be recovered, God would not call you to it. It was piously declared in a late synod, that in the offer of this reconciliation, God means, as the minister means; and I am sure I mean it, and desire it to you all; so does God. Nec Deus est qui inimicitias gerit, sed cos3, It is not God, but you, that oppose this reconciliation; O my people what have I done unto thee, or wherein have I grieved thee, testify against me; testify if I did anything towards inducing an enmity, or do anything towards hindering this reconciliation; which reconciliation is, to be restored to as good an estate in the love of God, as you had in Adam, and our estate is not as good, if it be not as general, if the merit of Christ be not as large, as the sin of Adam; and if it be not as possible for you to be saved by him, as it is impossible for you to be saved without him. It is therefore but praying you in Christ's stead, that you be reconciled to God. And, if you consider what God is, the Lord of hosts, and therefore hath means to destroy you, or what he is not, he is not man that he can repent, and therefore it belongs to you, to repent first, if you consider what the Lord doth, he that dwells in the heavens doth laugh them to scorn, and hath them in derision, or what he doth not, he doth not justify the wicked balance, nor the bag of deceitful weights", if you consider what the Lord would do, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as the hen gathereth her chickens, and ye would not, or what he would not do, As I live, saith the Lord, I desire not the death of the wicked", if ye consider all this, any of this, dare you, or can you if you durst, or would you if you could, stand out in an irreconcilable war against God? Especially if you consider, that that is more to you, than what God is, and does, and would do, and can do, for you or against you, that is, what he hath done already; that he who was the party offended, hath not only descended so low, as to be reconciled first, and to pay so dear for that, as the blood of his own, and only Son, but knowing thy necessity better than thyself, he hath reconciled thee to him, though thou knewest it not; God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, as it 84 Chrysostom. 36 Mic. vi. 11. 35 Mic. vi. 3. is in the former verse; there the work is done, thy reconciliation is wrought; God is no longer angry so, as to withhold from thee the means; for there it follows, He hath committed to us the word of reconciliation; that we might tell you the instrument of reconciliation is drawn between God and you, and, as it is written in the history of the council of Nice, that two bishops who died before the establishing of the canons, did yet subscribe and set their names to those canons, which to that purpose were left upon their graves all night, so though you were dead in your sin and enemies to God, and children of wrath, (as all by nature are) when this reconciliation was wrought, yet the Spirit of God may give you this strength, to dip your pens in the blood of the Lamb, and so subscribe your names, by acceptation of this offer of reconciliation. Do but that, subscribe, accept, and then, cætera omnia, all the rest that concerns your holy history, your justification and sanctification, nonne scripta sunt, are they not written in the books of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel, says the Holy Ghost, in another case; are they not written in the books of the chronicles of the God of Israel? Shalt thou not find an eternal decree, and a book of life in thy behalf, if thou look for it by this light, and reach to it with this hand, the acceptation of this reconciliation? They are written in those reverend and sacred records, and rolls, and parchments, even the skin and flesh of our blessed Saviour; written in those his stripes, and those his wounds, with that blood, that can admit no index expurgatorius, no expunction, no satisfaction; but the life of his death lies in thy acceptation, and though he be come to his, thou art not come to thy consummatum est, till that be done. Do that, and then thou hast put on thy wedding garment. A man might get into that feast, without his wedding garment; so a man may get into the church, to be a visible part of a Christian congregation, without this acceptation of reconciliation, that is the particular apprehension, and application of Christ; but he is still subject to a remove, and to that question of confusion, Quomodo intrasti, How came you in? That man in the Gospel could have answered to that question, directly, I came in by the invitation, and conduct of thy servants, I was called in, I was 33 Binius, to. i. fo. 320. led in; so they that come hither without this wedding garment, they may answer to Christ's Quomodo intrasti, How camest thou in? I came in by faithful parents, to whom, and their seed, thou hast sealed a covenant; I was admitted by thy servants and ministers in baptism, and have been led along by them, by coming to hear them preach thy word, and doing the other external offices of a Christian. But there is more in this question; Quomodo intrasti, is not only How didst thou come in, but How durst thou come in? If thou camest to my feast, without any purpose to eat, and so to discredit, to accuse either my meat, or the dressing of it, to quarrel at the doctrine, or at the discipline of my church, Quomodi intrasti, How