A Comfortable MEDITATION OF Humane Frailty, AND Divine Mercy: IN TWO SERMONS upon PSALM 146.4. AND PSALM 51.17. The one chief occasioned by the death of Katherine, youngest Daughter of Mr. Thomas Harlakenden of Earles-Cone in Essex.  1 Thess. 5.9,10,11,12. 
God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord jesus Christ:  
Who died for us; that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.  
Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as ye also do.  
LONDON, Printed by john Haviland for james Boler, dwelling at the sign of the Marigold in PAUL'S Churchyard. 1630.   

SIC te, sic solare tuas; sic justa bentae  
Solve tuae, nullo dissoluenda die.  
Nec me cognatae, 〈◊〉 salisque laboris,  
Nec natae poterit poenituisse patrem.  
Ipse oculos madidus, nobis detergis ocellos,  
Consortemque ●enes, quâ potesusque tuam.  
Non satis est viva prolis quod imagine vivit  
Phoenix Materno quae velut orta rogo est;  
Ipsam sed superesse velis, dum plectra Davidis  
Tang●…, Threicia plus va●…ra lyrâ.  
jam Mausolaei superasti dona sepulchri,  
Hoc saxa officium vincit, & aera tuam.  
Non aurum, nec ebur; sed qua Sacraria condis  
Sacra est materies, nobiliorque tibi.  
Nempè dècet castam casta requiescere iniurna,  
Et quem viva locum semper amavit, habet  
Scripturis tumulata sacris, ubi conditur urna  
Carmen, & artifices exsuperante manus.  
Sigeneris, formaeuè canam, morumuè decorem,  
Vile, ait, hoc Sanctus mun●…, & imp●… honor.  
Singula deliban●… plenum mutilabit acervum,  
Hujus & enumerans plurima, parous erit:  
Innumeras meliùs dictura silentia laudes.  
Sed tu perge viam, fide marite, sacram.  
Et si quae facimus sanctissima sentiat umbra,  
Non aliter vellet te meminisse sui.  
Mors indignatur, dehinc frustra & fata minantur,  
Dum parat, amissam qui dolet, ipse mori,  
Vivere te suadente mori est: Dum Spiritus exit  
Vitâ ego sperarim liberiore frui.  
Non ego lectorem moror ultrâ, maxima cujus  
Ingenii pars est officiosus amor.  
T. R.   

TO THE WORSHIPFUL Mr. THOMAS HARLAKENDEN, his loving Father.  
THat which in some part you have heard, I now make a visible word, first to quicken a little the memory of that good soul now with God, to whom you had the relation and love of a father: Secondly, to do you the office of comfort and gratitude amidst our great loss, and indeed, according to the equity of Gods own Law, none should make an Epitaphicall Monument to that name rather than myself, because none on earth is so nigh of kin. And, o that I might say, what she, though in Paradise, yet doth; even as the faith of righteous Abel, he being dead, yet speaketh: O that I might raise out that example and copy of goodness, out of yours and mine, and much other private knowledge: For the kingdom of Heaven, the grace of Christ in her, it was Thesaurus in agro absconditus, A treasure, a pearl of price, private, and hidden in a field of humble innocence: Simon the son of Onias, was (as saith the son of Syrach) both a fair Olive, and a tall Cypress tree: but she was no haughty Cypress (the more barren, the more high) an Olive, if you will, of love and humble growth, or a fruitful Vine of low stature, as saith the Prophet, Ezech. 17.6. Yet the shadow, the honour of her virtues, it shall follow, yea though she did not affect it, but seemed to fly from it rather, from appearances into the heart: God will have her honoured, he complains by his Prophet, that the righteous should be taken away without this good testimony, or with a non-considering. Clavus fixus in loco fideli, (as the Prophet speaks,) A nail fastened so sure; her blessedness can no whit be improved, or impaired, by what we report. Yet let her light shine, even for the glory of the grace of God, such a goodness should not lie in the grave of our private meditation. jehojakim and his like let them go; God would have them punished with rottenness in their memory, that they shall not have a man to say so much, as Ah my brother, ah Lord, or ah his glory: But this his servant the Lord provides her of an everlasting remembrance, and all that knew her best, are known to mourn most for such a bud, a flower not much past the spring so fallen. She fell in her prime, I am sure not unpitied, not unwished for. Artemisia Queen of Caria, so dearly did she rue the death of Mausolus her husband, that by eating his heart in powder, she thought even to incorporate it to hers, and after erected him the Mausolaeum, that world's wonder: and fain I would, as you see, some little pillar to perpetuate and keep up a while in the world that grace we are now speaking of: but what is mine endeavour at the best, more than a vapour that appears for a little time; and then vanisheth quite away. So you have the first reason why these weak notes dare come into public light.  
The other is a duty to the root of that branch: And first, of consolation. It pleasing the Almighty to resume that gift he newly had bestowed by your hands, this caused me, as much as ever did any thing, to look about me, even as fare as to mine own grave; for, Si hoc in viridi, quid in arido? and the issue of some thoughts that may come now to your review. The sum is, that we set our good, our loss, and her advantage together. A Christian at death parts but with a body, and that to a fall rest, for it is totally insensible, and perceives neither privation, nor presence of good or evil: And they that are long and much exercised in this life, know what a good it is to be quit of evil: Why died not I in the birth, for so, saith job, should I now be at rest with the Kings and Counsellors of the earth, and why is life given to the bitter in soul, who long and dig for death more than for hid treasures, and rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they find the grave? job 3.  
Again, the body of a good soul rests in full hope for the temple of the Holy Spirit, the instrument of his graces and virtues, yea, the member of jesus Christ: reason, if it hath any light of God in it, would show that such a thing must not see final corruption, that have a better resurrection. See you, I pray, the story of the dying mother with her seven sons, 2 Macchab. 7. But bodily dissolution is painful, and what can a moment of time bring? Yea, many suffer not by once dying, what others do with patience in a living death of the Colic, Gout, Scyatica, and the like: and through age and consumptions, dying is oft times with pain in a manner impenceptible, in which case sure the Lord dealt mildly with this his own servant, my yoke fellow, he tempered her suffering according to her feeble ability: but the pain, what ere it is, by Gods own appointment, is the only way and passage to endless joy and bliss: And wise Heathen, out of a mere pang of moral magnanimity, have taken it up with comfort: A Christian then should hear it, assisted with such a promise, and grace; and spirit, even with God himself. Thus for what concerns the body, a Christians death you see it should not be our discomfort.  
And most of him, his soul it in blessefull being after death, and the dead live, that we need not doubt to talk of our deceased friends, as alive, my sister, my brother, my wife, for they live, though not with us, yet much better: Wherefore it were a wrong to them, even our uncomfortable vain wish, that would have them back from God, which they by no means can desire; yea, we should wrong our God and Saviour, so to undervalue the immediate communion with him in glory for a vile world: And we should wrong ourselves, not to make Gods will ours, and not to yield our passive obedience in some good measure, when the event especially hath revealed his will to us: for besides the making vain our daily prayer, Our Father, Thy will be done, we strive against the unavoidable will of God, as if a man should think much, because he cannot with his toe overturn the globe of the earth: And what reason have we to look for such a privilege, which is not incident to our nature, as the case now is? a non subjection to death, can any one of all those millions which come betwixt Adam and doomsday say he had it? Besides, what thousands, as we see, doth a plague, or a siege, or a set battle devour together, that walls and bridges have been made of the dead carcases, and a poor mercenary Soldier so rightly estimates this common debt of our nature, even to venture upon it hourly for a small pay, especially if he hath a forward Leader: Malus mi●es qui Imperatorem gemens sequitur, saith Prosper. And we that have jesus Christ himself our Guide and Captain, and the Patriarches, Prophets, and Apostles, with all our holy Ancestors, our fore runners, should we repine and think so very hardly, and be so very heartless for death? Honorificum est ex illo calice bibere quem Imperator noster delibavit, It is our honour, our comfort, to be admitted to the fellowship and communion of the Lords cup; yea, Christ hath taken down the bitterness of the cup of death, and hath left us but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Apostle speaketh, Col. 1. That which is behind; some relic of his affliction, as it were a drop to the Ocean: for Christ hath not foretasted only, but sanctified and sweetened this cup for us, because by the virtue and merit of his death, he hath separated hell from us, that the death of Christ is the death of death, we can be no worse by death, if we be in Christ, than that from a sinful and frail life, we enter into possession of an estate or life happy and good above all the heart of man can conceive, an exceedingly exceeding eternal weight of glory, as the Apostle speaks. Hence S. Austen checks himself; What cause have I to mourn for a mother, of whose happiness I may be so well assured? And I would not have you to be ignorant concerning them which are asleep, saith the Apostle, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope, 1. Thess. 4. It is our ignorance, it is a scandal, which Christians give to Infidels, and to the ungodly, not to be somewhat comfortable in death: Christiani genus hominum morti expeditum, saith Tacitus, according to the old 〈◊〉, a Christian is as a man undaunted in death through faith of a better life: And we, if we had the faithful comprehension of the blessed promises we might have, it would make us to take up our cross with joy: Gaudeo deais quae patior, I rejoice in my sufferings, Col. 1.24. You see the way, that we may be steadfast in our faith, even to ground our hearts on Christ through the word and spirit: the excess of our fear ariseth from the defect of our faith. And now to bring your consolation home, or a little near. Now your child hath her property, her part in Christ and all his benefits: You see my confidence, did the Lord ever fail to build on the ground she hath laid, true Christian humility? God gives grace unto the humble, the grace of remission, and the grace of regeneration, and the grace of perseverance in both, so that in Grace, humility in the first, second, and third, as S. Austen says truly: And could a soul be more truly lowly and meek, than that we now commemorate. The Lord had moulded her of an ingenuous, innocent, and tender frame, both of mind and body, even for himself, and before the Lamb of God in her white stole of spotless innocence and joy, she now is and shall be for evermore, amidst the spirits of the just, who in part are come to their perfection, so it might suffice to our comfort, to have said she was humble. Yet I will tell you of that you know her righteous, even and just disposition. And her religion, Lord thou knowest it, and I know it, and cannot forget it, how constant in the study of Scriptures? Those of devotion, especially the Psalms of David: and how continual in the sacrifice of her prayers, thou didst smell therein a savour of rest: yea Lord, thou knowest she was a pious Monitor, have we not heard this of her, alas we have not prayed together to day: And because a renewed preparing, a special stirring up of the graces that be in us, is required to that main part of a Christian to dye well and comfortably, I might much assure you in this too: So had her native and accidental weakness enured and minded her long before of the peril she was to pass, not without an expectance of death in it: And to that purpose the tracts of holy devotion and preparation, they were the most of her study and meditation: The conclusion is, so humble, innocent an heart and life, of which you had the experimental knowledge, it must be, it is crowned with an happy death.  
