the first, canan, God makes the charitable man partaker of his own highest power, mercy; and in the other cabad, God enables us, by this mercy, to honour him so far, as to dilate, to enlarge, to amplify him, that is that body, which he in his Son, hath invested by purchase, his church.

То а

We have done; if you will but clasp up all this in your own bosoms, if you will but lay it to your own hearts, you may go. A poorer thing is not in the world, nor a sicker, (which you may remember to have been one signification of this word poor) than thine own soul. And therefore the Chaldee paraphrase renders this text thus, He that oppresses the poor reproaches his own soul; for, his own soul is as poor, as any whom he can oppress. beggar, that needs, and asks but bodily things, thou wilt say, Alas poor soul; and wilt thou never say Alas poor soul to thyself, that needest spiritual things? If thy affections, thy pleasures, thy delights, beg of thec, and importune thee so far, to bestow upon them, say unto them, I have those that are nearer me than you, wife and children, and I must not impoverish them, to give unto you, I must not starve my family, to feed my pleasures. But if this wife and children beg, and importune so far, say unto them too, I have one that is nearer me, than all you, a soul; and I must not endanger that, to satisfy you, I must not provide jointures, and portions with the damnifying, with the damning of mine own soul. It is a miserable alchemy and extracting of spirits, that stills away the spirit, the soul itself; and a poor philosopher's stone, that is made with the coals of hell-fire; a lamentable purchase, when the soul is paid for the land. And therefore show mercy to this soul. Do not oppress this soul; not by violence, which was the first signification of this word oppression do not violate, do not smother, not strangle, not suffocate the good motions of God's Spirit in thee; for, it is but a woful victory, to triumph over thine own conscience, and but a servile greatness to be able to silence that. Oppress not thy soul by fraud, which was the second signification of this word oppression. Defraud not thy soul of the benefit of God's ordinances; frequent these exercises; come hither; and be not here like Gideon's fleece, dry when all about it was wet; parched in a remorselessness when all the congregation about thee is melted into holy

tears; be not as Gideon's fleece dry, when all else is wet, nor as that fleece, wet when all about it was dry: be not jealous of God; stand not here as a person unconcerned, disinterested; as though those gracious promises, which God is pleased to shed down upon the whole congregation, from this place, appertained not to thee, but that all those judgments denounced here, over which, they that stand by thee, are able, by a faithful and cheerful laying hold of God's offers, though they stand guilty of the same sins that thou dost, to lift up their heads, must still necessarily overflow and surround thee. Oppress not that soul, by violence, by fraud, nor by scorn, which was the other signification of this word oppression. Hoc nos perdit, quod divina quoque eloquia in facetias, in dicteria vertamus. Damnation is a serious thing, and this aggravates it, that we slight and make jests at that which should save us, the Scriptures, and the ordinances of God. For by this oppression of thy poor soul, by this violence, this fraud, this scorn, thou wilt come to reproach thy Maker, to impute that loss of thy soul, which thou hast incurred by often breach of laws evidently manifested to thee, to his secret purpose, and unrevealed will; than which, thou canst not put a greater reproach, a greater contumely, a greater blasphemy upon God. For, God cannot be God, if he be not innocent, nor innocent if he draw blood of me, for his own act. But if thou show mercy to this soul, mercy in that signification of the word, as it denotes an actual performance of those things that are necessary for the making sure of thy salvation, or, if thou canst not yet attain to those degress of sanctification, mercy in that signification of the word, as the word denotes hearty and earnest prayer, that thou couldest, Lord I believe, Lord help mine unbelief, Lord I stand yet, yet Lord raise me when I fall, Honorabis Deum, thou shalt honour God, in the sense of the word in this text, thou shalt enlarge God, amplify, dilate God, that is, the body of God, the church, both here, and hereafter. For, thou shalt add a figure to the number of his saints, and there shall be a saint the more for thee; thou shalt add a theme of joy, to the exultation of the angels; they shall have one occasion of rejoicing the more from thee thou shalt add a pause, a stop to that usquequo of the

martyrs, under the altar, who solicit God for the resurrection, for, thou shalt add a step to the resurrection itself, by having brought it so much nearer, as to have done thy part for the filling up of the number of the saints, upon which fulness the resurrection shall follow. And thou shalt add a voice, to that old, and ever-new song, that catholic hymn, in which, both churches, Militant and Triumphant, shall join, Blessing, honour, glory, and power, be unto him, that sitteth upon the Throne, and to the Lamb, for ever, and ecer". Amen.

