Sermon CIX

SERMON CIX.

PREACHED TO THE KING, AT THE COURT, IN APRIL, 1629.

Genesis i. 26.
And God said, Let us make man, in our image, after our likeness.

Never such a frame, so soon set up, as this, in this chapter. For, for the thing itself, there is no other thing to compare it with. For it is all, it is the whole world. And for the time, there was no other time to compare it with, for this was the beginning of time, In the beginning God created heaven and earth. That earth, which in some thousands of years, men could not look over, nor discern what form it had: (for neither Lactantius, almost three hundred years after Christ, nor St. Augustine, more than one hundred years after him, would believe the earth to be round) that earth, which no man, in his person, is ever said to have compassed, till our age; that earth which is too much for man yet, (for, as yet, a very great part of the earth is unpeopled) that earth, which, if we will cast it all but into a map, costs

many months^' labour to grave it, nay, if we will cast but a piece of an acre of it, into a garden, costs many years^' labour to fashion, and furnish it: all that earth, and then, that heaven which spreads so far, as that subtle men have, with some appearance of probability, imagined, that in that heaven, in those manifold spheres of the planets, and the stars, there are many earths, many worlds, as big as this, which we inhabit; that earth and that heaven, which spent God himself, Almighty God, six days in furnishing; Moses sets up in a few syllables, in one line, in principio, in the beginning God created heaven and earth. If a Livy or a Guicciardine, or such extensive and voluminous authors, had had this story in hand; God must have made another world, to have made them a library to hold their books, of the making of this world. Into what wire would they have drawn out this, earth? Into what leaf-gold would they have beat out these heavens? It may assist our conjecture herein to consider, that amongst those men, who proceed with a sober modesty, and limitation in their writing, and make a conscience not to clog the world with unnecessary books; yet the volumes which are written by them, upon this beginning of Genesis, are scarce less than infinite. God did no more but say, Let this and this be done; and Moses does no more but say, that upon God's saying it was done. God required not nature to help him to do it: Moses required not reason to help him to be believed. The Holy Ghost hovered upon the waters, and so God wrought: the Holy Ghost hovered upon Moses too, and so he wrote. And we believe these things to be so, by the same Spirit in Moses^' mouth, by which they were made so, in God's hand. Only, beloved, remember, that a frame may be thrown down in a much less time, than it was set up. A child, an ape can give fire to a cannon: and a vapour can shake the earth: and these fires, and these vapours can throw down cities in minutes. When Christ said, Throw down this temple, and in three days I will raise it; they never stopped upon the consideration of throwing it down; they knew, that might be soon done; but they wondered at the speedy raising of it. Now, if all this earth were made in that minute, may not all come to a general dissolution in this minute? Or may not thy acres, thy miles, thy shires shrink into feet, and

so few feet, as shall but make up thy grave? When he who was a great lord, must be but a cottager; and not so well; for a cottager must have so many acres to his cottage; but in this case, a little piece of an acre, five-foot, is become the house itself; the house, and the land; the grave is all: lower than that; the grave is the land, and the tenement, and the tenant too: he that lies in it becomes the same earth, that he lies in. They all make but one earth, and but a little of it. But then raise thyself to a higher hope again. God hath made better land, the land of promise; a stronger city, the new Jerusalem; and inhabitants for that everlasting city, us; whom he made, not by saying, Let there be men, but by consultation, by deliberation, God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness.

We shall pursue our great examples; God in doing, Moses in saying; and so make haste in applying the parts. But first receive them. And since we have the whole world in contemplation, consider in these words, the four quarters of the world, by application, by fair, and just accommodation of the words. First, in the first word, that God speaks here, Faciamus, Let us, us in the plural, (a denotation of divers persons in one Godhead) we consider our east where we must begin, at the knowledge and confession of the Trinity. For, though in the way to heaven, we be travelled beyond the Gentiles, when we come to confess but one God, (the Gentiles could not do that) yet we are still among the Jews, if we think that one God to be but one person. Christ's name is Oriens, the East¹, if we will bo named by him, (called Christians) we must look to this east, the confession of the Trinity. There is then our east, in the Faciamus; Let us, us make man: and then our west is the next word, Faciamus hominem. Though we be thus made, made by the council, made by the concurrence, made by the hand of the whole Trinity; yet we are made but men: and man, but in the appellation, in this text: and man there, is but Adam: and Adam is but earth, but red earth, earth dyed red in blood, in soul-blood, the blood , of our own souls. To that west we must all come, to the earth. The sunknoweth his going down^*: even the sun for all his glory, and height, hath a going down, and he knows it. The highest cannot

¹ Zech. vi. 12. * Psalm civ. 19.

