not be able to say, It is that which thy word, and thy catholic church hath imprinted in me? If he ask me an Idea of my prayers, shall I not be able to say, It is that which my particular necessities, that which the form prescribed by thy Son, that which the care and piety of the church, in conceiving fit prayers, hath imprinted in me? If he ask me an Idea of my sermons, shall I not be able to say, It is that which the analogy of faith, the edification of the congregation, the zeal of thy work, the meditations of my heart hath imprinted in me? But if I come to pray or to preach without this kind of Idea, if I come to extemporal prayer, and extemporal preaching, I shall come to an extemporal faith, and extemporal religion; and then I must look for an extemporal heaven, a heaven to be made for me; for to that heaven which belongs to the catholic church, I shall never come, except I go by the way of the catholic church, by former Ideas, former examples, former patterns, to believe according to ancient beliefs, to pray according to ancient forms, to preach according to former meditations. God does nothing, man does nothing well, without these Ideas, these retrospects, this recourse to pre-conceptions, pre-deliberations.

Something then I must propose to myself, to be the rule, and the reason of my present and future actions; which was our first branch in this second part: and then the second is, that I can propose nothing more availably, than the contemplation of the history of God's former proceeding with me; which is David's way here, because this was God's way before, I will look for God in this way still. That language in which God spake to man, the Hebrew, hath no present tense; they form not their verbs as our Western languages do, in the present, I hear, or I see, or I read, but they begin at that which is past, I have seen, and heard, and read. God carries us in his language, in his speaking, upon that which is past, upon that which he hath done already; cannot have better security for present, nor future, than God's former mercies exhibited to me. Quis non gaudeat, says St. Augustine, Who does not triumph with joy, when he considers what God hath done? Quis non et ea, quæ nondum venerunt, centura sperat, propter illa, quæ jam tanta impleta sunt? Who can doubt

he performance of all, that sees the greatest part of

a prophesy performed? If I have found that true that God hath said, of the person of anti-Christ, why should I doubt of that which he says of the ruin of anti-Christ? Credamus modicum quod restat, says the same father, It is much that we have seen done, and it is but little that God hath reserved to our faith, to believe that it shall be done.

There is no state, no church, no man, that hath not this tie upon God, that hath not God in these bands, that God by having done much for them already, hath bound himself to do more. Men proceed in their former ways, sometimes, lest they should confess an error, and acknowledge that they had been in a wrong way. God is obnoxious to no error, and therefore he does still, as he did before. Every one of you can say now to God, Lord, thou broughtest me hither, therefore enable me to hear; Lord, thou doest that, therefore make me understand; and that, therefore let me believe; and that too, therefore strengthen me to the practice; and all that, therefore continue me to a perseverance. Carry it up to the first sense and apprehension that ever thou hadst of God's working upon thee, either in thyself, when thou camest first to the use of reason, or in others in thy behalf, in thy baptism, yet when thou thinkest thou art at the first, God had done something for thee before all that; before that, he had elected thee, in that election which St. Augustine speaks of, Habet electos, quos creaturus est eligendos, God hath elected certain men, whom he intends to create, that he may elect them; that is, that he may declare his election upon them. God had thee, before he made thee; he loved thee first, and then created thee, that thou loving him, he might continue his love to thee. The surest way, and the nearest way to lay hold upon God, is the consideration of that which he had done already. So David does; and that which he takes knowledge of, in particular, in God's former proceedings towards him, is, because God had been his help, which is our last branch in this part, Because thou hast been my help.

From this one word, that God hath been my help, I make account that we have both these notions; first, that God hath not left me to myself, he hath come to my succour, he hath helped me; and then, that God hath not left out myself; he

hath been my help, but he hath left something for me to do with him, and by his help. My security for the future, in this consideration of that which is past, lies not only in this, that God, hath delivered me, but in this also, that he hath delivered me by way of a help, and help always presumes an endeavour and cooperation in him that is helped. God did not elect me as a helper, nor create me, nor redeem me, nor convert me, by way or helping me; for he alone did all, and he had no use at all of me. God infuses his first grace, the first way, merely as a giver; entirely, all himself; but his subsequent graces, as a helper; therefore we call them auxiliant graces, helping graces; and we always receive them, when we endeavour to make use of his former grace. Lord, I believe, (says the man in the Gospel to Christ) help mine unbelief. If there had not been unbelief, weakness, imperfectness, in that faith, there had needed no help; but if there had not been a belief, a faith, it had not been capable of help and assistance, but it must have been an entire act, without any concurrence on the man's part.

