II. a Tophet of worms and flames. But I had rather fancy you SERM. the sheep in Aristotle which the green bough would lead, than the goats in the same philosopher, that the nettles must sting, whom the cords of a man might draw, than the whips of scorpions drive into paradise, into Canaan; being confident that I have at this time revealed such precious truths unto you, that he whom they do not melt and charm, and win to enter into this so necessary, so feasible, so gainful a service, father Abraham's divinity would prejudge and conclude against him, that "neither will that man convert, [Luke xvi. though one should rise from the dead and preach unto 31.] him." If there be any here of this unhappy temper, the only reserve I have to rescue him is my prayer, that God would touch his heart, that he would say Ephphatha, that if [Mark vii. there be any consolation in Christ, any comfort of love, any [Phil. iv. 34.] virtue, any praise, any such thing as paradise here, or heaven 8.] hereafter, we may every of us think of these things, and having entered into the blessed family of this good master, we may all serve Him acceptably here, fight under His banner, overcome by His conduct, and reign with Him triumphantly hereafter. Now to Him which hath elected, created, redeemed, called, justified us, will consummate us in His good time, will prosper this His ordinance to that end, will lead us by His grace to His glory; to Him, &c. SERMON III. EPHRAIM'S COMPLAINT. SERM. JER. XXXI. 18. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn Thou me, and I shall be turned. THIS text is a sad soliloquy of a provoking afflicted people. Ephraim transmigrantem, reads the Vulgar; and sure 7, which we read "bemoaning," would be better rendered thus, "the ten tribes sealed up in a black night, a fatal last captivity." To parallel our state with Israel in the transmigrantem, is not my design, much less in the bemoaning; that is but a piece of unseasonable pusillanimity that our English hath imposed upon the text, and our Saviour hath inspirited us into a more cheerful guise in suffering, the xaíρETE KAì [Matt. v. ayaλão0e, "rejoice and be exceeding glad," the most blissful joyous condition of any. 12.] The parallel, I fear, will prove too perfect in the words themselves, which Ephraim then was overheard to utter, and perhaps some infidel hearts may be a whispering now; and that I may prevent this parallel I have pitched upon these words, "I have surely heard Ephraim," &c. The sense of Ephraim's povodía thus sadly muttered, it is possible you may not articulately understand: I shall briefly be his interpreter, by giving you a plain paraphrase of the verse. 'I heard the ten tribes in a melancholic reflection on their state, thus whispering within themselves; We have long been punished by God, and no more wrought on by those punish III. ments than a wild unmanaged bullock,' i. e. not reformed or SER M. mended at all by this discipline, -the Targum hath cleared the rendering NN, "We have not been taught," and the Septuagint's our édidáɣ¤ŋva hath done so too,—but then, 'turn Thou me, return my captivity, restore us to our liberty and our Canaan again, and then no doubt we shall be turned, reformed and mortified by that change ".? Having thus laid bare the words before you, you will presently discern the sum of them, a people unreformed under God's rod, petitioning to be released from that smart, because it did not mend them, pretending that prosperity would work wonders on them. And this you will dissolve into these three specials, each worth our stay and pondering. 1. God's judgment, what course is fittest to reform sinners, not the delicate, but the sharp, that of smiting, Tu percussisti, "Thou hast smitten." 2. Man's judgment, or the sinner's flattering persuasion of himself, quite contrary to God's; a conceit, that roses are more wholesome than wormwood, that prosperity will do it better, and a bribing God with a promise that it shall do it, a And accordingly St. Chrysostome's Greek copy must be corrected, and read thus, ἐπαιδευσάς με Κύριε καὶ οὐκ ἐπαιδεύθην, ἀλλ ̓ ἐγενόμην ὡς μοσχὸς adidaктos. "Thou hast instructed me, Lord, and I was not instructed, but I became as an untaught, unmanaged ox or heifer."-Tom. vi. [p. 413.] Serm. Eundem esse Deum Vet. et Nov. Test. [This is the reading in the edition of Ducæus, as well as in that of Savile and the Benedictine editors, who all agree in considering this homily spurious. It occurs in each of these editions in the sixth volume.] b That this is the meaning of the words will appear by the consequents, when they are once rendered and understood aright, which now seem to resist this interpretation, and that is caused by the ill rendering of them. They are to be read thus, verse 19. "Surely when Thou shalt have turned me (or brought me back) I shall repent, when Thou shalt shew me (Thy mercies) I shall strike my thigh,"-a ceremony which was used by the Jews in the days of atonement or expiation, diebus," I am ashamed, yea and confounded, because I bear," &c.