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 Fourth SERMON. (Book 4)

PART II.

JOHN V. 14.

Behold, thou art made whole.

SO dull and heavy we are, even after a miracle, so sense∣less after Christ hath laden us with his benefits, that we have need of a Monitor, a Doctor: The Histori∣an calleth him circumspectorem, one that may look a∣bout us, and take care of us when the cure is done. As he who after victory rode in triumph had a pub∣lick servant behind him whose office it was to cry out unto him, Respice post te; hominem memento te esse, Look behind thee; remember thou art also a man: So have we need of conti∣nual monitions and excitations to put us in mind of what we are. For when we are made rich, how soon do we forget we were poor? When we are in health, how soon do we forget we were sick? When we are upon our legs, and walk, how soon do we forget the miracle? Or, if we do not forget it (for how can it slip out of our memory so soon between the Pool and the Temple? how can Christ's mercy be quite lost in this span of time?) yet we do not well weigh and consider it; which is in∣deed to forget it. Not a Jew but could have related the story of their leading out of Egypt, and of dividing the Sea and making the waters stand as a heap; yet the Psalmist is positive, They forgat his works,* 1.1 and his wonders which he had shewed them. The impotent man here could not look upon himself, or cast his eye upon one limb, but he must needs re∣member the miracle, and who it was that wrought it: Yet it was not so in his heart as to work it and draw it to its end. And this is rather a Thought then Memory. Therefore Christ seeketh him out, and findeth him, and then doth lacessere memoriam, rub and revive his memory with an ECCE, Behold, thou art made whole. Where we have two things pre∣sent themselves unto our view as most remarkable; 1. What it is Christ calleth him to behold; 2. What it is to behold it. So you have the Ob∣ject, and the Act: the Object, Thou art made whole; the Act commend∣ed or enjoyned, to behold and consider it.

For the first; No eye is fitter to behold a benefit then his that received it; none fitter to consider a miracle then he on whom it was wrought. Therefore God, though he giveth, and upbraideth not, yet every where almost in Scripture draweth large catalogues of the favours he hath done

for his people. He maketh the Creation, the Choice, the Deliverance of them so many arguments and motives to win them to obedience.* 1.2 I have made thee;* 1.3 I have created thee. I have called thee in righteousness. I said unto thee, when thou wert in thy bloud Live. I washed thee with water, and anointed thee with oyle. I taught Ephraim to go, taking them by their arms. Who hath wrought and done it,* 1.4 calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord the first, and with the last, I am He. The whole Scripture is a register of God's noble acts and of his goodness which he hath shewed to the sons of men. And all this to what end? that we should praise him? Yes. But with the breath of a mortal? Qualis laus quae è macelto peti potest? What praise is that which we may hear in a shambles? which may be sent forth from a rotten sepulchre, from the hollow heart of an hypocrite? Nay, what are all the Anthems and Hosannas and Hallelujahs of all the men on earth and of all the Angels in heaven? What is it to him whose glory is in himself and with himself everlastingly, and which is above all the earth? No: He remembreth us of them that we may remember them. He setteth them up as representations of his love, that we may look upon them, and delight in them, and draw them out in our souls, and place them there, not onely as pictures of his Love, but also as intimations and expressions of his Will. For in every benefit there is some will of his signified. Every benefit carrieth with it a command to use it to the right end for which it was given. Seneca saith well, Multum interest inter ma∣teriam beneficii & beneficium, There is great difference between the mat∣ter or outside of a benefit and the benefit it self. That may be heard and seen and handled; this is seen onely with the eye of the mind, which be∣holding it, and judging aright of it, and discovering the end for which it was given, maketh it a benefit indeed. It is here as they speak in the Law, Do, ut des; and, Facio, ut facias: I give thee something, that thou maist return something back again; I do this for thee, and this that I do doth even bespeak thee to do something that is answerable and proporti∣oned to it. So Health doth even bespeak us to be up and doing, and to run with chearfulness the race that is set before us: Riches do even call upon us to be liberal, and make friends of them: Power doth in a manner com∣mand them that have it to break the jaw-bone of the wicked, and to be a shadow to the oppressed: And Wit and Wisdom do even persuade us to be wise unto salvation: For to this end they were given, and we must be∣hold them so that they may have this end. Benefits are cords of love, which tye us to those who give them: Therefore as they seem to please and flatter, so they also instruct and oblige us. Beneficia, onera; Benefits are burthens.* 1.5 He loadeth us daily with his benefits, saith the Psalmist. Bur∣thens they are which we must bear, and not run wildly away with, and lay them where a wanton phansie or our lusts shall direct. For what was said of our Saviour, may be said of his Mercies? If we fall upon them, that is, neglect them, we shall be broken; but if they fall upon us, if we draw the neglect on to the abuse of them, they will grind us to powder. Christ every where setteth an Ecce, as a finger pointing out to his benefits, that we may behold and consider them. For he raineth not Manna down up∣on us, but that we should gather it: He shineth not upon us, but that we should walk in his light: He doth us good that, first, his benefits may have their end, and make us good; and secondly, that they be not driven to a contrary end, and so prove fatal to us. And now the Ecce is a Cave; the Indication, a Caution; Behold, and take heed.

