VARIOUS
SERMONS

Contents.

1. The Rage Of Oppression. ─ Psalm 66v12.

2. Heaven Made Sure. ─ Psalm 35v3.

3. A Divine Herbal, or The Garden of Graces.

4. A Contemplation Of The Herbs.

5. The Praise Of Fertility.

6. The Forest Of Thorns.

7. The End Of Thorns.

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1. The Rage Of Oppression.

Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.—Psalm 66v12.

This verse is like that sea, Matthew 8v24, so tempestuous at first that the vessel was covered with waves; but Christ’s rebuke quieted all, and there followed a great calm. Here are cruel Nimrods riding over innocent heads, as they would over fallow lands; and dangerous passages through fire and water; but the storm is soon ended, or rather the passengers are landed: “Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.”

So that this strain of David’s music or psalmody consists of two notes— one mournful, the other mirthful; the one a touch of distress, the other of redress: which directs our course to an observation of misery and of mercy, of grievous misery, of gracious mercy. There is desolation and consolation in one verse: a deep dejection, as laid under the feet of beasts; a happy deliverance, “brought out into a wealthy place.”

In both these strains God hath his stroke: he is a principal in this concert. He is brought in for an actor and for an author; an actor in the persecution, an author in the deliverance. “Thou causest,” &c.; “Thou broughtest,” &c. In the one he is a causing worker, in the other a sole-working cause. In the one he is joined with company, in the other he works alone. He hath a finger in the former, his whole hand in the latter.

We must begin with the misery, before we come to the mercy. If there were no trouble, we should not know the worth of a deliverance. The passion of the saints is given, by the hearty and ponderous description, for very grievous: yet it is written in the forehead of the text, “The Lord caused it” “Thou causedst men to ride,” &c.

 Hereupon some wicked libertine may offer to rub his filthiness upon God’s purity, and to plead an authentical derivation of all his villainy against the saints from the Lord’s warrant: “He caused it.” We answer, to the justification of truth itself, that God doth ordain and order every persecution that striketh his children, without any allowance to the instrument that gives the blow. God works in the same action with others, not after the same manner. In the affliction of Job were three agents—God. Satan, and the Sabeans. The devil works on his body, the Sabeans on his goods; yet Job confesseth a third party: “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.” Here oppressors trample on the godly, and God is said to cause it. He causeth affliction for trial, (so, ver. 10, 11, “Thou hast tried us,” &c.;) they work it for malice: neither can God be accused nor they excused.

In a sinful action there be two things, the material and the formal part; which we commonly distinguish into the act and defect. The material part is of God, from whom is all motion; the formal is from the pravity of the agent. Persecutors could not accuse us maliciously, if God gave not motion to their tongues; nor strike us wrongfully, if he denied strength to their hands. Thought, sight, desire, speech, strength, motion, are God’s good gifts; to turn all these to his dishonour is the wicked person’s fault.

God hath another intent than man hath, even in man’s work. The Chaldeans steal Job’s wealth to enrich themselves; the devil afflicts his body in his hatred to mankind; God suffers all this for the trial of his patience. Man for covetousness, the devil for malice, God for probation of the afflicted’s constancy, and advancing his own glory. In the giving of Christ to death, as Augustine observes, Epist. 48., the Father gave the Son, the Son gave himself, Judas betrayed him, and the Jews crucified him. In one and the same tradition, God is to be blessed and man condemned. Quia in re una quatn fecerunt, causa non una ob quam fecemnt,— Because in that same thing they all did, there was not the same cause why they all did it. God’s end was love; Judas’s, avarice; the Jews’, malice.

The covetous extortioner taketh away the goods of his neighbour; that robber spoileth. He could have no tongue to plead, nor wit to circumvent, nor hands to carry away, without God; from him he hath those creatures, together with the notion of mind and motion of body. But to pervert all these to damnify others, and to damn himself, ariseth from his own avarous and rancorous pravity. His intent is wicked; yet not without God’s wisdom to raise profit from it. Perhaps the oppressed had too good a liking to the world, and began to admit a little confidence in their wealth: the Lord hath benefited them in taking away these snares, to save their souls.

Yet without toleration, countenance, or help to the wicked. The usurer hath done thee good; by making thee poor in purse, helped thee to the riches of grace; yet he goes to hell for his labour. They that do God service against their wills, shall have but shrewd wages. It cannot be denied but the devil did God service in trying Job, winnowing Peter, buffeting Paul, executing Judas; yet shall not all this ease the least torment of his damnation. For trial here are these oppressors suffered to ride over the godly’s heads, and to drive them through fire and water; when these have, like furnaces, purged them from dross and corruption, themselves shall be burnt. For it is usual with God, when he hath done beating his children, to throw the rod into the fire. Babylon a long time shall be the Lord’s hammer to bruise the nations; at last itself shall be bruised. Judas did an act that redounds to God’s eternal honour and our blessed salvation, yet was his wages the gallows. All these hammers, axes, rods, saws, swords, instruments, when they have done those offices they never meant, shall for those they have meant be thrown to confusion.

I will now leave God’s justice to himself, and come to the injustice of these oppressors, and the passion of the sufferers. And because the quality of these latter shall add some aggravation to the cruel malice of the former, I will first set before your eyes the martyrs. The psalm being written by David, and the sufferers spoken of in the first person plural,—we, us, and our, — it follows that it was both David and such as David was: beloved of God, holy, saints.

And whom doth the world think to ride over but saints? Psalm 44v22. Who should be appointed to the slaughter but sheep? The wolf will not prey on the fox, he is too crafty; nor on the elephant, he is too mighty; nor on a dog, he is too equal; but on the silly lamb, that can neither run to escape nor fight to conquer. They write of a bird that is the crocodile’s tooth-picker, and feeds on the fragments left in his teeth while the serpent lies a-sunning; which when the unthankful crocodile would devour, God hath-set so sharp a prick on the top of the bird’s head, that he dares not shut his jaws till it be gone. And they speak of a little fish that goes bristling by the pike, or any other ravenous water creature, and they dare not for his pricks and thorns touch him. Those whom nature or art, strength or sleight, have made inexposable to easy ruin, may pass unmolested. The wicked will not grapple upon equal terms; they must have either local or ceremonial advantage. But the Godly are weak and poor, and it is not hard to prey upon prostate fortunes. A low hedge is soon trodden down; and over a wretch dejected on the base earth an insulting enemy may easily stride. While David is down, (or rather in him figured the church,) “the plowers may plow upon his back, and make long their furrows” Psalm 129v3.

But what if they ride over our heads, and wound our flesh, let them not wound our patience. Though we seal the bond of conscience with the blood of innocence, though we lose our lives, let us not lose our patience. Lanctantius [1] says of the philosophers, that they had a sword and wanted a buckler; but a buckler doth better become a Christian than a sword. Let us know non nunc honoris nostri tempus esse, sed doloris, sed passionis — that this is not the time of our joy and honour, but of our passion and sorrow. Therefore “let us with patience run the race” &c., Hebrews 12v1.

But leave we ourselves thus suffering, and come to speak of that we must be content to feel, the oppression of our enemies. Wherein we will consider the agents and the actions.

The AGENTS are men: “Thou hast caused men to ride,” &c. Man is a sociable-living creature, and should converse with man in love and tranquillity. Man should be a supporter of man; is he become an overthrower? He should help and keep him up; doth he ride over him and tread him under foot? O apostasy, not only from religion, but even from humanity! Quid homini inimicissimum? Homo, [2] —The greatest danger that befalls man comes whence it should least come, from man himself. Cœtera animantia, says Pliny, in suo genere, probe degunt, &c.,— Lions fight not with lions; serpents spend not their venom on serpents; but man is the main suborner of mischief to his own kind.

It is reported of the bees, that œgrotante una, lamentantur omnes,— when one is sick, they all mourn. And of sheep, that if one of them be faint, the rest of the flock will stand between it and the sun till it be revived. Only man to man is most pernicious. We know that a bird, yea, a bird of rapine, once fed a man in the wilderness, 1 Kings 17v6; and that a beast, yea, a beast of fierce cruelty, spared a man in his den, Daniel 6v22. Whereupon saith a learned father Farœ parcunt, aves pascunt, homines saeviunt [3] — The birds feed man, and the beasts spare him, but man rageth against him. Wherefore I may well conclude with Solomon, Prov. 17v12. “Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.”

God hath hewn us all out of one rock, tempered all our bodies of one clay, and spirited our souls with one breath. Therefore, saith Augustine, sith we proceed all out of one stock, let us all be of one mind. Beasts molest not their own kind, and birds of the feather fly lovingly together. Not only the blessed angels of heaven agree in mutual harmony, but even the very devils of hell are not divided, lest they ruin their kingdom. We have one greater reason for unity and love than all the rest. For whereas God made nor all angels of one angel, nor all beasts of the great behemoth, nor all fishes of the huge leviathan, nor all birds of the majestical eagle, yet he made all men of one man. Let us then not jar in the disposition of our minds, that so agree in the composition of our natures. You see how inhuman and unnatural it is for man to wrong man; of his own kind, and, as it were, of his own kin.—Thus for the agents.

