compass, the two hemispheres of heaven, are often designed to us, in these two names, joy and glory: If the cross of Christ, the death of Christ, present us both these, how near doth it bring, how fully doth it deliver heaven itself to us in this life? And then we hear the apostle say, We see Jesus, for the suffering of death, crowned with honour and glory": there is half heaven got by death, glory. And then, For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross 12; there is the other half, joy; all heaven purchased by death. And therefore, If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, saith the apostle 13; but let him glorify God, in isto nomine, as the Vulgate reads it; in that behalf, as we translate it. But, In isto nomine, saith St. Augustine: Let us glorify God, in that name; non solum in nomine Christiani, sed Christiani patientis, not only because he is a Christian in his baptism, but a Christian in a second baptism, a baptism of blood; not only as he hath received Christ, in accepting his institution, but because he hath conformed himself to Christ, in fulfilling his sufferings. And therefore, though we admit natural and human sorrow, in the calamities which overtake us, and surround us in this life: (for as all glasses will gather drops and tears from external causes, so this very glass which we look upon now, our Solomon in the text, our Saviour, had those sadnesses of heart toward his passion, and agonies in his passion) yet Count it all joy when you fall into temptations, saith the apostle': all joy, that is, both the interest and the principal, hath the earnest and the bargain; for if you can conceive joy in your tribulations in this world, How shall that joy be multiplied unto you, when no tribulation shall be mingled with it? There is not a better evidence, nor a more binding earnest of everlasting joy in the next world, than to find joy of heart in the tribulations of this; fix thyself therefore upon this first glass, this Solomon, thy Saviour, Behold King Solomon crowned, &c., and by conforming thyself to his holy sadness, and humiliation, thou shalt also become like him, in his joy, and glory.

But then the hand of God hath not set up, but laid down another glass, wherein thou mayest see thyself; a glass that

11 Heb. ii. 9.

13 1 Pet. iv. 16.

12 Heb. xii. 2. 14 James i. 2,

reflects thyself, and nothing but thyself. Christ, who was the other glass, is like thee in every thing, but not absolutely, for sin is excepted; but in this glass presented now (the body of our royal, but dead master and sovereign) we cannot, we do not except sin. Not only the greatest man is subject to natural infirmities, (Christ himself was so) but the holiest man is subject to original and actual sin, as thou art, and so a fit glass for thee, to see thyself in. Jet shows a man his face, as well as crystal; nay, a crystal glass will not show a man his face, except it be steeled, except it be darkened on the back side; Christ as he was a pure crystal glass, as he was God, had not been a glass for us, to have seen ourselves in, except he had been steeled, darkened with our human nature; neither was he ever so thoroughly darkened, as that he could present us wholly to ourselves, because he had no sin, without seeing of which we do not see ourselves. Those therefore that are like thee in all things, subject to human infirmities, subject to sins, and yet are translated, and translated by death, to everlasting joy, and glory, are nearest and clearest glasses for thee, to see thyself in; and such is this glass, which God hath proposed to thee, in this house. And therefore, change the word of the text, in a letter or two, from egredimini, to ingredimini; never go forth to see, but Go in and see a Solomon crowned with his mother's crown, &c. And when you shall find that hand that had signed to one of you a patent for title, to another for pension, to another for pardon, to another for dispensation, dead: that hand that settled possessions by his seal, in the keeper, and rectifiod honours by the sword, in his marshal, and distributed relief to the poor, in his almoner, and health to the diseased, by his immediate touch, dead: that hand that balanced his own three kingdoms so equally, as that none of them complained of one another, nor of him, and carried the keys of all the Christian world, and locked up, and let out armies in their due season, dead; how poor, how faint, how pale, how momentary, how transitory, how empty, how frivolous, how dead things, must you necessarily think titles, and possessions, and favours, and all, when you see that hand, which was the hand of destiny, of Christian destiny, of the Almighty God, lie dead! It was not so hard a hand when

we touched it last, nor so cold a hand when we kissed it last: that hand which was wont to wipe all tears from all our eyes, doth now but press and squeeze us as so many sponges, filled one with one, another with another cause of tears. Tears that can