Thus I have said enough for your comfort, if not too much for me, and better might have beseemed another pen or tongue, as some may censure; but let them think as they will, it is no love of error, yea, the duty of remembrance, it was due to the Lords servant now at rest and in peace: and the office of consolation, not like to be done by another, was due to you that remain on earth.  
And lastly, I would have extant a testimony of my gratitude to you, of whose integrity, and love, and godly humility, I have had good experience. And though God hath pleased to make a breach upon the bond which caused the union and relation between us, and great distance of place and dwelling, may threaten to divide, and cut me off from you, yet I must reckon you ever amongst my best friends. And by the name we have now treated of, and what ere was dear in it, I pray you let me be one of yours still: Yea, let this writing lie by you, to inform you thus much, that it proceeds from a mind deeply affected to you and yours. And the Lord jesus Christ bless you all eternally.  
Beckingham in Lincoln. june 16. 1630. Your very loving Son, Thomas Williamson.   

A FUNERAL SERMON.  PSAL. 146.4. 
His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish.  
THis Psalm, and the rest to the end, are muchwhat of one kind, both for manner and matter, and something may be said not unusefully from both. Their method or manner is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a circular praying the Lord; like the heavens they move in a circle, and have recourse to the same point; at Hallelujah is the beginning, and at Hallelujah is the ending.  
And this may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a circular doctrine or instruction, that after this manner we look up to God in all our designs, not as first disposer or mover only, but as founder and finisher, α and ω, first efficient, and supreme end, to whom all our strength and service refers and bows, like the sheaves of jacobs' sons to the sheaf of joseph.  
Again, the matter of these five last Psalms, the whole of them is but Hallelujah; praise ye the Lord, runneth like the blood in the veins, quite thorough them.  
And why may not this instruct us too, even wherein is every good man's duty, to praise God thoroughly, and perpetually? The Lord our God, the keeper of Israel, neither sleepeth, nor slumbreth; and his Angels, or Seraphims cease not to sing, Holy, Holy; and Satan and his Angels are ever in circuit to devour us, and our indevotion to good is ever stealing on us; therefore we should not content ourselves with good beginnings, like the Church of Ephesus, nor presume of mercy at the end, and be stark dead in the middle, like the Church of Sardis; we should not rest in this, that we lift up our lips sometime to the Lord in the morning, or end in the evening in our accustomed devotions, unless the heart and matter of our day, our life be well bestowed: according to our model here, we should be enwoven and wrought quite thorough; our main bent should be a Hallelujah to praise the Lord with all our might, as David did with all Israel at the bringing home of the Ark, being very sensible whensoever we cease to be of service to the Lord, as David was grieved for the breach in Vzzah, and therefore called it Perez-Vzzah, 1 Chron. 13. Now the Psalm in hand is first Eucharistical, a vow of perpetual praise to the Lord, in the two first verses. Secondly, Paraineticall; it exhorts to it upon main reason in the residue of the Psalm.  
Praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord O my soul: While I live I will praise the Lord; while I have any being; that is, O my mind or understanding meditate thou on God, know him o my will or inmost affection, my very heart-root be thou set for God, yea, and that not for a mood or humour only, sed quum adhuc ego sum; while I live, while I have any being, I shall praise the Lord thorough all times, places, and occasions.  
Here is the man after God his own make; So let us awaken ourselves, so speak, and so do, james the second. Especially we who succeed the Psalmist in office, so should we foretaste, & pre-digest the heavenly gift, and the powers of the world to come, and speak of our God out of experience, or out of a sense of that peace and grace which we preach; and this is Clarigatio, as the Roman heralds use to speak, an Hallelujah, a denouncing war against hell and sin, with a shrill and piercing sound.  
Again, the Psalm is exhortative, pressed with good reason. The sum is this; Stick close to the Lord by faith and love, for fruitless and vain is all other confidence in comparison; in God there is much goodwill and goodness, in God there is infinite ability and power, in God there is eternal being, he rules for ever, as we see from the fifth verse to the end. But humane succour that must fail us needs, sometime in will, sometime in power, ever in duration, as in the third and fourth verses, Put not your trust in Princes, nor in the son of man in whom there is no help: His breath goeth forth, etc.  
Indeed, Christ is the Prince of peace, happy are we that have him our hope, for as he is the son of man, the branch of David; so he is germane jehovae, the seed of jehovah, Esa. 4.2. The Lord our righteousness, jerem. 23.5. Ex homine, non per hominem, borne of a woman, but by the Holy Ghost, and the fullness of the Godhead dwelleth in him personally, that the help of Christ, is the help of God.  
But mere sons of men; every second cause whatsoever is no salvation, no solid help, no merit or efficacy to build upon. The grace of a Prince is a shade under which all flesh is glad to feed, Dan. 4. and Seneca wondereth how Polybius could weep, Propitio Caesare, being in grace with Caesar: yet put not your trust in Princes, not in the ingenious (as the word signifieth) or magnificent? No: Then the Psalmist takes off our trust from all the world, and there is not that thing in it which is to be trusted and celebrated for ever, because nothing in the world is for ever, and God his Deputies in office, are filii hominis, in essence like other men: and so the best humane confidence is but pons sublicius, a wooden bridge, very ready to sink under us; yea, scipio arundincus, as he said of the King of Egypt, a broken reed, perilous to be trusted on, when the waves of death, and judgement, and spiritual distresses arise and swell; and therefore Hallelujah, praise God, and do not deify or propose to your hearts a rest in the creature, for it is all mutable.  His breath goeth forth, he returneth to the earth, in that very day his thoughts perish. 
Here a triple note of humane imbecility: First, from that which is the form or the fountain of lively being; Spiritus exit, His spirit, or his breath goeth forth: Secondly, from the matter that he is made of; Et revertetur in terram s●…am, and he shall return into his earth: Thirdly, from the effects that he purposeth or produceth; In illo die pertbunt omnes cogitationes corum, in that very day his thoughts perish.  
The word spirit is sometime taken substantially for the soul, Lord jesus receive my spirit, Acts 7. And the spirit returneth to God that gave it, Eccles. 12. So Saint Jerome and others take this place, his soul goeth forth according to that, as her soul was going forth or departing, Gen. 35.18.  
Again, it is used effectually for breath or respiration; Aufer spiritum, Take away their breath, and they die, Psal. 104.29. And the body without the spirit is dead, that is, without breath, james 2. For compare breath to a massy body, and such is the rarity of it, or thinness, that it seems to be a spirit or spiritual; and consider it with the soul, and such is the use of it, that it seems no less to inform the body, than the spirit itself, by which it is. But the argument is good however the word be taken: say our very essence, and form, and soul is fleeting as a Pilgrim, and ready to pass from its Inn, to go forth of the body, therefore Hallelujah, fasten mainly upon Jehovah, because man is very soon out of being, so soon done, his soul goeth forth. Again, what a brittleness is this? if we say a breath, an airy substance, so thin and vanishing it is, that it is scarce visible, if we say a breath, it is a tie which combines soul and body, and props up even Princes from mouldering into ashes. Beside the Heavens and the Elements, God made man for his glory, a creature able to conceive him, and to speak and declare his excellency, and by those two rich donatives, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, understanding and speech; the Lord put man in a state of perfection, denied to all other creatures below, namely, to be admitted into the immediate presence of God, and most especially to behold and publish his glory, and so a soul understanding and reasonable; animus aeterna ment delibatus, (as the Orator speaketh) a spirit breathed into man by the immediate act of God himself; it is such a dowry wherein man is fare nobler and better than the very heavens, and therefore man had need of somewhat to abate the rising thoughts of the soul, and the Lord hath given us therefore Stimulum in carne, a mortality in the body to buffet us; His breath goeth forth.  
Yea, there is the death's head, the mortality of man indeed, that a very breath is as much as his being is worth: Our soul that spiraculum vitarum, the Lord inspired it, not into Adam's eye or ear, or mouth, but into his nostrils, which may show to man his imbecility, Cujus anima in naribus, whose soul is in his nostrils, and dependeth upon a breath as it were, for the very soul must away, if but breath expires, soul and breath go forth both together.  
Now hear ye this, all ye People, ponder it high and low, your Castle is built upon a very air, the subsistence is in flatu narium, in a blast, that is out in the twinkling of an eye; Wherefore David maketh a question, saying, Domine, quid est homo? Lord, what is man? He answereth himself also; Man is a vanishing shadow, Psal. 144. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, A shadow of smoke, or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the dream of a shadow rather (as the Poet speaketh.) And blessed therefore are the poor in spirit, this advantage have all afflicted ones, that they have checks enough to call them home, to make them see they be but men: The curtain of honour, profit, or pleasure, hard it is and rare to draw that aside, when it is spread over us, man in honour understandeth not, Psal. 49. To great ones therefore be it spoken, the Psalm intendeth it to very Princes, His br●…th goeth forth.  
And breathless man, who before amazed the bruit creature by the majesty of his eye, no better is he to the eye now, than the dust and gravel, and i'll clay under our shoe: 
— jacet ingens littore truncus,  
Auulsumque humeris caput, & sine nomine corpus.   