The ACTION is amplified in divers circumstances, climbing up by rough stairs to a high transcendency of oppression. It ariseth thus—1. In riding. 2. In riding over us. 3. In riding over our heads. 4. In driving us through fire and water.

1. They ride. What need they mount themselves upon beasts, that have feet malicious enough to trample on us? They have a “foot of pride,” Psalm 36v11, from which David prayed to be delivered; a presumptuous heel, which they dare lift up against God; and therefore a tyrannous toe, to spurn dejected man. They need not horses and mules, that can kick with the foot of a revengeful malice, Psalm 32v9.

2. Over us. The way is broad enough wherein they travel, for it is the Devil’s road. They might well miss the poor: there is room enough on both sides; they need not ride over us. It were more brave for them to justle with champions that will not give them the way. We never contend for their path; they have it without our envy; not without our pity. Why should they rise over us?

3. Over our heads. Is it not contentment enough to their pride to ride, to their malice to ride over us, but must they delight in bloodiness to ride over our heads? Will not the breaking of our arms and legs, and such inferior limbs, satisfy their indignation? Is it not enough to rack our strength, to mock our innocence, to prey on our estates, but must they thirst after our bloods and lives? Quo tendit sceva libido?—Whither will their madness run?

But we must not tie ourselves to the letter. Here is a mystical or metaphorical gradation of their cruelty. Their riding is proud; their riding over us is malicious; and their riding over our heads is bloody oppression.

1. They ride. This phrase describes a vice compounded of two damnable ingredients, pride and tyranny. It was a part of God’s fearful curse to rebellious recidivation, Deuteronomy 28, that their enemies should ride and triumph over them, and they should come down very low under their feet. It is delivered for a notorious mark of the great whore of Babylon’s pride, that she “rides upon a scarlet-coloured beast,” Rev. 17v4. St Paul seems to apply the same word to oppression, 1 Thessalonians 4v6, “that no man oppress his brother.” The original ὑπερβαίνειν, to go upon him, climb on him, or tread him under foot.

O blasphemous height of villainy! Not only, by false slanders, to betray a man’s innocence, nor to lay violent hands upon his estate; but to trip up his heels with frauds, or to lay him along with injuries, and then to trample on him! And because the foot of man, for that should be soft and favouring, cannot despatch him, to mount upon beasts, wild and savage affections, and to ride upon him.

2. Over us. This argues their malice. It were a token of wilful spite for a horseman, in a great road, to refuse all way, and to ride over a poor traveller. Such is the implacable malice of these persecutors. Isaiah 59v7, “Wasting and destruction are in their paths;” yea, wasting and destruction are their paths. They have fierce looks and truculent hearts: their very path is ruin, and every print of their foot vastation. They neither reverence the aged, nor pity the sucking infant; virgins cannot avoid their rapes, nor women with child their massacres. They go, they run, they stride, they ride over us. 

The language of their lips is that which Babylon spake concerning Jerusalem, Psalm 137v7, “Down with it, down with it, even to the ground. Base it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.” Desolation sits in their eyes, and shoots out through those fiery windows the burning glances of waste, havoc, ruin: till they turn a land into solitude, into a desert, and habitation for their fellow-beasts, and their worse selves. O unmerciful men! that should be to mankind as God, but are more ragingly noxious than wolves. They have lost the nature, let them also lose the name of men.

“Vis repperit unum, Talibus e multis, hominem consultus Apollo.”

But it is ever true, optimi corruptio pessima,—the fairest flowers putrefied, stink worse than weeds: even an angel falling became a devil; and man debauched strives to come as near this devil as he can. They should put their hands under our falling heads, and lift us up; but they kick us down, and ride over us.

3. Over our heads. This notes their bloodiness, unpacifiable but by our slaughters. The pressing, racking, or breaking of our inferior limbs contents not their malice: they must wound the most sensible and vital part, our heads. The Lord be blessed, that hath now freed us from these bloody tidings, and sent us peace with truth! Yet can we not be forgetful of the past calamities in this land; nor insensible of the present in other places. The time was when the Bonners and butchers rode over the faces of God’s saints, and madefied the earth with their bloods, every drop whereof begot a new believer. When they martyred the living with the dead; burnt the impotent wife with the husband, who is content to die with him with whom she may not live, yea, rejoicing to go together to their Saviour: when they threw the new-born (yea, scarce-born) infant, dropping out of the mother’s belly, into the mother’s flames; whom, if they had been Christians, they would first have christened, if not cherished;—this was a fiery zeal indeed, set on fire with the fire of hell. They love fire still: they were then for faggots, they are now for powder. If these be catholics, there are no cannibals. They were then mounted on horses of authority, now they ride on the wings of policy.

Our comfort is, that though all these, whether persecutors of our faith or oppressors of our life, ride over our particular heads, yet we have all one Head, whom they cannot touch. They may massacre this corporal life, and spoil the local seat of it, whether in head or heart; but our spiritual life, which lies and lives in one Head, Jesus Christ, they cannot reach. No hellish stratagems nor combined outrages, no human powers nor devilish principalities can touch that life; for it is “hid with Christ in God,” Colossians 3v3. 

Indeed this Head doth not only take their blows as meant at him, but he even suffers with us: Acts 9v4, “Saul, why persecutest thou me?” Saul strikes on earth; Christ Jesus suffers in heaven. There is more lively sense in the head than in other members of the body. Let but the toe ache, and the head manifests by the countenance a sensible grief. The body of the church cannot suffer without the sense of our blessed Head. Thus saith Paul, 2 Corinthians 1v5, “The sufferings of Christ abound in us.” These afflictions are the showers that follow the great storm of his passion: Colossians 1v24, “We fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in our flesh.” We must be content for him, as he was for us, to weep, and groan, and bleed, and die, that we may reign. If we sow not in tears, how shall we look to reap in joy Psalm 126v5. How shall we shine like stars in heaven, if we go not through the fiery trial or land at the haven of bliss, if we pass not the waves of this troublesome water?

You see riders; but you will say, What is this to us? We have no such riders. Yes, many, too many; even so many as we have oppressors, either by tongue or hand. Shall I name some of them?

The malicious slanderer is a perilous rider; and he rides, like death, upon a pale horse, Revelation 6v2, Envy. Thus were the Pharisees mounted when they rode over Christ, even the Head of our heads. If Jesus will not be a Pharisee, they will nail him to the cross. These venomous cantharides light upon God’s fairest flowers, and strive either to blast them with their contumelious breaths, or to tread them under their malicious feet.

The griping usurer is a pestilent rider; and he is mounted on a heavy jade, Mammon, or love of money. Every step of this beast wounds to the heart, and quasheth out the life-blood. Oh that this sordid beast of usury, with all his ponderous and unwieldy trappings,—bills, obligations, pawns, mortgages,—were thrown into a fire temporal, that the rider’s converted soul might be saved from the fire eternal! If any Alcibiades had authority and will to kindle such a fire in England as was once at Athens, I believe that no tears would be shed to quench it; but the music of our peace would sound merrily to it, and the rather because there would be no more groans to disturb it 

The destructive depopulator is another pestiferous rider. He is a lighthorseman; he can leap hedges and ditches, and therefore makes them in the midst of plain fields. He loves to ride in his own ground; and for this purpose expelleth all neighbours. Though Solomon says, Ecclesiastes 5v9, that “the king is served by the field that is tilled;” yet he, as if he were wiser than Solomon, promiseth to serve him better with grass. He posteth after the poor, and hunts them out of his lordship. He rides from town to town, from village to village, from land to land, from house to house; à doloso furto ad publicum latrocinium, and never rest till he hath rid to the devil.

And there is a fourth rider gallops after him amain, as if he had sworn not to be hindmost—the oppressing landlord. And he rides upon a horse that hath no pace but racking; for that is the master’s delight, racking of rents: and he hath two lacqueys or pages run by him—fines and carriages. Thus ascended and attended, he rides over the heads and hearts of the poor tenants, that they can no more grow in wealth than corn can that is scattered in the highway; for they, as that, are continually overridden by their merciless landlord. Let these riders take heed, lest the curses of the poor stumble their horses, and break their necks.

