Sermon CXXXVIII

SERMON CXXXVIII.

PREACHED AT WHITEHALL, NOVEMBER 2, 1617.
PsALM LV. 19.

Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.

In a prison, where men withered in a close and perpetual imprisonment; in a galley, where men were chained to a laborious and perpetual slavery; in places, where any change that could come, would put them in a better state, than they were before, this might seem a fitter text, than in a court, where every man having set his foot, or placed his hopes upon the present happy state, and blessed government, every man is rather to be presumed to love God, because there are no changes, than to take occasion of murmuring at the constancy of God's goodness towards us. But because the first murmuring at their present condition, the first innovation that ever was, was in heaven; the angels kept not their first estate: though as princes are gods, so their wellgoverned courts, are copies, and representations of heaven; yet the copy cannot be better than the original: and therefore, as heaven itself had, so all courts will ever have, some persons, that are under the increpation of this text, that, Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God: at least, if I shall meet with no conscience, that finds in himself a guiltiness of this sin, if I shall give him no occasion of repentance, yet I shall give him occasion of praying, and magnifying that gracious God, which

³⁰ Job xxi. 7. ⁸¹ Psalm xLiv. 18.

hath preserved him from such sins, as other men have fallen into, though he have not: for I shall let him see first, the dangerous slipperiness, the concurrence, the coincidence of sins; that a habit and custom of sin, slips easily into that dangerous degree of obduration, that men come to sin upon reason; they find a quia, a cause, a reason why they should sin: and then, in a second place, he shall see, what perverse and frivolous reasons they assign for their sins, when they are come to that; even that which should avert them, they make the cause of them, Because they have no changes. And then, lastly, by this perverse mistaking, they come to that infatuation, that dementation, as that they lose the principles of all knowledge, and all wisdom: The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom; and, because they have no changes, they fear not God.

First then, we enter into our first part, the slipperiness of habitual sin, with that note of St. Gregory, Peccatum cum voce, est culpa cum actione; peccatum cum clamore, est culpa cum libertate; Sinful thoughts produced into actions, are speaking sins; sinful actions continued into habits, are crying sins. There is a sin before these; a speechless sin, a whispering sin, which nobody hears, but our own conscience; which is, when a sinful thought or purpose is born in our hearts, first we rock it, by tossing, and tumbling it in our fancies, and imaginations, and by entertaining it with delight and consent, and with remembering, with how much pleasure we did the like sin before, and how much we should have, if we could bring this to pass; and as we rock it, so we swathe it, we cover it, with some pretences, some excuses, some hopes of covercling* it; and this is that, which we call morosam delectationem, a delight to stand in the air and prospect of a sin, and a lothness to let it go out of our sight. Of this sin St. Gregory says nothing in this place, but only of actual sins, which he calls speaking; and of habitual, which he calls crying sins. And this is as far, as the Schools, or the casuists do ordinarily trace sin; to find out peccata infantia, speechless sins, in the heart; peccata vocatia, speaking sins, in our actions; and peccata clamantia, crying and importunate sins, which will not

* The folio edition has "coveraling." I find "covercle" (couvercle, French) used in Chaucer for a lid: and have corrected the text accordingly.—Ed.

suffer God to take his rest, no nor to fulfil his own oath, and protestation: he hath said, As I live, I would not the death of a sinner; and they extort a death from him. But besides these, here is a farther degree, beyond speaking sins, and crying sins; beyond actual sins and habitual sins; here are peccata cum ratione, and cum disputatione; we will reason, we will debate, we will dispute it out with God, and we will conclude against all his arguments, that there is a quia, a reason, why we should proceed and go forward in our sin: Etpudet non esse impudentes, as St. Augustine heightens this sinful disposition; men grow ashamed of all holy shamefacedness, and tenderness towards sin; they grow ashamed to be put off, or frighted from their sinful pleasure, with the ordinary terror of God's imaginary judgments; ashamed to be no wiser than St. Paul would have them, to be moved, or taken hold of, by the foolishness of preaching¹; or to be no stronger of themselves than so, that we should trust to another's taking of our infirmities, and bearing of our sicknesses; or to be no richer, or no more provident than so, to sell all, and give it away, and make a treasure in heaven, and all this for fear of thieves, and rust, and canker, and moths here. That which is not allowable in courts of justice, in criminal causes, to hear evidence against the king, we will admit against God; we will hear evidence against God; we will hear what man's reason can say in favour of the delinquent, why he should be condemned; why God should punish the soul eternally, for the momentary pleasures of the body: nay, we suborn witnesses against God, and we make philosophy and reason speak against religion, and against God; though indeed, Omne verum, omni vero consentiens; whatsoever is true in philosophy, is true in divinity too; howsoever we distort it, and wrest it to the contrary. We hear witnesses, and we suborn witnesses against God, and we do more; we proceed by recriminations, and a cross bill, with a quia Deus, because God does as he does, we may do as we do; because God does not punish sinners, we need not forbear sins; whilst we sin strongly, by oppressing others, that are weaker, or craftily by circumventing others that are simple. This is but leoninum, and vulpinum, that tincture of the lion, and of the fox, that brutal nature that