divest mortality, nor the discomfort of mortality. When you see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway you say, There cometh a storm, says Christ³. When out of the region of your west, that is, your later days, there comes a cloud, a sickness, you feel a storm, even the best moral constancy is shaked. But this cloud, and this storm, and this west there must be; and that is our second consideration. But then the next words design a north, a strong, and powerful north, to scatter, and dissipate these clouds: Ad imaginem, et similitudinem; That we are made according to a pattern, to an image, to a likeness, which God proposed to himself for the making of man. This consideration, that God did not rest, in that pre-existent matter, out of which he made all other creatures, and produced their forms, out of their matter, for the making of man; but took a form, a pattern, a model for that work, this is the north wind, that is called upon to carry out the perfumes of the garden⁴, to spread the goodness of God abroad. This is that which is intended in Job⁵; fair weather cometh out of the north. Our west, our declination is in this, that we are but earth, our north, our dissipation of that darkness, is in this, that we are not all earth; though we be of that matter, we have another form, another image, another likeness. And then, whose image and likeness it is, is our meridional height, our noon, our south point, our highest elevation. In imagine nostra, Let us make man in our image. Though our sun set at noon, as the prophet Amos speaks⁶; though we die in our youth, or fall in our height: yet even in that sunset, we shall have a noon. For this image of God shall never depart from our soul; no, not when that soul departs from our body. And that is our south, our meridional height and glory. And when we have thus seen this east, in the faciamus, That I am the workmanship and care of the whole Trinity; and this west in the hominem, that for all that, my matter, my substance, is but earth: but then a north, a power of overcoming that low, and miserable state, In imagine; that though in my matter, the earth, I must die; yet in my form, in that image which I am made by, I cannot die: and after all a south, a knowledge, that this image is not the image of angels,

⁹ Luke xii. 54. * Cant. iv. 16.

• Job xxxvii. 22. * Amos viii. 9.

to whom we shall be like, but it is by the same life, by which those angels themselves were made; the image of God himself: when I am gone over this east, and west, and north, and south, here in this world; I should be as sorry as Alexander was, if there were no more worlds. But there is another world, which these considerations will discover, and lead us to, in which our joy, and our glory shall be, to see that God essentially, and face to face, after whose image, and likeness we were made before. But as that pilot which had harboured his ship so far within land, as that he must have change of winds, in all the points of the compass, to bring her out, cannot hope to bring her out in one day: so being to transport you, by occasion of these words, from this world, to the next; and in this world, through all the compass, all the four quarters thereof; I cannot hope to make all this voyage to-day. To-day we shall consider only our longitude, our east, and west; and our north and south at another tide, and another gale.

First then we look towards our east, the fountain of light, and of life. There this world began; the creation was in the east. And there our next world began too. There the gates of heaven opened to us; and opened to us in the gates of death; for, our heaven is the death of our Saviour, and there he lived, and died there, and there he looked into our west, from the east, from his terrace, from his pinnacle, from his exaltation (as himself calls it) the cross. The light which arises to us, in this east, the knowledge which we receive in this first word of our text, Faciamus, Let its, (where God speaking of himself, speaks in the plural) is the manifestation of the Trinity; the Trinity, which is the first letter in his alphabet, that ever thinks to read his name in the book of life; the first note in his gamut, that ever thinks to sing his part, in the choir of the Triumphant church. Let him, him have done as much, as all the worthies; and suffered as much as all nature's martyrs, the penurious philosophers; let him have known as much, as they that pretend to know, Omne scibile, all that can be known nay, and In-intelligibilia, in-investigabilia, (as Tertullian speaks) un-understandable things, unrevealed decrees of God; let him have writ as much, as Aristotle writ, or as is written upon Aristotle, which is, multiplication enough: yet he hath not learnt to spell, that hath not learnt the Trinity; not learnt to pronounce the first word, that cannot bring three persons into one God. The subject of natural philosophy, are the four elements, which God made, the subject of supernatural philosophy, divinity, are the three elements, which God is; and (if we may so speak) which make God, that is, constitute God, notify God to us, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The natural man, that hearkens to his own heart, and the law written there; may produce actions that are good, good in the nature and matter, and substance of the work. He may relieve the poor, he may defend the oppressed. But yet, he is but as an open field; and though he be not absolutely barren, he bears but grass. The godly man, he that hath taken in the knowledge of a great, and a powerful God, and enclosed, and hedged in himself with the fear of God, may produce actions better than the mere natural man, because he refers his actions to the glory of his imagined God. But yet this man, though he be more fruitful than the former, more than a grassy field; yet he is but a ploughed field, and he bears but corn, and corn, God knows, choked with weeds. But that man, who hath taken hold of God, by those handles, by which God hath delivered, and manifested himself in the notions of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; he is no field, but a garden, a garden of God's planting, a paradise in which grow all things good to eat, and good to see, (spiritual refection, and spiritual recreation too) and all things good to cure. He hath his being, and his diet, and his physic, there, in the knowledge of the Trinity; his being in the mercy of the Father; his physic in the merits of the Son; his diet, his daily bread, in the daily visitations of the Holy Ghost. God is not pleased, not satisfied, with our bare knowledge, that there is God. For, it is impossible to please God, without faith⁷: and there is no such exercise of faith, in the knowledge of a God, but that reason, and nature will bring a man to it. When we profess God, in the Creed, by way of belief, Credo in Deum, I believe in God, in the same article we profess him to be a Father too, I believe in God the Father Almighty: and that notion, theFather, necessarily implies, a second person, a Son: and then we profess him to be maker of