The churlish cormorant is a mischievous rider: he sits on a black jade, Covetousness; and rides only from market to market, to buy up grain when he hath store to sell: and so hatcheth up dearth in a year of plenty. Our land is too full of these riders: they repine and complain of the unseasonableness of the weather, of the barrenness of the earth; but they conceal the true cause, whereof their own souls are conscious, their uncharitableness. The earth hath never been so frozen as their consciences; nor is the ground so fruitless of plenty as they of pity. This is not mala terra, bona gens; but mala gens, bona terra,—we have bad minds, good materials. The earth hath not scanted her fruits, but our concealings have been close, our enhavacings ravenous, our transportations lavish. The Lord sends grain, and the devil sends garners. The imprecations of the poor shall follow these riders, and the ears of God shall attend their cries.

There is the proud gallant, that comes forth like a May-morning, decked with all the glory of art; and his adorned lady, in her own imagination a second Flora: and these are riders too, but closer riders. The world with them runs upon wheels; and they, hastening to overtake it, outrun it. Their great revenues will not hold out with the year: the furniture on their backs exceeds their rent-day. Hence they are fain to wring the poor sponges of the country, to quench the burning heat of the city. Therefore say the countrymen, that their carts are never worse employed than when they do service to coaches.

There is the fraudulent tradesman, that rides no further than between the burse and the shop, on the back of a quick-spirited hobby called Cheating: and whereas greatness presseth the poor to death with their weight, this man trips up their heels with his cunning. They have one God at the church, another at their shops; and they will fill their coffers, though they fester their consciences. This rider laughs men in the face while he treads on their hearts; his tongue knows no other pace but a false gallop.

The bribe-groping officer, in what court soever his dition lies, is an oppressing rider: they that would have their suits granted, must subject their necks to his feet, and let him ride over them. He confutes the old allegory of Justice, that is usually drawn blind, for he will see to do a petitioner ease by the light of his angels. Nothing can unlock his lips but a golden key. This rider’s horse, like that proud emperor’s, must be shod with silver; and poor man must buy of him, and that at a dear rate, his own treading on.

I come to him last, whom I have not least cause to think upon, the church-defrauder, that rides upon a winged horse, as if he would fly to the devil, called Sacrilege. He may appear in the shape of a Protestant, but he is the most absolute recusant; for he refuseth to pay God his own. He wears the name of Christ for the same purpose the Papists wear the cross, only for a charm. These are the merchants of souls; the pirates of God’s ship, the church; the underminers of religion, they are still practising trains to blow it up. They will not pay their Levites; their Levites must pay them. They will not part with their cures, whereof they have the donation, but upon purchase. But it is no wonder if they sell the cures, that have first sold their souls. The charitable man dreams of building churches, but starts to think that these men will pull them down again.

There is yet one other rider, though he spurs post, must not pass by me unnoted: the truth-hating Jesuit that comes trotting into England on a red horse, like Murder, dipped and dyed in the blood of souls; and, if he can reach it, in the blood of bodies too. Neither doth he thirst so much after ordinary blood, that runs in common veins, as after the blood-royal. There is no disease, saith one, that may so properly be called the king’s-evil. He is the devil’s make-bait, and his chief officer to set princes together by the ears. He sits like the raven on a dead bough, and when the lion and leopard come forth to fight, he sounds out a point of war, hoping whichsoever falls, his carcass shall serve him for a prey to feed on. His main study is to fill the schools with clamours, the church with errors, the churchyard with corpses, and all Christian States with tragedies. The Seminaries were once like that strange weed, tobacco, at the first coming up; but here and there one entertained in some great man’s house, now may you find them smoking in every cottage. They have deservingly increased the disgrace of that religion; so that now, in the common censure, a Papist is but a new word for a traitor. They have received their errand at Tiber, and they deliver it at Tyburn.

There are many other riders, so properly ranking themselves in this number, and assuming this name, which, for modesty’s sake, I bury in silence; considering that quœedam vitia nominate docentur,—some sins are taught by reporting their names.

But I perceive a prevention: I have not time enough to end our misery, much less to enter the speech of our mercy. The journey they make us take through fire and water requires a more punctual tractation than your patience will now admit. Two short uses shall send away our oppressors with fear, ourselves with joy.

1. For them. Let all these tyrannous riders know, that there is one rides after them,—a great one, a just one,—even he that “rides on the wings of the wind, and the clouds are the dust of his feet:” he that hath a bridle for these Sennacheribs, and strikes a snaffle through their jaws, and turns their violence with more ease than the wind doth a vane on the house-top. Then “a horse shall be but a vain thing to save a man,” saith the Psalmist. Horse and Master shall fall together. Then the covetous Nimrod, that rode on the black beast, Oppression, shall be thundered down from his proud height, and the jade that carried him shall dash out his brains, and lie heavier than a thousand talents of lead on his conscience. His oppression shall damn himself, as before it did damn others. It was to them a momentary vexation, it shall be to him an eternal pressure of torment.

Then the blood-drawing usurer, that rode so furiously on his jade, Extortion, shall (if timely deprecation and restitution stay him not) run full butt against the gates of hell, and break his neck. And he that at the bars of temporal judgments cried out for nothing but justice, justice, and had it, shall now cry louder for mercy, mercy, and go without it. And let the cormorant, that rides on the back of Engrossing, whose soul is like Erisicathon’s bowels in the poet —

“Quodque urbibua esse, 

Quodque satis poterat populo, non sufficit uni”— 

that starves men to feed vermin—know, that there is a pursuivant flies after him, that shall give him an eternal arrest, and make him leave both horreum and hordeum, his barn and his barley, to go to a place where is no food but fire and anguish.

And the lofty gallant, that rides over the poor with his coaches and caroches, drawn by two wild horses, Pride and Luxury; let him take heed, lest he meet with a wind that shall take off his chariot-wheels, as Pharaoh was punished, Exodus 14, and drown horses, and chariots, and riders; not in the Red Sea, but in that infernal lake whence there is no redemption.

Let all these riders beware lest he that rides on the wings of vengeance, with a sword drawn in his hand, and that will eat flesh and drink blood; that will make such haste in the pursuit of his enemies that he will not bait or refresh himself by the way; lest this God, before they have repented, overtake them. Psalm. 45v4,5, “Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty; and in thy majesty ride prosperously,” &c.; “and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things.” Then shall the “Lord remember the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem,” Psalm 137v7, 8; and “reward them as they served us.” Lo, now, the end of these riders: Psalm 36v11, “There are the workers of iniquity fallen: they are cast down, and shall not be able to rise.” Zechariah 10v5, “The riders on horses shall be confounded.”

2. For us. Though passion possess our bodies, let “patience possess our souls.” The law of our profession binds us to a warfare; patiendo vincimus, our troubles shall end, our victory is eternal. Hear David’s triumph, Ps. 18v38–40, “I have wounded them, that they were not able to rise; they are fallen under my feet. Thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me. Thou hast also given me the neck of mine enemies,” &c. They have wounds for their wounds; and the treaders down of the poor are trodden down by the poor. The Lord will subdue those to us that would have subdued us to themselves; and though for a short time they rode over our heads, yet now at last we shall everlastingly tread upon their necks. Lo, then, the reward of humble patience and confident hope. Speramus et saperamus. Deuteronomy 32v31, “Our God is not as their God, even our enemies being judges.” Psalm 20v7, “Some put their trust in chariots, and some in horses.” But no chariot hath strength to oppose, nor horse swiftness to escape, when God pursues. Ver. 8, “They are brought down, and fallen; we are risen, and stand upright.” Their trust hath deceived them; down they fall, and never to rise. Our God hath helped us; we are risen, not for a breathing space, but to stand upright for ever.

Temptations, persecutions, oppressions, crosses, infamies, bondage, death, are but the way wherein our blessed Saviour went before us; and many saints followed him. Behold them with the eyes of faith, now mounted above the clouds, trampling all the vanities of this world under their glorified feet; standing on the battlements of heaven, and wafting us to them with the hands of encouragement. They bid us fight, and we shall conquer; suffer, and we shall reign. And as the Lord Jesus, that once suffered a reproachful death at the hands of his enemies, now sits at the right hand of the Majesty in the highest places, far above all principalities and powers, thrones and dominations, “till his enemies be made his footstool;” so one day they that in their haughty pride and merciless oppressions rode over our heads, shall then lie under our feet. “Through thee will we push down our enemies; through thee will we tread them under that rise up against us.” At what time yonder glorious sky, cœlum stellatum, which is now our ceiling over our heads, shall be but a pavement under our feet. To which glory, he that made us by his word, and bought us by the blood of his Son, seal us up by his blessed Spirit! Amen.

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2. Heaven Made Sure; Or The Certainty of Salvation.

Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.— Psalm 35v3.

The words contain a petition for a benediction. The supplicant is a king, and his humble suit is to the King of kings: the king of Israel prays to the King of heaven and earth. He doth beg two things:— 1. That God would save him; 2. That God would certify him of it. So that the text may be distributed accordingly, into salvation, and the assurance of it.

The assurance lies first in the words, and shall have the first place in my discourse; wherein I conceive two things —the matter, and the manner. The matter is assurance; the manner, how assured: “Say unto my soul.”

