Sermons (LXXX Sermons etc.); Holy Sonnets

Go. intended lire and immortality for man: and man by si induced death upon himself at first: when man had dono so, and that now man was condemned, man must die; yet God gave him, though hOt an absohte pardon, yet a long reprieve; though hOt a new immortality, yet a lire of seven and eight hundred years upon earth: and then, misery, by sin, growing upon man, and this long lire which was enlarged in his favour being become a burden unto him, Goal abridged and contracted his seven hundred to seventy, and lais eight hundred to eighty years, the years of his lire came to be threescore and ten; and if misery do surfer him to exceed those, even the exc¢eding itself is miseT. Death then is from ourselves, it is our own; but the executioner is from God, itis his, he gives lire; no man can quicken his own soul, but any man can forfeit his own soul: and yet when he hath done so, ho ma)" not be his own executioner; for as God liveth, so he killeth, says Moses there: hot as the cause of death, for death is not his creature; but because he employs what persou he will, and executes by what instrument it pleases him to choose, age or sickness, or justice, or malice, or (in our pprehension) fortme. In that history fmm whence we deduce this text, which was that great execution, the sudden death of ail the first-born of Egypt; it is vcry large, and yet we may usefully, and to good purpose enlarge it, if we take into our consideration spirituel death, as well as bodily: for so in out bouses from whence we came hither, if we left but a servant, but a child in the cradle st home, thero is one dead in that bouse. If we have no other house but this which we carry about us, this house of clay, this tabernacle of flesh, this body, yet if we consider the inmate, the sojourncr within this bouse, the state of our corrupt and putrefied soul, there is one dead in this house too. And though we be met nov in the house of God, and out God be the God of lire, yet even in this house of the God of lire, and the ground enwrapped in the saine consecration; hot only of every such house, but let every man's lenh in the house be a house; of every such space this text will be verified, T/ere is hot a ]touse u']tere t]tere i» hot one dead. God is abundant in his mercies to man, and as though he did but learn to give by his giving, as though he did but practise to make himself perfeet in his own art, whieh art ia bountiful mercy as though ail his former blessings were but in the way of earnest, and hot of payment; as though every benefit that he gave, were a new obligation upon him, and hot an aequittanee to him; he deli.hts to give where he hath given, as though his former girls were but his places of memory, and marks seg upon certain men, to whom he was to give more. It is hot so good a pies in our prayers to God, for temporal or for spirituel blessings, to say, Ifare mercy uloon me now, for I are lored t]tee ereofore, as to say, Itare mercy ulon me, for thou kast loved me keretofore. We answer a beggar, I gave.vou but yesterday; but God therefore gives us to-day, beeause he gave us yestcrday: anti therefore are ail his b]essings apped up in that word, Pai uotidlanu, Giee  tis day out daily bread: every day he ves; and early eve day; his manna falls belote the sun rises, and hh mercies are new eve morning. In this considetion of his abounding in all ways of mercy to , we consider justly how abundant he is in instructing us. He ites his law once in our heas, and then he repeats that w, and dles that law again in his written Word, in his Scriptures. He writes his law in stone tables once; and then those bles being broken, he oepeats that law, writes that law again in other tables. e gives us his lasv in Exoe and Leviticus, and then he give us a Deuteronomy, a repetition of that law, another rime in another bk. And he abounds so in instructing us, in going the saine way twice over towards us,  he gives us the law a second time, so he gives us a second way of instructing us; he accompanies, he seconds his law with examples. In his lega boeks we have rtdes; in the higorical, examples fo practise by. And as he is every way abundant, as he hath add law  nature, and d example to law, so he hath added example to example; and by that text which we have read to you here, and by that text which we have left at home, our hoe and family, and by that text which we bave brought hither, oumelves, and by tht text -hich we find here, where we stand, and sit, and kneel upou the dies of some of out dead friends or neighbours, he gives to us, he repea to a full,  various, a multiform, a manifold catechism, and institution, to teh us that it is so absolutely te, that ther o in ic ter i# o on dead,  that (takig spirituM deafla into out consideration) there is hot a bouse in which there is one alive. That therefore we may take in light at all these windows that God opens for us, that we may lay hold