have no other bank to bound them, but the declared and manifested will of God: for, till our tears flow to that height, that they might be called a murmuring against the declared will of God, it is against our allegiance, it is disloyalty, to give our tears any stop, any termination, any measure. It was a great part of Anna's praise, That she departed not from the temple, day nor night; visit God's temple often in the day, meet him in his own house, and depart not from his temples, (the dead bodies of his saints are his temples still) even at midnight; at midnight remember them, who resolve into dust, and make them thy glasses to see thyself in. Look now especially upon him whom God hath presented to thee now, and with as much cheerfulness as ever thou heardst him say, Remember my favours, or remember my commandments; hear him say now with the wise man, Remember my judgment, for thine also shall be so; yesterday for me, and to-day for thee; he doth not say to-morrow, but to-day, for thee. Look upon him as a beam of that sun, as an abridgment of that Solomon in the text; for every Christian truly reconciled to God, and signed with his hand in the absolution, and sealed with his blood in the sacrament, (and this was his case) is a beam, and an abridgment of Christ himself. Behold him therefore, crowned with the crown that his mother gives him his mother, the earth. In ancient times, when they used to reward soldiers with particular kinds of crowns, there was a great dignity in corona graminea, in a crown of grass: that denoted a conquest, or a defence of that land. He that hath but coronam gramineam, a turf of grass in a church-yard, hath a crown from his mother, and even in that burial taketh seisure of the resurrection, as by a turf of grass men give seisure of land. He is crowned in the day of his marriage; for though it be a day of divorce of us from him, and of divorce of his body from his soul, yet neither of these divorces break the marriage: his soul is

married to him that made it, and his body and soul shall meet again, and all we, both then in that glory where we shall acknowledge, that there is no way to this marriage, but this divorce, nor to life, but by death. And lastly, he is crowned in the day of the gladness of his heart: he leaveth that heart, which was accustomed to the half joys of the earth, in the earth; and he hath enlarged his heart to a greater capacity of joy, and glory, and God hath filled it according to that new capacity. And therefore, to end all with the apostle's words, I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them, which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, as others that have no hope; for if ye believe that Jesus died, and rose again, even so, them also, which sleep in him, will God bring with him". But when you have performed this ingredimini, that you have gone in, and mourned upon him, and performed the egredimini, you have gone forth, and laid his sacred body, in consecrated dust, and come then to another egredimini, to a going forth in many several ways: some to the service of their new master, and some to the enjoying of their fortunes conferred by their old; some to the raising of new hopes, some to the burying of old, and all; some to new, and busy endeavours in court, some to contented retirings in the country; let none of us go so far from him, or from one another, any of our ways, but that all we that have served him, may meet once a day, the first time we see the sun, in the ears of Almighty God, with humble and hearty prayer, that he will be pleased to hasten that day, in which it shall be an addition, even to the joy of that place, as perfect as it is, and as infinite as it is, to see that face again, and to see those eyes open there, which we have seen closed here. Amen.

in

17 1 Thess. iv. 13.

14

SERMON CXV.

LUKE Xxxiii. 24.

Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.

THE Word of God is either the co-eternal and co-essential Son, our Saviour, which took flesh (verbum caro factum est) or it is the spirit of his mouth, by which we live, and not by bread only. And so, in a large acceptation, every truth is the word of God; for truth is uniform, and irrepugnant, and indivisible, as God. Omne verum est omni vero consentiens. More strictly the word of God, is that which God hath uttered, either in writing, as twice in the tables to Moses; or by ministry of angels, or prophets, in words; or by the unborn, in action, as in John Baptist's exultation within his mother; or by new-born, from the mouths of babes and sucklings; or by things unreasonable, as in Balaam's ass; or insensible, as in the whole book of such creatures, The heavens declare the glory of God, &c. But nothing is more properly the word of God to us, than that which God himself speaks in those organs and instruments, which himself hath assumed for his chiefest work, our redemption. For in creation God spoke, but in redemption he did; and more, he suffered. And of that kind are these words. God in his chosen manhood saith, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

These words shall be fitliest considered, like a goodly palace, if we rest a little, as in an outward court, upon consideration of prayer in general; and then draw near the view of the palace, in a second court, considering this special prayer in general, as the face of the whole palace. Thirdly, we will pass through the chiefest rooms of the palace itself; and then insist upon four steps: 1. Of whom he begs, (Father). 2. What he asks, (forgive them). 3. That he prays upon reason, (for). 4. What the reason is, (they know not). And lastly, as into the back side of all, we will cast the objections: as why only Luke remembers this prayer and why this prayer, (as it seems by the punishment