heaven, and earth: and in the Creation, the Holy Ghost, the spirit of God, is expressly named. So that we do but exercise reason, and nature, in directing ourselves upon God. We exercise not faith, (and without faith it is impossible to please God) till we come to that, which is above nature, till we apprehend a Trinity. We know God, we believe in a Trinity. The Gentiles multiplied gods. There were almost as many gods, as men that believed in them. And I am got out of that thrust, and out of that noise, when I am come into the knowledge of one God: but I am got above stairs, got in the bedchamber, when I am come to see the Trinity, and to apprehend not only, that I am in the care of a great, and a powerful God, but that there is a Father, that made me, a Son that redeemed me, a Holy Ghost, that applies this good purpose of the Father, and Son, upon me, to me. The root of all is God. But it is not the way to receive fruits, to dig to the root, but to reach to the boughs. I reach for my creation to the Father, for my redemption to the Son, for my sanctification to the Holy Ghost: and so I make the knowledge of God, a tree of life unto me; and not otherwise. Truly it is a sad contemplation, to see Christians scratch and wound and tear one another, with the ignominious invectives, and uncharitable names of heretic, and schismatic, about ceremonial, and problematical, and indeed but critical, verbal controversies: and in the mean time, the foundation of all, the Trinity, undermined by those numerous, those multitudinous ant-hills of Socinians, that overflow some parts of the Christian world, and multiply every where. And therefore the adversaries of the Reformation, were wise in their generation, when to supplant the credit of both those great assistants of the Reformation, Luther, and Calvin, thoy impute to Calvin fundamental error, in the divinity of the second person of the Trinity, the Son; and they impute to Luther, a detestation of the very word Trinity, and an expunction thereof, in all places of the Liturgy, where the church had received that word. They knew well, if that slander could prevail against those persons, nothing that they could say, could prevail upon any good Christians. But though in our doctrine, we keep up the Trinity aright; yet God knows, in our practice we do not. I hope it cannot be said of any of us, that he believes not the Trinity, but who amongst us thinks of the Trinity, considers the Trinity? Father, and Son, do naturally imply, and induce one another; and therefore they fall oftener into our consideration. But for the Holy Ghost, Who feels him, when he feels him? Who takes knowledge of his working, when he works? Indeed our fathers provided not well enough, for the worship of the whole Trinity, nor of the Holy Ghost in particular, in the endowments of the church, and consecrations of churches, and possessions in their names. What a spiritual dominion, in the prayers, and worship of the people, what a temporal dominion in the possessions of the world had the Virgin Mary, queen of heaven, and queen of earth too! She was made joint purchaser of the church with her Son, and had as much of the worship thereof as he, though she paid her fine in milk, and he in blood. And, till a new sect came in her Son's name; and in his name, the name of Jesus, took the regency so far out of that queen mother's hands, and sued out her Son's livery so far, as that though her name be used, the Virgin Mary is but a feoffee in trust, for them; all was hers. And if God oppose not these new usurpers of the world, posterity will soon see St. Ignatius worth all the Trinity in possessions and endowments, as that sumptuous, and splendid foundation of his first temple at Rome, may well create a conjecture, and suspicion. Travel no farther; survey but this city; and of their not one hundred churches, the Virgin Mary hath a dozen; the Trinity hath but one; Christ hath but one; the Holy Ghost hath none. But not to go into the city, nor out of ourselves; which of us doth truly, and considerately ascribe the comforts, that he receives in dangers, or in distresses, to that God of all comfort, the Comforter, the Holy Ghost? We know who procured us, our presentation, and our dispensation: you know who procured you, your offices, and your honours. Shall I ever forget who gave me my comfort in sickness? Who gave me my comfort, in the troubles, and perplexities, and diffidences of my conscience? The Holy Ghost brought you hither. The Holy Ghost opens your ears, and your hearts here. Till in all your distresses, you can say, Veni Creator Spiritus, Come Holy Ghost, and that you feel a comfort in his coming: you can never say, Veni Domine Jesus, Come Lord Jesus,

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come to judgment. Never to consider the day of judgment is a fearful thing. But to consider the day of judgment, without the comfort of the Holy Ghost, is a thousand times more fearful.

This seal then, this impression, this notion of the Trinity being set upon us, in the first creation, in this first plural word of our text, Faciamus; Let us, (for Father, Son, and Holy Ghost made man) and this seal being re-imprinted upon us, in our second creation, our regeneration, in baptism, (man is baptized in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost) this notion of the Trinity being our distinctive character, from Jew and Gentile; this being our specific form: Why does not this our form, this soul of our religion denominate us? Why are we not called Trinitarians, a name that would embrace the profession of all the persons, but only Christians, which limits, and determines us upon one? The first Christians, amongst whose manifold persecutions, scorn, and contempt, was not the least, in contempt and scorn, were called Nazarwi, Nazarites, in the mouth of the vulgar; and Galilari, Galilaeans, in the mouth of Julian; and Judwi, Jews, in the mouth of Nero, when he imputed the burning of Rome (his own act) to them; and Chrestiani; (as Tertullian says) that they could accuse Christians of nothing, but the name of Christians; and yet they could not call them by their right name, but Chrestians, (which was gentle, quiet, easy, patient men, made to be trodden upon) they gave them divers names in scorn, yet never called them Trinitarians. Christians themselves amongst themselves were called by divers names in the Primitive church, for distinction; Fideles, the Faithful, and Fratres, the Brethren, and Discipuli, Disciples; and after, by common custom at Antioch, Christians⁸. And after that, (they say) by a council which the apostles held, at the same city, at Antioch, there passed an express canon of the ehurch, that they should be called so, Christians. And before they had this name at Antioch, first by common usage, after by a determinate canon, to be called Christians, from Christ, at Alexandria, they were called (most likely from the name of Jesus) Jesseans*. And so Philo Judseus, in that book, which he writes De Jessenis, intends by his Jessehis, Christians; and in