¹ 1 Cor. i. 21.

is in us. But when we come to sin, upon reason, and upon discourse, upon meditation, and upon plot, this is humanum, to become the man of sin, to surrender that, which is the form, and essence of man, reason, and understanding, to the service of sin. When we come to sin wisely and learnedly, to sin logically, by a quia, and an ergo, that, because God does thus, we may do as we do, we shall come to sin through all the arts, and all our knowledge, to sin grammatically, to tie sins together in construction, in a syntaxis, in a chain, and dependance, and coherence upon one another: and to sin historically, to sin over sins of other men again, to sin by precedent, and to practise that which we had read: and we come to sin rhetorically, persuasively, powerfully; and as we have found examples, for our sins in history, so we become examples to others, by our sins, to lead and encourage them, in theirs; when we come to employ upon sin, that which is the essence of man, reason, and discourse, we will also employ upon it, those which are the properties of man only, which are, to speak, and to laugh; we will come to speak, and talk, and to boast of our sins, and at last, to laugh and jest at our sins; and as we have made sin a recreation, so we will make a jest of our condemnation. And this is the dangerous slipperiness of sin, to slide by thoughts and actions, and habits, to contemptuous obduration.

Now amongst the manifold perversenesses and incongruities of this artificial sinning, of sinning upon reason, upon a quia, and an ergo, of arguing a cause for our sin; this is one, that we never assign the right cause: we impute our sin to our youth, to our constitution, to our complexion; and so we make our sin our nature: we impute it to our station, to our calling, to our course of life; and so we make our sin our occupation: we impute it to necessity, to perplexity, that we must necessarily do that, or a worse sin; and so we make our sin our direction. We see the whole world is ecclesia malignantium, a synagogue, a church of wicked men⁸; and we think it a schismatical thing, to separate ourselves from that church, and we are loth to be excommunicated in that church; and so we apply ourselves to that, we do as they do, with the wicked we are wicked; and so we make our

² Psalm xxvi, 5.

sin our civility. And though it be some degree of injustice, to impute all our particular sins, to the devil himself, after a habit of sin hath made us spontaneos dwmones", devils to ourselves: yet we do come too near an imputing our sins to God himself, when we place such an impossibility in his commandments, as make us lazy, that because we cannot do all, therefore we will do nothing; or such a manifestation and infallibility in his decree, as makes us either secure, or desperate; and say, The decree hath saved me, therefore I can take no harm; or, The decree hath damned me, therefore I can do no good. No man can assign a reason in the sun, why his body casts a shadow: why all the place round about him, is illumined by the sun, the reason is in the sun; but of his shadow, there is no other reason, but the grossness of his own body: why there is any beam of light, any spark of life, in my soul, he that is the Lord of light and life, and would not have me die in darkness, is the only cause; but of the shadow of death, wherein I sit, there is no cause, but mine own corruption. And this is the cause, why I do sin; but why I should sin there is none at all.

