XXVIII sermons preached at Golden Grove being for the summer half-year, beginning on Whit-Sunday, and ending on the xxv Sunday after Trinity, together with A discourse of the divine institution, necessity, sacredness, and separation of the office ministeriall / by Jer. Taylor.

[ A] Sermon. XXV.* 1.1 [ B] THE MIRACLES [ C] OF THE DIVINE MERCY. (Book 25)

Psalm. 86. 5

For thou Lord art good and ready to forgive, and plente∣ous in mercy to all them that call upon thee.

[ D] MAN having destroyed that which God de∣lighted in, that is, the beauty of his soul, fell into an evil portion, and being seized upon by the divine justice, grew miserable, and condemned to an incurable sorrow. Poor Adam being banished and undone, went and lived a sad life in the mountains of India, and turned his face and his prayers towards [ E] Paradise; thither he sent his sighes, to that place he directed his devotions; there was his heart now, and his felicity sometimes had been; but he knew not how to return thi∣ther, for God was his enemy, and by many of his attributes op∣posed himself against him. Gods power was armed against him; and poor man, whom a fly, or a fish could kill, was assaulted and

beaten with a sword of fire in the hand of a Cherubim. Gods eye [ A] watched him, his omniscience was mans accuser, his severity was the Judge, his justice the executioner. It was a mighty calamity that man was to undergo, when he that made him, armed himself against his creature, which would have died or turned to nothing, if he had but withdrawn the miracles and the Almightinesse of his power. If God had taken his arm from under him, man had pe∣rished; but it was therefore a greater evil when God laid his arm upon him and against him, and seemed to support him that he might be longer killing him. In the midst of these sadnesses God remembered his own creature, and pitied it, and by his mercy re∣scued [ B] him from the hand of his power, and the sword of his justice, and the guilt of his punishment, and the disorder of his sin, and placed him in that order of good things where he ought to have stood: It was mercy that preserved the noblest of Gods creatures here below; he who stood condemned and undone under all the other attributes of God, was onely saved and rescued by his mer∣cy: that it may be evident that Gods mercy is above all his works, and above all ours, greater then the creation, and greater then our sins; as is his Majesty, so is his mercy, that is, without measures, and without rules, sitting in heaven and filling all the world, cal∣ling [ C] for a duty that he may give a blessing, making man that he may save him, punishing him that he may preserve him: and Gods justice bowed down to his mercy, and all his power passed into mercy, and his omniscience converted into care and watchfulnesse, into providence, and observation for mans avail, and Heaven gave its influence for man, and rained showers for our food and drink, and the Attributes and Acts of God sat at the foot of mercy, and all that mercy descended upon the head of man: For so the light of the world in the morning of the creation was spread abroad like a cur∣tain, and dwelt no where, but filled the expansum with a dissemi∣nation [ D] great as the unfoldings of the airs looser garment, or the wilder fringes of the fire, without knots, or order or combinati∣on; but God gathered the beams in his hand, and united them in∣to a globe of fire, and all the light of the world became the body of the Sun, and he lent some to his weaker sister that walks in the night, and guides a traveller and teaches him to distinguish a house from a river, or a rock from a plain field; so is the mercy of God; [ E] a vast expansum and a huge Ocean, from eternall ages it dwelt round about the throne of God, and it filled all that infinite di∣stance and space, that hath no measures but the will of God; un∣till God desiring to communicate that excellency and make it re∣lative, created Angels, that he might have persons capable of huge gifts, and man, who he knew would need forgivenesse; for so the Angels our elder Brothers dwelt for ever in the house of their Fa∣ther, and never brake his commandements; but we the younger

[ A] like prodigals, forsook our fathers house, and went into a strange countrey, and followed stranger courses, and spent the portion of our nature, and forfeited all our title to the family, and came to need another portion: for ever since the fall of Adam, who like an unfortunate man spent all that a wretched man could need, or a happy man could have, our life is repentance, and forgivenesse is all our portion: and though Angels were objects of Gods bounty, yet man onely is (in proper speaking) the object of his mercy. And the mercy which dwelt in an infinite circle, became confin'd to a little ring, and dwelt here below, and here shall dwell be∣low, [ B] till it hath carried all Gods portion up to heaven, where it shall reigne and glory upon our crowned heads for ever and ever.

