and have nothing to say to God, we are condemned already, condemned in our silence; and if we do plead, we have no plea, but guilty; nothing to say, but to confess all the indictment against ourselves; when the flesh is too weak, as that it can perform no office, and yet would fain stay here, when the soul is laden with more sins than she can bear, and yet would fain contract more; in this agony, there is this use of our hope, that as God shall then, when our bodily ears are deaf, whisper to ourselves, and say, Memento homo, Remember, consider man, that thou art but dust, and art now returning into dust, so we, in our hearts, when our bodily tongues are speechless, may then say to God, as it is in Job, Memento quæso, Remember thou also, I beseech thee, O God, that it is thou that hast made me as clay, and that it is thou that bringest me to that state again"; and therefore come thou, and look to thine own work; come and let thy servant depart in peace, in having seen his salvation. My hope before death is, that this life is the way; my hope at death is, that my death shall be a door into a better state.

Lastly, the use of our hope, is after death, that God by his promise, hath made himself my debtor, till he restore my body to me again, in the resurrection: my body hath sinned, and he hath not redeemed a sinner, he hath not saved a sinner, except he have redeemed and saved my body, as well as my soul. To those souls that lie under the altar, and solicit God, for the resurrection, in the Revelation, God says, That they should rest for a little season, until their fellow-servants, and their brethren, that should be killed, even as they were, were fulfilled 36. All that while, while that number is fulfilling, is our hopes exercised after our death. And therefore the bodies of the saints of God, which have been temples of the Holy Ghost, when the soul is gone out of them, are not to be neglected, as a sheath that had lost the knife, as a shell that had spent the kernel; but as the godhead did not depart from the dead body of Christ Jesus, then when that body lay dead in the grave, so the power of God, and the merit of Christ Jesus, doth not depart from the body of man, but his blood lives in our ashes, and shall in his appointed time, awaken this body again, to an everlasting glory.

35 Job x. 9.

36 Rev. vi. 11.

Since therefore Job had, and we have this assurance before we die, when we die, after we are dead, it is upon good reason, that he did, and we do trust in God, though he should kill us, when he doth kill us, after he hath killed us. Especially since it is Ille, He who is spoken of before, he that kills and gives life, he that wounds, and makes whole again". God executes by what way it pleases him; condemned persons cannot choose the manner of their death; whether God kill by sickness, by age, by the hand of the law, by the malice of man, si ille, as long as we can see that it is he, he that is Shaddai, Vastator, et Restaurator, the Destroyer, and the Repairer, howsoever he kill, yet he gives life too, howsoever he wound, yet he heals too, howsoever he lock us into our graves now, yet he hath the keys of hell, and death, and shall in his time, extend that voice to us all, Lazare reni foras. Come forth of your putrefaction, to incorruptible glory. Amen.

SERMON CXII.

PREACHED AT HANWORTH, TO MY LORD CARLISLE, AND HIS COMPANY, BEING THE EARLS OF NORTHUMBERLAND, AND BUCKINGHAM, &c., Aug. 25, 1622.

JOB XXXVI. 25.

Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off.

THE words are the words of Elihu; Elihu was one of Job's friends, and a mere natural man: a man not captivated, not fettered, not enthralled, in any particular form of religion, as the Jews were; a man not macerated with the fear of God; not infatuated with any preconceptions, which nurses, or godfathers, or parents, or church, or state had infused into him; not dejected, not suppled, not matured, not entendered, with crosses in this world, and so made apt to receive any impressions, or follow any opinions of other men, a mere natural man; and in the mere use

87 Deut. xxxii. 39.

of mere natural reason, this man says of God in his works, Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off. It is the word of a natural man; and the Holy Ghost having canonized it, sanctified it, by inserting it into the book of God, it is the word of God too. St. Paul cites sometimes the words of secular poets, and approves them; and then the words of those poets, become the word of God; Elihu speaks, a natural man, and God speaks, in canonizing his words; and therefore when we speak to godly men, we are sure to be believed, for God says it; if we were to speak to natural men only, we might be believed, for Elihu, a natural man, and wise in his generation says it, that for God in his works, Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off.