⁸ Acts xi. 26. ⁹ Epiph. Heres. 29.

divers parts of tho world, into which Christians travel now, they find some elements, some fragments, some relics of the Christian religion, in the practice of some religious men, whom those countries call Jesseans, doubtlessly derived, and continued from the name of Jesus. So that the Christians took many names to themselves for distinction, (Brethren, Disciples,Faithful) and they had many names put upon them in scorn, (Nazarites, Galileeans, Jews, Chrestians,) and yet they were never, never by custom amongst themselves, never by commandment from the church, never in contempt from others, called Trinitarians, the profession of the Trinity being their specific form, and distinctive character; Why so? Beloved, the name of Christ involved all: not only because it is a name that hath a dignity in it, more than the rest; (for Christ is an anointed person, a king, a Messiah, and so the profession of that name, confers an unction, a regal and a holy unction upon us) (for we are thereby a royal priesthood) but because in the profession of Christ, the whole Trinity is professed. How often doth the Son say, that the Father sent him! And how often that the Father will, and that he will send the Holy Ghost? This life is eternal, says he, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent¹⁰; and sent, with all power, in heaven, and in earth. This must be professed, Father, and Son; and then, no man can profess this; no man can call Jesus the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. So that, as in the persecutions, in the Primitive church, the martyrs which were hurried to tumultuary executions, and could not be heard for noise, in excusing themselves of treason, and sedition, and crimes imputed to them, to make their cause odious, did use in the sight of the people, (who might see a gesture, though they could not hear a protestation) to sign themselves with the sign of the cross, to let them know, for what profession they died, so that the sign of the cross, in that use thereof, in that time, was an abridgment, and a catechism of the whole Christian religion, so is the professing of the name of Christ, the professing of the whole Trinity. As he that confesses one God, is got beyond the mere natural man; and he that confesses a Son of God, beyond him: so is neither got to the full truth, till he confess the Holy

¹⁰ John xvii. 3.

Ghost too. The fool says in his heart, there is no God. The fool, says David, the emphatical fool, in the highest degree of folly. But though he get beyond that folly, he is a fool still, if he say there is no Christ; for Christ is the wisdom of the Father: and a fool still, if he deny the Holy Ghost: for who shall apply Christ to him, but the Holy Ghost I Etiam Christiani nomen superficies est, is excellently said by Tertullian, The name, and profession of a Christian, is but a superficial outside, sprinkled upon my face in baptism, or upon mine outward profession, in actions: if I have not in my heart, a sense of the Holy Ghost, that he applies the mercies of the Father, arid the merits of the Son to my soul. As St. Paul said, whilst you are without Christ, you are without God. It is an atheism, with St. Paul, to be no Christian. So whilst you are without the Holy Ghost, you are without Christ. It is antichristian, to deny, or not to confess the Holy Ghost. For as Christ is the manifestation of the Father, so the Holy Ghost is the application of the Son. Therein only are we Christians, that in the profession of that name of Christ, we profess all the three persons: in Christ is the whole Trinity; because, as the Father sent him, so he sent the Holy Ghost. And that is our specific form, that is our distinctive character, from Jew and Gentile, the Trinity.

But then, is this specific form, this distinctive character, the notion of the Trinity, conveyed to us, exhibited, imprinted upon us, in our creation, in this word, this plural word, in the mouth of our one God, Faciamus, Let us, us. It is here, and here first. This is an intimation, and the first intimation, of the Trinity, from the mouth of God, in all the Bible. It is true, that though the same faith, which is necessary to salvation now, were always necessary, and so in the Old Testament, they were bound to believe in Christ, as well as in the New, and consequently in the whole Trinity; yet not so explicitly, nor so particularly as now. Christ calling upon God, in the name of Father, says; I have manifested thy name unto the men, thou gavest me out of the world¹¹. They were men appropriated to God, men exempt out of the world; yet they had not a clear manifestation of Father, and Son, the doctrine of the Trinity, till Christ manifested it to

¹¹ John xvii. 6.

them. I have manifested thy name, thy name of Father. And therefore the Jewish rabbins say that the Septuagint, the first translators of the Bible, did disguise some places of the Scriptures, in their translation, lest Ptolemy, for whom they translated it, should be scandalized with those places, and that this text was one of those places, which say they though it be otherwise in the copies of the Septuagint, which we have now, they translated faciam, and not faciamus, that God said here, I will make, in the singular; and not, let us make man, in the plural, lest that plural word, might have misled King Ptolemy to think, that the Jews had a plural religion, and worshipped divers gods. So good an evidence do they confess this text to be, for some kind of plurality in the Godhead.

Here then God notified the Trinity; and here first, for though we accept an intimation of the Trinity, in the first line of the Bible, where Moses joins a plural name, Elohim, with a singular verb, bar a: and so in construction, it is creavit Dii, Gods created heaven, and earth: yet, besides that, that is rather a mysterious collection, than an evident conclusion of a plurality of persons, though we read that in that first verse, before this in the twentysixth, yet Moses writ that, which is in the beginning of this chapter, more than two thousand years after God spake this, that is in our text. So long was God's plural, before Moses's plural; God's faciamus, before Moses's bara Elohim. So that in this text, begins our catechism. Here we have, and here first the saving knowledge of the Trinity.