But for him that considers Gods mercies, and dwels a while in that depth, it is hard not to talk wildly and without art, and or∣der of discoursings: Saint Peter talked he knew not what, when he entered into a cloud with Jesus upon mount Tabor, though it passed over him like the little curtains that ride upon the North-winde, and passe between the Sun and us: And when we converse with a light greater then the Sun, and tast a sweetnesse more de∣licious [ C] then the dew of heaven, and in our thoughts entertain the ravishments and harmony of that atonement which reconciles God to man, and man to felicity, it will be more easily pardoned, if we should be like persons that admire much, and say but little: and indeed we can best confesse the glories of the Lord by dazeled eyes and a stammering tongue, and a heart overcharged with the miracles of this infinity; For so those little drops that run over, though they be not much in themselves, yet they tell that the ves∣sell was full, and could expresse the greatnesse of the shower no otherwise, but by spilling, and inartificiall expressions and run∣nings [ D] over. But because I have undertaken to tell the drops of the Ocean, and to span the measures of eternity, I must do it by the great lines of revelation, and experience, and tell concerning Gods mercy as we do concerning God himself, that he is that great fountain of which we all drink, and the great rock of which we all eat, and on which we all dwell, and under whose shadow we all are refreshed. Gods mercy is all this, and we can onely draw great lines of it, and reckon the constellations of our hemisphere instead of telling the number of the stars: we onely can reckon what we feel, and what we live by; And though there be in every one of [ E] these lines of life enough to ingage us for ever to do God service, and to give him praises, yet it is certain there are very many mer∣cies of God upon us, and toward us, and concerning us, which we neither feel, nor see, nor understand as yet; but yet we are bles∣sed by them, and are preserved and secured; and we shall then know them, when we come to give God thanks in the festivities

of an eternall sabbath. But that I may confine my discourse into [ A] order, since the subject of it cannot, I consider;

1. That mercy being an emanation of the Divine goodnesse upon us, and supposes us, and found us miserable; In this account concerning the mercies of God, I must not reckon the miracles and graces of the creation, or any thing of the nature of man; nor tell how great an endearment God passed upon us that he made us men, capable of felicity, apted with rare instruments of discourse, and reason, passions, and desires, notices of sense, and reflections [ B] upon that sense, that we have not the deformity of a Crocodile, nor the motion of a Worm, nor the hunger of a Wolf, nor the wildenesse of a Tigre, nor the birth of Vipers, nor the life of flies, nor the death of serpents.

Our excellent bodies, and usefull faculties, the upright moti∣on, and the tenacious hand, the fair appetites, and proportioned satisfactions, our speech and our perceptions, our acts of life, the rare invention of letters, and the use of writing, and speaking at distance, the intervals of rest and labour, (either of which if they were perpetual would be intolerable) the needs of nature, and the provisions of providence, sleep, and businesse, refreshments of the body, and entertainment of the soul; these are to be reckoned as [ C] acts of bounty rather then mercy; God gave us these when he made us, and before we needed mercy; these were portions of our nature, or provided to supply our consequent necessities; but when we forfeited all Gods favour by our sins, then that they were continued, or restored to us, became a mercy, and therefore ought to be reckoned upon this new account; for it was a rare mercy that we were suffered to live at all, or that the Anger of God did permit to us one blessing; that he did punish us so gently: But when the rack is changed into an ax, and the ax into an imprison∣ment, and the imprisonment changed into an enlargement, and the [ D] enlargement into an entertainment in the family, and this entertain∣ment passes on to an adoption, these are steps of a mighty favour, and perfect redemption from our sin: and the returning back our own goods is a gift, and a perfect donative, sweetned by the ap∣prehensions of the calamity, from whence every lesser punishment began to free us; and thus it was, that God punished us and visi∣ted the sin of Adam upon his posterity. He threatned we should die, and so we did, but not so as we deserved; we waited for death and stood sentenced, and are daily summoned by sicknesses and uneasinesse; and every day is a new reprieve, and brings a new [ E] favour, certain as the revolution of the Sun upon that day, and at last when we must die by the irreversible decree, that death, is changed into a sleep, and that sleep is in the bosom of Christ, and there dwels all peace and security, and it shall passe forth into glories and felicities. We looked for a Judge, and behold a Saviour; we