upon G by all these haudles which he purs out to us, we sh mke a brief survey of the four bouses; of t in Egt, where the text places if of that at home, in which we dwell; of this, which is ourselves, where we alwys are, or lways ould be within; and of this in which we are met, where G i in so many several temples his, as are bove and under ground: so that this selon may be a general funeral sermon, both for them that are dead in theflesb, and for ourselves, tht are dead in out sins; for of all these four bouses it is truc, and by useful accommodation, appliable to all, There is ot a houle vchere there is ot o.e dead. First then to survey the first house, the house in Egpyt, Pharaoh, by drawing upon himself and his land this last and hea'iest plague of the ten, the uni-ersal, the sudden, the midnight destruction of ail, ail the first-born of E-pt, hath ruade himself a monument, and a history, and a pillar everlasting to the end of the world, to the end of ail place in the world, and to the end of ail rime in the worhl, by whieh ail men may kuow, that nmn, how perverse soever, caunot weary God; that man eannot add to his rebellions so many heavy circumstances, but that God tan add as many, as heary degrees to lais judmnents. First, God turns their rivers into blood; Pharaoh sits * that proeess, and more, many more; and then in this bloody massacre of ail their first-born, God brings blood out of the channels of their rirers, into their chambers, into ail their chambers: hot only to cut off their children from citho.t, and the youny raen from tlw streets  (as the prophet speaks) but (as he says also there) 1)eath came in at th«ir cindows, and entered into their laalaces. As Christ sys of Mary Magdalen's devotion, that cheresoerer Go«Fel lwnld be Freaclted in the u'orld, tlere should also this t«hich this u'oman had done, be told for a memorial of ber*: so we may say of man's obdmtion, Vheresoever the Book of God shall be read, Pharaoh shall be an example, that God will ha'e his ends, let man be possessed with the spirit of contradiction as firiouly, vith the spirit of rebellion as ragefully as he will. Fremuerunt entes, says David in the beginning of the second Psalm, The heath«n rage, and they breai" their sleel» to contrite mischief. And within three verses more we find, The Lord sits still in hearen, and la..ahs, and hatl them in derision. The building of the tower of Babel did hot put God to build another tower to confront it; God did nothing, and b)ught ail their labo.rs and their counsels to nothing. God took no hammer in hand to dcmolish and cast down Sebuchadnezzar's image », but a stone that was cut ou citou hand», smote te maye, end ro'« it n ies. «i iceer, if od once set is work on foot, If I eyin, I wil[ a[o oke a» d, says od  Samud'; if e ave net beun, sijuraei, if the Lord bave sworn it, it shall be, (hose whom the Lord swore sould net enter into his test, never entered into his test). If he ave ot swo, si lutus fuerit, that is security enouh, the security that the prophet Emy gives through ail his propecy, os DomiM, thus and thus it must be, fo the mouth oï the Lord bath spoken it: if e bave net one se far, si cogitarerit, if he havepuToeed it, as that 'ord is used in Esay if he have determined if, as the word is used in the Chronieles": if he hnve derieed such n course, as the word is in Jeremy ; God,eill accomplieh kie work, if he bave ben it; his oath and word, if he have said or sworn it; his purpose and determination, if he have intended it; nothing shall frustrnte or evaeuate his purpose, he will achieve Iris ends, though there be never n seul that doth net sigh, never n hea, that doth net ache, never  vein that doth net bleed, nec'er a bouse in whieh there is net one dead. In the building of the material temple, there was no hammer, ner tl of noise used: in the fitting and laying of us, the living stones of the mystieal temple, God would use no hamn,er, no iron, no ension of noise, or lamentation; but there are dispositions whieh will net be reetified without the hammor, and are net malleable neither, net fit te be reetified by the hamlner, till a hot tire of vehement affliction have mollified them. Thespesius, they say, wns n man desperately vieious, irreeo-ernbly wicked; his friends asked the oracle whether ever he would mend  The oracle answered, he would when he was dead; ho died of n m, dden fall, nt least te the eyes, and in the undetanding of the world he died; but ho reeovered, and came te lire again, and then reported such fearful qsions which he had seen in the other world, upon the seuls of seine of his eompanions, and of his own father, as that out of the apprehension of those terrors in his ecstasy, in his second lire, he justified the oracle; and after he had been dend, lived well. 3Iy such stories are in the legends; but 1 take this at the fountain where they take most of theirs, that  1 Sain. iii. 12.  Ih x. 12. « 2 CllrOn. xxv. 16.  Lam. ii. 1.