The Poet speaks of King Priam. Now cease from the man whose breath is in his nostrils, Isay 2. Ten thousand graves, and worms, and passing-bells, cannot give us a truer touch. Waldus, a rich Merchant of Lions, seeing a man on the sudden breathe his last in the streets: So was he taken with it, that as suddenly he turned his old course, fell to study the Scriptures, and became in earnest a Preacher, and Founder of the Christians called Waldenses: Ye see what a point this is, and of what use, his breath goeth forth. Our Saviour hid himself from the unsought honours of the Jews: and so should we, had we learned but this, we would withdraw sure from the perilous dignities and delights of the times. But as julius Caesar, the same morning he went out to sue for the Priesthood, saluting his mother said, Domum nisi Pontificem se non reversurum, That he would never come home but high Priest: So (my brethren in the Ministry) do not some of us in pursuit of honour, take leave of our charge, which should be as our mother dear unto us; but we go out, as resolved not to come to residence without an high Priesthood; for we never think on it, that our spirit hath but this to show for its residence in the world, a breath, and if the Lord dash that, we die, if he take away his finger, we fall away like water: Now therefore, that we may all grow to more sincerity, let us, I pray you, accustom our ears and eyes to man dying, it would certainly loosen us much from this world, to see, and to feel, and to handle this truth, as it were, his spirit, his breath goeth ●orth. And this for the substance of the act, the going forth of the spirit, ye see what it meaneth.  
See we now the continuedness, Exit, it goeth; as if it were now presently in its pass to show this, that Homo vivens contin●… è moritur, That by the very act of living we are dying, that life is a continued death, our candle lightens, consumes and dies: as in the passing of an hourglass, every minute some sand falleth, and the glass once turned, no creature can entreat the sands to stay, till they are drawn out: So is our life, it shortens and dies every minute, and we cannot beg a minute of time back, and that we call death, is but the term of it, or consummation; Vita ultimo die finitur, omni perit, saith Seneca: Many be our partial or petty deaths, sorrow, sickness, mishap, but death is enclosed in the bowels of our life, and is essential with it. Spiritus exit: His spirit goeth forth. Lycurgus' said, that according to the threefold age of man, a threefold salutation might be used, you are welcome, or you come in a good hour; God keep you, or stand in a good hour; God speed you, or go in a good hour: to show that from the age of fifty and forward, we are taking our leave, our spirit is going forth, but so frail and fluid is life, that at all ages & times we may be bid, God speed, we may have our Vale, or go in a good hour. For once embarked, we are going to the Port. The going out of the Cradle is the entering into the grave, to have a beginning and to be borne, is to breed or be in travel, yea to be darted, or put in a slight to an end; Therefore Thales was wont to say, that there is no difference between life and death, and being thereupon demanded, Tu ergo quid non moreris? Why dost not thou dye then? Because, saith he, there is no difference: So that if we seek the act of living, our hearts, if we be wise, should be established against dying, because life and death are essential to one another, or include one another, and it is as natural to dye, as to live, and in themselves therefore to be regarded both alike: Quid ergo novi, si mortalis natus moriatur? Let it not be strange to us, that we should die, being borne dying or mortal. His spirit goeth forth: Exit. And to us that be Ministers in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, let this word be to us a remembrance, like Bezaleel and Aholibah, by the grace that is given us, we are master-builders, but of the Lords Tabernacles, or Church militant on the earth, and we are gentle among you, saith the Apostle, even as a Nurse cherisheth her children, affectionately desirous of you, 1 Thess. 3. even so with piteous heart● look we upon our charge, for they be earthly tabernacles, dying men and women: their soul and spirit stand upon their lips as it were: It goeth forth; Spiritus exit. O let us tender them therefore, and apply our present speedy relief, lest they fall out of our hands, before we have dispensed them the bread of life, of which Christ hath made us overseers and stewards, and as upon the bed of our languishing, we would not have a lofty or profound, but a gracious word come to us; so seeing we deal with such, whose living is a continued dying, let us seek that our divinity may be as profitable as may be to save: Salus populi suprema lex esto.  
Now I come to the liberty of the spirit, that it recedes inviolate; 1. In Act, it goeth: 2. In essence, it goeth forth.  
Our spirit is free in the Act, it is not haled, not snatched out, as it were, it goeth forth. A soul in life sealed to eternity by the first fruits of the spirit hath its good issue, its free passing, its hopes even in death: for let this breath fade, fidelis Deus, God who cannot lie, because he hath said it, be we sure he will stand nigh us in that exigency, and begin to help where man leaveth, not suffering his to be tempted above that they are able, 1 Cor. 10. The holy Spirit, whose name is the Comforter, will not omit and leave off his own act or office in the great needs of death. Hence good Hilarion having served the Lord Christ seventy years, checks his soul that it was so loath at the last to part, to go forth, saying, Egredere, o anima mea, egredere; Go forth, my soul, go forth: And devout Simeon sueth for a manumission, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant departed in peace, according to thy word: And this is the freedom of the act, the Spirit goeth forth; it yields, yea it goes and passes freely, that is, it taketh up, or embraceth the Cross of Christ, as he commandeth us to do. But is the act at our will and liberty? not simply, we may not projicore animam, thrust or cast forth our breath or spirit, Spiritus Exit, it goeth forth, strive we must to cast the world out of us, we may not cast ourselves out of the world. Saint Paul dareth not dissolve himself, though he could wish to be dissolved, God must part that which he joins, God giveth, and God taketh away; and if God say as he doth to Lazarus, Exi foras, come forth, with faithful Steven we must resign our Spirit, and all into his hands. When God biddeth us yoke, he is the wisest man that yields his neck most willingly; when our grand Captain recalls us, we must take the retreat in good part, but it is heathenish to force out the soul, for when the misdeeming flesh amidst our disasters, will not listen with patience for God his call, but rather shake off the thought of divine providence quite, then are we ready to curse God and die, and that is probably, to leap e fumo in stammam, out of the sin of selfe-murder into hell; no, but God will have our spirits to pass forth upon good terms. Spiritus exit, the spirit goeth forth.  
Secondly, the spirit goeth free or inviolate in essence, death is not the end, but the out-going of the soul, a transmigration or journey from one place to another. It goeth forth, so the character of our weakness we see in the issue, it is an argument of our eternity, for man indeed is perishing, but so is not his spirit, Non simul perit anima, & animal. The Phoenix goes forth, or out of his ashes, the spirit returneth to God that gave it, Eccles. 12. that is, it abides still, and as in the body it pleased God to enclose the soul for a season, so it may as well exist elsewhere without it, if God will, for it hath no rise at all from the clay, yea, it bears in it immortality, an image of that breast whence it is breathed. The separate and very abstract acts of the spirit, even while it is in the body, the wondrous visions of the Lord to his Prophets, usually when their bodies were bound up in sleep; Saint Paul his rapture when he knew not whether he was in the body or out of it: the admirable inventions and arts of men manifest the soules-selfe-consisting. Not Socrates, and Cato, and the civilised heathen only, but the very savage believe this, and so entertain death,  exitum, non ut exitium, as a dissolution, not as a destruction, Spiritus exit, his spirit goeth forth.  
But we know saith the Apostle, 2 Cor. 5. we are sure God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, doth no create, redeem, and regenerate man for the mere use of a wretched short life; and who can imagine, so monstrously, that of all men the good and righteous, and of all creatures man, for whom the rest are made, and who hath the use or sovereignty of all, yet by fare that he should be the most vile and miserable of all? but sure it were so, if in this life only we had hope, seeing there be no lower creatures that are capable of sorrow, and terrors of conscience, and fears of death, and conceit of future judgement, yea, not so subject to bodily disease. But account me not dead said the holy martyr, for I shall certainly live and never die. And the martyrs, so vigorous (as we see) amidst the ruins and destructions of the body, had something in them surely more than dust: A Philosopher, Hermes Trismegistus, dying, said; Mourn not for me as if I were dead, for I return to the happiest City. Above all Jesus Christ giveth us an express watchword, Nothing is able to kill the soul, Mat. 10. And Martin Luther going to give up his account before the Emperor, received this Echo from the people, fear not them that cannot kill the soul. Mundus minetur, aestuet, Death by all its pioning takes but a fort of clay; Animus ad sedes suas & cognata sydera recurrit, the spirit as new hatched goeth forth to live still, like as the light issuing from the Sun, dieth not at Suns●…ing, but goeth some whither else with the Sun; so life that issues from the soul, goes with its own principle, and abides with it; so Saint john the divine, to be better enabled to his banishment, he had a vision of this by special privilege, a sight of the immortal safe subsistence of the soul after death, under the altar the custody of Christ Jesus, Rev. 6.9 And thence is Saint Paul's, Ne contristemini, sorrow not as hopeless men, 1 Thess. 4. Yea, be we nured to a certain faith, and frequent thought of this, and a fairer flower the book of God yields not, than the immortality of Saints in bliss. Hence the great patience of the Saints, hence the challenge of death, Vbi mors victoria, O death thou wilt take away our breath; Alas how small a loss, seeing no death can divide us from Christ, Rom. 8.38. and spiritus exit, seeing the spirit doth but migrare, it goeth untouched in essence, and inviolate.  
The main issue of this first point is, that seeing our breath, our spirit goeth forth, that we make sure provision therefore of some harbour or sanctuary, that we get us into the Ark before the flood, that we gather our Manna, and prepare to our eternal Sabbath now in the Even of this life, Qui laborat in vesp●re Sabbati, vesce ur in Sabbato, say the Rabbins, and what an exceeding strength will it be to us when we are weak in mind and body, that our spirit is to pass safely and comfortably, that we have a refuge, a terminus ad quem for our spirit; so let us forecast for it by a true apprehension and faith of the loves and promises of God in Christ Jesus. O my Dove that art in the clefts of the rock, saith our Saviour, Cant. 2.14. The wounds of Christ, are the clefts of the rock, therein let us cove&r hide us over soul and body, let us make sure of a rightful hold in that rock of our salvation, through faith and repentance, and so our spirits will grow acquainted with the peace of conscience, and the joys of the Holy Ghost, and the sense and hopes of the promised recompense, and so shall also we be well composed and fortified for our migration or passage, even that our spirit goeth forth of an earthly vessel, but into an eternal and blessed receptacle.  