For, when God spake here, to whom could God speak but to God? Non cum rebus creandis, non cum renihili, says Athanasius, speaking of God's first speaking, when he said, of the first creature, Let there be light. God spake not then to future things, to things that were not. When God spake first, there was no creature at all, to speak to. When God spake of the making of man, there were creatures. But were there any creatures able to create, or able to assist him, in the creation of man? Who I Angels? Some had thought so in St. Basil's time; and to them St. Basil says, Suntne Mi? God says, Let us make man to our image, and could he say so to angels? Are angels and God all one? Or is that that is like an angel, therefore like God? It was sua ratio, suum verbum, sua sapientia, says that father, God spake to his own word, and wisdom, to his own purpose, and goodness. And the Son is the word and wisdom of God: and the Holy Ghost is the goodness, and the purpose of God; that is, the administration, the dispensation of his purposes. It is true, that when God speaks this over again in his church, as he does every day, now, this minute then God speaks it to angels; to the angels of the church, to his ministers; he says, Faciamus, Let us, us both together, you, and we make a man; join mine ordinance (your preaching) with my Spirit, (says God to us) and so make man. Preach the oppressor, and preach the wanton, and preach the calumniator into another nature. Make the ravening wolf a man, that licentious goat a man, that insinuating serpent a man, by thy preaching. To-day if you will hear his voice, hear us. For here he calls upon us, to join with him for the making of man. But for his first Faciamus, which is in our text; it is excellently said, Dictum in senatu, et soliloquio¹*; It was spoken in a senate, and yet in a solitariness; spoken in private, and yet publicly spoken; spoken where there were divers, and yet but one; one God, and three persons.

If there were no more intended in this plural expression, us, but, (as some have conceived) that God spake here in the person of a prince, and sovereign lord, and therefore spake as princes do, in the plural, We command, and We forbid, yet St. Gregory's caution would justly fall upon it, reverenter pensandum est, it requires a reverent consideration, if it be but so. For God speaks so, like a king, in the plural, but seldom, but five times, (in my account) in all the Scriptures; and in all five, in cases of important consequence. In this text first, where God creates man, whom he constitutes his viceroy in the world: here he speaks in his royal plural. And then in the next chapter¹³, where he extends man's term in his vicegerency to the end of the world, in providing man, means of succession; Faciamus, Let us, us make him a helper; there he speaks in his royal plural. And then also in the third chapter¹⁴, in declaring the heinousness of man's fault, and arraigning him, and all us, in him, God says, Sicut unus ex nobis, Man is become as one of us, not content to be our

¹⁴ Bupertus.

¹³ Ver. 18.

¹⁴ Ver. 1. 22.

viceroy, but ourselves; there is his royal plural too. And again in that declaration of his justice, in the confusion of the builders of Babel, Descendamus, con/undamus", Let us do it: and then lastly, of that great work of mingling mercy with justice, which (if we may so speak) is God's master-piece, when he says, Quis ex nobis¹⁶? Who will go for us, and publish this? In these places, and these only, (and not all these neither, if we take it exactly according to the original; for in the second, the making of Eve, though the Vulgate have it in the plural, it is indeed but singular in the Hebrew) God speaks as a king in his royal plural still. And when it is but so, Reverenter pensandum est, says that father, it behoves us to hearken reverently to him, for kings are images of God; such images of God, as have ears, andean hear; and hands and can strike. But I would ask no more premeditation at your hands, when you come to speak to God in this place, than if you sued to speak with the king: no more fear of God here, than if you went to the king, under the conscience of a guiltiness towards him, and a knowledge that he knew it. And that is your case here; sinners, and manifest sinners. For even midnight is noon in the sight of God, and when your candles are put out, his sun shines still. Necquid absconditum a colore ejus, says David¹⁷, There js nothing hid from the heat thereof: not only, no sin, hid from the light thereof, from the sight of God; but not from the heat thereof, not from the wrath and indignation of God. If God speak plurally only in the majesty of a sovereign prince, still reverenter pensandum, that calls for reverence. What reverence! There are national differences in outward worships, and reverences. Some worship princes, and parents, and masters, in one, some in another fashion. Children kneel to ask blessing of parents in England, but where else? Servants attend not with the same reverence upon masters, in other nations, as with us. Accesses to their princes are not with the same difficulty, nor the same solemnity in France, as in Turkey. But this rule goes through all nations, that in that disposition, and posture, and action, of the body which in that place is esteemed most humble, and reverend, God is to be worshipped. Do so then here, God is your Father: ask blessing upon your knees; pray in that posture.

"Gen. xi. 7. "Isaiih vi. 8. ^ir Psalm xix. 7.

