A SERMON OF PUBLIC thanksgiving for the happy recovery of his MAJESTY from his late dangerous sickness: Preached at PAVLS-Crosse the 11. of April, 1619. BY The B. of LONDON. Published by commandment. LONDON, Printed for THOMAS adam's. 1619. ESAY 38. 17. Behold, in my peace I had great bitterness; but thou hast, in love to my soul, delivered it from the pit of corruption: for, thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. WHen our SAVIOUR road into jerusalem, accompanied with such multitudes of people, some unclothing the trees, others their backs, to spread in his way, all of them shouting up to heaven, with Hosanna, Math. 21. and Benedictus; it is said in the story, that all the City was moved, and it gave them occasion to ask, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, who is this? The representation of such a person, with such a train, in such a fashion, and with such a ditty, made them conceive it was some rare and unusual thing. My message this day is something out of course, and might well require a preface, (I am sure, Hosanna, and Benedictus, will be the sum of it,) besides a presence not ordinary, of the heads and corners of the people, and a face of Solemnity, such as reserveth itself only for festivals. I think there is none so unsensible, that is not moved hereat, and will ask, (at least) to himself, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; jer. 32. what meaneth this? Creavit Dominus nowm super terram: Surely the Lord hath created some new work in the Land, that hath produced this new meeting. The very exhibition of these dumb shows, though they have neither language nor speech, without the help of the tongue, were sufficient preface. And yet I have a preface in my text. Ecce. Ecce, behold, standeth at your doors, I mean the ears of your flesh, to lift up their heads and hatches, I say not, that the King of glory, who is the King of kings, but yet that a glorious King, and his gracious confession may enter into your hearts. It is placed at the gates of my text, and a thousand others in this book, as Porters at the gates of great men's houses: Strangers & Wanderers, and Passengers, and Circumforaneos, idle Companions that stand to gaze, they keep out; admit none but friends and bidden guests, Math. 22. such as are worthy to come in, and bring their garment with them; so is the office of Ecce here. Those who come to these sacred assemblies, with unsanctified ears and spirits, only ad augendam turbam, Senec. to make up number, it repelleth with indignation and disdain, as the Crier in their gentile sacrifices repelled profane persons,— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Away, away profane persons; but such as shall lend their ears, and bend their intentions, and lay up in their hearts, with Marie, that they may bring forth of their treasuries for their use, with the Scribe; these, and none others it inviteth, and pulleth after it, as with the cords and cables of the holy Ghost, as that chain that was tied to the tongue of Mercury, and fastened to the ears of the people, drew his Auditors. Behold. And (me thinketh,) it is somewhat like the King that uttered it; for the King is no more than another man, mole, in bulk of body; virtute, in power, he is more. We say, that a King hath long hands, he may sit in jerusalem, and reach to the ends of his kingdom; as the body of the Sun is in his sphere alone, but his beams upon the earth: and the blaze of a Comet is much farther extended than the star itself goeth: so, though the body of Ecce, be but in the frontispiece, and at the threshold of my text, yet doth the hand, the beams, the blaze, the virtue, and strength of it go into every part. For, whether you consider his sickness, which he styleth bitterness; and the time of that sickness, in peace, when he least looked for it; or, whether his recovery, Eruisti animam meam, and the motive to that recovery, in love to my soul, perhaps when he least deserved it; or, whether the cause of that sickness, Sins, and the full remission of those sins, Proiecisti posttergum, when he did not so much as crave it; Ecce, imparteth itself to them all alike. I fell upon the mention of a King. I will set one Ecce more upon the person from whom this speech came: It was the speech of Hezekiah the King: a great and magnificent King, both at home and abroad; a virtuous and religious King, which is the pure gold in the Crown of a King, the rest is but dross; a King of the holy land, so was not Merodach Baladan in the head of the next Chapter, for he was the King of Babylon. It will be the more grateful for the author's sake. Said I, a speech? it is more: Scriptura Hezekiae Regis, the 9 verse, the writing of Hezekiah the King: the labour, not of his tongue, but of his pen; he did not fundere, but fingere, pour it forth at adventures, but frame it upon advice. I put a great difference betwixt speech, and writing. Speech hath wings, volat & avolat, it flieth and dieth; so doth not writing: you must seek for a word, in aure, in the ear of him that received it, where it hath but slender footing; or in aëre, in the air, where it perisheth with the sound. If you will seek for a writing, you shall find it in aere, or in marmore, in plates of brass, or in tables of stone, where it may be a monument to after ages: It surviveth the author, and doth good to the living when the author is gone. In this sense it is true, Surgunt ex mortuis, Luk. 16. they arise from the dead, by whom the succeeding posterity is instructed and bettered; so said he of his writings, Posterorum negotium ago, Senec. I provide for the times to come. Yet there is more: for it is the writing of a King, I say not before his death, (from which he was newly delivered, as in a parable of the resurrection, Heb. 11.) but instantly upon that time, wherein he was near to dying: and then are the words of a man most grateful, ut esse Phoebi dulcius humen solet, iam iam cadentis, as the light of the Sun, most pleasant about his going down. But that which is most of all; it is written with the point of a diamond, to remain for eternity, and is a part of the evidences and muniments of the Church, laid up amongst her sacred Records, for a memorial of his thankfulness, offered, and consecrated to God upon that deliverance. Plin. 2. Beati, quibus, deorum munere, datum est facere scribenda, aut scribere legenda: Happy are they, whom God hath enabled, either to do things worthy to be written, or to write things worthy to be read: Hezekiah did both. This is a part of his writing; the composition whereof is of sundry and contrary parts: To give you a summary view of all the materials therein, and their natural consequence: First, you have Peace, that leadeth to all the rest; but Peace had an ill neighbour that troubled it, Sin, in the hindmost part of my Text. Sin bringeth forth bitterness: and not only so, but bitterness added to bitterness. Bitterness thus accumulated, must needs have brought to the pit, and the pit, in the end, would have turned to corruption, or consumption. Thus far goeth the black line of my text, the shadow of sorrow and death. But than cometh the other Hemisphere of comfort and light; wherein you have, first, the love and good pleasure of God: secondly, Redemption from the pit of corruption, as touching the body: thirdly, Remission of sins, as concerning the soul. So it is not here as in the 68 Psalm, where the singers go before, and the minstrels follow after, etc. here, the mourners go first, like the captives in their ancient Triumphs; sin, and sickness, and the pit, and corruption; then come the minstrels and singers, I mean the mercies of God, as in a triumphant chariot, curing both the body from sickness, and the soul from sins. The three parts and rooms of my text wherein this whole matter is lodged and disposed, Division. are as clearly distinguished, as the three tabernacles of Peter, Matth. 