LXXX sermons preached at the parish-church of St. Mary Magdalene Milk-street, London whereof nine of them not till now published / by the late eminent and learned divine Anthony Farindon ... ; in two volumes, with a large table to both.

The Fourteenth SERMON. (Book 14)

1 SAM. III. 18.

And Samuel told him every whit, and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.

THese words are the words of old Eli the Priest, and have reference to that message which young Samuel brought him from the Lord, such a message as made both the ears of every one that heard it tingle. Come see the work of Sin, what desolation it maketh upon the earth. Hophni and Phinehas the two profane and adulterous Sons, must die; old Eli, their indulgent Father, the High Priest, must die; Thirty four thou∣sand Israelites must fall by the sword of the Philistines; The Ark, the glory of Israel, must be taken, and delivered up in triumph unto Dagon. This was the word of the Lord which he spake by the mouth of the child Samuel:* 1.1 and not a word of his did fall to the ground. What God fore∣telleth is done already. With him who calleth the things that are not as if they were, as the Apostle speaketh, there is no difference of times, no∣thing past, nothing to come; all is present. So that Eli saw this bloody Tragedy acted before it was done, saw it done before the signal to bat∣tle was given, saw his sons slain whilst the flesh hook was yet in their hands, saw himself fall whilst he stood with Samuel, saw the Israelites slain before they came into the field, and the Ark taken whilst it was yet in the Tabernacle: A sad and killing presentment, whether we consider him as a Father or as a High Priest; as a Father, looking upon his Sons falling before the Ark which they stood up and fought for; as a High Priest, beholding the people slain and vanquished, and the Ark, the glo∣ry of God, the glory of Israel, in the hands of Philistines. But the word of the Lord is gone out,* 1.2 and will not return empty and void. For what he saith shall be done, and what he bindeth with an oath is irreversible and must come to pass. And it is not much material whether it be accom∣plished to morrow or next day, or now instantly, and follow as an echo

to the Prediction. Nam una est scientia futurorum, saith S. Hierome:* 1.3 The knowledge of things to come is one and the same.

And now it will be good to look upon these heavy judgments, and by the terrour of them be perswaded to fly from the wrath to come, as the Israelites were cured by looking on the Serpent in the wilderness. For even the Justice of God, though it speak in thunder, maketh a kind of melody, when it toucheth and striketh upon an humble, submissive, yielding heart. Behold old Eli, an High Priest, to teach you, who being now within the full march and shew of the enemy, and of those judge∣ments which came apace towards him like an armed man not to be resi∣sted or avoided, and hearing that from God which shook all the powers of his soul, settleth and composeth his troubled minde with this conside∣ration, That it was the Lord, and with this silenceth all murmur, slumbreth all impatience, burieth all disdain, looketh upon the hand that striketh, and boweth and kisseth it; and being now ready to fall, raiseth himself up upon this pious and heavenly resolution, It is the Lord. Though the people of Israel fly, and the Philistines triumph, though Hophni and Phinehas fall, though himself fall backward, and break his neck, though the Ark be taken, yet DOMINƲS EST, It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.

Which words are a Rhetorical Enthymeme, perswading to humility and a submissive acquiescence under the hand, the mighty hand, of God, by his power; his justice, his wisdome, which all meet and are concentred in this DOMINƲS EST, It is the Lord. He is omnipotent, and who hath withstood his power? He is just, and will bring no evil without good cause: He is wise, and whatsoever evill he bringeth, he can draw it to a good end: And therefore FACIAT QƲOD BONƲM IN OCƲLIS SƲIS, Let him do what seemeth him good. Or you may observe first a judicious Discovery from whence all evils come, It is the Lord. Second∣ly, a well grounded Resolution 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, to behave himself decently and fittingly, as under the Power and Justice and Wisdome of God. Let him do what seemeth him good. The first is a Theological Axiome, It is the Lord: There is no evil in a city which he doth not do.* 1.4 The second a Con∣clusion as necessary as in any Demonstration, most necessary I am sure for Weakness to bow to Omnipotency. In a word, the Doctrine most certain, It is the Lord; All these evils of punishment are from him: And the Resolution, which is as the Use and Application of the Doctrine, most safe, Let him do what seemeth him good. Of these we shall speak in their order. And in the prosecution of the first (for we shall but touch upon and conclude with the last) that you may follow me with more ease, we will draw the lines by which we are to pass, and confine our selves to these four particulars, which are most eminent and remarkable in the story: 1. That Gods people, the true professours, may be delivered up to punishment for sin, 2. That in general judgments upon a people the good many times are involved with the evil, and fall with them; 3. That Gods people may be delivered up into the hands of Philistines and aliens, men worse then themselves; 4. That the Ark, the glory of their professi∣on, may be taken away. These four points, I say, we shall speak of; and then we shall fix up this Inscription, DOMINƲS EST, It is the Lord; and when we have acquitted his Justice and Wisdome in all these parti∣culars, we shall cast an eye back upon the Inscription, and see what beams of light it will cast forth for our direction.

In the first place, of Hophni and Phinheas the Text telleth us that they hearkened not unto the voice of their Father,* 1.5 because the Lord would destroy them, Which word Quia is not causal, but illative, and implyeth not

the cause of their sin, but of their punishment. They did not therefore sin because God would punish them; but they hearkened not to the voice of their father, therefore the Lord destroyed them: As we use to say, The Sun is risen, because it is day: for the day is not the cause of the Suns ri∣sing,* 1.6 but the Sun rising maketh it day. They were sons of Belial, ves∣sels already fitted for wrath, as we may see by their many fowl enormi∣ties; and therefore were left to themselves and their sins, and to wrath, which at last devoured them! God's decree, whatsoever it be, is imma∣nent in himself, and therefore cannot be the cause of disobedience and wickedness, which is extraneous and contrary to him: Nor can there be any action of God's, either positive or negative, joyned with his de∣cree, which may produce such an effect. And what need of any such Decree or Action to make the sons of Eli disobedient, who refused to hearken to their father,* 1.7 or to harden them, whose sin was very great be∣fore the Lord? But we must conclude these two within the four and thir∣ty thousand that were slain. And now the delivering up the people in such a number to the sword may seem to prejudice and call in question the Justice of God. What? his people? his own people, culled out of the Nations of the earth? must these fall by the sword of Aliens, of ene∣mies to God,* 1.8 that know not his Name? Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Yes, he will: For even in this DOMINƲS EST, It is the Lord.* 1.9 For as the Lord once said to his people, Where is the bill of your Mothers divorcement whom I have put away? so here he may ask, Where is that bill and obligation which I made to protect you? If there be any brought forth, we shall finde it rather like a Bill of sale, then the Conveyance of an absolute gift. On the one side God promiseth some∣thing on his behalf, on the other there is something required on ours. Read the Covenant and Contract between God and his people:* 1.10 They had his promise to be their God,* 1.11 and were the sons of promise: But then these promises were conditional; and in every conditional promise there is an obligation and command.* 1.12 I will be their God, that is his promise; and they shall be my people, that is their duty: and if these meet not, the promise is void and of none effect. There is not a more true and na∣tural gloss upon this promise than that of Azariah,* 1.13 Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin, The Lord is with you whilst ye are with him: and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you. Both must go together, or both are lost. If Israel will be God's people, then the promise is firm, being founded on the eternal essence of God, and so as constant and immutable as himself: but if they break his commandment, and put it from them, then to be their God were not to be their God, then to make good his promises were to vi∣lifie and debauch them.* 1.14 This were liberalitatem ejus mutare in servitu∣tem, to turn his liberality into slavery, prodigally to pour the pretious oyl of his goodness into a vessel that cannot hold it, to protect and coun∣tenance a man of Belial because he beareth the name of an Israelite. Therefore Isai 27.11. where God upbraideth his people of folly, he pre∣sently cancelleth the bill, and putteth them out of his protection, There∣fore he that made them will not have mercy upon them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour. What though they be the people which he hath purchased? yet he will take no care of his own purchase. Though they be his possession, he will give them up. He will not do what he promised, and yet be Truth it self. For if they do not their du∣ty, he did not promise. Though he made them and formed them, yet he will not own them, but forsake and abhor his own work: he will surrender them up, and deliver them to destruction. Even here, upon

the forehead of a desolate and rejected Israelite, we may set up this In∣scription, DOMINƲS EST, It is the Lord.