didst thou, how durst thou come in? If thou camest with a purpose to poison my meat, that it might infect others, with a determination to go forward in thy sin, whatsoever the preacher say, and so to encourage others by thy example, Quomodo intrasti, How durst thou come in? If thou camest in with thine own provision in thy pocket, and didst not rely upon mine, and think that thou canst be saved without sermons, or sacraments, Quomodo intrasti, How durst thou come in? Him that came in there, without this wedding garment, the master of the feast calls friend; but scornfully, Friend how camest thou in? But he cast him out. God may call us friends, that is, admit, and allow us the estimation and credit of being of his church, but at one time or other, he shall minister that interrogatory, Friend, how came you in? and for want of that wedding garment, and for want of wearing it in the sight of men, (for it is not said that that man had no such wedding garment at home, in his wardrobe, but that he had none on) for want of sanctification in a holy life, God shall deliver us over to the execution of our own consciences, and eternal condemnation. But be ye reconciled to God, embrace this reconciliation in making your use of those means, and this reconciliation shall work thus, it shall restore you to that state, that Adam had in paradise. What would a soul oppressed with the sense of sin give, that she were in that state of innocency, that she had in baptism? Be reconciled to God, and you have that, and an elder innocency than that, the innocency of paradise. Go home, and if you find an over-burden of children, negligence in servants, crosses in your tradings, narrowness, penury in your estate, yet this penurious, and this encumbered house shall be your paradise. Go forth, into the country, and if you find unseasonableness in the weather, rots in your sheep, murrains in your cattle, worms in your corn, backwardness in your rents, oppression in your landlord, yet this field of thorns and brambles shall be your paradise. Lock thyself up in thyself, in thine own bosom, and though thou find every room covered with the soot of former sins, and shaked with that devil whose name is Legion, some such sin as many sins depend upon, and are induced by, yet this prison, this rack, this hell in thine own conscience, shall be thy paradise. And as in paradise Adam at first needed no Saviour, so when by this reconciliation, in apprehending thy Saviour, thou art restored to this paradise, thou shalt need no sub-Saviour, no joint-Saviour, but cætera adjicientur, no other angel, but the Angel of the great council, no other saint, but the Holy One of Israel, he who hath wrought this reconciliation for thee, and brought it to thee, shall establish it in thee; For, if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. This is the sum and the end of all, that when God sends humble and laborious pastors, to supple and appliable congregations; that when we pray, and you receive us in Christ's stead, we shall not only find rest in God, but, (as it is said of Noah's sacrifice) God shall find the savour of rest in us; God shall find a Sabbath to himself in us, and rest from his jealousies, and anger towards us, and we shall have a sabbatary life here in the rest and peace of conscience, and a life of one everlasting Sabbath hereafter, where to our rest there shall be added joy, and to our joy glory, and this rest, and joy, and glory superinvested with that which crowns them all, eternity. 39 Rom. v. 10. 159 SERMON CXXII. PREACHED AT ST. PAUL'S CROSS, 6th MAY, 1627. HOSEA iii. 4. For the children of Israel shall abide many days, without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim. very SOME Cosmographers have said, that there is no land so placed in the world, but that from that land, a man may see other land. I dispute it not, I defend it not; I accept it, and I apply it; there is scarce any mercy expressed in the Scriptures, but that from that mercy you may see another mercy. Christ sets up a candle now here, only to lighten that one room, but as he is lumen de lumine, light of light, so he would have more lights lighted at every light of his, and make every former mercy an argument, an earnest, a conveyance of more. Between land and land you may see seas, and seas enraged with tempests; but still, say they, some other land too. Between mercy, and mercy, you may find comminations, and judgments, but still more mercy. For this discolet this text be our map. First we see land, we see mercy in that gracious compellation, children (the children of Israel) then we see sea, then comes a commination, a judgment that shall last some time, (many days shall the children of Israel suffer) but there they may see land too, another mercy, even this time of judgment shall be a day, they shall not be benighted, nor left in darkness in their judgments; (many days, all the while, it shall be day) then the text opens into a deep ocean, a spreading sea, (They shall be without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim.) But even from this sea, this vast sea, this sea of devastation, we see land; for in the next verse follows another mercy, (The children of Israel shall return, and shall seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and shall fear the Lord, and his goodness in the later days.) And beyond this land, there is no |