is, out of Plutrch; for Plutarch and Virgil are two principal evange]ists of the legendaries. The moral of them all is, that God will imprint a knowledge of his majesty, and a terrer of his judgments, though the henri be iron: he would bring the Egyptians te say with trembling, Bre are dead men, though they wou]d net be brought te say it, till tlwre waa net a l, ou,e in wldcl, tlwre teas net one deaà. But as in a river that is swelled, though the water de bring down sand and stones, and legs, yet the water is there still; and the purpose of nature is te vent that water, net te pour down that sand, or those stones: se though God be put te mingle his judgments with his mereies, yet his merey is there still, and his purpose is, ever in those judgrnents, te manifest his merey. Where the ehannel is stopped by those sands, and stones, and legs, the water will find another ehannel  where the henri is hardened by God's correetions, and thereby ruade incapable of his merey, (as in some dispositions, even God's correetions de work sueh obstruetions and obdurations, as in Pharaoh's case it was) yet the water will find a channel, the mercy of God will flow out, and show itself te others, though net te him  hls mercy will take effeet somewhere, as (in Pharaoh's case) it did upon the ehildren of Israe]. And yet God would net show merey te them, but se, as that ai the saine rime they also might see judgments, and thereby ho brought te say, God bath a treasury of both, mercy and justice; and God might have ehanged the persons, and ruade the Eg.Ttians the objeets of his mercies, and us of his justice. The first net of God's mercy towards nie, when I see him execute a judgment upon another, is te eonfess, that that judgtuent belonged te me, and thereby te eome te a holy fear, being under the saine eondemnation; as the one thief said te the other, upon their several crosses; Fearea ot tfiou, beiff under tl, e saine condemnation? At this time God delivered his ehildren out of EgTpt; then was fulness of merey: but God let them see his power and his powerful indignation upon others, for their instruction. God brought them out; there was fu]ness of merey towards them: but he brought them out in the night. God would mingle seine sharlow, 8Oltle sigatifieation of his judgments

. c.] .x.» X ST. »V.TX'. in hi mereies, oç versty in proerity, oç niht in dsy, oç desth in lire. The percuting angel entered into none of their bouses, G let them lire; but God, though he let them lire, would hot let them be ignorsnt, that he could bave thro death in st their windows t: For they ca o into a oe were ere u'a$ o one dead. We smy no longer upon this fir suey of the first bouse, that in Ept: the next is, out own bouse, our habitation, out family. Ve bave in the use of out chureh, a sho, and a larger catechism; both instruet the saine things, the same reli#on, but some eapities requirc the one, and some the other. God would cateehise us in the knowledge of out mortality; since we bave divested our immortality, he would bave us undetand out mov ta]ity; sinee we bave indueed death upon ourselves, God would raise sueh  benefit to us, out of death, as that by the eontlnual meditation thereof, death might the ls terrify us, and the ]ess damnify us. First, his law a]one does that oce, even his coinmon law, 3lorU rieris, snd stipendium peccati mors est: ll kare dnned, and all mu,t die. And so his stature law tatutum et, it is enaeted, if i, appointed to man once to che': and then as a comment upon that law, he presents fo us, either his great eateehisms, Sennaeherib's cateehism', in whieh we almost two hundred thousand soldiers, (more by many than both ides arm and py, in these noiseful wars of out neighhours) slain in ono night; or Jeroboam's ethism te, where twelve hundred thousand being presented in tho field, (more by many, than ail tho kings of Chrtendom arm and pay) rive hundred thousan«l men, ehosen men, and men of mighty valour, (as the text qualifies them) were slain upon side in one day; or David's catechism *t, whero hreeeore and ten thousand were devour of tho pestilence, we know hot in how few hours; or this Etian eateehism, of rhich we tan make no conjecture, beeause we know no number of their bouses; and there wa hot a houle, in ieich there wa» hot one dead; or God presents us his eateehism in the Primitive church, whero every day may be written in red ink, e'ery dy the ehureh eelebrated rive hundred, in ome copies • Hob. . 27. t ah xxi. 36. t« 2 Chron. xifi. t $ Sain. xiv.

