tian church) this observation meets us first, That God's conversation with us there, is called an answering; (he shall answer us) now if we look that God should answer us, we must say something to God; and our way of speaking to God, is by petition, by prayer. If we present no petition, if we pray not, we can look for no answer, for we ask none. Esaias is very bold, (saith St. Paul) when he says, That God was found of them that sought him not, and made manifest to them that asked not after him; yet though it were boldly said, it was truly said; so early, and so powerful is God's preventing grace towards us. So it is a very ordinary phrase amongst the prophets, God answered, and said thus, and thus, when the prophet had asked nothing of God. But here we are upon God's proceeding with man in the Christian church; and so, God answers not, but to our petitions, to our prayers. In a sermon, God speaks to the congregation, but he answers only that soul, that hath been with him at prayers before. A man may pray in the street, in the fields, in a fair; but it is a more acceptable and more effectual prayer, when we shut our doors, and observe our stationary hours for private prayer in our chamber; and in our chamber, when we pray upon our knees, than in our beds. But the greatest power of all, is in the public prayer of the congregation.

It is a good remembrance that Damascene gives, Non quia gentes quædam faciunt, à nobis linquenda; we must not forbear things only therefore, because the Gentiles, or the Jews used them. The Gentiles, particularly the Romans, (before they were Christians) had a set service, a prescribed form of common prayer in their temples; and they had a particular officer in that state, who was conditor precum, that made their collects, and prayers upon emergent occasions; and omni lustro, every five years, there was a review, and an alteration in their prayers, and the state of things was presumed to have received so much change in that time, as that it was fit to change some of their prayers and collects. It must not therefore seem strange, that at the first, there were certain collects appointed in our church; nor that others, upon just occasion, be added.

God's blessing here, in the Christian church, (for to that we

33 Rom. x. 20.

limit this consideration) is, that here he will answer us; therefore, here we must ask; here, our asking is our communion at prayer: and therefore they that undervalue, or neglect the prayers of the church, have not that title to the benefit of the sermon; for though God do speak in the sermon, yet he answers, that is, applies himself by his spirit, only to them, who have prayed to him before. If they have joined in prayer, they have their interest, and shall feel their consolation in all the promises of the gospel, shed upon the congregation, in the sermon. Have you asked by prayer, Is there no balm in Gilead? He answers you by me, Yes, there is balm; He was wounded by your transgressions, and with his stripes you are healed; his blood is your balm, his sacrament is your Gilead. Have you asked by prayer, is there no smith in Israel35? No means to discharge myself of my fetters, and chains, of my temporal, and spiritual encumbrances? God answers thee, yes, there is; he bids you but look about, and you shall find yourself in Peter's case; The angel of the Lord present, a light shining, and his chains falling off: all your manacles locked upon the hands, all your chains loaded upon the legs, all your stripes numbered upon the back of Christ Jesus. You have said in your prayers here, (Lord, from whom all good counsels do proceed) and God answers you from hence, The angel of the great council shall dwell with you, and direct you. You have said in your prayers, Lighten our darkness, and God answers you by me, (as he did his former people by Isaiah) The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Petition God at prayers, and God shall answer all your petitions at the sermon. There we begin, (if we will make profit of a sermon) at prayers; and thither we return again, (if we have made profit by a sermon) in due time, to prayers. For, that is St. Augustine's holy circle, in which he walks from prayers to the sermon, and from the sermon, next day to prayers again. Invocat te fides mea, says he to God; here I stand or kneel in thy presence, and in the power of faith, to pray to thee. But where had I this faith, that makes my prayer acceptable? Dedisti mihi per ministerium prædicatoris; I had it at the sermon, I had it, saith he, by the ministery of the

34 Isaiah Liii. 5.
37 Isaiah LX. 19.

35 1 Sam. xiii. 19.

36 Acts 12. 7. 38 Confes. 1. i. c. 1.

preacher; but I had it therefore, because thy spirit prepared me by prayer before; and I have it therefore, that is, to that end, that I might return faithfully to prayers again. As he is the God of our salvation, (that is, as he works in the Christian church) he answers us: if we ask by prayer, he applies the sermons; and, he answers by terrible things, in righteousness.

