THE CHARACTER OF MAN: Laid forth In a SERMON Preached at the COURT, March, 10. 1634.  
BY The L. Bishop of EXETER.  
LONDON, Printed by M. Flesher, for NAT: BUTTER. M.DC.XXXV.    


VERA EFFIGIES REVERENDI DONI ●OSEPHI HALL. NORWICI EPISCOPI.  
This Picture represents the Form, where dwells  
〈◊〉 Mind, which nothing but that Mind excels▪  
There's Wisdom, Learning, Wit; there Grace & Love  
Rule over all the rest: enough to prove,  
Against the froward Conscience of this Time,  
The Reverend Name of BISHOP is no Crime.   
〈…〉   

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE and my ever most worthily honoured Lord; EDWARD, LORD DENNY, Baron of WALTHAM, Earl of Norwich.  
Right Honourable,  
AS one that hath no power to stand out against the importunity of him, whose least motion is justly wont to pass with me, for a command, I have here sent your Lo: the copy of my Sermon, lately preached at the Court; which partly the distance, and partly the inconvenience of the place, and season would not suffer you to hear; that now your ear may be supplied by your eye; though not without some disadvantage on my part: Let it lie by you, as a private and faithful Monitor instead of  
Your Lo ps. truly and sincerely devoted in all observance, JOS. EXON.   

THE CHARACTER OF MAN.  PSAL. 144. 3. 
Lord what is man that thou takest knowledge of him; or the son of man that thou makest account of him?  
Man is like unto vanity, etc.  
MY Text, and so my Sermon too, is the just character of man; A common, and stale theme, you will say; but a needful one: we are all apt to misknow or to forget what we are; No blacks, nor soule-bells, nor death's heads on our rings, nor funeral sermons, nor tombs, nor Epitaphs can fix our hearts enough upon our frail, and miserable condition; And if any man have condescended to see his face in the true looking glass of his wretched frailty, so soon as his back is turned he forgets his shape strait; Especially at a Court where outward glory would seem to shoulder out the thoughts of poor despicable mortality; Give me leave therefore, (Honourable and beloved) to ring my own knell in your ears this day, and to call home your eyes a little, and to show you that which I fear you too seldom see, yourselves. Lent and funerals are wont still to go both in one Livery: There is no book so well worthy reading as this living one; Even now David spoke as a King of men, Of people subdued under him; now he speaks as an humble vassal to God: Lord what is man that thou takest knowledge of him?  
In one breath is both sovereignty and subjection; An absolute sovereignty over his people; My people are subdued under me; An humble subjection to the God of Kings; Lord, what is man? Yea, in the very same word wherein is the profession of that sovereignty, there is an acknowledgement of subjection; Thou hast subdued my people; In that he had people, he was a King; that they might be his people, a subjugation was requisite; and that subjugation was Gods, and not his own; Thou hast subdued; Lo David had not subdued his people, if God had not subdued them for him; He was a great King, but they were a stiff people; The God that made them swayed them to a due subjection; The great Conquerors of worlds, could not conquer hearts, if he that moulded hearts did not temper them: By me King's reign saith the Eternal wisdom; and he that had courage enough to encounter a Bear, a Lion, Goliath, yet can say: Thou hast subdued my people.  
Contrarily, in that lowliest subjection of himself, there is an acknowledgement of greatness; though he abaseth himself with a What is man, yet withal, he adds, thou takest knowledge of him, thou makest account of him; And this knowledge, this account of God, doth more exalt man, than his own vanity can depress him.  
My Text then, ye see, is David's rapture, expressed in an extaticall question of sudden wonder; a wonder at God, and at man; Man's vileness: What is man? God's mercy and favour, in his knowledge, in his estimation of man: Lo, there are but two lessons that we need to take out here, in the world, God, and man; and here they are both: Man in the notion of his wretchedness; God, in the notion of his bounty: Let us (if you please) take a short view of both, and in the one see cause of our humiliation, of our joy and thankfulness in the other, & if in the former, there be a sad Lent of mortification, there is in the latter, a cheerful Easter of our raising and exaltation.  
Many a one besides David, wonders at himself, one wonders at his own honour, and though he will not say so, yet thinks What a great man am I? Is not this great Babel which I have built? This is Nebuchadnezars' wonder: Another wonders at his person, and finds either a good face, or a fair eye, or an exquisite hand, or a well shaped leg, or some gay fleece to admire in himself: This was Absalous wonder: Another wonders at his wit, and learning: How came I by all this? Turba haec. This vulgar that knows not the law, is accursed. This was the Pharisees wonder. Another wonders at his wealth, Soul, take thine ease, as the Epicure in the Gospel. David's wonder is as much above, as against all these; he wonders at his vileness: Like as the chosen vessel would boast of nothing, but his infirmities: Lord what is man?  
How well this hangs together? No sooner had he said, Thou hast subdued my people under me, than he adds, Lord what is man?  