17. The first is, In my peace I had great bitterness. The second, But thou in love to my soul, hast delivered it from the pit of corruption. The third, For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. Let these parts be, as those three tabernacles. Me thinketh I see Moses in the first, of a fearful visage that hath need to be veiled, Bitterness, Bitterness. Elias in the second, when he is raising the widows son at Zareptha, 1. Reg. 17. Thou hast delivered my soul from the pit. CHRIST in the third, full of grace and truth, casting my sins behind his back. Or, if you please, let my text be as the Ark of testimony, wherein there were kept for store, the tables of the Law, the pot of Manna, & Aaron's rod, Heb. 9 They conceit it well that the Ark is the Church; the Tables, the word; the Manna, the Sacraments; and the Rod, the discipline. I am sure in the Ark of my text, there is first a rod, of bitterness, bitterness; and secondly, the manna of deliverance from the consuming pit; and thirdly; the tables, not of the Law, but of the Gospel; not of the Old, but the New covenant; of the Law, not of facts, but of faith; the tender mercies of God, in absolving from sin. In three words, Hezekiah is sick, in the first tabernacle: sound, in the second, sanus, or sanabilis, onward to his health, as touching his body: safe, and secure in the third, as concerning his soul. And in every of these three are two remarkable things. In the first, 1. sickness with the quality, bitterness; extremity and degree, bitterness, bitterness. 2. the time and advantage that the sickness took, In my peace. In the second 1. deliverance, Eruisti animam meam. 2. the motive that induced God, thou in thy love, etc. In the third, 1. the cause of the sickness, Sins. 2. the remove of that cause, Thou hast cast, etc. I began at the first tabernacle, and therein first with the rod, Amaritudo amaritudo. his sickness: In my peace I had great bitterness. The kind of this sickness is not mentioned till the 21 verse, there it is called ulcus, a botch; it is thought to have been a plague-sore, I dispute it not, I am sure it was somewhat near; I will but drink of the brook in my way, and give you a short note. We have known by bitter, bitter experience, what a plague is; but God took a plaster of figs, of his sweet mercies in Christ, well-nigh fifteen years sithence; and applied to the botch, and healed the sores of this land: in the virtue and strength whereof, we have walked to this present day: and we for the figs of his mercies have returned him the thistles of our sins, the clusters of Sodom, and the wine of Dragons; and yet, Ecce in pace, we heal our hurts with sweet words, crying, peace, peace, all is well, and so shall be; To morrow shall be as this day, and much better, and this year as the last, and freer. Deceive not yourselves: you have a great and populous City, sown with the seed of man, as the Prophet speaketh; I may say, with the seed, rather the weed, of building. I say not, that your City may go out at your gates; surely, it may go out at your Suburbs; the hem of your garment is more than the garment itself: the lop, and burden of the tree, more than the stem can bear, and threateneth the ruin of the whole body. To speak plainly, the regions are white and dry to the harvest; there is matter enough within, in respect of your sin; without, in respect of your building, for a pestilence to work upon, unless, as the antidote of the blessed goodness of God, then cured, so the preservative of his saving grace, now keep you from it. I go on. Whatsoever were the species, manifest it is what the quality of the sickness was, bitterness; what the quantity, bitterness, bitterness; some sharp and wring disease; as when the Prophet cried out, jer. 4. My belly, My belly; the very doubling of the word expressed what his pain was. We are always ill, when we are in our best health; August. in Psal. 102. Longum languorem trahimus; we live in a long and languishing sickness; our weariness after labour and travel is a sickness, and sitting, or lying is physic to cure it: sitting, and lying is a sickness, (we cannot continue therein;) rising, and walking is the cure of it: hunger, and thirst is sickness; eating, and drinking is the help to that: Eating, and drinking sickness; fasting, and abstinency physic to it. Gregor. Quotidianus defectus quid aliud est quam prolixitas mortis? Our daily decay in nature, what is it else, but a lengthening of death? I will say briefly, triplici morbo laboramus, principio, medio, & fine; We are sick of a threefold sickness, our beginning, midst, and ending: As Saint Augustine told the Manichees, of their idle and impious writings; principium truncum, medium putridum, finis ruinosus; their beginning was nought, their proceeding nought, their ending nought; So is it with us; Ingressus flebilis, progressus debilis, egressus horribilis, a mournful nativity, woeful life, dreadful death. Morbi, citatio ad mortem; sickness is a summons to death: he that is least sick, may, and in the end must die. Death hath ever her arrow in her bow, though in the prime ages of the world she was sometimes nine hundred years before she sped, yet now she hitteth quickly; and when God saith, shoot, she shooteth; and so long as God saith, spare, she spareth. For what is thy life? Breve suspirium, a short panting. Canst thou measure the blast of wind? (said the Angel to Esdras;) canst thou measure (say I) the blast of thine own wind? the breath within thy nostrils? spiras, exspiras, now thou art breathing, anon thy breath is gone. It dealeth with the ark of thy body, as the dove with the Ark of Noah, which goeth forth, and cometh in, and goeth forth, and never cometh back again. So doth thy breath. But, he that is sick of a sickness indeed, a sickness that is mali moris, as the Physicians speak, such as this sickness of Hezekiah was, bitterness, bitterness, hath but a short reckoning to make to the hour of his dying. For it fareth with the body of man, as with a vessel of wine in a frugal house; being kept for ourselves, and our friends which drink moderately, it is long in drawing; but, if sponges, Spongiae, Infundibula, Amphorae. and tunnels, and barrels come to it, such as are mighty to drink, and strong to pour in, they will spend that in a day, which would have served a long time. So may the thread of my life be long in spinning, to the fortieth, or fiftieth year thereof; it may be, ad terminum constitutum, job 14. unto mine old age, (for that is the bounder of nature, and, maledictus qui transfert terminos, Deut. 27. that thinketh, Senec. being old, to live long; Huic uni aetati non interceditur, there is no dispensation for this age:) but if such quaffers shall come, as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a burning fever, or the like malignant diseases, that drink up humidu naturale, all the moisture in my body at once, and dry it up like an hearth, or like a bottle hung up in the smoke; that is done in an hour, a moment, which had not else been done in many years to come. Now, but in a word consider the person that is sick; Mihi amar it is Hezekiah the King. If any person in the earth be capable of that style, Dan. 3. Vive in aeternum, live for ever, it is a King. What wanteth