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thy corrections upon us, so, as still to see thy torments suffered for us, and our own sins, to be infinitely more that occasioned those torments, than those corrections that thou layest upon us. Thine arrows stuck and stuck fast in thee; the weight of thy torments, thou wouldest not cast off, nor lessen, when at thy execution they offered thee that stupefying drink", (which was the civil charity in those times to condemned persons, to give them an easier passage, in the agonies of death) thou wouldest not taste of that cup of ease. Deliver us, O Lord, in all our tribulations, from turning to the miserable comforters of this world, or from wishing or accepting any other deliverance, than may improve and make better our resurrection. These arrows

were in thee, in all thee: from thy head torn with thorns, to thy feet piered with nails; and in thy soul so as we know not how, so as to extort a Si possibile, If it be possible let this cup pass, and an Ut quid dereliquisti, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Lord, whilst we remain entire here, in body and soul, make us, and receive us an entire sacrifice to thee, in directing body and soul to thy glory, and when thou shalt be pleased to take us in pieces by death, receive our souls to thee, and lay up our bodies for thee, in consecrated ground, and in a Christian burial. And lastly, thine arrows were followed, and pressed with the hand of God; the hand of God pressed upon thee, in that eternal decree, in that irrevocable contract, between thy Father and thee, in that Oportuit pati, That all that thou must suffer, and so enter into our glory. Establish us, O Lord, in all occasions of diffidences here; and when thy hand presses our arrows upon us, enable us to see, that that very hand, hath from all eternity written, and written in thine own blood, a decree of the issue, as well, and as soon, as of the temptation. In which confidence of which decree, as men in the virtue thereof already in possession of heaven, we join with that choir in that service, in that anthem, Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever, and ever, Amen".

46 Mark xv. 23.

47 Apoc. vii. 11, 12.

333

SERMON CI.

PREACHED AT LINCOLN'S INN.

PSALM XXXviii. 3.

There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin.

In that which is often reported to you, out of St. Hierome, Titulus claris, That the title of the psalm, is the key of the psalm, there is this good use, that the Book of Psalms is a mysterious book; and, if we had not a lock, every man would thrust in, and if we had not a key, we could not get in ourselves. Our lock is the analogy of the Christian faith; that we admit no other sense, of any place in any psalm, then may consist with the articles of the Christian faith; for so, no heretic, no schismatic, shall get in by any countenance of any place in the Psalms: and then our key is, that intimation which we receive in the title of the psalm, what duty that psalm is principally directed upon; and so we get into the understanding of the psalm, and profiting by the psalm. Our key in this psalm, given us in the title thereof, is, that it is Psalmus ad Recordationem, A Psalm of Remembrance; the faculty that is awakened here, is our memory. That plural word nos, which was used by God, in the making of man, when God said Faciamus, Let us, us make man, according to our image, as it intimates a plurality, a concurrence of all the Trinity in our making, so doth it also a plurality in that image of God, which was then imprinted in us; as God, one God created us, so we have a soul, one soul, that represents, and is some image of that one God; as the three persons of the Trinity created us, so we have, in our one soul, a threefold impression of that image, and, as St. Bernard calls it, A Trinity from the Trinity, in those three faculties of the soul, the understanding, the will, and the memory. God calls often upon the first faculty, O that this people would but understand; but understand? Inscrutabilia judicia tua; Thy judgments are unsearchable, and thy ways past finding out; and, oh that this

people would not go about to understand those unrevealed decrees, and secrets of God. God calls often upon the other faculty, the will too, and complains of the stiff perverseness, and opposition of that. Through all the prophets runs that charge, Noluerunt, and Noluerunt, They would not, they refused me, Noluerunt audire, says God in Esay'; They are rebellious children, that will not hear. Domus Israel noluit, says God to Ezekiel, The house of Israel will not hear thee; not thee, not the minister; that is no marvel; it is added by God there, Noluit me, They will not hear me. Noluerunt erubescere, says God to Jeremiah3, They will not be ashamed of their former ways, and therefore Noluerunt recerti, They will not return to better ways: he that is past shame of sin, is past recovery from sin. So Christ continues that practice, and that complaint in the Gospel too; he sends forth his servants, (us) to call them, that were bidden, et noluerunt venire3, and they would not come upon their call; he comes himself, and and would gather them, as a hen her chickens, and they would not; their fault is not laid in this, that they had no such faculty, as a will, (for then their not coming were not their fault) but that they perverted that will. Of our perverseness in both faculties, understanding, and will, God may complain, but as much of our memory; for, for the rectifying of the will, the understanding must be rectified; and that implies great difficulty: but the memory is so familiar, and so present, and so ready a faculty, as will always answer, if we will but speak to it, and ask it, what God hath done for us, or for others. The art of salvation, is but the art of memory. When God gave his people the law, he proposes nothing to them, but by that way, to their memory; I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt'; remember but that. And when we express God's mercy to us, we attribute but that faculty to God, that he remembers us; Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? And when God works so upon us, as that he makes his wonderful works to be had in remembrance', it is as great a mercy, as the very doing of those wonderful works was before. It was a seal

