then, not go forward with thy repentance, thy former speech is forgotten by God, and unprofitable to thee. Jacob at first speaking confessed God to be in that place; but so he might be everywhere; but he conceived a reverential fear at his presence; and then he came to speak the second time, to profess, that that was none other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven; that there was an entrance for him in particular, a fit place for him to testify and exercise his devotion; he came to see, what it was fit for him to do, towards the advancing of God's house.

Now whensoever a man is proceeded so far with Jacob, first to sleep, to be at peace with God, and then to wake, to do something for the good of others, and then to speak, to make profession, to publish his sense of God's presence, and then to attribute all this only to the light of God himself, by which light he grows from faith to faith, and from grace to grace, whosoever is in this disposition, he may say in all places, and in all his actions, This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. He shall see heaven open and dwell with him in all his undertakings and particularly and principally in his expressing of a care, and respect, both to Christ's mystical, and to his material body; both to the sustentation of the poor, and to the building up of God's house. In both which kinds of piety, and devotion, (Non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam; Not unto us O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be given the glory;) as to the confusion of those shameless slanderers, who place their salvation in works, and accuse us to avert men from good works, there have been in this kingdom, since the blessed reformation of religion, more public charitable works performed, more hospitals and colleges erected, and endowed in threescore, than in some hundreds of years of superstition before, so may God be pleased to add one example more amongst us, that here in this place, we may have some occasion to say, of a house erected, and dedicated to his service, This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven: and may he vouchsafe to accept at our hands, in our intention, and in our endeavour to consummate that purpose of ours, that thanksgiving, that acclamation which he received from his royal servant Solomon, at the consecration

of his great temple, when he said, Is it true indeed, that God will dwell on the earth? Behold, the heavens, and the heaven of heavens are not able to contain thee, how much more unable shall this house be, that we intend to build? But have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord, my God, to hear the cry and the prayer that thy servant shall make before thee that day; that thine eye may be open towards that house night and day, that thou mayest hear the supplications of thy servants, and of thy people, which shall pray in that place, and that thou mayest hear them in the place of thy habitation even in heaven, and when thou hearest, mayest have mercy. Amen.

SERMON XCIII.

PREACHED AT LINCOLN'S INN.

JOHN V. 22.

The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son.

WHEN Our Saviour forbids us to cast pearl before swine', we understand ordinarily in that place, that by pearl are understood the Scriptures, and when we consider the natural generation and production of pearl, that they grow bigger and bigger, by a continual succession, and devolution of dew, and other glutinous moisture that falls upon them, and there condenses and hardens, so that a pearl is but a body of many shells, many crusts, many films, many coats enwrapped upon one another. To this Scripture which we have in hand, doth that metaphor of pearl very properly appertain, because our Saviour Christ in this chapter undertaking to prove his own divinity and Godhead to the Jews, who acknowledged and confessed the Father to be God, but denied it of him, he folds and wraps up reason upon reason, argument upon argument, that all things are common between 1 Matt. vii. 6.

26 1 Kings viii. 27-30.

the Father and him, that whatsoever the Father does, he does, whatsoever the Father is, he is; for first, he says, he is a partner, a co-operator with the Father, in the present administration and government of the world, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work; well, if the Father do ease himself upon instruments now, yet was it so from the beginning? had he a part in the creation? Yes; What things soever the Father doth, those also doth the Son likewise. But do those extend to the work properly, and naturally belonging to God, to the remission, to the effusion of grace, to the spiritual resurrection of them that are dead in their iniquities? Yes, even to that too, For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. But hath not this power of his a determination, or expiration? Shall it not end, at least when the world ends? No, not then, for God hath given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man. Is there then no supersedeas upon this commission? Is the Son equal with the Father in our eternal election, in our creation, in the means of our salvation, in the last judgment, in all? In all, omne judicium, God hath committed all judgment to the Son; and here is a pearl made up, the dew of God's grace sprinkled upon your souls, the beams of God's spirit shed upon your souls, that effectual and working knowledge; that he who died for your salvation is perfect God, as well as perfect man, fit, as willing to accomplish that salvation.