I come to the second branch of the text: the second note of man's imbecility from the matter that he is made of: Et revertetur in terram suam, and he returneth to his earth. He returneth: The body of man before his fall was beautiful and amiable in the eye of God, and awful in the eye of the creature, and exacts in its own temper, and immortal by privilege sealed in the tree of life; but since that sin came into the world, the body of man encloseth a death, a selfe-ruining, beside outward violence, and perils of contagion, none of which were incident to his pure estate; so man returns to his earth without contradiction, he hath no help for it. The spirit which holdeth up the elements together in a body, when that goeth forth, each of them fall back to their own principles; earth goeth to its earth, according to God his ordinance, dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return, Gen. 3. Nicodemus thought it strange, but in this sense it is true, we re-enter the bowels of our mother. The son of Syrach calleth the earth, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the mother of us all, Ecclus. 40. So Brutus wisely took the Oracle, when being warned to kiss his mother, kissed the earth. His earth. Earth we see goeth, very nigh us, it is our earth, not only the matter or rock out of which we are hewn, but the matter whereof we consist, our ingredient, and coessential with us, that I may say with the Prophet jeremy, O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. Trim we never so nicely, we are earth, Lutea progenies, an offspring of earth, yea, pulvinaria, as the Romans styled their Temples, vessels or beds made up or stuffed with dust, and shall we dote upon our earth? Shall we suffer our immorta●… spirit to go out like a starveling, and over-care for what ●…cernes the body, and over-decke the daughter of ro●…ennesse? know we not that our very make is such, that earth, that the chambers of death stand like the houses of the Roman Tribunes, wide open for us night and day, and very usually man sleepeth, and never riseth again, and walketh, but never returneth again, unless it be into his earth.  
The men of Anathoh said to the Prophet jeremy, Prophesy not in the name of the Lord, that thou die not, jer. 11. But to you, my fellowlabourers, I say, prophesy in the fear of God; for we shall die, because we shall be dissolved, and return to our earth, we know not how soon, and if this doth not quicken, our account being so nigh at hand, what will? And of all God's Officers, we his especial Ambassadors, how shall we turn us on the bed of death, if we have betrayed the immediate work and business of our Sovereign? The Indian Priests or Brachmanes, so very separate were they from the body, that they are said, Interrâ esse, & none in terrâ esse; To be, and not to be on the earth: A Minister of Christ his Gospel much rather he should be unglued, and abstracted from this earth, the body, like a star already fixed in Heaven: But we care what we can for our body, and so tender it oft times, that we forget our God, and yet nevertheless we shall return to our earth; and when our turn cometh, what a crown of rejoicing should it be, to think that we have wasted in body, by winning souls, and have truly sought to turn men to God, though it turn us into the earth, stantem & praedicantem mori? But beside counsel, the Lord hath comfort for this point in the issue, namely, that thus God ordaineth by his return into earth, to refine and turn our vile bodies, to be like the glorious body of Jesus Christ: He that was wrapped up into the third Heavens, and knew what he saith, S. Paul speaks it, Yea (saith he) as the corn liveth not except it die, and be cast into the earth, so we are not clarified, not made blessed bodies, but by a return into the earth. So then with an eagle's eye by faith, pierce we thorough, and look beyond the grave, and we shall discern and see an incomparable light of grace, to which the Lord worketh our return into earth, our very dissolution.  
But if the spirit of him that raised Jesus from the dead be in you, he that raised Christ from the dead, shall quicken also your mortal bodies, by, or because of the Spirit that dwelleth in you, Rom. 8.11. our earth is Christ's body, know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ, 1 Cor. 6. Dead and withered as we be, we are still united to Christ, it is not death that can separate us from him, for I am persuaded, that neither death nor life, etc. Rom. 8. and by virtue of this mystical conjunction with Christ, even according to our whole man, doubt we nothing, but our first resurrection by the same spirit, is an earnest and certain pledge of a better resurrection; for that same quickening spirit of Christ, which now dwelleth in us, and uniteth us to him, it is he that made our bodies out of the earth at first, yea, which made the earth itself, and the whole world out of nothing; and therefore he can and will, as he hath witnessed, fetch our bodies back from the earth to which they are returned, and that because they are yet the members of Christ Jesus though the same spirit, and his own temples God will surely rear them up again, yea, though they lie in the dust, and the latter temples shall have fare more beauty than the former, according to his word.  
I proceed to the third and last note of humane weakness from the effects, that which man purposeth or produceth: In illo die peribunt omnes cogitationes eorum, In that very day his thoughts perish: The night cometh that no man can work, john 9.4. The dead are out of office; so it is of our nature, to leave our humane purposes cracked and broken in the very midst, my days are past, my enterprises are broken off, job 8. In that very day our life is defined to be a vapour that appears a little time, and then vanisheth, jam. 4. My days are a span long, saith David, Fecisti dies meos palmarios, Psal. 39 and we are but as yesterday, job 8. So though we make a bustle for a life time in this world, that is all our projects go not on into another world, and life is such a minute, such a drop of the bucket, Gutta è situla, as the Prophet speaketh, that our terrene thoughts perish all in that ve-day that they were hatched, as it were.  
Alexander had not elbowroom, not space enough in the world for his thoughts. Xerxes had such thoughts against Greece, that he undertaketh an expedition so huge and great, that seas and mountains are even spurned out of his way. And julian madly projects a final and utter extirpation of all Christendom: Vast and high thoughts all, yet a bubble, no sooner up than deadened, dashed that very day that they were conceived, as it were. The Parable of that certain rich man, Luke 12. showeth how very perishing is the figure and thought of this world, and it is well shadowed at the Coronation of the Popes, when he that is new called passeth on, the Master of the Ceremonies holds up an handful of flax at the end of a dry reed, and setting fire to it, saith aloud, Pater sancte, sic transit gloria mundi; Holy Father, so passes the world's glory: Fortuna vitrea, It is a glassy condition, as that noble Lady, the Lady jane Grace admonished the Lieutenant at her death, now let us not be too eager on it therefore, but keep in, and limit our terrene thoughts and purposes, yea let us trample the Moon, the world under our feet, give it the lowest place in our affections, as the Lord represents it in the twelfth of the Revelation. Every Christian man like young Hannibal, tactis sacris, he voweth no less in baptism, se cum primum posset hostem fore, even to hate the world in comparison, and not to spend a thought for it, if it lay in his way to God and his grace. But, by thoughts, not only the worldly, but the very quintessence, or most excellent effects of the mind of man, are meant; namely, that all which is not above humanity is most perishing. The best humane good is the rich furniture of Wisdom, Arts, and Sciences; and, Let not the wise glory in his wisdom, saith the Lord, Esay 9 and, God knoweth the thoughts of the wise are but vain, 1 Cor. 3. uneffectuall to salvation: should any creature swell or presume on this good? The depths of the Schools or State, what are they? An anchor pitched in the air, a wall of breath about us, which if the Lord but push at us, are gone verso policy, with a wet finger (as they say) and when the darts of temptation, and the fury of disease, and the fearful wan looks of death and judgement come to us, in that very day these thoughts perish. O fallacem hominum spem! o inanes nostras contentiones! Thus the Orator laments the death of his learned Hortensius. But o the buckler of faith, the helmet of salvation! at other times we may talk, and say our wits have made us, at the evil hour nothing but God can ease us, no skill can cure us but of God his mercy in Christ Jesus: and Luther therefore said well, that men were best Christians in death, because when learning, policy, friends, and breath, and all go from us, if we be wise, we then go from ourselves, our own abilities, and with all our strength and might, rest and repose on God, and his especial favour and mercy in Christ Jesus revealed in the word; again, it is a comfort at this very day, that In illo die peribunt omnes cogitationes eorum, the Devil and the world league, and set in together, and work their spleen out against the Church of Christ, and even blow it up before them, fierce and cruel be their thoughts, but they are frail: the Holy Ghost resembleth them to grass on the house tops, Psal. 129. one would think they were good corn by their growing, they are vile grass, and such as is without blessing. julians' thoughts against the Church, were nubiculae citò transiturae, clouds soon over, as Athanasius prophesied, They gave up the ghost in one day as it were. The end of the upright God sets a mark upon it, that it is peace, Psal. 37. but the union of his enemies God will disjoint it, and they shall walk, as we hope at this day, in Baal-perizin, in the valley of division, 1 Chron. 14. Counsels against God shall not stand, not laste, not a day in comparison, In that very day his thoughts perish.  
But are the thoughts of men so perishing, it is matter of advice then that we redeem the span of time we have, husband it well, and on good thoughts, and to good purposes, and there be thoughts, as we see in Mary's choice, which shall not perish with our days, and of which no time shall bereave us. Blessed are they that die in the Lord, they rest from their labours, and their works follow them, Rev. 14. The thoughts of God's worship, good works have their abiding fruit for ever, and when all fail us they follow, go along with us after death in their reward and crown, but the bent of our hearts if it be on by matters, we may say, what is this we do? what fruit will this afford us in or after death, In that very day our thoughts are cut off and perish.  
Our days are a declining shadow, Psal. 102. and the shadow declines and lengthens, as the Sun goeth off or on us: when it is direct or meridian short is our shadow, and stretched out at even, when the light of Christ is far from us, then according to the mould of our own blind thoughts, our shadow lengthens, for life is our shadow, job 14. but then we think of death as fare removed, In hoc enim fallimur quod mortem prospicimus, saith Seneca. Now let our eyes be truly enlightened, and all those thoughts perish, and we perceive life sliding swifter away than a Weavers shuttle, job 7. and so the Lord is said to shorten our days, Psal. 89. not that he cuts off, or depriveth us of that time, which he had determined, but of that which our own thoughts have minted: And, o we vain and blind, that think thus, as if we were at a fee with death, and never to be removed. Nullius vita non spectat in crastinum, saith Seneca, we think all, to morrow we shall live, and we shall live better to morrow, and the life we forge and fancy to us, fails us, even before we think on it; In that very day his thoughts perish.  