Some vain heart would have been lifted up with a conceit of his own eminence; Who I? I am not as other men; I have people under me; and people of my own; and people subdued to me; This is to be more than a man; I know who hath said, I said ye are Gods. Besides Alexander the great, how many of the Roman Caesar's have been transported with this self-admiration, and have challenged Temples, Altars, Sacrifices. How have they shared the months of the year among them; April must be Neronius, May Claudius, june Germanicus, September Antoninus, Domitian will have October, November is for Tiberius, by the same token, that when it was tendered to him, he asked the Senate wittily (as Xiphiline reports it) what they would do when they should have more than twelve Caesar's; But if there were not months enough for them, in the year; there were stars enough in the Sky, there was elbow-room enough in their imaginary heaven for their deification. What tell I you of these▪ a sorry Clearchus of Pontus, as Suidas tells us, would be worshipped, and have his son called Lightning; Menecrates the Physician (though not worthy to be Esculapius his Apothecary's boy) yet would be jupiter: Empedocles the Philosopher, if it had not been for his shoe would have gone for Immortal. Sejanus will be sacrificing to himself. I could tire you with these prodigies of pride. I could tell you of a Xerxes that will be correcting the Hellespont, and writing letters of threat to the mountain Athos: of one of his proud Sultan successors Sapores that writ himself Brother to the Sun, and Moon: of his great neighbour of China that styles himself Heir apparent to the living Sun: and the wise Cham of Tartary, Son of the highest God; Caligula would 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Dio, counter-thunder to God; and will be no less than jupiter Latialis; And the Scythian Roylus can say; It is easy for him to destroy all that the Sun looks upon; Lord God how can the vain pride of man befool him, and carry him away to ridiculous affectations? The man after Gods own heart is in another vain; when he looks downward, he sees the people crouching under him, and confesses his own just predominancy, but when he looks either upward to God, or inward to himself, he says, Lord what is man? It should not be, it is not in the power of earthly greatness to raise the regenerate heart above itself, or to make it forget the true grounds of his own humiliation. Avolet, quantum volet palea, as he said: Let the light chaff be hoist into the air, with every wind (as Psal. 1.) the solid grain lies close, and falls so much the lower, by how much it is more weighty. It is but the smoke that mounts up in the furnace, it is but the dross that swells up in the lump, the pure metal sinks to the bottom, if there be any part of the crucible lower than other, there you shall find it. The proud mountains shelve off the rain, and are barren; the humble valleys soak it up, and are fruitful. Set this pattern before you ye great ones whom God hath raised to the height of worldly honour: Oh be ye as humble as ye are great: the more high you are in others eyes, be so much more lowly in your own, as knowing that he was no less than a King that said, Lord what is man?  
The time was when David made this wonder upon another occasion. Psal. 8. 3, 4. When I see the heavens, the moon and the stars that thou hast ordained, Lord what is man? When looking over that great night-piece, and turning over the vast volume of the world (as Gerson terms it) he saw in that large folio, amongst those huge capital letters, what a little insensible daghespoint man is, he breaks forth into an amazed exclamation Lord what is man? Indeed, how could he do other? To compare such a mite, a mote, a nothing with that goodly and glorious vault of heaven, and with those worlds of light, so much bigger than so many globes of earth, hanging, and moving regularly in that bright and spacious contignation of the firmament, it must needs astonish humane reason, and make it ashamed of its own poorness: Certainly, if there could be any man that when he knows the frame of the world could wonder at any thing in himself, save his own nothingness, I should as much wonder at him, as at the world itself.  
There David wondered to compare man with the world; here he wonders too to compare man, with a world of men, and to see that God had done so much for him above others in his advancement, deliverances, victories. But if any man had rather to take this Psalm as a sacred Rhapsody, gathered out of the 18. and 8. and 39 Psalms; and this sentence as universal; I oppose not; Let this wonder be general, not so much of David, a man selected, as of David, a man. These two are well joined, Lord, What? For however man when he is considered in himself, or compared with his fellow-creatures, may be something; yet when he comes into mention with his maker, he is less than nothing. Match him with the beast of the field, yea of the desert; even there, however, as Chrysostom, every beast hath some one ill quality, but man hath all; yet, in regard of rule, what a jolly Lord he is; here is omnia subjecisti, thou hast put all things in subjection to him; Not the fiercest Lion, not the hugest Elephant, or the wildest Tiger, but, either by force, or wile man becomes his master; and though they have left that original awe, which they bore to him so soon as ever he forsook his loyalty to his King; yet still they do, (not without regret) acknowledge the impressions of Majesty in that upright face of his; Wherefore are they but for man? Some for his labour as the ox; some for his service as the horse: some for his pleasure as the dog, or the ape: some for his exercise, as the beasts of the forest, all for man: But when we look up at his infinite Creator, Lord what is man? O God, thou art an intelligible sphere, whose centre is every where, whose circumference is no where but in thyself: Man is a mere centre without a circumference. Thou, O God, in una essentia omnia praehabes, in one essence forecomprisest all things, as Aquinas out of Dionysiw; man, in a poor imperfect composition holds nothing. Thou art light, hast light, dwellest in light inaccessible; Man of himself is as dark as earth, yea as hell. Thou art God alsufficient, the very heathen could say, (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉); It is for none but God to want nothing: Man wants all but evil; Shortly, thou art all holiness, power, justice, wisdom, mercy, truth, perfection: Man is nothing but defect, error, ignorance, injustice, impotence, corruption; Lord then, what is man to thee but a fit subject for thy wrath, yet let it be rather a meet object of thy commiseration; Behold we are vile, thou art glorious; let us adore thine infiniteness, do thou pity our wretchedness. Lord what is man?  