thousand martyrs every day, that had writ down their names in their own blood, for the Gospel of Christ Jcsus; or God presents us his catechism in the later Roman church; xvhere, upon our attempt of the Reformation, they boast to have slain in one day seventy millions, in another two hundred nfillions of them that attempted and assisted the Reformation; or else God presents his lesser catechisms, the several funerals of our particular friends in the congregation; or he abridges this catechism of the congregation to a less volume than that, to the consideration of every particular piece of our ow family at home: _For 80, tlwre is hot a ouoe, in wlticlt tlwre i wt one dead. IIave you hot left a dead son at home, whom you sh#uld have chastened i, whilst there was hope, and bave not. $Vhom)'ou should bave beaten with the rod, to deliver his soul from hell, and have hOt. XVhom)'ou should have ruade an Abel, a keeper of sheep; or a Cain, a tiller of the ground'; that is, bestowed him, bound him, to some occupation, or profession, or calling, and bave not. You may believe God without an oath; but Goal hath sworn, Tltat because Eli re, trained fwt the insolences of kis sons, no sacri.fice sould ]ourye Iris ]touse for erer '. And scarce shall you find in the whole book of God, any so vehement an intermination, an)' judgment so vehemently imprinted, as that upon Eli, fir hot restraining the insolences of his sons: for in that case God says, I cill do a thi,y in Israel, at,rhick, both the car» of erery one tlat heareth it shall ti,yle: that is, he would inflict a sudden death upon the father, for his indulgence to his son.. Have ye hot left such a dead son, dead in contumacy, and in disobedience, at home. Have you hot left a dead daughter at home. A daughter whom)'ou should bave kept at home, and bave not; but suffered, with Dinah, to go out to sec the daughters of the land, and so expose herself to dangerous temptations, as Dinah did*'.  Have ye not left a dead servant at home, whom ye bave made so perfect in deceiving of others, as that now he is al»le to take out a new lesson of himself, and deceive you. Have you left no dead inmates, dead sojourners, dead lodgers at home Of whom, so they advance your profit, you take no tare how  Prov. xLx. 18; and xxxiii. 13. a Gen. iv. 2.  I Sain. iii. 13. » Gcn. xxxiv. 1.

œeER. CLo I PREACHED AT 8To DVISTAN'8. vicious in themselves they be, or how dangerous to the state. Gater men, and women, and ctildren, ald stran.qers witin ty çate, says God, tat tey may al[ lextrn t/te [aw of te Lord «. If thy care spread hot over ail thy family, whosoever is dead in thy family by thy negligence, thou shalt answer 1 the king that subject, that is, the King of heaven that soul. We bave (as we proposed to do) surveyed this house in Egypt, where the text lays it, and the bouse at home where we dwell; there is a third bouse, which we are, this bouse of clay, and of mud walls, ourselves, these bodies. And is there none dead there. hot within us. The house itself is ready to fMI as soon as it is set up: the next thing that we are to practise after we are born, is to die. The tituber of this bouse is but our bones; and, My bones are waxen old, says David'°; and perchance hot with age, but as Job says, tIis boaes are fMl of t/te slns of lis yout/t °. The loam walls of this bouse are but this flesh; and Out strenyt/t is hot tte strenyt/t of stones, eitter is out fles/t brasst°; and therefore, Cursed is t$e man tat trust«t/t in man, ad malcet/flesl, tis arm '. The windows of this house are but our eyes; and, T/te liyt of mine eyes is yone from ne, says David; and we know hot how, nor how soon. The foundation is but out feet; and, besides that Otr feet stumble or won, (as the prophet complains ') David found them so cold, as that no art nor diligence could warm them. And the roof and covering of this bouse, is but this thatch of hair; and if is denounced by more than one of the prophets, That uon ail eods slall fall baldness°: the bouse itself is always ready to fall; but is there hot also always some dead in this house, in ourselves. Is not out first-born dead. Out first-born (sa)'s St. Augustine) are the oflî.pring of our beloved sin; for we bave some concubine sins, and some one fin that we are married to: whatsoever we have begot upon that wife, whatsoever we bave got by that sin, that is out fitt-born, and that is dead: how much the better