Be pleased to admit, and charge your memories with this distribution of the words; Let the parts be but two, so you will be pleased to stoop, and gather, or at least to open your hands to receive, some more (I must not say flowers, for things of sweetness, and of delight grow not in my ground) but simples rather, and medicinal herbs; of which as there enter many into good cordials, so in this supreme cordial, of bringing God into the eyes of man, that every man may see it, men may behold it afar off, there must necessarily arise many particulars to your consideration. I threaten you but with two parts; no farther tediousness; but I ask room for divers branches; I can promise no more shortness. The first part is a discovery, a manifestation of God to man; though that be undeniably true, Posuit tenebras latibulum, God hath made darkness his secret place', yet it is as true, which proceeds from the same mouth, and the same pen, Amictus tanquam pallio, God covers himself with light as with a garment, he will be seen through his works: as we shall stand naked to one another, and not be ashamed of our scars, or morphews, in the sight of God, so God stands naked to the eyes of man, and is not ashamed of that humiliation, Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off. This proposition, this discovery, will be the first part; and the other will be a tacit answer, to a likely objection, Is not God far off, and can man see at that distance? yes, he may. Man may behold that afar off. Every man may see it, man may behold it afar off.

1 Psalm xviii. 11.

2 Psalm civ. 2.

God is the subject of both parts; God alone; one God. But in both parts there is a Trinity too; three branches in each part; for in each, there is an object, something to be apprehended; there is a means of apprehending it, it is to be seen; there is a Person enabled to see it, Ecery man may see it, man may behold it afar off. But these three are not alike in each part; for in the first, that object is determined, limited; it is illud; it; God in his works. In the second, there is no object limited, for it is not illud, but there is more left to be seen; not only God in his works, as here below, but God in his glory above; man may behold, but he does not offer to tell us what; there is an object, but another object. In the second there is a difference too, in the means of apprehending: it is but casah in the first, it is nibbat in the second; in that, every man may see, in the other, man may behold. And in the third, there is also a difference, the man, that may see God, is Adam; Adam is a man, made of earth, the weakest man, even in nature may see God; but the man that must behold afar off, is Enoch, and Enoch is homo æger, a miserable man, a man that hath tasted affliction, and calamity, for that man looks after God in the next world, and as he feels God with a rod in his hand here, so he beholds God with a crown in his hand there. And of thosesticks of sweet wood, of those drops of sweet gums, shall we make up this present sacrifice.

In our first part, the manifestation of God to man, the first branch is the object, the limited object, illud, every man may see it; What is that? That which was proposed in the verse immediately before, Remember that thou magnify his work which men behold; First, it is a work, and therefore it is made, it hath an author, a creator; and then it is his work, the work of God, and therefore manifests him. It is a work, a deliberate, not a casual matter, this frame, this world. It is a work, it was begun, and made up, not an eternal matter, this frame, this world. Epiphanius says well, Omnis error à cæcitate ad canitatem; that is the progress of error; every error begins in blindness, and ignorance, but proceeds, and ends, in absurdity, in frivolousness. If men had not put out the light of nature, they might discern a creation in the world, that that was made, it is a work; but when they do put out that light, and deny a creation, into what frivolous

opinions they scatter themselves; what contradictory things, men that seem constant, say; what childish, what ridiculous things, men that seem grave, and sober fathers in philosophy, say of this world? when they have said all, this one thing will destroy all, if the world be eternal, it is God; for whatsoever had no beginning, whatsoever needed nothing to give it a being, whatsoever was always of itself, is God. So that to build up their opinions in one part, they destroy it in another; and to overthrow our hall, they build up our chapel; by denying that the world was made, they imply, they confess a God; for if it had no Creator, it is no creature, it is God; so that they lose more than they gain, and they seek damnation, unthriftily, and perish prodigally; they deny the creation, lest by the creation, we should prove God, and their very denial of a creation, their making of the world eternal, constitutes it to be God. They deny any God, and then make a worse God.

This world then is a work, a limited, a determined, a circumscribed work; and it is opus ejus, his work, says Elihu there. But whose? Will you lay hold upon that? upon that, that Elihu only says, Remember his work, but names none. But two verses before, (with which this verse hath connexion) he does name God. But let the work be whose it will, whosoever be this he, this he must be God, whosoever gave the first being to creatures, must be the Creator. If you will think that chance did it, and fortune, then fortune must be your god; and destiny must be your god, if you think destiny did it; and therefore you were as good attribute it to the right God, for a god it must have; if it be a work, it was made, if it be a creature, there is a creator; and if it be his work, that he, must be God, and there are no more gods, but one. Every man hath a delight, and complacency in knowledge, and is ashamed of ignorance, even in book learning a man would have a library pro supellectile3; even for a part of furniture, a man would read for ornament: his house is not well furnished, he is not well furnished without books. Many a man, who lets the Bible dust, and rust, because the Bible hath a kind of majesty, and prerogative, and command over a man, it will not be jested withal, it will not be disputed

3 Seneca.