeth his secrets to his servants the prophets,' Amos iii. 7. Thou braggest thou hast two eyes as well as thy minister : thou hast indeed—one eye of nature, and that is nequam, a wicked one; another of reason, and that is necquicquam, a blind one ; the one naught, the other naughty ; and standest in need of the minister's eye to guide thee. Thou demandest a wortliier messenger; but when God spake to Israel in thunder, when by angels, they cried, ' Oh, let man speak to us, lest we perish.' If an angel or a man say, ' Christ is born,' it is not more true in the angel than in the man.

(2.) Simple men;—yet is the word powerful. The Jews thought they knew Christ and his breeding: ' Is not this the carpenter's son ?' Yet, ' he taught as one having authority, not as the verbal scribes,' Matt. vii. 29. You think it shame enough, and extreme disgrace against us, to say you know our beginnings : yet is God able to tuni the proudest of you, by the simplest of us ; or if not convert, as the savour of life, yet convince, as the savour of death, and make your vuUimus to that common jailor, ' deliver your incorrigible souls to Satan,' 1 Cor, v. 5 ; for whom we ' bind on earth are bound in heaven.'

(3.) We die like men;—but our words live. The prophets told the Jews, that they should go into Babylon ciiptivcs : ' Tlie high places of Isajic sh;dl be desolate, and the temples of Israel destroyed,' ic, Amos vii. 9. Behold, the prophets die, but their words live. ' Judah is carried away captive, she dwcllcth among the heathen,' Lam. i. 3. And ' by tlie rivers of Babel, they sit and weep when they remember Zion,' I's. cxxxvii. 1. So we de-VOL. L 2 r;

nounce the jiulgmcnts of God .against the obstinate, and tell the usurer, maugre his pile of bonds, heap of pawns, bags of coin, mortgages of lands, that his seed shall inherit the wind, and his hoards are no other than the gathering of the clouds, which once full, promise the dispersion of the greater showers. Behold, we arc laid low in our graves, yet our sayings have their timely proofs, the seed of the covetous come to ruin. Behold the riotous heir, sick and diseased through his intemperance, his intemperance bred of the fulness of his state, his full estate begot by his father's parsimony, miserableness, nay, perhaps, injustice. Behold (I say) this man glad of a room in the hospital for necessity, which his father built of his superfluity. Thus the word we preach passeth not, but is more immortal than the heaven.

(4.) All we say is but words, mere talk;—so you may contemn all the works of God, and say it was but talk that made the world ; for, ' by hia word he made it,' John i. 1. This is a common slander when the hellhound (the covetous wretch) pincheth on the priest's side : ' No matter, let him talk for his Hving.' Yes, and have none. The time may come, if they call it talking, they may talk for mercy too, and have none. If they call God's speaking to them talking, what is their speaking to God ? There is difference betwixt spealdng, talking, and saying : speaking comes by nature, talking by custom, saying by art. Children speak, fools talk, learned meii say. All that have the organs of voice can speak and talk, but not say. Solius est oratoris dicere, vulgi loqui. TuUy could affirm it, that an orator only says; the common people talk.* Our preaching is not then talking, but saying, a sententious and deliberate speech, uttered to purpose, composed by study and the direction of God's Holy Spirit, who with our words worketh deeds, shutting where we shut, and opening where we have opened.

Secondly, Aiflict not. Is this possible % Can lambs be among wolves, and not be bitten % Ecce niitio vos, tire,—' Behold, I send you as lambs among wolves :' he said so, that foreknew our usage. Amara est Veritas, et qui earn prcedicat repletur amaritudine, —Bitter is the truth, and he that preaclieth it shall be filled with bitterness. The cause of the world's hatred of Christ, John vii. 7, is ort kych /xa^Tuou, ' because I witness against it that the works thereof are evil' It is written of the Christians in the life of Nero, that they preserved the state; yet dogs must devour them : they made Aurelius's army to prosper, and by their prayers obtained thunder to desti-oy the enemies ; yet Christianos ad leones, —Throw the Christians to the lions. It hath ever been the poesy of the church, facere honum, et habere malum, —to do good, and to suffer evil. So Christ himself sped : he healed, and was hurt; he pitied, and was mocked; he saved others, himself was killed. The colour of our livery on earth is either black, mourning; or red, persecuted. The arms of the church is the cross, and her perpetual song in her militant state, like that 0})presscd servant's,t (dX'/i3o/Mai, ':^Xi:3o/Mai, ' I suffer, I suffer.' This is Christ's dish, and the apostles' sauce. Behold, O minister, the strait thou art in ; neither wonder, nor weep, nor faint: this thou mightest have prevented, by keeping out; it cannot be avoided, now thou art in. If we do our duty, the world AviU hate; if not, God will curse us : by the first we are in danger to lose our goods, good names, lives; by the second, our souls, our heaven, our God,

' At pretium pars hsoc corpore majus habct.'

Our worldly losses may be dear to us, yet dross, and trash, and rubbish, in

* Cicer. Orat.:—' Satis loqueutiic, eloquentia; parum.' f Ai'istoi)h.

regard of God and bliss. Woe unto us that suffer; more woe to you tliat make us.

Thirdly, Impoveiish not. I do not say, make us rich by your own poverty, as your progenitors did by our predecessors; but at least give us our own. The old Pharisee was an honest man in this, for he thought it a true position, Decii/ut ut dives Jias, —Tithe, and be rich : but we think, titlie, and be poor. And to ' communicate with our teacher in all our goods,' is not Scripture, though Paul himself speak it, Gal. \'i. G. Competency will serve; they are wiser than God. Their competencies have brought us to im-potencies. A stool, a cruise, and a candlestick, and a small room, are superabundance for a priest. We need not, with that order of the Popish priests, puU on ourselves a voluntary beggary, for gentlemen (we thank them for it) have enforced us to it ou necessity. I wiU not dispute whether tithes be due to us Jure divino, by the law of God; or whether the withholders como witliin the compass of that curse, ' Ye arc cursed with a curse, because ye have spoiled me in tithes and offerings,' Mai. iii. 8, 9 ; since the law present allows no power to sue such, on an action of detiny. To omit that 'Mel-chizedek had tithes, and that of Abraham ; and even by the law of nature, besides the Levitical of the Jews, which they say is abrogated, that would say no less of the moral law of God, for an advantage : yet Paul's h 'za<ji* ayctdoTg, ' in aU his goods,' Gal. vi. 6, must needs evince, that the minister must have some share in his people's substance. If any, why not that portion which in all ages and churches hath been given them 1 If they be consecrated to Jesus Christ, I say not by bUnded superstition, but by true and warrantable devotion, before the Pope ever put out his apparent horns, who dares rob our 8a-\-iour of them, that never passed fine of his royal prerogative to any purchaser I If they were his, whose are they ? Let them prove he hath assigned them to gentlemen, and I wiU clear them from that menace of Solomon, Prov. xx. 25, ' It is a destruction to devour holy things,' &c. Ministers were once held angels; now, unless they do bring angels in their piurses, ibis Homere foras ; for all their music they are shut out of doors. They say, the Italian ducats make their priests duces, princes, captains, brave fellows. The Spanish 2)istolets make their priests terrors to be feared, the word signifying tormenti [jenus, a kind of torment; witness the Inquisition. The French crowns crown their priests with wealth and dignity ; but ange-loi-UTti Anglicorum, the want of English angels leaves our ministry m the dust. The words of so reverend and honourable a prelate * come here to my mind : ' Time was, religion did eat up policy, and the church devoured the commonwealth ; but now policy eats up religion, and the commonwealth devours the church.' Men are professed politicians : Floreat res/nil/lica, copiis rejh-ta, itc, et quid ad 7ios ?f —Let the commonwealth prosper, and what care we for the church ? If we had no souls, this might be some shadow of equity ; but seeing we have, it is tlie substance of rank impiety.

And let me say, if men would imagine and plot a course to lose the souls that Christ hath bought, they could not find a directer. For if learning beg, study arts that list, will be the general voice : ' If there be none to preach, there will be no believing ; if no believing, no saving,' Rom. x. Never plead your faith in the gospel, whiles you reward it not. Perhaps you can afford desert some bare and naked commendations; but we are not chameleons, to live on the air of commendations. It is certain and invincible truth, not relieve the gospel, not believe the gospel God grant that our corruptions

* Lord Bishop of London, in his lectures on Jonah, t Aug. de Civit. Dei, lib. ii., cap. li.

this way bring not paganism, and fiat atheism in the end! Needs must you lose con et sci, devotion and knowledge, when you take from us entia, our livings. It is a shame that we should cease studying of sermons, and be driven to study for bread to put in our mouths, and the mouths of our families. It was a sin in the old law to destroy matreni cuinMHs, —the old with the young; and can it be less in conscience to pine to death those two fruitful mothers, the Universities, and starve the children in their bosoms ? At which two fountains of learning, before we are suffered to druik, how many miserable and weary a day do we pass over in the inferior schools! Then, not without much pain to ourselves, cost to our parents, we are sent to one of those glorious suns, to ripen our buds ; the exhibition they there allow us, they charge us to take for our patrimony, to expect no further means at their hands. We restrain our thoughts, I say, not only from pleasure, (whereof to have no* small measure is some unhappiness under the sun,) but even from competent experience in the world, who had need be wise as serpents in these Machiavellian days. We subject our bodies to many diseases, and groan out our remaining days under the burden of some wasting sickness; at last, crura thymo i^lena, having stored ourselves Avith the riches of art, we come into our country to exchange them for their riches of earth; and yet how unworthy a thing is it, coelestibus mercari terrena, to buy corporal things with spiritual, and chop heaven for earth 1 After all this, how hardly is anything attained, without paying to the patron, either a fine, or an annual rent, or reservation of his own tithes, or (some way) above the rate of a copyhold, to have a lease during a sickly and spent life ! Were the goods of the church for this entrusted to gentlemen and lords of the manors, that they should set them to sale, and turn the benefits into their ovm purses ? Why were not the donations in the hands of the poor, who have more need ? It is supposed, gentlemen by nurture well instructed can make the fittest choice for God's glory, and for their private gain. Must we then run, per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum, —through so many dangers, and difti-culties, and troubles, and in the end arrive at beggars' haven, a necessary and enforced penury? Oh ! invitatus ad hcec, aliquis de ponte nega.bit,f —a beggar in the highway will in the end scorn to be a minister. There is no vocation in the land (honest in itself, and industriously followed by the professor) wherein a man may not live well, except only in the ministry; and here, like the Jews under the tyranny of Egypt, when we should make briclc, (work in our profession,) we are forced to gather straw, (labour for sustenance.) But in vain we speak ; the sons of Zeruiah will be too hard for us. There is small hope to stanch this bloody issue till Christ touch their hearts by faith. But you will say, many of the clergy are rich. They are few ; if any, one of these four sorts :—(1.) Either enriched by some patrimony, or gift of friends. (2.) Or else such as distil a dry rose-cake for water; I mean by parsimony and miscrableness, get something out of gentlemen's leavings, like the gleaning after the vintage, for others carry away the croj). (3.) Or else such as have lighted on the unruined things of this land, which stood out of the Pope's way, and in that sickness of superstition, scaped the plague of impropriation; benefices which the devil's surgeon, sacrilege, hath not let blood, by custom, composition, enclosing, depopulation. ' Though the grape-gatherers come, would they not leave some grapes ? if thieves come in the night, they will but destroy till they have enough,' Jer. xlix. 9. (4.) Or, lastly, they are those anU'qui heroes, nati melioribus annis, that came to their livings when that good Queen Elizabeth came to her crown; at which time • Qu. sn i —Ed. t Juven.

benefices went a-begging, as ministers do now. As for the rest, that have livings, they are scarce live-ones, or enough tu keep themselves and their families living; and for those that have none, they may make themselves merry with their learumg if they have no money : for they that bought the patronages must needs sell the presentations,— vendere jure ixjtest, emend ille pnm ; and then if Balaam's ass hath but an audible voice, and a sokibie purse, he shall be preferred before his master, were he ten prophets. If tliis weather hold, Julian need not send learning into exile, for no parent will be so irreligious as with great expenses to bring up his child at once to misery and sin. Oh, think of this, if your impudence have left any blood of shame in your faces ; cannot you spare out of all your riot some crumbs of liberality to the poor, needy, and neglected gospel ? Shall the Papists so outbid us, and in the view of their prodigality, laugh our miserableness to scorn ? Shall they twit us, that our Our Father hath taken from the church what their Fateinioster bestowed on it 1 Shall they bid us bate of our faith, and better our charity ? Indeed, where heard you of a Papist that cuts short his minister '? where see you a Protestant that doth not 1 I speak not to commend the religion of the Papist above the others, no more than Christ preferred the reUgion of the Samaritan to the priests and Levites, when he praised his charity; but to apply that to us which Christ once to the Jews, ' Tyre and Sidou shaU condemn you.' So the Papists shall judge us. The Papist comes with Omnia dabo to his priest,—I will give aU; the Protestant with Omnia eripiam, —I will take aw«,y all. Do the Alps bar up ;ill reward from us ? Cannot bounty creep over those frozen threshholds 1 Flere licet, re-parare vetatur.

I may perhaps be censured, to speak so home, in the respect of some particular advantage ; and losers may have leave to speak. I confess, it would be a joyful day to me to see the breaches of Jerusalem made up again ; yet He is my \\itness that doth now search, and shall hereafter judge all hearts, that the present theme, the wants of the church, the poverty of ministers, and the hard hearts of their oppressors, together Tvdth the commiseration of the students yet unborn, that shall feel this burden heavier as the world gi'ows, at once and inseparably more old, more covetous, have been occasions only to induce this speech. For I not without cause fear that, a.s we may say of the church in this our age, Omnia ad ruinam, —AU things are going to ruin \ so our children in the next generation may justly cry with the poet, Etiam periere ruince, —Even the very ruins are ruined. Though I cannot but hope, that so long as our royal and religious Jacob, (whose days God make as the days of heaven !) and his seed shall bear rule in our Judah, he and they will make good that deserved title, and be ' defenders of the faith,' and not give leave and authority to any violence further to forage the church. God also put into his subjects' hearts to love the gospel, and then it shall not decay for want of encouragement and reward. But for the detainers of the poor ministers' right, let them hear their reward: ' Woe to hinx that heapeth up that which is none of his!' You that have taken away the unction, and left us nothing but the alabaster-box, the shreds, the sherds, the scrapings of our own, as happy and rich as you think yourselves, when you have summed up your gains and cast your accounts at the end, if ever you be the richer for that you have stolen from your stars, let me come a-begging to your doors. Judas sold his Master for thirty pence : he might put his gahis in his eye ; his losses stuck by him when his money was gone ; he lost a God, a heaven, a soul, but he threw away his cash. Take heed, lest you cry one day with him, ' We and our extortions are both perished.' Remember you

must give account of your stewardships; a fearful bill of reckoning that many shall put up at that day to God: Item, so many scores of pounds in malice and siuts at law. Itevi, so many hundreds of pounds spent in lusts and vanities. Item, so many thousands in building Eglon's parlours. Item, to the poor in a year, threepence. Item, to the minister, just nothing. Nothing to God; and nothing from God shall be your reward.

3. Let me end with ourselves, and all to comfort: Ploramus nostris non respondere favm'em speratum mentis, —We lament on earth the iU success and worse reward of our labours ; but, sat erit meriikse, it is enough that we have deserved. As dark as the world keeps us and thinks us, ' we shall shine;' and that with no ordinary glory, but ' as the stars;' and this not for a time, but ' for ever and ever.' If I had been in heaven, I would describe this glory to you, * You shall shine.' I would shew you the differences of glory which are here implied: good men shall shine ' as the firmament,' but good ministers 'as the stars.' If I be not deceived, the stars have a brighter glory than the firmament. Lastly, if I had ascended above the wheel of time, where nothing but eternity dwelleth, I would strive to make you conceive the length of your glory, 'for ever and ever;' but hc^c meditcmda potius quam dicenda, —your meditations are better able to conceive these things than my weak tongue to express. And so I cease to speak of that which you shall never cease to enjoy, ending my sermon, not my text, and commending you to the Father of peace ; who, as he hath called us to so troublesome an office for a time, will reward us with glory beyond all time, even for ever and ever. This God grant for his mercies' sake, Jesus Christ for his merits' sake, the Holy Ghost for his name's sake; to whom, with, and from whom, be all glory, honour, and praise, now and for ever! Amen.