Leave we comparisons; Let us take man as he is himself; It is a rule of our old country man of Hales, the acute master of Bonaventure, that a man should be rigidus sibi, pius aliis, rigorous to himself, kind to others: Surely, as Nazianzen observes, in one kind, that nothing is more pleasing to talk of then other men's businesses, so, there is nothing more easy, then for a man to be wittily bitter in invectives against his own condition; who hath not brain, and gall enough to be a Timon, depreciari carnem hanc (as Tertullian speaks,) to disparage humanity; and like an angry Lion to beat himself to blood with his own stern; Neither is it more rife for dogs to bark at men, than men at themselves. Alas, to what purpose is this currish clamour? We are miserable enough though we would flatter ourselves; To whose insultation can we be thus exposed but to our own? I come not hither to sponge you with this vinegar, & gall, but give me leave a little, though not to aggravate, yet to deplore our wretchedness; There can be no ill blood in this: Amaritudo sermonum medicina animarum, this bitterness is medicinal, saith S. Ambrose; I do not fear we shall live so long as to know ourselves too well. Lord then what is man? What in his being? What in his depravation? How miserable in both?  
What should I fetch the poor wretched infant out of the blind caverns of nature, to shame us with our conceptions, and to make us blush at the substance, nourishment, posture of that which shall be a man; There he lies, senseless for some months (as the heathen Orator truly observes,) as if he had no soul. When he comes forth into the large womb of the world, his first greeting of his mother is with cries and lamentations, (and more he would cry if he could know into what a world he comes) recompensing her painful throws with continual unquietness; what sprawling, what wring, what impotence is here? There lies the poor little Lording of the world, not able to help himself; whiles the new yeaned Lamb rises up on the knees, and seeks for the teats of her dam, knowing where and how to find relief, so soon as it begins to be. Alas, what can man do, if he be let alone, but make faces, and noises, and dye? Lord what is man? This is his ingress into the world; his progress, in it, is no better. From an impotent birth, he goes on to a silly childhood; if no body should teach him to speak what would he do? Historians may talk of, Bec, that the untaught infant said; I dare say he learned it of the goats, not of nature; I shall as soon believe that Adam spoke Dutch in Paradise according to Goropius Becanus his idle fancy, as that the child meant to speak an articulate word unbidden: And if a mother or nurse did not tend him, how soon would he be both noisome, & nothing; Where other creatures stand upon their own feet and are wrapped in their own natural mantles, and tend upon their dams for their sustenance, and find them out amongst ten thousand.  
Yea the very spider weaves so soon as ever it comes out of the egg: Assoon as age and nurture can feoff him in any wit, he falls to shifts; all his ambition is to please himself in those crude humours of his young vanity: If he can but elude the eyes of a nurse or Tutor, how safe he is? Neither is he yet capable of any other care, but how to decline his own good, and to be a safe truant; It is a large time that our Casuists give him, that, at seven years, he begins to lie; Upon time and tutorage, what devices he hath to feed his appetite? what fetches to live? And if, now, many successions of experiments have furnished him with a thousand helps, yet, as it is in the text (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) What is Adam, and the son of Enosh? How was it with the first man? how with the next? Could we look so far back as to see Adam and Eve, when they were new turned out of Paradise; in dignam exilio terram (as Nazianzen speaks of his Pontic habitation) Oh that hard-driven, and miserable pair! The perfection of their invention and judgement was lost in their sin; their soul was left no less naked than the body. How woefully do we think they did scramble to live? they had water and earth before them, but fire, an active and useful element, was yet unknown; Plants they had, but metals whereby they might make use of those plants, and redact them to any form, for instruments of work, were yet (till Tubal-cain) to seek. Here was Adam delving with a jawbone, and harrowing with sticks tied uncouthly together, and paring his nails with his teeth: there Eve making a comb of her fingers; & tying her raw-skined breeches together with rinds of trees, or pinning them up with thorns. Here was Adam tearing off some arm of a tree, to drive in those stakes which he hath pointed with some sharp flint; there Eve fetching in her water in a shell; Here Adam the first mid▪ wife to his miserable consort, and Eve wrapping her little one in a skin, lately borrowed from some beast; and laying it on a pillow of leaves, or grass; Their fist was their hammer, their hand their dish, their arms and legs their ladder, heaven their Canopy, and earth their featherbed; & now (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) What is Adam? In time Art began to improve nature; Every day's experiments brought forth something; and now, man durst affect to dwell, not safe, but fair; to be clad, not warm but fine; and the palate waxed by degrees, wanton, & wild; the back and the belly strove whether should be more luxurious; and the eye affected to be more prodigal than they both; and ever since, the ambition of these three hath spent, & wearied the world; so as in the other extreme we may well cry out, Lord what is man?  
