and therefore, Laudate Dominum habitatores petræ, says the prophet", You that are inhabitants of this rock, you that dwell in Christ, and Christ in you, you that dwell in this rock, Praise ye the Lord, bless him, and magnify him for ever. If a son should ask bread of his father, will he give him a stone, was Christ's question? Yes, O blessed Father, we ask no other answer to our petition, no better satisfaction to our necessity, than when we say, Da nobis panem, Give us this day our daily bread, that thou give us this stone, this rock, thyself in thy church, for our direction, thyself in the sacrament, for our refection; what hardness soever we find there, what corrections soever we receive there, all shall be easy of digestion, and good nourishment to us; thy holy spirit of patience shall command, That these stones be made bread; and we shall find more juice, more marrow in these stones, in these afflictions, than worldly men shall do in the softness of their oil, in the sweetness of their honey, in the cheerfulness of their wine; for as Christ is our foundation, we believe in him, and as he is our corner-stone, we are at peace with the world in him; as he is Jacob's stone, giving us peace in ourselves, and David's stone, giving us victory over our enemies, so he is a rock of stone, (no affliction, no tribulation shall shake us). And so we have passed through all the benefits proposed to be considered in this first part, as Christ is a stone.

It is some degree of thankfulness, to stand long in the contemplation of the benefit which we have received, and therefore we have insisted thus long upon the first part. But it is a degree of spiritual wisdom too, to make haste to the consideration of our dangers, and therefore we come now to them, we may fall upon this stone, and be broken. This stone may fall upon us, and grind us to powder, and in the first of these, we may consider, quid cadere, what the falling upon this stone is: and secondly, quid frangi, what it is to be broken upon it: and then thirdly, the latitude of this unusquisque, that whosoever falls so, is so broken; first then, because Christ loves us to the end, therefore will we never put him to it, never trouble him till then; as the wise man said of manna, That it had abundance of all pleasure in it, and was meat for all tastes; that is, (as expositors interpret

17 Isaiah XLii. 11.

18 Wisd. xvi. 24.

it) that manna tasted to every one, like that which every one liked best so this stone Christ Jesus, hath abundance of all qualities of stone in it, and is all the way such a stone to every man, as he desires it should be. Unto you that believe, saith St. Peter, it is a precious stone, but unto the disobedient, a stone to stumble at: for if a man walk in a gallery, where windows, and tables, and statues, are all of marble, yet if he walk in the dark, or blindfold, or carelessly, he may break his face as dangerously against that rich stone, as if it were but brick; so though a man walk in the true church of God, in that Jerusalem which is described in the Revelation, the foundation, the gates, the walls, all precious stone, yet if a man bring a misbelief, a misconceit, that all this religion is but a part of civil government and order; if a man be scandalized, at that humility, that patience, that poverty, that lowliness of spirit which the Christian religion inclines us unto; if he will say, Si rex Israel, If Christ will be king, let him come down from the cross, and then we will believe in him, let him deliver his church from all crosses, first of doctrine, and then of persecution, and then we will believe him to be king; if we will say, Nolumus hunc regnare, We will admit Christ, but we will not admit him to reign over us, to be king; if he will be content with a consulship, with a colleagueship, that he and the world may join in the government, that we may give the week to the world, and the Sabbath to him, that we may give the day of the Sabbath to him and the night to our licentiousness, that of the day we may give the forenoon to him, and the afternoon to our pleasures, if this will serve Christ, we are content to admit him, but nolumus regnare, we will none of that absolute power, that whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we must be troubled to think on him, and respect his glory in every thing. If he will say, Præcepit angelis, God hath given us in charge to his angels, and therefore we need not to look to our own ways, he hath locked us up safely, and lodged us softly under an eternal election, and therefore we are sure of salvation, if he will walk thus blindly, violently, wilfully, negligently in the true church, though he walk amongst the sapphires, and pearls, and chrysolites, which are mentioned there, that is, in the outward communion and fellowship of God's saints, yet he may

bruise and break, and batter himself, as much against these stones, as against the stone gods of the heathen, or the stone idols of the papists; for first, the place of this falling upon this stone, is the true church; Qui jacet in terra, He that is already upon the ground, in no church, can fall no lower, till he fall to hell; but he whom God hath brought into his true church, if he come to a confident security, that he is safe enough in these outward acts of religion, he falls, though it be upon this stone, he erreth, though in the true church. This is the place then, the true church; the falling itself (as far as will fall into our time of consideration now) is a falling into some particular sin, but not such as quenches our faith; we fall so, as we may rise again. St. Hierome expresseth it so, Qui cadit et tamen credit, He that falls, but yet believes, that falls and hath a sense of his fall, reservatur per pœnitentiam ad salutem, that man is reserved, by God's purpose, to come by repentance, to salvation; for this man that falls there, falls not so desperately, as that he feels nothing between hell and him, nothing to stop at, nothing to check him by the way, cadit super, he falls upon something; nor he falls not upon flowers, to wallow and tumble in his sin, nor upon feathers, to rest and sleep in his sin, nor into a cooling river, to disport, and refresh, and strengthen himself in his sin; but he falls upon a stone, where he may receive a bruise, a pain upon his fall, a remorse of that sin he is fallen into: and in this fall, our infirmity appears three ways: the first is Impingere in lapidem, to stumble, for though he be upon the right stone in the true religion, and have light enough, yet Impingimus meridie, as the prophet saith", even at noon we stumble; we have much more light, by Christ being come, than the Jews had, but we are sorry we have it: when Christ hath said to us for our better understanding of the law, He that looketh and lusteth hath committed adultery, he that coveteth hath stolen, he that is angry hath murdered, we stumble at this, and we are scandalized with it: and we think that other religions are gentler, and that Christ hath dealt hardly with us, and we had rather Christ had not said so, we had rather he had left us to our liberty and discretion, to look, and court, and to give a way to our passions, as we should find it