And now if we look up upon the Inscription, we may read and inter∣pret it without a guide, and learn not to trifle with God, because he is our Lord, not to mock him with our Hypocrisie, and force our Professi∣on to countenance our Sin, to be worse then Philistines because we are Israelites, to be his enemies because we call our selves Gods people, to be worse then Turks or Jews because we are Christians. Oh the happy times of the infant Church, when the Pagan could find nothing amongst the Christians to accuse but their Name! And then what times are these, when you can scarce see any thing commendable in the Christian but his Name? You may call it if you please, the Dotage or Blindness of the Church. For The Temple of the Lord, The Temple of the Lord! The Israelite,* 1.15 The Israelite! The Christian, The Christian! The Protestant, The Protestant! This is the Musick with which most use to drive away the evil Spirit, all sad and melancholick thoughts from their hearts. But indeed saith Basil, the Devil 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, doth daunce and leap for joy, to hear it, when he heareth not withall the noise of our gronings, of our prayers, of our good works, nor the harmony of a well tuned and well-composed life to go up to heaven along with it. Oh what pity is it that God should place us in Paradise, in a place of pleasure and safety, and we forfeit it! that he should measure out unto us, as it were by the line, a goodly he∣ritage and we pluck up our own hedges, and lay our selves open to every wild-beast! that he should make us his people, and we force him to be our Enemy! in a word, that our inheritance should begger us, our security betray us, and our royal prerogative undo us! And fur∣ther we carry not this consideration, but pass to the second particular.

II. In so great a number as four and thirty thousand, I may say, in the whole common wealth of Israel (for a Common-wealth may suffer in a far less number) we cannot doubt but some there were that feared the Lord: And shall there be, as the Wise-man speaketh,* 1.16 the same event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean,* 1.17 and to the un∣clean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not?* 1.18 Will God Incesto addere integrum? will he destroy the righteous with the sinner? This indeed is the depth of God; and a great part of the world have been troubled at the very sight of it: but yet, if we behold it with that light which Scripture holdeth forth, we shall find it is not so unfordable but we may make some passage through it.

1. If we could not make answer or render any reason, yet this ought not to prejudice or call in question the justice of God's proceedings, especially with us men, who are of dull and slow understandings. When we have wearied our selves in searching out the causes of natural things, yet after all our sweat and oyl we cannot attain so far as to know why the grass under our feet is green rather then purple or of any other co∣lour; and therefore we are far below those Supernaturals, most unfit to search out those causes which God may seem to have locked up in his own breast. God is the Lord of all the earth,* 1.19 and as the Psalmist telleth us, a thousand years in his sight are but as one day,* 1.20 so in the case we now speak of a thousand, a million, a world of men, are with him but as one man. When the Lord Chief Justice of Heaven and Earth shall sit to do judgement upon sinners (what Caligula once wantonly wished to the people of Rome) all the world before him have but as it were one neck, and if it please him, by that jus pleni dominii, by that full power and dominion he hath over his creature, he may, as he welnear did in the Deluge, strike it off at a blow. His judgements are past finding out,

and therefore not to be questioned.* 1.21 He is the great Geometrician of the World which made all things in number, weight and measure, and doth infinitely surpass all humane inventions whatsoever: and therefore we cannot do him less honour then Hiero King of Sicily did to Archimedes the great Mathematician. When he saw the engines he made, and the marvellous effects they did produce, he caused it to be proclaimed that whatsoever Archimedes did after affirm, how improbable soever it might seem, yet should not once be called into question, but be received and entertained as a truth. Let the course of things be carried on as it will; let Death pass over the door of the Egyptian, and smite the Israelite; let God's Thunder miss the house of Dagon, and shiver his own Tabernacle; yet God is just, and true, and every man a liar that dareth but ask the que∣stion, Why doth God this? Look over the book of Job, and you shall see how Job and his Friends are tost up and down on this great deep. For it being put to the question why Job was so fearfully handled, his Friends ground themselves upon this conclusion, That all affliction is for sin, and so lay folly and hypocrisie to his charge, and tell him roundly that the judgments of God had now found him out, though he had been a close irregular, and with some art and cunning hid himself from the eye of the World: But Job on the contrary as stoutly pleadeth and de∣fendeth his innocency, his justice, his liberality, and could not attain to the sight of the cause for which Gods hand was so heavy on him: Why should his Friends urge him any more,* 1.22 or persecute him as God? They di∣spute in vain,* 1.23 for in their answers he seeth nothing but lies. At last, when the controversie could have no issue, Deus è machina, God himself cometh down from heaven, and by asking one question putteth an end to the rest,* 1.24 Who is this that darkneth counsel by words without knowledge? He condemneth Job and his Friends of ignorance and weakness, in that they made so bold and dangerous an attempt as to seek out a cause, or call God's judgments into question.

2. Because this is a point which may seem worthy to be insisted upon (for it hath well-nigh troubled the whole world to see the righteous and wicked tyed together in the same chain, and speeding alike in general and oecumenical plagues) that Mans reason may not take offense and be scandalized, we will give you some reasons why God should hold so un∣respective a hand.

First, good reason it is that they who partake in the sin should partake also in the punishment. Now though in great and crying sins the righte∣ous partake not with the wicked, yet in smaller they evermore concur. For who is he amongst the sons of men that can presume himself free from these kind of sins? And then if the wages of the smallest sin can be no less then death and eternal torment, we have no cause to complain if God use his rod, who might strike with the sword; if he chastise us on earth, who might thrust us into hell. This is enough to clear God from all injustice. For who can complain of temporal who doth justly deserve eternal pains? Or why should they be severed in the penalty who are joyned together in the cause?

But further yet, what though the fault of the one be much the less, yet it will not therefore follow, if we rightly examine it, that the pu∣nishment should be the less. For though it may seem a paradox which I shall speak unto you, yet it will stand with very good reason that great cause many times there may be why the smaller sin should be amerced and fined with the greater punishment. In the Penitential Canons he that killeth his mother is enjoynd ten years penance, but he that killeth his wife is enjoynd far more. And the reason is immediately given, not

because this is the greater sin, but because men are commonly more apt to fall into the sin of murdering their wives, then their mothers. It is true, the reason is larger then the instance; and it teacheth us thus much, That in appointing the mulct for sin men ought not onely to consider the greatness of it, but the aptness of men to fall into it. For that of St. Augustine is most true, Tantò crebriora, quantò minora: Because they are the less, men presume the oftner to commit them. And therefore it may seem good wisdome, when ordinary punishment will not serve to redress sins, to enhance and improve their penalty. We read in our books, that there was a Law in Rome, that he who gave a man a box on the ear was to pay the sum of twelve pence of our money: And Aulus Gellius doth tell us, that there was a loose but a rich man, who being disposed to abuse the Law, was wont to walk the streets with a purse of money, and still as he met any man he would give him a box on the ear, and then twelve pence. Now to repress the insolence of such a fellow there was no way but to encrease the value of the mulct. Which course the God of heaven and earth may seem to take with us, when his ordina∣ry and moderate punishments will not serve to restrain us from falling into smaller sins: He sharpneth the penalty, that at last we may learn to ac∣count no sin little which is committed against an infinite Majesty, and not make the gentleness of the Law an occasion of sin. And to this end he coupleth both good and bad in those general plagues which by his pro∣vidence do befall the world. He speaketh evil, he doth evil to whole Nations, amongst whom notwithstanding some righteous persons are. Ah sinful nation! a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers,* 1.25 princes of Sodom, people of Gomorrah; these are the names by which he stileth the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, amongst whom we cannot doubt but there were many good; though no other, yet certainly Isaiah the Prophet, who spake these words. And as he giveth them all one name without regard of difference, so he maketh them all good and bad to drink alike of one cup of captivity, though no doubt many of great up∣rightness, though Daniel and his fellows, were among them.

I will give you one reason more, and I borrow it from S. Augustine who in his first book of the City of God touching upon this question, Why the righteous partake with the wicked in common calamities? maketh one especial cause to be, That they use not that liberty they ought in re∣prehending of sinners, but by their silence do as it were consent and par∣take in their sin, and therefore in justice ought to partake in their punish∣ment. For indeed a great error it is, and of so great an allay, that it taketh us out of the shadow and protection of the Almighty, outlaweth us from his common favours, to imagine that the duty of reprehension is impropriate ad pertaineth onely to the Minister. It is true, the right of publick reprehension is intrusted as it were upon his office alone. For if every member were a Tongue, where were the Ear? If every man were a publick Teacher, where were the Hearer? We need not preach a∣gainst this: for put it once in practice, and it will soon preach down it self. For if every man will act the King, the Play is at an end before it begins; And if every man can teach in publick, I see no reason why any man should learn. Yet as Tertullian spake in another case, in publicos Hostes omnis homo miles est, against traytors and common enemies every man is a Souldier; so is it true here, Every one that is of strength to pull a soul out of the fire, is for this business, by counsel, by advise, by rebuke a Priest; neither must thou let him lie there, to expect better help. Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy brother, and not suffer sin upon him, or,* 1.26 ac∣cording to the Hebrew, that thou bear not sin for him. This is spoke

not to the Priest, but to the people. And in this respect the Cure of Souls is committed to every man as well as to the Priest. Every man thus hath a cure of souls, either of his child, or his servant, or his friend, or his neighbour. And if any of these perish through our default, their blood shall be required at our hands. For if we be bound to bring home our brothers beast, if we find him go astray, much more are we bound to bring home our straying brother himself. Common charity requireth thus much at our hands: And to make question of it, is as if thou shouldst ask with Cain, Am I my brothers keeper? Art thou his keeper? Yes, thou art, and his keeper, to keep him in all his wayes; his Physician, to heal him; his Counsellor, to advise him; his Priest, his Bishop, to rebuke and exhort him with all long-suffering. And the neglect of this duty, though in it self a great sin, yet in this respect is much greater, because it interesteth us in other mens sins. It maketh a chast man in some sort guil∣ty of uncleanness, an honest man accessary to theft, a meek man a kind of second to the murderer; it bringeth the innocent person at least un∣der the temporal curse that followeth those sins which his soul hateth, but hath not soul enough to reprehend, and so falleth into the same fire which he should have striven to have pulled his brother out of. Therefore to conclude this; since the neglect of this duty doth as it were pull down the banks, and open a wide gap to sin and wickedness, we have no reason to be at a stand and amazed, if we see the righteous person sometimes overwhelmed with those flouds to which himself hath opened the way, or under those judgments which his intempestive silence, as well as other mens open sins, hath called down upon a Nation. And this may suffice to clear God's Justice from all imputation in the execution of his general judgments.