1 Isaiah xxx. 9. 4.Jer. v. 3.

2 Ezek. iii. 7.

5 Matt. xxii. 3.
8 Psalm iii. 4.

3 Jer. iii. 3.

6 Matt. xxiii. 37.

Psalm cxi. 4.

upon a seal, a seal of confirmation, it was a sacrament upon a sacrament, when in instituting the sacrament of his body and his blood, Christ presented it so, Do this in remembrance of me1o. Memorare novissima, Remember the last things, and fear will keep thee from sinning; Memorare præterita, Remember the first things, what God hath done for thee, and love, (love, which, misplaced, hath transported thee upon many sins) love will keep thee from sinning. Plato placed all learning in the memory; we may place all religion in the memory too: all knowledge, that seems new to-day, says Plato, is but a remembering of that, which your soul knew before. All instruction, which we can give you to-day, is but the remembering you of the mercies of God, which have been new every morning. Nay, he that hears no sermons, he that reads no Scriptures, hath the Bible without book; he hath a Genesis in his memory; he cannot forget his creation; he hath an Exodus in his memory; he cannot forget that God hath delivered him, from some kind of Egypt, from some oppression; he hath a Leviticus in his memory; he cannot forget that God hath proposed to him some law, some rules to be observed. He hath all in his memory, even to the Revelation; God hath revealed to him, even at midnight alone, what shall be his portion, in the next world; and if he dare but remember that night's communication between God and him, he is well near learned enough. There may be enough in remembering ourselves; but sometimes that is the hardest of all; many times we are farthest off from ourselves; most forgetful of ourselves. It was a narrow enlargement, it was an addition that diminished the sense, when our former translators added that word, themselves; All the world shall remember themselves"; there is no such particularly, as themselves, in that text; but it is only, as our later translators have left it, all the world shall remember, and no more; let them remember what they will, what they can, let them but remember thoroughly, and then, as it follows there, They shall turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship him. Therefore David makes that the key into this psalm; Psalmus ad recordationem, A Psalm for remembrance. Being locked up in a close prison, of multiplied cala

10 Luke xxii. 19.

11 Psalm xxii. 27.

mities, this turns the key, this opens the door, this restores him to liberty, if he can remember. Non est sanitas, There is no soundness, no health in my flesh; dost thou wonder at that? Remember thyself, and thou wilt see, that thy case is worse than so; that there is no rest in thy bones. That is true too; but dost thou wonder at that? Remember thyself, and thou wilt see the cause of all that, the Lord is angry with thee; findest thou that true, and wonderest why the Lord should be angry with thee? Remember thyself well, and thou wilt see, it is because of thy sins, there is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin. So have I let you in, into the whole psalm, by this key, by awaking your memory, that it is a psalm for remembrance: and that that you are to remember, is, that all calamities, that fall upon you, fall not from the malice or power of man, but from the anger of God; and then, that God's anger falls not upon you, from his hate, or his decree, but from your sins, There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin.

Which words we shall first consider, as they are our present object, as they are historically, and literally to be understood of David; and secondly, in their retrospect, as they look back upon the first Adam, and so concern mankind collectively, and so you, and I, and all have our portion in these calamities; and thirdly, we shall consider them in their prospect, in their future relation to the second Adam, in Christ Jesus, in whom also all mankind was collected, and the calamities of all men had their ocean and their confluence, and the cause of them, the anger of God was more declared, and the cause of that anger, that is sin, did more abound; for the sins of all the world were his, by imputation, for this psalm, some of our expositors take to be a historical, and personal psalm, determined in David; some, a Catholic, and universal psalm, extended to the whole condition of man, and some a prophetical, and evangelical psalm, directed upon Christ. None of them inconveniently; for we receive help and health, from every one of these acceptations; first, Adam was the patient, and so, his promise, the promise that he received of a Messiah, is our physic; and then David was the patient, and there, his

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