[ A] feared an accuser, and behold an Advocate; we sate down in sor∣row, and rise in joy; we leaned upon Rhubarb and Aloes, and our aprons were made of the sharp leaves of Indian fig-trees, and so we fed, and so were clothed: But the Rhubarb proved me∣dicinal, and the rough leaf of the tree brought its fruit wrapped up in its foldings; and round about our dwellings was planted a hedge of thornes, and bundles of thistles, the Aconite, and the Bri∣ony, the Night-shade, and the Poppy, and at the root of these grew the healing Plantain, which rising up into a talnesse, by the friend∣ly invitation of a heavenly influence, turn'd about the tree of the [ B] crosse; and cured the wounds of the thorns, and the curse of the thistles, and the malediction of man, and the wrath of God. Si sio irascitur, quomodo convivatur? If God be thus kinde when he is Angry, what is he when he feasts us with caresses of his more tender Kindnesse? All that God restored to us after the forfeiture of Adam grew to be a double Kindnesse; for it became the ex∣pression of a bounty which knew not how to repent, a gracious∣nesse that was not to be altered, though we were, and that was it which we needed. That's the first generall: all the bounties of the creation became mercies to us, when God continued them to us [ C] and restored them after they were forfeit.

2. But as a circle begins every where, and ends no where, so do the mercies of God: after all this huge progresse, now it began anew: God is good and gracious, and God is ready to for∣give. Now that he had once more made us capable of mercies God had what he desired, and what he could rejoyce in, something upon which he might pour forth his mercies; and by the way, this I shall observe, (for I cannot but speak without art, when I speak of that which hath no measure) God made us capable of one sort of his mercies, and we made our selves capable of ano∣ther: [ D] God is good and gracious, that is, desirous to give great gifts; and of this, God made us receptive, first by giving us naturall possibilities, that is, by giving those gifts he made us capable of more; and next, by restoring us to his favour, that he might not by our provocations be hindered from raining down his mercies. But God is also ready to forgive] and of this kinde of mercy we made our selves capable, even by not deserving it; Our sin made way for his grace, and our infirmities called upon his pity; and because we sinned, we became miserable, and because we were miserable, we became pitiable, and this opened the other trea∣sure [ E] of his mercy; that because our sin abounds, his grace may su∣perabound. In this method we must confine our thoughts;

• 1. Giving,
• 2. Forgiving,
  • Thou Lord art good.
  • and ready to forgive,
    • plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee.

3. Gods mercies, or the mercies of his giving, came first upon

us by mending of our nature: For the ignorance we fell into is [ A] instructed and better learned in spirituall notices then Adams morning knowledge in Paradise, our appetites are made subor∣dinate to the spirit, and the liberty of our wills is improved, ha∣ving the liberty of the sons of God, and Christ hath done us more grace and advantage then we lost in Adam; and as man lost Para∣dise and got Heaven, so he lost the integrity of the first, and got the perfection of the second Adam: his living soul is changed into a quickning spirit; our discerning faculties are filled with the spirit of faith, and our passions and desires are entertained with hope, and our election is sanctified with charity; and his first life of a [ B] temporall possession is passed into a better, a life of spirituall ex∣pectations; and though our first parent was forbidden it, yet we live of the fruits of the tree of life. But I instance in two great things in which humane nature is greatly advanced, and passed on to greater perfections; The first is, that besides body and soul, which was the summe totall of Adams constitution, God hath su∣peradded to us a third principle, the beginner of a better life; I mean,* 1.2 the Spirit; so that now, man hath a spiritual and celestial nature breathed into him, and the old man, that is, the old consti∣tution is the least part and in its proper operations is dead, or dy∣ing, [ C] but the new man is that which gives denomination, life, mo∣tion, and proper actions to a Christian, and that is renewed in us day by day. But secondly, Humane nature is so highly exalted, and mended by that mercy which God sent immediately upon the fall of Adam, the promise of Christ, that when he did come, and actuate the purposes of this mission, and ascended up into hea∣ven, he carried humane nature above the seats of Angels; to the place whither Lucifer the son of the morning aspir'd to ascend, but in his attempt fell into hell. For (so said the Prophet) the son of the mor∣ning said, I will ascend into heaven, and sit in the sides of the North, [ D] that is, the throne of Jesus seated in the East, called the sides, or obliquity of the North: and as the seating of his humane nature in that glorious seat brought to him all adoration, and the Majesty of God, and the greatest of his exaltation: So it was so great an advancement to us, that all the Angels of heaven take notice of it, and feel a change in the appendage of their condition: not that they are lessened, but that we, who in nature are lesse then An∣gels, have a relative dignity greater, and an equall honour of being fellow-servants. This mystery is plain in Scripture, and the reall effect of it we read in both the Testaments.* 1.3 When Manoah the [ E] father of Sampson saw an Angel, he worshipped him; and in the old Testament it was esteemed lawfull; for they were the lieute∣nants of God, sent with the impresses of his Majesty, and took in his Name the homage from us, who then were so much their infe∣riours. But when the man Christ Jesus was exalted, and made the