3. It may be we need not move any question at all about this matter: For in those common calamities which befall a people it may be God doth provide for the Righteous, and deliver him, though we perceive it not. Some examples in Scripture make this very probable. The old World is not drowned till Noah be shipt and in the Ark; the shower of fire falleth not on Sodome till Lot be escaped; Daniel and his fellows, though they go away into captiviy with rebellious Judah, yet their cap∣tivity is sweetned with honours and good respects in the Land into which they go, and (which was a kind of leading Captivity captive) they had favour, and were intreated as friends by their enemies, who had invaded and spoiled them. And may not God be the same still upon the like oc∣casions? How many millions of righteous persons have been thus delive∣red, whose names notwithstanding are no where recorded? Some things of no great worth are very famous in the world, when many things of better worth lie altogether buried in obscurity,

* 1.27—caruerunt quia vate sacro,

because they found none who could or would transmit them to posterity.

Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona.

No doubt but before and since millions have made the like escapes, though their memory lieth raked up and buried in oblivion.

But suppose the righteous do tast of the same cup of bitterness with the wicked,* 1.28 yet it hath not the same tast and relish to them both. For Ca∣lamity is not alwaies a whip, nor doth God alwaies punish them whom he delivereth over to the sword. To lose my goods or life is one thing; to be punisht another. It is against the course of Gods pro∣vidence and justice, that Innocency should come under the lash. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?* 1.29 Yes, he shall: yet without any breach of justice he may take away that breath of life which he breath∣ed

into our nostrils,* 1.30 though we had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression. For he may do what he will with his own,* 1.31 and take away our goods or lives from us when and how he pleaseth, because he is Lord over them, and we have nothing which we received not from his hands. God is not alwaies angry when he striketh; nor is every blow we feel given by God the avenger: He may strike as a Father. Therefore these evils change their complexions and very natures with the subject upon whom they are wrought. They are as Devils and have the blackness of darkness to some, but are as Angels and messengers of light to others. They lead the righteous through the valley of death into the land of the living, when the wicked are hewn down by the sword to be fuel for the fire. What though they both be joyned together in the same punishment, as a Martyr and a Thief in the same chain?* 1.32 yet manet dissimilitudo passo∣rum in similitudine passionum: Though the penalties may seem alike, yet the difference is great betwixt the patients, though the world perhaps cannot distinguish them; and Death it self, which is a key to open the gates of hell to the one, may be to the other what the Rabbines conceive it would have been to Adam had he not fallen, but osculum pacis, a kiss of peace, a gentle and loving dismission into a better state. To con∣clude this then; A people, a chosen people, a people chosen out of this choice, Gods servants and friends, may be smitten; Josiah may fall in the battle, Daniel may be led into captivity, John Baptist may lose his head; and yet we may hold up our Inscription, DOMINƲS EST, It is the Lord.

Let us now a little see what use we may make of this doctrine. And first since the judgments of God are many times powred out upon whole nations without respect, and beat upon the righteous as well as the wick∣ed, let us not be rash, either to judge others when the hand of God hath touched them, or to flatter our selves when he seemeth to shine up∣on our tabernacle. For the hand of God may touch, may strike down to the dust, whom notwithstanding he meaneth to lift up to the highest pitch of happiness; and he may shine upon the tabernacle of others, when he is coming towards them in a tempest of blackness and darkness. For though affliction be often the punishment of sin, yet it is not alwaies so. There were worse sinners then those Galilaeans whose bloud Pilate mingled with their sacrifices,* 1.33 and they were not the greatest sinners on whom the tower of Siloa fell. Good and bad may fall together in the battle; and they may survive and escape the edge of the sword who amongst the bad were the worst. The sword, as David said,* 1.34 devoureth one as well as another. But what it was that did put an edge to the sword, and strength to the hand of the enemy, can be certainly known to none but God, whose providence he moveth by is like the light he dwelleth in, so past finding out that no mortal eye can reach and attain it. I will not be so bold as to make Prosperity a sign of a bad man, or Affliction and Poverty of a good: For in whatsoever estate we are, we may work out our salvation. Abraham the rich man was in heaven,* 1.35 and the poor man in his bosome. Through Afflictions, if we bear them, and through riches, if we contemn them, and so make them our friends, we may enter into the kingdome of heaven But it will be a part of our spiritual wisdome to be jealous rather of the flatteries of this world than of its frowns, because the one maketh us reflect upon our selves, the other commonly corrup∣teth and blindeth us; and where Affliction slayeth her thousand, Prosperi∣ty, we may justly fear, killeth her ten thousand. It will be good indeed, when calamity seizeth upon us, to seize upon our selves, to judge and condemn our selves; to say, This Fever burneth me up, for the heat of

my lust; This Dropsie drowneth me for my intemperance; This Lethar∣gy is come upon me for my forgetfulness of Gods commands, and my drowsiness in his service. And here if I erre, the errour is not dangerous, but advantageous; for this errour leadeth me to the knowledge of my self. But when the like calamities befall others, to draw the same infe∣rence, and positively to conclude the same of them, is boldly to take the chair, and deliver my uncharitable conjectures for the oracles of God. The messenger that brought the sad news, That Israel was fled be∣fore the Philistines,* 1.36 said no more then what was too true; but had he al∣so inferred, that the Philistine was better then the Israelite, or that God did favour him more then the other, he had brought the Truth to usher in a lie, he had related that which he knew, and affirmed that which he could not know. For Israel may fly before the Philistine, and yet God is not the God of Ekron, but of Israel.

In the second place, as we must not be rash to judge others when they are cast down, so must we not be ready to flatter our selves when some kindly gale of prosperity hath lifted us up above our brethren, or to make Prosperity a mark of a righteous person, as they of the Papacy do of the true Church. For this were indeed to set Dagon above the Ark, to plead for Baal; to consecrate every sin, and make it a virtue; to place Dives in Abraham's bosome, and Lazarus in hell; to prefer Mahomet before Christ; to pull Christ out of his kingdome, the Martyrs out of heaven, and to pluck the white robes from those who were sealed, and who washed them white in the bloud of the Lamb•• this were to countenance Nimrod,* 1.37 and Nebuchadnezzar, and Alexander, and all the priviledged thieves and robbers of the earth. This were to countenance all the oppressours and murderers of the world, who have been so unhappy as to be happy in bringing their bloody purposes to an end. For though good intents may have an happy end, yet those arts are much to be su∣spected which have nothing else to commend them but prosperity and good success. A conquerd Israelite is not alwaies so evil as a victorious Phelistine. For if Prosperity were an argument under the Law (which yet it was not; for who then more fat, more lusty and strong then the wicked?) yet I do not see how it can be so under the Gospel, where affliction is not threatned but promised, nay given; To you it is given to suffer for Christs sake;* 1.38 where Persecution cometh forth with a crown on her head; Blessed are ye when men persecute you. And indeed this con∣ceit of temporal felicity thwarteth the scope and primary intent of the Gospel, which biddeth us look upon our actions with no other perspe∣ctive but the rule, and in respect of our conformity to that count all the prosperity in the world as dung. For if I be an adulterer, can impunity make me chast? if I be a murderer, shall that be my sanctuary? If I be an oppressour, can my gathering of riches make me just? If I do that which Nature and Religion forbid, and a Heathen would tremble to think on, shall I comfort my self, that it is done without sin, because I have done it without controll? Let us not deceive our selves. When we have plunged our selves in sin, and are fast in the devils chain, pro∣sperity and good success will prove but a weak deceitful ladder to climb up by into heaven. For let us on the one side behold the Israelite fly∣ing before the Philistine: For ought we know, he may be flying also from his sin unto his God. Let us behold the four and thirty thousand dead in the field, and can we think that they all together fell into hell because they all together fell in the battel? Or shall we call the Philistines the people of God, because they vanquisht them to whom God himself had given that name?* 1.39 Let us look upon the man who fell amongst thieves,