a King, of all the beasts of the field, or fowls of the air, or fishes of the sea, what either nature can afford, or Art condite, to the diet of his body, comfort of his heart, refreshing of his spirits? It seemeth, by a phrase used by the holy Ghost, that a King wanteth nothing. Nabal feasteth like a King, 1. Sam. 25. Araunah offereth to David like a King, 2. Sam. 24. the Corinthians reign like Kings, 1. Cor. 4. and yet is Hezekiah the King sick usque ad mortem, vers. 1. even unto death, that is, bitterly, bitterly: death had stretched forth her hand against him, as jeroboam against the Prophet, to have smitten him, 1. Reg. 13. but that the Lord withered it. What is the reason? Sum quidem & ego mortalis homo, 7. Sap. for I myself (saith the King) am also a mortal man. There is no difference in nature betwixt a King and a meaner person. Quintil. Interuallis distinguimur, exitu aequamur; we differ in condition, agree in dissolution. When Diogenes was poring amongst dead men's bones, Alexander asked him what he did there? he answered, I seek the bones of Philip thy father, Ossa patris tui Philippi regis Maced. quaero. King of Macedon, but cannot find them. I may well apply the words of the Psalm to them, Constitue Domine legislatorem super eos, Psal. 9 sciant se esse homines; Set thou o Lord, a Lawgiver, or Ruler over them, that they may know they are but men. They give laws to the earth; and death to them, and her law is an even & equal law, to King and people all alike. It is a problem worthy the enquiring; Homo est animal rationale, mortal. sith other creatures are subject to death no less than man, why Mortal is placed in the definition of man alone. It is a parallel to this, (and one answer may serve to both) which the Prophet hath, Psalm 82. I have said you are gods, but ye shall die like men. Why like men rather than other creatures? I will not give that eminent and conspicuous reason, that when beasts die, by reason that their souls arise from the matter of their flesh, they die, and die thoroughly; Moriuntur permoriuntur. so is it not with man, but first he dieth, and endeth not there, but after death, judgement, Hebrews 9 I should rather say, that beasts, for the more part, live out their time determinate by nature, till nature be annihilated, unless violence and casuality come between: the Elephant liveth longer than the Hart, the Hart then the Lion, the Lion then the Horse, the Horse then the Dog; all to their full age, unless they be forced out of life: but man dieth in his infancy, and oftener in this then any other age; no sooner saluteth the light of heaven, but he biddeth farewell to it; and that which is more, death entereth the very secrets of nature, the vault of the womb, and with her Lynxes eyes findeth out the ways which the Eagle and Kite never found out, and killeth the babe in the womb before it cometh forth. You have heard of the sickness: 2. In pace. Add thereunto the time that his sickness watched; Senec in Agam. In my peace. Victor timere quid potest? (said he in the Tragedy) and it is answered with a breath, Quod non timet. Hezekiah had newly escaped from the jaws of a fearful King, 2. Reg▪ 18 & 19 one, that vaunted himself, that with the soles of his feet he had dried up the rivers of the earth, (& thought (like Leviathan) to have drunk up him, and his kingdom) who asked in the pride of his heart, where the Kings of Arphad, and Hemah, and Zepharuaim were; and, Hezekiah, Let not thy God deceive thee, in whom thou trustest; and he would make the people to eat their dung, and drink their water. Now he is fallen afresh into the hands of the King of fears, Rex terrorum, terror Regum. as job calleth him, job 18. and fear of Kings; who is, Rex super omnes filios superbiae, job 41. who may say with much more confidence, than ever Zenacherib did, Where ever my foot treadeth, I dry up the rivers; rivers of blood in the veins, and of milk in the breasts, and of marrow in the bones; and ask for the Kings, of Arphad, and Hemah, and Zepharvaim, and Zenacherib himself; and admonish the Kings of the earth, Let not your gods, your Idols of greatness, and glory, and majesty, deceive you, wherein you trust; and cause them to eat the dust of the ground, and that the slime of the pit shall be sweet to them. Ecce, cum dixerint pax, pax, Behold, when men shall cry peace, peace, sudden destruction shall come upon them. I will use the words of the Prophet, 1. Reg. 14. I will do it in hac die, & in tempore hoc, at that day, and at that time; Quid? etiam nunc: what? yea, at this very instant; Ecce, in pace, at this very instant of time, when Hezekiah thought he had clipped the wings of peace, that it should never fly away again; when strangers from abroad saluted him, Estne pax frater? is all well? when he did not much less, then say to his soul, Anima quiesce, Soul take thine ease, Esay 28. flagellum transijt, non veniet, the scourge is past, and shall never come again. Did he then think of a jebusite in the Land, that should be a thorn in his eyes, and a prick in his side? of a bosom enemy? a war within his bones? an army of trouble and temptation in his own bowels? When a foreign enemy is discovered, the Beacons are fired, and an Ecce is given to the Country round about. Here is a domestic, intestine enemy, without Beacon, or any admonition at all; but whilst he sitteth in the arms of peace, as Samson in the lap of Delilah, a sudden alarm is heard, Up Samson, the Philistines are upon thee; Up Hezekiah, bitterness, bitterness is upon thee. This deserveth the Ecce; for bitterness in the time of war is no news, Knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the later end? (Abner to joab 2. Sam. 2.) but bitterness, and doubled bitterness in the midst of peace, this is strange. An image, a glass, a sea of glass, that all the people of the earth may stand upon the shore of my text, and see the face of their frail & unconstant condition. A man, and the best of men, a King, & the best of Kings; (I speak not of Balthasar, but as he in the midst of his cups, so this) in the midst of his comforts, seized and surprised at unawares with a grievous disease that added bitterness unto bitterness; and cut not off the lap of his coat, (that is) pinched him in a finger or joint, but assaulted the life, in the inmost and strongest fort it had, and had it in her clutches, to bring it to the very pit. One marveled that men were so hardy to adventure to Seas: why? cum multi pereant in aquis, sith many miscarried in the waters: He that answered him, marveled as much how he durst go to bed, sith many die in their beds. Had he nothing to wonder at but the Sea? I marvel he feared not his own flesh, and that he durst trust himself with his own body, I am sure, it is as fluid as the Sea. Liquescimus, we melt, we thaw daily: our life goeth away per stillicidia, as it were by droppings. 