 PIEACHED AT Ff. DtINFrAN'ff. [SER. C'L. soever we make account to lire by it, it is dead. For, as it was the misehievous invention of  persecutor in the Primitive ehurch ", to tic living men to dead bodies, and let them die so; so men that tic the test of their estate to goods iii gotten, do but invent a way to ruin and destroy ail. But that which is truly every man's first-born ehild, is his zeal to the religion and service of God: as soon as we know that there is a soul, that soul knows that there is a God, and a worship belonging to that God; and this worship is religion. And is hot this first-born child deal in many of us. In him that is hot stirred, hot moved, hot affected for his religion, his puise is gone, and that is an iii sign. In him that dates hot speak for it, hot counsel, hot prech for it, his religion lies speeehless; and that is an iii sign. In him that feeds not religion, that gives nothing to the maintenance thereof, his religion is in a consumption. In a svord, if his zeal be quenched, his first-born is dead. And so for these three houses, that in E'pt, that at home, that in ourselves, There is hot a bouse in,chich there is hot one dead. The fourth bouse falling under this survey, is this bouse in whieh we are met now, the house of God; the chureh and the ground wrapped up in the saine consecration: and in this house you have seen, and seen in  lamentable abundance, and seen with sad eyes, that for many months there bath scarce been one day in which there hath hot been one dead. How should there be but multiplieity of deaths. Why should it be, or be looked fo be, or thought to be otherwise. The toaster of the house, Christ Jesus, is dead before; and now it is hot so much a part of out punishment, for the first Adam, as an imitation of the second Adam, fo die; death is hot so much a part of out debt to nature, or sin, or Satan, as a part of our eonformity to him who died for us. If death were in the nature of it merely evil to us, Christ would have redeemed us, even from this death, by his death. But as the death of Christ Jesus is the physie of mankind, so this natural death of the body is the application of that physie s He had sid al)ove (1  58) that Plutarch nd Virgil were the evangelists of the legendaries. This " mischievous invention" eems to have been bor. rowed from the latter:— Iortua quinetiam jungebat corpota vivis, &c.—/En. viii. 465.

S'. CL.] PREACHEn AT 8T. nNSTAN'8. to every partieular man, who only by death tan be ruade capable ot" that glory which his death bath purclmsed for us. This physic, ail they whom God bath taken to him, bave taken, and (by his graee) reeeived lire by it. Their first-born is dead; the body was marie belote the soul, and that body is dead. Rachd elgt for ber chil_dren, andwould.hOt be comforted, because they ere »ot. If tlese ehildren, and parents, and friends, and neighbours of ours were hot, if they were resolved intÇ an absolutœe annihilation, we eould hot be eomforted in their behalf; but Christ, who says, he is the lire, lest we should think that fo belong only to this lire, says also that he is the resurreetion. Ve were eontracted fo Christ in out eleetion, married to him in out baptism, in the grave we nre bedded with him, and in the resurreetion estated and put into possession of his kingdom: and therefore, because these words do hot only affeet us with that sad eonsideration, that there is none oï these bouses in which there is hot one dead; but minister withal that consolation, that there is none so dead, but may have a resurrection. We shall pass another short survey over ail these bouses. Thus far we have surveyed these four bouses, Eg)Tt, our familles, ourselves, and the church, as so mamy places of infection, so many temporal or spiritual pesthouses, into which out sins had heaped powder, and God's indignation had cast a match to kindle it. But now the very phrase of the text, which That in every bouse ther« ra8 che dead, There was, invites us to a more pnrticular eonsideration of God's merey, in that, howsoever it were, it is not so now; in which we shall look how far this beam of merey shines out in every of these bouses, that it is hot so now. there is hot one dead in every bouse now; but the infection, (temporal and spirituM inïeetion) is so ïar eeased, as that hOt only those that are Mive, do hot die, as belote; but those whom we ealled dead, are hot dead; they are alive in their spirits, in Abrnham's bosom; and they are alive in their very bodies, in their contraet and inherence in Christ Jesus in an infallible assurance of n joyful resurreetion. Now in the surrey oï the first sort of bouses, of Egypt, herein we are interrupted. Here they were dead, and are dead still: we »er clearly euough God's indignation upon them; but we sec neither of those beanas of mercy, either that there die no