who stript him, and wounded him, and left him half dead, and who can tell but that he less deserved thus to be handled then the Priest and the Levite, who did but look, and pass by on the other side? Behold a man destitute, afflicted, tormented, clad with rags, full of sores, covered o∣ver with disgraces and contumelies, a man of sorrows, a Lazar of no re∣putation; for ought an eye of flesh can discern, he may be a man of God also, a man designed to eternity: and that deformity which thy pride scorneth to look upon may be but his pilgrims habit in which he is travelling to the new Jerusalem. And now on the other side, behold a man whom all the blessings which are promised under the law have o∣vertaken, a man honoured in the city, conquering in the field, blessed in the fruit of his body, blessed in his cattle and flocks of sheep, boasting of his hearts desire, puffing at his enemies, as the Psalmist speaketh,* 1.40 cha∣sing them before him, treading them under his feet: Why art thou cast down, oh my soul? and why art thou vexed within me? there may be but a wall of earth, and that mouldring too, between this man, this God, and eternal destruction. It is not Quà, but Quò; it is not, Which way, but, Wither you go, is considerable. One man may go through a prison, through fire and water, into Paradise; and another may ride in triumph into hell. Let us not then make either Misery the livery of a bad, nor outward Happiness of a good man. For Misery, though it be a sorry co∣vert, may be clothed upon with Honour and Glory; and Prosperity, though it be like Herods royal apparel, glorious as the Sun, and dazling a carnal eye, yet it will fall at last from us, and we may fall too into the lowest pit. In a word, these are no marks to judge by, nor is the out∣ward man the image of the inward; but, the judgment is the Lords,* 1.41 who alone knoweth them that are his.

We will give you but one Use more, and so conclude. In the last place, the sight of this Inscription, It is the Lord, that sometimes spareth the Philistine, and striketh the Israelite, and when he striketh, sometimes throweth down the righteous with the wicked, and involveth them both in the same judgment, this, I say, may strike terrour into us, and make us afraid of those sins which bring general judgments on a Nation, as Oppression, Uncleanness, Profaneness, Sacriledge, Hypocrisie. These crying and importunate sins will not let the Judge alone, but break the vials of his wrath, even whilst he holdeth them in his hand, unwilling to pour them forth. I say, the consideration of the general judgments of God is a notable argument to work the conversion of the most obstinate sinner in the world. Shall we continue in those sins which we see carry a train that will enwrap our Posterity, our Fam••ly, our whole Countrey, yea, like the Dragons tail in the Revelation, draw down the stars from heaven, bring good men, even the Saints of God, within the compass and smart of them? Parce Carthagini, si non tibi, said Tertullian to Sca∣pula; If you will not be good to your self, yet spare Carthage; spare your Country, spare the Charets of Israel and the horsemen thereof; spare those Lots which keep your Sodome from burning; who, when a Nation is ready to sink and dissolve, bear up the pillars of it.* 1.42 Know ye not that the Saints shall judge the world? saith S. Paul. They, being first acquitted by Christ, shall sit with him as his friends and assessours, and judge and condemn those sins which brought them within the reach of Gods tem∣poral judgments, and overwhelmed them in the common calamity and ruine of their country.

3. We pass now to the third particular. If Israel must fall, yet let him not fall by the sword of a Philistine. Tell it not in Gath,* 1.43 publish it not in the streets of Askelon, was part of the Threnodie and Lamentation

of David on the like occasion: and he giveth his reason, lest the daugh∣ters of the Philistines rejoyce, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. Besides the misery to have such an enemy rejoyce in their misery, which will make that affliction which is but a whip prove a scorpion, this defeat might seem to cast some disgrace even upon their Religion; there being nothing more common in the world then to commend a false Religion by some fatal miscarriage of the Professours of the true, then to judge of Religion by its State and spreading, then to cry it up for orthodox when the Church hath peace, and to anathematize it as heretical when she is militant and under the Cross. Nothing more common with waver∣ing and carnal men then to lull themselves asleep in most dangerous er∣rours by no other musick then the cryes and lamentations of those who oppose them. If Hophni and Phinehas fall in the battle, if Eli the High Priest break his neck, if the the Ark be taken, then Dagon is God, any thing is God, which is either the work of our hands or of our phansie. Therefore this may seem not onely a rueful but a strange spectacle, and (as Diogenes said of Harpalus a notorious but prosperous thief) testimo∣nium adversus Deum dicere,* 1.44 to stand up as a witness against God himself, and his government of the world. But Tertullian will tell us, Malus in∣terpres Divinae providentiae, humana infirmitas; The weak and shallow considerations of men are but bad interpretations of the providence of God, The wit of man is a poor Jacobs staff to take the height and depth, the true and full proportion, of it. For as we cannot judge of the beauty of the Universe, because in regard of the condition of our mortality we can be placed but in part of it, and so cannot at once, at one cast of our eye, see the whole, in which those parts which offend us are at peace; no more can the Soul of man, which is confined within a clod of earth, judge of the course and method of that Providence which is most like it self in those events which seem most disproportionable, which is then most straight and even when sinners flourish, and just men are oppressed; most equal, when the honest man hath not a mite, and the deceitful a ta∣lent;* 1.45 when the true Prophets are fed with bread of affliction, and every Balaam hath his wages; when Israel falleth, and the Philistine prevaileth; because we cannot behold him but in this or that particular, and can no more follow him in all his wayes then we can grasp the world in the palm of our hands.

By this light we may discover first, That true Religion cannot suffer with the professours of it,* 1.46 but when they are slain with the sword, and wander up and down destitute, afflicted, tormented, is still the same, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, saith Basil, of the same hue and complexion, and in true esteem more fair and radiant when her poor witnesses are under a cloud and in disgrace. Nay, I will be bold to say, and whosoever rightly under∣standeth the nature of Religion will never gainsay it, that if it had not one professour breathing on the earth, not one that did dare to name and own it (as Elijah once thought there was but one) yet Religion were still the same,* 1.47 reserved in the surest archives we can imagin, even in sinu Dei, in the bosome of God the Law-giver; Religion being nothing else but a defluxion and emanation from him, a beam of his eternal Law. So that that which maketh and constituteth a true Israelite, which is one inward∣ly,* 1.48 as S. Paul speaketh, and in the spirit, hath too much of Immortality, of God, in it to fall to the ground or exspire and be lost with the Israelite. Let not your hearts be troubled; Religion can no more suffer then God himself.

For seconly, If Religion could suffer, it suffered more by the Priests and peoples sins then by the Philistines sword: for by them the name of

God and Religion was evil spoken of,* 1.49 and that which cannot suffer was made the object of malice and scorn, and, as Nazianzene spake of Ju∣lian's persecution, it was both a Comedy and a Tragedy,* 1.50 a Comedy full of scoffs and obtrectations, and a Tragedy full of horrour, and yet the Co∣medy was the more Tragical and bloody of the two. God jealous of his honour awaketh as one out of sleep,* 1.51 returneth the scoff upon the Phili∣stine, and maketh up the last Act of the Tragedy in his blood. First he punisheth the guilty Israelite, and then the Executioner.* 1.52 The Psal∣mist saith, He smote them in the hinder parts, and put them to perpetual shame, forcing them to make the similitude of their Emerods in gold, and to send them back with the Ark as an oblation for their sin. So you see here Gods method by which he ordinarily proceedeth. First he prepareth a sacrifice, as we read Zeph. 1.7. that is, appointeth his people to slaughter; then bids his guests, sanctificat vocatos suos, as the Vulgar readeth it, he sanctifieth, that is, setteth apart, these Philistines, that they may be as Priests to kill and offer them up. And when this is done, God falleth upon the Priests themselves, and maketh them a sacrifice; Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation:* 1.53 they shall drive out Ash∣dod at noon day, and Ekron shall be rooted out. And now we may conclude that God is just in all his wayes,* 1.54 and righteous in all his judge∣ments, and fix up our Inscription upon this particular also; When Israel is delivered up into the hand of the Philistine, DOMINƲS EST, It is the Lord.