First, a benefit is a fair object set up on purpose to be looked upon, to be read and studied and interpreted. Bonum nihil est quàm interpretatio mali, saith Lactantius; That good which we receive is a kind of inter∣pretation

and comment on that evil which we have escaped. We best see the horrour of Poverty in Wealth, of Weakness in Power, of Ignorance in Wisdom, of Sickness in Health: And by comparing them together, the brightness of the one with the sadness and disconsolateness of the other, we may gain this lesson or conclusion; That our former poverty should ballast our present abundance, that we be not high-minded; our former low condition poise our power, that we be not insolent; our former ig∣norance temper and qualifie our knowledge, that we be not puffed up; and our former infirmity check and manage our health, that we be not wanton; That the providence of God was in them both, that both may have their true and proper end. Thou shalt compass, saith David,* 1.6 the righ∣teous with thy favour as with a shield. Now a Shield is not for shew, but use: And God putteth his benefits into our hands, and reacheth them to us, as the Lacedaemonian woman did shields unto their sons, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, either to bring them back with conquest, or to be brought home dead up∣on them. To cast shields away, or not to use them as shields should be used, is a foul disgrace. Some render that place, Thou hast compassed them as with a crown. And a Crown sitteth not upon the head onely as an or∣nament, or indication of power, but hath this Inscription, EITHER MANAGE IT WELL, OR LAY IT DOWN; it hath Duty as well as Glory engraven in the circle of it. I may say, God's benefits compass us about as the heavens do the earth, and have their operation and influ∣ence upon us, to bring forth something answerable and proportioned to them. For if these heavens be brass, it is because our earth, our souls, are iron. What is all the beauty of the firmament, if we be blind? What can the Sun and Stars, what can the sweat influences of the Pleiades work upon a dead tree or a rotten stick? The Philosopher will tell us that that which is not driven to its right end is frustrate and vain. For every thing hath its use from its end; and if it attain not that; it is altogether unprofitable. Ʋnumquodque est propter suam operationem; Every thing is, and hath its being, for that which it hath to do. All things, even the best things, beyond or beside their end are unuseful. Seneca telleth his friend that the Arts were then Liberal, cùm liberos facerent, when they made men free and ingenuous, and taxing the vices of the times; that Arithmetick and Geometry were of no use at all, if they onely taught men metiri latifundia, & digitos accommodare avaritiae, to measure Lord∣ships, and tell money. What is Health? A great blessing; without which we move as upon a wheel or rack; without which we live as in a prison; without which we have a being, but in misery: Health, the peace of the body, the lustre of beauty, the glory of power, the delight of riches, the honour of the Physician! without which Beauty and Riches and Power aut nihil sunt, aut nihil prosunt, are either nothing, or nothing worth. And yet Health it self is nothing, if not made use of to that end for which it was given; nay, worse then nothing, worse then a disease. It is then worth an ECCE, a Behold, worth the considering. And it was given our Paralytick to this end, to work peace and harmony in his soul, to draw on a NOLI PECCARE, Sin no more; that he might take heed of Sin, which raiseth a sedition, a mutiny, a war, and maketh a confusion and a chaos in the soul. Behold, thou art made whole, putteth him in remembrance he had been lame and impotent. For the present time hath relation to that which is past; what we are, to what we have been. And thus day unto day sheweth knowledge: the Present looketh back to the Past, and the Past uttereth speech to the Present. At the pool's side the impotent man was at school; now he is to repeat his lesson and shew his proficiency. His disease was his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, his Preparation; the day of

