says the Holy Ghost: where he expresses the greatest weight by the least thing; nothing less than a grain of sand, nothing heavier than the sands of the sea, nothing easier to resist than a first temptation, or a single sin in itself, nothing heavier, nor harder to divest, than sins complicated in one another, or than an old tyrant and custom in any one sin. And therefore it was evermore a familiar phrase with the prophets, when they were to declare the sins, or to denounce the punishments of those sins upon the people, to call it by this word, Onus visionis, onus Babylonis, onus Ninives, O the burden of Babylon, the burden of Nineveh. And because some of those woes, those judgments, those burdens, did not always fall upon that people presently, they came to mock the prophets, and say to them, Now, what is the burden of the Lord, what burden have you to preach to us, and to talk of now? Say unto them, says God to the prophet there; This is the burden of the Lord, I will even forsake you. And, as it is elegantly, emphatically, vehemently added, Every man's word shall be his burden; that which he says, shall be that that shall be laid to his charge; his scorning, his idle questioning of the prophet, What burden now, what plague, what famine, what war now? Is not all well for all your crying the burden of the Lord? Every man's word shall be his burden, the deriding of God's ordinance, and of the denouncing of his judgments in that ordinance, shall be their burden, that is, aggravate those judgments upon them. Nay, there is a heavier weight than that added; Ye shall say no more (says God to the prophet) the burden of the Lord, that is, you shall not bestow so much care upon this people, as to tell them, that the Lord threatens them, God's presence in anger, and in punishments, is a heavy, but God's absence, and dereliction, a much heavier burden; as (if extremes will admit comparison) the everlasting loss of the sight of God in hell, is a greater torment, than any lakes of inextinguishable brimstone, than any gnawing of the incessant worm, than any gnashing of teeth can present

unto us.

Now, let no man ease himself upon that fallacy, sin cannot be, nor sin cannot induce such burdens as you talk of, for many men are come to wealth, and by that wealth, to honour, who, if they

8 Jer. xxiii. 23.

admitted a tenderness in their consciences, and forborne some sins, had lost both; for, Are they without burden, because they have wealth, and honour? In the original language, the same word, that is here, a burden, chabad, signifies honour, and wealth, as well as a burden. And therefore says the prophet, Woe unto him that loadeth himself with thick clay'. Non densantur nisi per laborem"; there goes much pains to the laying of it thus thick upon us; the multiplying of riches is a laborious thing; and then it is a new pain to bleed out those riches for a new office, or a new title; Et tamen lutum, says that father, when all is done, we are but rough-cast with dirt; all those riches, all those honours, are a burden, upon the just man, they are but a multiplying of fears, that they shall lose them; upon the securest man, they are but a multiplying of duties and obligations; for the more they have, the more they have to answer; and upon the unjust, they are a multiplying of everlasting torments. They possess months of canity, and wearisome nights are appointed them". Men are as weary of the day, upon carpets and cushions, as at the plough. And the labourers' weariness is to a good end; but for these men, they weary themselves to commit iniquity1. Some do, and some do not; all do. The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them; Why? Because he knows not how to go to the city. He that directs not his labours to the right end, the glory of God, he goes not to Jerusalem, the city of holy peace, but his sinful labours shall be a burden to him; and his riches, and his office, and his honour he shall not be able to put off, than when he puts off his body in his death-bed; he shall not have that happiness, which he, till then, thought a misery, to carry nothing out of this world, for his riches, his office, his honour shall follow him into the next world, and clog his soul there. But we proposed this consideration of this metaphor, that sin is a burden, (as there is an infinite sweetness, and infinite latitude in every metaphor, in every elegancy of the Scripture, and therefore I may have leave to be loath to depart from it) in some particular inconveniences, that a burden brings, and it is time to come to them.

394

SERMON CIV.

PREACHED AT LINCOLN'S INN.

The Third Sermon on PSALM XXXviii. 4.

For mine iniquities are gone over my head, as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.

As a torch that hath been lighted, and used before, is easier lighted than a new torch, so are the branches, and parts of this text, the easier reduced to your memory, by having heard former distributions thereof. But as a torch that hath been lighted and used before, will not last so long as a new one, so perchance your patience which hath already been twice exercised with the handling of these words, may be too near the bottom to afford much. And therefore much I have determined not to need. God did his greatest work upon the last day, and yet gave over work betimes. In that day he made man, and (as the context leads us most probably, to think) he made paradise, and placed man in paradise that day. For the variety of opinions amongst our expositors, about the time when God made paradise, arises from one error, an error in the Vulgate edition, in the translation of the Roman church, that reads it plantaverat, God hath planted a garden', as though God had done it before. Therefore some state it before the creation, which St. Hierome follows, or at least relates, with⚫ out disapproving it; and others place it, upon the third day, when the whole earth received her accomplishment; but if any had looked over this place with the same ingenuity as their own great man Tyr*: (an active man in the Council of Trent) hath done over the Book of Psalms, in which one book he hath confessed six thousand places, in which their translation differs from the original, they would have seen this difference in this place, that

.