2. Sam. 14. Omnes nos velut aquae dilabimur, we all glide away like water that is spilled, and cannot be gathered up again. Here he shall find tempests, and gusts, and surges, and waves, and rocks, and quicksands, and gulfs, and sea-monsters, no less then at Sea. I wonder that men dare live in such flesh, tam putri, & ruinosa domo, so rotten and ruinous an house; where, not only the gates, posterns, and windows, but every little crevice and chink letteth in death: Look how many members and parcels of the body, so many vessels of sicknesses, receptacles and harbours of death. Every Apoplexy in the head; Swelling in the ear; Bleeding at the nose; Canker in the mouth; Squinancy in the throat; Pleurisy in the side; Stone in the kidney; Colic in the belly; may be a means to death. I marvel again why he cometh to his table, to eat and drink there, why? Cum multi pereant in mensa, sith many die at their Tables: Did Tarqvinius Priscus think, that the bone of a fish going cross his throat, should have choked him? or Sophocles, and Anacreon, that they should have died of a raisin stone? or Fabius a Senator, that an hair in a draft of milk should have been his end? or Ruffinus the Consul, that in kembing his head, the tooth of his Comb entering the flesh, should have been his death's wound? or Lucia the daughter of Aurelius, that her Child which she bore in her arms, thrusting a needle into her breast, should have shortened her days? I could be infinite: So long as there shall be a man in the world, & mortality, casualty, corruption to accompany that man; there shall be occasion for this ecce; behold in my peace; when I was most secure: to the stupor, and terror of all those that trust too much to their peace. It is a singular part of the gracious providence of God upon us, to hide the hour of our deaths; as Isaac spoke to his son, Gen. 27. Vides quòd senuerim, & ignorem diem mortis meae: Thou seest I am old, and yet notwithstanding, I know not the day of my death: Semper incognitus, ut sit semper suspectus; that being always unknown, we might always have it in suspicion: and make that use of our ignorance, that Cassian adviseth, Omnis dies, velut ultimus ordinandus est; to dispose of every day, as if it were our last day. Certain it is, Gregor. Supremus vitae dies, supremus mundi dies; the last day of my life, is the last day of the world to me; for qualis hinc quisque egreditur, talis in judicio repraesentabitur; such as I am at my death, such shall I be at my judgement. And as certain again, that it is the greatest work in the world, to die, to exchange life with death; and the best, to die well; as Anacharsis, being asked, which was the best ship? That (said he) which is safely arrived. Add unto these the rule of Saint Angustine, Non potest malè mori, qui benè vixerit; and on the otherside; vix benè moritur, qui malè vixit; He cannot die ill, that hath lived well; and scarcely dieth well, that hath lived ill. These things conferred; be ye ready prepared for that day; Exod. 19 Estote parati in diem tertium; that it may find you in pace, in the peace of God, and of a good conscience, which passeth all understanding. I told you before, you had three sicknesses, I tell you now, you have but three days of your lives: the one of your coming into the world; the other, of your stay; the last of your going out. Be ready against the third day, the day of your going forth; which you cannot well be, except you begin to provide on the first, and the second; lest that should betide you which is bemoaned in my text, Ecce, in pace, amaritudo, amaritudo; Behold, when we dreamt of peace, we awaked to extremity of bitterness: and being taken in an evil time, you complain, as in that mimesis of Saint Chrysostome, valet amici, farewell friends, I must go an unknown journey, by ways unknown, into Countries far remote: Vbi quale diversorium habiturus sum, angelorum an daemonum, ignoro: where what lodging I shall find, amongst Angels, or Devils, I know not. Et tu, 2. Part. complexus amore, eruisti, etc. I am now come to the second Tabernacle of my text: wherein you have Elias, & the manna I spoke of. It containeth two things: first, the redemption: Eruisti, secondly, the reason or motive, Complexus amore. The recovery so much the sweeter, 1. Redemption. by how much the danger the greater: Transisse de morte ad vitam, Bern. vitae gratiam duplicat, to pass from death to life is double life: So is the light more grateful to him that was in the power of darkness; and assurance, to him that despaired of assurance. There was danger enough in the former clause, for there it was bitterness, bitterness, that is, as the Apostle calleth it, Act. 8. fell amaritudinis, the very gall of bitterness: which importeth a disease, pessimi generis, of the worst sort, and in the paroxysm, and very height of it; but now, you have it amplified by three circumstances more: First, 1. Ab obiecto. from the object; it striketh not at a bough, no defluxion in the eye, nor mutilation of an hand, etc. but is securis ad radicem, the axe laid to the root, to hew down life itself. Eruisti animam. Secondly, 2. Atermino. from the term, or, extent: for it is not the life infested, annoyed, disquieted alone; but lifted, and heaved at, to be thrown into the pit: Eruisti è fovea. Thirdly, 3. Abattributo. from the attribute of that pit, for it is not fovea refugij, or refrigerij; a pit of repose or comfort, such as Elias went into, and David, & the Prophets that Obadiah hid, & the Saints that the world was not worthy of, Hebr. 11. but fovea corruptionis, consumptionis, putredinis, a pit of corruption, consumption, and rottenness. Take it altogether in the mass and lump, and see what it is, (besides the kind of the sickness, which is not here mentioned.) First, it is bitter: secondly, bitterness itself: thirdly, bitterness, put to bitterness; fourthly, against life; five, to thrust it down to the pit: sixtly, the pit of corruption: this being his case, and then, to be pulled out of the teeth of death, as David pulled his lamb and his kid out of the mouth of the Lion and Bear, was the singular mercy of God, worthy another Ecce, as at the first I declared. Is it not mercy, (I ask,) to be saved from death? Death, whensoever it shall come unto us, and howsoever qualified, the grimness of her visage disguised, yet will it be fearful enough. It is dissolutio naturae, the dissolution of nature, and the dissociation of body and soul, ancient friends, and of long acquaintance: David and jonathan wept, and kissed when they departed. When Vzza was smitten dead for putting his hand to the Ark, 2. Sam. 6. David was (angry, shall I say?) troubled, grieved at it, and called the name of the place, rupturam uzzae, the breach of Vzzah. I am sure, when body and soul are sundered, there is ruptura, and cannot be without commotion, & passion, Si nulla esset mortis amaritudo, non tanta esset martyrum fortitudo; if death were not bitter, Martyrs should want of their honour. But what may the motive be that procured this delivery? 2. Motive. Placuit tibi. I ask not now, with the blessed Apostle, Vbi conquisitor saeculi? 1. Cor. 1. where are the wise of the world, Aquilae rationis, Talpae religionis. Eagles for reason, Molewarp for religion? but Vbi conquisitor Ecclesiae? the most regenerate, sanctified, illuminate Contemplatives of the Church; Let them say to themselves, as the Preacher did, Eccle. 