his health, his great Feast-day; Noli peccare ampliùs, Sin no more, that is the Celebration. First, Diseases are documents, they are sermons, better and more powerful, saith the Father, then those which we preach. They were the discipline of the primitive Church; the hands of God, with which he formeth and fashioneth us to that figure and proportion in which he would see us, repaireth a greater loss by a lesser, the ruines of the soul with the shakings and vexations of the body.* 1.7 S. Paul, in the name of Jesus Christ delivereth the incestuous person unto Satan: Which was nothing else but to deliver him, as God did holy Job, to be afflicted with diseases. So that we may well account Sickness a part of Apostolical Discipline, onely to the mortifying of the flesh, that that part might smart which had offended, and the soul be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. In time of health, when the bloud danceth in our veins, we easily suffer our selves to be abused with false shews. Quis sibi verum dicera audet? Who then dare tell himself the truth, and impartially censure his own actions? But when sickness hath corrupted our bloud, then the scales fall off from our eyes; and we read in an Ague our inconstancy, in a Fever our lust, in a Dropsie our intemperance. In health things appear as upon a stage, in disguises and strange apparel: but in the time of sickness we see them as in the tiring-house, every thing in its own face and shape. So that the very Heathen could say, Optimi sumus dum infirmi sumus, We are ne∣ver better then when we are sick. This is God's method, to make a di∣seased body physick for a sick soul. And this effect it should have, and sometimes it hath. But many times we forget our lesson, and therefore have need of an Ecce, a Remembrance, when we have taken up our bed, and walk at large. But indeed health is the most fit and proper time to serve God, when God shineth upon our tabernacle; then not to sin, when every part and limb we have may be made an instrument and weapon of righteousness, when not onely the will but the body is free; then to do good, when we have liberty to do either good or evil. Now he is a subject capable of advice: Remember thou art made whole. THOU. The consideration of the person importeth much. For all advice and counsel are lost if the person to whom they are given be uncapable. There were that put the Communion-bread into the mouth of the dead. And we read that old Beda by the lewdness of his servant was brought to preach to a heap of stones. But when our Saviour delivered this great lesson, he did not preach unto a stone, but to one that was made whole, to one unto whom having been long sick, even thirty eight years, he had restored his health. Nor had he given him the gift of Health in any o∣ther measure then such as became the giver, even full measure, pressed down; not penurious, scant, and with an evil eye. We cannot think otherwise but that the man was now become strong and whole & perfectly healthy; that is by interpretation (for it will best bear this sense) Christ had made him a fit hearer of this lesson, Sin no more; and therefore he fixeth an Ecce upon it, Behold, thou art made whole. Whilest he lay sick by the pool of Bethesda, our Saviour gave him no such lesson, because he was not then capable of it; but by making him strong and healthy, he made him capable. An Ecce upon our Health is an Ecce fixed in its proper place. Then is the best time to hear of our duty when we are best able to perform it. Who would speak to the Grass to grow? or to a stone to lye still and not move? 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Sin no more; Sin not again. He that is capable of this precept must have an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, an again, some power and faculty to sin again. But when either by sickness or age men have not this 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, this again, when Appetite and Desire fail, when the flesh being beat down can scarce raise up a will in them to sin again, then they do