God is your King: worship him with that worship, which is highest in our use, and estimation. We have no grandees that stand covered to the king; where there are such, though they stand covered in the king's presence, they do not speak to him, for matters of grace; they do not sue to him: so ancient canons make differences of persons in the presence of God; where, and how, these, and these shall dispose of themselves in the church, dignity, and age, and infirmity will induce differences. But for prayer there is no difference, one humiliation is required of all; as when the king comes in here; howsoever, they sate diversely before, all return to one manner of expressing their acknowledgment of his presence. So at the Oremus, Let us pray, let us all fall down, and worship, and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

So he speaks in our text; not only as the Lord our King, intimating his providence, and administration; but as the Lord our Maker, and then a Maker so, as that he made us in a council, Faciamus, Let us; and that that he speaks, as in council, is another argument for reverence. For what interest, or freedom soever I have, by his favour, with any counsellor of state: yet I should surely use another manner of behaviour towards him, at the council table, than at his own table. So does there belong another manner of consideration to this plurality in God, to this meeting in council, to this intimation of a Trinity, than to those other actions in which God is presented to us, singly, as one God, for so he is presented to the natural man, as well as to us. And here enters the necessity of this knowledge, oportet denuo nasci¹⁸: without a second birth no salvation; and no second birth without baptism; no baptism, but in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It was the entertainment of God himself, his delight, his contemplation, for those infinite millions of generations, when he was without a world, without creatures to joy in one another, in the Trinity, as Gregory Nazianzen: (a poet, as well as a father, as most of the fathers were) expresses it: Ille suw splendor em cernere formw, gaudebat: It was the Father's delight, to look upon himself in the Son; numenque suum triplicique parique luce nitens, and to see the whole godhead, in a threefold, and an equal glory. It was God's own delight, and it must be the delight of every Christian, upon particular occasions to

¹⁸ John iii. 3.

carry his thoughts upon the several persons of the Trinity. If I have a bar of iron, that bar in that form will not nail a door; if a sow of lead, that lead in that form will not stop a leak; if a wedge of gold, that wedge will not buy my bread. The general notion of a mighty God, may less fit my particular purposes. But I coin my gold into current money, when I apprehend God, in the several notions of the Trinity. That if I have been a prodigal son, I have a Father in heaven, and can go to him, and say, Father I have sinned, and be received by him. That if I be a decayed father, and need the sustentation of mine own children; there is a Son in heaven, that will do more for me, than mine own, of what good means or what good nature soever they be, can or will do. If I be dejected in spirit, there is a holy Spirit in heaven, which shall bear witness to my spirit, that I am the child of God. And if the ghosts of those sinners, whom I made sinners, haunt me after their deaths, in returning to my memory, and reproaching to my conscience, the heavy judgments that I have brought upon them: if after the death of mine own sin, when my appetite is dead to some particular sin, the memory and sinful delight of past sins, the ghosts of those sins haunt me again; yet there is a Holy Ghost in heaven, that shall exorcise these, and shall overshadow me, the God of all comfort and consolation. God is the God of the whole world, in the general notion, as he is so, God; but he is my God, most especially, and most appliably, as he receives me in the several notions of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

This is our east, here we see God, God in all the persons, consulting, concurring to the making of us. But then my west presents itself, that is, an occasion to humble me in the next words. He makes but man; a man that is but Adam, but earth. I remember four names, by which man is often called in the Scriptures: and of those four, three do absolutely carry misery in their significations: three to one against any man, that he is miserable. One name of man is Ish; and that they derive a sonitu; man is but a voice, but a sound, but a noise, he begins the noise himself, when he comes crying into the world, and when he goes out; perchance friends celebrate, perchance enemies calumniate him, with a diverse voice, a diverse noise. A melancholic man, is but a groaning; a sportful man, but a song; an active man, but a trumpet; a mighty man, but a thunderclap. Every man but Ish, but a sound, but a noise. Another name is Enosh. Enosh is mere calamity, misery, depression. It is indeed most properly oblivion. And so the word is most elegantly used by David, Quid est homo¹⁹? Where the name of man, is Enosh: and so, that which we translate, What is man, that thou art mindful of him; is indeed, What is forgetfulness, that thou shouldest remember it; that thou shouldest think of that man, whom all the world hath forgotten? First, man is but a voice, but a sound. But because fame, and honour may come within that name of a sound, of a voice; therefore he is overtaken, with another damp: man is but oblivion: his fame, his name shall be forgotten. One name man hath, that hath some taste of greatness, and power in it, Gheber. And yet, I that am that man, says the prophet⁸⁰, (for there that name of man Gheber is used) I am the man, that hath seen affliction, by the rod of God's wrath. Man, Ish, is so miserable, as that he afflicts himself, cries, and whines out his own time. And man, Enosh, so miserable, as that others afflict him, and bury him, in ignominious oblivion; and man, that is Gheber, the greatest, and powerfulest of men, is yet, but that man, that may possibly, nay that may justly see affliction by the rod of God's wrath, and from Gheber be made Adam, which is the fourth name of man, indeed the first name of man, the name in this text, and the name to which every man must refer himself, and call himself by, earth, and red earth.

Now God did not say of man, as of other creatures; let the earth bring forth herbs, and fruits, and trees as upon the third day; nor let the earth bring forth cattle, and worms, as upon the sixth day, the same day that he made man; Non imperiali verbo, sed familiari manu, says Tertullian, God calls not man out with an imperious command, but he leads him out, with a familiar, with his own hand. And it is not fiat homo, but faciamus; not let there be, but let us make man. Man is but an earthen vessel. It is true, but when we are upon that consideration, God is the potter. If God will be that, I am well content to be this.