THE SOUL'S SICKNESS:

A DISCOUESE-DIVINE, MORAL, AND PHYSICAL.

The Induction. —The sickness of this world is epidemical, and hath with the invisible poison of a general pestilence infected it to the heart. For vice in manners, as heresy in doctrine, distilleth insensible contagion into the fountain of life ; and dum iinum interjicit, centum alloa inficit, in killing one, banes many. Whether ex dcemonis injuria, vel ex Jiominis incuna, from the devil's malice or man's secureness, iniquity is grown from a mist to a mystery, 2 Thess. ii. 7, ignorance to arrogance, nescience to negligence, simple imprudence to politic impudence ; and, I know not how, too much light liatli made men blind. At first they knew not when they sinned, now they would know to justify their sins: they defend that wherein they offend, and buy sickness with as great expense of time, wit, money, as the anguished atheist would health.

Sicknesses in men's souls are bred like diseases in natural, or corruptions in civil bodies; with so insen.sib]e a progress, that they are not discerned till they be almost desperate. As the frantic endures not bonds, nor the lethargical noise; or as it was once said of the Romans, that they could neither endure an ill emperor nor obey, a good one : so we may say of ourselves, (no less than Livy of that state,) AVc vitia nostra, iiec remedia ferre possuinus, — We can better brook our maladies than our remedies. There Is, say physicians, no perfect health in this world; and man, when he is at best, enjoys but a neutraUty. I'ut the physicians of the soul complain further, Isa. Ixiv. G, * That we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags,' <tc.; ' And in many thhigs we sin all,' James iii. 2. We may say with the prophet, Isa. i. 5, 6, not so much for our punishments as oiu" sins, * The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores.'

The Method. —To pursue this argument, I would willingly dispose the tenor of my speech into this method :—I. To describe the disease ; II. To ascribe the signs; III. To prescribe the remedy. And whereas pliysicians begin their medicinal institutions or instructions at the head, as the most noble part of the body, the principal seat of the wit.s, the beginning of all tlie organiciil senses, and the i»roper house and habitation of the aninial virtue, (though philo.sopliy attributes that supereminent dignity to the heart,) and I (for metaphors sake) without contention suffer myself to be led after

their rule; behold, I apply to the head first: which if I could cure, I could more easily discern the infirmities of the descending parts. In the head and other corporal parts there are many diseases, which I will not contend to find out; desiring only to slay, not all, but enough. I will borrow so much timber out of Galen's wood, as shall serve me for a scafi"old to build up my moral discourse.

Disease 1 : Headache and Brain-sickness. — Headache is diverse, say physicians, according to the causes : proceeding sOme of cold, some of hot; of dryness, of moisture, of blood, of clioler, of phlegm, windiness, drunkenness, of an offending stomach. There is a headache called the megrim, Jiemicrania, possessing lightly one side of the head, and distinguished by a seam that runs along in the skull. There is a disease in the soul not unlike this, and they that labour of it are called brain-sick men. They may have some pretty understanding in part of their heads, but the other part is strangely sick of crotchets, singularities, and toyish inventions ; wherein because they frolic themselves, they think all the world fools that admire them not. They are ever troubling themselves with unnecessary thoughtful-ness of long or short, white or black, round or square; confounding their wits with geometrical dimensions, and studjdng of measure out of measure. A square cap on another man's head puts their head out of square, and they turn their brains into cotton with storming against a garment of linen. New Albutii, to moot the reasons, why if a cup fell down it brake; if a sponge, it brake not; why eagles fly, and not elephants. There be such students in the schools of Rome : what shall be done with an ass, if he get into the church, to the font uncovered, and drink the water of baptism. Upon the strange hap of a clerk's negligence, and a thirsty ass's entering the church, which are uncertain, they make themselves asses in certain. Or if a hungry mouse filch the body of our Lord, &c. Brave wits to invent mouse-traps. These curiosities in human, but much more in divine things, prove men brain-sick.

The cause of the megrim is the ascending of many vaporous humours, hot or cold, by the veins or arteries. The cause of this spiritual megrim, or brain-sickness, is the unkindly concurrence of ignorance, arrogance, and affectation, like foggy clouds, obscuring and smothering the true light of their sober judgments; and bearing their affections like a violent wind upon one only point of the compass, new-fangled opinion. Lilie the giant's son, they must have six toes on a foot: they hate not to be observed, and had rather be notorious than not notable. Opinion is a foot too much, which spoils the verse. New physic may be better than old, so may new philosophy ; our studies, observation, and experience perfecting theirs; beginning, not at the Gamoth, as they did, but, as it were, at the Ela : * but hardly new divinity ; not that an ancient error should be brought out against a new truth. A new truth ! Nay, an old newly come to light; for error cannot wage antiquity with truth. His desire is to be cross to regularity ; and should he be enjoined a hat, a cap would extremely please him; were he confined to extem])oral and enthusiastical labours, he would commend premeditation and study, which now he abhors, because they are put on him. He is unwise in being so bitter against ceremonies; for therein he is palpably against himself, himself being nothing else but ceremony. He loves not the beaten path; and because every fool, saith he, enters at the gate, he ifill climb over the wall. Whiles the door of the church stands open, he

* The lowest and the highest notes respectively in Guido's musical scale. See Hawkins' ' History of Music,' vol. i., p. 437.— Ed.

contends to creep through the ^N-indow, John x. 1. The brain-sick are no less than drunk with opinion ; and that so strangely, that sleep, which helps other drunkards, duth them no good. Their ambitious singularity is often so violent that il" it be not restrained it grows to a kind of frenzy, and so the megrim turns into the staggers. Herein, because we will not credit their positions, nor receive their crotchets in our set music, they reel into the Low Countries.

Physicians say of the megrun-aflfected, that, in the violent fit of the passion, they can abide—(1.) No noise or loud speech ; (2.) Not clear light; (3.) Not to drink wine; (-4.) Nor almost to move at all, &c. Our brain-sick novelist is described by such tokens.

(1.) Loud speech he loves not, except from his own lips. All noise is tedious to him but his own ; and that is most tedious to the company. He loves to hear himself talk out of measure. He wonders that the senses of all his hearers do not get up into their ears, to watch and catch his mysteries with attention and silence; whenas yet himself is more non-resident from his theme than a discontinuer is from his charge.

(2.) The clear light he cannot endure, for his brain is too Ught already. He 1 (resumes that his head contains more knowledge than ten bishops; and wonders that the church was so overseen as to forget him when oflBccs were dis})osing, or places a-dealing; and because he can get none, rails at all for antichristian. He is the only wise man, if he might teach all men to judge him as he judgeth himself; and no star .should shine in our orb without borrowing some of his light. He offers to reform that man that would inform him; and presumes so much of light, that if himself were set, our world would be left without a sun.

(3.) Wine he hates, specially when it is poured into his wounds; as the fathers interpret the Samaritan's wine to the wounded man, to cleanse and purge him. Reproof and he are utter enemies ; no man is good enough to chide him : wholesome counsel, which is indeed wine to a weak soul, he accounts vinegar ; nothing so pleascth him as his own lees. Opinion hath brewed him ill, and he is like water scared out of the wits.

(4.) He must not be moved, nor removed, from what he holds: his will is like the Persian law, unalterable. You may move him to choler, not to knowledge; his brain is turned, Uke a bell rung too deep, and cannot be fetched back again. His own affectation is his pulley ; that can move him, no engine else stirs him. A man may like him at first, as one that never heard music doth the tinker's note on his kettle; but after a while, they are both alike tedious. There is no help for his auditory, by any excuses to' shift him off; if he have not the patience to endure an impertinent discourse, he must venture censure of his manners, and run away. His discourse is so full of parentheses, as if he were troubled with the rheum, and could not spit. He is ever tying hard knots, and untying them; as if nobody had hired him, and therefore he must find himself work. If he light on the tiered writ, he conceitedly allegorises on the plainest subject, and makes the Scripture no more like itself than ^Miclial's image in the bed ujton a pillow of goat's hair was like David. He carries bread at his back, and feeds upon stones. Like a full-fed dog, he leaves the soft meat to lie gnawing ui)on bones : that we may say of him. This man hath a strong wit, as we say. That dog hath good teeth. '

The way to cure the megrim is diverse, according to the cause; either by cutting a vein, purging, revul.sive or local remedies. lUit the sanation of this braiu-sick malady is very difficult, insomuch that Solomon saith,' There

is more hope of a fool than of one wise in his own conceit.' For he imagines the whole world to be sick, and himself only sound. I might prescribe him the opening of a vein which feeds this disease, that is, affectation ; the itching blood of singularity let out, would much ease him. Or a good purge of humility to take him down a little, because he stands so high in his own imagination; and full vessels, to prevent their bursting, must have timely vent. Or a little opium of sequestering him from business, and confining him that he might take some sleep, for his brains want rest. Or a little euphorbium of sound admonition and fit reproof dropped into his ear warm. Some euphrasia, or eye-bright, would do well. Unctions, if lenifying, will do no good; nor any of the former, I doubt, except a strong pill of discipline go with them. The specialest remedy is discipline, as the father said, when he heard his son complain of his head,—' My head, my head,'—commanded a servant, 'Carry him to his mother,' 2 Kings iv. 19 : so for these men so troubled with the headache, deliver them to their mother; let the church censure them.

Disease 2 : Inconstancy/, a kind of Staggers. —There is a disease in the soul called inconstancy, not unfitly shadowed to us by a bodily infij-mity, possessing the superior part of man— vertigo, a swimming in the head, a giddiness, or the staggers. The disease in the body is described to be an astonishing and dusking of the eyes and spirits, that the patient thinks all that he seeth to turn round, and is suddenly compassed with darkness. The parallel to it in the soul is inconstancy, a motion without rule, a various aspect, a diversifying intention. The inconstant man is like a Pour-contrell; if he should change his apparel so fast as his thought, how often in a day would he shift himself! He would be a Proteus too, and vary kinds. The reflection of every man's news melts him, whereof he is as soon glutted. As he is a noun, he is only adjective, depending on every novel persuasion ; as a verb, he knows only the present tense. To-day he goes to the quay to be shipped for Rome, but before the tide come, his tide is turned. One party think him theirs, the adverse theirs : he is with both, with neither, not an hour with himself Because the birds and beasts be at controversy, he will be a bat, and get him both wings and teeth. He would come to heaven, but for his halting: two opinions, like two watermen, almost pull him a-pieces, when he resolves to put his judgment into a boat, and go some whither; presently he steps back, and goes with neither. It is a wonder if his affections, being but a little lukewarm water, do not make his religion stomach-sick. Indifference is his ballast, and opinion his sail : he resolves not to resolve. He knows not what he doth hold. He opens his mind to receive motions, as one opens his palm to take a handful of water—he hath very much, if he could hold it. He is sure to die, but not what religion to die in; he demurs like a posed lawyer, as if delay could remove some impediments. He is drunk when he riseth, and reels in a morning fasting. He knows not whether he should say his Fater noster in Latin or English, and so leaves it and his prayers unsaid. He makes himself ready for an appointed feast: by the way he hears of a sermon, he turns thitherward ; yet betwixt the church gate and church door he thinks of business, and retires home again. In a controverted point he holds with the last reasoner he cither heard or read; the next diverts him; and his <)i)ini()n dwells with him perhaps so long as the teacher of it is in his sight. He will rather take dross for gold, than try it in the furnace. He receives many judgments, retains none, embracing so many faiths that he is little better than an infidel.

They give a double cause of this disease in the body : either the distem-perature and evil-artoctcdnoss of the brain, <«• an oflonce .^nven to it from the mouth of the stomach : vapours, gross an<l tough humours, or windy exhalations, cither lodging in the brain or sent thitlier fixjui the stomacii, turning about the animal spirits; hence the brain staggers Avith giddiness. This spiritual inconstancy arisoth from like causes. If it be iu religion, it proceeds from cJoutly imaguiations, fancies, tictions, and forced dreams, which keep the mind from a sober and peaceful considerateness. Multitude of opinions, like foggy vapours, mist the intellectual faculty, and, like reverberated blasts, whirl al)out the spirits. He sees some ceremonial divisions in our church, and therefore dares not steadfastly embrace that truth which both parts, without contention, teach and obsei-ve : so leaves the bles.si!\g of his mother, bec^iuse he beholds his brethren quarrelling. Whiles he sees the unreconcUeablo opposition of Home and us, which he fondly labours to atone, he forsakes both, and will now be a church alone. Thus his breast is full of secret combats, contradictions,' atlirmations, negatives; and, whiles he re-fuseth to join with others, he is divided in himself, and yet will rather search excuses for his imstaidne.s.s, than ground for his rest. He loathes manna after two tLiys feeding, and is almo.st weary of the sun for perjtetual sliining. If the temple-pavements be ever worn vi-ith his Ansitant feet, he wall run fiir to a new teacher; and ratlier than be bound to his own parish, he will turn recusant. He will admire a new preacher till a quarter of the sand is out; but if the church doors be not locked up, he cannot stay out the hour. What he promiseth to a collection to-day, he forgets, or at least denies, the next morning. His best dwelling would be his confined chamber, where his irresolution might trouble nothing but his pillow. In human matters, the cause of his variableness is not varied, but the object. He is transformable to all qualities, a tempered lump of wax to receive any form, yet no impression sticks long upon him; he holds it the quickness of his wit to be voluble.

The signs of this disease in the body arc a mist and darkness coming upon every light occasion. If he see a wheel turniiig round, or a whirljiool, or any such circular motion, he is affected with giddiness. The symptoms of the spiritual staggers are sembla1)le. He turns with those that turn, and is his neighbour's chameleon. He hates staidness as an earthen dulness. He pro.secutcs a business without fear or wit; and rejecting the patience to consult, falls upon it with a peremptory heat: l>ut like water once hot, is soonest frozen, and instantly he must shift his time and his place ; neither Ls he so weary of every jilace, as every place is weary of him. He affects an object \\itb dotage, and as superstitiously courts it as an idolater his gilded block. But it is a wonder if his passionate love outlive the age of a wonder—nine days. He respects in all things novelty above goodness ; and the child of his own brains within a week he is ready to judge a bastard. Ho salutes his wits after some invented toy, as a serving-man kisscth liis hand; Avhen instantly on another plot arising, ho kicks the former out of doors. He pulls down this day what he buildcd the other, now disliking the site, now the fasliion, and sets men on work to his own undoing He is in liis own house as his thoughts in his own brain—transient guests ; like a liag-gard, you know not where to take him. He hunts well for a gird, but is soon at a loss. If he gives any profession a winter's entertainment, yet he is whether for a penny the next spring. He is full of business at church, a stranger at home, a sceptic abroad, an ol)ser%'er in the street, e\er3'where a fool. To conclude, their own unfaithfulness making the inconstant thus .sick, there is an accession of the Lord's plague ; ho adds dotage ;ia a punishment

of their former wilful dotage : ' The Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof; and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit,' Isa. xix. 14.

For the curing of this bodily infirmity many remedies are prescribed : odoriferous smells in weakness, the opening of a vein in better strength, cupping glasses applied to the hinder part of the head, with scarification, gar-garisms, and sternutatory things, together with setting the feet in hut baths, &c. To cure this spiritual staggers, let the patient be purged with repentance for his former unsettledness; let him take an ounce of faith to firm his brains; let his repose be on the Scriptures, and thence fetch decision of all doubts; let a skilful physician order him a good minister. Let him stop his ears to rumours, and fix his eyes on heaven, to be kept from distracting objects. Let him keep the continual diet of prayer for the Spirit of illumination ; and thus he may be recovered.