[ A] Lord of all the Angels, then they became our fellow servants, and might not receive worship from any of the servants of Jesus, espe∣cially from Prophets and Martyrs and those that are ministers of the testimony of Jesus. And therefore when an Angel appeared to Saint John, and he according to the Custom of the Jews fell down and worshipped him, as not yet knowing or not considering any thing to the contrary,* 1.4 the Angell reproved him, saying, see thou do it not, I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren the prophets and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God; or as Saint Cyprian reads it, worship Jesus. God and man are now onely capable of wor∣ship: [ B] but no Angel; God essentially; Man in the person of Christ and in the exaltation of our great Redeemer; but Angels not so high, and therefore not capable of any religious worship: and this dignity of man Saint Gregory explicates fully.* 1.5 Quid est quod ante Redemptoris adventum adorantur ab hominibus [Angeli] & tacent, postmodum vero adorarirefugiunt: why did the Angels of old receive worshippings and were silent, but in the new testament decline it and fear to accept it? Nisi quod naturam nostram quam prius despexe∣rant, postquam hanc super se assumptam aspiciunt prostratam sibi videre pertimescunt, nec jam sub se velut infirmam contemnere ausi [ C] sunt, quam super se viz. in caeli Rege venerantur: the reason is, be∣cause they seeing our nature which they did so lightly value raised up above them they fear to see humbled under them, neither do they any more despise the weaknesse which themselves worship in the King of heaven. The same also is the sense of the Glosse, of Saint Ambrose, Ansbertus, Haymo, Rupertus and others of old; and Ribera, Salmeron, and Lewis of Granada of late; which being so plainly consonant to the words of the Angel and consigned by the testimony of such men, I the rather note, that those who worship Angels and make religious addresses to them, may see [ D] what priviledge themselves lose and how they part with the ho∣nour of Christ who in his nature relative to us, is exalted far above all thrones and principalities and dominions. I need not adde lustre to this; It is like the Sun the biggest body of light and nothing can describe it so well as its own beams: and there is not in nature or the advantages of honour any thing greater then that we have the issues of that mercy which makes us fellow servants with Angels; too much honoured to pay them a religious worship, whose Lord is a man, and he that is their King is our Brother.

4. To this for the likenesse of the matter I adde, that the divine [ E] mercy hath so prosecuted us with the enlargement of his favours, that we are not onely fellow ministers and servants with the An∣gels and in our nature in the person of Christ exalted above them, but we also shall be their Judges; and if this be not an honour a∣bove that of Joseph or Mordecai, an honour beyond all the mea∣sures of a man, then there is in honour no degrees no priority or