And now, if we look well upon the Inscription, we shall find it to be like the pillar of the cloud, Exod. 14.20. a cloud of darkness to the Phi∣listine, but giving light to the Israelite. First, the Philistine, hath no rea∣son to boast of this as a preferment, that he is made the instrument of God in the execution of his judgements upon his people. We shall find that this hath been one of the most dangerous and fatal offices in the World. Nebuchadnezzar was by God called into it,* 1.55 Go up against the land of Me∣rothaim, or of Rebells. And he did lead Israel into captivity.* 1.56 But hear the word of the Lord;* 1.57 How is the hammer of the Lord cut asunder and bro∣ken? Jerusalem is taken, but Sheshach also shall fall. That cup which was sent to Jerusalem and the Cities of Judah, and the Kings thereof,* 1.58 and put into their hands to drink, is afterward put into the hand of the King of Sheshach to drink, and to be drunken, to spew, and fall, and rise no more. Thus saith the Lord, yee shall certainly drink it. And he giveth the reason,* 1.59 For lo I begin to bring evil upon the City which is called by my Name, (or, where my Name is called upon) and shall ye go free? shall ye go utterly un∣punished? If ye can raise such a hope, then hear a voice from heaven which shall dash it to pieces; I have said it, and I will make it good; Ye shall not go unpunished. I have begun with my own house, but I am coming towards you in a tempest of fire, to devour yours. I have sha∣ken my own tabernacle, and the house of Dagon shall not, cannot stand. They whom God appointeth executioners of justice upon his people are like the Image which the Tyrant saw in his dream, partly iron,* 1.60 and part∣ly clay, partly strong, and partly broken. God findeth them apt and fit, full of malice and gall: Whose hands were fitter to fling stones at David then his whose mouth was full of curses? Who fitter to keep Gods people in bondage then Pharaoh? Who fitter to lead them into capti∣vity then he whom God did afterwards drive into the fields amongst the beasts? Who could have crucified the Lord of life but the Jews? Then finding them apt and fit, he permitteth these serpents to spit their poison, giveth these hang-men leave to do their office. This his not hindring them was all the warrant and commission they had.* 1.61 Go up a¦gainst

the land, can be no more then this; I know you are upon your march; and I will not stand in your way to stay you•• but you shall do me service against your wills, with that malice which my Soul hateth. For we cannot think that God inspired the Tyrant, or sent a Prophet to him with the mes∣sage to bid him do that which he threatneth to punish. No: he doth but permit them, and give them leave to be his executioners. And in this his permission is their strength. They pursue the Israelite, and lay on sure strokes. Their Malice is carried on in a chariot of four wheels, made up of Cruelty, Impatience, Ambition, Impudence, and drawn, as Bernard expresseth it,* 1.62 with two wild horses, earthly Power and secu∣lar Pomp. And now they drive on furiously; and God is as one asleep, as one that marketh them not, because he will not hinder them: But within a while he will awake, strike off their chariot-wheels, and restrain them;* 1.63 say to them, as he doth to the swelling Sea, Hitherto you shall go, and no farther: And then they are but clay, they crumble and fall to nothing. Why should the Philistine boast himself in his mischief?* 1.64 the goodness of God endureth yet dayly: It is every day and in every age the same. It is no concluding argument, That we please God, when we are imploy∣ed in the punishment of those that offend him: Nor can we thus argue, no more then we can attribute reason and wisdom to an Asse, because it pleased God once to make use of so contemptible a creature to re∣prove the folly of a Prophet.* 1.65 * 1.66 Secondly, this cloud giveth light to the Is∣raelite, by which he may order his steps with more caution and wariness. Our Saviour saith we may make a friend of Mammon,* 1.67 and S. Chrysostom addeth, even of the Devil himself; so may a true Israelite make a friend of a Philistine, and they who survive may learn by the four and thirty thousand who were slain; who being dead yet speak unto them and us to fly from the wrath of God, who, when we rebel against him, can pu∣nish us by far worse then our selves. Oh, who would not look upon those sins as the most horrid spectacles in the world, for the punishment of which God should cull out such instruments as are under a greater curse, fitter for the fire, then those on whom they are used? If we go on and continue in sin,* 1.68 God may send out his great army against us, the Locust, the Cankerworm, the Caterpillar, and the Palmerworm, and eat up our harvest.* 1.69 He may raise up every creature, even timber out of the wall, to speak against us. And if we still stand out against him, he may raise up some accursed alien, some Philistine, some child of perdition, to wreak his vengeance upon us. And who would not be afraid of that cup of bitterness which must be brought to him by the hand of a Phili∣stine? and forsake sin, if not for the punishment, yet for the executioner? A sad sight it was to see David the father whipt for his adultery by his Son, and David the King chastised by his subject, who should have kist his feet,* 1.70 of whom he himself saith, The Lord bid him do it; to see a whole nation carried away captive by a Man who did afterwards degenerate into a Beast; to see so many thousand Isaelites fall at the feet of Idolaters, of the servants of Dagon: But the Inscription is indeleble; What is written, is written: DOMINƲS EST, It is the Lord.

4. Now in the last place, not onely the Priests and the People, but the Ark it self was delivered up, the Ark of God's Covenant, and the Ark of his strength;* 1.71 from whence God gave his Oracles, wherein were the Ta∣bles of the Laws, the Testimony written by the finger of God; the Glory of God, as Phinehas his wife calleth it; even this was made a prey to cursed Aliens, and brought in triumph into the house of Dagon, Chapter 5. And here we may lay our hands upon our mouth, as Job, Once have we spoken, yea twice; but here is a great depth, horrour and amazement; and

we may fear to proceed any further. What? will God defeat his own command? deliver up his own Ordinance?* 1.72 deliver up his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemies hands? Yes; even here it is the Lord. God did it, because he suffered it to be done; did it, as one asleep,* 1.73 withdrew himself. When he awaketh, then he will lift up his hand, and it shall fall heavy upon the Philistine, and bruise him to pieces. Then it shall be his power and irresistable arm; now it is but his connivence and permission. What the rage of the persecutour, what the Philistine, what the Devil doth, God is said to do; and in many places of Scripture it is called his will: 1. Because he willingly permitteth it. For should he interpose his power, it could never be done. 2. Because he foretel∣leth and threatneth it, and bindeth it with an oath; as he doth here:* 1.74 which he would never do, if he meant to hinder it. 3. Though he wil∣leth not the thing it self, Murder, Sacriledge, and the Profanation of his Ark, yet notwithstanding some good will of God is accomplished by it. And even in the most horrid execution some good will of God may be ac∣complished. He delivered up Christ to be crucified; but his will was to save the World: And he that was willing his Son should suffer, yet hated the Jews, and for that very fact made their house desolate. He found them in the gall of bitterness, and left them so, to do his will when they brake it. The Malice was their own, and God suffered them to breathe it forth; but the issue and event thereof was an act of Gods Will, of his Wisdom, of his Power. And thus here he delivered up the Ark; but it was to preserve it: as Agesilaus abrogated the Laws of Lycurgus, that he might establish them: Ʋt semper esse possent, aliquando non fuerunt,* 1.75 saith the Historian; They were laid aside a while, that they might remain and be in force for ever. So God suffereth his Ark to be led into captivity, that it might conquer, first Dagon, then the Israelite; that it might strike off the hypocrisie of the Israelite, and work and fashion him to the will of God, of whom the Ark was but a representation: He suffered it to be removed for a time that it might be restored again both to its place and dignity. For we may observe in the Israelites what, if we could be im∣partial; we might soon discover in our selves in the use of those helps which God hath graciously afforded us; They both honoured and disho∣noured the Ark; they gave too high an esteem, and yet undervalued it; they called it their God, and made it their idole. A strange contradicti∣on, yet so visible in the course and progress of carnal worshippers, that he that seeth them in their race, would think they run two contrary wayes at once, are very religious, and very profane; invade heaven with vio∣lence, and yet drive furiously to the lowest pit. First, we have just rea∣son to imagin that when the Ark was taken up upon the Levites shoul∣ders, and they sang, Let God arise,* 1.76 * 1.77 (which was the set and constant form) they spake not by metaphor, but as if indeed they had their God on their shoulders. For when Israel was smitten ver. 2. Let us bring, say they, the ark of the Covenant, ver. 3. The Ark is brought out, and now victory is certain: for when it cometh amongst us, it will save us, say they. But, as Epictetus once taught his Scholars, that they should so behave them∣selves that they might be an ornament to the Arts and not the Arts un∣to them; so the integrity of the Jew should have been a defense to the Ark, and not the Ark made use of to stand up for a profane impenitent Israelite. For what a wile and sophisme of Satan is this, to perswade a polluted sinful soul, that when he hath scornfully rejected the substance, that piety which should make him strong in the Lord, at the last, in the time of danger, and the furious approach of the enemy a shadow should stand forth and fight for him; when he had broken the Law and the Testi∣mony,