Disease 3 : Madness and Anger. —The next disease I would describe is frenzy or madness. Now though physicians do clearly distinguish betwixt these two, frenzy and madness,—calling frenzy an inflammation of the brain without a fever, or an imposthumation bred and engendered in the pellicles of the brain, or pia mater ; and mania, or madness, an infection of the former cell of the head, without a fever ; the one abusing the imagination, the other ravishing the memory,—I list not to dispute or to determine. That which serves my intention is to confer either of these passions with a spiritual disease of like nature, anger. Ira furor brevis. It is a madness, I am sure ; I am not sure how short. I do not ask for men passionless; this is hominem de homine tollere. Give them leave to be men, not madmen. Ira optimo loco doniim Dei : et magna est ars irasci verbis prcemeditatis, et tempore op-jiortuno* —Anger in the best sense is the gift of God ; and it is no small art to express anger with premeditated terms, and on seasonable occasion. God placed anger amongst the affections engralfed in nature, gave it a seat, fitted it with instruments, ministered it matter whence it might proceed, provided humours whereby it is nourished. It is to the soul as a nerve to the body. The philosopher calls it the whetstone to fortitude, a spur intended to set forward virtue. This is simply rather a propassion than a passion.

But there is a vicious, impetuous, frantic anger, earnest for private and personal grudges; not lil^e a medicine to clear the eye, but to put it out. This pernicious disease of the soul hath degrees :—It is inhicnian ; tigers devour not tigers : this rageth against kind and kindred. Impious ; it rageth often against God, as that Pope upon a field lost against the Frenchmen. Sic esto nunc Gallicus, —So, turn French now, &c. Mad; for it often rageth against unreasonable creatures, as Balaam striking his ass. How much is such a man more irrational and bestial than the beast he maligns ! It is more than mad, striking at insensible things, as Xerxes wrote a defying letter to Athos, a Thracian mountain : ' Mischievous Athos, lifted up to heaven, make thy quarries passable to my travel, or I will cut thee down and cast thee into the sea.' But his revenge was neither understood, feared, nor felt. So the Africans being infested with a north wind, that covered their corn-fields witli sand from a mountain, levied an army of men to fight with that wind, but were all buried under the sand. So Darius, because a river had drowned him a white horse, vowed to cut it into so many channels tiiat a woman with child might go over dry-shod. We have some so madly impatient with a storm, wind, &c.; which might answer them, as Ilakshakeh told the Jews, Isa. xxxvi. 10, ' Am I come hither without the Lord? It is * Jerom.

he that sent me.' This anger is immediately directed against God ; tlie heart speaks atheism, only in other words. It is unnatural; for it maligneth a man's self. It is full of con.sternation and am;izcnient, and never u.scth violence, without torment to itself. It thinks to offer wrong, and indeed suffers it.

I'psa sibi est hostis vesania, seque furendo inlerimit, —As the frantic or drunkard do that intoxicate, which, sober, they would quake to think of; so these ireful, direful men (or rather beasts) dare in their fits play with serpents, mingle pui.sons, act massacres, whereat their awaked souls shudder.

The higher the person in whom this frenzy reigns, the greater the fault. The master-bee hath no sting, the rest have ; the greater power, the less passion. It is a state tyranny, in authority to mind nothing but authority. Fosse et nolle, nohile, —It is noble to may and will not. When a railing wretch followed a heathen peer with obloquies all day, and home to his doora at night, he requited him with commanding his servant to light him home to his house with a torch. Damascene makes three degrees of anger : hilem, ira£undiam, infensionem, —choler, wrath, heavy displeasure. Some have added a fourth.

The first hath a beginning and motion, but presently ceaseth ; we call this choler. Like fire in stubble, soon kindled, and soon out. These are like gunpowder, to which you no sooner give fire but they are in your face. They say these hot men are the best-natured ; but I say, then, the best are naught. These are stung with a nettle, and allayed with a dock.

The second is not so soon conceived, but takes deeper hold in the memorj'. This fire is neither easily kindled nor easily put out; like fire in iron, which hardly taking, long abideth. These men are like green logs, which once set on combustion continue burning day and night too.

The third entertain this fire suddenly, and retain it perpetually, not desisting without revenge. Those are like fire, which bewrayeth not itself without the ruin and waste of that matter wherein it hath caught. Tliis worst.

The fourth is a moderate anger, not soon incensed, but quickly appeased ; and this is the best, because Hkest to the disposition of God, who is ' merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy,' Ps. ciii. 8, ready to forgive.

Frenzy is caused by abundant blood, or choler occupying the brains or the. films thereof: the more adust this choler is, the more pernicious the madness. The cause of anger is the giving of passion the domuiion over reason. Seneca says, Causa iracundicg o]/i)iio injuries est, —The cause of anger is the conceit of injury. Such a man gets up on the wild jade, his choler, and spurs him on, ha\dng no bridle of moderation to hold him back. His conversation is so full of choleric fit.s, as a book of tedious parentheses, that they mar the sense of his life. He is like an egg in roasting, hopeful to be good meat, but it grows too hot on a sudden, and flies in your lUce, not without a great noise. Anger is able to turn Dametas into Hcrcnlcs fun'ns, teaching lam that is .strong, to fight; him that Is not, to talk. Whiles the lightning of his rage lasts, he thunders out a challenge, but after a little calm meditation, sounds a retreat. He menaceth the throats of his enemies, though they be many, and swears loud he will be their priest; he means executioner. But if you compare his threatenings and his after-affections, you would .say of them, ;us that wise man shearing his hogs: Here is a great deal of cry, but a little wool. His enemies are wor.se feared than hurt, if so they be in oerson, as he is in sober judgment, a little out of the way.

The frenzy is easily seen, and needs not to be described by signs. Physicians give many; I will say no more but this : if the madness proceed from blood, they are perpetually laughing ; if of choler, they rage so furiously, that bands only can restrain them from doing violence. The symptoms of this spiritual madness, rash and furious anger, are many, visible and actual:—

Swelling of mind, so high and so full that there is no room for any good motion to dwell by it. Ira tumor mentis, and makes a man like the spider-poisoned toad. In this raging fit, reason, modesty, peace, humanity, &c., run from him, as servants from their mad master, or mice from a bam on fire. Contumely, without any distinguishing respect of friend, foe, alien, familiar; he reviles any, fratremque patremque. Violence of hands, savage and monstrous behaviour : ' Like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt,' Isa. Ivii. 20; fuming and foaming like a muddy channel; a distorted countenance, sparkling eye, foul language, hasty hands. If the angry man and the drunkard had a glass presented them, how hardly could they be brought again to love their own faces !

To cure this bedlam passion (leaving the other to deeper judgments in that profession) both nature and grace have given rules. Natural reason: That an angry man should not undertake any action or speech till he had recited the Greek alphabet, as a pause to cool the heat of choler. That angry men should sing to their passions as nurses to their babes : Mn cjsvds, (x,7\ (3oa, — Haste not, cry not. Maximum remediiim est irce mora* —The best remedy for anger is delay. What a man doth in anger he lightly repents in cold blood. That we should keep our corrupt nature from provoking objects, as a man that hath gunpowder in his house kee2)s it safe from fire. That we should construe all things in the best sense : a good disposition makes a good exposition, where palpableness doth not evince the contrary. That suspicion is a pair of bellows to this mad fire. That jealousy and self-guiltiness are the angry man's eavesdropper and intelligencer. That the earth suffers us liiing to plough furrows on her back, and dead opens her bowels to receive us; a dead earth convincing a living earth's impatience. Scripture : That ' anger resteth in the bosom of fools.' That ' the wrath of man doth not accomplish the righteousness of God.' That ' unadvised anger is culpable of judgment.' Let him take some herb of grace, an ounce of patience, as much of consideration how often he gives God just cause to be angry with him, and no less of meditating how God hath a hand in Shimei's railing, that David may not be angry; mix all these together with faithful confidence that God will dispose all wrongs to thy good : hereof be made a piU to purge choler. To conclude, let reason ever be our judge, though passion sometimes be our solicitor.

*Parit ira furorem; Turi)ia verba fiiror, verbis ex turpibus exit Ira, ex hac oritur vulnus, de vulnere lethum;'—

' Wrath kindles fury, fury sparks foul words, Those let out wounds and death with flaming swords.*

Disease 4 : Envy, a Consumption. —Envy fitly succeeds anger, for it is notliing else but inveterate wrath. The other was a frantic fit, and this is a consumption ; a languishing disease in the body, the beginning of dissolution, a broaching of the vessel, not to be stopped tUi all the liquor of life is rua out. What the other tabe is in the body, 1 list not to define, by reason that this spiritual sickness is a consumption of the flesh also, and a pining away ♦ Sen. de Ira., lib. i., cap. 28.

of the spirit.s ; now since they both have relation to the body, their compa-ri.son would be confa.sion. Envy is the consumption I siugvdarly deal witkil; wli^ch though I cannot cure, I will hoiicfully niini.ster to.

The cause of envy is others' i)rosijerity, or rather an evil eye shot upon it. The angry man hath not himself, the envious must have no neighbour. He battens at the mahgned's misery; and if such a man riseth, he falls as if he were planet-struck. I know not whether ho could endure to be in paradise with a superior. He hates to be hai)py with any comi)any. Envy sits in a man's eyes, and wheresoever through those windows it spies a blessmg, it Ls fiickness and death unto it. Invidnspdal d, Juve privari uno oculo, ut umrus quod privetur amhobus, —The envious man woiUd have happily one of his eyes put out, as the covetous should lose both. A physici;m being asked what was the best help to the per.spicuity of the eyes, atlirmed, Envy; for that, like a pei'spective glass, would make good things appear great things.

' Fcrtilior seges est alienis semper in .agris ; Vicinumque pecus grauilius uber habet; '—

He is even quarrelling with God that his neighbour's field bears better corn, and thinks himself poor if a near dweller be richer. He will dispraise God's greatest blessings if they fall besides himself, and grow sullen, so far as he dares, with the prince that shall promote a better deserver. There is no law perfect, if he was not at the making it. He undertakes a great work, and when he cannot accomplish it, he wU give leave to none other. No man shall have that glory which he aspired and missed. An yEsop's dog in the manger; because he can eat no hay himself, he will starve the horse. Poison is life to a serpent, death to a man; and that which is life to a man, his humidity and spittle, they say is death to a serpent. The rancorous sustenance which a malicious man lives of is the misery and mischief to a good man ; and a good man's prosperous felicity is the malicious man's death. God hath in justice appointed it to be a plague to itself. Among all mischiefs it is furnished with one profitable quality : the owner of it takes most hurt. CarpiUiue et carpitur una : suppliciunique suum, est.

' Ut yEtna seipsam. Sic se, non alios, invidus igne coquit.'

The envious is a man of the worst diet, and like a strange cook stews himself; nay, and conceits pleasure in pinuig ; so that his body at la-st hath just cause to sue his soul on an action of dilapidations. He finds fault with all things that himself hath not done. He wakes whiles his enemy takes rest. rarum est, si ipse sitfelij; nis-L alter fuerit iiifdix. His affections are like lightning, which commonly scorches the highest places : feriunt summos fuL-gura monies. He creeps like a canker to the fairest flowers. By putting in a superHuous syllable he hath corrujited one of the best words, turning amorem into amarorem, love into bitterness. A philosopher seeing a malicious man dejected, asked liim whether some evil had happened to himself or some good to his neighbour.

The signs of this disease are given by the poet:—*

' Videt intus edentem Vipereas camee, vitionini alinienta miorum. Pallor in ore sedet, macies in corpore toto; Nunquam recta aciea; livent rubiginc dentoB : Pectora fello virent; lingua est siiffiirta vcncno;'—

A pale face without blood, and a lean body without any juico in it, squint • Met.JL

eyes, black teeth, a heart full of gall, a tongue tipped with poison. Amaz-edness makes the face pale, grief drinks up the blood; looking on men's prosperity makes the eyes squint, and cursing, the teeth black. It were weU for him on earth that he should dwell alone. It is pity he should come into heaven, for to see ' one star excel another in glory' would put him again out of his wits. I wonder, when he is in hell, whether he would not still desire superiority in anguish, and so sit in the chair, though he receive the more torments. The envious man is so cross to God, that he is sure of punishment ; he hath in present one like to the nature of his offence. For his sin ; whereas God brings good out of evil, he brings evil out of good. For his punishment; whereas even evil things ' work together to the good of the good,' even good things work together to his evil. AH the happiness lights on him that is envied ; for it goes well with him with whom the malicious thinks it goes too well.

His cure is hard, even as with a tabe in the body : too much physic makes him worse. Crosses are fitly called God's physic, whereby if God will cure him, he must minister them to those he hates. Strange, that one man should be healed by giving physic to another ! Two simples may do him good, if he could be won to take them : a scruple of content, and a dram of charity. If these be given him, well stirred, in a potion of repentant tears, he may be brought to wish himself well, and others no harm, and so be recovered.

Disease 5 : Idleness, the Lethargy. —Idleness in the soul is a dangerous disease, as the lethargy in the body. The very name of lethargy speaks the nature, for it is compounded of K7]dri, forgetfulness, and a^yhs, slothful; and .so consequently is defined to be a duU oblivion. The idle man is a piece of base heavy earth, and moulded with muddy and standing water. He lies in bed the former half of the day, devising excuses to prevent the afternoon's labour. He cannot endure to do anything by himself that may be done by attorney. He forestalls persuasion inducing him to any work, by forecasting the unprofitableness; he holds business man's cruellest enemy, and a monstrous devourer of time. His body is so swollen with lazy humours, that he moves like a tun upon two pottle pots. He is tempted to covetise, for no other reason but to be able to keep servants; whom he will rather trust than step out to oversee. Neither summer nor winter scape the blame of his laziness; in the one it is too hot, in the other too cold, to work. Summer hath days too long, winter nights too cold ; he must needs help the one with a nap at noon, the other with a good fire. He was very fit to be a monk : spare him an early mass, and he will accept it; yet howsoever, he will rather venture the censure than forsake a lazy calling.

The cause of the lethargy is abundant phlegm, overmuch cooling the brain, and thereby provoking sleep ; which putrefied in the brain, causeth a fever. The cause of idleness is indulgence to the flesh, a forgetfulness of the end of our creation, a wHful digression from man, for the lazy wretch is a dormouse in a human husk. To man motion is natural, the joints and eyes are made to move; and the mind is never asleep, as if it were set to watch the body. Sleep is the image of death, saith the poet; and therefore the church-sleeper is a dead corpse, set in his pew like a coffin, as if the preacher were to make his funeral sermon. He sings out harvest like the grasshopper; therefore may at Christmas dance for and without his dinner. He risetli at noon to breakfast, which he falls to unwashed, and removes not out of his chair without a sleep. Whilst he sleeps, the enemy over-sows the field of his heart with tares. He is a patient subject for the devil to work on, a cushion for

him to sit on, and take his ease; his misery is, th.it ' his damnation sleepeth not.' His bed is his haven, his heaven, and sound sleep his deity.

'The stiiuling water stinks with i^utrefaction; AuJ virtue hath no virtue, but in action.'

If he be detained up late, he lies down in his clothes, to save two labours. Nothing shall make him bustle up in the niglit, but the house fired about his ears; w hich escaping, he lies down in the yard, and lets it burn. He should gather moss, for he is no rolling stone. In this he is a good friend to his country, he desires no innovation ; he would scarce shift ground ten leagues, though from a cottage to a manor. He is so loath to leave the tap-house in winter, that when all leave him, he makes bold with the chimney comer for his parlour. If ever, in a reign, he lights upon a humour to busine.ss, it is to game, to cheat, to drhik drunk, to steal, &,c., and falls from doing nought to do naughtily : so mending the matter as you have heard in the fiibh the de\al mended his dame s leg ; when he should have put it in joint, he brake it quite a-pieces.

Spnptoms of the lethargy are a great pulse, beating seldom, as if it were full of water; a continual proneness to sleep, that they are scarcely compelled to answer a question. You may know a lethargical idle man by a neglected beard, unkembed hair, and unwashed face, foul linen, clothes un-brushed, a nasty hand smelling of the sheet, an eye opening when the ear receives your voice, and presently shut again, as if both the organs were stiff with exertions. He hath a blowni cheek, a drawling tongue, a leaden foot, a brazen nose : he gapes and gasps so often, that sometimes he keeps his mouth open still, as if he had forgotten to shut it.

