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I must not stay you now, to infuse into you the several consolations of these several names, and notions of God towards you. But, go your several ways home, and every soul take with him that name, which may minister most comfort unto him. Let him that is pursued with any particular temptation, invest God, as God is a refuge, a sanctuary. Let him that is buffeted with the messenger of Satan, battered with his own concupiscence, receive God, as God is his defence and target. Let him that is shaked with perplexities in his understanding, or scruples in his conscience, lay hold upon God, as God is his rock, and his anchor. Let him that hath any diffident jealousy or suspicion of the free and full mercy of God, apprehend God, as God is his salvation; and him that walks in the ingloriousness and contempt of this world, contemplate God, as God is his glory. Any of these notions is enough to any man, but God is all these, and all else, that all souls can think, to every man. We shut up both these considerations, (man should not, that is not all, God should be relied upon) with that of the prophet, Trust ye not in a friend, put not your confidence in a guide, keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lies in thy bosom "; (there is the exclusion of trust in man) and then he adds in the seventh verse, because it stands thus between man and man, I will look unto the Lord, I will look to the God of my salvation, my God will hear me.

56

56 Mic. vii. 5.

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THE SECOND OF MY PREBEND SERMONS UPON MY FIVE PSALMS.

SERMON LXVI.

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL'S, JANUARY 29, 1625.

PSALM LXiii. 7.

Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.

THE Psalms are the manna of the church. As manna tasted to every man like that he liked best', so do the Psalms minister instruction, and satisfaction, to every man, in every emergency and occasion. David was not only a clear prophet of Christ himself, but a prophet of every particular Christian; he foretells what I, what any shall do, and suffer, and say. And as the whole Book of Psalms is oleum effusum, (as the spouse speaks of the name of Christ) an ointment poured out upon all sorts of sores, a cerecloth that supples all bruises, a balm that searches all wounds; so are there some certain Psalms, that are imperial Psalms, that command over all affections, and spread themselves over all occasions, catholic, universal Psalms, that apply themselves to all necessities. This is one of those; for, of those constitutions which are called apostolical, one is, that the church should meet every day, to sing this Psalm. And accordingly, St. Chrysostom testifies, That it was decreed, and ordained by the primitive fathers, that no day should pass without the public singing of this Psalm. Under both these obligations, (those ancient constitutions, called the apostle's, and those ancient decrees made by the primitive fathers) belongs to me, who have my part in the service of God's church, the especial meditation, and recommendation of this Psalm. And under a third obligation too, that it is one of those five Psalms, the daily rehearsing whereof, is enjoined to me, by the constitutions of this church, as five other are to every other person of our body. As the whole book is

'Wisdom xvi. 20.

* Cant. i. 3.

manna, so these five Psalms are my gomer, which I am to fill and empty every day of this manna.

Now as the spirit and soul of the whole Book of Psalms is contracted into this Psalm, so is the spirit and soul of this whole Psalm contracted into this verse. The key of the Psalm, (as St. Hierome calls the titles of the Psalms) tells us, That David uttered this Psalm, when he was in the wilderness of Judah; there we see the present occasion that moved him; and we see what was passed between God and him before, in the first clause of our text (Because thou hast been my help) and then we see what was to come, by the rest, (Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice). So that we have here the whole compass of time, past, present, and future; and these three parts of time, shall be at this time, the three parts of this exercise; first, what David's distress put him upon for the present; and that lies in the context; secondly, how David built his assurance upon that which was past; (Because thou hast been my help). And thirdly, what he established to himself for the future, (Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice). First, his distress in the wilderness, his present estate carried him upon the memory of that which God had done for him before, and the remembrance of that carried him upon that, of which he assured himself after. Fix upon God any where, and you shall find him a circle; he is with you now, when you fix upon him; he was with you before, and he will be with you

for he brought you out to this fixation; hereafter, for he is yesterday, and to-day, and the same for ever3.