more, or that we bave the comfort of a joyful resurrection in thcm who are dead: for this fearful calamity of the death of their first-born wrought no more upon them, but to bring them to that exclamation, that vociferation, that voire of despairful murmuring, Omnes moriemur, IVe are ail dead men: and they were mischievous prophets upon themselves; for, proeeeding in "that sin whieh induced that ealamity and the test upon them, they pursucd the ehildren of Israel through the Rcd Sea, and perished in it; and then the)- came not to die one in a housc, but as it is expressed in the stor)-, and repcated in the Psalms, There remained muck aa one of them allret»; so that in their case there is no eomfort in the first beam of merey, that this phrase, they were dead, or the)-did die, should intimate, that now they did hot die, now God's correction had so wrought upon them, as that God withdrew that correction from them, for it pursued them, and aeeompanied them fo their final and total destruction. And then for the other beam of mercy, of transferring them which seemed dead in the eyes of the world, to a better lire, by that hand of death, to present happiness in their souls, and to an assured resurreetion to joy and glory in their bodies, in the communion of God's saints, Moses hath given ris little hope in their behalf; for thus he cneourageth his eountrymen lu that place, Tke .o!/ptians whom you hare een thl da!l, you. hall ee o more for eeert«: no more in this world, no more in the world to corne. Beloved, as God empaled a Go.hen in Eg.vpt, a place for the righteous amongst the wieked; so there is an Egypt in every Goshen, nests of snakes in the fairest gardens, and even in this eity (whieh in the sense of the Gospel, we may eall, tho holy city; as Christ ealled Jesusalem, though she had multiplied transgressions, the holy eity, beeause she had not east away law, though she had disobeyed it: so howsoever your sins have provoked God,)'et as you retain a zealous profession of the truth of his religion, I may in his naine, and do in the bowels of merey, eall you, the holy eity) even in this eity, no doubt but the hand of God fell upon thousands in this deadly infection,

SER. CL.J IREACHED AT ST. Dt'NSTAN'. 5 who were no more affected with it, than those Egyptins, to cry out, Omws mor&mr, We can but die, and we st die: and, damus, et bbamus, cra moriemur, Let us eat and drink, and take out oeas«re, and mako out profits, for to-morrow we hall dle, and o were eu off by the hand of God, aome even in their »obberiea, in half-empty houses and la their drankenness, in voluptuous and riotous houses; and in their lusts and wautonness, in lieentious houses; and so took in infection and death, like Judas" sop» death dil,t and aked in sin. Mea whose lust carried them into thc jaws of infection in lewd houses, and seeking one sore perished with another; men whose rapinc and eovtousness broke into bouses, and seeking the wardrobes of othcrs, fouad their own widing-sheet, in the infection of that houso where they stole their own death; meu who sought no other way to divert sadness, but strong drink in riotous bouses, aad there drank up David's eup of maledietion, the eup of eondenmed men, of dcath, in the ihfeetion of that place. For thcso men that died in their sins, that sinned in thcir dying, that sought and hunted after death so siafuy, we have little eomfurt of sueh men, in the phra8c of this text, they were dead; for they arc dead still: as Moses said of thv Egyptians, I ara afi'aid we may say of these men, ] skall cee tke»z no more fo" eer. Bt God will give us the eomfort of this phr in the next bouse; this next house is dorons notr«, out dwelling-hou8e, out habitation, out family; and there, they wer dead; they were, but by God's goedness they are hot. If this savour of death bave heea the savour of lire unto us; if this heavy weight of God's hand upon ris bave awakened us to a uarrower survey, and a better diseharge of ont duties towrds all the parts of out tmilies, we may say, to out eomforts and his glory, There was a son dead in disobedienee and murmuring; there was a daughter dead in a dangerous easine of conversation; ther w a servant dead in the praetiee of deeeit and falsifying; there w, but the Lord hath breathed a new lire into us, the Lord hath ruade even his tempest a refreshi»g, and putreaetion a perfume unto us. The saine measure of wind that blows out a eandle, kiudles a tire; this correction that bath hardene] somc, hath entended and mollified us; and howsoever ther were dead sons, and ded VOL. VI. F daughters, and dead servants, this holy sense of God's