To cure the lethargic, there are required many intentions; not without frictions, scarifications, sharp odours, and bloodletting, (tc. To cure the idle, it should more properly belong to surgery than physic; for there is no medicuie like a good whip, to let out his lazy blood; and a good diet of daily labour, which some skilful beadle must see him take : put him into the bath at bridewell, to take away the numbness of his joints, and scour ofi" his rust, and so he may be recovered.

' Fac bene, fac tua, fac aliquid, fac utile semper : Commipunt mores otia prava bones.'

Disease G : The Dropsy and Covetousness. —Physicians say that the drop.sy is an error in the digestive virtue in the liver, bred of the al)undance of sidt and waterish phlegm, with the overfeeding of raw and moi.st meats. It is distinguished into three sorts— ascites, tympanites, and anasarca or hi/jx/sarca. Ascites is when between the film called periionceum (which is the caul that covers the entrails) much watery humour is gathered. Tympanites arisetli from windiness and fiatuous causes gathered into the foresaid i)laces. IIy}>o-sarca is when the humours are so dispersed through the whole body, that all the flesh appears moist and spongy. Our spiritual dropsy, covetousness, is a disease bred in the soul, through defect of faith and understanding. It properly resides in the inferior powers of the soul, the atfections; but ariseth from the errors of the superior intellectual faculty : neither conceiving aright of God's all-sufficient help, nor of the world's all-deficient weakness.

The corporal dropsy is easily known by heaviness, swelling, puffing up, immoderate desire of drink, itc. The spiritual likewise, though it leans the carcase, lards the conscience; at least swells and pulls it up : and as if some

VOL. L - II

hellisli inflammation had scorched the affection, it thirsts for aurum poiahile without measure. The covetoiis man is of Renodaeus's opinion, that argen-tum phirimum valet ad cordis palpitationein, —silver is good against the heart-panting. The wise man calls it a disease, an ' evil disease,' Eccles. vi. 2, and almost incurable. The covetous hath drunk the blood of oppression, wrung from the veins of the pdor; and behold, like an undigestible receipt, it wambles in his stomach : he shall not feel quietness in his belly. This is an epidemical sickness. Aurum omnes, victa Jam pietate, colunt, —Religion gives riches, and riches forgets religion.

' Religio dat opus, paupertas religionem : Divitiae veniunt, religioque fugit.'

Thus do our affections wheel about with an unconstant motion. Poverty-makes us religious, religion rich, and riches irreligious. For as pauperis est ro-gare, so it should be divitis erogare. Seneca wittily and truly, Hahes pecu-niam ? vel teipsum vel pecuniam habeas vilem necesse est, —Hast thou money 1 Either thou must esteem thy money vUe, or be vile thyself The covetous man is like a two-legged hog : whiles he lives, he is ever rooting in the earth, and never doth good till he is dead ; like a vermin, of no use till uncased. Himself is a monster, his life a riddle; his face (and his heart) is prone to the ground ; his delight is to vex himself. It is a question whether he takes more care to get damnation, or to keep it; and so is either a Laban or a Nabal, two infamous churls in the Old Testament, spelling one another's name backward. He keeps his god under lock and key, and sometimes, for the better safety, in his unclean vault. He is very eloquently powerful amongst his poor neighbours; who, for awful fear, listen to Pluto as if he were Plato. He prevails very far when he deals with some officers; as a Pharisee with Christ's steward, Tantum dabo; tantus valor in quatuor syllabis, —so powerful are two words. He prevails like a sorcerer, except he light upon a Peter : Acts viii., ' Thou and thy money be damned together.' His heart is like the East Indian ground, where all the mines be so barren, that it bears neither grass, herb, plant, nor tree. The lightness of his purse gives him a heavy heart, which yet filled, doth fill him with more cares. His medicine is his malady; he would quench his avarice with money, and this inflames it, as oil feeds the lamp, and some harish drinks increase thirst. His proctor in the law, and protector against the law, is his money. His alchemy is excellent, he can project much silver, and waste none in smoke. His rhetoric is how to keep him out of the subsidy. His logic is to prove heaven in his chest. His mathematics, omnia sua commodo, non honestate mensurare, —to measure the goodness of anything by his own profit. His arithmetic is in addition and multiplication, much in subtraction, nothing in division. His physic is to minister gold to his eye, though he starve his "body. His music is Sol, re, me, fa : Sola res me facit, —That which makes me, makes me merry. Divinity he hath none; idolatry enough to his money. Sculptura is his Scripiura; and he hath so many gods as images of coin. He is an ill harvest-man, for he is all at the rake, nothing at the pitchfork. The devil is a slave to God, the world to the devil, the covetous man to the world; he is a slave to the devil's slave, so that his servant is like to have a good office. He foolishly buries his soul in his chest of silver, when his body must be buried in the mould of corruption. When the fisher offers to catch him with the net of the gospel, he strikes into the mud of avarice, and will not be taken. TJie dropsy of his (pilupyv^ia, 1 Tim. vi. 10, doth senectiite juvenescere. Cicero calleth it an absurd tlung. Quo 7)unus vi<e

vestal, eu plus viatici qwxi-tre* He sells his best graiu, and feeds himself on mouldy crusts ; he returns from plough, if he remembers that liis cupboard was left unlucked. If onco in a rcigu he invites his neighbours to dinner, he whiles the times with frivolous discourses, to hinder feeding ; sets away the best dish, affirming it will be better cold; observes how much each guest eateth, and when they are risen and gone, falleth to himself, what for anger and hunger, with a shar[) appetite. If he smells of gentility, you shall have at the nether end of his board a great pasty uncut up, for it is filled with bare bones : somewhat for show, but most to keep the nether mess from eating.- He hath sworn to die in debt to Ids belly. He deducts from a servant's wages the price of a halter, which he cut to save his master, when he had hung himself at the fall of the market. He lends nothing, nor returns borrowed, unless it be sent for; which if he cannot deny, he will delay, in hope to have it forgotten. To excuse Ids base and sordid apparel, he commends the thriftincss of King Henry, how cheap his clothes were. His fist is like the prentice's earthen box, which receives all, but lets out nothing till it be broken. He is in more danger to be sand-blind than a goldsmith. Therefore some call him avidiim, a non videndo. He must rise m the night witli a candle to see his corn, though he stumble in the straw, and fire his baru.t He hath a lease of Ids wits, during the continuance of his riches : if any cross starts away them, he is mad instantly. He would slay an ass for his skin; and, like Hermocrates dying, bequeath his own goods to himself His case is worse than the prodigal's; for the prodigal shall have nothing hereafter, but the covetous hath nothing in present : Prodigus lion hahebit, sed avarus non habet.

For his cure much might be prescribed; specially as they give in the corporal dropsy—purge the humour that feeds it. When the covetous hath gotten much, and yet thirsts, a vomit of confiscation would do well, and set him to get more. It was a good moral instruction that fell from that shame of philosophy, Epicurus, ' The course to make a man rich is not to increase his weidth, but to restrain his covetous desires.' The apostle's counsel is to fly it, and all occasions, occupations that may beget or nourish it, Eph. v. 3. Remember, saith a schoolman, that though hovio be de terra, et ex terra, yet 71071 ad terram, nee ]»'opter terram, —man is on the earth, of the earth, but ■not for the earth, itc. I have read of one John, patriarch of Alexandria, a sparing and strait-handed man, that, being earnest at his prayers, there appeared to him a virgin with a crown or garland of olive-leaves. He desiring to know her name, she called herself Mercy. Requiring her intent, she requested him to marry her, promising Mm much prosperity on that condition. He did so, and found himself still the richer for his merciful deeds. She may offer herself long enough in these days ere she be taken. Mercy may live a maid, fur no man will marry her. Valerius Maximus speaks of one Gillias, a famous Roman, that besides hospitality to strangers, paid the taxes of many pour, rewarded deserts unsued to, bought out the servitude of captives, and sent them home free. How few such like can an English historiographer write of! I would we had such a Gillias amongst us, so it were not from Rome. Well, then, let the covetous remember his end, and the end of his riches,—how certain, how uncertain they are,—and intend his covetisc to a better object. Quis alius nosfer est fnis, <iuam pervenire ad reynum cujm 7iullm est finis! —What else should l)e our end, save to come to the kingdom that hath no end ! His cure is set down by (Jud; I leave the receipt with him : 1 Tim. vi. 'J, 'They that will be rich fall into temp-• De Senect. t So tlitl a wretcLeU coni-LoarJcr.

tation and a snare, and into many foolish and noisome lusts, wliicli drown men in perdition and destruction.' Ver. 10, ' For the love of money is the root of all evil,' &c. Ver. 11, ' But thou, O man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness,' &c. Ver. 17, ' Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches,' &c., ' but that they be rich in good works,' &c. The place is powerful; let the covetous read, observe, obey, repent, believe, and be saved.

Disease 7 : Usury, and Caninus Appetitus, or the Dog-like Appetite. —Next to the dropsy of covetise, I would place the immoderate hunger of usury, for as the one drinks, so the other feeds to satiety; and the former is not more thirsty after his cupping, than the latter is hungry after his devouring. Some have compared usury to the gout, (by reason of that disease's incidency to usurers,) which is an unusual humour flowing to the extreme parts. It is either arthritis, an articular disease, which we call a joint-sickness; or podagra, a pain invading the joint of the great toe, or the heel, or some inferior parts of the foot: this, like a strong charm, bindeth a man.to his chair. Musculus says, that divines shall reform fury, when physicians have cured the gout: the sin and the disease are both incurable. And that will one day rack the conscience, as this the sinews. Herein the merely covetous and the usurer differ : the covetous, to be rich, would undergo any labour; the usurer would be rich, yet undergo no labour; therefore, like the gout-wrung, desires to sit still. I have thought fitter to compare it with the doglike appetite, which cannot refrain from devouring meat without measure; which the stomach not able to bear, they fall to vomiting like dogs; hence, again, hunger is excited to more meat, and much meat provokes spewing : so that their whole life is nothing else but a vicissitude of devouring and vomiting.

It is caused through cold distemper of the stomach, or through vicious and sharp humours, which gnaw and suck the mouth of it; or through un-measurable dissipation of the whole body, which lightly follows the weakness of the retentive virtue. This animal hunger is raised partly from the coldness of the heart, for there is no charity to warm it; partly from corrupt afi"ections, which like vicious humours gnaw and suck the conscience dry of all vividity, whether of grace or humanity; partly through the weak retention of any good instruction, whether from the Scriptures of God, or writings of sober men.

The corporal disease is easily perceived, by insatiate feeding, which yet ministers almo.st no virtue to the body, but it is rather made lean and wasted therewith; the skin is rarefied, the body made fluid and apt to much eges-tion, (fee. A usurer is known by his very looks often, by his speeches commonly, by his actions ever. He hath a lean cheek, a meagre body, as if he were fed at the devil's allowance. His eyes are almost sunk to the back side of his head with admiration of money. His ears are set to tell the clock, his whole carcase a mere anatomy. Some usurers have fatter carcases, and can find in their hearts to lard their flesh ; but a common meagreness is upon all their consciences. Fcenus pecunice, funus animce. Some spin usury into such fine threads of distinction, that they take away all the names whereby it off"ends; and because R is a ddgged letter, and they conceive a toothless practice, interest, usury, and all terms with It in them, shall be put out, and the usurer shall be called only, one that lives upon his moneys. All his reaches are at riches ; his wit works like a mole, to dig himself through the earth into hell. Plutarch writes strangely of hares, eodem tempore et parere, et alere, et alios concipere foetus, —at one time to bring forth, nourish, jiud

to conceive. Your usurer makes his money to do all these at once. He drowns the noise of the people's curses with the music of his money, as the Italians in a great thunder ring their bells and shoot off their cannons, by an artilicial noise of their own to dead the natural of broken clouds. His practice mocks philosophy, quod exnihilo nihil fit, and teaches of nothing to get something. He is a rank whorema.ster with his mistress Pecunia, and lives upon the lechery of metals. He doth that office for the devil on earth that his spirits do in hell—whip and torment poor souls. His blows are without fence. Except men, as Strepsiades desired, could pluck the moon out of the sky, his month and day will come.

Nature hath set a pitch or term in all inferior things, when they shall cease to increase. Old cattle breed no longer, doted trees deny fruit, the tired earth becomes barren; only the usurer's money, the longer it breeds, the lustier, and a hundred pounds put out twenty years since, is a great-great-grandmother of two or three hundred children : pretty striplings, able to beget their mother again in a short time.

'Each man to heaven his hands for blessing rears; Only the usurer need not say his prayers. Blow the wind ea.st or west, plenty or dearth. Sickness or health sit on the face of earth, He cares not: time will bring his money in; Each day augments his treasure and his sin. Be the day red or black in calendar. Common or holy, fits the usurer. He starves his carcase, and, true money's slave, Goes with full chests and thin cheeks to his grave.*

He hath not his gold so fast as his gold him. As the covetous takes away the difference betwixt the richest mine and basest mould, use,* so this pawu-groper spoils all with over-using it. It is his ill-luck that the beams of wealth shine so full upon him; for riches, like the sun, fires and inflames objects that are opposed in a diameter, though further removed, but heatcth kindly when it shines upon a man laterally, though nearer. He shrinks up his guts with a starving diet, as with knot-grass, and puts his stomach into his purse. He sells time to his customers, his food to his coffer, his body to languishment, his soul to Satan.

His cure is very desperate : his best reprehension is deprehension ; and the best purge is to purge him out of the land. Iliera picra Galeni is a sovereign confection to clarify him. Let him be fed, as physicians prescribe in the cure of the coq^oral disease, with fat suppings; and let him drink abundantly, till he forget the date of his bonds. Turn him out from the chimney-comer into some wilderness, that he may have a cold and perspirable air. Give him a good vomit of stibium till he hath spewed up his extortions. Let his diet-drink be repentance, his daily exercise restoring to every man his gotten interest. Give him a little opiuni to rock his cares a.slecp ; and when he is cold, make him a good fire of his bills and bonds. Give him a jalap of the gospel, to beget in him the good blood of faith. If nothing work with him, let him make his will, and hear his sentence, that he shall never * dwell with the blessed,' Ps. xv.

Disease 8: Pride and the Pleurisy. —The pleurisy is defined to be an inward inflammation of that upper skin which girdeth the sides and the ribs,

• I suppose the meaning to be, that the difference between gold and earth is that the one is more usefvil than the other; but the miser will not use his gold, and so to him it is of as little value as base mould.— Ed.

and therefore is called dolor lateralis. Pride is a pursy affection of the soul, lege, modo, ratione car ens, —without law, for it is rebellious; without measure, for it delights in extremes ; without reason, for it doth all things with precipitation. The proud man is bitten of the mad dog, the flatterer, and so runs on a garget.

The pleurisy is caused of an abundance of hot blood flowing unnaturally to the foresaid place; or by the engendering of cold, gross, and vicious humours, gathered into the void place of the breast, or into the lungs. This spiritual disease ariseth from a blown opinion of one's self : which opinion is either from ignorance of his own emptiness, and so, like a tumbler full of nothing but air, makes a greater sound than a vessel of precious liquor; or from arrogance of some good, which the owner knows too well. He never looks short of himself, but always beyond the mark, and offers to shoot further than he looks; but ever falls two bows short—humility and discretion.

The symptoms of the pleurisy are difficult breathing, a continual fever, a vehement pricking on the affected side. The proud man is known by his gait, which is peripatetical, strutting like some new churchwarden. He thinks himself singularly wise, but his opinion is singular, and goes alone. In the company of good wits, he fenceth in his ignorance with the hedge of sUence, that observation may not climb over to see his follies. He would have his judgment for wearing his apparel pass unmended, not uncommended. He shifts his attire on some solemn day, twice at least in twelve hours; but cannot shift himself out of the mercer's books once in twelve months. His greatest envy is the next gentleman's better clothes ; which if he cannot better or equalise, he wears his own neglected. His apparel carries him to church without devotion; and he riseth up at the Creed to join with the rest in confession, not of his faith, but his pride; for sitting down hides much of his bravery. He feeds with no cheerful stomach, if he sit not at the upper end of the table and be called young master ; where he is content to rise hungry, so the observant company weary him with drinking to : on this condition he gives his obligation for the shot. He loves his lying glass beyond any true friend ; and tells his credulous auditors how many gentlewomen have run mad for him, when if a base female servant should court him, I dare wager he proves no Adonis. If he were to die on the block, as Byron, he would give charge for the composition of his locks.

