that reverential fear which belongs to so high and supreme a majesty. When the angel appeared to the wife of Manoah, foretelling Samson's birth, she says to her husband, the fashion of him was like the fashion of the angel of God; what's that? Exceeding fearful18. When God appears to thy soul, even in mercy, in the forgiveness of thy sins, yet there belongs a fear even to this apprehension of mercy: not a fearful diffidence, not a distrust, but a fearful consideration, of that height and depth; what a high majesty thou hast offended, what a desperate depth thou wast falling into, what a fearful thing it had been, to have fallen into the hands of the living God, and what an irrecoverable wretch thou hadst been, if God had not manifested himself, to have been in that place, with thee. And therefore though he have appeared unto thee in mercy, yet be afraid, lest he go away again; As Manoah prayed, and said, I beseech thee my Lord, let the man of God, whom thou sentest, come again unto us, and teach us, what we shall do with the child, when he is born, so when God hath once appeared to thy soul in mercy, pray him to come again, and tell thee what thou shouldest do with that mercy, how thou shouldest husband those first degrees of grace and of comfort, to the farther benefit of thy soul, and the farther glory of his name, and be afraid that thy dead flies may putrefy his ointment; those relics of sin, (though the body of sin, be crucified in thee) which are left in thee, may overcome his graces: for upon those words, Pavor tenuit me et tremor, et omnia ossa mea perterrita sunt, fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake", Saint Gregory says well, Quid per ossa nisi fortia acta designantur, our good deeds, our strongest works and those which were done in the best strength of grace, are meant by our bones, and yet ossa perterrita, our strongest works tremble at the presence and examination of God. And therefore to the like purpose (upon those words of the Psalm 20) the same father says, Omnia ossa mea dicent, Domine quis similis tibi, all my bones say, Lord who is like unto thee? Carnes meæ, verba non habent, (my fleshly parts, my carnal affections) infirma mea funditus silent, my sins, or my infirmities dare not speak at all, not appear at all, Sed ossa mea, quæ fortia credidi, sua consideratione tremiscunt, my very 18 Judg. xiii. 6. 19 Job iv. 14. 20 Psalm xxxv. 10. bones shake, there is no degree, no state neither of innocence, nor of repentance, nor of faith, nor of sanctification, above that fear of God: and he is least acquainted with God, who thinks that he is so familiar, that he need not stand in fear of him. But this fear hath no ill effect. It brings him to a second profession, et dixit; and he spoke again. He waked, and then he spoke, as soon as he came out of ignorance; he was afraid, and then he spoke again that he might have an increase of grace. The earth stands still and earthly men may be content to do so: but he whose conversation is in heaven, is as the heavens are in continual progress. For inter profectum, et defectum, medium in hac vita non datur. A Christian is always in a proficiency, or deficiency: if he go not forward, he goes backward. Nemo dicat, satis est, sic manere volo; Let no man say, I have done enough, I have made my profession already, I have been catechized, I have been thought fit to receive the communion, sufficit mihi esse sicut heri et nudiustertius; though he be in the way, in the church, yet he sleeps in the way, he is got no farther in the way, than his godfathers carried him in their arms, to engraff him in the church by baptism: for this man, says he, In via residet, in scala subsistit, quod nemo angelorum fecit, he stands still upon the ladder, and so did none of the angels. Christ himself increased in wisdom and in stature 22, and in favour with God and man; so must a Christian also labour to grow and to increase, by speaking and speaking again, by asking more, and more questions, and by farther, and farther informing his understanding, and enlightening his faith; pertransiit benefaciendo, et sanarit omnes, says St. Peter of Christ, He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil 23; and it was prophesied of him, Exultarit ut gigas ad currendam viam, He went forth as a giant, to run a race"; if it be Christ's pace, it must be a Christian's pace too. Currentem non apprehendit, nisi qui et pariter currit2; There is no overtaking of him that runs, without running too. Quid prodest Christum sequi, si non consequamur? and to what purpose do we follow Christ, if not to overtake him, and lay hold upon him? Sic currite, ut comprehendatis, fige Christiane cursus 21 Bernard. 23 Luke ii. 52. 23 Acts x. 38. 25 Bernard. et profectus metam ubi Christus suum; run so as ye may obtain; and if thou beest a Christian, propose the same end of thy course, as Christ did; factus est obediens usque ad mortem; and the end of his course was, to be obedient unto death. Speak then, and talk continually of the name, and the goodness of God; speak again, and again; it is no tautology, no babbling, to speak, and iterate his praises: who accuses St. Paul for repeating the sweet name of Jesus so very many times in his Epistles? Who accuses David for repeating the same phrase, the same sentence [for his mercy endureth for ever] so many times, as he doth in his Psalms? nay, the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm is scarcely anything else, than an often repetition of the same thing. Thou spokest as soon as thou wast awake, as soon as thou wast born, thou spokest in