Yet in this text the sinner assigns a cause; and it is Quia non mutationes, Because they have no changes. God hath appointed that earth, which he hath given to the sons of men, to rest, and stand still; and that heaven which he reserves for those sons of men, who are also the sons of God, he hath appointed to stand still too: all that is between heaven and earth, is in perpetual motion and vicissitude; but all that is appointed for man, man's possession here, man's reversion hereafter, earth and heaven, is appointed for rest, and stands still; and therefore God proceeds in his own way, and declares his love most, where there are fewest changes. This rest of heaven, he hath expressed often, by the name of a kingdom, as in that petition, Thy kingdom come: and that rest, which is to be derived upon us, here in earth, he expresses in the same phrase too, when having presented to the children of Israel, an inventory and catalogue of all his former blessings, he concludes all, includes all in this one, Et prosperata es in regnum, I have advanced thee to be a kingdom: which form, God hath not only still preserved to us, but hath also

³ Chrysostom.

united kingdoms together; and to give us a stronger body, and safer from all changes, whereas he hath made up other kingdoms, of towns and cities, he hath made us a kingdom of kingdoms, and given us as many kingdoms to our kingdom, as he hath done cities to some other. God's gracious purpose then to man, being rest, and a contented reposedness in the works of their several callings; and his purpose being declared upon us, in the establishing and preserving of such a kingdom, as hath the best body, (best united in itself, and knit together) and the best legs to stand upon, (peace and plenty) and the best soul to inanimate and direct it, (truth and religion) and the best spirits to make all parts answerable and useful to one another, (wisdom and vigilancy in the prince, gratitude and cheerfulness in the subject:) and since God hath gone so far, once in our time already, in expressing his care of our rest and quiet, as to give us a change, without change, an alteration of persons, and not of things, that we saw old things done away, in the secession of one, and all things made new in the succession of another sovereign, and all this newness done without innovation; so that, as David says of the whole earth⁴, we might say again of this land, Terra tremuit et quievit, The earth shaked, and stood still at once; it was all one act, to have been afraid, and to have been instantly secured again, since nothing beyond that, nothing equal to that change, can be imagined by us from God; may it be ever his gracious pleasure, to continue to us, the enjoying of our present rest, without showing us any more changes. As (to end this branch) it were a strange enormity, a strange perverseness in any man, to plant a garden in any place, therefore, because he foresaw an earthquake in that place, that would disorder and discompose his garden again; or to build in any place therefore, because the fire were likeliest to take hold of that street; that is, to make anything the cause of an action, which should naturally enforce the contrary: so it is an irreligious distemper, to be the bolder in sin, because we have no changes, or to defer our conversion from sin, till changes, till afflictions come. For Satan knew the air, and complexion, and disposition of the world, well enough: he argued not impertinently, nor frivolously, for the

general, though ho were deceived in the particular, in Job⁵, when he said to God, Stretch out thy hand, and touch his bones, and his flesh, and see if he will not blaspheme thee to thy face. Afflictions, and changes in this life, do not always direct us upon God: the displeasure of a prince may make a harsh person more supple, more appliable than before; his graces received may make him more accessible, more equal, more obsequious, than before: and losses and forfeitures sustained, or threatened, may make him more apt to give, to bleed out, to redeem his dangers, than before: but these changes do not always make him an honester man, nor a better Christian than before. And therefore, says the apostle⁶, Study to be quiet; labour to find a testimony of God's love to you, in your present estate, and never put yourself, either for temporal, or spiritual amendment, upon changes.

To proceed then: this shutting up of themselves against the fear of God, is not merely quia non mutationes, because there are no changes; but, quia non illis, because they have no changes. It is a dangerous preterition, not to bring a man's self into consideration; but to consider no man but himself, to make himself the measure of all, is as dangerous a narrowness. The epigrammatist describes the atheist so, that he desires no better argument to prove that there is no God, but that he sees himself, Dim negat ista beatum, prosper well enough, though he do not believe this prosperity to proceed from God. What miseries soever fall upon others, affect not him. He may have seen, since he was born, the greatest kingdom in Christendom likely to have been broken in pieces, and cantoned into petty seigniories, and so left no kingdom: he may have seen such a danger upon our next neighbours, as that, when the powerfullest enemy in Christendom hung over their heads, and lay upon their backs, they bred a more dangerous enemy in their own bosoms, and bowels, by tearing themselves in pieces, with differences, in points of subdivided religion, and impertinent scruples, unjustly called points of religion; in which men leave peace, and unity, and charity, the true ways of salvation, and will inquire nothing, but how soon, how early God damned them: they must know, sub quibus consulibus, in whose reign, in whose mayoralty, what hour of the

Job ii. 5.