Pride is of the feminine gender, therefore the more intolerable in a masculine nature. Much civet is unsavoury : Non bene olet, quoe bene semper olet. She that breathes perfumes artificially, argues herself to have naturally corrupted lungs. This woman hath neither her own complexion nor proportion, for she is both painted and pointed together. She sits moderator every morning to a disputation betwixt the comb and the glass, and whether concludes best on her beauty carries her love and praise. Howsoever, of men saith the poet. Forma vh'os neglecta decet. Indeed there is no graceful behaviour like humility. This fault is well mended when a man is well minded, —that is, when he esteems of others better than himself Otherwise a proud man is like the rismg earth in mountainous })laces: this .swells up monte, as he mente ; and the more either earth advanceth itself, perpetually they are the more barren. He lives at a high sail, that the puffy praises of his neighbours may blow him into the enchanted island, vainglory. He shines like a glowworm in a dark village, but is a crude thing when he comes to the court. If the plethora swells him in the vein of valour, nothing but well-beating can hold him to a man. If ever he goes drunk into the field, and comes off with a victorious parley, he would swell to a son of Anak.

The pleurisy is cured by drawing out some blood from the vein that hath relation to the affected part. A clyster is very good, together with some fomentations. It is helped much by cui)i)iiig; 1 do not mean drinking. God prescribes the cure of pride by precept and pattern. L'receiA : ' Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of Gt)d :' the reason is given, ' for God resisteth the jjroud, and giveth grace to the humble,' 1 Pet. v. G. Pattern : ' Take my yoke upon you, and Ic.arn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you sludl find rest unto your souls,' Matt. xi. 20. The Master is worth your hearing, the lesson your learning, the recompense your receiving. The cure hereof is hard, for all vices are agahist humility; nay, all virtues are against humility, as many are proud of their good deeds ; nay, humility hath an opposition against humility, as if she were false to her own person. S(epe homo de vamv glorioe contemptu vanus gloriatur; so that often humility, by a prodigious and preposterous birth, brings forth pride. Pride doth make a wise man a fool; continues him a fool that is so, the opinion of his own wisdom excluding all opportune possibility of receiving knowledge. Pour precious juice into a vessel full of base Uquor, and it runs besides. That instruction is spUt which you offer to infuse into a soul so full of self-aflfectation. Many a man had proved wise, if he had not so thought himself. If the air of his pride be enclosed in a baser bubble, attire, it is the more vile ; for the generation of his sin is produced from the corruption of himself. God made him a man, he hath made himself a beast; and now the tailor (scarce a man himself) must make him a man again; a brave man, a better than ever nature left him. Thus he is like the cinnamon-tree, the bark is better than the body; or some vermin, whose case is better than the carcase.

For his cure, open his pleuritic vein with the sacrificing knife of the law, and tell him that the cause of his pride is the eft'ect of his sin. That wickedness brought shame to nakedness, and apparel hides it; whereof being proud, he glories in his own halter. Strip him of his gaudy clothes, and put him in a charnel-house, where he may read visible lectures of mortality and rottenness.

Disease 9 : Palsy and Timorous Suspicion. —The former sick were tumidi, these are timidi; they were bold to all evd, these are fearful to all good. The palsy is a disease wherein one half of the body is endamaged in both sense and moving. Of that disease which is called paralysis, resolution, or the dead palsy, wherein sometimes sense alone is lost, sometimes motion alone, and sometimes both together perish, I intend not to speak. It is, proportion considered, more dangerous to the body than I would imagine this disease to be to the soul. I would compare it to that corporal infirmity which physicians call Iremorem, and some vulgarly, the palsy ; wherein there is a continual shaking of the extremer parts : somewhat adverse to the dead palsy, for that takes away motion, and this gives too much, tht)Ugh not proper and kindly. This spiritual disease is a cowardly fearfulness, and a distrustful suspicion, both of actions and men. He dares not undertake, for fear of he knows not what; he dares not trust, for suspicion of his own reflection, dishonesty.

This evil in the body is caused generally through the weakness of the sinews, or of the cold temperature of nature, or accidentally of cold drink taken in fevers. Old age and fear are not seldom causes of it. Tliis spiritual palsy ari.seth either from the weakness of zeal, and want of that kindly heat to be affected to God's glory ; or from consciousness of sclf-coiTuption, thereby measuring others. The first is fearfulness, the second distrustfulness.

The signs of the palsy are manifest; of this not very close and reserved. He conceives what is good to be done, but fancies difficulties and dangers, like to knots in a bulrush, or rubs in a smooth way. He would bowl well at the mark of integrity, if he durst venture it. He hath no journey to go, but either there are bugs, or he imagines them. Had he a pardon for his brother, (being in danger of death,) and a hare should cross him in the way, he would no further, though his brother hanged for it. He owes God some good-will, but he dares not shew it. When a poor plaintiff calls him for a witness, he dares not reveal the truth, lest he offend the great adversary. He is a new Nicodemus, and would steal to heaven if nobody might see him. He makes a good motion bad by his fearfulness and doubting ; and he calls his trembling by the name of conscience. He is like that collier, that passing through Smithfield, and seeing some on the one side hanging, he demands the cause; answer was made, for denying the supremacy to King Henry : on the other side some burning, he asks the cause; answered, for denying the real presence in the sacrament: Some, quoth he, hanged for Papistry, and some burned for Protestancy 1 Then hoit on, a God's name ; I'll be neither. His religion is primarily his prince's, subordinately his landlord's. Neither deliberates he more to take a new religion, to rise by it, than he fears to keep his old, lest he fall by it. All his care is for a ne noceat. He is a busy inquirer of all Parliament acts, and quakes as they are read, lest he be found guilty. He is sick, and afraid to die, yet holds the potion in a trembling hand, and quakes to drink his recovery. His thoughts are an ill balance, and will never be equally poised. He is a light vessel, and every great man's puff is ready to overturn him. "Whiles Christ stands on the battlements of heaven, and beckons him thither by his word, his heart answers, I would fain be there, but that some troubles stand in my way. He would ill with Peter walk to him on the pavement of the sea, or thrust out his hand with Moses, to take up a crawling serpent, or hazard the loss of himself to find his Saviour. His mind is ever in suspicion, in suspension, and dares not give a confident determination either way. Resolution and his heart are utter enemies ; and all his philosophy is to be a sceptic. Whether is worse, to do an evil action with resolution that it is good, or a good action with dubitation that it is evil, somebody tell me. I am sure neither is well, for an evil deed is evil, whatsoever the agent think ; and for the other, ' Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.' Negatively, this rule is certain and inf:illible : ' It is good to forbear the doing of that which we are not sure is lawful to be done.' Affirmatively, the work being good, labour thy understanding so to think it.

Fear rather than profit hath made him a flatterer ; and you may read the statutes, and his landlord's disposition, in the characters of his countenance. A soldier, a hu.sbandman, and a merchant, should be venturous. He would be God's husbandman, and sow the seeds of obedience, but for ' observing the wind and weather' of great men's frowns, Eccles. xi. 4. He would be God's factor, but that he fears to lose by his talent, and therefore buries it, Luke XL 13. He would be God's soldier, but that the world and the devil are two such shrewd and sore enemies, 2 Tim. ii. 3. He once began to prosecute a deed of charity, and because the event crossed him, he makes it a rule to do no more good.

As he' is fearful of himself, so distrustful of others, caiTying his heart in his eyes, his eyes in his hands : as she in the comedy, Oculatce mihi sunt manus, credunt quod vident. He knows nothing by himself but evil, and according to that rule measures others. He would fain be a usurer, but

that he dares not tnist the hiw with wax and paper. He swears damnably to the truth of that he affirms, as fearing otherwise not to be believed, because without that oathing it he will credit none himself. The bastardy of swearing lays on him the true fatherhood. He will trust neither man nor God without a pawn; not so much as his tailor with the stuff to make his clothes : he nnist be a broker, or no neighbour. He hath no faith, for he believes nothing but what he knows; and knowledge nullifies belief. If others laugh, he imagines himself their ridiculous object; if there be any whispering, cotiscius ipse sibi, 6:c., it must be of him without question. If he goes to law, he is the advocate's sprite, and haunts him wor.se than, his own mains genius. He is his owti caterer, his own receiver, his own secretary ; and takes such pains, as if necessity forced him, because all servants he thinks thieves. He dares not trust his money above-ground, for fear of men ; nor under-ground, for fear of mst. When he throws his censures at actions, his luck is still to go out; and so whiles he playeth with other men's credits, he cozens himself of his own. His opinion lights upon the worst sense still; as the fly that passeth the sound parts to fasten on a scab, or a dor that ends his flight in a dunghill. Without a sithjxena these timorous cowherds dare not to London, for fear lest the city air should conspire to poison them ; where they are ever crying, ' Lord, have mercy on us,' whenas * Lord, have mercy on us' is the special thing they feared. The ringing of bells tunes their heart into melancholy ; and the very sight of a corpse is almost enough to turn them into corpses. On the Thames they dare not come, because they have heard some there drowned; nor near the Parliament-house, because it was once in danger of blowing up. Home this emblem of diffidence comes, and there lives with distrust of others, and dies in distrust of himself; only finding death a certain thing to trust to.

The cure of this bodily shaking is much at one v\'ith that of the palsy; specially if it be caused of cold and gross humours. To help a man of this spiritual trembling, these intentions must be respected :—First, to i)urge his heart by repentance from those foul and feculent corruptions wherewith it is infected ; and being clean himself, he will more charitably censure of others. Then teach him to lay the heaviest load on himself, and to spare others. ' True wisdom from above is without judging, without hypocrisy,' James iii. 17. The wisest men are the least censurers; they have so much ado to mend all at home, that their neighbours live quietly enough by them. Get him a. good affection, and he will have a good construction. Minister to his soul a draught of charity, which will cleanse him of suspicion, for 'charity thinks no evil,' 1 Cor. xiii. 5. None ? It thinks no evil, unless it perceive it apparently. To credit all were silliness ; to credit none, suUenness.' Against his timorousness he hath an excellent receipt, set down by God himself: 'Fear not the fear of the wicked;' but ' sanctify the Lord of hosts himself: let him be your fear, let him ha your dread,' Isa. viii. 12, 13. The way for him to fear nothing as he doth, is to fear one thing as ho should. Awful reverence to God doth rather bolden than terrify a man. ' They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which caimot be removed, but abideth for ever,' Ps. cxxv. 1. They may be moved, they cauTiot be removed, from what is good, from what is their good, their God. This course may cure his paralytic soul, only if it shall please God to be his physician.

Disease 10 : Immoderate Thirst and Ambition. —There is a disease in the body called immoderate thirst ; which is after much drinking, desired and answered, a still sensible dryness. By this I would (I suppose, not unfitly) express that spiritual disease, ambition,—a proud soul's thirst, when a

draught of honour causeth a drought of honour; and like Tally's strange soil, much rain of promotion falling from his heaven, the court, makes him still as dry as dust. He is a most rank churl, for he drinks often, and yet would have no man pledge him.

The disease is caused in the body through abundant heat drying up moisture ; and this is done by hot, choleric, or salt humours engendered in the stomach, or through fevers burning or hectic.

The signs of the disease are best discerned by the patient's words. The cause of ambition is a strong opmion of honour; how well he could become a high place, or a high place him. It is a proud covetousness, a glorious and court madness. The head of his reason caught a bruise on the right side, his understanding; and ever since lie follows affection as his principal guide. He professeth a new quality, called the art of climbing; wherein he teacheth others by pattern, not so much to aspire, as to break their necks. No stair pleaseth him if there be a higher; and yet, ascended to the top, he complains of lowness. He is not so soon laid in his bed of honour but he dreams of a higher preferment, and would not sit on a seat long enough to make it warm. His advancement gives him a fresh provocation, and he now treads on that with a disdainful foot, which erewhile he would have kissed to obtain. He climbs falling towers, and the hope to scale them swallows all fear of toppling down. He is himself an intelligencer to greatness, yet not without under-officers of the same rank. You shall see him narrow-eyed with watching, affable and open-breasted like Absalom, full of insinuation so long as he is at the stair-foot; but when authority hath once spoken kindly to him, with ' Friend, sit up higher,' he looks rougher than Hercules; so big as if the river of his blood would not be banked within his veins. His tongTie va flahelluvi diaholi, and flagellum justi, —bent to scourge some, flatter others, infect, infest all. Agrippina, Nero's mother, being told by an astrologer that her son should be emperor, but to her sorrow, answered,' Let my sorrow be what it will, so my son may get the empire.' He hath high desires, low deserts. As Tully for his Pindinessus,* he spends much money about a little preferment; and with greater cost than the captain bought his burgess-ship, he purchaseth incorporeal fame, which passeth away as swift as time doth follow motion, and whose weight is nothing but in her name : whereas a lower place, well managed, leaves behind it a deathless memory. Like a great wind, he blows down all friends that stand in his way to rising. Policy is his post-horse, and he rides all upon the spur, till he come to Nonesuch. His greatest plague is a rival.

' Nee quemquam jam ferre potest Cjesarve priorem, Pompeiusve parem.'-h

' Tolluntur in altum, ut lapsu graviore ruant.'

He is a child in his gaudy desires, and great titles are his rattles, which still his crying till he see a new toy. He kisses his wits, as a courtier his hand, when any wished fortune salutes him ; and it tickles him that he hath stolen to promotion without God's knowledge. Amhitio ambieMium crux, — Ambition is the rack whereon he tortureth himself. The court is the sea wherein he desires to fish ; but the net of his wit and hope breaks, and there he drowns himself An old courtier beuig asked what he did at court, answered, ' I do nothing but undo myself.'

For the bodily disease, caused of heat and dryness, physicians prescribe

* A village in Cilicia, which Cicero took after a twenty-five days* siege.— Ed. + Lucan, lib. i.

oicicratum, a drink made of vinegar and water sodden together; a chief intention in them is to procure sleep, «tc. To cure the immoderate tliirat of ambition, let him take from God this prescript: ' He that exalteth liiraself shall be brouglit low; but he that humbleth himself sliall be exalted.' That he who sets himself down in the lower room hears the master of the feast's invitation, ' Friend, sit up higher.' That a glorious angel by ambition became a devil; and a Lucifer of his sons, ' the king of Babylon, that said, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, is brought down to hell, and to the sides of the pit,' Is<a. xiv. 1-1. That the first step to heaven's court is humility: Matt. v. 3,' Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' That he who walks on plain ground is in little danger to fall; if he do fall, he riseth with small hurt ; but he that climbs high is in more danger of falling, and if he fall, of killing. That the great blasts of powerful envy overthrow oaks and cedars, that oppose their huge bodies, and pass through hollow willows, or over little shrubs, that grow under the wall. That the higher state is the fairer mark for misfortune to shoot at: that which way soever the ambitious man looks, he finds matter of dejection. Above him, behold a God casting an ambitious angel out of heaven, an ambitious king from the society of men, but so ' respecting the lowliness of his handmaiden, that all generations call her blessed,' Luke i. 48. Below him, behold the earth, the womb that he came from, and the tomb that must receive him. About him, behold others transcending him in his best qualities. Within him, a mortal nature that must die, though he were clad m gold ; and perhaps an evil conscience stinging him, whose wounds are no more eased by promotion than a broken bone is kept by a tissue-coat from aching. That there is a higher reckoning to be made of a higher place. That like city-houses, that on small foundations carry spacious roofs, his own top-hea\'y weight is ready to tumble him down. That he mounts up like a seeled* dove; and w^anting eyes of discretion, he may easily light in a puddle. That he is but a stone tossed up into the air by fortune's sling, to receive the greater fall. That for want of other malignant engines, he begets on himself destruction. That Tiberius complained of fortune, that having set him up in so high a monarchy, she did not vouchsafe him a ladder to come dowTi again. That the honours of this world have no satisfactory validity in them. The poor labourer would be a farmer; the farmer, after two or three dear years, asjares to a yeoman ; the yeoman's son must be a gentleman. The gentleman's ambition flics justice-height. He is out of square with being a squire, and shoots at knighthood. Once knighted, his dignity is nothing, except worth a noble title. This is not enough, the world must count him a count, or he is not satisfied. He is weary of his earldom, if there be a duke in the land. That granted, he thinks it base to be a subject; nothing now contents him but a crown. Crowned, he vilifies his own kingdom for narrow bounds, whiles he hath greater ncighl)ours ; he must be Ciusared to a universal monarch. Let it be granted, is he yet content ? No ; then the earth is a molehill, too narrow for his mind, and he is angry for lack of elbow-room.

