MERCY: Mercy, which hath two strains also: the Grace, the Reward.

1. The GRACIOUS DISPOSITION (for a Virtue properly it is not) is Humility, expressed here in the subject, The humble in spirit. Not he, that is forcibly humbled by others, whether God or man: so a wicked Ahab may walk softly and droop for the time, and be never the better: what thank is it, if we bow when God sets his foot upon us? but he that is voluntarily humble in spirit. And yet there are also vicious kinds of this self-humility.

(1.) As first, when man, having only one God supra se, and therefore owing religious worship to him alone, worships angels or saints, that are but juxta se. It is the charge, that St. Paul gives to his Colossians, Let no man deceive you in a voluntary humility, and worshipping of angels; much less then of stocks and stones. These very walls, if they had eyes and tongues, could testify full many of these impious and idolatrous cringes and prostrations. So as if wood or stone could be capable of pollution, here was enough; till this abused frame was happily washed by the clear streams of the Gospel, and re-sanctified by the Word and Prayer. This is a Superstitious Humility.

(2.) When a man basely subjects himself to serve the humours of the great, by gross supparasitation, by either unjust or unfit actions and offices; yielding himself a slave to the times, a pander to vice. This is a Servile Humility.

(3.) When a man affects a courteous affability and lowly carriage, for ostentation, for advantage; or, when a man buries himself alive in a homely cowl, in a pretence of mortification; as if he went out of the world, when the world is within him. "To be proud of Humility," as a Father said well," is worse than to be superciliously and openly proud." This is a Hypocritical Humility.

(4.) When, out of pusillanimity or inordinateness, a man prostitutes himself to those unworthy conditions and actions of sinful pleasure, that misbeseem a man, a Christian. This is a Brutish Humility.

All these self-humiliations are thankless and faulty. It will be long enough, ere the Superstitious, Servile, Hypocritical, Brutish Humility shall advance us other than to the scaffold of our execution.

The True Humility is, when a man is modestly lowly in his own eyes, and sincerely abased in his heart and carriage before God.

And this self-humiliation is either in respect of Temporal or Spiritual things.

Of Temporal: when a man thinks any condition good enough for him; and therefore doth not unduly intrude himself into the preferments of the world, whether in Church or Commonwealth. When he thinks meanly of his own parts and actions, highly and

reverently of others: and therefore, in giving honour, goes before others; in taking it, behind them.

Of Spiritual when he is vile in himself, especially in respect of his sins; and therefore abhors himself in sackcloth and ashes: when the grace that he hath, he can acknowledge, but not overrate; yea, he takes it so low as he may do without wrong to the giver when, for all blessings he can awfully look up to his Creator and Redeemer, ascribing all to him, referring all to him, depending for all upon him; so much more magnifying the mercy of God, as he is more sensible of his own unworthi

ness.

This is the true, though short character of Humility. A plain grace, ye see, but lovely.

2. From which let it please you to turn your eyes to the BLESSING allotted to it: which is so expressed in the Original, that it may either run, The humble in spirit shall enjoy honour, as in the former Translation; or, Honour shall uphold the humble in spirit, as in the latter. In both, Honour is the portion of the humble for the raising of him, in the one; for the preserving of him, in the other.

:

Even the

Honour, from whom? From God, from Men. good man of the house will say, Friend, sit up higher. For, though with vain men he is most set by that can most set out himself; yet, with the wiser, the more a man dejects himself, the more he is honoured. It cannot stand with the justice of the truly-virtuous, to suffer a man to be a loser by his humility: much less will God abide it. A broken heart, O God, thou wilt not despise, saith the Psalmist; and, Pullati extolluntur salute, The mourners are exalted with safety, saith Eliphaz, in Job v. 11. The Lord lifteth up the meek, saith David, out of good proof; and needs must he rise, whom God lifteth.

What should we need any other precedent of this Virtue, or other example of this Reward, than our Blessed Saviour himself? all other are worthy of forgetfulness in comparison: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, &c. and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.

O God, what an incomprehensible Dejection was here! that the living God should descend from the highest glory of heaven, and put upon him the rags of our Humanity; and take on him not the man only, but the servant, yea the malefactor: abasing himself to our infirmities, to our indignities; to be reviled, spat upon, scourged, wounded, crucified: yea, all these are easy tasks to that which follows; to be made a mark of his Father's wrath in our stead; so as, in the bitterness of his soul, he is forced to cry out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? What

heart of man, yea what apprehension of angels, can be capable of fathoming the depth of this Humiliation?

Answerable to thy dejection, O Saviour, was thine Exaltation: as the conduit-water rises at least as high as it falls. Now is thy name above every name; that at the name of JESUS every knee should bow, of things in heaven, in earth, under the earth. Neither meanest thou to be our Saviour only, but our Pattern too. I do not hear thee say, "Learn of me, for I am Almighty, I am Omniscient;" but, Learn of me that I am meek. If we can go down the steps of thine Humiliation, we shall rise up the stairs of thy Glory. Why do we not then say, I will be yet more vile for the Lord? Oh cast down your crowns, with the twenty-four Elders (Apoc. iv. 10.) before the throne of God: Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shalt lift you up; James iv. 10.

Indeed there is none of us, but hath just cause to be humbled; whether we consider the wretchedness of our nature, or of our estate. What is the best flesh and blood, but a pack of dust, made up together into a stirring heap; which, in the dissolution, moulders to dust again?

When I consider the heavens, and see the sun, the moon, and the stars as they stand in their order; Lord, what is man, that thou regardest him? what a worm! what an ant! what a nothing! who, besides his homeliness, is still falling asunder: for, even of the greatest and best-composed, is that of the Psalm verified, Universa vanitas omnis homo, Every man is all vanity.

