OCCASIONAL MERCIES

IF I should declare what God hath done (done occasionally,) for my soul, where He instructed me for fear of falling, where He raised me when I was fallen, perchance you would rather fix your thoughts upon my illness, and wonder at that, than at God's goodness, and glorify Him in that; rather wonder at my sins than at His mercies, rather consider how ill a man I was, than how good a God He is. If I should enquire upon what occasion God elected me, and writ my name in the book of life, I should sooner be afraid that it were not so, than find a reason why it should be SO. God made sun and moon to distinguish seasons, and day and night, and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their seasons; but God hath made no decree to distinguish the seasons of His mercies; in Paradise, the fruits were ripe the first minute, and in Heaven it is always autumn, His mercies are ever in their maturity. We ask our daily bread, and God never says you should have come yesterday. He never says you must again to-morrow, but to-day if ye will hear His voice, to-day He will hear you. If some king of the earth have so large an extent of dominion in north and south, as that he hath winter and summer together in his dominions, so large an extent east and west as that he hath day and night together in his dominions, much more hath God mercy and judgment together; He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; He can bring thy summer out of winter, though thou have no spring; though in the ways of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now, wintred and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damped and benumbed, smothered and stupified till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon, to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His seasons.

(From Sermons preached on Christmas Day.)

SALVATION

HERE then salvation is eternal salvation; not the outward seals of the church upon the person, not visible sacraments, nor the outward seal of the person to the church, visible works, nor the inward seal of the Spirit, assurance here, but fruition, possession of glory, in the kingdom of heaven; where we shall be infinitely rich, and that without labour in getting, or care in keeping, or fear in losing; and fully wise, and that without ignorance of necessary, or study of unnecessary knowledge, where we shall not measure our portion by acres, for all heaven shall be all ours; nor our term by years, for it is life and everlasting life; nor our assurance by precedent, for we shall be safer than the angels themselves were in the creation; where our exaltation shall be to have a crown of righteousness, and our possession of that crown shall be, even the throwing it down at the feet of the Lamb; where we shall leave off all those petitions of Adveniat regnum, Thy kingdom come, for it shall be come in abundant power; and the Da nobis hodie, Give us this day our daily bread, for we shall have all that which we can desire now, and shall have a power to desire more, and then have that desire so enlarged, satisfied; and the Libera nos, we shall not pray to be delivered from evil, for no evil, culpæ or pænæ, either of sin to deserve punishment, or of punishment for our former sins, shall offer at us : where we shall see God face to face, for we shall have such notions and apprehensions as shall enable us to see him, and he shall afford such an imparting, such a manifestation of himself, as he shall be seen by us; and where we shall be as inseparably united to our Saviour, as His humanity and divinity are united together; this unspeakable, this unimaginable happiness is this salvation, and therefore let us be glad when this is brought near us.

And this is brought nearer and nearer unto us, as we come nearer and nearer to our end. As he that travels weary, and late towards a great city, is glad when he comes to a place of execution, because he knows that is near the town: so when thou comest to the gate of death, glad of that, for it is but one step from that to thy Jerusalem. Christ hath brought us in some nearness to salvation, as he is vere Salvator mundi, in that we know, that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world: and He hath

brought it nearer than that, as he is Salvator corporis sui, in that we know that Christ is the head of the church, and the Saviour of that body: and nearer than that, as he is Salvator tuus Sanctus, in that we know, he is the Lord our God, the Holy One of Israel, our Saviour: but nearest of all, in the Ecce Salvator tuus venit, Behold thy salvation cometh. It is not only promised in the prophets, nor only writ in the Gospel, nor only sealed in the sacraments, nor only prepared in the visitations of the Holy Ghost, but, ecce, behold it, now, when thou canst behold nothing else: the sun is setting to thee, and that for ever; thy houses and furniture, thy gardens and orchards, thy titles and offices, thy wife and children are departing from thee, and that for ever; a cloud of faintness is come over thine eyes, and a cloud of sorrow over all theirs; when his hand that loves thee best hangs tremblingly over thee to close thine eyes ecce Salvator tuus venit, behold then a new light, thy Saviour's hand shall open thine eyes, and in His light thou shalt see light; and thus shalt see, that though in the eyes of men thou lie upon that bed, as a statue on a tomb, yet in the eyes of God, thou standest as a colossus, one foot in one, another in another land; one foot in the grave, but the other in heaven; one hand in the womb of the earth, and the other in Abraham's bosom ; and then vere prope, salvation is truly near thee, and nearer than when thou believedst, which is our last word.

(From Sermon to the Prince and Princess Palatine.)

