for catechizing seems especially to be intended here, where he calls upon them who are to be taught, by that name children. It is a duty that excludes not praying; but praying excludes not it neither. Prayer and preaching may consist, nay they must meet in the church of God. Now, he that will teach, must have learnt before, many years before; and he that will preach, must have thought of it before, many days before. Extemporal ministers, that resolve in a day what they will be, extemporal preachers, that resolve in a minute, what they will say, outgo God's Spirit, and make too much haste. It was Christ's way; he took first disciples to learn, and then out of them, he took apostles to teach; and those apostles made more disciples. Though your first consideration be upon the calling, yet our consideration must be for our fitness to that calling. Our prophet David hath put them both together, well, O God, thou hast taught me from my youth 23; (you see what was his university; Moses was his Aristotle; he had studied divinity from his youth) and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works, says he there. Hitherto? How long was that? It follows in the next verse, Now am I old and grayheaded, and yet he gave not over. Then God's work goes well forward, when they whom God hath taught, teach others. He that can say with David, Docuisti me, O God thou hast taught me, may say with him too, Docebo cos, I will teach you. But what? that remains only, I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

There is a fear, which needs no teaching, a fear that is naturally imprinted in us. We need not teach men to be sad, when a mischief is upon them, nor to fear when it is coming towards them; for, fear respects the future, so as sadness does the present; fear looks upon danger, and sadness upon detriment; fear upon a sick friend, and sadness upon a dead. And as these need not be taught us, because they are natural, so, because they are natural, they need not be untaught us, they need not be forbidden, nor dissuaded. Our Saviour Christ had them both, fear, and sadness; and that man lacks Christian wisdom, who is without a provident fear of future dangers, and without Christian charity, who is without a compassionate sadness in present calamities. Now this fear, though but imprinted in nature, is timor

23 Psalm Lxxi. 17.

Domini, the fear of the Lord, because the Lord is the Lord of nature, he is the Nature of nature, Lord of all endowments and impressions in nature. And therefore, though for this natural fear, you go no farther than nature, (for it is born with you, and it lives in you) yet the right use even of this natural fear, is from grace, though in the root it be a fear of nature, yet in the government thereof, in the degrees, and practice thereof, it is the fear of the Lord; not only as he is Lord of nature, (for so, you have the fear itself from the Lord) but as this natural fear produces good or bad effects, as it is regulated and ordered, or as it is deserted, and abandoned, by the Spirit of the Lord; and therefore you are called hither, Come, that you may learn the fear of the Lord, that is, the right use of natural fear, and natural affections, from the law of God; for, as it is a wretched condition, to be without natural affections, so is it a dangerous dereliction, if our natural affections be left to themselves, and not regulated, not inanimated by the Spirit of God; for then my sadness will sink into desperation, and my fear will betray the succours which reason offereth". This I gain by letting in the fear of the Lord, into my natural fear; that whereas the natural object of my natural fear is malum, something that I apprehend sub ratione mali, as it is ill, ill for me, (for, if I did not conceive it to be ill, I would not fear it) yet when I come to thaw this ice, when I come to discuss this cloud, and attenuate this damp, by the light and heat of grace, and the illustration of the Spirit of God, breathing in his word, I change my object, or at least, I look upon it in another line, in another angle, I look not upon that evil which my natural fear presented me, of an affliction, or a calamity, but I look upon the glory that God receives by my Christian constancy in that affliction, and I look upon that everlasting blessedness, which I should have lost, if God had not laid that affliction upon me. So that though fear look upon evil, (for affliction is malum pœnæ, evil as it hath the nature of punishment) yet when the fear of the Lord is entered into my natural fear, my fear is more conversant, more exercised upon the contemplation of good, than evil, more upon the glory of God, and the joys of heaven, than upon the afflictions of this life, how malig

24 Wisdom xvii. 12.

nant, how manifold soever. And therefore, that this fear, and all your natural affections, (which seem weakness in man, and are so indeed, if they be left to themselves, now in our corrupt and depraved estate) may advance your salvation, (which is the end why God hath planted them in you) Come and learn the fear of the Lord, learn from the Word of God, explicated by his minister, in his ordinance upon occasions leading him thereunto, the limits of this natural fear, and where it may become sin, if it be not regulated, and inanimated by a better fear, than itself.