7. I have sought, and sought, one thing after another, to find out the reason, and adhuc quaeri anima mea, and yet my soul seeketh: I have found a man of a thousand, but not a woman amongst them all. Give me leave to apply it. If you look on the part of man which is as it were the weaker sex; no reason can be given of this goodness of God towards him: but on the part of God, there is, one, for a thousand, and in stead of all the rest: Quoniam volens misericordiam est, Mich. 7. Because mercy pleaseth him. Dilexisti, Desiderasti, Coniunxisti Cinxisti, Complexus es. So in my text, placuit tibi, etc. God so desired, and knit, and conjoined, and girt, and embraced, and covered, and took pleasure and liking to the life of the King, that death could not hurt him: Operuisti. The very variety of reading may stand for a rich Commentary: but neither tongues, nor pens, of men, nor Angels can express the riches of grace, when God is pleased to show mercy upon us. The sweetness of nature brought forth beneplacitum in him: pleasure, brought forth love; Love, desire; desire, Union; Union, embracing: embracing girdeth close, like a girdle about the reins; and covereth and keepeth from hurt, that, that is beloved: In amore haec insunt omnia. Before I forsake this part, Animam eruisti. I must note unto you two things. First, that in death there is no danger to the Soul, no more than was to the soul of Hezekiah: for anima, in my text, is not the substance, or essential part, (as principally it signifieth,) but an act and effect of that soul, to weet, that life, which it brought to the body in dower, and portion when she married with it: and when she departeth from her body, she resumeth, and carrieth away with her that portion again. So that, the Soul itself, is no way subject to the pit. Occidisti & possedisti? 1. Reg. 21. said Elias to Ahab. So saith God unto death, Hast thou slain, and gotten possession too? but of what? the flesh only, not the soul: and that flesh shall lie as a surfeit in the stomach of death: and as the drunkard, regurgitat bilem suam, so shall death cast it up again Mors is Morsus, Senec. death is but biting not a consuming, and utter devouring; as he that biteth, taketh some, and leaveth some, so death getteth a morsel of flesh, as the Kite taketh garbage from the dunghill, and the dog offal from the shambles; but the soul, it meddleth not with. I cannot therefore better compare the grave, then to the honey comb, wherein is both honey and wax. The honey of the soul is taken out, the wax of the flesh remaineth behind, till the resurrection of just men. But as touching the flesh, the life whereof is properly aimed at, here is her lot, her end, fovea corruptionis, the pit of corruption. The rivers haste to the Seas, Stars to the West, Man to the pit: job 30. it is domus constituta omni viventi, the house appointed to every living man; domus Conuentionis, the house of Parliament, Eccles. 12. for all estates to meet in; domus saeculi, the house of perpetuity, till Christ's second coming. Solum mihi superest sepulchrum, saith job, cap. 17. He is sure of nothing but his grave. It were a worthy Epitaph, to be set upon the monument of every man, I have nothing but a grave: or if you will truly read it, Sepulcra, mea sunt, Graves, are mine. What need more than one? Yes, A Grave for his body, A Grave for his vanities, A Grave for his riches, A Grave for his hopes: all is buried with him. He that shall say, I have houses, and lands, and vineyards, and fields, and gardens, deceiveth himself, and the truth is not in him; he hath nothing certain but his grave. When Lazarus was raised out of his grave again, what brought he out with him, saving fascias sepulchrales, & sudaria, his napkins and Grave-cloathes? The Astronomers maid laughed at her master, that stood gazing at the stars, and saw not the ditch that was before his feet. I know not what castles we are ever building in the air, and we will sail upon the mountains, and make our nests with the Eagles, and touch the stars with our heads, when there is fovea, a pit, before our feet, which we never think of. Proud earth and ashes, terra calcans terram, earth so treading, and jetting upon the earth, as if the earth should never tread upon us; when notwithstanding, this base and contemptible element (the sediment and dregs of the world) shall set her foot upon our faces. Do we remember the pit, the land of forgetfulness, the regions of darkness, the place of silence, wherein our proud, and pampered, and stall-fed flesh must lodge? we that eat the fattest, and finest of the earth, and devour whole Countries, as the Ox licketh up the grass; yea, beasts will not serve our turns; we eat up Man, devour a man and his heritage, Ecclus. 13. Mich. 2. pascua divitum sunt pauperes, the poor are the pasture of the rich; do we bear in our minds foveam exedentem, consumptionis, the pit that shall eat, and consume ourselves? we that lie and rot in the dung of our sins, (our flesh indeed is so rotten upon our backs, with foul & loathsome diseases, that piece will scarce hang unto piece, so as our very bodies are already become the graves of the living) do we remember foveam putredinis? the pit of corruption and rottenness, whereinto we are going? when, albeit from the body of a dead Lion, there came bees and honey: and so from the body of a dead horse, drones, (they say) and from the body of a dead ass, hornets; yet from the body of a dead man, nothing but worms and filthiness. Haereditabit serpents, bestias, & vermes, Ecclus. 10. he shall inherit serpents, beasts and worms: nay, haereditabunt, they shall inherit him; the Serpent gapeth for his soul, Beasts for his substance, that shall revel in his goods, Worms for his flesh. Quia proiecisti. 3. Part. I am now at the last Tabernacle, wherein you have Christ, with his benefits, and the Tables of the Gospel; and therein, as I told you at the first, are likewise two things: First, the cause of his bitterness, sins; Secondly, the discharge of that cause, For thou hast cast, etc. I have been lately upon both these points, At White-Hall. in the hearing of many of this auditory: I shall say the less now. But Sin, the sickness of the soul, is the real and radical cause of all bodily sickness. I allege but one story, from the 1. Reg. 17. The widow of Zareptha cometh to Elias, (her son being then dead) and saith unto him: What have I to do with thee, thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sins to remembrance? She was an excellent woman, and her praise is in the Gospel: when she had but a little meal, & a little oil in a cruse, and was gathering two sticks, to make a widows fire, and to dress for her son and her, that they might eat and die; yet upon the bidding of the Prophet, bring unto me, and first unto me, such was her faith, that she did it: yet she imputeth the sickness and death of her child, to her sins. Vespasian was of another mind; being sick, and out of hope to live, he threw the curtains aside, and spread his hands unto heaven, and complained of his gods, immerenti sibi vitam eripi, that he deserved not to die; had never committed any thing in his whole life, whereof he repented, but one; he had so much the more cause to repent him. I hope, when Hezekiah prayeth at the third verse, O Lord, I beseech thee, remember how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, etc. He speaketh but secundum quid, not simply; and comparatè, compared with others, importing affectum, and profectum, rather desire, and endeavour so to do, than any perfection; and that he had no meaning, to think that he had no sin; for it plainly appeareth in his own speech, by the reason he giveth, that he thought sin to be the cause of his sickness. Eruisti, quia proiecisti, first he remitteth his sins; (which was the course of our Saviour in the Gospel) and then relieveth him of his sickness. Math. 9 But when I look upon the cure, the remove of the cause, I cannot but remember what God spoke unto Abraham, Gen. 15. Ego merces tua magna nimis, I am thine exceeding great reward: what, unto David, 2. Sam. 12. I have done this, and that for thee; & si parva sunt ista, and if these things were too small, I would have added much more. Just as the Apostle writeth, Ephes. 