led in; so they that come hither without this wedding garment, they may answer to Christ's Quomodo intrasti, How camest thou in? I came in by faithful parents, to whom, and their seed, thou hast sealed a covenant; I was admitted by thy servants and ministers in baptism, and have been led along by them, by coming to hear them preach thy word, and doing the other external offices of a Christian. But there is more in this question; Quomodo intrasti, is not only How didst thou come in, but How durst thou come in? If thou camest to my feast, without any purpose to eat, and so to discredit, to accuse either my meat, or the dressing of it, to quarrel at the doctrine, or at the discipline of my church, Quomodi intrasti, How didst thou, how durst thou come in? If thou camest with a purpose to poison my meat, that it might infect others, with a determination to go forward in thy sin, whatsoever the preacher say, and so to encourage others by thy example, Quomodo intrasti, How durst thou come in? If thou camest in with thine own provision in thy pocket, and didst not rely upon mine, and think that thou canst be saved without sermons, or sacraments, Quomodo intrasti, How durst thou come in? Him that came in there, without this wedding garment, the master of the feast calls friend; but scornfully, Friend how camest thou in? But he cast him out. God may call us friends, that is, admit, and allow us the estimation and credit of being of his church, but at one time or other, he shall minister that interrogatory, Friend, how came you in? and for want of that wedding garment, and for want of wearing it in the sight of men, (for it is not said that that man had no such wedding garment at home, in his wardrobe, but that he had none on) for want of sanctification in a holy life, God shall deliver us over to the execution of our own consciences, and eternal condemnation.

But be ye reconciled to God, embrace this reconciliation in making your use of those means, and this reconciliation shall work thus, it shall restore you to that state, that Adam had in paradise. What would a soul oppressed with the sense of sin give, that she were in that state of innocency, that she had in baptism? Be reconciled to God, and you have that, and an elder innocency than that, the innocency of paradise. Go home, and if you find an over-burden of children, negligence in servants,

crosses in your tradings, narrowness, penury in your estate, yet this penurious, and this encumbered house shall be your paradise. Go forth, into the country, and if you find unseasonableness in the weather, rots in your sheep, murrains in your cattle, worms in your corn, backwardness in your rents, oppression in your landlord, yet this field of thorns and brambles shall be your paradise. Lock thyself up in thyself, in thine own bosom, and though thou find every room covered with the soot of former sins, and shaked with that devil whose name is Legion, some such sin as many sins depend upon, and are induced by, yet this prison, this rack, this hell in thine own conscience, shall be thy paradise. And as in paradise Adam at first needed no Saviour, so when by this reconciliation, in apprehending thy Saviour, thou art restored to this paradise, thou shalt need no sub-Saviour, no joint-Saviour, but cætera adjicientur, no other angel, but the Angel of the great council, no other saint, but the Holy One of Israel, he who hath wrought this reconciliation for thee, and brought it to thee, shall establish it in thee; For, if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life". This is the sum and the end of all, that when God sends humble and laborious pastors, to supple and appliable congregations; that when we pray, and you receive us in Christ's stead, we shall not only find rest in God, but, (as it is said of Noah's sacrifice) God shall find the savour of rest in us; God shall find a Sabbath to himself in us, and rest from his jealousies, and anger towards us, and we shall have a sabbatary life here in the rest and peace of conscience, and a life of one everlasting Sabbath hereafter, where to our rest there shall be added joy, and to our joy glory, and this rest, and joy, and glory superinvested with that which crowns them all, eternity.

39 Rom. v. 10.

159

SERMON CXXII.

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL'S CROSS, 6th MAY, 1627.

HOSEA iii. 4.

For the children of Israel shall abide many days, without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim,

SOME Cosmographers have said, that there is no land so placed in the world, but that from that land, a man may see other land. I dispute it not, I defend it not; I accept it, and I apply it; there is scarce any mercy expressed in the Scriptures, but that from that mercy you may see another mercy. Christ sets up a candle now here, only to lighten that one room, but as he is lumen de lumine, light of light, so he would have more lights lighted at every light of his, and make every former mercy an argument, an earnest, a conveyance of more. Between land and land you may see seas, and seas enraged with tempests; but still, say they, some other land too. Between mercy, and mercy, you may find comminations, and judgments, but still more mercy. For this discovery let this text be our map. First we see land, we see mercy in that gracious compellation, children (the children of Israel) then we see sea, then comes a commination, a judgment that shall last some time, (many days shall the children of Israel suffer) but there they may see land too, another mercy, even this time of judgment shall be a day, they shall not be benighted, nor left in darkness in their judgments; (many days, all the while, it shall be day) then the text opens into a deep ocean, a spreading sea, (They shall be without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim.) But even from this sea, this vast sea, this sea of devastation, we see land; for in the next verse follows another mercy, (The children of Israel shall return, and shall seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and shall fear the Lord, and his goodness in the later days.) And beyond this land, there is no