not forsake sin, but sin forsaketh them. Sophocles the Poet was wont to say that he was much indebted to his old age, and held it as a great bene∣fit, that he was freed thereby from the tyranny and rage of Lust. And what a benefit is this? If it be a benefit, it is such a one as himself some∣times spake of, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, a gift no gift, a gift as good as none at all. For a better then Sophocles, S. Basil, will tell us, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Temperance in old age is not temperance; it is impo∣tency. Old men are not temperate, but they can be no longer intem∣perate. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. The very carcase that lieth rotten in the grave hath as fair a title to Temperance as they. Would you be righteous in∣deed? Health is the time. For in sickness you have nothing left you but a will, and that many times as saint and sickly as your selves, if not dead within you. At best, if you have the habit of Virtue, it is there more like a faculty and power then a habit, and is no more in respect of action. You are but as artificers when their shop is shut up, as Apelles without a hand or pencil, or as a Musician that is dumb. But in health a good lesson may be a sword to enter and divide asunder the soul and spirit; and it may evaporate and break forth and triumph in action, be heard from your tongue, and felt from your hand, and shew it self in every motion as you walk. When there is bloud in your veins and marrow in your bones, when you are in health, then is the best time to conquer sin by strength of reason. Domitius Afer, a famous Orator, being now grown old, and his strength and memory decayed, would needs still come to the bar, and plead: and therefore it was said of him, malle eum deficere quàm desinere, that he had rather fail through impotency then cease and leave off in time convenient. Such may seem to be the reso∣lution of most men: They will rather fail through weakness then cease to sin whilst their strength lasteth, and any oyle is left in their lamps. How many do we see every day, upon whom the evil dayes are come, feeble and weak to all good purposes, as those who have been dead long ago, but ad peccandum fortes, strong and active and youthful in sin; having their hair white, but their affections and ambition green, violently framing and forcing themselves to be sportful and gamesome, and peruking their age with youthful behaviour! And yet these men peradventure at the last cast, when their members are dried up and done, can be content to offer them up to God, as the old forworn fencers amongst the Romans were wont Herculis ad postem arma figere, to offer up their weapons in Hercules Temple, when they could make no further use of them. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, complained the God of War in the Poet, when he saw such unbeseeming gifts and monuments offered up in his Temple: And so may the Lord of hosts complain much more, These darkened and di∣stracted understandings, these faultring memories, these crooked wills, these dulled and blurred senses, these juyceless and exhausted and almost dead bodies, these arms of statutes, these pictures of men wasted and spent in the service of sin, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, These are not the weapons and faculties I made. Fit they are for the grave and rottenness, but ut∣terly unfit for the Temple of the Lord of hosts. Behold, thou art made whole. That is the time: that is God's time, and thy time; that is the accepted day, the day in which thou must work out thy salvation. To this end thou wert taken out of the porch by the pool's side, and set on thy legs, to this end thou art bid to walk, that thou maist sin no more.

For, in the second place, if Health have not this end, it will have a worse, a contrary one. As there are but two places, Heaven, and Hell; so are there but two ends, God's, and the Devil's: and we never stray from

the one, but we run to the other. We never turn our back to Jerusa∣lem, but we make forwards towards a strange land. It is as impossible to stand still between both, and not move to one of them, as for a man, that hath the use of reason, to be neither good nor evil. For the mind of of man is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, ever in motion: and if it do not follow those graces and favours which God affordeth for our viaticum and help in our way, it will force them to a bad end, and make that which might have been the savour of life unto life to become the savour of death unto death. Health is the gift of God, and should be used as his gift, and returned back as a sacrifice to him, crowned with the spoils of Satan and the triumphs over sin: And if it be not thus used and offered, it will be a sacrifice to De∣vils, instrumental to all wickedness, and advantage to Fraud, a help to Ambition, a bawd to Uncleanness, the upholder of Revenge, the nurse of Pride, an assistant to Covetousness, and the very life of War. We may be evil on the bed of sickness: but in health we publish and demon∣strate it: Then the deceitful coyneth his plots, the ambitious soreth, the wanton neigheth, the revenger draweth his sword, the proud lifteth up his head, the miser toyleth, and the souldier washeth his feet in the bloud of his enemies. Quid non est Dei, quod Deum offendit? saith the Father: There is nothing we receive from God but by it we may offend him. Ni∣hil tam sacrum quod non inveniat sacrilegum; Nothing is so sacred but it may be sacrilegiously abused: nothing is given us to a good end but it may be diverted and forced to a bad one. Wit is the gift of God, to this end,* 1.8 to find out knowledge of witty inventions; to devise cunning works, to work in gold and silver and brass;* 1.9 to find out arts, to find out musical tunes,* 1.10 to the glory of him quia illa omniae quae possunt inveniri primus in∣venit, as Lactantius speaketh, who first shewed what was afterwards found out: And we see it hath been brought down to endite for our lusts and malice, for our sorrows and triumphs, for every passion which tran∣sporteth us; it hath wrought in Satyre and Elegy, to feed our malice, and to encourage our lust; it hath made Philosophy perplexed, Divinity a riddle, and Trades mysterious, and is a golden cup, as Augustine speak∣eth, in which we drink and carouse our selves to the Devil. Again, Ri∣ches are the gift of God: And though he reacheth them forth but with his left hand,* 1.11 yet we may make of them a key to open the Kingdom of heaven: And to that end they were given. Yet the rich of this world too often make them the instruments of Pleasure, the fuel of Vice, a Pa∣tent and Prerogative to do what they please, a Canopy to walk under and commit evil with more state and majesty, a Supersedeas against Con∣science; in a word, a Key still, a golden Key, but to open no gates but those of Death. Power is a gift of God (for there is no power but of him) to shadow the innocent, to take the prey from the oppressour, to stand between two opposite parties till it draw them together and make them one, to work equality out of inequality, to give Mephibosheth his own lands, to be the peace of the Church, the wall of the Common-wealth, and the life of the Laws. This is the end why power is given. And what may it be made? Of a Sword it may be made a Rasor, to cut deceitfully, to cut a purse, nay, to cut a throat; to kill, and take possessi∣on, as Ahab did; to make Virtue vice, and Vice virtue; to condemn the innocent bloud, and make him a Saint who hath no other father then him who was a murtherer from the beginning; to make the Law a nose of wax, and the Scripture as pliable as that; to make that Religion, not which is best, but which is fittest for it self; to make Men beasts, and God no∣thing in this world; to make the Common-wealth an asylum and Sanctua∣ry for Libertines, a nest of Atheists, a Synagogue of hypocrites, in a word,