not regarded the Oracles, forgot all the mercies of God, and rob∣bed him of his glory, that then, I say, the shell, the Ark, the Shittim∣wood, should be as the great power of God to maintain his cause? that he should anger God with his sin, and appease him with his name; forfeit his soul by deceit and cruelty, by intemperance and lust, and then save it by hearing a Sermon against it? Certainly if this be not a wile of the Devil, I know no snare he hath that can catch us: if this be not to de∣ceive our selves, I shall think there is no such thing as Errour in the world. But again, in the second place, and on the contrary, as they did deificare Arcam, as the Father speaketh, even deifie the Ark, attribute more unto it then God ever gave it, or was willing it should have; so they did also depretiare, vilifie and set it at naught. They called it their strength, their glory, their God; but imployed it in baser offices then ever the Heathen did their Gods,* 1.78 who called upon them to teach them to steal and deceive. Not long since their Priests committed rapes at the very door of the Tabernacle, and now they expect the Ark should help those profane miscreants who had so polluted it. Oh, the Ark the Ark! the glory of God! that is able to becalm and slumber a tempest, to binde the hands of the Almighty that he shall not strike, to scatter an ar∣my, to make Kings fly, to crown a sinful nation with victory, to bring back an adulterer laureate, a ravisher with the spoils of a Philistine. That shall be a buckler and a protection to defend them, who but now defiled it; that shall be their God, which they made their abomination. Bring forth the Ark, and then what are these uncircumcised Philistines? God heard this,* 1.79 saith the Psalmist, and was wroth, and greatly abhorred Is∣rael: And seeing that all the cry was for the Ark, no thought for the Statutes and Testimonies, which lay shut up in the Ark and oblivion to∣gether; seeing the Sign of his presence had quite shut him out, of whose presence it was a sign; seeing it so much honoured, so much debased, so sanctified, and so polluted, he delivereth up the people and the Ark to∣gether into the Philistines hands, that they might learn more from the Ark in the temple of Dagon then they did when it stood in their own Tabernacle, learn the right use of it now, which they had so fouly a∣bused when they enjoyed it. In a word, God striketh off their embroy∣dery, that they might learn to be more glorious within. I remember, there is a constitution in the Imperial Law, Si feudatarius rem feudi, &c. If he that holdeth in fee-farm useth contrary to the will and intent of the Lord, redit ad Dominum, it presently returneth into the Lord's power. And we may observe that the great Emperour of heaven and earth pro∣ceedeth after the same manner with his liege-men and homagers, the Jews.* 1.80 When they fell to idolatry, and bestowed the corn and the wine which God gave them upon Baal, then presently God taketh to himself away the corn in the time thereof, and the wine in the season thereof, and recovereth his flax and his wooll, recovereth it as his own, thus unjustly usurped and detained by idolaters.* 1.81 I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast dayes, her new-moons, and her sabbaths; as if he had said, I will defeat my own purpose, I will nullifie my own ordinance, I will abolish my own law, I will put out the light of Israel, which to my peopl•• hath been but as a meteor to make them wander in the crooked wayes of their own imaginations.* 1.82 I will deliver the creature from the bondage of corrup∣tion, which seemeth to groan and travel in pain under these abuses, it be∣ing a kind of servitude and captivity to the creature, to be dragged and haled by the lusts and phansies and disordinate affections of profane men, to be put to the drudgery of the Gibeonite, which I made to be as free as the Israelite himself, to be kept in bondage and slavery under the pride

and extravegant desires, under the most empty and brutish phansies of corrupt men. I will take them away from such unjust usurpers. What should a prodigal do with wealth? what should a robber do with strength? what should a boundless oppressour do with power? what should Hophni and Phinehas, adulterers, oppressours, what should a sin∣ful nation, a people laden with iniquity, do with the Ark of the covenant of the Lord? I will begin, and I will also make an end.* 1.83 This glory shall depart from Israel, and the Ark shall be taken. And here, when the Ark is taken, and the glory departed from Israel, the word and inscription is still the same, DOMINƲS EST, It is the Lord.

Now, to apply this last particular, shall I desire you to look up upon the Inscription, It is the Lord? Behold, the Prophet hath done it to my hand; Go to my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first,* 1.84 and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people, Go unto Shiloh, and there purge the corruption, the plague of your hearts, wash off the paint of your hypocrisie with the blood of those four and thirty thou∣sand Israelites. Look upon the Ark, but not so as to be dazled there∣with, and to dote on the glory and beauty of it, not so as to lose the sight of your selves, and of those sins which pollute it. Look upon the Word and Sacraments, but not so as to make them the non ultrà of your worship, and to rest in them as in the end; to eat, and wash, and hear, and no more; to say, The word of God is sweet, yet not to taste and digest it; to attribute virtue and efficacy to the Sacrament, yet be fitter to receive the Devil then the sop; at once to magnifie, and profane it; to call it the Bread of life, and make it poyson. This is to come neer the Ark, and to handle these holy things, without feeling; in a word, this is to make them first an idole, and then nothing in this world. My brethren, it is a very dangerous thing thus to overvalue those things which in them∣selves are highly to be esteemed, and are above comparison with any thing in the world. For when we make them more then they are, we in effect make them less then they are, and at last nothing, of no use at all. Nay, we make that a snare unto us which was made for a help. E∣very creature within the bounds of its nature is useful and profitable: so also these external helps, the Ark of God, the Word, and Sacraments of the Church, are great blessings, and highly to be honoured, whilst we use them to that end for which they were first instituted, whilst we walk within that compass and circle which God hath drawn, according to that form which he hath shewed us. That Jew deserveth not the name of an Israelite that either by word or gesture dishonoureth the Ark, when we see he was not permitted to touch it: But he that of a sign of the presence of God, in the day of battle shall make it his God, is so much a Jew that he deserveth to be flung out of the Synagogue. And that Chri∣stian that boweth not to the majesty of the Word, and receiveth it not as a letter and epistle from God, as S Augustine calleth it, that esteemeth not of the Sacraments as those visible words, the signs and pledges and conveiances of God's great love and favour to us in Christ, hath too little of the Christian to make him so much as one of the visible Church: But he that is high in his panegyrick, and ever calling, Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth; and then lieth down to sleep, or, if he be awake, is onely active in denying the power of that Word he so much magnified and cal∣led for, and thinketh he hath done all duties and offices to God if he do but give him the ear (which is to trust in the Ark more then in God;) he that shall make the Sacrament first an idole, and then a seal to shut up treason in silence, as the Jesuite, or use it as an opiate once or twice in the year to quiet his conscience, his viaticum and provision rather to

strengthen him in sin then against it; he that shall thus magnifie, and thus debase it, thus exalt, and thus tread it under foot, is guilty of Heresie, saith Erasmus, which is not properly an Heresie, but yet such a kinde of Heresie may make him Anathema though he be of the Church; and at last sever him as a Goat from the Sheep. And now let us judge, not accord∣ing to the appearance, let us judge righteous judgement: Or rather, if you please, do but judge according to the appearance. Cast an eye upon these unhappy times, which, if they be not the last, yet so much resem∣ble those which, as we are told, shall usher in the great day, that we have great reason to look about us as if they were the last: Weigh, I say, the controversies, the business of these times; and concerning those duties and transactions which constitute and consummate a Christian, you shall finde as great silence in our disputes as in our lives and practice. The great heat and contention is concerning Baptisme, the Lord's Sup∣per, and the Government and Discipline of the Church: It is not, Whether we should deny our selves, and abstain from all fleshly lusts; but, Whether we may wash, or not; Whether eat, or not; Whether Christ may be conveighed into us in Water, or in Bread; Whether he hath set up a chair of infallibility at Rome, or a consistory at Geneva; Whether he hath ordained one Pope, or a million. What digladiations, what tragedies are there about these points? And if every particular phan∣sie be not pleased, the cry is as if Religion were breathing out its last; when as the true Religion consisteth not principally in these; but these may seem to have been passed over to us rather as favours and honours and pledges of God's love, then as strict and severe commands. That we must wash, and eat, are commands, but which bring no burden or hard∣ship with them, the performance of them being most easie, as no whit re∣pugnant to flesh and blood: It is no more, but Wash, and be clean, Eat in remembrance of the greatest benefit that ever mankind received. All the difficulty is in the performance of the vow we make in the one, and the due preparation of the soul for the other, which is the subduing of our lusts and affections, the beautifying of our inward man. This is tru∣ly and most properly the service of Christ, the Ark of our Ark, the Glo∣ry of our Glory, and the crown of all those outward advantages which our Lord and Master hath been Pleased to afford us. We may ask with the Prophet,* 1.85 Wherewith shall we come before the Lord, or bow our selves be∣fore the high God, Will he be pleased with the diligence of our Ear? with our Washing,* 1.86 and Eating? and answer with him, He hath shewed thee, O man, what he doth require, to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. Go to Shiloh, and there learn we to disdeceive our selves by the example of the Israelites; if all our Religion be shut up, with theirs, in the Ark, all in outward cere∣mony and formality, God strike both us and the Ark we trust to, recover and call back those helps and gracious advantages from such prodigal usurpers. For when all is for the Ark, nothing for the God it representeth; when we make the Pulpit our Ark, and chain all Religion to it; when the lips of the Preacher, which should preserve knowledge,* 1.87 and be as a Ship, as Basil speaketh, to conveigh that Truth which is more precious then the Gold of O∣phir, bringeth nothing but Apes and Peacocks, loathsome and ridi∣culous phansies; when the hearers must have a song for a Sermon, and that too many times much out of tune; when both Hearer and Speaker act a part as it were upon a stage, even till they have their Exit, and go out of the world; when we will have no other laver but that of Bap∣tisme, no bread but that in the Eucharist; when we are such Jewish

Christians as to rely on the shell and outside, on external formali∣ties and performances, more empty and less significant and effectu∣al then their ceremonies; we have just cause to fear that God will do unto us as he did unto Shiloh, or, as he threatned the same peo∣ple Amos 8. send a famin into the land, not a famin of bread, but of hearing the word, (and such a famin we may have, though our loaves do multiply, though Sermons be our daily bread;) that he may deprive us of our Sacraments, or deliver them up to Dagon, to be polluted by Superstition, or to be troden under foot by Pro∣faneness, (which of the two is the worst;) that we may even loath and abhor that in which we have taken so vain, so unprofitable, so pernicious delight; and condemn our selves and our own foul in∣gratitude, and with sorrow and confusion of face subscribe to this Inscription, DOMINƲS EST, It is the Lord.