Be we therefore advised to fasten on the present time, to repent to day, and believe to day, let us provoke our hearts to good purposes, and to day let us put our hands to practise them. But there be who think or dream, rather of future expiations or satisfactions to be made after death, of a release after a time in hellish durance: but these are groundless perishing thoughts. It is for men once to dye, but after death cometh judgement, Heb. 9.27. Therefore the tree of our life, while it hath a standing, let it bend to God-ward, and then we shall both stand and fall to our own Lord and Master, and let us seek presently to be reconciled to God, through the precious purgation of our souls, which is through faith in Christ his blood, and then we shall never be confounded, our thoughts shall not perish, or be made void, Praeveniendus ergo dies est, qui praevenire consuevit, saith S. Austen: we must trim our lamps betime with the oil of faith, and love, and prevent the day of death, lest it prevent us, our eternity of woe or bliss, we should not hazard it to after-thoughts, and to second plots, yea, surely it cannot be mended afterward: the watchlesse virgins, because unprovided then, were undone for ever; and though sorrowing learned them wit, they had no time to practise it: In that very day his thoughts perish.  
And to you especially (my Brethren in the Ministry) let me speak in the words of S. Paul; As we have opportunity let us die good, Gal. 6.10. let us be doing good while we may:— Dum superest Lachesi quod torqueat:— Should such as we cast in our thoughts, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to serve ourselves or the times for a season, and think then afterward, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to serve the Lord in his Vineyard, perhaps at even, but when our carnal thoughts have reached up to their ends: alas, while we so think, while our thoughts are in our hearts, our thoughts may perish, the hand of Justice may write bitter things against us in that very moment; high is our race, and life is perishing, heavenly be our thoughts; let us take that good of our high calling at the first opportunity, the world should stoop to it; for the fashion of the world passeth away, but the Crown is uncorruptible which God reserveth for us, if we finish our course, with a conscience of his ordinance, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with fear and trembling.  
The Attic Orators (saith Quintilian) are, Eloquentiae, quadam frugalitate contenti, ac semper manum intra pallium continentes; just so, many of us do think with Nicodemus, we can plead for God in sober silence, husbanding both our professing and preaching of Christ Jesus for fear of the Jews, lest we should run into suspicion with great ones, and hazard our stock of worldly favours. The argument of my Text is good to raise our diligence, namely that we may be called to dye, in the midst of our ambitious and terrene thoughts, and so to dye before we have begun to live, and so we may live and dye in vain, and without Use: a wretched mishap especially in a most spiritual and heavenly calling, a Prophet, a Seer of the Lord to perish before he hath done any good, a worthless case, and most to be feared. To conclude, hear we the words of our Saviour to his Apostles, What I say unto all, I say unto you, Watch, Mat. 26. and hear what Solomon saith, Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it, for there is no work, no device nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest, Eccles. 9.10.  In that very day his thoughts perish. 
FINIS.   

A FUNERAL SERMON.  PSAL. 51.17. 
A broken and a contrite heart O God, thou wilt not despise.  
AS all civil bodies or commonwealths, so that of the Jews was made up of three divers parts: the rich, the middle sort, the poor; and so their oblations were divers, from the herd, the flock, the fowls of the air; and divers often was their end and acceptation: he in the impurity of his heart killeth an ox, or sacrificeth a kid, Decollat canem, saith the Prophet, is as if he cut off a dog's neck, so little is the Lord affected to the worship we do him in mere ceremony; but the honest contrite soul, the poor in spirit, that comes trembling with his pair of turtle doves, repentance and faith, to this man will I look saith the Lord, Es. 66. The poor service we do him, if it be in spirit, and in truth, he takes delight in it, wherefore David here at the 15. verse, praying for ability to praise, or worship the Lord aright, sets it out; First, by negation, even what it is not in comparison; thou desirest not sacrifice, thou delightest not in  offerings: Secondly, he positively concludes what indeed that is, which indeed God wills, and likes; the sacrifices of God are the contrite spirit, A broken and a contrite heart O God, thou wilt not despise.  
Not that the Jewish rights were not Gods ordinances, or were then in abrogation, in sepultura, in their burial; but because these outward forms or performances did never satisfy not please the Lord without the sacrifice and service of the heart, a lip-devotion, a deed done, an heartless manner of worship is not that which delights the Lord, or profits us; yea, if there be no heart, no soul in it, it is a shining sin, it is abominable, as if we blessed an Idol, as if a Jew had offered swine's blood, The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, Pro. 21.27.  
But a cup of cold water, saith our Saviour, and the least spark of zeal out of a true heart, though mixed with much infirmity, yet goeth not away unregarded; this, when the widow, good soul, came in with her mite, the Lord calls his disciples to see, as in admiration of her bounty: and David here upon nathan's rebuke, a contrite sinner presents the Lord with his offering, even such he had, a broken heart; and goeth away well persuaded or satisfied concerning God's acceptance, O God thou wilt not despise.  
You may see there is a double use of that I am to say: First, Preparatory, like the Lords Epistle to the Church of Laodicea, that the lukewarm indifferent Christian, who says he is rich, and needs nothing, may see he is poor indeed, and so become poor in spirit. Secondly, Principal, like the other Epistle of comfort to the Church of Smyrna, a Church of a broken heart we see, and much humbled, but very rich, therefore according to the grace of God's acceptation.  
Now two things were of great regard in the legal sacrifices or oblations, the subject, and the manner; a lamb, or a dove: there is the thing, and both without blemish; not the refuse, not the reversion, there is the quality. The burden of the word of the Lord came down against judah, because the table was come into contempt; and if you offer the blind, saith he, for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? carry these to your Prince, and can he be pleased with you, and can he accept your persons saith the Lord of hosts, Malac. 1.  
The greatest man alive, let him come to the Table of the Lord to receive of his visible and invisible word, with an unwashed, irreverent, and dead heart, and the very Sacrament and word he taketh are his judgements for not discerning, and because of his contempt; wherefore King David offereth like himself, that is, according to Gods own heart: First, for the materials, his heart: Secondly, for the form and qualification, his heart broken and contrite.  
That very Caruncula, that little flesh, or part of the body, the heart, some from the triangular figure of that observe a seat, and receptacle not of the round world, but of the blessed Trinity, yea, and some gather this same doctrine from the letters of the word Cor. But the heart, it meaneth more spiritually, and first, the understanding, in which Saint Paul saith, Cor excaecatum, a blinded heart, Rom. 1. And David says, The fool hath said in his heart; in cord suo that is, in his unhallowed, unbroken understanding. Secondly, the heart is the conscience, so David's heart smote him. Thirdly, it is the desiring part of the soul, Quid est cor tuum, nisi voluntas tua, saith Saint Bernard; Love the Lord with all thy heart; and out of the abundance of the heart, etc. Vbi thesaurus, ibi cor, our affections, our wills live with our treasure, Vbi ancant, non ubi animant. Fourthly, the heart is the complete soul quite through; With the heart we believe, Rom. 1. with the act of the understanding, conceiving; and with the arms of the will and affiance; consenting. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Acts 15. God which searcheth the heart, that is, the thoughts, the conscience, the affections, the whole depth of the soul, a thing, which neither the sight of man can reach, nor the law of man can censure.  
This is the subject of David's sacrifice, the matter, but without form, and void as it was in the beginning; the manner or information, the due trimming to the Lords Altar, follows in these words, [Broken and con●rite] and to take them and apply them to the subject in order. First, the understanding, yea, Nathan uses this method with David, by the parable of the Ewe lamb, 2 Sam. 12. First of all he convinces the judgement, breaketh that, maketh David pliable to understand himself, for the judgement unbroken approves of sin, thus David makes no matter of numbering the people, so did pride hoodwink reason; upon his confession he confesses he did very foolishly, or without any true understanding. S. Paul so understood, as if he did well to persecute the saith of Christ, but upon his repentance his judgement altered, I did it ignorantly, saith he, and I am the least of the Apostles, not worthy to be so called, yea, an abortive, or one borne out of time, because I did persecute the Church of God. Surely, the reason why we so rarely repent in truth is, because we allow sin in our judgement, our mind dislikes it not, and we have no apprehension of the danger of it, that it is so deadly, and therefore we refuse the Physic of contrition, because we conceive that, as a thing more than needs: we consider not, that God is as well just as merciful, and cannot possibly be served without repentance, and therefore this holy informing, it deals first at the understanding; as in the case of comfort, namely, against the fears of death, faith cheers up the heart by meditation, or minding it of the blessed promises, that the judgement rectified, and made to understand death inwardly, as it is without the larvae, the shapes it appeareth in to ignorants and Infidels, we may be so resolved, and settled, and not to be amazed for death; even so in the case of renovation, the Lord altars and breaks the imaginations of the heart, first of all layeth open to our eye the heinousness of our sinful estate in general, and then cometh home to us, that we relent in particular.  
Yea, contrition giveth the mind, the understanding a right reflection, that it sees itself rightly without the veil, and scales of superficial proud blind Science. The contrite heart feeleth how heavy the wings of depraved reason are, and how it hovers like Noah's Raven, Super profundum, sine fundo; and like the earth receives the light only in superficie, in the surface of it, and in things divine, how it builds rather upon negation to know what the truth is not, than what it is; how uncapable, yea, averse it is since the fall from the right scanning of truth, that the very Philosophers, the best or wisest heathen, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Apostle speaketh, They became vain in their imaginations of God, Rom. 1. and indeed the natural man judgeth of divine truths but according to his own senses, receives no more in religion than he can show reason for, not reason of the word or divine authority, but reason of nature, or demonstration: So the things of God which are spiritually discerned, or with a contrite eye, carry a kind of contrariety to him, and the undoubted knowledge or persuasion of God's gospel, is not to be had in the worldly wise, who do not, who will not so fare renounce their conceited knowledge, and subdue their imaginations, as fare as they exalt themselves against the word, or have repugnance to God's knowledge.  