' Unus Pellsco Juveni non sufBcit orbia: iEstuat infclix angusto limine mundi.'

Last, to be king of men is idle, he must be deified ; and now Alexander conceits his immortidity, and causeth temples and altars to be built to his name. And yet, being thus adored, is not pleased, becau.se he cannot command hca-

♦ Blinded ; a term in falconry.— Ed.

ven and control nature. Rome robbed the world, SyUa Rome, and yet again Sylla himself, not content till then. "When advancement hath set him up as a butt, he cannot be without the quiver of fears. Thus the largest draught of honour this world can give him doth not quench, but inflame his ambitious thirst. Well, let repentant humiliation prick the bladder of his blown hopes, and let out the windy vapours of self-love. And now let him ' hunger and thirst after righteousness,' and on my life * he shall be satisfied,' Matt. V. 6.

Disease 11: Inflammation of the Reins, or Lustfulness. —Among many diseases incident to the reins, as the diabetes, ulcers, the stone there, and the emission of bloody urine, there is one called inflammation of the reins. To this not unfitly, by comparing the causes, symptoms, and cure of either, I do liken lust. The Scripture calls it by a general name—uncleanness. Co-vetousness is commonly the disease of old age, ambition of middle age, lust of youth ; and it extends further, it portends less help.

The causes of the bodily disease are given to be : first, corrupt humours ; secondly, drinking of many medicines ; thirdly, vehement ridings. Consider these in our comparison, and tell me if they sound not a similitude. Pro-vocatur libido, uhi deficit; revocatur, uhi desinit. Medicines are invented, not to qualify, but to calefy, as if they intended to keep alive their concupiscence, though they dead their conscience.

The signs are many. There is a beating pain about the first joint of the back, a little above the bastard ribs, &c., with others, which modesty bids cover with the cloak of silence. The lustful man is a monster, as one that useth—

' Humano capiti cervicem jungere equinam.'

He affects Popery for nothing else but the patronage of fornication and frankness of indulgence. He cites Harding frequently, that common courtezans in hot countries are a necessary evil; which he believes, against God's express prohibition, in a hotter climate than Italy, ' There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel,' Deut. xxiii. 17; then certainly no whoremaster. He tliinks it, if a sin, yet peccadillo, a little sin ; and that the venereal foults are venial, at least venal. Thus he would be a bawd to the sin, if not to the sinners. He is careless of his own name, of his own soul: injurious to his own minion, whom he corrupts ; to his bastard, whom he brings up like himself He increaseth mankind, not for love to the end, but to the means. His soul is wrapped in the truss of his senses, and a whore is the covimunis terminus where they all meet. He hath no command over his own affections, though over countries; as our modern epigrammatist of Hercules—

* Lenam non potuit, potuit superare letenam; Quern fera non valuit vincere, vicit hera.'

His practice is, as it is said of some tobacconists, to dry up his purse, that he may dry up his blood, and the radical rnoisture.

' Nil nisi turpe juvat, curse est sua cuique voluptas; Hffic quoque ab alterius grata dolore venit.'

The delight of his wickedness is the indulgence of the present, for it endures but the doing. He never rests so contentedly as on a forbidden bed. He is a felonious picklock of virginities, and his langTiage corrupts more innocent truth than a bad lawyer's. He is an almanac from eighteen to eight-and-twenty, if he scapes the fire so long. He can never call his hairs

and his sins equal, for as his sins increase his hairs fall. He buys admission of the chambermaid with his first fruits. He lives like a salamander in the flames of lust, and quencheth his heat with lire, and cuntinues his days under zona tornda. He spends his forenoon with aiKitheearies, the afternoon of his days with surgeons; the former beget his misery, the latter should cure it. Every rare female, hke a wandering planet, .strikes him ; hence he grows amazed. His eyes are the trap-doors to Ids heart, and his lascivious hopes suck poison from the fairest tlower. Ho drowns hiiu.self in a woman's beauty, which is God's good creation, as a melancholy distracted man in a crystal river. When conscience plucks him by tlie sleeve, and would now, after much importunacy, sj)eak with him, he bids her meet him at fifty ; ho chargeth repentance to attend him at Master Doctor's. When his life's sun is ready to set, he marries, and is then knocked with his owai weapon ; his own disableuess and his wife's youthfuluess, like bells, ringing all in. Now his common theme is to brag of his young sins, and if you credit his discourse, it shall make him far worse than he was. At last, he is but keitt above-ground by the art of chirurgery.

For his cure, let him blood with the law of God : * Thou shalt not commit adidtery.' That ' the rigliteous God trieth the heart and the reins,' Fs. vii. 9, even the place where his disease lieth. That

' Si renum cupia incolumem servare salutem, Sirenum cantus eifuge, sauus eris.'

That hrevis est voluptas fornicationis, perpetua pcena foniicatoris, —the pleasure of the sin is short, the punishment of the sin eternal. That

' Nuda Venus picta est, nudl pinguntur amores: Nam, quoa nuda capit, nudos amittat oportet.'

That his desired cure is his deserved poison. Age and sleep are his infal-liblest physicians. Disease is the mortifier of his sin, and cures it with an issue. That no black shield of the darkest night, no subtle arts, can hide or defend from God's impulsive sight. That, as a modern poet of ours—

' Joy graven in sense, like snow in water wastes: Without conserve of virtue nothing lasts.'

That he walks the highway to the devil; and winds down the blind stairs to helL That as it is called a noble sin, it shall have a noble punishment That he hath taken a voyage to the kingdom of darkness ; and is now at his journey's end when lust leaves him ere he discharge it. Let him observe St Paul's medicine: 1 Cor. vi. 18, ' Flee fornication : every sin that a man doth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinutjth ao'ainst his own body.' And, ' Tliis is the will of God, even your Siinctifioa-tion, and that ye should abstahi from fornication,' 1 Thess. iv. 3. Let him shun opportunity as his bawd, and occasion as his pander. Let him often drink that potion that Augustine did at his conversion :* ' Let us walk honestly, as in the day-time; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chamber-mg and wantonness,' ic. ' But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the fiesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof,' llom. .\iii. 13, 11. Physicians prescribe, for the reins' inflammation, cooluig tilings, cataplasms, baths, iSic. A special intention to cure this burning concupiscence is to cure it with the tears of penitence. Weep for thy sins; and if the disease grow still strong upon thee, take the antidote God hath prescribed, marriage: * Coufua., lib. viii., cap. 12.

* It is better to marry than to burn,' 1 Cor. vii. ' Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge/ Heb. xiii. 4. Much exercise doth well to the cure of this inflammation. When our affections refuse to sit on the nest of lust and to keep it warm, the brood of actual follies will not be hatched. How yEgistus (not without company) became aii adulterer;— in promptu causa est, desidiosus erat : for Otia si tollas, periere Cupidims arcus, —Cupid shoots in a slug, and still hits the sluggish. This intemperate fire is well abated by withdrawing the fuel. Delicates to excite lust are spurs to post a man to hell. It is fasting spittle that must kill his tetter. Uncleanness is the bastard begot of gluttony and drunkenness. Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus. When the mouth is made a tunnel, and the belly a barrel, there is no contentment without a bed and a bedfellow.

Disease 12 : The Rotten Fever, or Hypocrisy. —Amongst almost innumerable kinds of fevers, there is one called cvwyjg, or fehris putrida, the rotten fever; which is a fever of one fit, continuing many days without any great mutation. Hereunto I have likened a rotten disease in the soul, called hypocrisy; which is nothing else but vice in virtue's apparel.

This corporal disease is caused when the humours do putrefy and rot equally within the vessels. It is not engendered in those that be lean and slender, or of a thin and rai'e state of body, or of a cold temper ; but in those that be hot and abound with blood, fleshy, gross, and thick-bodied. Me-thinks this malady smells very like hypocrisy; which is a rotten heart, festered and putrefied with habituated sins, there with great delight and indulgence reserved : not incident to those that have a weak, thin, and slender opinion of themselves, that through humility have a lean and spare construction of their own desserts ; no, nor to them that be of a cold temper and disposition to religion, not caring either to be good or to seem so; but to those that have a gross and blown conceit of themselves, swelling into an incomprehensible ostentation, and implacably hot in the persecution of that they inwardly affect not.

For the signs of this putrid fever, they be not externally discerned, except you feel the pulse, which beats thick, quick, and vehement. The hypocrite is exceedingly rotten at core, like a Sodom apple, though an ignorant passenger may take him for sound. He looks squint-eyed, aiming at two things at once : the satisfying his own lusts, and that the world may not be aware of it. Bonus videri, non esse; malus esse, non videri, cupit. They would seem good, that they might be evil alone : not seem evil, lest they might not then be evil so much. Oves visu, vulpes astu, actu : having much angel without, more devU within; a vUlanous host dwelling at the sign of Friend.

' Tiita frequensque via est, per amici fallere nonieu. Tuta frequensque licet sit via, crimen habet.'

Which one thus wittily Englisheth:—

' A safe and common thing it is, Tiirough friendship to deceive : As safe and common as it is, 'Tis knavery, by your leave.'

He is on Sunday like the Rubric, or Sunday-letter, zealously red; but all the week you may write his deeds in black. He fries in words, freezeth in works; speaks by ells, doth good by inches. He is a rotten tinder, shining in the night: an ignisfatuus, looking like a fixed star; a ' painted sepulchre,'

that conceals much rottenness; a crude glowworm shining in the dark; a stinking dunghill covered over with snow; a fellow of a bad couree, and good discourse ; a loose-huui; mill, that keeps groat clacking, but grinds no grist; a lying hen, that cackles when she hath not laid. He is like some tap-house that hath upon the painted walls written, ' Fear dod, be sober, watch and pray,' ifec, when there is nothing but swearing and drunkenness ill the house. His tongue is hot as if he had eaten pcpi)er, which works coldly at the heart. He burns in the show of forward profession ; but it is a poor fire of zeal, that will not make the pot of charity seethe. He is in company holy and demure, but alone demurs of the matter ; so shuts out the devil Jit the gate, and lets him in at the postern.

His words are precise, his deeds concise; he prays so long in the church, that he may with less suspicion prey on the church; which he doth the more peremptorily, if his power be answerable. K his place will atiurd it, his grace will without question. He bears an earnest atfection to the temple, as a hungry man to his meat, only to devour it. ' They .say. Come, let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession,' Ps. Ixxxiii. 12. We pray for their conversion; but if there be no hope, we must use the next words of the psalm : ' O my God, make them as a wheel; like the stubble before the wind,' ver. 13. They can abide no point of Popery, but only this, church-robbing. Everything the Papists used but this is superstition. Some are so charitable, that having got the tithe-corn from the church, they reserve from the presented incumbent their petty tithes also; like monstrous thieves, that having stole the whole piece, ask for the remnants. Nay, it is not enough that they devour our parsonages, but they also devour our person.-? with their contumelious slanders. Advantage can make his religion play at fast and loose, for he only so long grows full of devotion, as he may grow full by devotion. His arguments are weak or strong, according to his cheer; and he discourses best after dinner. Self-conceit swells him, and popular applause bursts him. He never gives the law good words but when it hath him upon the hip. Like a kind hen, he feeds his chickens fat, starves himself He forceih formal preciseness, like a porter, to hold the door, whiles de^ils dance within. He gives God nothing but show, as if he would pay him his reckoning with chalk; which increascth the debt. K ever his alms smell of bounty, he gives them in public. He that desires more to be seen of men than of God, commend me to his con.science by this token, he is a hypocrite. He covers his ravenous extortions, and covetous oppressions, with the show of sm;dl beneficences ; and so may, for his charity, go to the devil. Indeed, gentilem agit vitam mb nomine Chnstiavo, —he lives Turk under the name of Christian. He is false in his friendship, heartless in hLs zeal, ])roud in his humility. He rails against interludes, yet is himself never off the stage; and condemns a mask, when his whole life Is nothing else. He sends a beggar from his gate bountifully feasted with Scripture sentences; and (though he likes them not) so much of the statutes as will serve to save his money. But if every one were of his profession, charity's hand would no longer hold up poverty's head. What his tongue • spoke, his hands recant; and he weeps when he talks of his youth, not that it was wicked, but that it is not. His tongue is his dissimulation's lacquey, and runs continually on that errand : he is the stranger's s.'iint, his neighbour's sycophant, his own politician ; his whole life being nothing else but a continual scribbling after the set Cf)py of hypocrisy.

For hb cure, there is more dilhculty than of the rotten fever. In this, two special intcutious are used : bloodletting, and drinking of cool water,

&c. But, alas! what medicine should a man give to him whom he knows not to be sick 1 His heart is rotten, his husks fair and sightly. The core of his disease lies in his conscience, and, like an onion, is covered with so many peels that you would not suspect it. Their best physic is that God gives to Israel: ' Cleanse thy heart from iniquity, 0 Jerusalem, that thou mayest be saved : how long shall thy vain thoughts remain within thee 1 ' Jer. iv. 14. If this serve not, let them read Christ's bill, his denunciation against them, so often menaced, ' Woe unto you, hypocrites !' I would tell them, that simulata sanctitas, duplex iniquitas; and their life is so much the more abominable as they have played the better part.

Disease 13 : Flux and Prodigality. —There be divers fluxes according to physicians : Uenteria, a smoothness of the bowels, suffering the meat to slide away not perfectly digested; dysenteria, which is an exulceration of the bowels, whereof also they make four sorts; tenesmus, which is a continual provocation to siege, that the patient can neither defer nor eschew, yet vents nothing but slime. The flux diarrJioea is the general, as being without exulceration or inflammation. To this I compare prodigality, which is a continual running out.

The corporal disease is caused either, first, by debility of the instruments that serve to digestion ; or secondly, through abundance of nourishment, moist and viscous, soon corrupted; or thirdly, through weakness of the retentive faculty. The similitude holds well in the causes of prodigality. There is, first, a weakness of his understanding and brain, to digest that which his friends left him. Secondly, abundance of goods have made him wanton; and the most part being slimy and ill-gotten, it wastes like snow, faster than it was gathered. Thirdly, the debUity of his retentive virtue is a special cause. For prodigality is pictured with the eyes shut and the hands open; lavishly throwing out, and blindly not looking where.

