literally in the text, eromet, he shall be so filled as that he shall vomit; even that fulness, those temporal things which he had, he shall cast up.

It is not a vomiting for his ease, that he would vomit; but he shall vomit; he shall be forced to vomit. He hath swallowe down riches, and he shall vomit them up again; God shall cast them out of his belly ; but by what hand? whether by his right hand, by the true way of justice, or his left hand, by malice, under colour of justice, his money shall be his antimony, his own riches shall be his vomit. Solomon says, he saw a sore eçil under the sun; but if he had lived as long as the sun, he might have scen it every course of the sun, Riches reserved to their owners for their own hurt; rich men perish, that should not have perished, or not so soon, or not so absolutely, if they had not been rich. Their confidence in their riches provokes them to some unjustifiable actions, and their riches provoke others to a vehement persecution. And in this vomit of theirs, if we had time to do so, we would consider first, The sordidness, and the contempt and scorn that this evacuated man comes to in the world, when he hath had this vomit of all his honey; that because there can be no vacuity, he shall be filled again, but Saturabitur ignominia, He shall be filled with shame for glory, and shameful spewing shall upon his glory. He magnified himself against the Lord, and therefore was made drunk, and shall wallow in his vomit, and be had in derision. His honey was his soul, and that being vomited, he is now but a rotten and abhorred carcass; at best he was but a bag of money, and now he is but the bag itself, which scarce any man will stoop to take up: and as in a vomit in a basin, the physician is able to show the world, what cold meat, and what raw meat, and what hard and indigestible meat he had eaten; so when such a person comes by justice, or malice to this vomit, every man becomes a physician, every man brings indictments, and evidence against him, and can show all his falsehoods, and all his extortions in particular.

be

In these particulars we would consider the scorn upon this vomit; and then the danger of it in these, that nothing weakens

25 Job xx. 15.

37 Habak. ii. 16.

36 Eccles. v. 12.

38 Jer. xLviii. 26.

the eyes more than vomiting; when this worldly man hath lost his honey, he hath lost his sight; he was dim-sighted at beginning, when he could see nothing but worldly things, things nearest to him, but when he hath vomited them, he hath lost his spectacles; through his riches he saw some glimmering, some colour of comfort, now he sees no comfort at all: and a greater danger in vomiting is, that oftentimes it breaks a vein within, and that is most commonly incurable; this man that vomits without, bleeds within; his fortune is broke, and his heart is broke; and he bleeds better blood than his own, he bleeds out the blood of Christ Jesus himself; the blood of Christ Jesus poured into him heretofore in the consolation of the Gospel, and in the cup of salvation in the sacrament (for so much as concerns him) is but spilt upon the ground; as though his honey, his worldly greatness, were his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and prince, and friends, and all, when that is lost by this vomit, he mourns for all, in a sad and everlasting mourning, in such a disconsolate dejection of spirit as ends either in an utter inconsideration of God, or in a desperation of his mercies. This is that incipiam te evomere (as the Vulgate reads it3) in this vomit of worldly things, God does begin to vomit him out of his mouth; and then God does not return to his vomit, but leaves this impatient patient to his impenitibleness. But we must not launch into these wide seas now, to consider the scorn, or the danger of this vomit, but rather draw into the harbour, and but repeat the text, transferred from this world to the text, from temporal to spiritual things.

Thus far we have been In melle, in honey, upon honey; but now Super mel, above honey. The judgments of the Lord are Dulcia præ melle, Sweeter than honey, and the honeycomb*°; and the judgments of the Lord are that, by which the Lord will judge us, and this world; it is his word. His word, the sincerity of the Gospel, the truth of his religion is our honey and honeycomb; our honey, and our wax, our covenant, and our seal; have him not, if we have not his truth, if we require ot honey; and we trust him not, if we require any other seal, if w think the word of God needs the traditions of men. And in

39 Revel. iii. 16.

40 Psalm xix. 10.

venisti tu, hath God manifested to thee the truth of his Gospel? Bless thou the Lord, praise him and magnify him for ever, whose day-spring from on high hath visited thee, and left so many nations in darkness, who shall never hear of Christ, till they hear himself, nor hear other voice from him then, than the ite maledicti; pity them that have not this honey, and confess for thyself, that though thou have it, thou hast but found it; couldst thou bespeak Christian parents beforehand, and say, I will be born of such parents, as shall give me a title to the covenant, to baptism? Or couldst thou procure sureties, that should bind themselves for thee, at the entering into the covenant in baptism? Thou foundest thyself in the Christian church, and thou foundest means of salvation there; thou broughtest none hither, thou broughtest none here; the title of St. Andrew, the first of the apostles that came to Christ, was but that, Invenimus Messiam, We have found the Messias. It is only Christ himself that says of himself, Comedi mel meum, I have eat my honey", his own honey. We have no grace, no Gospel of our own, we find it here.