1. From the matter, or assurance, observe —

i. That salvation may be made sure to a man. David would never pray for that which could not be. Nor would St Peter charge us with a duty which stood not in possibility to be performed: 2 Peter 1v10,“Make your election sure.” And to stop the bawling throats of all cavilling adversaries, Paul directly proves it: 2 Corinthians 13v5,“know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” We may then know that Christ is in us: if Christ be in us, we are in Christ; if we are in Christ we cannot be condemned; for, Romans 8v1, “There is no damnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”

ii. That the best saints have desired to make their salvation sure. David that knew it, yet entreats to know it more. Psalm 41v11, “I know thou favourest me” yet here still, “Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.” A man can never be too sure of his going to heaven. If we purchase an inheritance on earth, we make it as sure, and our tenure as strong, as the brawn of the law, or the brains of the lawyers, can devise. We have conveyance, and bonds, and fines, no strength too much. And shall we not be more curious in the settling our eternal inheritance in heaven? Even the best certainty hath often, in this, thought itself weak. Here we find matter of consolation, of reprehension, of admonition: comfort to some, reproof to others, warning to all.

Of consolation. Even David desires better assurance to keep us from dejection, behold, they often think themselves weakest that are the strongest. He calls himself the “chiefest of sinners,” 1 Timothy 1v15, that was not the least of saints. Indeed sometimes a dear saint may want feeling of the spirit of comfort. Grace comes into the soul as the morning sun into the world: there is first a dawning, then a mean light, and at last the sun in his excellent brightness. In a Christian life there is professio, profectio, perfectio. A profession of the name of Christ wrought in our conversion; not the husk of religion, but the sap: “A pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned.” Next, there is a profection, or going forward in grace, “working up our salvation in fear and trembling.” Last, a perfection or full assurance, that we are “sealed up to the day of redemption.”

And yet after this full assurance there may be some fear: it is not the commendation of this certainty to be void of doubting. The wealthiest saints have suspected their poverty; and the richest in grace are yet “poorest in spirit.” As it is seen in rich misers: they possess much, yet esteem it little in respect of what they desire; for the fulness of riches cannot answer the insatiable affection. Whence it comes to pass that they have restless thoughts, and vexing cares for that they have not, not caring for that they have. So many good men, rich in the graces of God’s Spirit, are so desirous of more, that they regard not what they enjoy, but what they desire: complaining often that they have no grace, no love, no life.

This is the sweetest comfort that can come to a man in this life, even a heaven upon earth, to be ascertained of his salvation. There are many mysteries in the world, which curious wits with perplexful studies strive to apprehend. But without this,“he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow,” Ecclesiastes 1v18. This one thing is only necessary; whatsoever I leave unknown, let me know this, that I am the Lord’s. He may without danger be ignorant of other things that truly knows Jesus Christ. There is no potion of misery so embittered with gall but this can sweeten it with a comfortable relish. When enemies assault us, get us under, triumph over us, imagining that salvation itself cannot save us, what is our comfort? “I know whom I have believed,” I am sure the Lord will not forsake me. Thou wantest bread; God is thy bread of life. We want a pillow; God is our “resting-place,” Psalm 32v7. We may be without apparel, not without faith; without meat, not without Christ; without a house, never without the Lord. What state can there be wherein the stay of this heavenly assurance gives us not peace and joy?

Are we clapped up in a dark and desolate dungeon? There the light of the sun cannot enter, the light of mercy not be kept out. What restrained body, that hath the assurance of this eternal peace, will not pity the darkness of the profane man’s liberty, or rather the liberty of his darkness? No walls can keep out an infinite spirit; no darkness can be uncomfortable where “the Father of lights,” James 1v17, and the “Sun of righteousness,” Malachi 4v2, shineth. The  presence of glorious angels is much, but of the most glorious God is enough.

Are we cast out in exile, our backs to our native home? All the world is our way. Whither can we go from God? Psalm 139v7, “Whither shall I go from thy face? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” That exile would be strange that could separate us from God. I speak not of those poor and common comforts, that in all lands and coasts it is his sun that shines, his elements of earth or water that bear us, his air we breathe; but of that special privilege, that his gracious presence is ever with us; that no sea is so broad as to divide us from his favour; that wheresoever we feed, he is our host; wheresoever we rest, the wings of his blessed providence are stretched over us. Let my soul be sure of this, though the whole world be traitors to me.

Doth the world despise us? We have sufficient recompense that God esteems us. How unworthy is that man of God’s favour that cannot go away contented with it without the world’s! Doth it hate us much? God hates it more. That is not ever worthy which man honours; but that is ever base which God despises. Without question, the world would be our friend if God were our enemy. The sweetness of both cannot be enjoyed; let it content us we have the best.

2. Thus much for the matter of the assurance, let us now come to the manner: “Say unto my soul.”

SAY.— But is God a man? Hath he a tongue? How doth David desire him to speak? That God who made the ear, shall not he hear? He that made the eye, shall not he see? He that made the tongue, shall not he speak? He that sees without eyes, and hears without ears, and walks without feet, and works without hands, can speak without a tongue. Now God may be said to speak divers ways.

God speaks by his Scriptures: Romans 15v4, “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope.” Scripta sunt,— they are written. Things that go only by tale or tradition meet with such variations, augmentations, abbreviations, corruptions, false glosses, that, as in a lawyer’s pleading, truth is lost in the quaere for her. Related things we are long in getting, quick in forgetting; therefore God commanded his law should be written. Litera scripta manet.

Thus God doth effectually speak to us. Many good wholesome instructions have dropped from human pens, to lesson and direct man in goodness; but there is no promise given to any word to convert the soul but to God’s word. Oh that we had hearts to bless God for his mercy, that the Scriptures are among us, and not sealed up under an unknown tongue! The time was when a devout father was glad of a piece of the New Testament in English; when he took his little son into a corner, and with joy of soul heard him read a chapter, so that even children became fathers to their fathers, and begat them to Christ. Now, as if the commonness had abated the worth, our Bibles lie dusty in the windows; it is all if a Sunday-handling quit them from perpetual oblivion. Few can read, fewer do read, fewest of all read as they should. God of his infinite mercy lay not to our charge this neglect!

God speaks by his ministers, expounding and opening to us those Scriptures. These are legati à latere, dispensers of the mysteries of heaven, “ambassadors for Christ, as if God did beseech you through us: so we pray you in Christ’s stead, that you would be reconciled to God,” 2 Corinthians 5v20. This voice is continually sounding in our churches, beating upon our ears; I would it could pierce our consciences, and that our lives would echo to it in an answerable obedience. How great should be our thankfulness!

God hath dealt with us as he did with Elijah: 1 Kings 19v11–12,“The Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: after the wind came an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still voice,” and the Lord came with that voice. After the same manner hath God done to this land. In the time of King Henry the Eighth, there came a great and mighty wind, that rent down churches, overthrew altarages, impropriated from ministers their livings, that made laymen substantial parsons, and clergymen their vicarshadows. It blew away the rights of Levi into the lap of Issachar. A violent wind; but God was not in that wind. In the days of King Edward the Sixth, there came a terrible earthquake, hideous vapours of treasons and conspiracies, rumbling from Rome, to shake the foundations of that church, which had now left off loving the whore, and turned Antichrist quite out of his saddle. Excommunications of prince and people; execrations and curses in their tetrical forms with bell, book, and candle; indulgences, bulls, pardons, promises of heaven to all traitors that would extirpate such a king and kingdom. A monstrous earthquake; but God was not in the earthquake. In the days of Queen Mary came the fire, an unmerciful fire, such a one as was never before kindled in England, and, we trust in Jesus Christ, never shall be again. It raged against all that professed the gospel of Christ; made bonfires of silly women for not understanding that their ineffable mystery of transubstantiation; burnt the mother with the child. Bonner and Gardiner were those hellish bellows that set it on flaming. A raging and insatiable fire; but God was not in that fire. In the days of Queen Elizabeth, of blessed memory, came the still voice, saluting us with the songs of Zion, and speaking the comfortable things of Jesus Christ. And God came with this voice. This sweet and blessed voice is still continued by our gracious sovereign. God long preserve him with it, and it with him, and us all with them both!

