though long, for David fell so, and yet found a holy sorrow, a medicinal sorrow: but it is the wicked, he that runs headlong into all ways of wickedness, and usque ad finem, precludes, or neglects all ways of recovery: that is glad of a temptation, and afraid of a sermon; that is dry wood, and tinder to Satan's fire, if he do but touch him, and is ashes itself to God's spirit, if he blow upon him; that from a love of sin, at first, because it is pleasing, comes at last to a love of sin, because it is sin, because it is liberty, because it is a deliverance of himself from the bondage, as he thinks it, of the law of God, and from the remorse and anguish of considering sin too particularly. This is the person, in whom, at first, by this emphatical note, the wicked, we design a plurality, (as we called it) that is, a complicated, a multiplied, a compact sinner, a body, rather a carcass of many, of all sins, all that have fallen within his reach. And then, in the word we noted also a singularity, that upon such a sinner, upon every such sinner, these many, these great, these eternal sorrows shall fall and tarry.

As in the former circumstance, we noted that it was the they, that aggravated it, it was not an an, an adulterer, an ambitious man, but a the, the wicked, whom God enwrapped in this irrecoverable, this undeterminable sorrow: so here, it is not a this, or that, this wicked, or that wicked man, but the wicked, every wicked man is surrounded with this sorrow. He can propose no comfort in a decimation, as in popular rebellions, where nine may be spared, and the tenth man hanged; no, nor so much hope as to have nine hanged, and the tenth spared; he is not in Sodom's case, that a few righteous might have saved the wicked; but he feels a necessity of applying to himself, that, If Noah, Daniel, and Job were in the midst of them, as I live, saith the Lord God, they should deliver neither son, nor daughter. Jussisti Domine, et sic est, ut pœna sit sibi omnis inordinatus animus 20; It is thy pleasure O God, and thy pleasure shall be infallibly accomplished, that every wicked person should be his own executioner. He is spontaneus dæmon, as St. Chrysostom speaks, an inmate, an innate devil; a bosom devil, a self-devil; that as he could be a tempter to himself, though there were no devil, so he could be an 20 Augustine.

19 Ezek. xiv, 20.

executioner to himself, though there were no Satan, and a hell to himself, though there were no other torment. Sometimes he stays not the assizes, but prevents the hand of justice; he destroys himself before his time. But when he stays, he is evermore condemned at the assizes. Let him sleep out as much of the morning as securely as he can; embellish, and adorn himself as gloriously as he can; dine as largely and as delicately as he can; wear out as much of the afternoon, in conversation, in comedies, in pleasure, as he can; sup with as much distension, and inducement of drowsiness as he can, that he may escape all remorse, by falling asleep quickly, and fall asleep with as much discourse, and music, and advantage as he can, he hath a conscience that will survive, and overwatch all the company; he hath a sorrow that shall join issue with him when he is alone, and both God, and the devil, who do not meet willingly, shall meet in his case, and be in league, and be on the sorrow's side, against him. The anger of God, and the malice of the devil, shall concur with his sorrow, to his farther vexation. No one wicked person, by any diversion or cunning, shall avoid this sorrow, for it is in the midst, and in the end of all his forced contentments; Even in laughing, the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness".

The person is the wicked; every wicked person; he hath no relief in a decimation, that some may escape: nor relief in the communication of the torment; it is no ease to him, that so many bear a part with him. In some afflictions in the world, men lay hold upon such a relief, many men are in as ill case, as I; why am I so sensible of it? And they make shift to patch up a comfort of that kind, out of some chips of poets, and fragmentary sentences; and they that cannot find this relief ready made, will make shift to make it; when they are under the burden of a defamation, of an ill name, they will cast aspersions of the same crime, upon as many as they can, and think themselves the better, if they can make others be thought as ill as they. But all these are amongst Job's miserable comforters; it is a part of our joy in heaven, that every man's joy shall be my joy; I shall have fulness of salvation in myself, and I shall have as many sal

21 Prov. xiv. 13.

vations, as there are souls saved: but in hell there is no one feather towards such a pillow, no degree of ease, in the communication of the torment. Every soul shall murmur against God, and curse God, for damning every other soul, as well as for damning his though they would have them damned, that are damned, yet they shall reproach God, for damning them: and though they wish all the saints in heaven, in hell, yet they shall call it tyranny in God, to have sent a Cain, or an Achitophel, or a Judas thither. And as the person whom we consider in this text, is an embryon of the devil, Genimina viperarum, The spawn of the devil, a potential, and, as we said, an inchoated devil; so is the torment, this sorrow, a Lucifer, such a Lucifer, as hell can send out; not a light of any light, but a cloud of that darkness: as sure as this man, the wicked, shall be a devil, so sure this sorrow, shall end, not end, but reach to hell.