judgTnents shall hot only preserve for the future, that we shall adroit no more such dead limbs into our family, but even give to them who were (in these kinds) formerly dead, a new lire, a blessed resurrection from ail their sinful habits, by the power of his grace, though reached to them with a bloody hand, and in a bitter cup, in this heax'y c31amity; and as Christ said of himself, they shall say in him, lu'a» dead, bu ara alive; and by that grace of God, I ara that I am. The saine comfort 31so shall we bave in this phrase of the text, in our third bouse; the third bouse is hot domu w»tra, but domu o», not the bouse ve inhabit, but the bouse we carry; hot that house whieh is out bouse, but that house which is ourselves: therc Mso, they were dcad; they vere, but are not. For, beloved, we told you beîore in out former survey of these several bouses, that our first-born, (for still ye remember, they were the first-born of Egypt, that induce 311 this application ) our first-born in this bouse, in ourselves, is our ze31; hot merely and gênerally our religion, but out zeal to our relion.:For religion in gener31, is natur31 to us; the natural man bath naturally some sense of God, and some inclination to worship that power, whom he conceives to be God, and this worship is religion. But then the first thing that this general pious affection produces in us, is zeal, xvhich is an exaltation of religion. rlmus actus volutctti« et a»wr; Philosophers and divines agree in that, that the will of man cannot be idle, and the first act that the will of man produces, is love; for till it love something, prefer and choose something, till it would have something, it is hot a will; neither can it turn upon any object, before God. So that this first, and general, and natur31 love of God, is not begotten in my soul, nor produced by my soul, but created and infused with my sou], and as my soul; there is no soul that knows she is a sou], without such a general sense of the love of God. But to love God above ail, to love him with ail my faculties, this exaltation of this religious love of God, is the first-born of religion, and this is zeal. leligion, which is the worship of that power which I c311 God, does but make me a man; the natur31 man hath that religion; but that which makes me a father, and gives me an offspring, a first-born, that is zeal: by religion I ara an Adam, but by zeal I ara an Abc] produced out of that Adam. New if we consider times net long since past, there was scarce one house, scarce of us, in whom thls first-born, this zeal was net dead. Discretion is the ballast of out ship, that carrics us stcady; but zeal is the very frcight, the cargason 7, th¢ merchandise itse]f, which entiches us in the land of the living; and this was our case, we were ail corne to esteem out ballast more than out freight, out discretion more than out zeal; we had more tare to please great mon than God; more consideration of an imaginary change of rimes, than of unchangcable eternity itself. And as in storms it falls out often that mon cast their wares and their freights overboard, but noyer their ballast, so soon as we thought we saw a storm, in point of religion, we cast off our zeal, out freight, and stuek to our ballast, out discretion, and thought it sufficient to sail on smoothly, and steadily, and calmly, and discreetly in the world, and,vith the rime, though hot so directly fo the right haven. So our first-born in this house, in oursdves, out zea], was dead. It was; there is the comfortable word of our text. But now, now that God hath taken his fart into his hand, and sifted his church, now thut God hath put us into a straight and crooked limbeck, passed us through narrow and difficult trials, and set us upon a hot tire, and drawn us to a more precious substance and nature than before; now that God hath given out zeal a new coneoction, a new refining, a new inanimatiou by this tire of tribulation, let us embraee and nurse up this new resurrection of this zeal, which his own Spirit hath begot and produced in us, and return to God with a whole and entire soul, without dividing or scattering our aflictions upon other objects; and in the sincerity of tbe truc religion, without inclinations in ourselves, to indnee, and without inclinableness, from others, upon whom we may depend, to adroit, any drams of the dregs of a superstitious religion tako a little poison for physic. And so having marie the right use of God's eorrections, we shall enjoy the comfort of this