TO MY SOUL.— Mine. I might here examine whose this meae is. Who is the owner of this my? A prophet, a king, a man after God’s own heart; that confessed himself the beloved of God; that knew the Lord would never forsake him; holy, happy David owns this meae: he knows the Lord loves him, yet desires to know it more, “say to my soul.” But let this teach us to make much of this my. Luther says there is great divinity in pronouns. The assurance that God will save some is a faith incident to devils. The very reprobates may believe that there is a book of election; but God never told them that their names were written there. The hungry beggar at the feast-house gate smells good cheer, but the master doth not say ,“This is provided for thee.” It is small comfort to the harbourless wretch to pass through a goodly city, and see many glorious buildings, when he cannot say, “I have a place here.” The beauty of that excellent city Jerusalem, built with sapphires, emeralds, chrysolites, and such precious stones, the foundation and walls whereof are perfect gold, Revelation 21, affords a soul no comfort, unless he can say, “I have a mansion in it.” The all-sufficient merits of Christ do thee no good, unless tua pars et portio, he be thy Saviour. Happy soul that can say with the Psalmist, “O Lord, thou art my portion!” Let us all have oil in our lamps, lest if we be then to buy, beg, or borrow, we be shut out of doors, like the fools, not worthy of entrance.

To conclude: It is salvation our prophet desires; that God would seal him up for his child, then certify him of it. He requests not riches; he knew that man may be better fed than taught, that wealth doth but frank men up to death. He that prefers riches before his soul, doth but sell the horse to buy the saddle, or kill a good horse to catch a hare. He begs not honour: many have leapt from the high throne to the low pit. The greatest commander on earth hath not a foot of ground in heaven, except he can get it by entitling himself to Christ. He desires not pleasures; he knows there are as great miseries beyond prosperity as on this side it. And that all vanity is but the indulgence of the present time; a minute begins, continues, ends it: for it endures but the acting, and leaves no solace in the memory. In the fairest garden of delights there is somewhat that stings in the midst of all vain contents.

In a word, it is not momentary, variable, apt to either change or chance, that he desires; but eternal salvation. He seeks, like Mary, “that better part which shall never be taken from him.” The wise man’s mind is ever above the moon, saith Seneca: let the world make never so great a noise, as if it all ran upon coaches, and all those full of roarers, yet all peace is there. It is not sublunary, under the wheel of changeable mortality, that he wishes, but salvation. To be saved is simply the best plot: beat your brains, and break your sleeps, and waste your marrows, to be wealthy, to be worthy for riches, for honours; plot, study, contrive, be as politic as you can; and then kiss the child of your own brains, hug your inventions, applaud your wits, dote upon your advancements or advantagements; yet all these are but dreams. When you awake, you shall confess that to make sure your salvation was the best plot; and no study shall yield you comfort but what hath been spent about it. What should we then do but work and pray? Work, saith Paul: Philippians 2v12,—“Work up your salvation with fear and trembling,”; and then pray with our prophet, “Lord, say to our souls, thou art our salvation,” with comfort and rejoicing.

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3. A Divine Herbal; Or A Garden Of Graces.

For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God; but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.—Hebrews 6v7–8. 

I presume here is no atheist to hear and deny, “the gospel is the power of God to salvation,” Romans 1v16. I hope here is no libertine; if there be, let him hear also: it is the power of God to confusion. It is a double-edged sword, Hebrews 4v12, and gives either instruction or destruction. It is fire, that doth melt wax to repentance, and harden clay to vengeance. It is here a rain or dew falling on the ground of man’s heart, causing one soil to be fertile in good works, another to abound with weeds of impiety: “for it returneth not back to him that sent it, in vain.” That it conveys grace to us, and returns our fruitful gratitude to God, is a high and happy mercy. That it offers grace to the wicked, and by their corrupt natures occasions greater impiety, is a heavy but holy judgment.

Not to travel far for division, here lies earth before us. And as I have seen in some places of this land, one hedge parts a fruitful meadow and a barren heath, so of this earth, man; the same substance for nature's constitution, clay of the same heap in the creating hand of the potter; for matter, mass, and stuff, none made de meliore luto; though in respect of eternity's ordination, some vessels of honour, of dishonour others. Here be two kinds, a good and a bad soil; the one a garden, the other a desert: the former an enclosure of sweet herbs, excellent graces; the latter a wild and savage forest of briers and thorns, scratching and wounding offences.

For the better ground we will consider — 1. The operative means or working cause of the fertility, “the rain that cometh often upon it;” 2. The thankful returning of expected fruit, “it bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed;” 3. The reward of mercy, “it receiveth blessing from God.”

All is an allegory. I. The earth is man; II. The rain, God’s word; III. The herbs are graces; and, IV. The blessing is a sweet retribution of mercy. 

I. The earth is the best ground that lies betwixt heaven and earth, man; the noblest part of this world; the worthiest creature, that hath earth for its pavement, and heaven for its ceiling; the Creator’s image, and as some read, his shadow, which moves as the body doth whose it is. When the body puts forth an arm, the shadow shews an arm, &c.; so man in his actions and courses depends upon the disposition of God, as his all-powerful Maker and Mover. The blessed Deity (which hath in it a trinity of most equal and eternal Persons) is the first and best of all beings; the holy angels next; et à, Jove tertius Ajax, man next them.

Ardens conceiteth upon Mark 16, in the apostles’ commission, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,” that by this “every creature,” is meant man. For to lifeless, senseless, or reasonless things, God never enjoined to preach the gospel. But man is called “every creature,” because he hath a participation of the best in all creatures. Stones have a being, not life; plants have a being and life, not sense; beasts have a being, life, and sense, but not understanding; angels have both being, life, sense, and understanding. Man participates with all these in their best. He hath a being with stones, life with plants, sense with beasts, understanding with angels: a sweet abstract or compendium of all creatures’ perfections.

Let not all this make man proud. Even this word earth, though here used in a spiritual sense, puts him in mind that this excellent man is a mortal creature. Earth must to earth: hot earth to cold earth; that earth which hath now a life in it, to that earth which hath no life in it. Therefore I will say from the prophet, “O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord” Jeremiah 22v29. Bestow not too much pains in adorning this perishable earth, thy flesh: the earth thou must be careful of, and which God here waters from heaven with his holy dews, is thy heart, thy conscience.

I could willingly step out a little to chide those, that, neglecting God’s earth, the soul, fall to trimming with a curious superstition the earth’s earth, clay and loam: a body of corruption painted, till it shine like a lily, (like it in whiteness, not in humility, the candour of beauty, for the lily grows low: lilium convallium, Song of Songs 2v1, a flower of the valleys and bottoms;) a little slime done over with a pasteboard; rottenness hid under golden leaves; stench lapped up in a bundle of silks; and, by reason of poison sucked from sin and hell, worthy of no better attribute than glorious damnation. Is there no sickness, is there no disgrace, is there no old age, is there no death, that you make so much of this earth? Or do you desperately resolve to dote on it living, as if you never hoped to find it again being dead? Fear not, you shall meet with it again; perhaps when you would not. God hath struck as gallant as you can make or think yourselves, with sudden, sore, and sure judgments. Believe it, his hand is his own. His arm was never yet broken, luxate, or manacled.

Woe worth them that have put pride and covetousness fellow-commoners among us, for they outeat us all, and starve the whole house of our land! Covetise would be charitable, but there is that other sum to make up. Pride would give, or at least forbear to extort, but there is a ruff of the new fashion to be bought. Dignity, a carriage, or strange apparel is to be purchased; and who but the poor tenants must pay for it? — upon whom they (once so accoutred) afterward look betwixt scorn and anger, and go as if they were shut up in wainscot.

‘Sed vitate viros cultum formasque professos;
Quique suas ponunt in statione comae.’

Such a one will not give, lest his white hand should touch the poor beggar’s, who perhaps hath a hand cleaner than his; I mean from aspersions of blood, rapine, injury, bribery, lust, and filthiness. He cannot intend to pray, for he is called to dinner just when his last lock is hung to his mind. Oh the monstrous curiosity of tricking up this earth of earth! Yet from the courtier to the carter, from the lady to the inkle-beggar, there is this excess, and going beyond their calling.

But I have strayed out of my way to cut off a lap of pride’s garment. I conclude this earth with this caution: Respice, aspice, prospice,—Look back upon what thou wast; behold what thou art; consider what thou must be. Recole primordia, attende media, prœvideto novissima. Hœc pudorem adducunt, Ula dolorem ingerunt, ista timorem incutiunt;[Bernard*] — Call to mind former things, see the present, foresee the last. The first will breed in thee shame, the other grief, these fear. Remember thou wert taken out of the earth; behold thy strength of life subject to diseases, manifold, manifest, sensible ones: foresee that thou must die; this earth must to earth again.