For, to rise up with his age and the worlds now, when man is grown ripe in all professions, an exquisite artist, a learned Philosopher, a stout champion, a deep politician, whither doth he bend all his powers, but to attain his own ends, to cross another's? to greaten himself, to supplant a rival, to kill an enemy, to embroile a world; Man's heart (as Bernard well) is a mill, ever grinding some grist, or other, of his own devise; and I may add, if there be no grain to work upon, sets itself on fire. Lord what is man? (even after the accession of a professed Christianity) but a butcher of his own kind? Seneca told his Lucilius (the same that job hath) that vivere militare est; It is true now not morally but literally: What a woeful shambles is Christendom itself ever since the last Comet becomne. Friar Dominick was according to his mother's dream a dog with a fire brand in his mouth, sure ever since, religion hath been fiery and bloody. Homicida cucurbitarum, was the style that S. Austin gave to Manicheus; now every man abroad strives to be bomicida Christianorum: As if men were grown to the resolution of the old Tartars, of whom Haytonus; they thought it no sin to kill a man, but not to pull off their horses bridle when he should feed, this they held mortal. What hills of carcases are here? What rivers of blood; At tu domine usquequo? How long Lord, how long shall men play the men in killing? and seek glory in these ambitious murders. Oh stay, stay thou preserver of men, these impetuous rages of inhuman mankind, and scatter the people that delight in war: And blessings be upon the anointed head of the King of our peace, under whose happy sceptre we enjoy these calm & comfortable times, whiles all the rest of the world is weltering in blood, and scorching in their mutual flames; May all the blessings of our peace return upon him, who is (under God) the author of these blessings, and upon his seed for ever, and ever.  
How willingly would I now forget (as an old man easily might) to turn back to the dispositions, studies, courses of man, commonly bend upon the prosecution whether of his lust, or malice: woe▪ is me, how is his time spent? In hollow visits, in idle court, in Epicurean pamper, in fantastic dress, in lawless disports, in deep plots, crafty conveyances, quarrellous law-suits, spiteful undermine, corrading of riches, cozening in contracts, revenging of wrongs, suppressing the emulous, oppressing inferiors, mutining against authority, eluding of laws, and what shall I say? in doing all but what he should, so as in this, man approves Polybius his word too true, that he is both the craftiest of all creatures, & most vicious; and in the best and all his ways makes good the word in my text (even in this sense) Man is like unto vanity; yea like is not the same; Man is altogether vanity. Psal. 39 6. Indeed so more than vanity that we may rather say vanity is like to man; What a deal of variety of vanity here is; Ones is a starved vanity, another's a pampered one; ones a loviall vanity, another's a sullen one; ones a silken vanity, another's a ragged one; ones a careless vanity, another's a carking; and all these rivulets run into one common Ocean of vanity, at last, universa vanitas omnis homo; In this busy variety doth he wear out the time and himself, till age or sickness summon him to his dissolution; But the while, in the few minutes of our life, how are our drams of pleasure lost in our pounds of gall; Anguish of soul, troubles of mind, distempers of body, losses of estate, blemishes of reputation, miscarriages of children, mis-casualties, unquietness, pains, griefs, fears take up our hearts, and forbid us to enjoy, not happiness, but our very selves; so as our whole life sits like Augustus, inter suspiria & lachrymas betwixt sighs and tears; and all these hasten us on to our end; and woe is me, how soon is that upon us? I remember Gerson brings in an Englishman ask a Frenchman Quot annos habes? (how many years are you?) a usual latin phrase when we ask after a man's age; his answer is Annos non habeo; I am of no years at all, but death hath forborn me these fifty; Surely we cannot make account of one minute: besides the vanity of unprofitableness, here is the vanity of transitoriness. How doth the momentaninesse of this misery add to the misery; what a flower, a vapour, a smoke, a bubble, a shadow, a dream of a shadow our life is? We are going, and then a careless life is shut up in a disconsolate end, and God thinks it enough to threat, Ye shall die like men: Alas, this wormeaten apple soon falls; vitreum hoc corpusculum (as Erasmus terms it) is soon cracked, and broken. It is not for every one to have his soul sucked out of his mouth with a kiss as the jews say of Moses. He that came into the world with cries, goes out with groans; The pangs of death, the anguish of conscience, the shrieking of friends, the frights of hell meet now together to render him perfectly miserable, and now, Lord, what is man? Well, he dies, saith the Psalmist, and then all his thoughts perish; Lo what a word here is? All his thoughts perish. What is man but for his thoughts? Those are the only improvement of reason, and that in an infinite variety: One bends his thoughts upon some busy controversies, perhaps nec gemino ab ovo; another, upon some deep plot of State to be moulded up (like to China clay) some hundred years after, another, hath cast models in his brain of some curious fabric wherewith he will enrich the surface of the earth; another hath in his active imagination hooked in his neighbour's inheritance, and takes care to convey it; one studies Art, another fraud, another the art of fraud; one is laying a foundation for future greatness, as low as hell; another, is laying on a gilded roof where is no firm foundation, each one is taken up with several thoughts, when he dies all those thoughts perish; all those castles in the air (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Aristophanes his word is) vanish to nothing; only his ill thoughts stick by him, and wait on his soul to his hell: But I have not yet done with the body: Rameses which signifieth worms, is our last station in this wilderness; yet one step lower e corpore vermiss, e vermibus faetor, as Bernard well: He that was rotten with disorder, would be sweetened with odours; but it is more than all Arabia can do, neither is there more horror in the face of death, then in his breath, noisomeness. Lord what is man? But alas, it is well for this part that it is for the time senseless; the living Spirit pays the while for all, which if it be but a mere man's, is hurried by devils immediately, into the dreadful regions of horror, and death, and there lies for ever, and ever, and ever in unsufferable, unutterable, unconceivable torments, without all possibility of intermission, of mitigation. Oh woe woe woe to those miserable souls that ever they were created. And now, Lord what is man?  