For David's present condition, who was now in a banishment, in a persecution in the wilderness of Judah, (which is our first part) we shall only insist upon that, (which is indeed spread over all the Psalm to the text, and ratified in the text) that in all those temporal calamities David was only sensible of his spiritual loss; it grieved him not that he was kept from Saul's court, but that he was kept from God's church. For when he says, by way of lamentation, That he was in a dry and thirsty land, where no water was, he expresses what penury, what barrenness, what drought and what thirst he meant; To see thy power, and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. For there, my

3 Heb. xiii. 8.

soul shall be satisfied as with marrow, and with fatness, and there, my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips. And in some few considerations conducing to this, that spiritual losses are incomparably heavier than temporal, and that therefore, the restitution to our spiritual happiness, or the continuation of it, is rather to be made the subject of our prayers to God, in all pressures and distresses, than of temporal, we shall determine that first part. And for the particular branches of both the other parts, (the remembering of God's benefits past, and the building of an assurance for the future, upon that remembrance) it may be fitter to open them to you, anon when we come to handle them, than Proceed we now to our first part, the comparing of tem

now.

poral and spiritual afflictions.

In the way of this comparison, falls first the consideration of the universality of afflictions in general, and the inevitableness thereof. It is a blessed metaphor, that the Holy Ghost hath put into the mouth of the apostle, Pondus gloriæ, That our afflictions are but light, because there is an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory attending them. If it were not for that exceeding weight of glory, no other weight in this world could turn the scale, or weigh down those infinite weights of afflictions that oppress us here. There is not only Pestis valde gravis, (The pestilence grows heavy upon the land") but there is Musca calde gravis, God calls in but the fly, to vex Egypt, and even the fly is a heavy burden unto them. It is not only Job that complains, That he was a burden to himself but even Absalom's hair was a 'burden to him, till it was polled. It is not only Jeremy that complains, Aggravavit compedes', That God had made their fetters and their chains heavy to them, but the workmen in harvest complain, That God had made a fair day heavy unto them, (We have borne the heat, and the burden of the day1). Sand is heary, says Solomon"; and how many suffer so? under a sand-hill of crosses, daily, hourly afflictions, that are heavy by their number, if not by their single weight? And a stone is heavy; (says he in the same place) and how many suffer so? How many, without any

42 Cor. iv. 17.

7 Job vii. 20.

10 Matt. xx. 12.

5 Exod. ix. 3.
8 2 Sam. xiv. 26.

Exod. viii. 24.
9 Lament. iii. 7.
11 Prov. xxvii. 3.

former preparatory cross, or comminatory, or commonitory cross, even in the midst of prosperity, or security, fall under some one stone, some grindstone, some millstone, some one insupportable cross that ruins them? But then, (says Solomon there) A fool's anger is heavier than both; and how many children, and servants, and wives suffer under the anger, and morosity, and peevishness, and jealousy of foolish masters, and parents, and husbands, though they must not say so? David and Solomon have cried out, That all this world is vanity, and levity; and (God knows) all is weight, and burden, and heaviness, and oppression; and if there were not a weight of future glory to counterpoise it, we should all sink into nothing.

I ask not Mary Magdalen, whether lightness were not a burden; for sin is certainly, sensibly a burden) but I ask Susanna whether even chaste beauty were not a burden to her; and I ask Joseph whether personal comeliness were not a burden to him. I ask not Dives, who perished in the next world, the question; but I ask them who are made examples of Solomon's rule, of that sore evil, (as he calls it) Riches kept to the owners thereof for their hurt, whether riches be not a burden.

All our life is a continual burden, yet we must not groan; a continual squeezing, yet we must not pant; and as in the tenderness of our childhood, we suffer, and yet are whipped if we cry, so we are complained of, if we complain, and made delinquents if we call the times ill. And that which adds weight to weight, and multiplies the sadness of this consideration, is this, That still the best men have had most laid upon them. As soon as I hear God say, That he hath found an upright man, that fears God, and eschews evil, in the next lines I find a commission to Satan, to bring in Sabeans and Chaldeans upon his cattle, and servants, and fire and tempest upon his children, and loathsome diseases upon himself. As soon as I hear God say, That he hath found a man according to his own heart, I see his sons ravish his daughters, and then murder one another, and then rebel against the father, and put him into straits for his life. As soon as I hear God testify of Christ at his baptism, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, I find that Son of his led by the Spirit to be tempted

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