SERMON CXXIV.

A SERMON UPON THE 5TH OF NOVEMBER, 1622, BEING THE ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF OUR DELIVERANCE FROM THE POWDER TREASON.

INTENDED FOR PAUL'S CROSS, BUT, BY REASON OF THE WEATHER, PREACHED IN THE CHURCH.

LAMENTATIONS iv. 20.

The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits.

THE PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

O LORD open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise; for thou, O Lord, didst make haste to help us, Thou, O Lord, didst make speed to save us. Thou that sittest in heaven, didst not only look down, to see what was done upon the earth, but what was done in the earth; and when the bowels of the earth were, with a key of fire, ready to open and swallow us, the bowels of thy compassion were, with a key of love, opened to succour us; this is the day, and these are the hours, wherein that should have been acted in this our day, and in these hours, we praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee, to be the Lord; all

41 Rev. v. 13.

our earth doth worship thee; the holy church throughout all this land, doth acknowledge thee, with commemorations of that great mercy, now in these hours. Now, in these hours, it is thus commemorated, in the king's house, where the head and members praise thee; thus, in that place, where it should have been perpetrated, where the reverend judges of the land do now praise thee; thus, in the universities, where the tender youth of this land, is brought up to praise thee, in a detestation of their doctrines, that plotted this; thus it is commemorated in many several societies, in many several parishes, and thus, here, in this mother church, in this great congregation of thy children, where, all, of all sorts, from the lieutenant of thy lieutenant, to the meanest son of thy son, in this assembly, come with hearts, and lips, full of thanksgiving: thou Lord, openest their lips, that their mouth may show forth thy praise, for thou, O Lord, didst make haste to help them, thou didst make speed to save them. Accept, O Lord, this sacrifice, to which thy Spirit giveth fire; this of praise, for thy great mercies already afforded to us, and this of prayer, for the continuance and enlargement of them, upon the Catholic church, by them, who pretend themselves the only sons thereof; dishonoured this day; upon these churches of England, Scotland, and Ireland, shaked and threatened dangerously this day; upon thy servant, our sovereign, for his defence of the true faith, designed to ruin this day; upon the prince, and others derived from the same root, some but infants, some not yet infants, enwrapped in dust, and annihilation, this day; upon all the deliberations of the counsel, that in all their consultations, they may have before their eyes, the record and registers of this day; upon all the clergy, that all their preaching, and their government, may preclude, in their several jurisdictions, all re-entrances of that religion, which, by the confession of the actors themselves, was the only ground of the treason of this day; upon the whole nobility, and commons, all involved in one common destruction, this day; upon both our universities, which though they lack no arguments out of thy word, against the enemies of thy truth, shall never leave out this argument out of thy works, the history of this day; and upon all those, who are any ways afflicted, that our afflictions be not multiplied upon us,

by seeing them multiplied amongst us, who would have diminished thee, and annihilated us, this day; and lastly, upon this auditory assembled here, that till they turn to ashes in the grave, they may remember, that thou tookest them, as fire-brands out of the fire, this day.

Hear us, O Lord, and hearken to us, receive our prayers, and return them with effect, for his sake, in whose name and words, we make them:

Our Father which art, &c.

THE SERMON.

Or the author of this book, I think there was never doubt made; but yet, that is scarce safely done, which the Council of Trent doth, in that canon, which numbers the books of canonical Scriptures, to leave out this book of Lamentations. For, though I make no doubt, but that they had a purpose to comprehend, and involve it, in the name of Jeremy, yet that was not enough; for so they might have comprehended and involved, Genesis, and Deuteronomy, and all between those two, in one name of Moses; and so they might have comprehended, and involved, the Apocalypse, and some epistles in the name of John, and have left out the book itself in the number. But one of their own Jesuits', though some, (whom in that canon they seem to follow) make this book of Lamentations, but an appendix to the prophecy of Jeremy, determines, for all that canon, that it is a distinct book. Indeed, if it were not, the first chapter would have been called, the fiftythird of Jeremy, and not the first of the Lamentations. But that which gives most assuredness, is, that in divers Hebrew Bibles, it is placed otherwise, than we place it, and not presently, and immediately after the prophecy of Jeremy, but discontinued from him, though he were never doubted to be the author thereof.

The book is certainly the prophet Jeremy's, and certainly a distinct book; but whether the book be a history, or a prophecy, whether Jeremy lament that which he had seen, or that which