distances, or characters of fame and noblenesse. Christ is the great [ A] Judge of all the world, his humane nature shall then triumph o∣ver evil men and evil spirits, then shall the Devils, those Angels that fel from their first originals be brought in their chains from their dark prisons and once be allowed to see the light, that light that shall confound them; while all that follow the lamb, and that are ac∣counted worthy of that resurrection shall be assessors in the judgment.* 1.6 Know ye not, (saith, S. Paul) that ye shall judge Angels? And Tertul∣lian speaking concerning Devils and accursed spirits [de cultu foemi∣narum] saith, Hi sunt Angeli quos judicaturi sumus, Hi sunt Angeli qui∣bus in lavacro renunciavimus. Those Angels which we renounced [ B] in baptisme those we shall judge in the day of the Lords Glory, in the great day of recompences: And that the honour may be yet greater the same day of sentence that condemns the evil Angels shal also reward the good, and increase their glory: which because they derive from their Lord and ours, from their King and our elder Brother, the King of glories, whose glorious hands shall put the crown upon all our heads, we who shall be servants of that judge∣ment and some way or other assist in it, have a part of that ho∣nour, to be judges of all Angels, and of all the world. The effect of these things ought to be this, that we do not by base actions dis∣honour [ C] that nature that sits upon the throne of God, that reigns o∣ver Angels, that shall sit in judgement upon all the world. It is a great undecency that the son of a King should bear water upon his head, and dresse vineyards among the slaves; or to see a wise man and the guide of his country drink-drunk among the meanest of his ser∣vants; but when members of Christ shall be made members of an harlot, and that which rides above a rain-bow stoopes to an impe∣rious whorish woman, when the soul that is sister to the Lord of An∣gels, shall degenerate into the foolishnesse or rage of a beast, being drowned with the blood of the grape, or made mad with [ D] passion, or ridiculous with weaker follies, we shall but strip our selves of that robe of honour with which Christ hath invested, and adorned our nature, and carry that portion of humanity which is our own, and which God had honoured in some ca∣pacities above Angels, into a portion of an eternal shame, and be∣came lesse in all senses, and equally disgraced with Devils. The shame and sting of this change shall be, that we turned the glo∣ries of the Divine mercy into the basenesse of ingratitude and the amazement of suffering the Divine vengeance. But I passe on. [ E]

5. The next order of Divine mercies that I shall remark is also an improvement of our nature or an appendage to it: for where∣as our constitution is weak, our souls apt to diminution and impe∣dite faculties, our bodies to mutilation and imperfection, to blind∣nesse and crookednesse, to stammering and sorrows, to baldnesse

[ A] and deformity to evil conditions and accidents of body, and to pas∣sions and sadnesse of spirit, God hath in his infinite mercy provi∣ded for every condition rare suppletories of comfort and useful∣nesse to make recompence and sometimes with an overrunning proportion for those natural defects which were apt to make our persons otherwise contemptible and our conditions intolerable; God gives to blinde men better memories. For upon this ac∣count it is, that Rufinus makes mention of Didymus of Alexan∣dria, who being blinde, was blessed with a rare attention and sin∣gular memory, and by prayer, and hearing, and meditating, and [ B] discoursing, came to be one of the most excellent Divines of that whole age. And it was more remarkable in Nicasius Machlinien∣sis, who being blockish at his book in his first childhood fell into accidental blindnesse, and from thence continually grew to so quick an apprehension and so tenacious a memory, that he became the wonder of his contemporaries, and was chosen Rector of the College at Mechlin, and was made licentiate of Theology at Lo∣vaine, and Doctor of both the laws, at Colein, living and dying in great reputation for his rare parts and excellent learning. At the [ C] same rate also God deals with men in other instances; want of children he recompences with freedom from care, and whatso∣ever evil happens to the body is therefore most commonly single and unaccompanied, because God accepts that evil as the punish∣ment of the sin of the man, or the instrument of his vertue, or his security, and is reckoned as a sufficient cure, or a sufficient Antidote. God hath laid laid a severe law upon all women th•••• in sorrow they shall bring forth children, yet God hath so attempe••ed that sorrow, that they think themselves more accursed if they want that sorrow, and they have reason to rejoyce in that state, the trouble of which [ D] is alleviated by a promise, that they shall be saved in bearing chil∣dren. He that wants one eye hath the force and vigorousnesse of both united in that which is left him; and when ever any man is afflicted with sorrow his reason and his religion, himself and all his friends, persons that are civil, and persons that are obliged, run into com∣fort him, and he may, if he will observe wisely, finde so many cir∣cumstances of ease and remission, so many designes of providence and studied favours, such contrivances of collateral advantage and certain reserves of substantial and proper comfor••, that in the whole sum of affaires, it often happens that a single crosse is a double blessing, [ E] & that even in a temporal sense it is better to go to the house of mourn∣ing, then of joyes and festival egressions. Is not the affliction of ••o∣verty better then the prosperity of a great and tempting fortune? does not wisdom dwell in a mean estate and a low spirit▪ retired thoughts and under a sad roof? and is it not generally true that sicknesse it self is appayed with religion and holy thoughts with pi∣ous resolutions and penitential prayers, with returns to God and