19 Isaiah L. 10.

most conduce to our ease, and to our ends. And this is impingere, to stumble, not to go on in an equal and even pace, not to do the will of God cheerfully. And a second degree is calcitrare, to kick, to spur at this stone; that is, to bring some particular sin, and some particular law into comparison: to debate thus, if I do not this now, I shall never have such a time; if I slip this, I shall never have the like opportunity; if I will be a fool now, I shall be a beggar all my life and for the law of God that is against it, there is but a little evil for a great deal of good; and there is a great deal of time to recover and repent that little evil. Now to remove a stone which was a landmark, and to hide and cover that stone, was all one fault in the law; to hide the will of God from our own consciences with excuses and extenuations, this is, calcitrare, as much as we can to spurn the stone, the landmark out of the way; but the fulness and accomplishment of this is in the third word of the text, cadere, to fall; he falls as a piece of money falls into a river; we hear it fall, and we see it sink, and by and by we see it deeper, and at last we see it not at all: so no man falleth at first into any sin, but he hears his own fall. There is a tenderness in every conscience at the beginning, at the entrance into a sin, and he discerneth awhile the degrees of sinking to: but at last he is out of his own sight, till he meet this stone; (this stone is Christ) that is, till he meet some hard reprehension, some hard passage of a sermon, some hard judgment in a prophet, some cross in the world, something from the mouth, or something from the hand of God, that breaks him: He falls upon the stone and is broken.

So that to be broken upon this stone, is to come to this sense, that though our integrity be lost, that we be no more whole and entire vessels, yet there are means of piecing us again: though we be not vessels of innocency, (for who is so?) (and for that enter not into judgment with thy servants O Lord) yet we may be vessels of repentance acceptable to God, and useful to his service; for when anything falls upon a stone, the harm that it suffereth, is not always (or not only) according to the proportion of the hardness of that which it fell upon, but according to the height that it falleth from, and according to that violence that it is thrown with: if their fall who fall by sins of infirmity,

should refer only to the stone they fall upon, (the majesty of God being wounded and violated in every sin) every sinner would be broken to pieces, and ground to powder: but if they fall not from too far a distance, if they have lived within any nearness, any consideration of God, if they have not fallen with violence, taken heart and force in the way, grown perfect in the practice of their sin, if they fall upon this stone, that is, sin, and yet stop at Christ, after the sin, this stone shall break them; that is, break their force and confidence, break their presumption and security, but yet it shall leave enough in them, for the Holy Ghost to unite to his service; yea, even the sin itself, Co-operabitur in bonum, as the apostle saith", the very fall itself shall be an occasion of his rising: and therefore, though St. Augustine seem to venture far, it is not too far, when he saith, Audeo dicere, It is boldly said, and yet I must say it, Utile est ut caderem in aliquod manifestum peccatum; A sinner falleth to his advantage, that falleth into some such sin, as by being manifested to the world, manifesteth his own sinful state, to his own sinful conscience too: it is well for that man that falleth so, as that he may thereby look the better to his footing ever after; Dicit Domino susceptor meus es tu, says St. Bernard, That man hath a new title to God, a new name for God; all creatures (as St. Bernard enlarges this meditation) can say, Creator meus es tu, Lord thou art my Creator; all living creatures can say, Pastor meus es tu, Thou art my Shepherd, thou givest me meat in due season; all men can say, Redemptor meus es tu, Thou art my Redeemer; but only he which is fallen, and fallen upon this stone, can say, Susceptor meus es tu, Only he which hath been overcome by a temptation, and is restored, can say, Lord thou hast supported me, thou hast recollected my shivers, and reunited me; only to him hath this stone expressed, both abilities of stone; first to break him with a sense of his sin, and then to give him peace and rest upon it.

Now there is in this part this circumstance, Quicunque cadit, Whosoever falleth; where the quicunque is unusquisque, whosoever falls, that is, whosoever he be, he falls; Quomodo de cœlo cecidisti Lucifer? says the prophet", the prophet wonders how