non potest, si nimia dejectione cilescat, but for their sakes, who would undervalue goodness itself, if good men did too much undervalue themselves, or thought themselves never the better for their goodness. And therefore St. Bernard applies that in the Proverbs to this case; Hast thou found honey? eat that which is sufficient. Mellis nomine, favor humanæ laudis, says he, by honey, favour, and praise, and thankfulness is meant; Meritoque non ab omni, sed ab immoderato edulio prohibemur, We are not forbid to taste, nor to eat, but to surfeit of this honey, of this praise of men. St. Augustine found this love of praise in himself, and could forbid it no man, Laudari à bene viventibus, si dicam nolo, mentior, If I should say, that I desired not the praise of good men, I should belie myself. He carries it higher than thus; he does not doubt, but that the apostles themselves had a holy joy, and complacency, when their preaching was acceptable, and thereby effectual upon the congregation. Such a love of praise is rooted in nature; and grace destroys not nature; grace extinguishes not, but moderates this love of praise in us, nor takes away the matter, but only exhibits the measure. Certainly, he that hath not some desire of praise, will be negligent in doing praise-worthy things; and negligent in anothor duty intended here too, that is, to praise good men, which is also another particular branch in this part.

The hundred and forty-fifth Psalm is, in the title thereof, called a Psalm of praise; and the rabbins call him Filium futuri seculi, A child of the next world, that says that Psalm thrice a day. We will interpret it, by way of accommodation, thus, that he is a child of the next world, that directs his praise every day, upon three objects, upon God, upon himself, upon other men. Of God, there can be no question; and for ourselves, it is truly the most proper, and most literal signification of this word in our text, jithhalelu, that they shall praise themselves, that is, they shall have the testimony of a rectified conscience, that they have deserved the praise of good men, in having done laudable service to God. And then, for others, that which God promises to Israel in their restauration, belongs to all the Israel of the Lord, to all the faithful, I will get thee praise, and fame in every land, and I will

25 Prov. xxv. 16.

make thee a name, and a praise amongst all the people of the earth. This God will do; procure them a name, a glory: by whom? When God binds himself, he takes us into the band with him, and when God makes himself the debtor, he makes us stewards; when he promises them praise, he means that we should give them that praise. Be all ways of flatterings, and humourings of great persons precluded with a protestation, with a detestation; be Philo Judæus his comparison received, his coquus, and his medicus, one provides sweetness for the present taste, but he is but a cook, the other is a physician, and though by bitter things, provides for thy future health; and such is the honey of flatterers, and such is the wormwood of better counsellers. I will not shake a proverb, not the ad corvos, that we were better admit the crows, that pick out our eyes, after we are dead, than flatterers that blind us, whilst we live; I cast justly upon others, I take willingly upon myself, the name of wicked, if I bless the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth, or any other whom he hath declared to be odious to him. But making my object goodness in that man, and taking that goodness in that man, to be a candle, set up by God in that candlestick, God having engaged himself, that that good man shall be praised, I will be a subsidy man so far, so far pay God's debts, as to celebrate with condign praise the goodness of that man; for in that I do as I should desire to be done to, and in that I pay a debt to that man, and in that I succour their weakness, who (as St. Gregory says) when they hear another praised, Si non amore virtutis, at delectatione laudis accenduntur, at first for the love of praise, but after for the love of goodness itself, are drawn to be good. For when the apostle had directed the Philippians*7 upon things that were true, and honest, and just, and pure, and lovely, and of a good report, he ends all thus, If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. In those two, says St. Augustine, he divides all, virtue, and praise; virtue in ourselves, that may deserve praise; praise towards others, that may advance and propagate virtue. This is the retribution which God promises to all the upright in heart, gloriabuntur, laudabuntur, they shall glory, they shall have, they shall give praise. And then it is so far from diminishing this 25 Zephan. iii. 19, 20.

VOL. III.

27 Phil. iv. 8.

glory, as that it infinitely exhalts our consolation, that God places this retribution in the future, gloriabuntur, if they do not yet, yet certainly they shall glory, and if they do now, that glory shall not go out, still they shall, they shall for ever glory.