to sober councels? and if this be true, that God sends sorrow to [ A] cure sin, and affliction be the hand-maid to grace, it is also certain that every sad contingency in nature is doubly recompenced with the advantages of religion, besides those intervening refreshments which support the spirit, and refresh its instruments. I shall need to instance but once more in this particular.

God hath sent no greater evil into the world, then that in the sweat of our brows we shall eat our bread, and in the difficulty and agony, in the sorrows and contention of our souls we shall work out our salvation. But see how in the first of these God hath out done his own anger and defeated the purposes of his wrath by [ B] the inundation of his mercy; for this labour and sweat of our brows is so far from being a curse that without it our very bread would not be so great a blessing. It is not labour that makes the Garlick and the pulse, the Sycamore and the Cresses, the cheese of the Goats and the butter of the sheep to be savoury and pleasant, as the flesh of the Roe-buck or the milk of the Kine, the marrow of Oxen or the thighs of birds? If it were not for labour, men neither could eat so much, nor relish so pleasantly, nor sleep so soundly nor be so healthful, nor so useful, so strong nor so patient, so noble, or so untempted, and as God hath made us beholding to labour for [ C] the purchase of many good things, so the thing it self ows to labour, many degrees of its worth and value: and therefore I need not reck∣on that besides these advantages, the mercies of God have found out proper and natural remedies for labour; Nights to cure the sweat of the day, sleep to ease our watchfulnesse, rest to alleviate our burdens, and dayes of religion to procure our rest: and things are so ordered that labour is become a duty, and an act of many vertues, and is not so apt to turne into a sin as is its contrary, and is therefore necessary, not onely because we need it, for making provisions of our life, but even to ease the labour of our rest; there [ D] being no greater tediousnesse of spirit in the world then want of im∣ployment, and an unactive life: and the lasie man is not onely un∣profitable, but also accursed, and he groans under the load of his time, which yet passes over the active man light, as a dreame or the feathers of a bird, while the disimployed, is a desease, and like a long sleeplesse night to himself, and a load unto his country: And therefore although in this particular God hath been so merci∣ful in this infliction that from the sharpnesse of the curse a very great part of mankinde are freed, and there are myriads of peo∣ple, good and bad, who do not eat their bread in the sweat of their [ E] brows, yet this is but an overrunning and an excesse of the divine mercy; God did more for us then we did absolutely need; for he hath disposed of the circumstances of this curse, that mans af∣fections are so reconciled to it, that they desire it, and are delighted in it; and so the Anger of God is ended in loving Kindnesse, and

[ A] the drop of water is lost in the full chalice of the wine, and the curse is gone out into a multiplied blessing.