Let me be any thing, so that that I am be from my God; I am as well content to be a sheep, as a lion, so God will be my shepherd: and the Lord is my shepherd: to be a cottage, as a castle, so God will be the builder, and the Lord builds, and watches the city, the house, this house, this city, me; to be rye, as wheat, so God will be the husbandman, and the Lord plants me, and waters, and weeds, and gives the increase: and to be clothed in leather, as well, as in silk, so God will be the merchant; and he clothed me in Adam, and assures me of clothing, in clothing the lilies of the field, and is fitting the robe of Christ's righteousness to me now, this minute. Adam is as good to me as Gheber, a clod of earth, as a hill of earth; so God be the potter.

God made man of earth, not of air, not of fire. Man hath many offices, that appertain to this world, and whilst he is here, must not withdraw himself, from those offices of mutual society, upon a pretence of zeal, or better serving God in a retired life. A ship will no more come to the harbour without ballast, than without sails; a man will no more get to heaven, without discharging his duties to other men, than without doing them to God himself. Man liveth not by bread only, says Christ^*1; but yet he liveth by bread too. Every man must do the duties; every man must bear the incumbrances of some calling.

Pufois es: Thou art earth, he whom thou treadest upon is no less; and he that treads upon thee is no more. Positively it is a low thing, to be but earth; and yet thy low earth, is the quiet centre. There may be rest, acquiescence, content in the lowest condition. But comparatively earth is as high as the highest. Challenge him, that magnifies himself above thee, to meet thee in Adam. There bid him, if he will have more nobility, more greatness, than thou, take more original sin than thou hast. If God have submitted thee, to as much sin, and penalty of sin, as him; he hath afforded thee as much, and as noble earth as him. And if he will not try it in the root, in your equality in Adam; yet, in another test, another furnace, in the grave he must. There all dusts are equal. Except an epitaph tell me, who lies there, I cannot tell by the dust; nor by the epitaph, know which is the dust it speaks of, if another have been laid before, or after

^*1 Luke iv. 4.

in the same grave. Nor can any epitaph be confident in saying here lies; but here was laid. For, so various, so vicissitudinary is all this world, as that even the dust of the grave hath revolutions. As the motions of an upper sphere, imprint a motion in

changes of this life work after death. And, as envy supplants, and removes us alive; a shovel removes us, and throws us out of our grave, after death. No limbec, no weights can tell you, this is dust royal, this plebeian dust: no commission, no inquisition can say, this is Catholic, this is heretical dust. All lie alike; and all shall rise alike: alike, that is, at once, and upon one command. The saint cannot accelerate; the reprobate cannot retard the resurrection. And all that rise to the right hand, shall be equally kings: and all at the left, equally, What? The worst name we can call them by, or affect them with, is devil. And then they shall have bodies to be tormented in, which devils have not. Miserable, inexpressible, unimaginable. Miserable condition, where the sufferer would be glad to be but a devil; where it were some happiness, and some kind of life, to be able to die; and a great preferment, to be nothing.

He made us all of earth, and all of red earth. Our earth was red, even when it was in God's hands: a redness that amounts to a shamefastness, to a blushing at our own infirmities, is imprinted in us, by God's hand. For this redness, is but a conscience, a guiltiness of needing a continual supply, and succession of more, and more grace. And we are all red, red so, even from the beginning, and in our best state. Adam had, the angels had thus much of this infirmity, that though they had a great measure of grace, they needed more. The prodigal child grew poor enough, after he had received his portion: and he may be wicked enough, that trusts upon former, or present grace, and seeks not more. This redness, a blushing, that is, an acknowledgment, that we could not subsist, with any measure of faith, except we pray for more faith; nor of grace, except we seek more grace, we have from the hand of God: and another redness from his hand too, the blood of his Son, so that blood was effused by Christ, in the value of the ransom for all, and accepted by God, in the value thereof for all: and this redness, is, in the nature thereof, as extensive, as the redness derived from Adam is; both reach to all. So we were red earth in the hands of God, as redness denotes our general infirmities, and as redness denotes the blood of his Son, our Saviour, all have both. But that redness, which we have contracted from blood shed by ourselves, the blood of our own souls by sin, was not upon us, when we were in the hands of God. That redness is not his tincture, not his complexion. No decree of his is writ in any such red ink. Our sins are our own, and our destruction is from ourselves. We are not as accessaries, and God as principal in this soul-murder. God forbid. We are not as executioners of God's sentence, and God the malefactor, in this soul-damnation. God forbid. Cain came not red in his brothers blood, out of God's hands; nor David red with Uriah's blood; nor Achitophel with his own; nor Judas with Christ's, or his own. That that Pilate did illusorily, God can do truly; wash his hands from the blood of any of these men. It were a weak plea to say, I killed not that man; but it is true, I commanded one, who was under my command to kill him. It is rather a prevarication, than a justification of God to say, God is not the author of sin in any man, but it is true, God makes that man sin, that sin. God is innocency; and the beams that flow from him are of the same nature, and colour. Christ when he appeared in heaven, was not red but white. His head and hairs were white, as white wool, and as snow"^*; not head only, but hairs too. He, and that that grows from him; he, and we, as we come from his hands, are white too. His angels that provoke us to the imitation of that pattern, are so, in white. Two men, two angels stood by the apostles in white apparel^*3. The imitation is laid upon us by precept too: at all times let thy garments be white^*4; those actions in which thou appearest to the world, innocent. It is true, that Christ is both. My beloved is white and ruddy, says the spouse But the white was his own: his redness is from us. That which Zipporah said to her husband Moses in anger, the church may say to Christ in thankfulness, Vere sponsus sanguinum, Thou art truly a bloody husband to me^*6; damim, sanguinum, of bloods, bloods in the plural; for all

^2* Rev. i. 14. ^S3 Acts i. 10. ¹⁴ Eccles. ix. 8.