3. abundantly much more than we either ask or think. For did Hezekiah crave the remission of his sins? In his whole song there is not a word, a syllable of it: You have heard of his truth and righteousness, and perfect heart, no mention of sin: and all his petition, and moan, and tears that he spent, was for his life alone. God granteth him that, & aliquid ampliùs, and somewhat more, & aliquid melius, something better; for admit he had died, yet had his case been good enough; Mori non timeo, quia ad bonum Dominum vado, I fear not to die, because I go to a good Lord. But if I die in my sin, if that circumstans peccatum, Hebr. 12. cleave to my soul at my going hence, it will be as millstones unto it, to plunge it into the bottomless pit of eternal destruction: therefore beside, and before the cure of his sickness, he pardoneth his sins. Wherein he dealeth with Hezekiah, as he did with Moses, Num. 17. when he bade him bring twelve rods for the twelve Tribes, and lay them in the Tabernacle before the testimony; and the rod for that Tribe which the Lord would choose, should bud. When Moses came to review the rods, the rod of Aaron had not only budded, that is, chipped, or broken the rind; but the buds were swollen, and fully brought forth, and after buds, blossoms and flowers, and after these, ripe Almonds. So befell it Hezekiah; so shall it all the elect of God, who know no more what to ask, than Hezekiah did; he thought of no more, but the bud of his bodily health; but he giveth him withal, the ripest, and sweetest fruit of all others, forgiveness of his sins: and (me thinketh) he fulfilleth all the degrees of that former story; for, let the pardon of sin, be germane, the bud; and the pardon of all his sins, be gemma, the knot or swelling bud; Peccata omnia post tergum proiecisti. and the leaving them behind his back, flos, the blossom; but the casting them behind his back, as if he were angry that they priest before his face, is amygdala, the fruit, more than all the rest. He that will purge the body, leaveth no dregs of the sickness, for fear of relapse: so is the pardon of God, a plenary pardon of all his sins: and whereas before they were under those pure eyes that cannot behold wickedness, now they are set behind his back, that he may not behold them: and not only set, or left, (for then, Clamabunt post nos; they will follow God again) but thrown, as stones from a sling, and, with violence offered to his justice, banished in such sort, as that they may never return again: so speaketh he (in effect) Psal. 103. Quantum distat ortus ab occasu, Look how far the East is from the West, so far hath he set our sins from us: so Mich. 7. proijcit in profundum mare, he taketh our sins and throweth them into the bottom of the sea. You have heard of Hezekiah the good King of judah, Application and his double condition, the one which nature and sin brought upon him, sickness, and approach to death: the other, what grace and indulgence did for him: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (had I almost said with the Apostle, Galat. 4.) these things were spoken in an allegory, sure I am they were spoken propter aliud, for another purpose, not for Hezekiah's sake. But as Ezekiel (Ezech. 4.) lieth and sleepeth upon his left and right side, and maketh him bread of moulter corn, and baketh it in bullocks dung, etc. to show the siege and famine to come: So have I chosen this story of Hezekiah, to be but a model and pattern of those things which happened to our gracious KING. Hezekiah our King, Hezekias. our religious King, who though he restored not religion, as Hezekiah did, (which he found restored to his hand) yet he maintaineth, and propugneth religion, and spared not the high places no more than Hezekiah did, I mean the throne of Antichrist himself, not that brazen Serpent, parched upon his pole of supremacy above all the Kings of the earth, and the whole Church of God: And as famous to the world, (he will be in succeeding ages) for his miraculous deliverance from that general gunpowder-massacre, as ever Hezekiah was for his miraculous deliverance from Zenacherib the King of Assur; in a night, was that host discomfited, and in a night, the labours and hopes of many months defeated: I am sure, as renowned as ever Hezekiah was, propter scripturam, for his books written and published to the world, in defence of the Gospel and Church of God. Not to recede from the terms of my Ecce in pace text, I am sure he is a King of peace. And here you may stand, as at a pillar or monument by the highway side, and take a view of it. Ecce, in pace: it is worthy admiration, that for sixteen years space, (to keep the phrase of this Story, 2. Reg. 19) there hath not an enemy shot an arrow, nor come with a shield, nor raised up a rampart, against any City or town of his kingdom: (in an happy hour be it spoken.) Hath your Manna, the mean time, bred worms? or do the Quails come out of your nostrils? or are you offended with your peace? Hath it made you proud, and petulant, and lascivious, and improvident, and unprovided against your Enemies? Where is the fault? I must answer with Christ, Duritia, malitia cordium vestorum, the hardness, the badness of your own hearts; The Manna was good, the Quails good, the peace good, both in him that bestowed it, and in him that procured it; yourselves nought that used it not aright. Cast but your eyes back to the latter part of the reign of that Maiden Queen, (the maidenhead and honour of whose government was never stained) whose bones are in peace, her soul in bliss, and her name in eternal remembrance; think upon one poor and beggarly war, (as the Apostle named poor and beggarly elements,) vile, servile bellum, rather rebellion than war; with beasts, rather than men, or men, after the manner of beasts, earthed in their thickets and bogs, as Foxes in their holes; (to speak nothing of the treasure it wasted,) how much of our English blood, of the very flower and prime of our gentry, that one war sucked out: and then tell me if peace, for her own sake, (without the weeds that grow up with it,) be to be disliked? All this while I have been upon the subject of my text alone, Hezekiah our King, without adding any attribute, or telling you what he hath suffered. Now it followeth, Hezekiah our King was sick, and sick as Hezekiah was, Aegrotavit. usque ad mortem, even unto the death; his sickness was bitterness, bitterness, down to the very side and mouth of the pit, Mark 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as jairus his daughter, he was at the last cast; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Paul spoke of Epaphroditus, Philip. 2. at the next door, the nearest neighbour to death, (I may now by the blessing of God speak home; Habet praeteritarum calamitatum secura recordatio delectationem quandam, when a danger is gone and passed, it is pleasure to repeat it: Libet sinistras res meas percurrere.) I go forward with that text, the providence of God hath even fitted it to my mouth; I say he was sick to the death, but God had mercy upon him, and not upon him alone, but also upon us and the whole kingdom, Philip. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lest we should have sorrow upon sorrow; sorrow, for the loss of our Queen, (like the loss of our eyes, our bowels) his Lady and Consort, as his rib plucked from his side, the half of his soul torn from him; and sorrow for the loss of himself. I am yet in the sickness. It was bitterness, bitterness; and yet to the children of God, in the fruit and effect of it, dulcedo, dulcedo, sweetness above the honey and honey comb. It is a paradox in nature what I shall deliver: Would you look for grapes from thorns? or water from a rock? or oil from a stone? or good out of evil? or sweetness out of bitterness? that is, comfort out of sickness? Nazianz. Yet so it is. Morbo crucior, & gaudeo, non quia crucior, sed ut aliis patientiae sim magister, I am sick and tortured with sickness, yet am I glad, not for the torture, but for being a pattern of patience to others. Antigonus made the like use of his sickness, Nihilo peiùs fuit, hic morbus submonuit nè animo efferamur, cum simus mortales: I am not the worse for it, my sickness putteth me in mind not to be proud, seeing I am mortal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, was the saying of Croesus another king in Herodotus, rich even to a Proverb: My sufferings, grievous though they are, are my lessoning; which Lipsius well rendered, nocumenta, documenta; and Gregory not worse than he, detrimenta corporum, incrementa virtutum, pain to the body, gain to the soul. The bed of a sick man is as a school, a doctoral chair of learning and discipline; then are his words written with an adamant claw, and go deep into the minds of them that hear them; then is his tongue, the tongue of the learned, as touched with a coal from the altar; and his mouth the vein and fountain of life, when the soul is weaned from the world, the flesh mortified, the spirit consecrated to God, and himself rapt up, as it were, into the third heavens, where he seeth and heareth those things which he never saw nor heard aforetime. There are that are able to report his Swans songs, the last before his death, (for aught appeared to the contrary) how he behaved himself towards God and man, and acted both King and Priest; and setting himself in articulo mortis, in the very joint and point of dying: Looking backwards to his life past, and forwards to the life to come, neglected not any thing, neither of his private nor of the public State, with many divine meditations, holy professions, religious promises, prudent instructions, which (for my part) I wish they were scriptura Hezekiae regis, brought to the light of the world, that all might understand them. But what becometh of this sickness? Eruisti. remaineth it still? No. For the sweet wood of the mercies of God, was cast into the waters of Marah, and altered their bitterness. And so must I alter my text. jordan is now gone backward. Behold in my peace, bitterness, bitterness, (said Hezekiah.) Behold in our bitterness, bitterness, peace, must I say. Ecce evangelizo vobis gaudium magnum quod erit omni civitati, (as the Angel in the Gospel) behold I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to the whole Land; and God say Amen to it; that I may ever be as Ahimaaz 2. Sam. 18. to bring you good tidings of such things. His soul is delivered from the pit of corruption. And we trust that God hath added to his years, as he did to the years of Hezekiah, we pray that it may be, and likely it is, if we add to our prayers, that God will add to his years. If we ask life for him, God shall give him a long life; and after that long life ended, A life for ever and ever. Psalm 21. But of all other things you will ask the means how he was delivered. Placuit tibi. He wanted not any thing that the earth could minister unto him, neither the help of learned and painful Physicians, (benedictio Domini super eos, etc. Psal. 129. the Lord prosper them, we wish them good luck in the name of the Lord,) nor the intercessions of his faithful Subjects, that have bowed the knees both of their bodies and hearts, and with their prayers, as an incense in the morning, and the lifting up of their hands as an evening sacrifice, they have pierced through the clouds, and knocked at the gate of his mercy at midnight, and given him no rest on behalf of their King, 2. Reg. 2. Our father, our father, the Chariots and horsemen of Israel, is going from us, O Lord spare him. Ariston was a good King, but wanted Issue: and the people desirous to have one of his race to govern after him, begged him Issue of their gods. That son so obtained they named Demaratus, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Votis populi expetitus. because the people had gained him by their prayers. I doubt not but our King was another Demaratus, begged by his people at the hands of God; or rather (according to his own name) that our jacob was another Israel, and that he and his people wrestled with God by their earnest supplications, to gain a blessing of health from him: and although, as to Israel, a sinew of his thigh be yet shrunk, Genes. 32. that is, the ability & strength of his body somewhat abated; we trust that in time God will also restore that. But whatsoever I have yet named, is but a second and subordinate means: and vain (we know) is the help of man, our help must stand in the name of the Lord which hath made heaven and earth, or we shall never be holpen; therefore the prime, predominant, and supreme cause, that our King was delivered, was the same that Hezekiah found, Placuit tibi, dilexisti, etc. the good pleasure and love of God. Now the good will of him that dwelled in the bush, ever dwell with our King, and marry him unto him with everlasting mercy and compassion. The covenant of day and night be broken, but the covenant of his peace with our King and his kingdoms be never broken. Father's forget their sons, and nurses their sucking babes, and mothers the fruit of their wombs. The Lord never forget our King, nor his seed after him, nor the people committed to their charge. By this time you may guess at the reason of our meeting (so many thousand of souls together in one place:) though not in the house of the Lord, I grant, yet in the courts of the Lords house, even in the midst of thee o jerusalem, in the fairest and fittest theatre we have for such purposes, to make it like Araunah his threshing floor, a place for an altar of our thankfulness, whereon we are to offer the Calves of our lips; our reasonable service; an Eucharistical sacrifice for the life of our King, whom God hath so lately rescued from the fangs and throat of destruction: Sueton. that as when the tidings came to Rome of Germanicus his better amendment, (they had news before of his desperate sickness, which struck them all to the heart; and Germanicus was an excellent Prince, beloved of the people, and one that said of himself afterwards at the time of his death, Flebunt Germanicum etiam ignoti, Strangers will miss and bewail Germanicus,) they ran into their Capitol, men, women and children, and rend open the doors thereof, and offered their votes, and filled the whole City with the noise of their congratulation, salva Civitas, salva Patria, saluus Germanicus, the City is safe, the country safe, Germanicus safe: So come we into this our Capitol, our greatest Panegyris, enured with the like meetings, (hither came that Lady of ever-blessed memory, Ann. 1588. to give thanks unto God for her victory over the Spaniard) with such frequency of people as you see, with such fervency of heart to bless the name of our God, and congratulate ourselves, because salva Civitas, salva Patria, saluus jacobus, the City is safe, the kingdom safe, our King safe. And as before that, when Augustus was likewise recovered, (whom they styled Patrem patriae, the Father of the country) to show their love to their Emperor, Aere collato. they laid their purses together, and set up a Statue to Antonius Musas the Physician that recovered him, and placed it by the Image of Aesculapius: So we in affection and love to our King, though we give not titles to men, and honour the Physician but with that honour that is due unto him, yet, Aere collato, joining our hearts and souls together, as if we were all but one man, we set up our