Now in the works of repentance or contrition, when the Lord puts a holy light into the heart, this eye of the soul, he makes it simple and submiss, The Law of the Lord is pure, making wise the simple, Psal. 19 So that reason it comes to conclude with jewel, the peerless Bishop, Gratias ago Deo, quod ignorantiam meam non ignoro, God I thank thee, that I am not ignorant of my ignorance.  
But faith, when it wins upon us first, it finds reason sitting like jezabel painting her face, dressing her head, and looking out at the window, till contrition, which like the Baptist, ushers the way of the Lord, calleth to our thoughts, and says with jehu, throw her down, and if they yield not, but advance themselves against God too, it says of them also, as Edom said of Israel, Down with them, down with them, even to the ground.  
Contrition, it breaketh the understanding, maketh it teachable, and glad of God's ways; as they that were stung with the fiery serpents, were glad to look to the brazen serpent; so the broken soul with earnest expectation, erecto capite, waiteth for the manifestation of Christ and his grace; Omne humidum facilè alieno termino. But take a man, when the sun of much prosperity, and the like temptations, exhale, and draw out this holy moisture of contrition, and the Lord of life, the Son of God, though he then approve himself ne'er so much before him by word, and works, yet like the Scribes and Pharisees, seeing, he will not perceive, and learning, he will not understand; let the Lord sing of mercy, and he needs it not, or of judgement, and he feareth it not: I refer you to Saint Austen, the third book of his Confess. the fifth chapter, yea, let common experience speak, if many an impenitent heart preacheth not, talketh not, disputeth not subtly of the doctrines of God, and hath no right knowledge of them, nor acknowledging, but is even made up, and mixed, of doubtings, unbelief, and error? and Where is the disputer of this world, saith the Apostle, 1 Cor. 1.  
Contrariwise, as Abraham went to offer his only son upon the mount of Moriah, and never once advised with natural reason, he left his servants at the foot of the hill, lest by their clamours and dissuasions he might be disturbed in his sacrifice; so the contrite broken heart, the mind thus qualified of God, obeyeth the call of God, subdueth itself, and becometh a slave to his word; Da quod jubes, & jube quod vis, God's commands are not grievous to him, but he is ready wheresoever he sees, thus saith the Lord, to intrust himself to the word. Say unto his soul, that man was by the breath of the Lord, and the world was by his word at the beginning, he stands not with Galen, to censure Moses for want of demonstration: say unto him, that God Almighty was incarnate, and the mother a Virgin delivered of her Maker; he learns not to dispute where the Cherubins are said to veil, but saith with the Centurion, Domine dic verbum, & sanabitur servus tuus, the contrite understanding taketh the Lord at his word, though he seethe not his own reason for it, he follows the word of God in all forms,  aqua sequitur sulcantem digitum. And as one said, having read the writings of Heraclitus, the things I know, and the things I know not, omnia fortia, & generosa; so he of God's Scriptures, they be celestial, and good all; and what he cannot fathom, he adoreth, and saith, O the depths of God's counsels! in sum, he hath all divinity in praeparatione animi, in a readiness to submit to the word, as it shall be revealed to him, and ever saith, Now faith arise, and sleeping hope awake, awake my glory, and though reason would comprehend nothing, believeth all. Agrippina the mother of Nero said, o ccidar modo imperet; but the faith of the contrite mind saith, imperabo modò occidat, I will trust the Lord, though he kill me: with Abraham, against hope, he believes in hope, and offers himself in sacrifice to the Lord by an holy violence upon his carnal reasonings: he seeketh to bring every thought in captivity to the obedience of Christ, and he reckoneth of all science, how subtle soever, but as dross, compared to the excellency of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour: yea, that sweet and precious name, (with Ignatius the martyr) he hath such a dear impression of it, that it seemeth riveted, and graven, In tabulis cordis, in the tables of his heart or understanding, for now he sees well, and says with Themistocles, periissem nisi periissem, I had utterly perished, if with the prodigal, by remorse and contrition, I had not been reined in to see my foul mistake, and so to seek and return to God my merciful father in Christ Jesus.  
And lastly, this contrite understanding is the only Irenaeus, he delights in peace, and therefore goeth on warily, and timorously, and feareth to frame out articles of faith, from the mould of his reason, much less to frame out oppositions against manifest truths of Scripture, or to thrust out public positions, from any private dispositions, ludere cum Deo; yea he dares not let himself be deceived with any hate, or evil opinion of good, wheresoever it is professed, lest he cometh in the end to deceive himself with a delight or good opinion of evil. In sum, he minds, and is taken up most of all, how, or by what means he may confound the devil, rather than how to confute his gainsayers, and bewail the time, that ever the simplicity of believing, should lose itself in the Labyrinths of belief, and that the word should be tam ferax religionum, so fruitful of opinions, and so barren of piety, as Lipsius once spoke; and this is to be transformed by the renewing of the mind, as the Apostle speaketh, this is contrition, in spiritu mentis, in the spirit of our mind, in the understanding.  
The second seat of contrition, is the Conscience: the nimming away of the skirts of saul's garment, and a rash wish for the waters of Bethlem; if these smote David to the heart, his conscience, if it was of so tender a touch, surely his presumptuous fact in numbering the people, and this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, especially this scarlet, or double-dyed sin, of which the Prophet Nathan rebuked him, the conscience of this heinous sin melts him away like water, as we see in this Psalm: a Psalm we may all take up, as Gregory Nazianzene did the Lamentations of jeremy, to make us weep for our sins and transgressions.  
But conscience is a part of the practice understanding, as God's Deputy sitting within to judge, to see, and censure us together with God: it is a certain secret feeling, or knowledge of our deeds, which leaveth behind it, or imprints the motions of joy, or sorrow, hope or fear, confidence or shame; it is an inward key, which unlocketh and openeth the doors and bars of our hearts, that the grieved spirit cometh forth, like good Lot out of the house of sin, and says to the man of Sodom, O deal not so wickedly.  
Now as the great Turk permits every one to live in his own religion, so they pay him in his tribute; so the conscience hardened or seared, permits the appetites to their pleasure, so it may partake; it neglects the soul, to please the sense; it prevaricates, and wilfully suppresses the true verdict or testimony, and is idle, and doth not its office, but lulls us asleep in our sin, and lays the raines on the necks of our wild and untamed lusts. Cor dilatatum, a spacious lose heart, a Chiverell conscience; and indeed, when the mind is in mere darkness, as in the state of unregeneration, or when it is overflowed or dimmed with the damp of some temptation, or wasting sin, as it may befall the godly, no marvel then if this particular knowledge be darkness too, and our inward thoughts cease from their accusing for a season; for the soul, it hath not now an actual or exercised sense and light, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Apostle speaketh, to discern the proportions of good and evil; being possessed with a spirit of slumber in any measure, so fare it is no rightful Judge, no more than the blind man is of colours: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a conscience without science, a heart like Nabals, benumbed and senseless.  
And the manner or growth of it is thus; Original sin sends out actual, and they leave a strain, a disposition to sin so again, and sinning so again, slight impressions of evil become radicate, and habitual, till the callum, the crust, deadness or security in sin comes over the soul; the buds of infirmity steal to the twigs of negligence, and they to the tyranny of custom, and then audacious and grand sins plead prescription, and like a stout tenant take no warning; and this is nervus ferreus, the iron sinew, the heart of adamant. When Camels, gross sins pass, and digest without remorse, and this our Church in her Litany deprecates most Christianly, From hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word and commandments, good Lord deliver us.  
Now the contrite conscience is the very contrary, and that it may have its beginning thus; as joab would not be moved to come to Absalon till his fields were set on fire; so we ofttimes, we have no heart, no perceiving of our estate towards God, till affliction, like fire ceaseth upon us, till with Manasses our chain, or with Hezekiah our bed of sickness, or with Mauritius death of wife and children rouse and startle us, and wring forth a holy confession, justus est Deus, & justa sunt judicia ejus. For thus the good Shepherd ofttimes sends after his sheep, poverty, persecution, sickness, and the like, to hurry them back when they go astray from him; and the heart, indeed the conscience, is in a very ill case, which ffliction cannot mollify, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, says the Apostle, Heb. 5.8. the sons of God learn obedience by the things they suffer, and for this we may learn to take well the Lords castigations, kiss the rod as often as it betides us.  
Again, we must not think much to wait at the posts of God's house continually, to listen, as David did, to his word in the mouth of Nathan, his word in the ministry of it, God useth to bless it, and to put forth his spirit with it, that with David, our heart smiteth us, we tremble with Foelix, we melt with josiah, we are pierced to the quick, like those thousands at S. Peter's Sermon; and we are rifled, and convinced in our consciences, like those in the 1 Cor. 14. Without the Law sin is dead, Rom. 7. It is not acknowledged; the word is Gladius Domini, the sword of the Lord, Heb. 4. It opens our sins to our eyes, and Malleus Domini, the Lords hammer to break our stony heart, jerem. 23.  
Wherefore Moses and Aaron being called by the Lord in the wilderness before the burning mount, he commanded them his word, and Law not to be suppressed in secrecy, but to be pitched up in the eye of all the world, even that the presumptuous heart might look on it, as Christ did on Jerusalem, with weeping eyes, to see how short he comes of that he should, and that the dissembling heart might have his paintings and colours, his faces of sanctity, thawed all by the fire of God's justice: The Word of the Lord is spirit and life, a sacred perspective it is, we may behold in it our sins of thought, desire, and deed, and thereupon see how the host of heaven, with chariots of fire, march in array, ready pressed to charge; the curse of God, how ready it is to light on us. A sight for which David's heart becometh so intenerate, that he a King, commits a Psalm to be sung here in the Church, wherein his own capital sins should be blazed to all posterity by his own confession, a sight for which S. Austen needs would, that this very Psalm should be set over his bed night and day, that with tears he might read over his transgressions, a roll whereof he hath left in his own Confessions, which is admirable to the Reader.  
