In dust and ashes.

I haue but one staire more, downe from both Text and Pulpit; and it is a very low one; Dust and ashes.

An adorned body is not the vehicle of an humbled soule. Iob, before his affliction was not poore. Doubtlesse, hee had his Wardrobe, his change and choise of garments. Yet now, how doth his humbled soule contemne them! as if hee threw away his vesture, saying; I haue worne thee for pompe, giuen countenance to a silken case; I quite mistooke thy nature, get thee from mee, I am weary of thy seruice, thou hast made mee honourable with men, thou canst get mee no estimation before the Lord. Repentance giues a farewell, not onely to wonted delights, but e∣uen to naturall refreshings. Iob lies not on a bed of Roses and Violets, as did the Sybarites; nor Page  21 on a couch beautified with the Tapestrie of E∣gypt; but on a bed of Ashes. Sackcloth is his ap∣parell; dust and ashes the lace and embroyderie of it.* Thus Niniu•hs King, vpon that fearefull sentence, rose from his throne, layd his robe from him, couered himselfe with sackcloth, and sate in a∣shes. O what an alteration can repentance make? From a King of the earth, to a worme of the earth: from a foot-cloth, to sackcloth: from a Throne, to a dunghill: from sitting in State, to lying in ashes! Whom all the reuerence of the world attended on, to whom the head was vn∣couered, the knee bowed, the body prostrated; who had as many salutations, as the firmament starres, God saue the King: Hee throwes away Crowne, scepter, Maiestie, and all, and sits in a∣shes. How many doth the golden Cup of Ho∣nour make drunke, and driuen from all sense of mortalitie! Riches and hearts ease, are such v∣suall intoxications to the soules of men; that it is rare to finde any of them so low as Dust and Ashes.

Dust, as the remembrance of his originall: Ashes, as the representation of his end: Dust, that was the mother: Ashes, that shall bee the daugther of our Bodies.

Dust, the matter of our substance, the house of our soules, the originall graines whereof wee were made, the top of all our kinred. The glory of the strongest man, the beautie of the fairest woman; all is but dust. Dust; the onely compounder of differences, the absoluer of all Page  22 distinctions: who can say, which was the Cli∣ent, which the Lawyer: which the borrower, which the lender: which the captiue, which the Conqueror; when they all lie together in blen∣ded dust?

Dust; not Marble, nor Porphyrie, Gold nor precious stone, was the matter of our bodies; but earth, and the fractions of the earth, dust. Dust, the sport of the winde, the very slaue of the beesome. This is the pit from whence wee are digged; and this is the pit, to which we shall bee resolued.* Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt returne againe. They that sit in the dust, and feele their owne materials about them, may well renounce the ornaments of pride, the gulfe of auarice, the foolish lustes of concupiscence. Let the couetous thinke, what doe I scrape for? a little golden dust: the ambitious, what doe I aspire for? a little honourable dust: the libidi∣nous, what doe I languish for? a little animated dust, blowen away with the breath of Gods dis∣pleasure.

O how goodly this building of man appeares, when it is clothed with beautie and honour! A face full of maiestie, the throne of comelinesse; wherein the whitenesse of the Lilie contends with the sanguine of the Rose: an actiue hand, an erected countenance, an eye sparkling out lu∣stre, a smoothe complexion, arising from an ex∣cellent temperature and composition: where∣as other creatures, by reason of their cold and grosse humours, are growne ouer, beasts with Page  23 haire, foules with feathers, fishes with scales. O what a workman was this, that could raise such a Fabricke out of the earth, and lay such orient colours vpon Dust! yet all is but Dust, walking, talking, breathing dust: all this beautie but the effect of a well concocted food, and life it selfe but a walk from dust to dust. Yea, and this man, or that woman, is neuer so beautifull, as when they sit weeping for their sinnes in the dust: as Mary Magdalen was then fairest, when she knee∣led in the dust, bathing the feet of Christ with her teares, and wiping them with her haires: like heauen, faire sight-ward, to vs that are with∣out; but more faire to them that are within.

The Dust is come of the same house that wee are: and when she sees vs proud, and forgetfull of our selues, shee thinkes with her selfe, Why should not shee, that is descended as well as we, beare vp her plumes as high as ours. Therefore she so often borrowes wings of the winde, to mount aloft into the ayre, and in the streets and high wayes, dasheth herselfe into our eyes: as if shee would say, Are you my kinred, and will not know me? will you take no notice of your owne mother? To taxe the folly of our ambi∣tion, the dust in the street takes pleasure to bee ambitious.

