with that iron, and with that marble, thou mayest find thy father's skin, and body; contrita sunt, the knife, the marble, the

away, they are destroyed, Dust upon the king's high

skin, the body are ground away, trod who knows the revolutions of dust? way, and dust upon the king's grave, are both, or neither, dust royal, and may change places; who knows the revolutions of dust? Even in the dead body of Christ Jesus himself, one dram of the decree of his Father, one sheet, one sentence of the prediction of the prophets preserved his body from corruption, and incineration, more than all Joseph's new tombs, and fine linen, and great proportion of spices could have done. O, who can express this inexpressible mystery? The soul of Christ Jesus, which took no harm by him, contracted no original sin, in coming to him, was guilty of no more sin, when it went out, than when it came from the breath and bosom of God; yet this soul left this body in death. And the Divinity, the Godhead, incomparably better than that soul, which soul was incomparably better than all the saints, and angels in heaven, that Divinity, that Godhead did not forsake the body, though it were dead. If we might compare things infinite in themselves, it was nothing so much, that God did assume man's nature, as that God did still cleave to that man, then when he was no man, in the separation of body and soul, in the grave. But fall we from incomprehensible mysteries; for, there is mortification enough, (and mortification is vivification, and ædification) in this obvious consideration; skin and body, beauty and substance must be destroyed; and, destroyed by worms, which is another descent in this humiliation, and exinanition of man, in death; After my skin, worms shall destroy this body.

I will not insist long upon this, because it is not in the original; in the original there is no mention of worms. But because in other places of Job there is, They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them"; The womb shall forget them, and the worm shall feed sweetly on them"; and because the word destroying is presented in that form and number, contriverint, when they shall destroy, they and no other persons, no other creatures named; both our later translations, (for indeed, our first 40 Job xxiv. 20.

39 Job xxi. 26.

translation hath no mention of worms) and so very many others, even Tremellius that adheres most to the letter of the Hebrew, have filled up this place, with that addition, destroyed by worms. It makes the destruction the more contemptible; thou that wouldest not admit the beams of the sun upon thy skin, and yet hast admitted the pollutions of sin; thou that wouldest not admit the breath of the air upon thy skin, and yet hast admitted the spirit of lust, and unchaste solicitations to breathe upon thee, in execrable oaths, and blasphemies, to vicious purposes; thou, whose body hath (as far as it can) putrefied and corrupted even the body of thy Saviour, in an unworthy receiving thereof, in this skin, in this body, must be the food of worms, the prey of destroying worms. After a low birth thou mayest pass an honourable life, after a sentence of an ignominious death, thou mayest have an honourable end; but, in the grave canst thou make these worms silk worms? They were bold and early worms that eat up Herod before he died"; they are bold and everlasting worms, which after thy skin and body is destroyed, shall remain as long as God remains, in an eternal gnawing of thy conscience; long, long after the destroying of skin and body, by bodily

worms.

Thus far then to the destroying of skin and body by worms, all men are equal; thus far all is common law, and no prerogative, so is it also in the next step too; the resurrection is common to all the prerogative lies not in the rising, but in the rising to the fruition of the sight of God; in which consideration, the first beam of comfort is the postquam, after all this, destruction before by worms; ruinous misery before; but there is something else to be done upon me after. God leaves no state without comfort. God leaves some inhabitants of the earth under longer nights than others, but none under an everlasting night; and those whom he leaves under those long nights, he recompenses with as long days after. I were miserable, if there were not an antequam in my behalf; if before I had done well or ill actually in this world, God had not wrapped me up, in his good purpose upon And I were miserable again, if there were not a postquam in my behalf; if, after my sin had cast me into the grave, there

me.

Acts xii. 23.

were not a loud trumpet to call me up, and a gracious countenance to look upon me, when I were risen. Nay, let my life have been as religious, as the infirmities of this life can admit, yet, If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are, of all men, most miserable. For, for the worldly things of this life, first, the children of God have them in the least proportions of any; and, besides that, those children of God, which have them in larger proportion, do yet make the least use of them of any others, because the children of the world are not so tender conscienced, nor so much afraid, lest those worldly things should become snares, and occasions of temptation to them, if they open themselves to a full enjoying thereof, as the children of God are. And therefore, after my wanting of many worldly things, (after a penurious life) and, after my not daring to use those things that I have, so freely as others do, after that holy and conscientious forbearing of those things that other men afford themselves, after my leaving all these absolutely behind me here, and my skin and body in destruction in the grave, after all, there remains something else for me. After; but how long after? That is next.