THE ARITHMETIC OF SIN

THE pureness and cleanness of heart which we must love, was evidently represented in the old law, and in the practice of the Jews, who took knowledge of so many uncleannesses; they reckon almost fifty sorts of uncleannesses, to which there belonged particular expiations; of which, some were hardly to be avoided in ordinary conversation: as to enter into the courts of justice; for the Jews that led Christ into the common hall, would not enter, lest they should be defiled. Yea, some things defiled them, which it had been unnatural to have left undone; as for the son to assist at his father's funeral; and yet even these required an expiation; for these, though they had not the nature of sin, but might be expiated (without any inward sorrow or repentance) by outward

ablutions, by ceremonial washings, within a certain time prescribed by the law, yet if that time were negligently and inconsiderately overslipped, then they became sins, and then they could not be expiated, but by a more solemn, and a more costly way; by sacrifice. And even before they came to that, whilst they were but uncleannesses and not sins, yet even then they made them incapable of eating the Paschal Lamb. So careful was God in the law, and the Jews in their practice (for these outward things) to preserve this pureness, this cleanness, even in things which were not fully sins. So also must he that affects this pureness of heart, and studies the preserving of it, sweep down every cobweb that hangs about it. Scurrile and obscene language: yea, misinterpretable words, such as may bear an ill sense; pleasureable conversation and all such little entanglings, which though he think too weak to hold him, yet they foul him. And let him that is subject to these smaller sins, remember, that as a spider builds always where he knows there is most access and haunt of flies, so the devil that hath cast these light cobwebs into thy heart, knows that that heart is made of vanities and levities; and he that gathers into his treasure whatsoever thou wastest out of thine, how negligent soever thou be, he keeps thy reckoning exactly, and will produce against thee at last as many lascivious glances as shall make up an adultery, as many covetous wishes as shall make up a robbery, as many angry words as shall make up a murder; and thou shalt have dropped and crumbled away thy soul, with as much irrecoverableness, as if thou hadst poured it out all at once; and thy merry sins, thy laughing sins, shall grow to be crying sins, even in the ears of God; and though thou drown thy soul here, drop after drop, it shall not burn spark after spark, but have all the fire, and all at once, and all eternally, in one entire and intense torment. For, as God, for our capacity, is content to be described as one of us, and to take our passions upon Him, and be called angry, and sorry, and the like; so is He in this also like us, that He takes it worse to be slighted, to be neglected, to be left out, than to be actually injured. Our inconsideration, our not thinking of God in our actions, offends him more than our sins. We know, that in nature, and in art, the strongest bodies are compact of the least particles, because they shut best, and lie closest together; so be the strongest habits of sin compact of sins which in themselves are least; because they are least perceived, they grow upon us insensibly, and they cleave unto us inseparably. And I should

make no doubt of recovering him sooner that had sinned long against his conscience, though in a great sin, than him that had sinned less sins, without any sense or conscience of those sins; for I should sooner bring the other to a detestation of his sin, than bring this man to a knowledge, that that that he did was sin. But if thou couldst consider that every sin is a crucifying of Christ, and every sin is a precipitation of thyself from a pinnacle: were it a convenient phrase to say, in every little sin, that thou wouldst crucify Christ a little, or break thy neck a little.

(From Sermon to the Lords of the Council.)

DEATH

Now this which is so singularly peculiar to him, that His flesh should not see corruption, at His second coming, His coming to judgment, shall be extended to all that are then alive, their flesh shall not see corruption; because (as the apostle says, and says as a secret, as a mystery, Behold I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep) that is, not continue in the state of the dead, in the grave; but we shall all be changed. In an instant we shall have a dissolution, and in the same instant a redintegration, a recompacting of body and soul; and that shall be truly a death, and truly a resurrection, but no sleeping, no corruption. But for us, who die now, and sleep in the state of the dead, we must all pass this posthume death, this death after death, nay this death after burial, this dissolution after dissolution, this death of corruption and putrefaction, of vermiculation and incineration, of dissolution and dispersion, in, and from the grave. When those bodies which have been the children of royal parents, and the parents of royal children, must say with Job, To corruption, Thou art my father, and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister. Miserable riddle, when the same worm must be my mother, and my sister, and myself. Miserable incest, when I must be married to mine own mother and sister, and be both father and mother, to mine own mother and sister, beget and bear that worm, which is all that miserable penury, when my mouth shall be filled with dust, and the worm shall feed, and feed sweetly upon me. When the ambitious man shall have no satisfaction if the poorest alive read upon him, nor the poorest receive any contentment, in