In the Hebrew there is no present tense; in that language wherein God spake, it could not be said, The upright in heart, are praised; many times they are not. But God speaks in the future; first, that he may still keep his children in an expectation and dependence upon him, (you shall be, though you be not yet) and then, to establish them in an infallibility, because he hath said it, (I know you are not yet, but comfort yourselves, I have said it, and it shall be.) As the Hebrew hath no superlatives, because God would keep his children within compass, and in moderate desires, to content themselves with his measures, though they be not great, and though they be not heaped; so, considering what pressures, and contempts, and terrors, the upright in heart are subject to, it is a blessed relief, that they have a future proposed unto them, that they shall be praised, that they shall be redeemed out of contempt. This makes even the expectation itself as sweet to them, as the fruition would be. This makes them, that when David says, Expecta viriliter, Wait upon the Lord with a good courage; wait, I say, upon the Lord, they do not answer with the impatience of the martyrs under the altar, usquequo, How long, Lord, wilt thou defer it? But they answer in David's own words, Expectans expectavi, I have waited long, and, Expectabo nomen tuum, still I will wait upon thy name31; I will wait till the Lord come; his kingdom come in the meantime, his kingdom of grace, and patience; and for his ease, and his deliverance, and his praise, and his glory to me, let that come, when he may be most glorified in the coming thereof. Nay, not only the expectation, (that is, that that is expected) shall be comfortable, because it shall be infallible, but that very present state that he is in, shall be comfortable, according to the first of our three translations, They that are true of heart, shall be glad thereof; glad of that; glad that they are true of heart, though their future retribution were never so far removed; nay,

31

28 Psalm xxvii. 14. 30 Psalm XL. 1.

29 Rev. vi. 10. 81 Psalm Lii. 9.

though there were no future retribution in the case, yet they shall find comfort enough in their present integrity. Nay, not only their present state of integrity, but their present state of misery, shall be comfortable to them; for this very word of our text, halal, that is here translated joy, and glory, and praise, in divers places of Scripture, (as Hebrew words have often such a transplantation) signifies ingloriousness, and contempt, and dejection of spirit; so that ingloriousness, and contempt, and dejection of spirit, may be a part of the retribution; God may make ingloriousness, and contempt, and dejection of spirit, a greater blessing and benefit, than joy, and glory, and praise would have been; and so reserve all this glory and praising to that time, that David intends, The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance3. Though they live and die contemptibly, they shall be in an honourable remembrance, even amongst men, as long as men last, and even when time shall be no more, and men no more, they shall have it in futuro æterno; where there shall be an everlasting present, and an everlasting future, there the upright in heart shall be praised, and that for ever which is our conclusion of all.

If this word of our text, halal, shall signify joy, (as the service book, and the Geneva translation render it) that may be somewhat towards enough, which we had occasion to say of the joys of heaven, in our exercise upon the precedent Psalm, when we sailed through that hemisphere of heaven, by the breath of the Holy Ghost, in handling those words, Under the shadow of thy wings I will rejoice. So that, of this signification of the word, Gaudebunt in æterno, They shall rejoice for ever, we add nothing now. If the word shall signify glory, (as our last translation renders it) consider with me, that when that glory which I shall receive in heaven, shall be of that exaltation, as that my body shall invest the glory of a soul, (my body shall be like a soul, like a spirit, like an angel of light, in all endowments that glory itself can make that body capable of, that body remaining still a true body) when my body shall be like a soul, there will be nothing left for my soul to be like but God himself; I shall be partaker of the Divine nature3, and the same spirit with him35.

32 Psalm LXXV. 4: Isaiah XLiv. 25: Job xii. 17.

33 Psalm cxii. 6.

34

2 Pet. i. 4.

35 1 Cor. vi. 17.

Since the glory that I shall receive in body, and in soul, shall be such, so exalted, what shall that glory of God be, which I shall see by the light of this glory shed upon me there? In this place, and at this time the glory of God is; but we lack that light to see it by. When my soul and body are glorified in heaven, by that light of glory in me, I shall see the glory of God. But then what must that glory of the essence of God be, which I shall see through the light of God's own glory? I must have the light of glory upon me, to see the glory of God, and then by his glory I shall see his essence. When St. Paul cries out upon the bottomless depth of the riches of his attributes, O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God"! How glorious, how bottomless is the riches of his essence? If I cannot look upon him in his glass, in the body of the sun, how shall I look upon him face to face"? And if I be dazzled to see him as he works, how shall I see him, Sicuti est, As he is, and in his essence? But it may be some ease to our spirits, (which cannot endure the search of this glory of heaven, which shall show us the very essence of God) to take this word of our text, as our first translation of all took it, for one beam of this glory, that is praise; consider we therefore this everlasting future only so, How the upright in heart shall be praised in heaven.

First, the militant church shall transmit me to the triumphant, with her recommendation, that I lived in the obedience of the church of God, that I died in the faith of the Son of God, that I departed and went away from them, in the company and conduct of the spirit of God, into whose hands they heard me, they saw me recommend my spirit, and that I left my body, which was the temple of the Holy Ghost", to them, and that they have placed it in God's treasury, in his consecrated earth, to attend the resurrection, which they shall beseech him to hasten for my sake, and to make it joyful and glorious to me, and them, when it comes. So the militant church shall transmit me to the triumphant, with this praise, this testimony, this recommendation. And then, if I have done any good to any of God's servants, (or to any that hath not been God's servant, for God's sake) if I have but fed a

38 Rom. xi. 33.

381 John iii. 2.

871 Cor. xiii. 12. 39 1 Cor. vi. 19.