Ye have seen man divided by his times, in his ingress, progress, egress; or, in Lactantius his terms, in his original, state, dissolution: See him now, at one glance, divided in his parts, Bernard's two mites, A body and a soul; What is man then? A goodly creature he is: When I look upon this stirring pile, I can say, I am fearfully, and wonderfully made. Lord, I can admire thee in me, and yet abase myself: thou art so much more wonderful in thy works, by how much I am viler: What is this body of mine but a piece of that I tread upon, a sack of dust (if not saccus stercorum as Bernard) a sewer of ill humours, a magazine of diseases, a feast of worms; And as for that better part, the inmate of this ragged cottage, though as it proceeds from thee, it is a pure immortal spirit, a spark of thine heavenly fire, a glimpse of thy divine light, yet as it is mine, how can I pity it? Alas, how dark it is with ignorance? For what have I here but that cognitionem nocturnam, which Aquinas yields to worse creatures, how foul and muddy with error, nec quis error turpitudine caret, there is no error that is not nasty as Austin truly; how earthly and gross with mis-affections; praecedit carnem in crimine, it ushers the flesh in sinful courses, as Bernard; how as unlike thee, as like him that marred it? And, if both parts in their kind were good, yet put together they are naught; Earth is good, and water is good, yet put together they make mud and mire. Lord then what is man?  
Such is nature now in her best dress, but if ye look upon her in the worst of her depravation, ye shall not more wonder at her misery, than her ugly deformity; (Materia vilis, operatio turpis as Bernard) and in a detestation (more than pity) of her loathliness, shall cry out, Lord what is man? I do not tell you of bloody Turks, man-eating Cannibals, mongrel Troglodytes feeding upon buried carcases, Patavian pandarism of their own daughters, or of miserable Indians idolatrously adoring their devilish Pagodes, I meddle not with these remote prodigies of lost humanity; Yet these go for men too, I speak of more civil wickedness, incident to the ordinary courses of men. It is sweetly said of S. Chrysostome; Alas, what is sickness, what is blindness, nihil sunt ista ô homo; These are nothing, unum duntaxat malum est peccare, there is no evil to sin: If then man be such, as man, what is he as a sinner? when his eyes are the burning glasses of concupiscence, his tongue a razor of detraction, his throat an open sepulchre of good names or patrimonies, his heart a mint of treasons, and villainies, his hands the engines of fraud and violence; Shortly, when he is debauched with lust, with riot, with intemperance; transported with pride, insolence, fury; pardon me, now, man is a beast, Psal. 74. that is yet too easy, a monster; yet once more pardon me, a devil; if the word seem too harsh, it is my Saviour's unus vestrum diabolus, one of you is a devil; In this case, his best is vanity, his next wickedness, his worst is despair and damnation. Is there any of you now that hears me this day, that finds cause to be in love with, or proud of himself as a man? Let me see him, and bless myself: Surely, if there be glory in shame, power in impotence, pleasure in misery, safety in danger, beauty in deformity, he hath reason. I remember the learned Chancellor of Paris, when in his tract upon the Magnificat, he describes beauty, to be conformitas exemplaris; he instances that if we see a toad well and lively pictured, We say Ecce pulchrè pictum bufonem; Oh the loathly beauty of our conformity, to the natural condition of man, yea of Satan in him. The philosopher did well to thank God that he was a man, but, if I had been by him, I should have bidden him to bewail himself that he was but a man; and, I say to every of you, whom I now see, and speak unto; that if ye be but men, it had been better ye had never been; If men, ye are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 1 Cor. 3. 3. so the vulgar turns it, men are but flesh, & flesh is a title given to the Egyptian horses, by way of disparagement too; Their horses are but flesh Esa. 31. 3. and flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, it can, it doth, it must inherit misery, sorrow, corruption, torment; It cannot claim, it cannot hope, for more, for other patrimony. Oh then, as you tender your own eternal safety, be not quiet till ye be more than men; till ye have passed a new birth; It was wise Zenoes' word, Difficile est hominem exuere; it is hard to put off the man; hard, but necessary, off he must, Nisi me mutassem was Socrates his word; till then, your condition, (what ever it may be in civil and secular regards) is unexpressibly woeful. That same interior cordis homo, the inner man of the heart (the phrase whereof S. Ambrose doth so much wonder at in S. Peter) is that, which ye must both find, and look to; Otherwise, let your outside be never so beautiful, never so glorious, ye are no better than misery itself. Down then, dust and ashes, down with those proud plumes of the vainmisconceits of thine own goodliness, beauty, glory: Think thyself but so vile as thou art, there will be more danger of thyself contempt: Would our vain dames bestow so much curious cost on this woeful piece, if they could see themselves, as well as their glasses? Who is so foolish to cast away gild upon a clay wall, or a cracked pitcher; yea to enamel a bubble? would our gallants so over-pamper this worm's meat, if they could be sensible of their own vileness? The Chancellor of Paris tells us of King Lewes the Saint, that he regarded not, quam delicato cibo stercus conficeretur, nec coquus vermium esse volebat; he would be no cook for the worms; such would be our resolution, if we knew ourselves. Oh seasonable and just prayer of David! Let them know they are but men! Could they know this, how many insolences, and proud outrages would be spared? how many good hours, how many useful creatures would escape their luxurious waist?  