And now we have setled the Inscription upon every particular. And it may seem at first not well placed, but as the head of Jupiter upon the body of a Tyrant; a merciful God plucking up and destroying his own people, fighting for the Philistine against the Israelite, as if a dead Israe∣lite were of a sweeter savour in his nostrils then a dead Philistine, and the Ark better placed in the house of Dagon then in his own Tabernacle: But look again, and consider it aright, and you will say it is rightly fixed. For the wayes of God are equal, but ours are unequal:* 1.88 and nothing but the inequality of our waies maketh God's seem unequal. He remaineth the same God in the fire and in the earth-quake which he was in the still voice; the same when he slew the Israelites, and when his light shone up∣on their tabernacle. His glorious Attributes cross not one another. His Justice taketh not from his Mercy, nor his Mercy from the equity of his Justice; but he is just when he bindeth up, and merciful when he wound∣eth us. His Justice, his Wisdome, his Mercy are over all his works.* 1.89 The same God that overthrew Pharaoh in the Red sea, that slew great and migh∣ty Kings, did deliver up his own people, good and bad, did deliver them, into their enemies hands, did deliver up the Ark to Dagon: For his Ju∣stice, his Wisdome and his Mercy endure for ever.* 1.90

And now, having gone along with old Eli in his Discovery, we cannot but take up his Resolution, Let him do what seemeth him good We called it Eli's Use, or Application of his Doctrine; and let us, for conclusion, make it ours, and learn to kiss the Son, lest he be angry; nay, to kiss him,* 1.91 and bow before him, when he is angry; to offer him up a peace-offering, our Wills, of more power then a hecatomb, then all our numerous Fasts and Sermons, to appease his wrath, and to bring peace and order again into the World: that our Wills being his, being subdued by his Spirit, and delivered up into that blessed captivity to be under his beck and command, they may stand out against all our natural and carnal desires, and check and quiet them. This is the truest surrendry we can make: This maketh us of the same minde with Christ, who would not,* 1.92 saith Hi∣lary, have that granted which he would have done, did not refuse the Cup, but desired it might pass from him. As Saul, when he was struck to the ground, cryed out, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? so let us, when Gods hand is upon us, in our trembling and astonishment say, Lord, what wouldst thou have us to suffer? Thy will be done, though it be in our destru∣ction. By this we testifie our consent with him. This is our friendship with God: and they who, as Abraham was, are Gods friends,* 1.93 have idem velle & idem nolle, will and nill the same things with God, are ready to follow him in all his wayes; when he seemeth to withdraw, and when he cometh neer us; when he shineth upon us, and when he thundreth; in

what he commandeth, and in what he permitteth; in what he absolute∣ly will do, and in what he maketh way for onely, and will suffer to be done; to follow him in all, and bow before him. Non pareo Deo, sed assentior:* 1.94 ex animo illum, non quia necesse est, sequor, saith the heathen Seneca: I do not onely obey God, and do what he would have me, but I am of his minde: and whatsoever is done in heaven and earth, is done as I would have it. The world is never out of frame with me; I see no∣thing but order and harmony, no disturbance, no crossness in the course of things.* 1.95 For that Wisdome which is the worker of all things, is more moving then any motion, and passeth and goeth through them all, reacheth from one end to another mightily, and draweth every motion and action of men to that end, in which, if we could see them, we should wonder and cry out, So, so, thus we would have it. The stubornest knee may be made to bow, and obedience be constrained; Balaam obeyed God, but it was against his will. But the true Israelite doth it with joy and readi∣ness; and though he receive a blow, he counteth it as a favour: For he that gave it hath taught him an art to make it so.* 1.96 God doth whatsoever he will in heaven and in earth, saith the Psalmist. God willeth it, and doth it; and when it is done, our will must bow before it, and we must say with old Eli, Let him do what he will. Take the Will of God in those several wayes the Scripture and the light of Reason hath discovered it to us, and in every kind we must subscribe, and what he doth we must will, and what he will have us suffer must seem good in our eyes. There is voluntas naturalis inclinationis & desiderii, that desire and inclination which naturally was in him to work and wish the good of his creature, which is the proper and natural effect of his Goodness. For he created us for our good and his glory. And there is an other Will, voluntas prae∣cepti, the Law and Ordinance which he hath laid upon his creature, which is every where in Scripture called his Will. For as he ordained his crea∣ture for good, so he made known unto it the means by which it should attain to that good for which it was at first ordained. Now we cannot but yield in these. For can there be any question made whether we will set a Fiat and subscribe to our own good? It is strange that any man should be unwilling that God should love him, unwilling to be happy, or loath that way which so great Love hath designed to bring him to this end. The number is but few of those that do this Will; but it is the voice of the whole Christian world, That this Will should be done. But there is yet further, as we may observe, voluntas occasionata, a secondary and conse∣quent Will in God, not natural, but occasioned, and to which he is in a manner constrained. The severity of God, the miseries and afflictions of this life, induration of wilful and stubborn sinners, eternal pains laid up in the world to come, are the effects of this occasioned Will. Besides this, there is voluntas permissionis, his permissive Will, by which he doth give way so far as he thinketh good to the intents and actions of evil men. He doth not command them, he doth not secretly suggest them, nor doth he incline the Agents to them, not incline the Philistines to invade that land which is none of theirs, but by his infinite praescience, foreseeing all actions and events possible, he determineth for reasons best known to himself to give way to such actions which he saw would be done if he gave way. And to these two we cannot but yield, unless we will deny him to be God. For if we believe him just, or wise, we cannot but say, FIAT, Let him do what he will: Let him be angry, and let him carry on his anger in what wayes and by what means he please. He is our Father, and loveth us:* 1.97 and if we will be enemies to our selves, he doth but an act of Justice and of Mercy if he use the rod. What though he give

line to wicked men to do that which his soul hateth, and suffer that to be done which he forbiddeth? He permitteth all the evil that is done in the world: If he did not permit it, it could not be done. And if he did not permit evil, Obedience were but a name: For what praise is it not to do that which I cannot do? Whatsoever evil he suffereth, his Wis∣dome is alwaies present with him (for he is Wisdome it self) and can draw that evil which he but suffereth to be done, and make it serve to the advancement of that good which he will do. He will make it as the hand of Justice, to punish offenders, and execute his will; and as his Rod or Discipline, to teach sinners in the way. If we could once sub∣due our wills to that will of his which is visible in his precepts, if we could answer love with love, and love him, and keep his commandments,* 1.98 we should have no such aversness from the other two, no such dislike if he do what he is forced to do, or permit that to be done which he hath con∣demned already. If we do whatsoever he commandeth us, and be his friends, what is it to us,* 1.99 though he binde the sweet influences of the Pleia∣des, or loose the bonds of Orion? though he make the heavens as brass, and the earth as iron? though the clods cleave fast together, and the clouds distil not upon them? What is it to us, if he beat down his own Tem∣ples, when the tower of Babel reacheth up to heaven? if the black dark∣ness be in Gosh••n, and the Egyptians have light? if fools sport and tri∣umph in their folly, and the whip be laid on the back of the innocent? What is it to us how or where he casteth about his hail-stones and coals of fire?

Si fractus illabatur orbis,* 1.100 Impavidos ferient ruinae.