Yet when all this is thus said, said with a holy vehemence, with a zealous animosity, as indeed belongs to the denouncing of God's judgments, yet may we not be asked, Where is there any such person, or upon whom works there any such sorrow? Is it always true, that the wicked make no good use of afflictions? Or is it always true, that they have them? The first may admit a doubt, for if God justify the ungodly, (God justifieth the ungodly) then their affliction may be a way, to prepare justification in them, as well as in them whom we call godly; and if Christ died for the ungodly, (Christ died for the ungodly) they also may fulfil his sufferings in their flesh, and their afflictions may produce good effects. But for that, they which are called ungodly, in both those places, are only such as were ungodly before God's justification began to work upon them, before Christ's death began to be applied to them, but did not continue in their ungodliness after; but these ungodly persons, whom afflictions supple and mollify no farther, but to an intemperate, and excruciating, and exclamatory sorrow, and continue ungodly still, are such as never have good effect of affliction or sorrow.

But then have these always affliction inflicted upon them? one would doubt it, by that in Job, The tabernacles of robbers do prosper, and they are in safety that provoke God". God's chil

22 Rom. iv. 5.

23 Rom. v. 6.

24 Job xii. 6.

dren are robbed and spoiled by the wicked, and the wicked show it in God's face, they hide not their theft, they maintain publicly their wantonness, and their excesses, with the spoil of the poor; they have it, and they will hold it, and they bid God bring his action, and recover how he can. This the prophet Jeremy saw, and was affected, and scandalized with it; O Lord, if I plead with thee, thou art righteous"; I know thou canst maintain, and make good that which thou hast done; but yet, says he, Let me talk with thee of thy judgments; wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously? Why, their ways prosper in a just punishment of God for their former sins, that they may have a larger and a broader way to destruction; and they are happy in temporal happinesses, that they may have more occasions of smarting; if their wealth stick not to their heirs, in a third generation, call them not rich; if their prosperity cleave not to their souls, call them not happy; he is a poor man, whose wealth can be writ in an inventory; that hath locked all in such an iron chest, in such a cabinet, and hath sent up nothing to meet him in heaven. As all the wealth of the wicked is but counterfeit, so is all the joy that they have in it counterfeit too. And howsoever they disguise their sorrow, yet if their torment be invisible to us, it is the liker hell; if we know not how they are afflicted, it is the liker hell; their damnation sleepeth not, nor they neither; and when at midnight their own consciences are a thousand witnesses to them, it is but a poor ease, that other men do not know, that they are those wicked persons, and their sorrow the sorrow of this text; that they are the wicked, and their sorrows many, and great, and eternal sorrows. But I would be glad to reserve as much time as I could for the other part, the person and the portion, that is in the other scale; Mercy shall compass, &c.

In this part we will begin with the persons; for when we come to their portion, with which we must end, of that we shall be able to find no end, nay no beginning, for it begins with mercy, (Mercy shall compass them) and mercy is as much without beginning, as eternal, as God himself, and it flows on to joy and gladness, and exultation, and this joy shall no more see an end of

25 Jer. xii. 1.

itself, than God himself shall see an end of himself. Upon the persons we have three characters, and in their portions we have three weights; three degrees of goodness in their persons, three degrees of greatness in their portions. The persons first Trust in God, and then They are righteous, and lastly, They are upright in heart; so also, the reward is first inward joy, and then outward declaration, and lastly, an exemplary working upon others; and then, all these are rooted in the root of all, That mercy shall compass them.

First then, They trust in God. And that, first exclusive; they trust in him so, as that they trust in nothing else, and inclusive too; so, as that they do actually, and positively trust in God. Some have been so beaten out of all confidences in this world, so evacuated of former power, so divested of former favour, so despoiled of former treasures, as that they are brought to trust in nothing else; but then they trust not in God neither; Quia Deo non audent dare iniquitatem, auferunt ei gubernationem; Because they dare not say, that God does anything ill, they come to say, that God does nothing at all; and to avoid the making of an unjust God, they make an idle God; which is as great an atheism as the other. But because it goes thus with them, that they have many and great sorrows, they conclude that all have so; but The heart knoweth his own bitterness"; they know their own case, the case of the godly they know not. The stranger shall not meddle with their joy; he that is a stranger to this trust in God, understands nothing of the joy that appertains to them that have it. Let that be thy prayer, which was the prayer of Esther, Thy handmaid hath had no joy but in thee, O Lord God of Abraham; O thou mighty God, above all, hear thou the voice of them that have no other hope".

Our adversaries of Rome charge us, that we have but a negative religion; if that were true, it were a heavy charge, if we did only deny, and establish nothing; but we deny all their new additions, so as that we affirm all the old foundations. The negative man, that trusts in nothing in the world, may be but a philosopher, but an atheist, but a stupid and dead carcass. The affirmative man, that does acknowledge all blessings, spiritual and temporal, to come from God, that prepares himself by holi

26

Augustine.

27 Prov. xiv. 10.

28 Esther xiv. 18.