And Conscience indeed is a sleeping Lion, it will awaken, in the evil hour we shall find it, our own heart than seeks occasions against us, as job speaks; and let not him think, who hath not yet the sting of his sin, that he hath not offended; it watches the conscience, till the time of most advantage; but the Lord, by this conscience of sin, awakens those to life, that are his; by this sensibleness, or accusing of the heart, he doth much in our calling to grace, and in our continuing in it; for the contrite, or wounded conscience, dealeth not with our evil motions, as Darius did with Alexander, suffer them to pass, or come over the heart, as he did the Hellespont, till they bear all before them; but like Pharaoh, that killed the infants of Israel, lest they should overgrow his Country: So the truly broken, and tender heart grows daily very conscientious of every the least sin, and taketh care therefore of the serpents in the shell, Allidere parvulos ad petram, to crush the very occasions of sin, and with S. Paul, it shaketh of the vipers from the finger's ends, at the first motion of evil, lest suggestion beget delight, and that multiply from action into custom, like the fish that swim down the streams of Jordan, in mare mortuum, into the dead sea.  
Yea, and in the midst of all our prosperities & pleasures, it is the quality of a contrite conscience, ever and anon to send us down an holy fear, as it were a bucket into the bottom of our hearts, to taste the waters, whether or no they be still, sweet, and clear, and so to preserve us from relapsing, or reciduation; I will put my fear into their hearts, that they shall not departed from me, saith the Lord, jer. 32.  
The third thing which partakes this contrition or breaking, is the will and affections; O Lord, create in me a clean heart, vers. 10. which is as if he had said; O Lord, enable me to break my will and affections from frowardness and perverseness against thy will, to which I am bound by the cords of thy word: will and affections, these are the horse and mule, that must be hold in, or broken by the bit and bridle, as David speaketh, yea, the horse may cast his rider, and himself stand upright still; but affections endanger not the soul, but by ruining themselves, as Pharaohs horse, and the riders also were drowned in the red sea: affections, these are the intestine foes, the Jebusites which fight still within our borders, yea, which rush in upon us oft times amidst our best devotions. S. Hierom in the wilderness, among all his mortifications, had enough to do to break them; and S. Basil complains, that when he had forsaken the society of men, he could not forsake his own affections, his own heart haunted him, and pursued him still: But Ishmael the son of Agar the bondwoman, when he would be oppressing the son of the free, he was thrust out of Abraham's house: The Father of the faithful gives us even in this a pattern, namely, that we break with those affections, which hinder our holy purposes, that we banish them, and bind them to their obedience and good behaviour; and this it is to sacrifice our affections, or to separate them to the Lord, when we set them apart from their old excesses, and this is Sacrificium vivum, as the Apostle calls it, the living sacrifice of a broken heart or affection, a sacrifice that liveth the better after it is offered.  
Beloved, as in a common fire, when the flames take hold of our houses, we instantly run to the rivers, to the water, to quench it: so our hearts within, our affections naturally being set on fire with hell, as S. james speaketh, what should we do, but fly to the river of contrition and repentance? This Red sea of remorseful sorrow, our spiritual Pharaoh drowns in it, with all his armies of vicious lusts, here they perish together: And as in a common siege, when the enemies rears up works or edifices to the walls of a City, and from thence shoots, and hurls fire into it, a chief remedy is to dig secret ways and passages for water under the earth unto those fabrics, that so their foundation may weaken, & fall; so a tower of Babel, of inordinate affections, being set up against our soul, and therein the Archers of Satan, Pride, Lust, Avarice, and the like, shooting the fire of sin into our hearts, let us with the Magdalene derive thither even thorough the secret veins of our hearts, floods of contrition and repentance, for this shakes the very groundwork of Satan's holds: the gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved; that I may speak in the words of the Prophet Nahum 2.6. O poenitentiae lachryma rutulantior auro, splendidior Sole, saith Anselme, O Contrition, more radiant than gold, more shining than the Sun, respicis avaritiam, horres luxuriam, and so forth; thou hatest covetousness, thou abhorrest luxury, thou breakest the power and yoke of evil affections: Thou art the axe laid to the root of the heart, thou art the Catholicon, the universal medicine, that works upon every peccant humour, thou makest us ready to part with all bad desires in obedience to the Lords command: for this godly contrition is a distaste of sin as sin, and so it is impartial against whatsoever comes, as a transgression against God. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep thy word, Psal. 119.101. Worldly sorrow hideth our ill affections, restraineth open break out, and that's all: Like the cold air, it doth but drive the disease of sin inward, Abscondit vitia, non abscindit; But godly sorrow, or contrition enters and searches, it cancels and sacrifices the evil that is in our most covert, and retired inclining, and withal it calls out repentance, it is not content to sigh in secret, it calls the heart, the affection into the eye, to weep for sin with S. Peter, and into the mouth to confess it with King David, yea, and into the hands to break it off by good works, the offices of piety and pity: Poros aperit cordis, saith S. Gregory: And the contrite affection is of all the openest, the easiest to commiserate, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, so well it is acquainted with its own evil, that who is ill affected with sin and misery, that melts not? And so respective is it to God's ire and displeasure, which it hath weighed and tasted, that the least symptom, or sign of it, upon itself or others, dissolves it into fear and trembling, and this is the circumcision of the heart, the breaking or contrition of the will and affections.  
Fourthly, to sum up all together, the heart meaneth no less here, than the soul complete, or quite thorough, Contriti cordis holocaustum, saith S. Cyprian: The perfect heart, Psal. 101. Not perfection in every part, but perfection of all the parts, Integritas animi. Create in me a clean heart, saith David: before, as in the first creation, God made man perfect in all members and parts: so in the second, in regeneration, it is a new birth, or breaking of all the powers of the soul in some good measure, and say not thou art contrite, or renewed in the eye of the soul, in thy understanding and conscience, unless it go also to thy bowels, to thy will and affections; the good heart is a broken, but not a divided heart; their heart is divided, now shall they be found faulty, Hos. 10.2. the Lord liketh not to have his right parted with the natural mother, he will part with his right rather; reason must become a captive, and conscience an accuser; will and affections flexible, and laid down at the feet of the Lord; the heart contrite, is the soul affected throughly, the word signifieth a grinding to powder, as of the corn between the millstones.  
And great reason and ground is there for this; the Lord besides his law delivered on the mount, made us in Eden a new and everlasting covenant, even that his holy son, the essential image of his person, should come in our nature, by the price of redemption paid in his blood, to reconcile us to God; so did the mighty God make a holy and special league with his mortal foe, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith the Apostle, merely for the good pleasure of his grace, and bound himself by as free promise, to make the faithful, his Church, a jointure of all the joys of heaven; yet we rebel against the most high, and lightly regard his counsels; if we look up to heaven, we see the seat indeed of a tender Father, but infinitely have we sinned against him and it; if we gasp in our trouble for the comfort of Christ his merits, the Redeemer of the world, we see how vilely our own evil words and deeds crucify him daily, and put him to open shame, grieving his spirit, quenching his gifts and abusing his very grace.  
Now the Adamant softens when warm blood is shed on it; and the blood of the Lord Jesus so graciously effused on us, and for us, the riches of this goodness should lead us to remorse, and to repent of our sins, even in love of the Lord for his mercies, yea, no slight affection, no cursory Lord have mercy upon us, should suffice us; with jeremy we should call for a cottage in the wilderness, and then broken to water, wash with tears the day wherein we were borne. And, O that the precious balms, the mercies of our Lord Jesus, the sense of what he hath done and suffered for us, should not mollify us, and make us relent; yea, let us be sick with his love, the loves of Christ constrain, as the Apostle speaketh, 2 Cor. 5. And if before time we have served and loved the Lord, even for fear of wrath; henceforth let us fear God for love, and repent, and sorrow for our sins in love, and so our contrition will become entire, and of the whole heart, because the love of God is absolute, and infinite.  
Now there be who make a trade, yea, a sport and a merriment of their sins, who can count, and chronicle their dissoluteness with delight, so fare they be from contrition and remorse, and they no doubt will laugh in their sleeves to hear of this bruising and maceration of spirit; and let the deceived world take these for godly people, jolly fellows, they shall die like men, like the beasts that perish: the Lord gave strength to the horse, and clothed his neck with thunder, saith job, he mocks at fear, and believes not the sound of the trumpet, yet if the quiver of the Lord rattle against him, he is afraid as a grasshopper. Obdurate godless spirits, whose hearts like Prometheus, grow fat and stupid in the night of their ignorance, there is a day when the Vulture of fear, and heaviness of heart shall seize and gnaw upon them, death shall feed upon the ungodly, Psal. 49. and when they come indeed in sight of death, and the fatal anchor begins to fall, that can never be weighed again, and the lusty sailors, the senses, that rowed them over the streams of carnal pleasures, stand amazed, and fail, and the waves of horror swell and break upon the cracked vessel, and the unwise Pilot reason as at the end of his wits, cryeth out with him in Seneca, Huc ego quemadmodum vens, Lord how may this be? yea, their own heart and conscience then amidst their other evils, shall return upon them like the Raven, in black and sable weeds, with the law, the curse, and all the aberrations of life in his mouth, and what tongue can tell their sorrow? Like as the chased Deer, recovering about the end of the day some little breathing, stands and listens unto the cries of them that seek his blood, and seeing the way stopped, pants, and shuts his fearful eyes, and finding his legs fail him at last, lies down, despairs, and dies; so they ofttimes, and amidst their agony, fain would give a thousand Rams, and a thousand Rivers of oil, and the fruit of their body, the choicest goods they have, to be assoiled from the sin of their soul. O consider we this, that we do not quite forget God; without contrition and repentance the Lord we see is a consuming fire, and the impenitent sooner or later, have there no peace, their hell, even upon earth: and if so, in the first day, at the day of death at least, what shall we say to the day of revelation, the day of the general judgement. Surely Kings shall repine then at the beggar's joy, and mighty Emperors shall say with Theodosius, how much better is it to have been the true member of Christ his Church, than the head of an Empire? For the Angels shall be seen then to gather up the scattered pieces of every contrite and broken heart, and to draw out to their encouragement the tears of repentance, which the Lord had treasured, or put up into his bottle, and to take quite from them the cup of trembling, and to reach it forth into the hands of all impenitents, and remorseless sinners; and so I have done with the sacrifice, The broken and contrite hear●; and proceed to the second branch of the text, the Lords gentle acceptance, O God thou wilt not despise.  
