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 remembrance. 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 him 35.

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

33 Psalm cxii. 6.

84 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 38, 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

36 Rom. xi. 33.

381 John iii. 2.

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

hungry man, if I have but clothed a naked child, if I have but comforted a sad soul, or instructed an ignorant soul, if I have but preached a sermon, and then printed that sermon, that is, first preached it, and then lived according to it, (for the subsequent life is the best printing, and the most useful and profitable publishing of a sermon) all those things that I have done for God's glory, shall follow me, shall accompany me, shall be in heaven before me, and meet with their testimony, that as I did not serve God for nothing, (God gave me his blessings with a large hand, and in overflowing measures) so I did not nothing for the service of God; though it be, as it ought to be, nothing in mine own eyes, nothing in respect of my duty, yet to them who have received any good by it, it must not seem nothing; for then they are unthankful to God, who gave it, by whose hand soever.

This shall be my praise to heaven, my recommendation thither; and then my praise in heaven shall be my preferment in heaven. Then those blessed angels, that rejoiced at my conversion before, shall praise my perseverance in that profession, and admit me to a part in all their hymns and Hosannas, and Hallelujahs; which Hallelujah is a word produced from the very word of this text, halal; my Hallelujah shall be my halal, my praising of God shall be my praise. And from this testimony I shall come to the accomplishment of all, to receive from my Saviour's own mouth, that glorious, that victorious, that harmonious praise, that dissolving, and that recollecting testimony, that shall melt my bowels, and yet fix me, pour me out, and yet gather me into his bosom, that Euge bone serve, Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into thy Master's joy". And when he hath sealed me with his euge, and accepted my service, who shall stamp a ræ quod non, upon me? Who shall say, Woe be unto thee, that thou didst not preach, this or that day, in this or that place? When he shall have styled me Bone et fidelis, Good and faithful servant, who shall upbraid me with a late undertaking this calling, or a slack pursuing, or a lazy intermitting the function thereof? When he shall have entered me into my Master's joy, what fortune, what sin can cast any cloud of sadness upon me? This is that that makes heaven, heaven, that this retribution, which is

40 Matt. xxv. 21.

future now, shall be present then, and when it is then present, it shall be future again, and present and future for ever, ever enjoyed, and expected ever. The upright in heart shall have, whatsoever all translations can enlarge and extend themselves unto; they shall rejoice, they shall glory, they shall praise, and they shall be praised, and all these in an everlasting future, for ever. Which everlastingness is such a term, as God himself cannot enlarge; as God cannot make himself a better God than he is, because he is infinitely good, infinite goodness, already; so God himself cannot make our term in heaven longer than it is; for it is infinite everlastingness, infinite eternity. That that we are to beg of him is, that as that state shall never end, so he will be pleased to hasten the beginning thereof, that so we may be numbered with his saints in glory everlasting. Amen.

THE FOURTH OF MY PREBEND SERMONS UPON MY FIVE PSALMS.

SERMON LXVIII.

PREACHED AT ST. PAULS, JANUARY 28, 1626.

PSALM LXV. 5.

By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation; who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off, upon the sea.

God makes nothing of nothing now; God eased himself of that incomprehensible work, and ended it in the first Sabbath. But God makes great things of little still; and in that kind he works most upon the Sabbath; when by the foolishness of preaching' he infatuates the wisdom of the world, and by the word, in the mouth of a weak man, he enfeebles the power of sin, and Satan in the world, and by but so much breath as blows out an hourglass, gathers three thousand souls at a sermon, and five thousand souls at a sermon, as upon Peter's preaching, in the second, and

1 1 Cor. i. 21.

in the fourth of the Acts. And this work of his, to make much of little, and to do much by little, is most properly a miracle. For, the creation, (which was a production of all out of nothing) was not properly a miracle: a miracle is a thing done against nature; when something in the course of nature resists that work, then that work is a miracle; but in the creation, there was no reluctation, no resistance, no nature, nothing to resist. But to do great works by small means, to bring men to heaven by preaching in the church, this is a miracle. When Christ intended a miraculous feeding of a great multitude, he asked, Quot panes habetis? first he would know, how many loaves they had; and when he found they had some, though they were but five, he multiplied them, to a sufficiency for five thousand persons. This Psalm is one of my five loaves, which I bring; one of those five Psalms, which by the institution of our ancestors in this church, are made mine, appropriated especially to my daily meditation, as there are five other Psalms to every other person of our church. And, by so poor means as this, (my speaking) his blessing upon his ordinance may multiply to the advancement, and furtherance of all your salvations. He multiplies now, farther than in those loaves; not only to feed you all, (as he did all that multitude) but to feed you all three meals.

In this Psalm (and especially in this text) God satisfies you with this threefold knowledge: first, what he hath done for man, in the light and law of nature; then, how much more he had done for his chosen people, the Jews, in affording them a law; and lastly, what he had reserved for man after, in the establishment of the Christian church. The first, (in this metaphor, and miracle of feeding) works as a breakfast; for though there be not a full meal, there is something to stay the stomach, in the light of nature. The second, that which God did for the Jews in their law, and sacrifices, and types, and ceremonies, is as that dinner, which was spoken of in the Gospel, which was plentifully prepared, but prepared for some certain guests, that were bidden, and no more; better means than were in nature, they had in the law, but yet only appropriated to them that were bidden, to that nation, and no more. But in the third meal, God's plentiful

2 Mark vi. 38.