The symptoms of this disease are manifest. He is an out-lier, and never keeps -within the pale. He runs after liberality, and beyond it. He is diametrically opposite to the covetous; and the difference is in transposing of one adverb. The one, dut nan rogatus ; the other, non dat rogatus. One hand is his receiver, but, like Briareus, he hath a hundred hands to lay out. He would bear dissipatoris, non dispensatoris officium. His father went to hell one way, and he will follow him another; and because he hath chosen the smoother way, he makes the more haste. Parasites are his tenterhooks, and they stretch him till he bursts, and then leave him hanging in the rain. You may put his heart in your pocket, if you talk to him bareheaded, with many parentheses of 'Your worship ;' there is no upstart buys his titles at a dearer rate. He loves a well-furnished table ; so he may have three P's to his guests— parasites, pa7iders, and playet-s ; the fourth he cannot abide, preachers. He will be applauded for a while, though he want almost pity when he wants. Like an hour-glass turned up, he never leaves running till all be out. He never looks to the bottom of his patrimony till it be quite unravelled ; and then, too late, complains that the stock of his wealth ran course at the fag-end. His father had too good opinion of the world, and lie too much disdains it. Herein he speeds, as he thinks, a little better; and those that barked at his sire like curs, fawn upon him, and lick his hand like spaniels. He vies vanities with the slothful, and it is hard to say who wins the game; yet give him the bucklers, for idleness is the coach to bring a man to Needdom, prodigality the post-horse. His father was no man's friend but his own ; and he, saith the proverb^ is no man's foe

else. Of what iige soever, he is under the years of discretion; for if providence do not take bini ward, his heirs shall never be sought after. His ves-sel hath three leaks—a lascivious eye, a gammg hand, a dcitiod belly; and to content these, he can neither rule his heart nor his purse. When the shot comes to be paid, to draw in his company is a quarrel. When he feels want, for till then he never feels it, he complains of greatness for ingratitude, that he was not thought of when promotions were a-dcaling. When his last acre lies in his purse, he projects strange things, and builds houses in the air, having sold those on the ground; he turns nialecontcnt, and shifts that lie never had, religion. If he have not learned those tricks that undid him, flattery and cheating, he must needs press himself to the wars. He never before considered ad posse, but ad velle, and now he forgets velle, and looks only to posse. Tiike him at first imttiug forth into the sea of wealth and profuse-ness, and his fulness gives him—

' Langiientis stomacbum, quern nulla ciborum, Blandimeuta movent, quern nulla invitat orexis;'—

His stomach so rasping since his last meal, that it grows too cowardly to fight with a chicken : then he calls for sport, like sauce to excite appetite ; and when all fails, thinks of sleep, lies down to find it, and misseth it. In the connivance of his security, harlots and sycophants rifle his estate, and then send him to rob the hogs of their provender, Jove's nuts, acorns. In short time he is dismounted from his coach, disquautitied of his train, distasted of his famihars, distressed of his riches, distracted of his wits, and never proves his own man till he hath no other. At last, after his hoveruig flight, he drops to a centre, which is a room in the alms-house that his father built.

For his cure, (I will not meddle with his estate, I know not how to cure that; but for his soul,) let him first take a pill of repentance ; for howsoever he hath scoured his estate, he hath clogged his conscience, and it must be purged. Bind up his unruly hands, so lavish and letting fly. Pull ofi" from his eyes that film of eiTor, that he may distinguish his reproving friends from his flattering enemies. Cool his luxurious heat with Solomon's after-course, the banquet of his pleasures being done: 'that for all these things God will bring him to judgment,' Eccles. xi. 9. That beggary is the heir-apparent of riot, as the younger son in the gospel, Luke xv. 13 ; we have too many such younger brothers. That his answer to those that admonish his frugality is built upon a false ground : ' ily goods are my own,' as the parasites said of their tongues, Ps. xiL 4 ; whereas he is not a lord but a steward, and must one day reddere rationem dispensation is, Luke xvL 2. The bUl of his reckoning will be fearful: Iteyn, for so many oaths. Iteyn, for so many lies. Item, for drunkenness. Item, for lusts, <kc. Nay, and item for causing so many tavern itejus, which were worse than [thy.sic bills to his estate. To conclude, if death find him as bankrupt of spiritual as of worldly goods, it will send him to an eternal prison.

Disease 14 : The Jaundice and Profaneness. — IderiLS, or the jaundice, is a spreading of yellow choler or melancholy all over the body. To this I compare profaneness, which is an epidemical and universal spreading of wickedness throughout all powers of the soul.

The jaundice is caused sometimes accidentally, when the blood is corrupted

by some outward occasion without a fever; or through hiflanmiation and

change of the natural temperament of tbe liver; or through obstruction of

the passages which go to the bowels, Szc. The causes of profaneness are an

VOL. L - J

affected ignorance, a dead heart, a sensual disposition, an intoxicate reason, an habituated delight in sin, without sense, without science, without conscience.

The symptoms of both the jaundice and profaneness need no description : their external appearance discolouring, the one the skin, the other the life, save both physicians much labour, if it be true that the knowledge of the disease is half the cure. He hath ' sold himself to wickedness,' for the price of a little vanity, like Ahab; or let a lease, not to expire without his life. At first sight you would take him for a man; but he will presently make you change that opinion, for Circe's cup hath transformed him. His eyes are the casements, that stand continually open, for the admission of lusts to the unclean nest of his heart. His mouth is the devil's trumpet, and sounds nothing but the music of hell. His hand is besmeared with aspersions of blood, lust, rapine, theft; as if all the infernal serpents had disgorged their poisons on it. He loves Satan extremely, and either swims to him in blood, or sails in a vessel of wine. His heaven is a tavern, whence he never de-jDarts till he hath cast up the reckoning. He is ready to swear there is no God, though he swears perpetually by him. Religion is his footstool, and policy his horse, appetite his huntsman, pleasure his game, and his dogs are his senses. He endeavours by the continuance of his sports to make his pleasures circular, and the flame of his delight round, as the moon at full, and full as bright. The point of his heart is touched with the loadstone of this world, and he is not quiet but toward the north, the scope of his wickedness. He hath bowed his soul at the mark of sensuality, and runs to hell to overtake it. If the devil can maintain him a stock of thoughts, let him alone for execution, though to bastard his own children, and water on liis father's grave. To conclude, he is but a specialty of hell antedated, and strives to be damned before his time.

His physic, as in some jaundices, must be strong of operation; for the dryness of the one's stomach, of the other's conscience, doth enervate the force of medicines. The special intentions of his cure are strong purgations and bloodletting. If the law of God doth not purge out this corruption from his heart, let him blood by the hand of man; manacle his hands, shackle his feet, dispute upon him with arguments of iron and steel; let him smart for his blasphemies, slanders, quarrels, whoredoms; and because he is no allowed chirurgeon, restrain him from letting blood. Muzzle the wolf, let him have his chain and his clog, bind him to the good behaviour; and if these courses will not learn him continence, sobriety, peace, try what a Newgate and a grate will do. If nothing, let us lament his doom : ' Their end is damnation, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things,' Phil. iii. 19.

Disease 15 : Apojdexy and SeaiHty. —The apoplexy is a disease wherein the fountain and original of all the sinews being affected, every part of the body loseth both moving and sense ; all voluntary functions hindered, as the wheels of a clock when the poise is down. To this I liken security, which though it be not sudden to the soul, as the other is to the body, yet is almost as deadly. There may be some difference in the strength or length of obsession; all similitudes run not like coaches on four wheels : they agree in this, they both lie fast asleep ; the eyes of the one's body, of the other's reason shut, and they arc both withm two groans of death.

The cause of the apoplexy is a phlegmatic humour, cold, gross, and tough, which abundantly fills the ventricles of the brain. The cause of security is a dusking and clouding of the understanding with the black humours and

dark mists of self-iguorance ; a want of calling himself to a reckoning, till

he be nonsuited.

The signs of the corporal are more palpable than of the spiritual sickness. The parish of his affections is extremely out of order : because Reason, his ordinary, doth not visit; nor Memory, his churchwarden, present (or if it does. Omnia bene) Neither doth Understanding, the judge, censure and determine. He keeps the chamber of his heart locked, that meditation enter not; and though it be sluttish with dust and cobwebs, wUl not sutler repentance to sweep it. He loseth tlie fruit of all crosses; and is so far from breaking his heart at a little afiliction, that a sharp twitch stirs him not. Wliereas a melting heart bleeds at the least blow, he feels not the sword drinking up his blood. ^Most men sleep nigh half their time, he is never awake : though the sun shines, he lives in sempiternal night. His soul lies at ease, like the rich man's, Luke xii., and is loath to rise. Custom hath rocked him asleep in the cradle of his suis, and he slumbers without starting. His security is like Popery, a thick curtain ever drawn to keep out the light. The element he lives in is mare mortuunu He is a foolish governor, and with much clemency and indulgence nurseth rebellion ; neither dare he chide his affections though they conspire his death. Ho is the antit}ije to the fabulous legend of the seven sleepers. Pohcy may use him as a bloek, cannot as an engine. He is not dangerous in a commonwealth ; for if you let him alone, he troubles nobody.

The cure of the apoplexy is almost desperate. If there be any help, it ia by opening both the cephalic vems; and this course speeds the patient one way. Security, if it sleeps not to death, must be rung awake. There are five bells that must ring this peal:—

First, Conscience is the treble, and this troubles him a Uttle : when this bell strikes, he drowns the noise of it with good-fellowship. But it sounds so shrill, that at last it will be heard ; especially if God pulls it.

Secondly, Preaching is the stint or the certen to all the rest. This is Aaron's bell, and it must be ning loud to wake him : for lightly he begins Lis nap with the sermon; and when the parish is gone home, he is left in his seat fast asleep : yet this may at last stir him.

Thirdly, Another bell in this ring is the death of others round about him ; whom he accompanies to the church with a deader heart than the corpse ; knows he is gone to judgment, yet provides not for his own accounts at that audit. It may be, this spectacle, and a mourmng cloak, may bring him to weep.

Fourthly, The oppressed poor is a counter-tenor, and rings loud knells of moans, groans, and suppUcations either to him for his pity, or against him for his injur}'. If this bell, so heavily tolling, do not waken him, it will waken God against him. ' Their cry is come up into the ears of the Lord of hosts,' James v. 4.

Fifthly, The tenor or bow-bell is the abused creatures : the rust of the gold, the ' stone out of the wall' crj-ing against the oppressor; the corn, Avine, oil, against the epicure.

Happily this pc;U may wake him. If not, there is yet another goad : affliction on himself—God cutting short his horns, that he may not gore his neighbours ; and letting him blood in his riches, lest being too rank, he should grow into a surfeit; or ca.sting him down on his bed of sickness, and there taking sleep from his body, because his soul hath had too much. If neither the peal nor the goad can waken him, God will shoot an ordnance against him—death. And if yet he dies sleeping, the archangel's trump shall

not fail to rouse liim. ' Awake then, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light,' Eph. v. 14.

Disease 16 : Windiness in the Stoviacli, and Vainglory. —Inflation in the stomach hath some correspondence with vainglory in the soul; a disease in either part of man full of ventosity, where all the humour riseth up into froth.

Windiness is engendered through phlegmatic humours in the stomach, or through meats dissolved into vapours by deficiency of kindly heat. The cause of vainglory is a vaporous windy opinion of some rare quaUty in a man's self; which though it be but an atom, he would blow, like an alchemist, to a great mass. But at last, it either settles in a narrow room, or vanisheth into foam.

Symptoms of the corporal disease are a swelling of the stomach, empty belchings, much rumbling of wind in the bowels, which offering to descend, is turned back again. You shall easUy know a vainglorious man : his own commendation rumbles within him, till he hath bulked it out; and the air ■of it is unsavoury. In the field, he is touching heaven with a lance ; in the street, his eye is still cast over his shoulder. He stands so pertly, that you may know he is not laden with fruit. If you would drink of his wisdom, knock by a sober question at the barrel, and you shall find by the sound his wits are empty. In all companies, like chaff, he will be uppermost; he is some surfeit in nature's stomach, and cannot be kept down. A goodly cypress tree, fertile only of leaves. He drinks to none beneath the salt; and it is his grammar-rule without exception, not to confer with an inferior in public. His impudence will overrule his ignorance to talk of learned principles, which come from him like a treble part in a bass voice, too big for it. Living in some under-stair office, when he would visit the country, he borrows some gallant's cast suit of his servant, and therein, player-like, acts that part among his besotted neighbours. When he rides his master's great horse out of ken, he vaunts of him as his own, and brags how much he cost him. He feeds upon others' courtesy, others' meat; and (whether more 1) either fats him. At his inn he calls for chickens at spring, and such things as cannot be had; whereat angry, he sups, according to his purse, with a red herring. Far enough from knowledge, he talks of his castle, (which is either in the air, or enchanted,) of his lands, which are some pastures in the fairy-ground, invisible, nowhere. He offers to purchase lordships, but wants money for the earnest. He makes others' praises as introductions to his own, which must transcend ; and calls for wine, that he may make kno'mi his rare vessel of deal at home : not forgetting to you, that a Dutch merchant sent it him for some extraordinary desert. He is a wonder everywhere : among fools for his bravery, among wise men for his folly. He loves a herald for a new coat, and hires him to lie upon his pedigree. All nobility, that is ancient, is of his alliance ; and the great man is but of the first head, that doth not call him cousin. When his beams are weakest, like the rising and setting sun, he makes the longest shadows : whereas bright knowledge, like the sun at highest, makes none at all; though then it hath most result-ance of lieat and rcllcction of light. He takes great pains to make himself ridiculous ; yet (without suspecting it) both his speech and silence cries. Behold me. He discommends earned worth with a shrug, and lisps his enforced approbation. He loves humility in all men but himself, as if he did wish well to all souls but his own.

There is no matter of consequence that policy begets, but ho will be gossip to it, and give it a name ; and knows the intention of all projects before they be full hatched. He hath somewhat in him, which would be better for

SiaiMON XXV J THE soul's sickness. .")01

himself and all men if he could keep it in. In his hall, you shall sec an old rusty s^vord hung up, wllich he swears killed Glendower in the hands of his grandsire. He fathers upon himself some villanies, hecause they are in fashion ; and so vilifies his credit to advance it. If a new famous courtezan be mentioned, he deeply knows her; whom hideed he never saw. He will be ignorant of nothing, though it be a shame to know it. His barrel hath a continual spigot, but no tunnel; and like an unthrift, he spends more than he gets. His speech of himself is ever historical, histrionical. He is indeed admiration's creature, and a circumstantial mountebank.

For the cure of the corporal disease, you must give the patient such medicines as divide and purge phlegm, with an extenuating diet. To cure this windy humour of vainglory, St Paul hath a sharp medicine : that ' his glory is in his shame,' Phil. iii. 19. Prescribe him, that the free giving all glory to God is the rcsultancc of the best glory to man. The counsel of both law and gospel meets in this. ' Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, nor the strong in his strength, nor the rich in his wealth ; but let liim that glorieth glory in the Lord,' Jer. ix. 23. That ' he hath nothing'—which is good—' that he hath not received,' 1 Cor. x. 17; and it is a shame for the cistern not to acknowledge the fountam. That the praise of good deserts i.s lost by want of humility. That there is none arrogant but the ignorant; and that if he understood himself, his conceived sea is but a iniddle, Avhich every judicious observer s plummet finds shallow and muddy. That trafficking for the freight of men's praises for liis good worth, he suffers shipwreck in the haven; and loseth his reward there, where he shoidd receive it.

Disease \1 : The Itch, ov the Busi/hody. —The itch is a scurvy disease ; a man would not think the soul had any infirmity to sample it. You shall find the humour of a busybody, a contentious intermeddler, very like it. The itch is a corrupt humour between the skin and the flesh, runnmg with a serpedinous course, till it hath defiled the whole body. Thus caused :—

Nature being too strong for the evil humours in the body, packs them away to utter parts, to preserve the inner. If the humours be more rare and subtle, they are avoided by fumosities and sweat; if thicker, they turn to a scabious matter in the skin : some make this the efi"ect of an inflamed liver, kc.

If this itching curiosity take him in the cephalic vein, and possess the understanding part, he moots more questions in an hour than the seven wise men could resolve in seven years. There is a kind of down or curdle on his wit, which is like a gentlewoman's train, more than needs. He would sing well, but that he is so full of crotchets. His questions are like a plume of feathers, which fools would give anything for, wise men notliing. He hath a greater desire to know where hell is, than to scape it: to know what God did before he made the world, than what he will do with him when it is ended. For want of correcting the garden of his inventions, the wee^ls choke the herbs, and he suffers the scum of his brain to boil into the broth. He is a dangerous progniosticator, and ]»ropounds desperate riddles; which he gathers from the conjunction of planets, Saturn and Jupiter; from doubtful oracles out of the hollow vaults and predictions of Merlin. He dreams of a cruel dragon, whose head must be in England and tail in Ireland ; of a headless cross, of a Popish curse.

' And Our Lord lights in our I.-uly's lap, And therefore Phigland must have a clap.'