of our kindred, by their measure of honour, or place, or riches in this world, but let us look how fast they grow in the root, that is, in the same worship of the same God, who is ours, and their Father too. He is nearest of kin to me, that is of the same religion with me; as they are creatures, they are of kin to me by the Father, but as they are of the same church, and religion, by father and mother too.

Philo calls all creatures his sisters, but all men are his brothers. God is the Father of man in a stronger and more peculiar, and more masculine sense, than of other creatures. Filius particeps et condominus cum patre: as the law calls the son, the partner of the Father, and fellow-Lord, joint-Lord with the Father, of all the possession that is to descend, so God hath made man his partner, and fellow-Lord of all his other creatures in Moses's dominamini”, when he gives man a power to rule over them, and in David's Omnia subjecisti, when he imprints there, a natural disposition in the creature to the obedience of man. So high, so very high a filiation, hath God given man, as that, having another son, by another filiation, a higher filiation than this, by an eternal generation, yet he was content, that that son should become this son, that the Son of God should become the Son of man.

God is the Father of all; of man otherwise than of all the rest; but then, of the children of Israel, otherwise than of all other men. For he bought them; and, is not he thy Father that hath bought thee? says God by Moses'. Not to speak of that purchase, which he made by the death of his Son, (for that belongs to all the world) he bought the Jews in particular, at such a price, such silver, and such gold, such temporal, and such spiritual benefits, such a land, and such a church, such a law, and such a religion, as, certainly, he might have had all the world at that price. If God would have manifested himself, poured out himself to the nations, as he did to the Jews, all the world would have swarmed to his obedience, and herded in his pale. God was their father; and, as St. Chrysostom, (that he might be sure to draw in all degrees of tender affection) calls him, their mother too. For, Matris nutrire, patris erudire; It was a

7 Gen. i. 28.

Psalm viii. 7.

9 Deut. xxxii. 6.

mother's part to give them suck, and to feed them with temporal blessings; it was a father's part to instruct them, and to feed them with spiritual things; and God did both abundantly. Therefore doth God submit himself to the comparison of a mother in the prophet Esay10, Can a woman forget her sucking child? But then, he stays not in that inferior, in that infirmer sex, but returns to a stronger love, than that of a mother, Yes, says he, she may forget, yet will not I forget thee. And therefore, when David says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits"; David expresses that, which we translate in a general word, benefits, in this word, gamal, which signifies ablactationes; forget not that God nursed thee as a mother, and then, ablactavit, weaned thee, and provided thee stronger food, out of the care of a father. In one word, all creatures are God's children; man is his son; but then, Israel is his first-born son; for that is the addition, which God gives Israel by Moses to Pharaoh, Say unto Pharaoh, Israel is my son, even my first-born12. Why God adopted Israel into this filiation, into this primogeniture, before all the people of the world, we can assign no reason, but his love only. But why he did not before this text, disinherit this adopted son, is a higher degree, and exercise of his love, than the adoption itself, if we consider, (which is a useful consideration) their manifold provocations to such an exhæredation, and what God suffered at their hands.

The ordinary causes of exhæredation, for which a man might disinherit his son, are assigned and numbered in the law, to be fourteen. But divers of them grow out of one root (undutifulness, inofficiousness towards the father), and as, by that reason, they may be extended to more, so they may be contracted to fewer, to two. These two, ingratitude, and irreligion. Unthankfulness, and idolatry were ever just causes of exhæredation, of disinheriting. And with these two, did the Jews more provoke Almighty God, than any children any father. Stop we a little our consideration upon each of these.

He is not always ungrateful, that does not recompense a benefit, but he only that would not, though he could make, and

10 Isaiah XLIX. 15.

11 Psalm ciii. 1.

12 Exod. iv. 22.