Statue, and (if it be possible) raise our Colossus of thankfulness, that may reach up to the heaven of heavens, unto that great God that hath created the Physician, and taught him his wisdom, and made the medicines of the earth to take away the pains of men. Ecclesiasticus 38. There is but one word more in my text, Peccata. and so an end. But as it standeth in the hindmost and dishonourablest part of my text, as the lees lie in the bottom of the vessel, the sting in the tail of the Scorpion, so it is the worst word. It is that, that troubleth Israel (as Ahab asked Elias, but Elias charged upon him) and utinam ascindantur (say I, Gal. 5. ) I would they were cut off that trouble us. Estne pax jehu? 2. Reg. 9 (said jehoram unto him:) Is it peace jehu? What peace, so long as thy mother's fornications and her witchcrafts are yet in force? It is Doeg the Edomite that killed the Prophets of the lord 1. Sam. 22. I knew it (said David) when Doeg the Edomite was there. It is judas at the board. Will you know the judas, the Doeg, the jezabel, the Ahab, the mischief, the bane, the ruin, the wreck of a kingdom? It is sin: that which brought sickness upon Hezekiah, and will bring it again; that which God pardoned to Hezekiah (proiecisti post tergum;) and the Lord be so merciful to us as to grant us our pardon. But it is a fearful doom which is pronounced, Proverb. 8. Propter peccata terrae, erunt multi Principes eius: For the sins of the Land, there shall be many Princes thereof. Many in the cluster, and at once; as they cry in the Gospel, Here is Christ, and there Christ, we know not where; so, this your King, and that your King, we know not who: Many in the change and succession; Hos. 13. Dabo Regem in furore meo, & auferam in indignatione mea: I will give a King in my rage, and take him away in my wrath, giving and taking both in displeasure: either of both were bad enough, and our sins are accommodated to bear either judgement, for they are peccata terrae, not the sins of single souls, but the sins of the Land. Our Sacrilege, not the Sacrilege of Achan; our oppression, of Ahab; our adultery, of an Israelite with a Madianitish-woman; our pride, of jesabel which painted alone; our effeminateness, of Absalon which set more by the hair of his head, than his whole body was worth; our drunkenness, of Nabal; our usury, of whom shall I say? (I mistake myself: there is not an Usurer named in person in the whole book of God: their names are written in the earth, and hardly will they find them written in the book of life. The Lord be merciful to them:) these were the sins of private souls, and have borne their vengeance. Anima quae peccaverit ipsa morietur. Ours are common, Epidemical, popular and populous sins, Senec. both in number and measure, peccant, & publicant, we sin and delight to sin, sin and declare our sins as Sodom. Fear we not the sequel? The year hath been fatal already for the death of an Archduke, an Empress, and an Emperor (they say;) and to look nearer home, of a great, and glorious Queen, since the days of our Deborah which ruled in Israel 44. years, not her like so far as the world is Christian; Great by Parentage, Great by Marriage, Greater by her Graces, the beloved and honoured of God and Man, and my most gracious Mistress. Nescis quid serus vesper ferat: we are not yet come to the evening of the year; we have had rumours of wars and commotions, and Earthquakes; one the most prodigious birth that these latter ages of the world have brought forth; and a sign from heaven that dazzled our eyes, and might have daunted our hearts, but slighted in such sort, as if we had seen but the shining of a Glow-worm: I fear not the events, what hath been, nor the portents, what may be; I fear our portentous and prodigious sins, which are as significant and prognosticant of the wrath of God, as any of these wonders. We have yet our King, Serus in coelum redeat, long and long may we have him: who may say upon better ground than ever Nerua did, Dion. Se nihil fecisse in regni administratione, quo minùs possit, deposito imperio, tutò privatus vivere; that he hath not done any thing sithence he came to the government, but laying his Sceptre and Crown aside, he might live as a private man without controlment: I will not overflow. But may I without piacle forget in the very last scene of one of his latest actions amongst us before his departure hence, (which might have been his last, if God had not favoured us) what he then did? I say not that he rose early, and sat long in a Court of honour and justice, (yet give me a King upon the earth, that ever with so much solicitude and zeal, spent so many days, and so many hours in a day in the hearing and examining of one cause. Of one of their Lewesses in France, they write, that he sat in a Cloister from morning to evening, and lost his dinner to hear the quarrels of his Monks,) of this I speak not; nor that he added in the close of his business, that he would make it his study night and day, and neither slumber nor sleep till he had brought to light the Non constats, as he termed them, which were not so liquid and clear as the rest: I mean of a speech of his during the time that that cause was in hearing, (I report it in the presence of many and matchless witnesses) when taking his hat from his head, that he might do it not without ceremony, remembering that tribunal seat whereat he must one day stand, turning to his son who sat by his side, and out of regard to him, that it might not be said hereafter, he had been the child of an ignoble parent; whatsoever his other sins were, wherewith he confessed he was fraught as the vilest caitiff upon earth, yet for doing of justice, his mind and purpose therein, (pardon the zeal and exuberancy of the speech) he needed not the mercy of God. Claud. En Princeps, en orbis apex, Show me his like again. I say, we have yet our King, & adolescentem secundum, Eccles. 4. a Prince by his side, quasi florem rosarum in diebus vernis, Ecclus. 50. as a primrose in the Spring season, sprouting and spreading himself under his boughs. Accipiat patris exemplum; Idem. we have root and branch, rem and spem, a morning and a midday Sun, the first and the latter rain, or (to keep to the story which I have in hand) as Zenacherib told Hezekiah, 2. Reg▪ 18. Thou sayst thou hast eloquence, but counsel & strength are for the war. We have a King for counsel, and a Prince (if God bless him) for strength, a King to instruct, and a Prince to execute: Only beware of your sins, peccata terrae, the sins of the Land; break them off with repentance, lament them betimes, that they make not you to lament, when it is too late: when the lamentation shall be, not of private souls, but like that of Hadadrimmon in the fields of Megiddon, Zach. 12. when lugebunt familiae, familiae seorsim, all the families of the Land shall mourn, the family of the house of David apart, and of Nathan apart, and of Levi apart, etc. But whither am I going? We came to rejoice in the safety of our King, and in the name of our God to set up our banners of joy, as in the 20. Psal. and we pray for our King, as that people did for theirs, in the words of the same Psalm, that God will continue his blessing, and perfect that good work which he hath begun upon him. Psal. 20. 1. The Lord hear thee in the day of thy trouble, the name of the God of jacob defend thee. Send thee help from his Sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion. Remember all thy offerings, and accept thy burnt sacrifices. Grant thee according to thy hearts desire, and fulfil all thy petitions. AMEN.