⁶ 1 Thess. iv. 11.

day, and what minute of that hour, God's eternal decree of election or reprobation was made. Many, very many of these changes he may have seen and heard; but all these he hears, as though he heard them out of Livy, or out of Berosus, or in letters from China, or Japan; and not as though they concerned his time, or his place, or his observation. To contract this: we have all been either in wars, and seen men fall at our right hand, and at our left, by the bullet; or at sea, and seen our consort sunk by tempest, or taken by pirates; or in the city, and seen the pestilence devour our parents above us, our children below us, our friends round about us; or in the court, and seen God's judgments overtake the most secure, and confident: we have all seen such changes as these everywhere; but quia non nobis, because the bullet, the shipwreck, the pirate, the pestilence, the judgments have not reached us, in our particular persons, they have not imprinted the fear of God in us.

And the word of the text, carries it farther than so: it is not because there are no changes, for they abound; nor because they have had none, for none escapes; but it is, quia non habent, because they have no present, nor imminent danger in their contemplation now; because no affliction lies upon them now, therefore they are secure. It is not quia non habuerunt; every person, every state, every church, hath had changes: because the Roman church will needs be all the world, we may consider all the world in her, so far; she hath had such a change, as hath awakened other princes to reassume, and to restore to themselves, and their crowns, their just dignities; so she hath had a change in honour and estimation. She hath had such a change, as hath contracted and brought her into a narrower channel, and called in her overflowings; so she hath had a change in power and jurisdiction. She hath had such a change, as hath lessened her temporal treasure everywhere, and utterly abolished her imaginary spiritual treasure, in many places; she hath had a change in means, in profit, and revenue: she hath had such a change, as that they who by God's commandment are come out from her, have been equal, even in number, to them who have adhered to her; such a change, as hath made her doctrine appear, some to be the doctrines of men, and some the doctrines of devils: such a change in reputation, in jurisdiction, and in revenue, and in power, and in manifestion of her disguises, she hath had: hut quia non habet, because she decays not every day, the Reformation seems to her to be come to a period, as high as it shall go: because she hath a misapprehension of some faintness, some declinableness towards her again, even in some of our professors themselves, who (as she thinks) come as near to her, as they dare: because she hath gained of late upon many of the weaker sex, women laden with sin; and of weaker fortunes, men laden with debts; and of weaker consciences, souls laden with scruples; therefore she imagines that she hath seen the worst, and is at an end of her change; though this be but indeed a running, an ebbing back of the main river, but only a giddy and circular eddy, in some shallow places of the stream, (which stream, God be blessed, runs on still currently, and constantly, and purely, and intemerately, as before) yet because her corrections are not multiplied, because her absolute ruin is not accelerated, she hath some false conceptions of a general returning towards her, and she sears up herself against all sense of truth, and all tenderness of peace; and because she hath rid out one storm, in Luther and his successors, therefore she fears not the Lord for any other, Quia non habent, Because she hath no changes, now.

Habuerunt then, they have had changes; and habebunt, they shall have more, and greater: Impii non stabunt, says David, The wicked shall not stand: in how low ground soever they stand, and in how great torment soever they stand, yet they shall not stand there, but sink to worse; and at last, non stabunt injudicio, they shall not stand in judgment, but fall there, from whence there is no rising: non stabunt: they shall not stand, though they think they shall; they shall counterfeit the seals of the Holy Ghost, and delude themselves with imaginary certitudes of salvation, and illusory apprehensions of decrees of election: nay, non stabunt, they shall not be able to think that they shall stand: that which the apostle saith⁷, Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall, belongs only to the godly; only they can think, deliberately, and upon just examination of the marks and evidences of the elect, that they shall stand: God shall suffer the

wicked to sink down, not to a godly sense of their infirmity, and holy remorse of the offects thereof; but yet lower than that, to a diffident jealousy, to a desperate acknowledgment, that they cannot stand in the sight of God: they shall have no true rest at last: they shall not stand; nay, they shall not have that half, that false comfort by the way; they shall not be able to flatter themselves by the way, with that imagination that they shall stand.