The Iewes in their mourning, vsed to rend their garments; as if they would bee reuenged on them, for encreasing their pride, and keeping them from the sight of their nakednesse. Then they put on sackcloth, and that sackcloth they Page  24 sprinkled ouer with dust, and ouerstrawed with ashes: to put God in minde, that if hee should arme his displeasure against them, he should but contend with dust and ashes; and what glory could that bee for him?* Shall the dust praise thee, O God; or, art thou glorified in the pit? Nay, ra∣ther, how often doth the Lord spare vs,* because hee remembers wee are but dust? To shew that they had lifted vp themselues aboue their crea∣tion, and forgot of what they are made; now by by Repentance returning to their first Image, in all prostrate humility they lay in the dust; confes∣sing, that the wind doth not more easily disperse the dust, then the breath of God was able to bring them to nothing.

Thus, Dust is not onely Materia nostra, or Ma∣ter, our Mother,* or matter wherof we are made; for our foundation is in the dust.* But Patria nostra, our Countrey where we shall dwell; Awake yee that dwell in the dust. We are no better then the dust wee shake off from our feete, or brush off from our clothes. O, therefore let vs turne to God in dust, before hee turne vs into dust. Yea, Saint Augustine goes further, and sayes, that not onely the bodies of all men, but euen the soules of some men, are no better then dust. They are so set vpon earth, and earthly things, that they are transformed into earth and dust: and so be∣come the food of that old Serpent, whose punish∣ment was to eate the dust.

For Ashes, they are the Embleme or repre∣sentation of greater misery: Dust onely shewes Page  25 vs, that wee haue deserued the dissolution of our bodies; Ashes put vs in mind that wee haue merited also the destruction of our Soules. A∣shes are the leauings of the fire, the offalls of consumed substances. When God shall giue vp the largest buildings of Nature to the rage of that Element, it shall reduce them to a nar∣rowe roome, the remnants shall bee but ashes. This was all the Monument of those famous ci∣ties, Sodome,* Gomorra, and the rest; heapes of ashes. Ecce vix totam Hercules impleuit vrnam, sayes the Poet; that great Gyant scarce makes a pit∣cher of ashes.

For this cause, the Ancients vsed to repent in Ashes; remonstrating to themselues, that they deserued burning in endlesse fire, more then those Ashes wherein they wallowed. Yea, if Abraham compared himselfe to dust and ashes, I may compare my soule to a sparke hid in the Ashes: which, when sickenesse and death shall stirre vp; like fire, shee takes her flight vpwards, and leaues the heauy fruitlesse ashes of my bodie behind her.

In both, wee haue a L•sson of our owne mortalitie. The finger of GOD hath writ∣ten the Epitaph of man; the condition of his bodie, like Characters printed in the Dust. Mans body, so well as the yce, expounds that Riddle; the gignit filia matrem: the daugh∣ter begets the mother; Dust begot a bodie, and a bodie begets Dust. Our bodies were a• first strong Cities; but then wee made them Page  26 the Forts of Rebels: our offended Liege sent his Serieant Death to arrest vs of high Trea∣son. And though for his mercies sake in Christ, hee pardoned our sinnes, yet hee suffers vs no more to haue such strong houses; but lets vs dwell in paper Cottages, mudde walles, mor∣tall bodies. Methusalem liued nine hundred sixtie nine yeares; yet hee was the sonne of Enoch, who was the sonne of Iared, who was the sonne of Malaleel, who was the sonne of Cainan, who was the sonne of Enos, who was the sonne of Seth, who was the sonne of A∣dam, who was the sonne of Dust. Aske the woman that hath conceiued a childe in her wombe; Will it bee a Sonne? Peraduenture so: Will it bee well formed and featured? Peraduenture so: Will it be wise? Peraduenture so: Will it be rich? Peraduenture so: Will it be long-liued? Peraduenture so: Will it be mor∣tall? Yes, this is without peraduenture; it will die. Euen a Heathen, when hee heard that his son was dead, could say without changing coun∣tenance, Scio me genuisse mortalem; I know that I begot a mortall man.

An olde man is said to giue Alexander a little Iewell; and tolde him, that it had this vertue; so long as hee kept it bright, it would out-value the most fine golde or precious stone in the world; but if it once tooke dust, it would not bee worth a feather. What meant the Sage, but to giue the Monarch an Embleme of his owne body; which being animated with Page  27 a Soule,* commanded the world; but once fallen to dust, it would be worth nothing: for a liuing dog is better then a dead Lyon.

I conclude, I call you not to casting Dust on your heads, or sitting in Ashes▪ but to that sorrow and compunction of Soule, whereof the other was but an externall Symbole or testimo∣nie.* Let vs rend our hearts, and spare our gar∣ments; humble our soules, without afflicting our bodies. It is not a corps wrapp'd in Dust and A∣shes, but a contrite heart,* which the Lord will not despise. Let vs repent our sinnes, and amend our liues: so God will pardon vs by the merites, saue vs by the mercies, and crowne vs with the glories of Iesus Christ.