⁸⁵ Cant. v. 10. "Exod. iv. 25.

our bloods are upon him. This was a mercy to the militant church, that even the triumphant church wondered at it. They knew not Christ, when he came up to heaven in red. Who is this that cometh in red garments³1 I Wherefore is thy apparel red, like him that treadeth in the wine-press? They knew he went down in white, in entire innocency: and they wondered to see him return in red. But he satisfies them; calcavi, you think I have trodden the wine-press, and you mistake it not: I have trodden the wine-press; and calcavi solus, I have trodden it alone, all the redness, all the blood of the whole world is upon me. And as he adds, non vir de gentibus, of all people there was none with me, with me so, as to have any part in the merit; so, of all people there was none without me; without me so, as to be excluded by me, without their own fault, from the benefit of my merit. This redness he carried up to heaven: for, by the blood of his cross came peace, both to the things in earth, and the things in heaven⁸⁸. For that peccability, that possibility of sinning, which is in the nature of the angels of heaven, would break out into sin, but for that confirmation, which those angels have received in the blood of Christ. This redness he carried to heaven; and this redness he hath left upon earth, that all we miserable clods of earth, might be tempered with his blood; that in his blood exhibited in his holy and blessed sacrament, our long robes might be made white in the blood of the Lamb⁸⁹: that though our sins be robes, habits of sin; though long robes, habits of long continuance in sin: yet through that redness, which our sins have cast upon him, we might come to participate of that whiteness, that righteousness, which is his own. We, that is, all we; for, as to take us in, who are of low condition, and obscure station, a cloud is made white by his sitting upon it, he sate upon a white cloud³⁰, so to let the highest see, that they have no whiteness, but from him, he makes the throne white by sitting upon it. He sate upon a great white throne³¹. It had not been great, if it had not been white. White is the colour of dilatation; goodness only enlarges the throne. It had not been white, if he had not sate upon it. That goodness only, which

²⁷ Isaiah txiii. 1. ^S8 Colos. i. 20. ^*9 Rev. vii. 14.

³⁰ Rev. xiv. 14. ³¹ Rev. xx. 11.

consists in glorifying God, and God in Christ, and Christ in the sincerity of his truth, is true whiteness. God hath no redness in himself, no anger towards us, till he eonsiders us as sinners. God casts no redness upon us; inflicts no necessity, no constraint of sinning upon us. We have dyed ourselves in sins, as red as scarlet: we have drowned ourselves in such a Red Sea. But as a garment, that were washed in the Red Sea, would come out white, (so wonderful works hath God done at the Red Sea, says David³*) so doth his whiteness work through our red, and makes this Adam, this red earth, calculum candidum, that white stone, that receives a new name³³, not Ish, not Enosh, not Gheber, no name that tastes of misery or of vanity; but that name, renewed, and manifested, which was imprinted upon us, in our elections, the sons of God; the irremovable, the undisinheritable sons of God.

Be pleased to receive this note at parting, that there is macula alba, a spot, and yet white, as well as a red spot: a whiteness, that is an indication of a leprosy³⁴, as well as a redness. Wholepelagianism, to think nature alone sufficient; half-pelagianism, to think grace once received to be sufficient; super-pelagianism, to think our actions can bring God in debt to us, by merit, and supererogation, and catharism, imaginary purity, in canonizing ourselves, as present saints, and condemning all, that differ from us, as reprobates. All these are white spots, and have the colour of goodness; but are indications of leprosy. So is that that God threatens, Decorticatio Jicus, et albi rami, that the fig-tree shall be barked, and the boughs thereof left white⁸⁵: to be left white without bark, was an indication of a speedy withering. Ostensa candescunt, et arescunt, says St. Gregory of that place, the bough that lies open without bark looks white, but perishes: The good works that are done openly to please men have their reward, says Christ, that is, shall never have reward. To pretend to do good, and not mean it; to do things, good in themselves, but not to good ends; to go towards good ends, but not by good ways; to make the deceiving of men, thine end; or the praise of men, thine end: all this may have a whiteness, a colour of good: but all this, is a barking of the bough, and an indication of a mis

8* Psalm cvi. 22. ³³ Rev. ii. 17. ³⁴ Levit. xiii. ⁸⁵ Joel i. 7.

chievous leprosy. There is no good whiteness, but a reflexion from Christ Jesus, in an humble acknowledgment that we have none of our own, and in a confident assurance, that in our worst estate we may be made partakers of his. We are all red earth. In Adam we would not, since Adam we could not, avoid sin, and the concomitants thereof, miseries; which we have called our west, our cloud, our darkness. But then we have a north that scatters these clouds, in the next word, ad imaginem; that we are made to another pattern, in another likeness, than our own. Faciamus hominem; so far are we gone, east, and west; which is half our compass, and all this day's voyage. For we are stuck upon the sand; and must stay another tide, and another gale for our north, and south.