It is out of mere ignorance that man is so over-glad of himself, so puffed up above his brethren; There are but two things, as one notes well, that the natural man is most proud of, Knowledge, and Power; Surely if he had one of these to purpose, he could be proud of neither, know thyself, O man, and be proud if thou canst. Why then doth the rich Landlord grate upon his poor scraping Tenant? Why doth the silken courtier browbeat his russet countryman? Why do potent Lords (decepti floridate purpurae as Ambrose speaks) trample upon that peasantly mould, which nature hath, not in kind, differenced from their own; since, if great ones could be more men, they would be more miserable. Why do we, how dare we insult on each other since we are all under one common doom of miserable mortality? Why do we fix our thoughts upon these cottages of clay, which are every hour going into dust, and not make sure work for those glorious and eternal mansions wherein dwells our interminable, and incomprehensible blessedness, longing that this mortal may put on immortality, this corruptible incorruption, Come Lord Jesus, come quickly.  
Do not think now that I have all this while done, as I have seen some in a throng, or as hoodwinked boys in their sport struck my friends. The regenerate man is an Angelical creature; And man, what ever he be in other regards, yet, as he comes out of God's mould, is the great masterpiece of his Creator, (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) thou hast taken knowledge of him: and (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) reputasti eum; thou makest account of him: Turn your eyes then from man's vileness, to the more pleasing object of God's mercy; &, as you have seen man in the dust of his abasement, so now, see him in the throne of his exaltation: This grain after a little frost-biting will sprout up the more; If elsewhere, the Psalmist say, Elevans allisisti; here it is allisum elevasti.  
It is a great word; thou takest knowledge of him; Alas, what knowledge do we take of the gnats, that play in the sun, or the Ants, or worms, that are crawling in our grounds? yet the disproportion betwixt us and them is but finite; infinite betwixt God and us. Thou the great God of heaven to take knowledge of such a thing as man? If a mighty Prince shall vouchsafe to spy and single out a plain homely swain in a throng (as the great Sultan did lately a Tankard-bearer) & take special notice of him, & call him but to a kiss of his hand, & nearness to his person, he boasts of it, as a great favour; For thee, then, O God, who abasest thyself to behold the things in heaven itself, to cast thine eye, upon so poor a worm, as man, it must needs be a wonderful mercy: Exigua pauperibus magna, as Nazianzen to his Amphilochius. But God takes knowledge of many that he regards not; he knows the proud afar off, but he hates him; That of S. Augustine's is right, we are sometimes said not to know that which we approve not, it is therefore added, reputastieum, thou makest account of him; An high account indeed; David learned this of job; whose word is, Thou magnifiest him, and settest thy heart upon him. job 7. 17. Now this knowledge, this account is by David here, either appropriated to himself as a King, or diffused, and communicated to him as a man. The fore-text appropriates it; the subtext communicates it. In the immediate words before, had David reported what God did for him as a King, that he was his tower for safety, his deliverer from danger, his shield for protection, his subduer of his enemies, for rule; and now he adds, Lord what is man that thou takest knowledge of him; and the son of man that thou makest account of him; intimating, that this knowledge, this account is of David, as a man of men (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) a King of men; as the Grecians title had wont to be. It is God's truth, it can be neither paradox, nor parasitisme, to say that God takes special knowledge, and makes special account of Kings; especially the Kings of his Israel. I have found David my servant; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  with my holy oil have I anointed him. Psal. 88 21. See what a peculiarity here is: My servant, first, by a propriety, by a supereminence. My servant found out or singled from the rest of mankind, for public administration; My anointed, when other heads are dry; Anointed with holy oil, yea Gods holy oil, whiles other heads with common. What should I tell you of their special ordination, Rom. 13. 1. Immediate deputation, Psal. 2. Communication of titles, Exod. 22. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 specially of charge and protection; 2 Sam. 22. 44. Thus then being chosen, thus anointed, thus ordained, thus deputed, thus entitled, thus protected, well may they acknowledge more than common knowledge and account. What will follow hence, but that they owe more to God than other men; since more respect calls for more duty; and, that we owe unto them, those respects, and observances, which Gods estimation calls for from us. Homage, obedience, tribute, prayers, lives, are due from us to God's Vicegerents; There are nations of whom God may say Dedi eis regem in ira: Even such yet must have all these duties; But when the influences of sovereignty are sweet and gentle, Sicut ros super herbam, we cannot too much pour out ourselves, into gratitude to God for them, to them under God. Even so, O thou God of Kings, still, and ever double this knowledge and dear account of thine, upon that thy Servant, whom thou hast chosen, anointed, ordained, protected, to be the great instrument of our peace, and thy glory.  