So that if I have truly the testimony of a rectified conscience, that God hath helped me, it is in both respects; first, that he hath never forsaken me, and then, that he hath never suffered me to forsake myself; he hath blessed me with that grace, that I trust in no help but his, and with his grace too, that I cannot look for his help, except I help myself also. God did not help heaven and earth to proceed out of nothing in the creation, for they had no possibility of any disposition towards it; for they had no being: but God did help the earth to produce grass, and herbs; for, for that God had infused a seminal disposition into the earth, which, for all that, it could not have perfected without his further help. As in making of woman, there is the very word of our text, gnazar, God made him a helper, one that was to do much for him, but not without him. So that then, if I will make God's former working upon me, an argument of his future gracious purposes, as I must acknowledge that God hath done. much for me, so I must find, that I have done what I could, by the benefit of that grace with him; for God promises to be but a helper. Lord open thou my lips, says David ; that is God's

work entirely; and then, My mouth, my mouth shall show forth thy praise; there enters David into the work with God. And then, says God to him, Dilata os tuum, Open thy mouth, (it is now made thy mouth, and therefore do thou open it) and I will fill it"; all inchoations and consummations, beginnings and perfectings are of God, of God alone; but in the way there is a concurrence on our part, (by a successive continuation of God's grace) in which God proceeds as a helper; and I put him to more than that, if I do nothing. But if I pray for his help, and apprehend and husband his graces well, when they come, then he is truly, properly my helper; and upon that security, that testimony of a rectified conscience, I can proceed to David's confidence for the future, Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice; which is our third, and last general part.

In this last part, which is, (after David's aspect, and consideration of his present condition, which was, in the effect, an exclusion from God's temple, and his retrospect, his consideration of God's former mercies to him, that he had been his help) his prospect, his confidence for the future, we shall stay a little upon these two steps; first, that that which he promises himself, is not an immunity from all powerful enemies, nor a sword of revenge upon those enemies; it is not that he shall have no adversary, nor that that adversary shall be able to do him no harm, but that he should have a refreshing, a respiration, in velamento alarum, under the shadow of God's wings. And then, (in the second place) that this way which God shall be pleased to take, this manner, this measure of refreshing, which God shall vouchsafe to afford, (though it amount not to a full deliverance) must produce a joy, a rejoicing in us; we must not only not decline to a murmuring, that we have no more, no nor rest upon a patience for that which remains, but we must ascend to a holy joy, as if all were done and accomplished, In the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.

First then, lest any man in his dejection of spirit, or of fortune, should stray into a jealousy or suspicion of God's power to deliver him, as God hath spangled the firmament with stars, so hath he

37 Psalm LXxxi. 10.

his Scriptures with names, and metaphors, and denotations of power. Sometimes he shines out in the name of a sword, and of a target, and of a wall, and of a tower, and of a rock, and of a hill; and sometimes in that glorious and manifold constellation of all together, Dominus exercituum, The Lord of hosts. God, as God, is never represented to us, with defensive arms; he needs them not. When the poets present their great heroes and their worthies, they always insist upon their arms, they spend much of their invention upon the description of their arms; both because the greatest valour and strength needs arms, (Goliah himself was armed) and because to expose one's self to danger unarmed, is not valour, but rashness. But God is invulnerable in himself, and is never represented armed; you find no shirts of mail, no helmets, no cuirasses in God's armoury. In that one place of Isaiah, where it may seem to be otherwise, where God is said to have put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salcation upon his head; in that prophecy God is Christ, and is therefore in that place, called the Redeemer. Christ needed defensive arms, God does not. God's word does; his Scriptures do; and therefore St. Hierome hath armed them, and set before every book his prologum galeatum, that prologue that arms and defends every book from calumny. But though God need not, nor receive not defensive arms for himself, yet God is to us a helmet, a breastplate, a strong tower, a rock, everything that may give us assurance and defence; and as often as he will, he can refresh that proclamation, Nolite tangere Christos meos 39, Our enemies shall not so much as touch us.

But here, by occasion of his metaphor in this text, (Sub umbra alarum, In the shadow of thy wings) we do not so much consider an absolute immunity, that we shall not be touched, as a refreshing and consolation, when we are touched, though we be pinched and wounded. The names of God, which are most frequent in the Scriptures, are these three, Elohim, and Adonai, and Jehovah; and to assure us of his power to deliver us, two of these three are names of power. Elohim is Deus fortis, the mighty, the powerful God: and (which deserves a particular consideration) Elohim is a plural name; it is not Deus fortis, but Dii fortes,