But the earth here meant is a divine, spiritual, immortal nature, — called earth by a metaphor, — incapable of suffering terrene fragility. This is God’s earth, and that in a high and mystical sense, though proper enough. Indeed, Domini terra, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof;” saith the Psalmist. But he hath not such respect to the earth he made, as to this earth for whom he made it. This is terra sigullata, earth that he hath sealed and sanctified for himself, by setting his stamp and impression upon it. Now, the good man’s heart is compared to earth for divers reasons: —

1. For humility. Humus, quad humilis. The earth is the lowest of all elements, and the centre of the world. The godly heart is not so low in situation, but so lowly in its own estimation. God is said to hang the earth upon nothing: Job 26v7, “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing,” that it might wholly depend on himself. So a true Christian heart, in regard of itself, is founded upon nothing, (hath a humble vilipending and disprizing of its own worth,) that it may wholly and safely rely on God. O man of earth, why exaltest thou thyself? This is the way to prevent and frustrate the exaltation of God. Keep thyself lowly as the earth, reject all opinion of thy own worth, and thou shalt one day overtop the clouds. The earth is thy mother, that brought thee forth when thou wert not; a stage that carries thee whiles thou art; a tomb that receives thee when thou art not. It gives thee original, harbour, sepulchre. Like a kind mother, she bears her offspring on her back; and her brood is her perpetual burden, till she receive them again into the same womb from whence she delivered them. She shall be yet more kind to thee, if her baseness can teach thee humility, and keep thee from being more proud of other things, than thou canst, with any reason, be of thy parentage. Few are proud of their souls, and none but fools can be proud of their bodies; seeing here is all the difference betwixt him that walks, and his floor he walks on: living earth treads upon dead earth, and shall at last be as dead as his pavement. Many are the favours that the earth doth us; yet amongst them all there is none greater than the schooling us to humility, and working in us a true acknowledgement of our own vileness, and so directing us to heaven, to find that above which she cannot give us below.

2. For patience. The earth is called terra, quia teritur; and this is the natural earth. For they distinguish it into three sorts: terra quam terimus; terra quam gerimus; terra quam qucerimus, which is the glorious land of promise. That earth is cut and wounded with culters and shares, yet is patient to suffer it, and returns fruits to those that ploughed it. The good heart is thus rent with vexations and broken with sorrows; yet offers “the other cheek to the smiter,” endureth all with a magnanimous patience, assured of that victory which comes by suffering: Vincit qui patitur. Neither is this all: it returns mercy for injury, prayers for persecutions, and blesseth them that cursed it. “The ploughers ploughed upon my back: they made long their furrows,” Psalm 129v3. “They rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul. Yet when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting; I was heavy, as one that mourned for his friend or brother; and my prayer returned into mine own bosom,” Psalm 35v12, 13. When the heart of our Saviour was thus ploughed up with a spear, it ran streams of mercy, real mercy; which his vocal tongue interpreted, “Father, forgive them: they know not what they do.” His blood had a voice, a merciful voice, and “spake better things than the blood of Abel,” Hebrews 12v24. That cried from the caverns of the earth for revenge; this from the cross, in the sweet tune of compassion, for forgiveness. It is a strong argument of a heart rich in grace, to wrap and embrace his injurer in the arms of love; as the earth quietly receives those dead to burial, who living tore up her bowels.

3. For faithful constancy. The earth is called solum, because it stands alone, depending on nothing but the Maker’s hand: “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for ever,” Ecclesiastes 1v4. She often changeth her burden, without any sensible mutation of herself: “Thy faithfulness is to all generations; thou hast established the earth, and it standeth,” Psalm 119v90. The Hebrew is, “to generation and generation;” inferring, that times, and men, and the sons of men, posterity after posterity, pass away; but the earth, whereon and whereout they pass, abideth. The parts thereof have been altered; and violent earthquakes, begot in its own bowels, have tottered it. But God hath laid “the foundations of the earth,” (the original is, “founded it upon her bases,”) “that it should not be removed for ever,” Psalm 105v5; the body of it is immovable. Such a constant solidity is in the faithful heart, that should it thunder bulls from Rome, and bolts from heaven, impavidum ferient ruinœ. Indeed, God hath sometimes bent an angry brow against his own dear ones; and then no marvel if they shudder, if the “bones of David tremble,” and the “teeth of Hezekiah chatter.” But God will not be long angry with his; and the balances, at first putting in of the evenest weights, may be a little swayed, not without some show of inequality, which yet, after a little motion, settle themselves in a just poise. So the first terror hath moved the godly, not removed them; they return to themselves, and rest in a resolved peace. Lord, do what thou wilt: “if thou kill me, I will trust in thee.” Let us hear it from him that had it from the Lord: Psalm 112v6, “Surely he shall not be moved for ever: the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance. He shall not be afraid of evil tiding: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. His heart is established,” &c. O sweet description of a constant soul!

They give diverse causes of earthquakes. Aristotle, among the rest, admits the eclipse of the sun for one; the interposition of the moon’s body hindering some places from his heat. I know not how certain this is in philosophy: in divinity it is most true, that only the eclipse of our sun, Jesus Christ, raiseth earthquakes in our hearts; when that inconstant and everchanging body (the moon) of the world steps betwixt our sun and us, and keeps us from the kindly vital heat of his favour; then, oh then, the earth of our heart quakes; and we feel a terror in our hearts; when that inconstant and everchanging body (the moon) of the world steps betwixt our sun and us, and keeps us from the kindly vital heat of his favour; then, oh then, the earth of our heart quakes; and we feel a terror in our bones and bowels, as if the busy hand of death were searching them. But no eclipse lasts long; especially not this: our sun will shine on us again; we shall stand sure, even as “Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever.” Psalm 129v1.

4. For charity. The earth brings forth food for all creatures that live on it. Green herb for the cattle; oil and wine for man: “The valleys stand thick with corn; the mower filleth his scythe, and the binder up of sheaves his bosom.” A good man is so full of charity, he relieves all, without improvidence to himself. He gives plentifully, that all may have some; not indiscreetly, that some have all. On the earth stand many glorious cities, and goodly buildings; fair monuments of her beauty and adornation. The sanctified soul, in a happy respondency, hath manifold works of charity, manifest deeds of piety; that sweetly become the faith which he professeth.

5. For riches. The earth is but poor without: the surface of it, especially when squalid winter hath bemired it, seems poor and barren; but within it is full of rich mines, ores of gold, and quarries of precious minerals. For medals and metals, it is abundantly wealthy. The sanctified heart may seem poor to the world’s eye, which only beholds and judgeth the rind and husk, and thinks there is no treasure in the cabinet, because it is covered with leather. But within he is full of golden mines and rich ores, the invisible graces of faith, fear, love, hope, patience, holiness; sweeter than the spices of the East Indies, and richer than the gold of the West. Omnis decor filiœ Sion ab intus, — “The King’s daughter is all glorious within,” Psalm 45v13. It is not the superficial skin, but the internal beauty, that moves the King of heaven to be enamoured of us, and to say, “Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee,” Song of Songs 4v7.

6. Lastly, for fertility. The earth is fruitful: when the stars have given influence, the clouds showered down seasonable dews, and the sun bestowed his kindly heat; lo, the thankful earth returns fruits, and that in abundance. The Christian soul, having received such holy operations, inspirations, and sanctifying motions from above, is never found without a grateful fertility. Yea, as the earth to man, so man to God, returns a blessed usury: ten for one; nay, sometimes thirty, sometimes sixty, sometimes a hundred-fold.

But the succeeding doctrine will challenge this demonstration. I have been somewhat copious in the first word; the brevity of the rest shall recompense it. The operative cause that worketh the good earth to this fruitfulness is a heavenly “rain that falls often upon it;” and the earth doth “drink it up.” Wherein is observable, that the rain doth come, that it is welcome; God sends it plenteously, and man entertains it lovingly. It comes oft, and he drinks it up. God’s love to man is declared in the coming; in the welcoming, man’s love to God. In the former we will consider — 1. The matter; 2. The manner. The matter that cometh is rain. The manner consists in three respects: — 1. There is mercy; “it cometh.” It is not constrained, deserved, pulled down from heaven; “it cometh.” 2. Frequency; “it cometh often.” There is no scanting of this mercy; it flows abundantly, as if the windows of heaven were opened: “often.” 3. Direction of it right; “upon” this earth. It falls not near it, nor beside it, but upon it.

II. To begin with the rain: —

1. God’s word is often compared to rain or dew. Moses begins his song with, “My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass,” Deuteronomy 32v2. Therefore in the first verse, he calls to the earth to hear his voice. Man is the earth, and his “doctrine the rain.” “Prophesy ye not,” Micah 2v6; the original word is, “Drop ye not,” &c. “Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, drop not thy word against the house of Isaac,” Amos 7v16. “Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places,” Ezekiel 21v2. The metaphor is usual; wherein stands the comparison? In six similitudes: —

(1.) It is the property of rain to cool heat. Experience tells us that a sweltering fervour of the air, which almost fries us, is allayed by a moderate shower sent from the clouds. The burning heat of sin in us, and of God’s anger for sin against us, is quenched by the gospel. It cools our intemperate heat of malice, anger, ambition, avarice, lust; which are burning sins.