a map and representation of Hell it self. This, I say, Power may be. And so may every blessing of God be drawn from that end for which it was given. Wit may make us fools; Riches may be∣get pride, Power confusion, and Peace it self war; Health may breed wantonness, and that which was made to be the womb of good may be the mother of evil; as we read in Aelian, that Ni∣cippus's Sheep did yean a Lion. God oft complaineth of this in holy Scripture. And indeed this abuse of God's gifts is the seed∣plot and cause of all the evil in the world. Were it not for this, we should not hear such complaints from such a place of peace as Heaven is; I have brought thee out of the land of Egypt; and thou breakest my statutes: I took thee from the sheepcoat,* 1.12 and anointed thee King, and gave thee thy masters house; and thou hast despised my com∣mand. I washed thee with water, I decked thee with ornaments,* 1.13 I gave thee beauty; and thou playedst the harlot. I have chosen you twelve,* 1.14 chosen you all to the same end, Judas as well as Peter; and yet one of you is a Devil. It is indeed a complaint; but, if we slight and neglect it, it will end in judgment. God will confound our Wis∣dom, blow upon our Riches, and shake our Power; and our Wit shall ruine us, our Riches undo us, our Power crush us to pieces, and our Greatness make us nothing. And if this were all, yet it might well deserve an Ecce, and be an object to be looked upon even by Atheists themselves. But there is another end, an end without end; a fire ready kindled, to devoure these adversaries; a worm, that shall gnaw their hearts who received the gifts of God, and corrupted them; torment for Health, poverty for Riches, and everlasting sla∣very for Power abused. And then how happy had it been for A∣hitophel if he had not been wise! for Dives, if he had not been rich! for Hereticks, if they had not been witty! for Ahab and Nero, if they had not been Kings! how happy for the swaggerer and wan∣ton, if he had been a Clinick, or a Recluse, confined to his bed, or shut up between two walls, all the dayes of his life! And now I think you will say we may well fix an Ecce to remember us of that we have received, whether Health, or Wit, or Riches, or Power, that what was meant for our good turn not to our destruction. So from the object considerable we pass to the Act; What it is to behold and consider it.

ECCE, Behold, is as an asterisk, or a finger, pointing out to something remarkable, some object that calleth for our eye and ob∣servation, and that is already held up, and we behold it. That is soon done, you will say: for what is more sudden then the cast and twinckling of an eye? If a thing be set up and placed before us, we cannot but behold it. But we shall find that this Ecce is of a large extent and latitude, and very operative to awake all the powers and faculties of our souls, to excite our faith, and to enflame our love; that it requireth the sedulous endeavour, the contention, the labour, the travel of the mind. Many times we do not know what we know, and what we behold we do not behold, because we do not rightly consider it. Tantum valet unum vocabulum; Of such force and en∣ergy is this finger, this star, this one word, Behold.* 1.15 Behold the Lamb of God, saith the Baptist. He points out to Christ as with a finger. Why? they could not but behold him. But they are called upon with an ecce, to behold him better. The Pharisees beheld Christ, the Jews beheld him; but they did not behold and consider him as the Lamb of God. For had they thus beheld him, they had not blasphemed

