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in fear of thy judgment. It is that fear which St. Basil directs us to, upon those words, Timorem Domini docebo cos", I will teach you the fear of the Lord, Cogita profundum barathrum, To learn to fear God, he sends us to the meditation of the torments of hell. And so it is that fear, which wrought that effect in St. Hierome: Ego ob Gehenna metum carcere isto me damnari; For fear of that execution, I have shut myself up in this prison; for fear of perishing in the next world, I banish myself from this: there is a beginning, there is a great degree of wisdom, even in this fear.

Now, as the fear of God's punishments disposes us to love him, so that fear which the magistrate imprints, by the execution of his laws, establishes that love which preserves him, from all disestimation and irreverence: for, whom the enemy does not fear, the subject does not love. As no peace is safe enough, where there is no thought of war; so the love of man towards God, and those who represent him, is not permanently settled, if there be not a reverential fear, a due consideration of greatness, a distance, a distinction, a respect of rank, and order, and majesty. If there be not a little fear, by justice at home, and by power and strength abroad, mingled in it, it is not that love, which God requires to be first directed upon himself, and then reflected upon his stewards and vicegerents: for, as every society is not friendship, so every familiarity is not love.

But, to conclude: as he will be feared, so he will be feared, no otherwise, than as he is God: Non timuerunt Deum, is the increpation of the text, They feared not God. It is timor Dei, and not timor Jehova: God is not here expressed by the name of Jehovah, that unexpressible and unutterable, that incomprehensible and unimaginable name of Jehovah. God calls not upon us, to be considered as God in himself, but as God towards us; not as he is in heaven, but as he works upon earth and here, not in the school, but in the pulpit; not in disputation, but in application. It is not timor Jehova, nor it is not timor Adonai: God does not call himself in this place, the Lord: for, to be Lord, to be proprietary of all, this is Potestas tam utendi quam abutendi, It gives the Lord of that thing power, to do, absolutely, what he will

21 Psalm xxxiv. 4.

with that which is his and so, God, as absolute Lord, may damn without respect of sin, if he will; and save without respect of faith, if he will. But God is pleased to proceed with us, according to that contract which he hath made with us, and that law which he hath given to us, in those two tables, Tantummodo crede, Only believe, and thy faith shall save thee; and, Fac hoc et vives, Live well, and thy good works shall make sure thy salvation. Lastly, God does not call himself here Dominum exercituum, The Lord of hosts; God would not only be considered, and served by us, when he afflicts us with any of his swords, famine, war, pestilence, malice, or the like; but the fear required here, is to fear him as God, and as God presented in this name, Elohim; which, though it be a name primarily rooted in power and strength, (for El is Deus fortis, The powerful God; and as there is no love without fear, so there is no fear without power) yet properly it signifies his judgment, and order, and providence, and dispensation, and government of his creatures. It is that name, which goes through all God's whole work of the creation, and disposition of all creatures, in the first of Genesis: in all that, he is called by no other name than this, the name God; not by Jehovah, to present an infinite majesty; nor by Adonai, to present an absolute power; nor by Tzebaoth, to present a force, or conquest: but only in the name of God, his name of government. All ends in this; to fear God, is to adhere to him, in his way, as he hath dispensed and notified himself to us; that is, as God is manifested in Christ, in the Scriptures, and applied to us out of those Scriptures, by the church not to rest in nature without God, nor in God without Christ, nor in Christ without the Scriptures, nor in our private interpretation of Scripture, without the church. Almighty God fill us with these fears, these reverences; that we may reverence him, who shall at last bring us, where there shall be no more changes; and hath already placed us in such a government, as being to us a type and representation of the kingdom of heaven, we humbly beg, may evermore continue with us, without changes, in government, or in religion. Amen.

VOL. V.

21

482

SERMON CXXXIX.

PREACHED TO THE HOUSEHOLD AT WHITEHALL, APRIL 30, 1626.

MATTHEW ix. 13.