But then for the other part of the severe law and laborious impo∣sition, that we must work out our spiritual interest with the la∣bours of our spirit, seems to most men to be so intolerable, that rather then passe under it they quit their hopes of heaven, and passe into the portion of Devils; and what can there be to alleviate this sorrow, that a man shall be perpetually sollicited with an impure tempter, and shall carry a flame within him, and all the world is on fire round about him, and every thing brings fuel to the flame, and [ B] full tables are a snare, and empty tables are collateral servants to a lust, and help to blow the fire and kindle the heap of prepared temptations, and yet a man must not at all tast of the forbidden fruit, and he must not desire what he cannot choose but desire, and he must not enjoy whatsoever he does violently covet, and must ne∣ver satisfy his appetite in the most violent importunities, but must therefore deny himself, because to do so is extremely troublesome; this seems to be an art of torture and a devise to punish man with the spirit of agony, and a restlesse vexation. But this also hath in it a great ingredient of mercy, or rather is nothing else but a [ C] heap of mercy in its intire constitution: For if it were not for this we had nothing of our own to present to God, nothing proportio∣nable to the great rewards of heaven, but either all men or no man must go thither; for nothing can distinguish man from man in order to beatitude but choice and election, and nothing can enoble the choice but love, and nothing can exercise love but difficulty, and nothing can make that difficulty but the contradiction of our appetite and the crossing of our natural affections; and therefore whenever any of you is tempted violently or grow weary in your spirits with resisting the petulancy of temptation, you may be cured if you [ D] will please but to remember and rejoyce, that now you have some∣thing of your own to give to God; something that he will be pleased to accept, something that he hath given thee that thou may∣est give it him: for our mony and our time, our dayes of feasting and our dayes of sorrow, our discourse and our acts of praise, our prayers and our songs, our vows and our offerings, our worship∣pings and prostrations, and whatsoever else can be accounted in the sum of our religion, are onely accepted according as they bear along with them portions of our wil and choice of love and appen∣dant difficulty.

[ E] Laetius est quoties magno tibi constat honestum.

So that whoever can complain that he serves God with pains and mortifications, he is troubled because there is a distinction of things such as we call vertue and vice, reward and punishment,

and if he will not suffer God to distinguish the first he will certain∣ly [ A] confound the latter; and his portion shall be blacknesse without variety and punishment shall be his reward.

6. As an appendage to this instance of divine mercy, we are to ac∣count that not onely in nature; but in contingency and emergent events of providence, God makes compensation to us, for all the evils of chance, and hostilities of accident & brings good out of evil, which is that solemn triumph which mercy makes over justice, when it rides upon a cloud and crowns its darknesse with a robe of glorious light. God indeed suffered Joseph to be sold a bondslave into Egypt, but then it was that God intended to crown and re∣ward [ B] his chastity; for by that means he brought him to a fair con∣dition of dwelling and there gave him a noble trial; he had a brave contention and he was a conqueror: Then God sent him to prison, but still that was mercy, it was to make way to bring him to Pha∣raohs court; and God brought famine upon Canaan, and troub∣led all the souls of Jacobs family, and there was a plot laid for ano∣ther mercy; this was to bring them to see and partake of Josephs glory: and then God brought a great evil upon their posterity and they groaned under task-masters, but this God changed into the miracles of his mercy, and suffered them to be afflicted that he [ C] might do ten miracles for their sakes, and proclaim to all the world how dear they were to God. And was not the greatest good to mankinde brought forth from the greatest treason that ever was committed; the redemption of the world from the fact of Judas, God loving to defeat the malice of man and the arts of the Devil by rare emergencies and stratagems of mercy? It is a sad calamity to see a kingdom spoiled, and a church afflicted, the Priests slain with the sword, and the blood of Nobles mingled with cheaper sand, re∣ligion made a cause of trouble, and the best men most cruelly per∣secuted, Government confounded, and laws ashamed, Judges de∣creeing [ D] causes in fear and covetousnesse, and the ministers of holy things setting themselves against all that is sacred, and setting fire up∣on the fields, and turning in little foxes on purpose to destroy the vineyards; and what shall make recompence for this heap of sor∣rows, when ever God shall send such swords of fire? even the mer∣cies of God which then will be made publick, when we shall hear such afflicted people sing Inconvertendo captivitatem Sion with the voice of joy and festival eucharist, among such as keep holy day; and when peace shall become sweeter and dwell the longer; and in the mean time it serves religion, and the affliction shall try the chil∣dren [ E] of God, and God shall crown them, and men shall grow wi∣ser, and more holy, and leave their petty interstes, and take sanctuary in holy living and be taught temperance by their want, and patience by their suffering, and charity by their persecution, and shall better understand the duty of their relations, and at last