(2.) Another effect of rain is thirst quenched. The dry earth parched with heat, opens itself in refts and crannies, as if it would devour the clouds for moisture. The Christian soul “thirsts after righteousness,” is dry at heart till he can have the gospel: a shower of this mercy from heaven quencheth his thirst; he is satisfied. “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but it shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life,” John 4v14

(3.) Rain doth allay the winds. When the air is in an uproar, and the stoutest cedars crouch to the ground before a violent blast, even towers and cities tremble; a shower of rain sent from the clouds mitigates this fury. When the potentates of the world, tyrants, little better than devils, — Gog and Magog, Moab and Ammon, Turkey, Rome, hell, — storm against us, God quiets all our fears, secures us from all their terrors by a gracious rain, drops of mercy in the never-failing promises of the gospel.

(4.) Rain hath a powerful efficacy to cleanse the air. When infectious fogs and contagious vapours have filled it full of corruption, the distilling showers wash away the noisome putrefaction. We know that too often filthy fumes of errors and heresies surge up in a land, that the soul of faith is almost stifled, and the uncleanness of corrupt doctrine gets a predominant place: the Lord then drops his word from heaven; the pure rain of his holy gospel cleanseth away this putrefaction, and gives new life to the almost-smothered truth. Woe to them, then, that would deprive men's souls of the gospel, and “withhold the truth in unrighteousness!” When they “lock up the gates of grace,” as Christ reproved the lawyers, and labour to make the “heavens brass,” they must needs also make the “earth iron.” How should the earth of man’s heart bring forth fruits, when the rain is withheld from it? No marvel if their air be poisoned.

(5.) Rain hath yet another working: to mollify a hard matter. The parched and heat-hardened earth is made soft by the dews of heaven. Oh, how hard and obdurate is the heart of man till this rain falls on it! Is the heart covetous? No tears from distressed eyes can melt a penny out of it. Is it malicious? No supplications can beg forbearance of the least wrong. Is it given to drunkenness? You may melt his body into a dropsy, before his heart into sobriety. Is it ambitious? You may as well treat with Lucifer about humiliation. Is it factious? A choir of angels cannot sing him into peace. No means on earth can soften the heart; whether you anoint it with the supple balms of entreaties, or thunder against it the bolts of menaces, or beat it with the hammer of mortal blows. Behold! God showers this rain of the gospel from heaven, and it is suddenly softened. One sermon may “prick him at the heart;” one drop of a Saviour’s blood distilled on it by the Spirit, in the preaching of the word, melts him like wax. The drunkard is made sober, the adulterer chaste, Zaccheus merciful, and raging Paul as tame as a lamb.

They that have erst served the devil with an eager appetite, and were hurried by him with a voluntary precipitation, have all their chains eaten off by this aqua fortis: one drop of this rain hath broken their fetters; and now all the powers of hell cannot prevail against them. There is a legend — I had as good say a tale — of a hermit that heard, as he imagined, all the devils of hell on the other side of the wall lifting, and blowing, and groaning, as if they were a-removing the world. The hermit desires to see them. Admitted, behold they were all lifting at a feather, and could not stir it. The application may serve, yield the fable idle. Satan and his armies, — spirits, lusts, vanities, sins, — that erst could toss and blow a man up and down like a feather, and did not sooner present a wickedness to his sight but he was more ready for action than they for instigation; now they cannot stir him: they may sooner remove the world from its pillars than him from the grace and mercy of God. The dew of heaven hath watered him, and made him grow, and the power of hell shall not supplant him. The rain of mercy hath softened his heart, and the heat of sin shall never harden it.

(6.) Lastly, rain is one principal subordinate cause that all things fructify. This holy dew is the operative means, next to the grace of God in our Lord Jesus Christ, that the souls of Christians should bring forth the fruits of faith and obedience. I know God can save without it: we dispute not of his power, but of his work, of ordinary, not extraordinary operations. God usually worketh this in our hearts by his word.

2. Thus far the matter; the manner is — (1.) “It cometh;” (2.) “often;” (3.) “upon it.”

(1.) “It cometh.” It is not forced, nor fetched, but comes of his own mere mercy whose it is. So saith the Apostle, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights,” James 1v17. They that want it have no merit of congruity to draw it to them; they that have it have no merit of condignity to keep it with them. It is the mercy and gratuital favour of God that this gospel cometh to us. For, if ipsum minus be munus, how highly is this great gift to be praised. What deserve we more than other nations? They have as pregnant wits, as proportionable bodies, as strong sinews, as we; and perhaps would bring forth better fruits. Yet they want it; with us it is. We need not travel from coast to coast, nor journey to it; it is come to us. Venit ad limina virtus: will you step over your thresholds and gather manna? When the gospel was far off from our fathers, yet in them studium audiendi superabat tœdium accedendi, — the desire of hearing it beguiled the length of the way. But we will scarce put forth our hand to take this bread; and, as in some ignorant country towns, be more eager to catch the rain that falls from the outside of the church in their buckets, than this rain of grace preached in it, in their hearts. Oh, you wrong us; we are fond of it; we call for preaching. Yes, as your forefathers of the blind times would call apace for holy water; yet when the sexton cast it on them, they would turn away their faces, and let it fall on their backs. Let God sow as thick as he will, you will come up thin. You will admit frequency of preaching, but you have taken an order with yourselves of rare practising. You are content this rain should come, as the next circumstance gives it —

(2.) “Often.” God hath respect to our infirmities, and sends us a plentiful rain. One slower will not make us fruitful; it must come “oft upon us.”

“Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed saepe cadendo,—”

The rain dints the hard stone, not by violence, but by oft-falling drops. Line must be added to line; “here a little, and there a little.” God could pour a whole flood on us at once; but man's understanding

“is like a vial, narrow at the top;
 Not capable of more than drop by drop”

says the poet. If much were poured at once, a great deal would fall besides, and be spilt. Like children, we must be fed by spoonfuls, according to the capacity of our weak natures. It is not an abundant rain falling at once that makes the plants grow, but kindly and frequent showers. One sermon in a year contents some thoroughly; and God is highly beholden to them if they will sit out that waking. You desire your fields, your gardens, your plants to be often watered; your souls will grow well enough with one rain. How happy would man be if he were as wise for his soul as he is for his body! Some there are that would hear often, maybe too often, till edification turn to tedification; and get themselves a multitude of teachers; but they will do nothing. You shall have them run ten miles to a sermon, but not step to their own doors with a morsel of bread to a poor brother. They wish well to the cause of Christ, but they will do nothing for it, worth “God-a-mercy.” The world is full of good wishes, but heaven only full of good works. Others would have this rain fall often, so it be such as they desire it. Such a cloud must give it, and it must be begotten in thunder — faction and innovation: till evangelium Christi fit evangelium hominis; aut quod pejus est, diaboli [* Jerom. in Ep. ad Galat] — till the gospel of Christ be made man's gospel, or, which is worse, the devil’s. If the rain, as it falls, do not smell of novelty,  it shall fall besides them. They regard not so much heaven, whence it comes, as who brings it. I have read of two, that, meeting at a tavern, fell a-tossing their religion about as merrily as their cups, and much drunken discourse was of their profession. One professed himself of Doctor Martin’s religion; the other swore he was of Doctor Luther’s religion; whereas Martin and Luther was one man. No ram shall water them, but such a man’s; otherwise, be it never so wholesome, they spew it up again. As if their conscience were so nice and delicate as that ground at Cologne, where some of St Ursula’s eleven thousand virgins were buried; which will cast up again in the night any that have been interred there in the day, except of that company though it were a child newly baptized. For ourselves, limits of sobriety being kept, desire we to hear the gospel often; and let our due succeeding obedience justify the goodness of our thirst. When Christ spake of the “bread of life,” the transported disciples beseech him, “Lord, evermore give us this bread” John 6v34. So pray we: Lord evermore shower down upon us this rain!

(3.) “Upon it.” God so directs this dew of his word that it shall fall on our hearts, not besides. The rain of the gospel, like the rain of the clouds, hath sometimes gone by coasts: “I have withholden the rain from you, and I have caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered,” Amos 4v7. But I have wetted your fields, moistened your hearts with the dews of heaven, given you “my statutes and ordinances,” saith the Lord: “I have not dealt so with every people;” there be some that “have not the knowledge of my laws,” Psalm 147v20. The sun shines on many nations where this spiritual rain falls not. This is not all; but as at the last day “two in one bed” shall be divorced, so even now one seat in the church may hold two, upon one whereof this saving rain may fall, not on the other. The “Spirit blows where it pleaseth;” and though the sound of the rain be to all open ears alike, yet the spiritual dew drops only into the open heart. Many come to Jacob’s well, but bring no pitchers with them wherewith to draw the water. A good shower may come on the earth, yet if a man house himself, or be shrouded under a thick bush, or burrowed in the ground, he will be dry still. God sends down his rain : one houseth himself in the darkness of security — he is too drowsy to be tolled in with the bells; another sits dallying with the delights of lust under a green bush; a third is burrowed in the ground, mining and entrenching himself in the quest of riches. Alas, how should the dew of grace fall upon these! Thou wouldest not shelter the ground from the clouds, lest it grow barren: oh, then, keep not thy soul from the rain of heaven!