68 PREACHED AT ST. DUNSTAN'8. [Slt. pase, in this house, ourselves, out first-born, out zeal w dead; it was, Lut it is hot. Lastly, in fltis fourth bouse, the bouse where we stand now, the hoe of G, and of his sints, God affords us  fair beam of this conlation, in the phrase of this text also, they were dead. How appliable to you, in this place, is that which God id to Ios, Put OE ty so,fir tou tre«dest on ]wly yround; put off ail confidence, ll standing, all relying upon worldly assurances, and consider upon what ground you tread; upon ound so holy, as that ail the ground is ruade of the bodies of Christins, and therein bath received a second consection. Every puff of vind vithin these walls, may blow the father into the son's eyes, or the wife into ber husband's, or his into hers, or both into their children's, or their childveu's into both. Every grain of dust that flies here, is a piece of a Christian; you need hot distinguish your pews by figures; you need hot say, I sit with  many of such  neighbour, but I sit within so many inches of my husband's, or wife's, or child's, or friend's grave. Ambitious men never ruade more sh[ft for ples in court, than dead men for graves in churches; and  in out later times, we bave seen two and two almost in every place and office, so almost every grave is oppreed with twins; and as at Christ's resurrection some of the dead arose out of theh" graves, that were buried again; oe in ths lamentable calamity, the dead were buried, and thrown up again before they were resolved to dust, to make room for more. But are ail thcse dead  They were, sa} the text; they were in your eyes, and therefore we forbid not that oce of the eye, that holy tenderne, to veep for them that are so dead. But theoe was a part in every one of them, that could hot die; which the God of lire, vho breathed it them, from his o mou, bath suc[ed into his own bosom. And in that pa which cod die, they were dead, but they a hot. The soul of man is not saler wrapt up in the bosom of God, than the body of man is wrapt up in the contract, and in the eternal decree of the resurrection. As soon shM] God tear a leaf out of the book of lire, and cast so many of the elect into helI-fire, as leave the body of any of his saints in corruption for ever. To what body shall Christ Jesus be loth to put to h hand, fo raise if irrom the grave, thon, that put to his very Goalhead, the divinity itself, to assume ail our bodies, when in one peon, ho put on ail mankinà in his incarnation. As when my truo repentance bath re-engrafteà me in my God, and re-incorporated me in my Saviour, no man may reproach me, and say, Thon wast a simer: so, since all these dead bodies shall be restored by the power, and are kept alive in the purpose of A|mighty God, we cannot say, they are, scarce that they were dead. Vhen time shall be no more, when death shall be no more, they shall renew, or rather continue their being. But yet, beloved, for this state of their grave, (for it become us to call if a state; it is hot an annihilation, no part of God's saints can corne to nothing) as this state of theirs is hot to be lamented, as though they had lost anything which might have conduced to their good, by departing out of this world; so neither is it a state to be joyed in so, as that we should expose ourselves to dangers unnecessarily, in thinking that we want anything conducing to out good, which the dead enjoy. As between two mon of equal age, if one slccp, and the other wake all night, yet they fise both of an equal age in the morning; so they who shall bave slept out a long night of many ages in the grave, and they who shall be caught up in the clouds, to neet the Lord Jesus in the air, et the lest day, sha|l enter all et once in their bodies into heaven. antiquity, no seniority for tiroir bodies; neither tan their souls who weit before, be said to bave been there a minute belote ours, becausa we shall all be in a place that reckons hot by minutes. Clocks and sun-dials were but a late invention upon earth; but the sun itself, and the earth itself, wa.s but a late invention in heaven. God had been an infinite, a super-infinite, an unimaginable space, millions of millions of nnimaginable spaees in heaven, belote the ereation. And out afternoon shall be as long as God's forenoon; for, as God noyer saw beginning, so we shall noyer sec end; but they whom we tread upon now, and we whom others shall tread upon hereafter, shall meet et once, where, though we were dead, dead in out several bouses, dead in a sinful Egypt, dead in out family, dead in ourselves, dead in the grave, yet we shall be received, with that consolation, and glorious consolation, You were dead, but are alive. Eter liyàom, lrelared for!Aou, from the be#inniny. Amen.