If in the conscience of sin, the broken heart tremble to appear before the Lord, and though humbled, yet feareth lest God should not accept of him, behold his Cordial, God will not despise him: Not despise him? Yea, dear shall he be in God's sight, that the Sun may not burn him by day, nor the Moon by night: For as in the Scripture there is an excess of speech, when more is spoken than is understood, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as cast out the beam that is in thine own eye: So there is also a defect of speech, when more is understood than spoken, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as despise not prophesy, the Apostle meaneth we should honour that gift of the Holy Ghost much: So here the words must be understood above the letter, and mean much more than is spoken, namely, that God will highly esteem, and comfort, and revive the spirit of the humble; for Christ his sweet allures and invitations of the laden and contrite heart to come to him, show that it is no despicable matter: a thing to be despised is fruitless, and of small use, but this oblation of David is of exceeding much validity, and therefore he calls it first, A sacrifice; an offering it is, wherewith if we approach before the Lord, we have a good evidence before us, the pledge of our peace, and remission of sins, because God hath so promised to accept of us for Christ his sake. Secondly, David calls it Sacrificia, in the plural number, Sacrifices, because a penitent heart, why this is one for all, it includes and sums up all that whatsoever it is that God accepts, it is in stead of all, no single sacrifice. Thirdly, the Prophet calls it Sacrificia Dei, the sacrifices of the Lord, of the Lord by way of Emphasis, or excellence, as Nineveh, the City of God, or the exceeding great City, jonah 3. and the trees of God are goodly Cedars, Psal. 80. and Opera Dei, the works of God, or which God approves, john 6. So the contri●e heart is the sacrifices of God, such as to God is very pleasing, an heart that reputes and believes in Christ's blood, and seeks mercy for the same; yea, though it have sinned much, is yet such a work of God, wherein God cannot but be well pleased. From the heart are the issues of life and death, it rowles the lower spheres with it; and therefore though David's eyes were adulterous, his hands imbrued, and his very lips sealed up with his sins, as we see at the fifteenth verse. Yet no sooner doth the Lord open his mouth, but his prayer is for his heart and spirit; for till God give us grace to drain that fen, or sink of evil, which is in our heart, in vain should we labour about our words, or deeds. And therefore Apollodorus in Plutarch dreamt, that his body being cut in pieces, and cast into a seething cauldron, his heart leapt up and said, Ego horum tibi causa fui, I was the cause of all this mischief. And therefore the pharisees, those old hypocrites, when they cleansed but the outside, Christ & the second Elias called them vipers, and a generation of vipers, and bid them Mundare priùs quod intùs, cleanse within first, or be sincere at heart, and humble that; for till contrition come to the heart, their religion like a mill, it moved not without the wind of vain glory; and the light of their good works, the lamp of their charity did not shine, and burn without the oil of man's praise, they had no zeal but in public, and in the corners of the street: whereas, the heart once well affected and humbled, then would they enter their closerts to pray, and seek in their devotions not their own, but God's glory, and though man would super-admire, or deify them for any their good deeds, yet the heart well touched with a sense of its own infirmity, it would retain its humility amidst the holiest and best performances, it would give back to God his due. Of such behoof is the broken heart, the issue of it is sincerity, and that is the soul of all virtue; and therefore the contrite heart is, as we see, the very centre wherein the lines of God's graces meet, and to which they run, and so it hath Gods special love and acceptation for its circumference.  
[O God thou wilt not despise.] The summons of death went out against Hezekiah, he retires like the Sun in his dial, he goeth back to the Lord, he mourns in his prayer like a Dove, he chatters like a Crane or Swallow, and I have heard thy prayers, I have seen thy tears, behold, saith the Lord, I will add unto thy days fifteen years, Isa. 38. The summons of death, the threats of God's Law and Word, were read in the cares of josiah the King, and his heart was tender, he humbled himself before the Lord, he rend his clothes, he wept sore, and the Lord sent Huldah the Prophetess, to assure him that his contrition was not despised, and he should be gathered to his fathers in peace, 2 King. 22.19. The summons of death were out against Nineveh that great City, and she relents, she fits her down in sackcloth, and turns her silks into ashes, Peers and people, none excepted, come down, è s●lio in solum: and by and by the hand of vengeance, that was waved over them, is taken aside, and the writ of blood is reversed. Surge desperatio, vade add Niniven: Now rise despair, and go to Nineveh: Think how Nineveh was not refused, though the cry of her sins went up to Heaven before the cry of her tears: And who art thou then that sayest with Spira, I cannot be saved; or with Cain, Major iniquitas, Mine iniquity is greater than God can forgive? Mentiris, Cain; Cain, thou liest, saith Austen, thy sins be they in number as the hairs of thine head, God's mercies are as the stars of Heaven, above all his works: Can we with Elias surround our sacrifice with water, our prayers and devotions with holy sorrow, for the wants and defects of our devotions; yea, if but with sorrow for not sorrowing so hearty, so earnestly as we ought, the Lord will not despise us.  
In ipsius praesentia nunquam supervacuae mendicant lachrymae veniam, saith S. Cyprian, Never did tears or true contrition beg before the Lord in vain: Nec unquam patitur repulsam contriti cordis holocaustum, And never did the sacrifice of the broken heart find repulse at the hands of God: The Israel of God that ever is fight with Ammon, and conflicting to the very Sunsetting, and the man of God that still holds up his hands and preys, life and victory is laid up for them in the bosom of Jesus Christ our Redeemer, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Col. 3. And now let him be hid to the world, and despised, that the very abjects have him in derision, his light shall break forth like the Sun, through the continual intercession of Christ for him, and all the world shall see, that God will not despise him.  
We see God's manner or method, Deducit ad inferos & reducit, When he brings a sinner to him, he leadeth him as he did the Israelites, thorough a perilous wilderness into Canaan, thorough Hell to Heaven, by mount Sinai to mount Zion, thorough painful contrition, and sorrow, and sense of his sins and corruptions, to the consolations and peace of the Holy Ghost, so that being well experienced in the miseries of his sinful estate, he shall fear to return into Egypt, the bitter impression and sting of his sins, which still remaineth, it will be a check to him from looking back again: and this may be a reason of Gods dealing with us, why he accepts the sacrifice of our hearts contrite and broken.  
But now if we shall fear to venture into the ways of repentance and godliness, for fear of losing our pleasures, and being cast upon the pains of contrition, prayer and watching, we see the vanity of that delusion, because from being Benonies sons of sorrow, the Lord maketh us to be Benjamins sons of his own right hand. From a deluge of contrition to rinse us, we come to enjoy the certificates of our peace, like his heavenly rainbow, to strengthen us. In sense of man, jobs contrition was ignis foeno, like the fire to the stubble, to undo him, or confound him; but in truth, and in the event it was ignis auro, like fire to the gold, to refine him and do him good: For his corruption we see assumeth incorruption, and this vile body riseth up a glorious body, God's tender mercy a little bounded in for his trial, like a river breaketh forth the more, at the sluices of his repentance and contrition. A broken and a contrite heart, o God, thou wilt not despise.  
Wherefore, seeing the heart contrite is so acceptable an offering to the Lord, let us from the little Spider learn here to begin our amendment, let us begin to mend our web at the middle, our contrition let us seek to bring it to the heart. A cursory confession, a formal fast, a coat of sackcloth, and the like; can these quench the flames which sin hath blown and kindled? Leave off renting your garments, saith the Prophet, and learn to unharden your hearts, the contrite heart is the oblation that God will not despise.  
The Romish Votary or Secluse, how often is her eye cast down and heavy, when her heart is an Aetna of vicious affections? How seems the Jesuit, as if with S. Paul he were crucified to the world, and the world to him, when his spirit is with Lucifer in the clouds, contriving combustions of State? How broken, abject, and vile, seem their begging Orders, being men of another mould indeed, just like the Comedians, who play and act the siege of Troy, and the tears, of Priam, without all sense or touch of that grief at the heart. True acceptable contrition runs and goes in another strain, by inward smart and groans of heart and spirit: it prays, it vows, it pours out the soul before the Lord, Lam. 2. Like the parched earth, it gasps towards Heaven, as if it would devour the clouds, it wrestleth with the Lord like jacob, with strong supplications it reputes from the very heart root, and the savour of this incense ascends before the throne of the Lord, and returns not without a blessing, yea, not without some inward pledge in the issue and experience of God's mercy and remission: The stroke of an wholly accusing guilty heart is heavy, exiccat ossa, Prov. 17. but the joy of the contrite repenting heart is incredible, it is sanitas carnium, Prov. 14. So sweet are the issues of the contrite heart, that i●… sense thereof job feeleth not the witness of man against him, because God would witness for him, job. 31. and when our hearts dare indeed witness to us, that we are contrite, or do unfeignedly repent, this makes glad the heart, and is a continual Jubilee, because it is the co-witness with God's spirit, that we are his, that God hath accepted us.  A broken and a contrite heart, o God, thou wilt not despise. 
FINIS.   

Errata.  
PAg. 10. lin. 4. for no, read not. pag. ib. lin. 35. for nured, read enured. p. 11. l 19 read cover and hide. p. ib. l. 33. for exacts, read exact. p. 14. l. 19, 20. read in that very day.