Let us now see the favour diffused, to David, not as a King, but as a man: A subject not more large, then pleasing; what can be more pleasing then to hear our own praises? what more ample than God's mercies to man? we must but (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉); and like skilful limmers, draw up this large face, in a penny-breadth; or like good market men, carry but an handful to sell the whole sack. O God, what a goodly creature hast thou made man? Even this very outside wants not his glory: The matter cannot disparage it. If thou mad'st this body of earth, thou madest the heavens of nothing; what a perfect symmetry is here in this frame? what an admirable variety (as Zeno noted of old) even of faces, all like, all unlike each other? what a Majesty in that erected countenance? what a correspondence to heaven? How doth the head of this microcosm resemble that round celestial globe, and the eyes the glittering stars in that firmament, and the intellectual powers in it those Angelical, and spiritual natures which dwell there? What should I stand courting of man in all the rest. There is not one limb, or parcel in this glorious fabric, wherein there is not both use, and beauty, and wonder. The superior members give influence, and motion to the lower, the lower, supportation to the superior, the middle contribute nourishment to both: Was it heresy; or frenzy, or blasphemy, or all these, in the Paternians of old; revived of late times, by Postellus at Paris, that man's lower parts were of a worse author? Away with that mad misanthropy: there is no inch of this living pile, which doth not bewray steps of an alwise and holy omnipotence.  
But oh the inside of this exquisite piece. As Socrates, Cleanthes, and Anaxarchus, though heathens, truly said; That is the man, this is but the case. Surely this reasonable soul is so divine a substance, and the faculties of it invention, memory, judgement so excellent; that itself hath not power enough to admire its own worth, what corner of earth, what creek of sea, what span of heaven is unsearched by it? how hath it surrounded this globe, and calculated the stars, and motions of the other? what simple, or what metal, or mineral can be hid from it? what eclipse or conjunction, or other postures of those celestial bodies can escape its certain prediction? Yea, O Lord, it can aspire, and attain to know thee the God of spirits, the wonderful mysteries of thy salvation; to apprehend I mean, never (oh never) to comprehend the wonderful relations of thy blessed, and incomprehensible essence; Divinae particula aurae. Lord what is man that thou thus makest account of him?  
I fear I shall make this Topaz but so much the darker by polishing; but, as we may, shortly; Next to that the tongue hath not skill enough to tell the wonders of itself. That little film the interpreter of the soul how sweet notes, how infinite varieties of expressions can it form; and well-near utter what ever the mind can conceive; where other creatures can but bleat, or bellow, or bray, or grunt, not exceeding the rude uniformity of their own natural sound: By this, we can both understand ourselves, & bless our maker; whence it is that David justly styles his tongue, his glory.  
Besides his person, how hast thou, o God, ennobled him with privileges of his condition? How hast thou made him the sole survayor of heaven, the Lord of the creatures, the commander of the earth, the charge of Angels? Lord, what is man that thou makest this high account of him?  
But, what is all this, yet, in comparison of what thou hast done for our souls? I am now swallowed up, O God, with the wonder, and astonishment of thy unconceivable mercies. What shall I say, that ere the world was, thou lovedst man that should be; with an everlasting love hast thou embraced him, whom thou mad'st happy, and foresawest forlorn, and miserable. The Angels fell, thou lettedst them go; Man fell; and, oh thou blessed Son of the eternal Father, thou wouldst rather divest thyself of the robes of heavenly glory, and come down, and put on these rags of our flesh, & therein endure the miseries of a servile life, the scorns of wretched men, the pains of a bitter, and accursed death, the wrath of thy blessed, and coessential Father, than men should not be recovered; By thy stripes are we healed, by thy blood we are redeemed, by thy death we are quickened, by thy Spirit we are renewed, by thy merits we are saved; and now Lord, what an account is this thou hast made of man?  
What a wonderful honour is this to which thou hast advanced us? By thee, O Saviour, we are not only reconciled to God, but of strangers are become servants of the high God. Acts 16. 17. Servants? yea friends. james 2. 23. yea sons; the sons of the highest. Luc. 6. 35. Sons? yea heirs, Haeredes cum re as S. Ambrose; coheirs with Christ, Rom. 8. coinheritors of immortal glory. 1 Pet. 3. 22.  