But they have broken day with their creditors, and the planets have proved

honester than their reports gave them. Thus, as Bion said of astronomers, be sees not the fishes swimming by him in the water, yet sees perfectly those shining in the zodiac. Thus if the itch hold him in the theoretical part. If in the practical;—

His actions are polypragmatical, his feet peripatetical. Erasmus pictures him to the life : ' He knows what every merchant got in his voyage, what plots are at Rome, what stratagems with the Turk, &c. He knows strangers' troubles, not the tumultuous fightings in his own bosom,' &c. His neighbours' estate he knows to a penny; and wherein he fails, ho supplies by intelligence from their flattered servants : he would serve well for an informer to the subsidy-book. He delays every passenger with inquiry of news ; and because the country cannot satiate him, he travels every term to London for it: whence returning without his full load, himself makes it up by the way. He buys letters from the great city with capons; which he wears out in three days, with perpetual opening them to his companions. If he hears but a word of some state act, he professeth to know it and the intention, as if he had been of the council. He hears a lie in private, and hastes to publish it; so one knave gulls him, he innumerable fools, with the ' strange fish at Yarmouth,' or the ' serpent in Sussex.' He can keep no secret in, without the hazard of his buttons. He loves no man a moment longer than either he will tell him, or hear of him, news. If the spirit of his tongue be once raised, all the company cannot conjure it down. He teaches his neighboui-to work unsent for, and tells him of some dangers without thanks. He comments upon every action, and answers a question ere it be half propounded. Alcibiades having purchased a dog at an unreasonable price, cut off his tail, and let him run about Athens; whiles every man wondered at his intent, ho answered that his intent was their wonder, for he did it only to be talked of The same author * reports the like of a gawish traveller that came to Sparta, who standing in the presence of Lacon a long time upon one leg, that he might be observed and admired, cried at the last, 'O Lacon, thou canst not stand so long upon one leg.' ' True,' said Lacon; 'but every goose Ciin.'

• His state, belike, is too little to find him work; hence he busieth himself in other men's commonwealths : as if he were town-taster, he scalds his lips in every neighbour's pottage. If this itch proceed from some inflammation, liis bleach is the breaking out of contention. Then he hath Immorein in cerehro, in corde tumorem, rumorem in lingua, —his brain is full of humour, his heart of tumour, his tongue of rumour. He spits fire at every word, and doth what he can to set the whole world in combustion. He whispers in his neighbour's ear how such a man slandered him; and returns to the accused party (with like security) the other's invective. He is hated of all, as being indeed a friend to none, but lawyers and the devil.

For his cure ; if his itch proceed from a moon-sick head, the chief intention is to settle his brains, lest * too much learning make him mad,' as Paul was wronged. Acts xxvL 24. Give him this electuary : That ' secret things belong to the Lord, and revealed to us and our children for ever,' Deut. xxix. 29. That the judgments of God are scepe secreta, semper jitsfa; and therefore it is better mirari, quam rimari. That in seeking to know more than he ought, he knows not what he should. That gazing at the stars, he is like to fall into the lowest pit.

If his itch be in his fingers, and that he grows like a meddler in everybody's orchard, let him apply this unction : That he meddle with his own business. That he recall his prodigal eyes, like wandering Dinah's, home; and teach * Laert.

Seemox XXV.] THE soul's sicKjs'Ess r>03

them another while to hiok inward. That he be busy in repairing his own heart; for of other meddling comes no rest

If this disease proceed from a greater inflation or inflammation, thus sharply scarify him : That sowing discord among brethren is that seventh abomination to the Lord, Prov. vi. 19. That,:vs troublesome men seek faction, they shall meet with fraction; and as they have a brotherhood in evil, so ' they shall be divided in Jacob, and scattered in Israel,' Gen. xlix 7. That cum pare contendere, anceps est; cuvi superiore,fariosum: cum infenore, sordi-dum* —if thy enemy be equal, yet the victory is doubtful; if low, parce illi, it is no credit to conquer him; if great, parce tibi, favour thyself, contend not. Serva pacem domi, pacem Domini, —Love peace, and the Cod of peace shall give thee 'the peace of God, which passcth all understanding.'

Disease 18 : Slinking Breath, and Flattery. —The tlattcrer hath a disease very odious,— fojtorem oris, a stinking breath. The corporal disease is caused, first, sometimes through putrefaction of the gums; secondly, sometimes through hot distemper of the mouth; thirdly, sometimes through corrupt and rotten humours in the mouth of the stomach; fourthly, and not seldom, through the exulceration of the lungs. The main cause of flattery is a kind of self-love ; for he only commends others to mend himself. The communis terminus, where all his frauds, dissimidatious, false phrases and praises, his admirations and superlative titles, meet, is his purse. His tongue serves two masters, his great one's ear, his own avarice.

If the cause of this stench be in the mouth, it is discerned; if in the vicious stomach, or ulcerate lungs, it is allayed by eating, and not so forcible after meats as before. So the flatterer's stomach is well laid after dinner; and till he grow hungr}' again, his adulatory pipes go not so hotly. His means come by observance, and though he waits not at table, he serves for a fool. He is after the nature of a barber; and first trims the head of his master's humour, and then sprinkles it with court-water. He scrapes out bis diet in courtesies; and cringeth to his glorious object, as a little cur to a mastiff, licking his hand, not with a healing, but poisoning tongue, lliches make many friends : truly, they arc friends to the riches, not to the rich man. A great proud man, because he is admired of a number of hang-byes, thinks he hath many friends. So the ass that carried the goddess thought all the knees bowed to her, when they reverenced her burden. They play like flies in his beams, whUes his wealth warms them. Wlulst, like some great oak, he stands liigli and spreads far in the forest, innumerable beasts shelter themselves under him, feeding like hogs on his acorns; but when the axe of distress begins to fell him, there is not one left to hinder the blow. Like burrs, they stick no longer on his coat than there is a nap on it. These kites would not flock to him, but that he is a fat carcase. Sejanus, whom the Romans worship in the morning as a scmigod, before night they tear a-pieces. Even now stoops, and presently strokes. You may be sure he is but a gallipot, full of honey, that these wasps hover about; and when they have fed tlicmselvcs at his cost, they give him a sting for his kindness.

The flatterer is young gallants' schoolmaster, and enters them into book learning. Your cheating tradesman can no more be •without such a factor than a usurer without a broker. The fox in the fable, seeing the crow highly perched, with a good morsel in his mouth, flattered him that he sung well, with no scant commendations of his voice ; whereof the crow proud, began to make a noise, and let the meat fall : the foolish bird seeing now himself deceived, soon left singing, and the fox fell to eating. I need not * Scuct. de Ira, lib. ii., caj). 34.

moral it. The instrument, liis tongue, is tuned to another's ear; but, like a common fiddler, he dares not sing an honest song. He lifts up his patron at the tongue's end, and sets him in a superlative height ; Uke a Pharos, or the eye of the country, when he is indeed the eye-sore. He swears to him that his commending any man is above a justice of peace's letter, and that the eyes of the parish wait upon him for his grace. He insuiuates his praise, most from others' report ; wherein, very rankly, he wrongs three at once: he belies the named commender; the person to whom this commendation is sent; and most of aU himself, the messenger. Whilst he supi)lies a man with the oil of flattery, he wounds his heart; like thunder, which breaks the bone without scratching the skin. He seldom speaks so pompously of his friend, except he be sure of porters to carry it him. He is the proud man's earwig, and having once gotten in, imposthumes his head. A continent man will easily find him ; as knowing that it is as evil laudari a tur-2)ibus, as oh turpia. One being asked which was the worst of beasts, answered, Of wild beasts the tyrant, of tame beasts the flatterer. Like an Ul painter, because he cannot draw a beautiful picture, he is ever limning deformities and devils; so the flatterer, ignorant of goodness, lays fair colours upon foul iniquities. This cunning wrestler stoops low, to give the greater faU; and wisheth to his object, as a whore to her lover, abundance of all goods, except only sober wits. He studies all the week for preventions to keep his patron on the Sunday from church : a sermon and he are antipodes. Lest his observed one should take him into the light, and look on him, he keeps him perpetually hoodwinked with the opinion of his own knowledge; admiring his deeds for sanctimonious, and his words for oracles. Sometimes conscience is his rival advocate, and pleads against Mm in his patron's heart; but because the judge is partial on his side, and his perjurious tale runs so smooth with the grain of his affections, he gives conscience the checkmate. In short, he is, at last, one way a pander, cozenage's factor, sin's magician, and a pleasing murderer, that with arrident applauses tickles a man to death.

To cure this stinking breath of adulation, give him a vomit, ' He that saith to the wicked. Thou art righteous, him shall the people curse ; nations shaU abhor him: but to them that rebuke him shall be delight, and a good blessing shall come upon them,' Prov. xxiv. 24, 25. As, ' not serving our Lord Jesus Christ, but his own belly, by good words and fair speeches he hath deceived the hearts of the simple,' Rom. xvi. 18; so he hath most deceived himself, and been no less his own fool than others' knave. Tell him that his beginning is hateful to God, his end to men also. His great friend did no more love him in his dream than he wUl hate him waking; as a sick man, after the receipt of a loathsome potion, hates the very cruse whereout he drank it. And lightly, what he hath got by flattering fools, he spends on knaves, or worse ; and dies full of nothing but sins and diseases. Let him soundly repent, reform himself, and others, whom he hath perverted. Repentance and obedience can only make his breath sweet.

Disease 19 : Short-windedness, and Weariness of doing well. —The asthma is caused by abundance of gross and clammy humours, gathered into the gristles or lappets of the lungs ; or through some distUlatious, wherewith the trachea arteria, or windpipe, is replete.

The causes of this spiritual short-windedness are—(L) Want of faith, which is the true life-blood of courage against all difficulties; (2.) Want of patience, to hold out in the Avorking up of salvation ; (3.) A feeble hope, not supposing the recompense to be worth their labours.

The signs of both the diseases are palpable: the physician may easily judge of his patient, the patient of himself. He i>rays, for a brunt, very zealously, but like a hasty shower, soon over. Ydu siiall have him the first man at church on a S;t1jbath morning, and the first man out. He lays the foundation of an alms-house, and so leaves it. He shoots up, like Jonah's gourd, in a night, and next day withers. He is in religious practices like the spring in that windy month, March ; many forwards. He riscth fair as a summer sun, but is soon cU)uded ; no man rides fjuster at first putting forth, nor is sooner weary of his journey. A little onwards to heaven, he quandaries whether to go forward to God, or, with Demas, to turn back to the world. The light of his devotion is ever and anon in the ccUpse, and his whole life rings the changes—hot and cold, in and out, off and on, to and fro : he is peremptory in nothing but in vicissitudes. He is early up, and never the nearer; saluting Christ in the morning, but none of those that stayed with him; therefore losing his reward, because he will not tarry working in the vineyard till night. Matt. xv. 32. He purposeth to go to God, and in the fit of his devotion tells him so, but still breaks promise. One told Socrates that he would fain travel to Olympus, but he feared his ability to hold out the journey. Socrates answered him, ' I know you walk every day a little; put that together in a continumg straightness, and you shall come whither you desire.' This man rows, as wc all should do, against the stream ; and whiles he neglects tw-o or three strokes, he is carried down further in an hour than he can recover in a day. He loves, like a horse, short journeys; and walks on so warily, wearily, timorously, that he tells his steps and his stops, and reckons every impediment, to a rub and a thorn.

For his cure. Pro ratione victiis, as they prescribe for the asthma, which is a disease in the body, to avoid perturbations of the mind; so let this or-thopnic,* for the help of his mind, avoid needless perturbations of the body. He is troubled, like Martha, about many things, but forgets the better part. Give him some juice of hulapathum, wliich is the herb patience. ' For he hath need of patience, that after he hath done the will of God, he might receive the promise,' Heb. x. 3G. He considers not that heaven is up a hill,— like Olympus with the heathen. Mount Zion with the Christian,—and therefore thinks to get thither per salium, not per scansum. Assure him that '.salvation must be wrought up,' Phil. ii. 12, and ' election made sure by diligence,' 2 Pet. i. 10. That vi/icenii dahilur, —not to liim that flies, nor to him tliat knocks a bout or two, nor to him that faints and yields, but ' to him that overcomes,' Rev, ii., iii. That ' who continues to the end shall be saved,' Matt. xxiv. 13. That it was a shame to see Lot incestuous with his-daughters in the mount, that lived cha.ste in Sodom ; to see Noah mocked of his son for drunkenness, by whose righteousness his son scaped. That he hath many encouragements,—Chri.st calling, the Father blessing, the Spirit working, the angels comfortmg, the word directing, the crown inviting,—all tuning him this one lesson, ' Be not weary of well-doing,' 2 Thess. iii. 13; for ' in due season we shall reap, if we faint not,' Gal. vL 9, and after our weary labour find rest, Lsa. xxviii. 12.

Conclusion. —Innumerable are the body's infirmities : inlroitiis unus, iiinu-meri exitus, there being but one means of coming into the world, infinite of going out; and sickness is death's liege arabassailor. IJut they are few and scant, if compared to the soul's, which being a better piece of timber, hath the more teredines breeding in it; as the fairest flower hath th.e most cantharides attending on it. The devil loves the .soul as the jewel, the body as the rind * I siippoae, from o^^^ui and irviya; one who is choked with tbo right.— Ed.

or husk, as if it were without the other a dead commodity, and would stink in his hands. He cries, as the king of Sodom to Abraham, Da mihi animas, ccetera cape tibi. If he can corrupt this, he knows the other will fall to corruption of itself; for the soul works by motion, the body but by action, being the soul's servant. Now, Satan was ever ambitious, and will not care for the waiting-maid if he may get the mistress; or useth the other but for his better conveyance and insinuation to this. And because it bears the naiTOw portraiture and image of that Creator he emulates, this he seeks the more violently to delace. Let the body enjoy the light and warmth of the sun, so he can enwrap this in the cold clouds of dark night. A dark night indeed, wherein many souls do live, having the little windows or loopholes of reason shadowed by the curtains of fleshly lusts. Night is a sad, heavy, and uncomfortable time to the unresting body,—a nurse of anguished thoughts, at whose dugs sorrows and dreams lie contumally sucking,— thinking every hour an Olympiad till the sun ariseth: so is the soul's darkness, if security had not rocked her asleep, and custom (which is the apoplexy of bedrid nature and wicked life) obstupefied her,—an unquiet, turbulent, and peaceless time; with such hurrying tempests within, that the body tumbles upon a soft bed, and after many experienced shiftings, finds no ease.

There be three things, say physicians, that grieve the body :—First, the cause of sickness, a contranatural distemper, which lightly men bring on themselves, though the sediments rest in our sin-corrupted nature. Secondly, sickness itself. Thirdly, the coincidents that either fellow it or follow it. In the soul there be three grievances :—First, original pravity, a natural avo,a/a— proclivity to evil, contradiction to good. Secondly, actual sin, the main sickness. Thirdly, the concomitant effects, which are punishments corporal and spiritual, temporal and eternal. For all sin makes work, either for Christ or Satan : for Christ, to expiate by his blood, and the efficacy of that once-performed, ever available passion; or for the devil, as God's executioner to plague. Many remedies are given for many diseases; the sum is this—the best physician is Christ Jesus, the best physic the Scriptures. Ply the one, fly to the other. Let this teach thee, he must cure thee : that ' express image of his-Father's person, and brightness of his glory,' Heb. i. 3, in whom the graces of God shine without measure. Oft have you seen in one heaven many stars; behold in this sun, as in one star, many heavens; for ' in him dwelleth all fulness,' Col. i. 19. Let us fly by our faithful prayers to this physician, and entreat him for that medicine that issued out of his side, ' water and blood,' to cure all our spiritual maladies. Fusus est sanguis medici, ut fiat medica-mentum cegroti. And when in mercy he hath cured us, let our diet be a conversation led after the canon of his sacred truth; that whatsoever become of this fraU vessel, our flesh, floating on the waves of this world, the passenger, our soul, may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Amen.

END OF VOL. I.

BAI.I.ANTVNE AND COMI'ANY, PRINTERS, EDINBUROH.