1 Gen. ii. 8.

* The only person whose name will agree with the abbreviation in the text, is Turrianus, mentioned by Mosheim as an ecclesiastical writer contemporary with the Council of Trent. He refers for more particulars to Du PIN, Bibliotheque des Auteurs Ecclesiastiques, tom. xiv. and xvi., which book I have not the opportunity of consulting.

--

-ED.

it is not plantaverat, but plantavit, not that God had before, but that he did then, then when he had made man, make a paradise for man. And yet God made an end of all this day's work betimes; in that day, he walked in the garden in the cool of the evening. The noblest part of our work, in handling this text, falls upon the conclusion, reserved for this day; which is, the application of these words to Christ. But for that, I shall be short, and rather leave you to walk with God in the cool of the evening, to meditate of the sufferings of Christ, when you are gone, than pretend to express them here. The passion of Christ Jesus is rather an amazement, an astonishment, an ecstasy, a consternation, than an instruction. Therefore, though something we shall say of that anon, First, we pursue that which lies upon ourselves, the burden, in those four mischievous inconveniences wrapped up in that metaphor.

ture.

Of them, the first was, inclinat; that a burden sinks a man, declines him, crookens him, makes him stoop. So does sin. It is one of St. Augustine's definitions of sin, conversio ad creaturam, that it is a turning, a withdrawing of man to the creaAnd every such turning to the creature, let it be upon his side, to her whom he loves, let it be upwards, to honour that he affects, yet it is still downward, in respect of him, whom he was made by, and should direct himself to. Every inordinate love of the creature is a descent from the dignity of our creation, and a disavowing, a disclaiming of that charter, Subjicite et dominamini, Subdue, and govern the creature. Est quoddam bonum, quod si diligat anima rationalis, peccat. There are good things in the world, which it is a sin for man to love, Quia infra illam ordinantur, Because though they be good, they are not so good as man; and man may not decline, and everything, except God himself, is inferior to man, and so, it is a declination, a stooping in man, to apply himself to any creature, till he meet that creature in God; for there it is above him; and so, as beauty and riches, and honour are beams that issue from God, and glasses that represent God to us, and ideas that return us into him, in our glorifying of him, by these helps, so we may apply ourselves to them; for, in this consideration, as they assist us in our way

2 August. De ver. relig. c. xx.

to God, they are above us, otherwise, to love them for themselves, is a declination, a stooping under a burden; and this declination, this incurvation, this descent of man, in the inordinate love of the creature, may very justly seem to be forbidden in that commandment, that forbids idolatry, Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them; if we bow down to them, we do worship them; for it is in the love of all creatures, as it is in money; covetousness, that is, the love of money, is idolatry, says the apostle; and so is all other inordinate love of any idolatry. And then, as we have seen some grow crooked, by a long sitting, a lying in one posture, so, by an easy resting in these descents and declination of the soul, it comes to be a fashion to stoop, and it seems a comely thing to be crooked; and we become, infruniti, that is, quibus nemo frui velit, such as nobody cares for our conversation, or company, except we be ill company, sociable in other sins, et viliores quo castiores, if we affect chastity, or any other virtue, we disaffect and distaste other men; for one man's virtue chides, and reproaches a whole vicious company. But if he will needs be in fashion, cum perverso perverti, to grow crooked with the crooked, His iniquities shall take him, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sin; that is, in that posture that he puts himself, he shall be kept; kept all his life; and then, (as it follows there) He shall die without instruction; die in a place, where he can have no absolution, no sacrament, or die, in a disposition, that he shall receive no benefit by them, though he receive them. He hath packed a burden upon himself, in habitual sin, he hath chosen to stoop under this burden, in an idolatrous love of those sins, and nothing shall be able to erect him again, not preaching, not sacraments, no not judgments. And this is the first inconvenience, and mischief, implied in this metaphor which the Holy Ghost hath chosen, Mine iniquities are as a burden, inclinant, they bend down my soul, created straight, to an incurvation, to a crookedness.

A second inconvenience intimated in this metaphor, a burden, is the fatigat, a burden wearies us, tires us: and-so does our sin, and our best beloved sin. It hath wearied us, and yet we cannot divest it. We would leave that sin, and yet there is one