Now, both the ungodly, and godly too, must have changes: in matter of fortune, changes are common to them both: and then, in all, of all conditions, Mortalitas mutabilitas, says St. Augustine: even this, that we must die, is a continual change. The very same word, which is here, kalaph, is in Job also⁸: All the days of my appointed time, till my changing come. And because this word which we translate changing, is there spoken in the person of a righteous man, some translators" have rendered that place, Donec venial sancti nativitas mea, Till I be born again: the change, the death of such men, is a better birth: and so the Chaldee paraphrasts, the first exposition of the Bible, have expressed it, Quousque rursus fiam, Till I be made up again by death: he does not stay to call the Resurrection a making up; but this death, this dissolution, this change, is a new creation; this divorce is a new marriage; this very parting of the soul, is an infusion of a soul, and a transmigration thereof out of my bosom, into the bosom of Abraham. But yet, though it is all this, yet it is a change; Maxima mutatio est mutabilitatis in immutabilitatem¹⁰, To be changed so, as that we can never be changed more, is the greatest change of all. All must be changed so far, as to die: yea, those who shall, in some sort, escape that death; those whom the last day shall surprise upon earth, though they shall not die, yet they shall be changed. Statulum est omnibus, semel morV¹, All men must die once; we live all under that law. But statutum nemini bis mori: since the promise of a Messiah, there is no law, no decree, by which any man must necessarily die twice; a temporal death, and a spiritual death too. It is not the man, but the sinner, that dies the second death: God sees sin in that man, or else that man had never seen the second

⁸ Job xiv. 14. ⁸ Symmachus.

¹⁰ Bernard. "Heb. ix. 27.

death. So we shall all have one change, besides those which we have all had; good and bad must die: but the men in this text, shall have two. But whatsoever changes are upon others in the world, whatsoever upon themselves; whatsoever they have had, whatsoever they are sure to have; yet, Quia non habent, non timent Deum; Because they have none now, they fear not God. And so we are come to our third and last part.

They fear not God: this is such a state, as if a man who had been a schoolmaster all his life, and taught others to read, or had been a critic all his life, and ingeniosus in alienis, over-witty in other men's writings, had read an author better, than that author meant, and should come to have use of his reading, to save his life at the bar, when he had his book, for some petty felony, and then should be stricken with the spirit of stupidity, and not be able to read then. Such is the state of the wisest, of the learnedest, of the mightiest in this world: if they fear not God, they have forgot their first letters; they have forgot the basis and foundation of all power, the reason and the purpose of all learning, the life and the soul of all counsel and wisdom: for, The fear of God is the beginning of all. They are all fallen into the danger of the law; they have all sinned: they are offered their book, the merciful promises of God to repentant sinners, in his Word; and they cannot read, they cannot apply them, to their comfort: there is Scripture, but not translated, not transferred to them: there is Gospel, but not preached to them; there are epistles, but not superscribed to them.

It is an hereditary sentence, and hath passed from David in his Psalmsto Solomon in his Proverbs^I3, and then to him that gleaned after them both, the author of Ecclesiasticus¹⁴, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All three profess all that, and more than that. It is blessedness itself, says the father, David; blessedness itself, says the son, Solomon; and Plenitudo sapientiw, and Omnis sapientia, says the other, the fulness of wisdom, and the only wisdom. Job had said it before them all, Ecce, timor Domini, ipsa est sapientia"; The fear of the Lord, is wisdom itself: and the prophet Esay said it after, of Hezechias,

There shall be stability of thy times, strength, salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; for, the fear of the Lord shall be thy treasure^". It is our supply, if we should fear want, and it is our reason that we cannot fear want; for he that fears God, fears nothing else. As therefore the Holy Ghost hath placed the beginning of wisdom in this fear; so hath he the consummation and perfection of this wisdom, even in the perfect pattern of all wisdom, in the person of Christ himself, The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon thee, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and of might, the spirit of knowledge, and of the fear of God¹⁷. For, without this fear, there is no courage, no confidence, no assurance: and therefore Christ begun his passion with a fear, in his agony, Tristis anima, My soul is heavy; but that fear delivered him over to a present conformity to the will of God, in his Veruntamen, Yet not my will, but thine be done: and he ended his passion with a fear, Eli, Eli, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? and that fear delivered him over to a present assurance, In manus titas Damine, confidently to commend his spirit into his hands, whom he seemed to be afraid of.