In all these sad and dismal events, in these judgments which fall cross with our judgment, and, as the eye of flesh looketh upon them, to the mind of God himself, in all these perplexities, these riddles of Providence, the friend of God is still his friend, and favoureth, nay, applaudeth what∣soever he doth, or is pleased to suffer to be done, which he would not suffer, did not his Justice and Wisdome require it, which are able to make the most crooked paths straight, to fill every valley, and levell e∣very mountain, to work good out of evil; and so make all those seem∣ing extuberancies, that which to us seemed disorder and confusion, that which our ignorance wondered at, smooth and plain and even at the last. It is the Lord: When that word is heard, let every mouth be stopt, or let it declare his glory amongst the nations, and his wonders among the people.* 1.101 At that word let every knee bow, both of things in heaven, and things in earth; let Men and Angels say, Amen; His will be done. DOMINƲS EST, It is the Lord, is the antecedent; and the most natural consequent or conclusion that can be drawn from it is this of old Eli the High Priest, FACIAT QƲOD BONƲM IN OCƲLIS, Let him do what seemeth him good.

To conclude then, When we are thus wrought and fashioned to God's hand and will, thus meek and yielding to his sceptre; when we follow him in all his wayes, and question not but obey his Providence, which is the bridle of the world, and fit for no hands but his; when with old Eli here we joyn our Faciat with his Fecit, and are willing he should do whatsoever is done; when the Lord thunders from heaven, and shooteth his arrows abroad, and we can look upon them sticking in our own sides, and say, Thus, thus it should be:* 1.102 The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether; then we have the spirit of God, and we have the will of God: And these arrows will be to us as Jonathan's were to David,* 1.103 signs and warnings to fly from some danger neer at hand, that those e∣vils

we suffer may work that patience which may make us cooperarios Dei, as Tertullian spake of Job,* 1.104 fellow-workers with God, and joyn us with him in the conquest of those temptations which they bring along with them;* 1.105 that our Patience may beget Experience how weak and frail we are when we are moved and guided by our own will; and this Experience, Hope, even that Hope which, being founded on the promises of the God of truth, can neither deceive us nor make us ashamed; a Hope that our Ark will return, and God will restore to us all those helps and advanta∣ges which he shall think necessary for us in this our warfare. He that hath the will of God, hath this hope, built upon his Power and Wisdome, which alwaies accompany his Will. He that hath the will of God, hath what he will, hath power and wisdome; In the strength of which we shall be able to lift up our heads in the midst of all the busie noyse the World shall make;* 1.106 be stedfast and immovable when the tempest is loudest; and when our sun shall be darkned,* 1.107 and the stars fall from heaven, when there shall be sects and divisions and great perplexity,* 1.108 when our Ark shall be taken, and the glory depart from Israel, we shall be able to look upon all with an eye of Charity, or, as Erasmus speaketh, with an Evangelical eye, and walk on in a constant course of piety, and contention with those infirmities which so easily beset us, beating down sin in our selves, though we cannot destroy errour in our brethren, and so become, as Nazianzene once spake of his people of Nazianzum, like the Ark of Noah, and by this our spiritual wisdome escape that deluge and inundation of Conten∣tion which hath neer overflowed and swallowed up the whole Christian world, and so walk upon these floods and waves, Christ himself going before, till we rest upon our Ararat, our holy Hill, that new Jerusalem, that City of peace, where there will be no envy, no debate, no sects, no divisions, no contentions, no wars, no rumour of wars, but love and peace and unity and joy and unconceivable bliss for ever∣more.

Notes

• * 1.1

  v. 19. Rom. 4.17.
• * 1.2

  Isa. 55.11.
• * 1.3

  Ad Pammach. adversus erro∣res Joan. Hie∣rosol.
• * 1.4

  Amos 3.6.
• * 1.5

  2 ch. v. 25.
• * 1.6

  Chap. 2.12.
• * 1.7

  Chap. 2.17.
• * 1.8

  Gen. 18.25.
• * 1.9

  Isa. 50.1.
• * 1.10

  Gen. 17.8.
• * 1.11

  Exod. 29.45. Gal. 4.28.
• * 1.12

  Lev. 26.12.
• * 1.13

  2 Chron. 15.2.
• * 1.14

  Tertul.
• * 1.15

  Jer. 7.4.
• * 1.16

  Eccl. 9.2.
• * 1.17

  Horat. od 3.2.
• * 1.18

  Gen. 18.23.
• * 1.19

  Josh. 3.11, 13.
• * 1.20

  Psal. 90.4.
• * 1.21

  A Platone dici∣tur Deus 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Vide Plutarch. Quaest. convi∣val. l. 8. q. c.
• * 1.22

  Job 19.22.
• * 1.23

  Job 21.34.
• * 1.24

  Job 38.2.
• * 1.25

  Isa. 1.4, 10.
• * 1.26

  Levit. 19.17.
• * 1.27

  Hor. l. 4. od 9.
• * 1.28

  Calamitas non est poena, mili∣tia est, Min. Felix.
• * 1.29

  Gen. 18.25.
• * 1.30

  Rom. 5.14.
• * 1.31

  Matth. 20.15.
• * 1.32

  August. De civitate Dei. l. 1. c. 8.
• * 1.33

  Luke 13.
• * 1.34

  2 Sam. 11.25.
• * 1.35

  Luke 16.
• * 1.36

  1 Sam. 4.7.
• * 1.37

  Rev. 7.14.
• * 1.38

  Phil. 1.29.
• * 1.39

  Luke 10.30.
• * 1.40

  Psal. 10.5. & 12.5.
• * 1.41

  Deut. 1.17. 2 Tim. 2.19.
• * 1.42

  Psal. 75.3. 1 Cor 6.2.
• * 1.43

  2 Sam. 1.20.
• * 1.44

  Cic. De Nat. Deor. l. 3.
• * 1.45

  1 Kings 22.27.
• * 1.46

  Hebr. 11 ••7.
• * 1.47

  1 Kings 19.10, 14.
• * 1.48

  Rom. 2.29.
• * 1.49

  Isa. 52.5. Rom 2.24.
• * 1.50

  Invect. 2.
• * 1.51

  Psal. 78.65.
• * 1.52

  Psal. 78.66.
• * 1.53

  Zeph 2.4.
• * 1.54

  Psal. 145.17.
• * 1.55

  Jer. 50.21.
• * 1.56

  —V. 23.
• * 1.57

  Jer. 51.41. Jer. 25.18.
• * 1.58

  —V. 26, &c.
• * 1.59

  —V. 29.
• * 1.60

  Dan. 2.42.
• * 1.61

  Jer. 50.21.
• * 1.62

  In Cant. Ser. 39
• * 1.63

  Job 38.11.
• * 1.64

  Psal. 52.2.
• * 1.65

  Numb. 22.27.
• * 1.66

  2 Pet. 2.16.
• * 1.67

  Luk. 16.9.
• * 1.68

  Joel 2.25.
• * 1.69

  Hab. 2.11.
• * 1.70

  2 Sam. 16.11.
• * 1.71

  Psal. 132.8. Numb. 7.89. Hebr. 9 4. Exod. 31.18. 1 Sam. 4.21, 22. Job 40.5.
• * 1.72

  Psal. 78.61.
• * 1.73

  Psal. 78.65.
• * 1.74

  1 S m. 3.14.
• * 1.75

  Valer. Max. l. 7. c. 2.
• * 1.76

  Numb. 10.35.
• * 1.77

  Psal. 68.1.
• * 1.78

  Pulcra Laver∣na, Da mihi fallere, &c. Hor. l. 1. Epist. 16.
• * 1.79

  Psal. 78.59.
• * 1.80

  Hos. 2.9.
• * 1.81

  V. 11.
• * 1.82

  Rom. 8.21, 22.
• * 1.83

  1 Sam. 3.12.
• * 1.84

  Jer. 7.12.
• * 1.85

  Mich. 6.6, 7.
• * 1.86

  —v. 8.
• * 1.87

  Mal 2.7. Orat. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• * 1.88

  Ezek. 18.29.
• * 1.89

  Psal. 145.9. Psal. 136.15, 17, 18.
• * 1.90

  Psal. 136.
• * 1.91

  Psal. 2.12.
• * 1.92

  Quod vult ef∣fici, id ipsum concedi bi non vult, De Trin. l. 10. Acts 9.6.
• * 1.93

  2 Chr. 20.7. Isa. 41.8 James 2.23.
• * 1.94

  Epist. 96.
• * 1.95

  Wisd. 7 22, 24
• * 1.96

  Psal. 135.6.
• * 1.97

  O felicem, cui Deus dignatur, irasci, Tertull.
• * 1.98

  John 14.15.
• * 1.99

  Job 38.31. Deut. 28.23. Job 38.38.
• * 1.100

  Horat. od. 3. l. 3.
• * 1.101

  Psal. 96.3. Phil. 2.10.
• * 1.102

  Psal. 19.9.
• * 1.103

  1 Sam 20 20, &c.
• * 1.104

  De patient.
• * 1.105

  Rom. 5.4, 5.
• * 1.106

  1 Cor. 15.58.
• * 1.107

  Matth 24.29.
• * 1.108

  Luke 21.25.