[ A] the secret worm that lay at the root of the plant, shall be drawn forth and quite extinguished. For so have I known a luxuriant Vine swell into irregular twigs, and bold excrescencies, and spend it self in leaves and little rings, and affoord but trifling clusters to the wine-presse, and a faint return to his heart which longed to be refreshed with a full vintage: But when the Lord of the vine had caused the dressers to cut the wilder plant and made it bleed, it grew temperate in its vain expense of uselesse leaves, and knot∣ted into fair and juicy bunches, and made accounts of that losse of blood by the return of fruit: So is an afflicted Province, cured [ B] of its surfets, and punished for its sins, and bleeds for its long riot, and is left ungoverned for its disobedience, and chastised for its wantonnesse, and when the sword hath let forth the corrupted blood, and the fire hath purged the rest, then it enters into the double joyes of restitution, and gives God thanks for his rod, and confesses the mercies of the Lord in making the smoke be changed into fire, and the cloud into a perfume, the sword into a staffe, and his anger into mercy.

Had not David suffered more if he had suffered lesse, and had he not been miserable unlesse he had been afflicted? he understood [ C] it well when he said. It is good for me that I have been afflicted. He that was rival to Crassus, when he stood candidate to command the Legions in the Parthians warre was much troubled that he mis∣sed the dignity, but he saw himself blessed that he scaped the death, and the dishonour of the overthrow, by that time the sad news arrived at Rome. The Gentleman at Marseilles cursed his starres that he was absent when the ship set sail to sea, having long waited for a winde, and missed it; but he gave thanks to the provi∣dence that blest him with the crosse, when he knew that the ship perished in the voyage, and all the men were drowned: And [ D] even those virgins and barren women in Jerusalem, that longed to become glad mothers, and for want of children would not be comforted, yet when Titus sacked the City, found the words of Jesus true Blessed is the womb that never bare, and the paps that never gave suck. And the world being governed with a rare va∣riety, and changes of accidents, and providence; that which is a misfortune in the particular, in the whole order of things becomes a blessing bigger then we hoped for, then when we were angry with God for hindring us, to perish in pleasant wayes, or when he was contriving to pour upon thy head a mighty blessing. Do [ E] not think the Judge condemns you when he chides you, nor think to read thy own finall sentence by the first half of his words; Stand still and see how it will be in the whole event of things; let God speak his minde out; for it may be, this sad beginning is but an art to bring in, or to make thee to esteem, and entertain, and understand the blessing.

They that love to talk of the mercies of the Lord, and to recount [ A] his good things, cannot but have observed that God delights to be called by such Appellatives which relate to miserable and afflicted persons: He is the Father of the fatherlesse, and an avenger of the widowes cause, he standeth at the right hand of the poor to save his soul from unrighteous Judges, and he is with us in tribulation: And upon this ground, let us account whether mercy be not the greater ingredient in that death and deprivation, when I lose a man and get God to be my Father; and when my weak arm of flesh is cut [ B] from my shoulder, and God makes me to lean upon him, and be∣comes my Patron and my Guide, my Advocate and Defender: and if in our greatest misery Gods mercy is so conspicuous, what can we suppose him to be in the endearment of his loving Kindnesse? If his vail be so transparent, well may we know that upon his face dwels glory, and from his eyes light, and perpetuall comforts run in channels, larger then the returns of the Sea, when it is driven and forced faster into its naturall course, by the violence of a tempest from the North. The summe is this, God intends every accident should minister to vertue, and every vertue is the mother and the nurse of joy, and both of them daughters of the Divine goodnesse, and therefore, if our sorrows do not passe into comforts, it is be∣sides [ C] Gods intention; it is because we will not comply with the act of that mercy which would save us by all means, and all varieties, by health and by sicknesse, by the life and by the death of our dear∣est friends, by what we choose and by what we fear; that as Gods providence rules over all chances of things, and all designes of men, so his mercy may rule over all his providence. [ D] [ E]

Notes

• * 1.1

  SERMON. XXV.
• * 1.2

  Vide Serm. II.
• * 1.3

  Judges 13.
• * 1.4

  John Revel. 22. 9. de bono patien¦tiae
• * 1.5

  Homil. 8. in E¦vange.
• * 1.6

  1 Cor. 6. 3.