There is a fear, which grows out of a second nature, custom, and so is half-natural, to those men that have it. The custom of the place we live in, or of the times we live in, or of the company we live in. Topical customs of such a place, chronical customs of such an age, personal customs of such a company. The time, or the place, or the persons in power have advanced, and drawn into fashion and reputation, some vices, and such men as depend upon them, are afraid, not to concur with them in their vices; for, amongst persons, and in times, and places, that are vicious, an honest man is a rebel; he goes against that state, and that government, which is the kingdom of sin. Amongst drunkards, a sober man is a spy upon them; amongst blasphemers, a prayer is a libel against them; and amongst dissolute and luxurious persons, a chaste man is a bridewell, his person, his presence is a house of correction. In vicious times and companies, a good man is unacceptable, and cannot prosper. And, because as amongst merchants, men trade half upon stock, and half upon credit, so, in all other courses, because men rise according to the opinion and estimation which persons in power have of them, as well as by real goodness, therefore to build up, or to keep up this opinion and estimation in them upon whom they depend, they are afraid to cross the vices of the time, so far, as by being virtuous in their own particular. They are afraid it will be called a singularity, and a schismatical and seditious disposition, and taken for a reproach, and a rebuke laid upon their betters, if they be not content to be as ill, as those their betters are. Now, the fear of the Lord brings the quo warranto against all these privileged sins, and privileged places, and persons, and overthrows all these customs, and prescriptions. The fear of the Lord is not a topical,

not a chronical, not a personal, but a catholic, a canonical, a circular, an universal fear; it goes through all, and over all; and when this half-natural fear, this fear grown out of custom, suggests to me, that if I be thus tender conscienced, if I startle at an oath, if I be sick at a health, if I cannot conform myself to the vices of my betters, I shall lose my master, my patron, my benefactor, this fear of the Lord enters, and presents the infallible loss of a far greater master, and patron, and benefactor, if I comply with the other. And therefore as you were called hither, (that is to the explication of the Word of God) to learn how to regulate the natural fear, that that fear do not deject you into a diffidence of God's mercy, so come hither to learn the fear of God, against this half-natural fear, that is, be guided by the Word of God, how far you are to serve the turns of those persons, upon whom ye depend, and when to leave their commandments unperformed.

Well; what will this fear of the Lord teach us? Valour, fortitude; fear teach valour? Yes; and nothing but fear; true fear. As Moses's serpents devoured the false serpents, so doth true fear all false fear. There is nothing so contrary to God, as false fear; neither in his own nature, nor in his love to us. Therefore God's first name in the Bible, and the name which he sticks to, in all the work of the creation, is his name of power, Elohim; el, is fortis Deus, the God of power; and it is that name in the plural, multiplied power, all power; and what can he fear? God descends to many other human affections; you shall read that God was angry, and sorry, and weary; but non timuit Deus, God was never afraid. Neither would God that man should be. So his first blessing upon man, was to fill the earth, and to subdue the creatures, and to rule over them, and to eat what he would upon the earth; all acts of power, and of confidence. As soon as he had offended God, the first impotency that he found in himself, was fear: Iheard thy voice, and I was afraid, says he. He had heard the voice of lions, and was not afraid. There is not a greater commination of a curse than that, They shall be in a great fear, where no fear is"; which is more vehemently expressed in another place, I will set my face against 25 Psalm Liii. 5.

24 Gen. iii. 10.

you, and you shall fly, when none pursues you; I will send a faintness into their hearts, and the sound of a shaken leaf, shall chase them as a sword 26. False fear is a fearful curse. To fear that all favours, and all preferments, will go the wrong way, and that therefore I must clap on a bias, and go that way too, this inordinate fear is the curse of God. David's last counsel to Solomon, (but reflecting upon us all) was, Be thou strong therefore, and show thyself a man 27. E culmine corruens, E culmine corruens, ad gyrum laboris venit 2, The devil fell from his place in heaven, and now is put to compass the earth. The fearful man that falls from his moral and his Christian constancy, from the fundamental rules of his religion, falls into labyrinths, of incertitudes, and impertinencies, and ambiguities, and anxieties, and irresolutions. Militia, vita; our whole life is a warfare; God would not choose cowards; he had rather we were valiant in the fighting of his battles; for battles, and exercise of valour, we are sure to have. God sent a Cain into the world before an Abel; an enemy before a champion. Abel non suspicor qui non habet Cain"; We never hear of an Abel, but there is a Cain too. And therefore think it not strange, concerning the fiery trial, as though some strange thing happened unto you3°; make account that this world is your scene, your theatre, and that God himself sits to see the combat, the wrestling. Vetuit Deus mortem Job"; Job was God's champion, and God forbad Satan the taking away of Job's life; for, if he die, (says God in the mouth of that father) Theatrum nobis non amplius plaudetur, My theatre will ring with no more plaudits, I shall be no more glorified in the valour and constancy of my saints, my champions. God delights in the constant and valiant man, and therefore a various, a timorous man frustrates, disappoints God. My errand then is to teach you valour; and must my way be to intimidate you, to teach you fear? Yes, still there is no other fortitude, but the fear of the Lord. We told you before, sadness and fear differ but in the present, and future. And as for the present, Nihil aliud triste quàm Deum offendere, There is no just cause of sadness, but to have sinned against God, (for, sudden sadness arising in a good conscience, is a spark of fire in the

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