Alas, then, what is it we should be proud of?

Is it Wealth? What is the richest metal, but red and white earth? and that, whereof too we may say, as the Sons of the Prophets of their hatchet, Alas, Master, it was but lent. What speak I of this, when our very breath is not our own! The best praise of coin is, that it is current; it runs from us; yea, it is volatile, as wise Solomon, Riches have wings: and, if they leave not us, we must them. We brought nothing hither, and according to the proclamation of that great King, we must carry nothing with us, but our winding-sheet; yea, rather, that must carry

us.

Is it our Land? How long is that ours? That shall be fixed, when we are gone; and shall change, as it hath done, many masters. But, withal, where is it? I remember what is reported of Socrates and Alcibiades. Elian tells the story. Socrates saw Alcibiades proud of his spacious fields and wide inheritance. He calls for a map; looks for Greece; and, finding it, asks Alcibiades where his lands lay: when he answered, they were not laid forth in the map. "Why," said Socrates, "art thou proud of that, which is no part of the earth?" What a poor spot, is the dominion of the greatest king? but what a nothing is the possession of a subject? a small parcel of a shire,

not worthy the name of a chorographer.

And had we, with Licinus, as much as a kite could fly over, yea, if all the whole Globe were ours, six or seven foot will serve us at the last.

Is it our Honour? Alas, that is none of ours: for Honour is in him that gives it, not in him that receives it. And, if the plebeians will be stubborn, or uncivil and respectless, where is honour? And, when we have it, what a poor puff is this! how windy, how unsatisfying? Insomuch as the great emperor could say, "I have been all things, and am never the better." Have ye Great Ones all the incurvations of the knee, the kisses of the hand, the styles of honour, yea the flatteries of heralds? let God's hand touch you but a little with a spotted fever, or girds of the colic, or belking pains of the gout, or stoppings of the bladder, alas! what ease is it to you, that you are laid in a silken bed, that a potion is brought you on the knee in a golden cup, that the chirurgeon can say he hath taken from you noble blood? As Esau said of his birth-right, ye shall say mutatis mutandis, of all these ceremonies of honour, What are these to me, when I am ready to die for pain?

Is it Beauty? What is that? or wherein consists it? Wherein, but in mere opinion? The Ethiopians think it consists in perfect blackness; we, Europeans, in white and red: the wisest say, "That is fair that pleaseth." And what face is it, that pleaseth all? Even in the worst, some eyes see features that please: in the best, some others see lines they like not. And, if any beauty could have all voices, what were this, but a waste and worthless approbation? Grant it to be in the greatest exquisiteness, what is it but a blossom in May, or a flower in August, or an apple in Autumn; soon fallen, soon withered? Should any of you, Glorious Dames, be seized upon with the nasty pustules of the small-pox, alas! what pits do those leave behind them to bury your beauties in! Or if but some languishing quartan should arrest you, how is the delicate skin turned tawny! How doth an unwelcome dropsy, wherein that disease too often ends, bag up the eyes, and mis-shape the face and body, with unpleasing and unkindly tumours! In short, when all is done, after all our cost and care, what is the best hide but saccus stercorum, as Bernard speaks; which if we do not find noisome, others shall? Well may I therefore ask, with Ecclesiasticus, Quid superbit terra et cinis? Why is this earth and ashes proud? though it were as free from sin, as it is from perfection. But now, when wickedness is added to vanity, and we are more abominable by sin than weak by nature, how should we be utterly ashamed to look up to heaven, to look upon our own faces!

Surely, therefore, whensoever you see a proud man, say there is a fool: nâs ó μù pover, &c. the heathen Menander could say so for if he were not a mere stranger in himself, he could be no other than confounded in himself. We see our own outward

filthiness, in those loathsome excretions which the purest nature puts forth: but, if we could as well see our inward spiritual beastliness, we could not but be swallowed up of our confusion.

It falls out with men, in this case, as with some old foul and wrinkled dames, that are soothed up by their parasites in an admiration of their beauty; to whom no glass is allowed but the picturer's, that flatters them with a smooth, fair, and young image. Let such a one come casually to a view of a Glass; she falls out first with that mirror, and cries out of the false representation but after, when, upon stricter examination, she finds the fault in herself, she becomes as much out of love with herself, as ever her flatterers seemed to be enamoured of her.

It is no otherwise with us. We easily run away with the conceit of our Spiritual Beauty, of our innocent Integrity: every thing feeds us in our over-weening opinion. Let the Glass of the Law be brought once and set before us, we shall then see the shameful wrinkles and foul morphews of our souls; and shall say, with the Prophet, We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us; for we have sinned against the Lord our God. Jer. iii. 25. Thus if we be humbled in spirit, we shall be raised unto true honour; even such Honour as have all his saints. the participation whereof, that God, who hath ordained, graciously bring us, for the sake of Jesus Christ the Righteous: To whom, with the Father, and the Holy Ghost, one Infinite God, be all honour and glory now and for ever.

Amen.

To

SERMON XXI.

CHRIST AND CÆSAR.

A SERMON PREACHED AT HAMPTON COURT.

JOHN XIX. 15.

The chief priests answered, We have no King but Cæsar.

THERE cannot be a more loyal speech, as it may be used: one sun is enough for heaven, one king for earth: but, as it is used, there cannot be a worse. For, in so few words, these Jews flatter Cæsar, reject Christ, oppose Christ to Cæsar. First, pretending they were Cæsar's subjects; secondly, professing they were not Christ's subjects; thirdly, arguing, that they could not be Christ's subjects because they were Caesar's. The first by way of AFFIRMATION, "Cæsar is our King:" the second by way