baptism. So proceed to the farther knowledge of religion, and the mysteries of God's service in his house; and conceive a fearful reverence of them in their institution, and speak again, inquire what they mean, what they signify, what they exhibit to thee. Conceive a reverence of them, first, out of the authority that hath instituted them, and then speak, and inform thyself of them. God spent a whole week in speaking for thy good; Dixit Deus, God spake that there might be light; Dixit Deus, God spake that there might be a firmament; for immediatly upon God's speaking, the work followed: dixit et factum, he spake the word, and the world was created. As God did, a godly man shall do; if he delight to talk of God, to mention often upon all occasions, the greatness, and goodness of God, to prefer that discourse, before obscene, and scurrile, and licentious, and profane, and defamatory, and ridiculous, and frivolous talk; if he delight in professing God with his tongue, out of the abundance of his heart, his works shall follow his words, he will do as he says. If God had given over, when he spake of light, and a firmament, and earth, and sea, and had not continued speaking till the last day, when he made thee, what hadst thou got by all that? what hadst thou been at all for all that? If thou canst speak when thou awakest, when thou beginnest to have an apprehension of God's presence, in a remorse, if then, that presence, and majesty of God, make thee afraid, with the horror and greatness of thy sins, if thou canst not speak again then, not go forward with thy repentance, thy former speech is forgotten by God, and unprofitable to thee. Jacob at first speaking confessed God to be in that place; but so he might be everywhere; but he conceived a reverential fear at his presence; and then he came to speak the second time, to profess, that that was none other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven; that there was an entrance for him in particular, a fit place for him to testify and exercise his devotion; he came to see, what it was fit for him to do, towards the advancing of God's house. Now whensoever a man is proceeded so far with Jacob, first to sleep, to be at peace with God, and then to wake, to do something for the good of others, and then to speak, to make profession, to publish his sense of God's presence, and then to attribute all this only to the light of God himself, by which light he grows from faith to faith, and from grace to grace, whosoever is in this disposition, he may say in all places, and in all his actions, This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. He shall see heaven open and dwell with him in all his undertakings and particularly and principally in his expressing of a care, and respect, both to Christ's mystical, and to his material body; both to the sustentation of the poor, and to the building up of God's house. In both which kinds of piety, and devotion, (Non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam; Not unto us O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be given the glory;) as to the confusion of those shameless slanderers, who place their salvation in works, and accuse us to avert men from good works, there have been in this kingdom, since the blessed reformation of religion, more public charitable works performed, more hospitals and colleges erected, and endowed in threescore, than in some hundreds of years of superstition before, so may God be pleased to add one example more amongst us, that here in this place, we may have some occasion to say, of a house erected, and dedicated to his service, This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven: and may he vouchsafe to accept at our hands, in our intention, and in our endeavour to consummate that purpose of ours, that thanksgiving, that acclamation which he received from his royal servant Solomon, at the consecration of his great temple, when he said, Is it true indeed, that God will dwell on the earth? Behold, the heavens, and the heaven of heavens are not able to contain thee, how much more unable shall this house be, that we intend to build? But have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord, my God, to hear the cry and the prayer that thy servant shall make before thee that day; that thine eye may be open towards that house night and day, that thou mayest hear the supplications of thy servants, and of thy people, which shall pray in that place, and that thou mayest hear them in the place of thy habitation even in heaven, and when thou hearest, mayest have mercy. Amen. SERMON XCIII. PREACHED AT LINCOLN'S INN. JOHN V. 22. The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son. WHEN Our Saviour forbids us to cast pearl before swine', we understand ordinarily in that place, that by pearl are understood the Scriptures, and when we consider the natural generation and production of pearl, that they grow bigger and bigger, by a continual succession, and devolution of dew, and other glutinous moisture that falls upon them, and there condenses and hardens, so that a pearl is but a body of many shells, many crusts, many films, many coats enwrapped upon one another. To this Scripture which we have in hand, doth that metaphor of pearl very properly appertain, because our Saviour Christ in this chapter undertaking to prove his own divinity and Godhead to the Jews, who acknowledged and confessed the Father to be God, but denied it of him, he folds and wraps up reason upon reason, argument upon argument, that all things are common between 1 Matt. vii. 6, 20 1 Kings viii. 27-30. |