You have heard how the rain is come; now hear how it is made welcome. The good ground drinks it; nay, drinks it in: inbibit. The comparison stands thus: the thirsty land drinks up the rain greedily, which the clouds pour upon it. You would wonder what becomes of it; you may find it in your fruits. When your vines hang full of clusters, your gardens stand thick with flowers, your meadows with grass, your fields with corn; you will say, the earth hath been beholden to the heaven. That hath rained moisture, this hath drunk it in; we see it in our fruits. “The Lord saith, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel,” Hosea 2v21. The fruits of corn, wine, oil, witness that the earth hath heard them, that heaven hath heard the earth, and that the Lord hath heard the heaven. The heavens give influence to the ground, the ground sap to the plants, the plants nourishment to us, the Lord a blessing to all. The Lord “watereth the hills from the chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: wine to make glad his heart, and oil to make his face shine, and bread to strengthen man;s heart,” &c., Psalm 104v13–15. With such thirsty appetite, and no less happy success, doth the good soul swallow the dew of grace. If you perceive not when the faithful take it, you may see they have it; for their fruits testify it. It is a most evident demonstration that they have been beholden to the gospel, they have a sanctified life. “Drinks it in.”

There be very many great drinkers in the world. The main drunkenness, that gives denomination to all the rest, is that throat-drunkenness, whereof the prophet, Vœfortibus ad potandum! These are they that will not drink this mystical wine in the church, so willingly as be drunk in the taphouse. Wine-worshippers, that are at it on their knees, protesting from the bottom of their hearts to the bottom of their cups; if the health be not pledged, actum est de amicitia, farewell friendship. I have read of a street in Rome, called Vicus sobrius, Sober Street. Find such a street in any city or populous town in England, and some good man will put it in the chronicle.

It hath been said, that the Germans are great drinkers; and therefore to carouse is held to be derived from them, the word being originally to garrowse, which is to drink off all: gar signifying totum. So the Germans are called by themselves Germanni, quasi toti homines, as if a German were All-man; according to another denomination of their country, Allemand. And so we are grown to think him that can tipple soundly, a tall man, nay, all-man from top to toe. But if England plies her liquor so fast as she begins, Germany is like to lose her charter. I have heard how the Jesuits outstripped the Franciscans. Indeed St Francis at the first meeting saw six thousand friars. Ignatius, because he could not begin his order with so many, made up the number in devils. The Germans had of us both priority and number for drunkards. Our English beggars first got the fashion; but because their number was short, and it was like that the nation would be disgraced, it was agreed to make it up in gallants.

No marvel if the Lord for this threaten us with the rod of famine, and to scourge us with that most smarting string of his whip. God hath laid himself fair in his bow already, and is ready to draw this arrow up to the head, and send it singing into our bosoms. Ferro sœvior fames; it is one of God’s sorest judgments. Beasts and sword kill quickly; and the plague is not long in despatching us; but dearth is a lingering death. “They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger; for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field,” Lamentations 4v9. We see how our seasons are changed, because we can find no season for repentance. Our springs have been graves rather than cradles; our summers have not shot up, but withered our grass; our autumns have taken away the flocks of our sheep; and for our latest harvest, we have had cause to invert the words of our Saviour, Luke 10v2. He saith, “The harvest is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord to send forth more labourers into his harvest” But we might have said, “The Labourers are many, and the harvest is small: pray ye therefore the Lord to send a greater harvest for the labourers”. God hath thus, as it were, pulled the cup from the drunkard’s lips; and since he will know no measure, the Lord will stint him. If there will be no voluntary, there shall be an enforced fast. We have other great drinkers besides.

What say you to those that drink up whole towns, unpeople countries, depopulate villages, enclose fields? that, Pharisee-like, swallow up poor men’s houses, drink their goods, though mingled with tears of dam and young ones, mother and children? Are not these horrible drinkers? Sure God will one day hold the cup of vengeance to their lips, and bid them drink their fills.

The proud man is a great drinker. It is not his belly, but his back, that is the drunkard. He pincheth the poor, racks out the other fine, enhanceth the rent, spends his own means, and what he can finger besides, upon clothes. If his rent-day make even with his silk-man, mercer, tailor, he is well. And his white madam drinks deeper than he. The walls of the city are kept in reparation with easier cost than a lady’s face, and the appurtenances to her head.

The ambitious is a deep drinker. Oh, he hath a dry thirst upon him. He loves the wine of promotion extremely. Put a whole monopoly into the cup, and he will carouse it off. There is a time when other drunkards give over for a sleeping-while: this drinker hath never enough.

Your grim usurer is a monstrous drinker. You shall seldom see him drunk at his own cost; yet he hath vowed not to be sober till his doomsday. His brains and his gown are lined with fox; he is ever a-foxing. It may be, some infernal spirit hath put love-powder in his drink, for he dotes upon the devil extremely. Let him take heed; he shall one day drink his own obligations, and they will choke him.

The rob-altar is a huge drinker. He loves, like Belshazzar, to drink only in the goblets of the temple. Woe unto him, he carouses the wine he never sweat for, and keeps the poor minister thirsty! The tenth sheaf is his diet; the tenth fleece (oh, it is a golden fleece, he thinks) is his drink; but the wool shall choke him. Some drink down whole churches and steeples; but the bells shall ring in their bellies.

Every covetous worldling is a great drinker; he swallows aurum potabile as his diet-drink . And like an absolute, dissolute drunkard, the more he drinks, the drier he is; for he hath never enough. It may be said of him as it was of Bonosus, whom the emperor Aurelian set to drink with the German ambassador : Not a man, but a rundlet filled with wine.

And my fine precise artisan, that shuns a tavern as the devil doth a cross, is often as drunk as the rankest. His language doth not savour of the pot; he swears not, but “indeed!” But trust him, and indeed he will cozen you to your face. The love of money hath made him drunk. And though the proverb be, In vino veritas; yet as drunk as he is, you shall never have truth break out of his lips.

And the unconscionable lawyer, that takes fees on both hands, as if he could not drink but with two cups at once, is not he a great drinker? If what is wanting in the goodness of the cause be supplied in the greatness of the fees, oh these

“Fœcundi calioes, quem non fecere disertum?”

Let all think these ebrieties must be accounted for. How fearful were it if a man’s latter end should take him drunk! “Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and so that day come upon you unawares,” Luke 21v34. In corporal ebriety the soul leaves a drunken body; in spiritual, the body leaves a drunken soul: both desperately fearful.

There is yet a last, and those a blessed sort of drinkers, which drink in this sweet rain of grace and mercy. They do not only taste it; so do the wicked: v4, “They have tasted of the heavenly gift; they have tasted of the good word of God, and of the powers of the world to come.” Nor drink it only to their throat, as if they did gargarise the word, as carnal politicians and formal professors do. They must attend, they must admit, but no further than their throats; they will but gargarise the gospel. It shall never come into their stomachs, never near their hearts. But these drink it in, digest it in their consciences, take liberal draughts of it, and do indeed drink healths thereof. Common health-maintainers drink their sickness. Therefore says the modern poet honestly: —

“Una salus sanis nullam potare salutem.”

But this is a “saving health:” such as our Saviour began to us, when he drank to us in his own blood, “a saving health to all nations.” And we are bound to pledge him in our faith and thankfulness, as David: “I will take the cup of salvation, and bless the name of the Lord.” This is a hearty draught of the waters of life; the deeper the sweeter. Blessed he is that drinks soundly of it, and with a thirsty appetite! There is, as divines say, sancta ebrietas;[*Ardens] such as fell on the blessed apostles on Whitsunday, Acts 2. They were drunk, not with new wine, but with the Holy Ghost. This holy plenitude doth, as it were, inebriate the souls of the saints: “They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures,” Psalm 36v8. The spouse sings of her kindness: “He brought me to the banqueting-house, and his banner over me was love. Stay me with flagons, and comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love,” Song of Songs 2v4, 5. In the original it is called, “house of wine.” Christ hath broached to his church the sweet wine of the gospel, and our hearts are cheered with it; our souls made merry with flagons of mercy. Come to this wine, Bibite et inebriamini, — “Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved,” Song of Songs 5v1: drink and be drunk with it. God will be pleased with this, and no other but this, drunkenness. The vessel of our heart being once thus filled with grace, shall hereafter be replenished with glory.

Attribution

Transcribed and edited by Callum Elwood for New Whitchurch Press.

Works consulted

Author, Title (YEAR), Edited by Editor, City: Publisher