I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

SOME things the several evangelists record severally, one, and no more. St. Matthew, and none but St. Matthew, records Joseph's jealousy and suspicion', that his wife Mary had been in a fault, before her marriage; and then his temper withal, not frequent in that distemper of jealousy, not to exhibit her to open infamy for that fault; and yet his holy discretion too, not to live with a woman faulty that way, but to take some other occasion, and to put her away privily in which, we have three elements of a wise husband; first, not to be utterly without all jealousy and providence, and so expose his wife to all trials, and temptations, and yet not to be too apprehensive and credulous, and so expose her to dishonour and infamy; but yet not to be so indulgent to her faults, when they were true faults, as by his connivance, and living with her, to make her faults, his: and all this we have out of that which St. Matthew records, and none but he. St. Mark, and none but St. Mark records, that story, of Christ's recovering a dumb man, and almost deaf, of both infirmities: in which, when we see, that our Saviour Christ, though he could have recovered that man with a word, with a touch, with a thought, yet was pleased to enlarge himself in all those ceremonial circumstances, of imposition of hands, of piercing his ears with his fingers, of wetting his tongue with spittle, and some others, we might thereby be instructed, not to under-value such ceremonies as have been instituted in the church, for the awakening of men's consideration, and the exalting of their devotion; though those ceremonies, primarily, naturally, originally, fundamentally, and merely in themselves, be not absolutely and essentially necessary: and this we have from that which is recorded by St. Mark, and none but him. St. Luke, and none but St. Luke, records the * Mark vii. 33.

'Matt. i. 19.

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history of Mary and Joseph's losing of Christ': in which we see, how good and holy persons may lose Christ; and how long! They had lost him, and were a whole day without missing him: a man may be without Christ, and his Spirit, and lie long in an ignorance and senselessness of that loss and then, where did they lose him? Even in Jerusalem, in the holy city: even in this holy place, and now in this holy exercise, you lose Christ, if either any other respect than his glory, brought you hither; or your minds stray out of these walls, now you are here. But when they sought him, and sought him sorrowing, and sought him in the temple, then they found him : if in a holy sadness and penitence, you seek him here, in his house, in his ordinance, here he is always at home, here you may always find him. And this we have out of that which St. Luke reports, and none but he. St. John, and none but St. John', records the story of Christ's miraculous changing of water into wine, at the marriage in Cana: in which, we see, both that Christ honoured the state of marriage, with his personal presence, and also that he afforded his servants so plentiful a use of his creatures, as that he was pleased to come to a miraculous supply of wine, rather than they should want it. Some things are severally recorded by the several evangelists, as all these; and then some things are recorded by all four; as John Baptist's humility, and low valuation of himself, in respect of Christ; which he expresses in that phrase, That he was not worthy to carry his shoes. The Holy Ghost had a care, that this should be repeated to us by all four, that the best endeavours of God's best servants, are unprofitable, unavailable in themselves, otherwise than as God's gracious acceptation inanimates them. and as he puts his hand to that plough which they drive or draw, Now our text hath neither this singularity, nor this universality; it is neither in one only, nor in all the evangelists: but it hath (as they speak in the law) an interpretative universality, a presumptive universality: for that which hath a plurality of voices, is said to have all; and this text hath so; for three of the four evangelists have recorded this text: only St. John, who doth especially extend himself about the divine nature of Christ, pretermits it; but all the rest, who insist more upon his assuming

3 Luke ii. 43.

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* John ii. 11.

our nature, and working our salvation in that, the Holy Ghost hath recorded, and repeated this protestation of our Saviour's, I came to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Which words, being spoken by Christ, upon occasion of the Pharisees murmuring at his admitting of publicans and sinners to the table with him, at that feast which St. Matthew made him, at his house, soon after his calling to the apostleship, direct our consideratiou upon the whole story, and do, not afford but require, not admit but invite this distribution; that, first, we consider the occasion of the words, and then the words themselves : for of these twins is this text pregnant, and quick, and easily delivered. In the first, we shall see the pertinency of Christ's answer; and in the second, the doctrine thereof: in the first, how fit it was for them; in the other, how necessary for us: first, the historical part, which was occasional; and then the catechistical part, which is doctrinal. And in the first of these, the historical and occasional part, we shall see, first, that Christ by his personal presence justified feasting, somewhat more than was merely necessary, for society, and cheerful conversation: he justified feasting, and feasting in an apostle's house: though a churchman, and an exemplar man, he was not deprived of a plentiful use of God's creatures, nor of the cheerfulness of conversation. And then he justified feasting in the company of publicans and sinners; intimating therein, that we must not be in things of ordinary conversation, over-curious, over-inquisitive of other men's manners: for whatsoever their manners be, a good man need not take harm by them, and he may do good amongst them. And then lastly, we shall see the calumny that the Pharisees cast upon Christ for this, and the iniquity of that calumny, both in the manner, and in the matter thereof. And in these branches we shall determine that first, the historical, the occasional part: and in the second, the catechistical and doctrinal, (I came to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance) we shall pass by these steps: first, we shall see the actions; venit, he came; that is, first, venit actu: whereas he came by promise, even in Paradise ; and by frequent ratification, in all the prophets; now he is really, actually come; renit, he is come, we look for no other after him; we join no other, angels nor saints, with him: venit, he is actu

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