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, in 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.

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

continuing upon the Jews to this day) was not obtained at God's hands.

:

So therefore prayer is our first entry, for when it is said, Ask and it shall be given, it is also said, Knock and it shall be opened, showing that by prayer our entrance is. And not the entry only, but the whole house: My house is the house of prayer. Of all the conduits and conveyances of God's graces to us, none hath been so little subject to cavillations, as this of prayer. The sacraments have fallen into the hands of flatterers and robbers. Some have attributed too much to them, some detracted. Some have painted them, some have withdrawn their natural complexion. It hath been disputed, whether they be, how many they be, what they be, and what they do. The preaching of the word hath been made a servant of ambitions, and a shop of many men's new-fangled wares. Almost every means between God and man, suffers some adulteratings and disguises: but prayer least and it hath most ways and addresses. It may be mental, for we may think prayers. It may be vocal, for we may speak prayers. It may be actual, for we do prayers. For deeds have voice; the vices of Sodom did cry, and the alms of Tobias. And if it were proper for St. John, in the first of the Revelation to turn back to see a voice, it is more likely God will look down, to hear a work. So then to do the office of your vocation sincerely, is to pray. How much the favourites of princes, and great personages labour, that they may be thought to have been in private conference with the prince. And though they be forced to wait upon his purposes, and talk of what he will, how fain they would be thought to have solicited their own, or their dependents' business. With the Prince of princes, this every man may do truly; and the sooner, the more beggar he is for no man is heard here, but in forma pauperis.

Here we may talk long, welcomely, of our own affairs, and be sure to speed. You cannot whisper so low alone in your chamber, but he hears you, nor sing so loud in the congregation, but he distinguishes you. He grudges not to be chidden and disputed with, by Job. The arrows of the Almighty are in me, and the venom thereof hath drunk up my spirit. Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh of brass, &c. Not to be

directed and counselled by Jonas: who was angry and said; Did not I say, when I was in my country, thou wouldest deal thus? And when the Lord said, Dost thou well to be angry? He replied, I do well to be angry to the death. Nor almost to be threatened and neglected by Moses: Do this, or blot my name out of thy book. It is an honour to be able to say to servants, Do this but to say to God, Domine fac hoc, and prevail, is more; and yet more easy. God is replenishingly everywhere but most contractedly, and workingly in the temple. Since then every rectified man, is the temple of the Holy Ghost, when he prays; it is the Holy Ghost itself that prays; and what can be denied, where the asker gves? He plays with us, as children, shows us pleasing things, that we might cry for them, and have them. Before we call, he answers, and when we speak, he hears: so Isaiah LXV. 24. Physicians observe some symptoms so violent, that they must neglect the disease for a time, and labour to cure the accident; as burning fevers, in dysenteries. So in the sinful consumption of the soul, a stupidity and indisposition to prayer, must first be cured. For, Ye lust, and have not, because ye ask not, James iv. 2. The adulterous mother of the three great brothers, Gratian, Lombard, and Comestor', being warned by her confessor, to be sorry for her fact, said she could not, because her fault had so much profited the church. At least, said he, be sorry that thou canst not be sorry. So whosoever thou be, that canst not readily pray, at least pray, that thou mayest pray. For, as in bodily, so in spiritual diseases, it is a desperate state, to be speechless.

It were unmannerliness to hold you longer in the entry. One turn in the inner court, of this special prayer in general, and so enter the palace. This is not a prayer for his own ease, as that in his agony seems. It hath none of those infirmities, which curious schismatics find in that. No suspicion of ignorance, as there, (if it be possible). No tergiversation nor abandoning the noble work which he had begun, as there, (Let this cup pass). It is not an exemplar, or form, for us to imitate precisely, (otherwise

1 Concerning these ecclesiastical writers, see Mosheim, vol. ii. pp. 256, 288; he, however, mentions nothing of their relationship: on the other hand, he says that Gratian was by birth a Tuscan, whereas Peter Lombard is said to have been born at Novara.-ED.