In handling then this judgment, which is a word that embraces and comprehends all, all from our election, where no merit or future actions of ours were considered by God to our fruition and possession of that election, where all our actions shall be considered and recompensed by him, we shall see first that judgment belongs properly to God; and secondly, that God the Father whom we consider to be the root and foundation of the deity, can no more divest his judgment than he can his Godhead, and therefore in third place we consider, what that committing of judgment, which is mentioned here imports, and then to whom it is committed, to the Son: and lastly the largeness of that which is committed, omne, all judgment, so that we cannot carry our thoughts so high, or so far backwards, as to think of any judgment given upon us in God's purpose or decree without

relation to Christ; nor so far forward, as to think that there shall be a judgment given upon us, according to our good, moral dispositions or actions, but according to our apprehension and imitation of Christ. Judgment is a proper and inseparable character of God; that is first, the Father cannot divest himself of that; that is next. The third is that he hath committed it to another; and then the person that is his delegate, is his only Son, and lastly his power is everlasting; and that judgment-day that belongs to him, hath, and shall last from our first election, through the participation of the means prepared by him in his church, to our association and union with him in glory, and so the whole circle of time, and before time was, and when time shall be no more, makes up but one judgment-day to him, to whom the Father who judgeth no man hath committed all judgment.

First then judgment appertains to God, it is his in criminal causes, Vindicta mihi, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord'; it is so in civil things too; for God himself is proprietary of all, Domini est terra et plenitudo ejus, The earth is the Lord's, and all that is in, and on the earth; Your silver is mine, and your gold is mine, says the prophet, and the beasts on a thousand hills are mine, says David, you are usufructuaries of them, but I am proprietary; no attribute of God is so often iterated in the Scriptures, no state of God so often inculcated, as this Judge, and Judgment: no word concerning God so often repeated, but it is brought to the height, where in that place of the Psalm, where we read, God judgeth among the gods, the Latin church ever read it, Deus dijudicat deos, God judgeth the gods themselves, for though God say of judges and magistrates, Ego dixi dii estis; I have said ye are gods, (and if God say it, who shall gainsay it?) yet he says too, Moriemini, sicut homines, The greatest gods upon earth, shall die like men; and if that be not humiliation enough, there is more threatened in that which follows, ye shall fall like one of the princes, for the fall of a prince involves the ruin of many others too, and it fills the world with horror for the present, and ominous discourse for the future; but the farthest of all is Deus dijudicat deos, even these judges must come to judgment, and therefore that

VOL. IV.

Rom. xii. 19.

Psalm LXxxii. 1.

Psalm which begins so, is concluded thus, Surge Domine, Arise O God, and judge the earth: if he have power to judge the earth, he is God, and even in God himself it is expressed as a kind of rising, as some exaltation of his power that he is a Judge; and that place in the beginning of that Psalm many of the ancients read in the future dijudicabit, God shall judge the gods, because the frame of the Psalm seems to refer it to the last judgment; Tertullian reads it dijudicavit, as a thing past, God hath judged in all times; and the letter of the text requires it to be in the present, dijudicat. Collect all, and judgment is so essential to God, as that it is co-eternal with him, he hath, he doth, and he will judge the world, and the judges of the world, other judges die like men, weakly, and they fall, that is worse, ignominiously, and they fall like princes, that is worst, fearfully, and yet scornfully, and when they are dead and fallen, they rise no more to execute judgment, but have judgment executed upon them; the Lord dies not, nor he falls not, and if he seem to slumber, the martyrs under the altar awake him with their Usque quo Domine, How long O Lord before thou execute judgment? And he will arise and judge the world, for judgment is his; God putteth down one, and setteth up another, says David'; where hath he that power? Why, God is the Judge, not a judge, but the Judge, and in that right he putteth down one, and setteth up another.

Now for this judgment, which we place in God, we must consider in God three notions, three apprehensions, three kinds of judgment. First, God hath judicium detestationis, God doth naturally know, and therefore naturally detest evil; for no man in the extremest corruption of nature is yet fallen so far, as to love or approve evil at the same time that he knows, and acknowledges it to be evil. But we are so blind in the knowledge of evil, that we needed that great supplement, and assistance of the law itself to make us know what was evil; Moses magnifies (and justly) the law, Non appropinquavit, says Moses, God came not so near to any nation as to the Jews; non taliter fecit, God dealt not so well with any nation, as with the Jews, and wherein? because he had given them a law, and yet we see the greatest dignity of this law, to be, That by the law is the knowledge of

4 Psalm lxxv. 7.