Since then the Holy Ghost, whose name is love; since God, who is love itself, disposes us to this fear, we may see in that, that neither God himself, nor those of whom God said, Ye are gods, that is, all those who have authority over others, can be loved so as they should, except they be feared, so as they should be too: if you take away due fear, you take away true Jove. Even that fear of God, which we use to call servile fear, which is but an apprehension of punishment, and is not the noblest, the perfectest kind of fear, yet it is a fear, which our Saviour counsels us to entertain; Fear him that can cast soul and body into hell¹"; even that fear, is some beginning of wisdom. That fear Job had use of, when he said, Quid faciam cum surrexerit ad judicandum Deus^is? Here I may lay hold upon means of restitution; but when the Lord shall raise himself to judgment, how shall I stand? So also had David use of this fear, A judiciis tuis timui^*0: However I was ever confident in thy mercy, yet I was

in fear of thy judgment. It is that fear which St. Basil directs us to, upon those words, Timorem Domini docebo vos^t', I will teach you the fear of the Lord, Cogita profundum barathrum, To learn to fear God, he sends us to the meditation of the torments of hell. And so it is that fear, which wrought that effect in St. Hierome: Ego ob Gehennw metum carcere isto me damnavi; For fear of that execution, I have shut myself up in this prison; for fear of perishing in the next world, I banish myself from this: there is a beginning, there is a great degree of wisdom, even in this fear.

Now, as the fear of God's punishments disposes us to love him, so that fear which the magistrate imprints, by the execution of his laws, establishes that love which preserves him, from all disestimation and irreverence: for, whom the enemy does not fear, the subject does not love. As no peace is safe enough, where there is no thought of war; so the love of man towards God, and those who represent him, is not permanently settled, if there be not a reverential fear, a due consideration of greatness, a distance, a distinction, a respect of rank, and order, and majesty. If there be not a little fear, by justice at home, and by power and strength abroad, mingled in it, it is not that love, which God requires to be first directed upon himself, and then reflected upon his stewards and vicegerents: for, as every society is not friendship, so every familiarity is not love.

But, to conclude: as he will be feared, so he will be feared, no otherwise, than as he is God: Non timuerunt Deum, is the increpation of the text, They feared not God. It is timor Dei, and not timor Jehovar. God is not here expressed by the name of Jehovah, that unexpressible and unutterable, that incomprehensible and unimaginable name of Jehovah. God calls not upon us, to be considered as God in himself, but as God towards us; not as he is in heaven, but as he works upon earth: and here, not in the school, but in the pulpit; not in disputation, but in application. It is not timor Jehovw, nor it is not timor Adonai: God does not call himself in this place, the Lord: for, to be Lord, to be proprietary of all, this is Potestas tarn utendi quam abutendi, It gives the Lord of that thing power, to do, absolutely, what he will

⁸¹ Psalm xxxiv. 4.

with that which is his: and so, God, as absolute Lord, may damn without respect of sin, if he will; and save without respect of faith, if he will. But God is pleased to proceed with us, according to that contract which he hath made with us, and that law which he hath given to us, in those two tables, Tantummodo crede, Only believe, and thy faith shall save thee; and, Fac hoc et rives, Live well, and thy good works shall make sure thy salvation. Lastly, God does not call himself here Domimim exercituum, The Lord of hosts; God would not only be considered, and served by us, when he afflicts us with any of his swords, famine, war, pestilence, malice, or the like; but the fear required here, is to fear him as God, and as God presented in this name, Elohim; which, though it be a name primarily rooted in power and strength, (for El is Deus fortis, The powerful God; and as there is no love without fear, so there is no fear without power) yet properly it signifies his judgment, and order, and providence, and dispensation, and government of his creatures. It is that name, which goes through all God's whole work of the creation, and disposition of all creatures, in the first of Genesis: in all that, he is called by no other name than this, the name God; not by Jehovah, to present an infinite majesty; nor by Adonai, to present an absolute power; nor by Tzebaoth, to present a force, or conquest: but only in the name of God, his name of government. All ends in this ; to fear God, is to adhere to him, in his way, as he hath dispensed and notified himself to us; that is, as God is manifested in Christ, in the Scriptures, and applied to us out of those Scriptures, by the church: not to rest in nature without God, nor in God without Christ, nor in Christ without the Scriptures, nor in our private interpretation of Scripture, without the church. Almighty God fill us with these fears, these reverences; that we may reverence him, who shall at last bring us, where there shall be no more changes; and hath already placed us in such a government, as being to us a type and representation of the kingdom of heaven, we humbly beg, may evermore continue with us, without changes, in government, or in religion. Amen.