But since thou hast found it, Comede, Eat it; do not drink the cup of Babylon, lest thou drink the cup of God's wrath too: but make this honey (Christ's true religion) thy meat; digest that, assimilate that, incorporate that: and let Christ himself, and his merit, be as thy soul; and let the clear and outward profession of his truth, religion, be as thy body: if thou give away that body, (be flattered out of thy religion, or threatened out of thy religion) if thou sell this body, (be bought and bribed out of thy religion) if thou lend this body, (discontinue thy religion for a year or two, to see how things will fall out) if thou have no body, thou shalt have no resurrection; and the clear and undisguised profession of the truth, is the body.

Eat therefore this honey ad sufficientiam; so much as is enough. To believe implicitly as the church believes, and know nothing, is not enough; know thy foundations, and who laid them; other foundations can no man lay, than are laid, Christ Jesus; neither can other men lay those foundations otherwise than they are laid by the apostles, but eat ad sufficientiam tuam,

41 Cant. v. 1.

that which is enough for thee, for so much knowledge is not required in thee in those things, as in them, whose profession it is to teach them; be content to leave a room still for the apostle's Emulamini charismata meliora, Desire better gifts; and ever think it a title of dignity which the angel gave Daniel, to be vir desideriorum; to have still some farther object of thy desires. Do not think thou wantest all, because thou hast not all; for at the great last day, we shall see more plead catechisms for their salvation, than the great volumes of controversies, more plead their pockets, than their libraries. If St. Paul, so great an argosy, held no more but Christum crucifixum, what can thy pinnace hold? Let humility be thy ballast, and necessary knowledge thy freight for there is an over-fulness of knowledge, which forces a vomit; a vomit of opprobrious and contumelious speeches, a belching and spitting of the name of heretic and schismatic, and a loss of charity for matters that are not of faith; and from this vomiting comes emptiness, the more disputing, the less believing but Saturasti nos benignitate tua, Domine, Thou hast satisfied us early with thy mercy", thou gavest us Christianity early, and thou gavest us the Reformation early: and therefore since in thee we have found this honey, let us so eat it, and so hold it, That the land do not comit her inhabitants, nor spew us out, as it spewed out the nations that were before us, but that our days may be long in this land, which the Lord our God hath given us, and that with the ancient of days, we may have a day without any night in that land, which his Son our Saviour hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. To which glorious Son of God, &c.

42 Psalm xc. 14.

43 Levit. xviii. 25.

262

SERMON LXXI.

[At the Hague, December 19, 1619, I preached upon this text. Since, in my sickness at Abrey-hatch, in Essex, 1630, revising my short notes of that sermon, I digested them into these two.]

MATTHEW iv. 18, 19, 20.

And Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, (for they were fishers.) And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men; and they straightway left their nets, and followed him.

SOLOMON presenting our Saviour Christ, in the name and person of wisdom, in the Book of Proverbs, puts, by instinct of the Holy Ghost, these words into his mouth, Delicia mea esse cum filiis hominum, Christ's delight is to be with the children of men1; and in satisfaction of that delight, he says in the same verse, in the person of Christ, That he rejoiced to be in the habitable parts of the earth (that is, where he might converse with men) Ludens in orbe terrarum (so the Vulgate reads it) and so our former translation had it, I took my solace in the compass of the earth. But since Christ's adversary Satan does so too, (Satan came from compassing the earth to and fro, and from walking in it2;) since the Scribes and Pharisees do more than so, They compass land and sea, to make one of their own profession, the mercy of Christ is not less active, not less industrious than the malice of his adversaries, he preaches in populous cities, he preaches in the desert wilderness, he preaches in the tempestuous sea and as his power shall collect the several dusts, and atoms, and elements of our scattered bodies at the Resurrection, as materials, members of his triumphant church; so he collects the materials, the living stone, and timber, for his militant church, from all places, from cities, from deserts, and here in this text, from the sea, (Jesus walking by the sea, &c.)

In these words we shall only pursue a twofold consideration of