him,* 1.16 they had not butchered him, as they did. Had they known him, they had not crucified the Lord of glory. We behold the heavens, the work of God's fingers; the Moon and the Stars, which he hath ordain∣ed.* 1.17 We behold this wonderful frame. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, That which may be known of God, God hath shewed us. But we do not, as Da∣vid speaketh, consider it. It doth not raise us up to the admiration of God's Majesty, nor bring us down to a due acknowledgment of our subjection. We are no more affected with it then as if it were still without form and void, a lump, a Chaos. We behold our selves, and we behold our selves mouldring away and decaying; and yet we do not behold our selves. For who considereth himself a mortal? We carry our tombs upon our heads, like those aves sepulcrales, those sepul∣cral birds, which Galen speaketh of: we bear about with us our own funerals. Every place we stand in is our grave: for in every place we draw nearer to corruption. Yet who considereth he is a living-dying man? Dives in his purple never thought how he came into the world, or how he should go out of it. We neither look backward, to what we were made; nor forward, to what we shall be. Can Herod, an Angel, a God, be struck with worms? We dye daily, and yet think we shall not dye at all. The Certainty of death may stand for an article of our faith, and as hard a one almost as the Resurrection. In a word, we are in our consideration any thing but what we are. We sin, and behold it, and sin again; but never look upon Sin as the work of the Devil, as the deformity of the soul, as that which hath no better wa∣ges then death. Our Paralytick did rise and walk, and could not but behold it; yet Christ here in the Temple calleth upon him with an ECCE, to behold it better. How then shall we paraphrase this Ec∣ce? or in what is our Consideration placed? Shall we say BEHOLD is, Think of it? shall we place it in a Thought? What is a Thought but a cast of the soul's eye, and no more? and the next object may call and carry it away. The language of the mind, saith Bernard. Many times it is a salutation, a complement, and no more. It is now, and now it is not, and so it endeth in it self. There are, saith the Father, paralyticae cogitationes, thoughts, like the man here in the Text, pa∣ralytical, weak and wavering and inconstant, which cannot reach a hand to the will, nor guide any faculty of the soul or part of the body. Every thought is not the mother of action: for we do not alwaies what we think. He that thinketh Honesty a virtue, is not alwaies an ho∣nest man. We may be driven about with the wind of opinion from object to object, and never settle on any. What is sooner conceived, what is sooner smothered, what sooner riseth, what is sooner laid then a Thought? Shall we then place this BEHOLD, and Consider, in the Memory? That indeed, saith Plato, is the health both of the Sense and Ʋn∣derstanding: it is the treasury of all things, saith Tully. I may say it is the Gallery where the object, the benefit, may hang to be often looked upon. There, when the Eye hath let in the object, the Phan∣sie and Understanding may place it. But then they may bring some∣thing which is heterogeneous and diverse from it, to blur and deface it. One thought may hang it up, and another pull it down. Or the business of the world may be drawn before it as a curtain, and leave it there as in a dark room or in the land of oblivion, till an Ecce, till some Anamnestes, some Remembrancer, draw the veil aside, and leave the picture open to our view. Our Memory is the frailest part we have. Therefore, Remember it, is not a full and perfect comment on the ECCE, Behold. Shall we place it then in Meditation? That in∣deed

may seem to reach it. For that is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, saith the Wise-man, that is all. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, saith Aristotle; It doth dilate and enlarge a benefit, spread and shew its length and bredth and depth. It is the soul of the soul, saith Tully; the agitation and heat, as the Orator speaketh, of our imaginative part. And if this heat remit not, but continue and increase, it will express the Ecce, and may go for Consi∣deration. But the circumsistant matter doth many times abate and cool it. Pleasure smileth, the World flattereth, Vanity sheweth it self in its best dress; and then our meditations sink and fall, and are buried in these false shews and apparitions, and have no power or force till we are called back with an Ecce, till they have a kind of Resurrection. We may then meditate on a benefit, and yet not behold and consider it. Where then shall we place the Ecce? or what is it to consider of an object aright? I remember the Schools speak of cogitatio practica, of a practick Thought. I may say there is a practick Memory, and a practick Meditation; which doth consider not onely ultimum, but usque ad ultimum; which vieweth the object not onely to the utmost, but every circumstance precedaneous to it; the benefit, and the per∣son on whom it was conferred, and the person who did it; the Phy∣sician, the Patient, the Cure, the Disease. Nay, it looketh also ultra ultimum, beyond the object, and considereth the end of it, and what naturally it should produce; and so judgeth of it aright; and then it draweth up the will to the judgment, to settle us and carry us on in a constant course of gratitude, and in a continuance of those a∣ctions which are proportioned to our judgment and which right rea∣son would have us to. For as in Scripture we are then said to know God, when we love him; so do we then behold and truly consider a benefit, not when we make mention of it with our lips, or when we think of it, or remember it, or meditate on it (which is but the exten∣sion of our thoughts) but when we fasten it, and make it a part of our selves, and as it were our form and principle of motion, to promote those actions and that obedience in us for which the benefit was con∣ferred and the miracle wrought. This the Father calleth the circular motion of the mind; which first settleth upon the object, and then is carried back into it self, and there boweth and swayeth the powers of the soul; it collecteth it self into it self from foreign and impertinent occurrences, and then joyneth all its forces and faculties to the accom∣plishment of that good to which the benefit inviteth us. Behold, thou art made whole: If we behold and consider that aright, we shall sin no more.