When Christ was in the body of that flesh, which we are in, now, (sin only excepted) he said, in that state that he was in then, Of that day and hour, no man knoweth, not the angels, not the Son. Then, in that state, he excludes himself. And when Christ was risen again, in an uncorruptible body, he said, even to his nearest followers, Non est vestrum, it is not for you, to know times, and seasons". Before in his state of mortality, Seipsum annumeravit ignorantibus", He pretended to know no more of this, than they that knew nothing. After, when he had invested immortality, per sui exceptionem, (says that father) he excepts none but himself; all the rest, even the apostles, were left ignorant thereof. For this non est vestrum, (it is not for you) is part of the last sentence that ever Christ spake to them. If it be a convenient answer to say, Christ knew it not, as man, how bold is that man that will pretend to know it? And, if it be a convenient interpretation of Christ's words, that he knew it not, that is, knew it not so, as that he might tell it them, how indiscreet 3 Mark xiii. 32.

42 1 Cor. xv. 19.

44 Acts i. 7.

43

45 Basil.

are they, who, though they may seem to know it, will publish it? For thereby they fill other men with scruples, and vexations, and they open themselves to scorn and reproach, when their predictions prove false, as St. Augustine observed in his time, and every age hath given examples since, of confident men that have failed in these conjectures. It is a poor pretence to say, this intimation, this impression of a certain time, prepares men with better dispositions. For they have so often been found false, that it rather weakens the credit of the thing itself. In the old world they knew exactly the time of the destruction of the world; that there should be an hundred and twenty years, before the flood came"; and yet, upon how few, did that prediction, though from the mouth of God himself, work to repentance? Noah found grace in God's eyes; but it was not because he mended his life upon that prediction, but he was gracious in God's sight before. At the day of our death, we write Pridie resurrectionis, The day before the resurrection; it is Vigilia resurrectionis; our Easter Adveniat regnum tuum, Possess my soul of thy kingdom then and, Fiat voluntas tua, My body shall arise after, but how soon after, or how late after, thy will be done then, by thyself, and thy will be known, till then, to thyself.

eve.

:

We pass on. As in massa damnata, the whole lump of mankind is under the condemnation of Adam's sin, and yet the good purpose of God severs some men from that condemnation, so, at the resurrection, all shall rise; but not all to glory. But, amongst them, that do, ego, says Job, I shall. I, as I am the same man, made up of the same body, and the same soul. Shall I imagine a difficulty in my body, because I have lost an arm in the east, and a leg in the west? Because I have left some blood in the north, and some bones in the south? Do but remember, with what ease you have sate in the chair, casting an account, and made a shilling on one hand, a pound on the other, or five shillings below, ten above, because all these lay easily within your reach. Consider how much less all this earth is to him, that sits in heaven, and spans all this world, and reunites in an instant, arms, and legs, blood, and bones, in what corners soever they be scattered. The greater work may seem to be in reducing the

46 Gen. vi. 3.

47

soul; that that soul which sped so ill in that body, last time it came to it, as that it contracted original sin then, and was put to the slavery to serve that body, and to serve it in the ways of sin, not for an apprenticeship of seven, but seventy years after, that that soul after it hath once got loose by death, and lived God knows how many thousands of years, free from that body, that abused it so before, and in the sight and fruition of that God, where it was in no danger, should willingly, nay desirously, ambitiously seek this scattered body; this eastern, and western, and northern, and southern body, this is the most inconsiderable consideration, and yet, ego, I, I the same body, and the same soul, shall be recompact again, and be identically, numerically, individually the same man. The same integrity of body, and soul, and the same integrity in the organs of my body, and in the faculties of my soul too; I shall be all there, my body, and my soul, and all my body, and all my soul. I am not all here, I am here now preaching upon this text, and I am at home in my library considering whether St. Gregory, or St. Hierome, have said best of this text, before. I am here speaking to you, and yet I consider by the way, in the same instant, what it is likely you will say to one another, when I have done; you are not all here neither; you are here now, hearing me, and yet you are thinking that you have heard a better sermon somewhere else, of this text before; you are here, and yet you think you could have heard some other doctrine of downright predestination, and reprobation roundly delivered somewhere else with more edification to you; you are here, and you remember yourselves that now ye think of it: this had been the fittest time, now, when everybody else is at church, to have made such and such a private visit; and because you would be there, you are there. I cannot say, you cannot say so perfectly, so entirely now, as at the resurrection, ego, I am here; I, body and soul; I, soul and faculties: as Christ said to Peter, Noli timere, ego sum, Fear nothing, it is I; so I say to myself, Noli timere; my soul, why art thou so sad, my body, why dost thou languish? Ego, I, body and soul, soul and faculties, shall say to Christ Jesus, Ego sum, Lord, it is I,

he shall not say, Nescio te, I know thee not, but avow me, and

47 i. e. not able to be conceived.