-i. e. I am so troubled at my pun- "Can I in any wise have mercy ten. SERM. converte et convertar, "Thy smitings have done no good on III. me: turn Thou me, and I shall be turned." 7. 3. The stating of this difficulty betwixt God and man, and in that, the falseness of man's judgment; and the fallaciousness of such his promise: 1. In respect of God, who will never send them prosperity, that adversity wrought no good on. And 2. of prosperity itself, which would never do that work on those, if God should send it, intimated in the prophet's recounting and upbraiding this speech of Ephraim, "I have surely heard Ephraim," &c. I begin first with the first, God's judgment, what course is fittest to reform sinners, not the delicate but the sharp, that of smiting. And all the proof I pretend to have from this text for this is the percussisti in the front. It is clear God had smitten Ephraim, and God's actions are a declaration of His judgment, His smiting a sufficient assurance that nothing else is judged by God so likely to reform Ephraim, and that upon these two plain heads of probation. 1. That whatever is, whatever is come to pass, is certainly God's will it should be. 2. That what was thus God's will, was designed to some benign end, and in short, to nothing in Ephraim, but his reformation. come. 1. That whatever comes to pass is certainly God's will. Not still His will, so as to be matter of decree,-save only of permission,-that thou shouldst do it, and therefore even those things that are most necessarily to come, shall be Matt. xviii, matter of the greatest guilt, and woe to those by whom they But His will, His overruling decretory will, that I Acts iv. 28. should suffer it, His hand and His counsel, poopicwv yevéolai, "predetermining that to be done" which none but Herod and Pilate, gentiles and devil, against the express will of God, and His child Jesus were gathered together to do. All the sin and furies, guilt and damnation of hell may be in the Touîv, the doing or executing God's will,-as believe it, there is not a more formidable trade in the world than that of which Satan alone hath the patent, and men do but entrench on hell whensoever they exercise it, that of the lictor et carnifex, of being God's rods, God's executioners,—but 29. III. then all the mercy, and all wisdom, bounty, and divinity, SER M. sometimes the redeeming of a world, in the yevéolai, "the being done." Not the softest affliction or bloodiest tyranny had ever come into the world had not God permitted, and for our sins decreed to permit the doors to be open for it. Not the lightest wound or deepest furrow on a poor Christian's shoulders, but hath characters of God's hand in it, superscribing him νόμισμα Χριστοῦ, in Ignatius phrase, “ the coin of Christ," a stamp of His impressing; and as the painter had so interweaved his own face in Minerva's picture, that you could not behold one without discerning the other, so when the image of Christ is impressed on us, I mean the image of the crucified Saviour, the thorns on the head, the spitting on the face, the sponge of vinegar and gall at the mouth, and the one wound on the whole body, "when the Rom. viii. conformity to this image of the Son is sealed upon us," that seal of the Tiphereth, or the Magnus Adam, (as the cabalists are wont to call it,) I mean of the archetypal sufferer Christ, is impressed so hard that it prints quite through the bottom of him, leaves the impression on the malcuth, the bride, the house of Israel, the poor crucified Church here below; when I say that sad original is thus copied upon us, there is no avoiding the sight, no escaping the acknowledgment of that great Painter's face that drew these parallel signatures both on Christ and us, or in St. Paul's phrase, "predestined us to be conformable to that image of His Son," avтаvаπλnроûv, Col. i. 24. by way of correspondence, of antitype, "to fill up the remainders of His sufferings in our flesh," and as punctually elected us to this σvoraúpwois, this "co-suffering" for, and [Rom. viii. 17.] after Christ, as to the ovvdoğaleo0ai, we trust He hath, to the also "being glorified with Him." These are the στίγματα ̓Ιησοῦ, literally and exactly, the prints or brands of Christ, the works of His hands as well as the transcripts of His sufferings; and as this may give us a perfect satisfaction in whatsoever the most smitten condition, a Tâσav xaρàv, all joy when we are thus vouchsafed and dignified, especially if we shall have transcribed the active as • [ὥσπερ γάρ ἐστιν νομίσματα δύο, δ μὲν Θεοῦ, δὲ κόσμου, καὶ ἕκαστον αὐτ τῶν ἴδιον χαρακτῆρα ἐπικείμενον ἔχει, οἱ ἄπιστοι τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, οἱ δὲ πιστ τοὶ ἐν ἀγάπῃ χαρακτῆρα Θεοῦ Πατρὸς διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, δι' οὗ ἐὰν μὴ αὐθαι- |