For conclusion then, To behold and consider is not a duty of such quick dispatch. and yet it is of singular use. It it our poyse and biass in all waies, to make us run evenly to the mark that is set before us. It is our compass, to guide and steer our course amidst the waves, the ebbings and flowings, the changes and chances of this world. It is our Angel, to keep us in all our wayes. It is as the opening of a window into the closet of our souls, that that light may enter which may dis∣cover every mote and atome, where before there was nothing but vacuity. It is a spy, to discover the forces of the enemy; and it is the best strength we have against him. It is the balance of the San∣ctuary, wherein we weigh every benefit to a grain. It is the best di∣vider; it giveth to God those things which are God's, and to man those things which are man's. It wipeth the paint off from Sin, and disco∣vereth Horrour; it taketh tentation from Beauty, and sheweth us fa∣ding Flesh; it strippeth Riches of their glory, and pointeth unto their

wings; it degradeth Power from its excellency, and observeth it now sinking, anon falling like Lucifer from heaven. It looketh on the World as a great dunghill, on the Flesh as carrion, and on the Devil as a damned spirit. It is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, it is wrought in us by the Spirit of God, and it is all in all. What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits? saith David. And what doth God require? This is all, To behold and consider his benefits aright. Considerati∣on is our sacrifice of thanksgiving. Then are we truly grateful when we pay God back in his own coyn, shew him his own image and superscription; a Witty man, wise unto salvation; a Beautiful man, adorned with holiness; a Rich man, merciful as he is merciful; a Powerful man, just as he is just; a man in Health, active and cheer∣ful to run the way of God's commandments. With such sacrifices God is well pleased. Thus to behold God's benefits, whether Beauty, or Wit, or Riches, or Health, is to make them benefits indeed. But if we turn them into wantonness, they will be turned into judge∣ments: we shall be the verier fools for our Wit, the poorer for our Riches, the more deformed for our Beauty, the more despi∣cable for our Power, our Health shall be worse then a disease, and Miracles themselves shall stand up to condemn us. But if we behold, that is, consider them, they will be as the influences of hea∣ven, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, defluxions, from God himself, distilling upon us to refresh and quicken us, and make us active in those duties which return them back again with praise unto their Fountain. And in the strength of them we shall walk on from faith to virtue, from virtue to knowledge, from knowledge to temperance, from temperance to patience, till we are brought into the presence of God who is the giver of all things. In a word; If we thus behold and consi∣der God's benefits; we shall sin no more; nor shall a worse thing come unto us. Which is our third and last part, and cometh next to be handled.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Psal. 78.11.
• * 1.2

  Isa. 43.7.
• * 1.3

  Isa. 42.6. Ezek. 16.6, 9. Hos. 11.3.
• * 1.4

  Isa. 41.4.
• * 1.5

  Psal. 6••.19.
• * 1.6

  Psal. 5.12.
• * 1.7

  1 Cor. 5.
• * 1.8

  Prov. 8.12.
• * 1.9

  Exod. 31.4.
• * 1.10

  Eccl, 44.
• * 1.11

  Prov. 3.16.
• * 1.12

  2 Sam. 12.
• * 1.13

  Ezek. 16.
• * 1.14

  John 6.
• * 1.15

  John 1.
• * 1.16

  1 Cor. 2.8.
• * 1.17

  Rom. 1.19.