Yea, that, which all the Angels of heaven stand still amazed at, and can never be satisfied with admiring, thou hast carried up this humane nature of ours into the inseparable union with the ever glorious, and blessed Godhead, to be adored of all principalities, & powers, and thrones, and dominions of heaven.  
Lo I, that even now could have been sorry that I was a man, begin now to be holily proud of my condition; and know not whether I may change the man for the Angel. Pardon me, ye glorious Spirits; I durst not speak thus big of myself, but in the right of my Saviour, I dare, and must; non assumpsit Angelum sed hominem; Howsoever man is lower than you; (Alas what should dust & ashes talk of comparing with spiritual & heavenly powers?) yet I am sure the Son of man is above you; In him will I glory: In itself your nature is so much above ours, as it is more spiritual, and nearer to your infinite Creator: but if the Son of God hath advanced our nature above yours in uniting it to the deity, we cannot so much praise his mercy as you do for us. Yea O ye blessed Angels (whose greatness though we must not adore, yet we cannot but awfully acknowledge with due veneration) I may boldly say, ye hold it in no scorn to be (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,) serviceable spirits to the behoof of us weak and sinful men. Heb. 1. ult. Ye behold the face of our heavenly father for us. Mat. 18. Ye bear us in your arms that we dash not our feet against the stones of offence. Ps. 91. Ye pitch your tents about us for our defence: Ye rejoice in heaven at our conversion; Ye carry up our parting souls into the bosom of Abraham. As this is a wonderful joy and honour to us; so can it be no derogation from your celestial glory and magnificence, since he whom ye profess to serve with us professes that he the Son of man came not to be served; but to serve. Oh now what can we want when we have such purveiors? What can we fear whiles we have such Guardians? whiles we have such conveyance what can let us from ascending into our heaven?  
How justly do we now exult in the glory of manhood, thus attended, thus united? But, soft, that our rejoicing be not vain, whiles our nature is thus glorious, our person may be miserable enough. Except we be in Christ, united to the Son of God, we are never the better for the uniting of this manhood to God: Where should ambition dwell but at a Court? Oh, be ye ambitious of this honour, which will make you everlastingly happy. What ever become of your earthly greatness, strive to be found in Christ, to be partakers of the divine nature, to be favourites of heaven. It is a great word that Zozomen speaks of Apollonius, that he never asked any thing in all his life, of God, that he obtained not; if we follow his rule, we shall be sure to be no less happy. And now being thus dignified by the knowledge, by the account of God, how should we strive to walk worthy of so high favours, both in the duty of selfe-estimation, and of gratitude.  
Selfe-estimation. For if God make such account of us, why do not we make high account of ourselves? I know I do now spur a free horse, when I wish every man to think well of one; but there is an holy pride, that I must commend unto you, with S. jerom; a pride as good, as the other is sinful; that, since God hath so advanced you, you should hold yourselves too good to be the drudges of sin, the packhorses of the world, the vassals of satan; and think these sublunary vanities too base to carry away your hearts; It was a brave word of the old jewish Courtier Nehemiah, Should such a man as I flee? Say ye so, ye regenerate souls. Should such a man as I debauch and sin? should such a man as I play the beast? Is it for my upright face to grovel? Is it for my affections to walk on all four? No, let beasts be sensual, let devils be wicked, let my heart be as upright as my face. I will hate to shame my pedigree; and scorn all the base and misbecoming pleasures of sin, & will bear myself worthy of the favourite of heaven.  
Gratitude. In retribution of praise, and obedience. O God, thou mightest have made made me a beast, yea the ugliest of crawling vermin, that I run away from; I could not have challenged thee; thy will and thy works are free, thy power absolute; and lo, thou hast made me thy darling, the quintessence of thy Creation, man. I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  
Thou mightest have passed by me as an outcast reprobate soul; and so, it had been a thousand times better for me never to have been; But thou hast bought me with a price. I will praise thee, for I am no less wonderfully redeemed; O God, nothing but man, & man regenerate, of all the visible works of thy hands, is capable to give thee the glory of thy mighty creation, of thy gracious redemption. The lowest rank of creatures have not life, the next have not sense, the third have not reason; None but the last hath grace to return thee the praise of thy blessed power, & mercy: Oh let not us be wanting unto thee, who hast thus superabounded unto us.  
But this is not all. Thanks is a poor windy payment. Our returns to God must be real; Quid retribuam? what should we render to our God less than all? Yea, all is too little for one mercy. We owe ourselves to thee, O God, as our Creator. What have we to give to thee as our bounteous redeemer, as our gracious sanctifier? Thou that owest all, take all. Oh that our bodies, souls, lives, actions could be wholly consecrated to thee; Oh that we could really, and constantly begin here those Alleluiahs, which we shall ever continue above, amids the Choir of Saints and Angels giving all praise and honour, and glory, and immortality to thee O blessed Father our Creator, to thee O blessed and coeternal Son our Redeemer, to thee O blessed and coessential Spirit our sanctifier, one infinite God, in three most glorious and incomprehensible persons now and evermore, Amen.  
FINIS.