These two words, (terribilia per justitiam) by terrible things in righteousness, are ordinarily by our expositors taken to intimate a confidence, that God imprints by the ordinance of his church, that by this right use of prayer and preaching, they shall always be delivered from their enemies, or from what may be most terrible unto them. In which exposition, righteousness signifies faithfulness, and terrible things signify miraculous deliverances from, and terrible judgments upon his and our enemies. Therefore is God called Deus fidelis, the faithful God; for that faithfulness implies a covenant, made before, (and there entered his mercy, that he would make that covenant) and it implies also the assurance of the performance thereof, for there enters his faithfulness. So he is called, Fidelis Creator (we commit our souls to God, as to a faithful Creator*°) He had an eternal gracious purpose upon us, to create us, and he hath faithfully accomplished it. So, Fidelis quia vocavit, He is faithful in having called us"; that he had decreed, and that he hath done. So Christ is called, Fidelis pontifex, a merciful and a faithful high priest; merciful in offering himself for us, faithful in applying himself to us. So God's whole word is called so often, so very often Testimonium fidele, a faithful witness, an evidence that cannot deceive, nor mislead us. Therefore we may be sure, that whatsoever God hath promised to his church, (and whatsoever God hath done upon the enemies of his church heretofore, those very performances to them, are promises to us, of the like succours in the like distresses) he will perform, re-perform, multiply performances thereof upon us. Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth"; that is, whatsoever thou didst decree, was done even then, in the infallibility of that decree; and when that decree came to be executed, and actually done, in that very execution of

that former decree was enwrapped a new decree, that the same should be done over and over again for us, when soever we needed it. So that then, casting up our account, from the destruction of Babel, by all the plagues of Egypt, through the depopulation of Canaan, and the massacre in Sennacherib's army, to the swallowing of the invincible navy upon our seas, and the bringing to light that infernal, that subterranean treason in our land, we may argue, and assume, that the God of our salvation will answer us by terrible things, by multiplying of miracles, and ministering supplies, to the confusion of his, and our enemies, for, by terrible things in righteousness, will the God of our salvation answer us.

So then, his judgments are these terribilia, terrible, fearful things; and he is faithful in his covenant, and by terrible judgments he will answer, that is, satisfy our expectation. And that is a convenient sense of these words. But, the word, which we translate righteousness here, is Tzadok, and tzadok is not faithfulness, but holiness; and these terrible things are reverend things; and so Tremellius translates it, and well. Per res reverendas, by reverend things, things to which there belongs a reverence, thou shalt answer us. And thus, the sense of this place will be, that the God of our salvation, (that is, God working in the Christian church) calls us to holiness, to righteousness, by terrible things; not terrible, in the way and nature of revenge; but terrible, that is, stupendious, reverend, mysterious: that so we should not make religion too homely a thing, but come always to all acts, and exercises of religion, with reverence, with fear, and trembling, and make a difference, between religious, and civil actions.

In the frame and constitution of all religions, these materials, these elements have ever entered; some words of a remote signification, not vulgarly understood, some actions of a kind of halfhorror and amazement, some places of reservation and retiredness, and appropriation to some sacred persons, and inaccessible to all others. Not to speak of the services, and sacrifices of the Gentiles, and those self-manglings and lacerations of the priests of Isis, and of the priests of Baal, (faintly counterfeited in the scourgings and flagellations in the Roman church) in that very discipline which was delivered from God, by Moses, the service was full of mystery, and horror, and reservation, by terrible

things, (sacrifices of blood in manifold effusions) God answered them, then. So the matter of doctrine was delivered mysteriously, and with much reservation, and in-intelligibleness, as Tertullian speaks. The joy and glory of heaven was not easily understood by their temporal abundancies of milk, and honey, and oil, and wine; and yet, in these (and scarce any other way) was heaven presented, and notified to that people by Moses. Christ, a Messias, a Saviour of the world, by shedding his blood for it, was not easily discerned in their types and sacrifices; and yet so, and scarce any other way was Christ revealed unto them. God says, I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets". They were visions, they were similitudes, not plain and evident things, obvious to every understanding, that God led his people by. And there was an order of doctors amongst the Jews that professed that way, to teach the people by parables and dark sayings"; and these were the powerfullest teachers amongst them, for they had their very name (Mosselim) from power and dominion; they had a power, a dominion over the affections of their disciples, because teaching them by an obscure way, they created an admiration, and a reverence in their hearers, and laid a necessity upon them, of returning again to them, for the interpretation and signification of those dark parables. Many think that Moses cites these obscure doctors, these Mosselim, in that place, in the Book of Numbers", when he says, Wherefore they that speak in proverbs, say thus, and thus, and so he proceeds in a way and words, as hard to be understood, as any place in all his books. David professes this of himself often; I will open dark sayings upon my harp, and I will open my mouth in a parable". And this was the way of Solomon; for that very word is the title of his Book of Proverbs. And in this way of teaching, our Saviour abounded, and excelled; for when it is said, He taught them as one having authority, and when it is said, They were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with power, they refer that to this manner of teaching, that he astonished them with these reserved and dark sayings, and by the

45 Hos. xii. 10.
48 Psalm XLIX. 4.

46 Sandæi Symbolica fol. 108.

49 Psalm LXXviii. 2.
51 Luke iv. 32.

47 Num. xxi. 27.

50 Matt. vii. 29.