THE Divine Lantern: OR, A SERMON PREACHED IN S. Paul's Church appointed for the Cross the 17. of july M. DC. XXXVI. By THOMAS DRANT of Shaston in Com. Dorset. PSAL. 119. 105. Thy Word is a light unto my feet and a Lantern unto my paths. LONDON, Printed by George Miller, and are to be sold by Henry Hammond Bookseller in Salisbury. 1637. TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL Sr. CHRISTOPHER CLETHROW KNIGHT, Precedent of Christ's Hospital: THE WORSHIPFUL M. JOHN HAWES, Treasurer, and M. RICHARD CASWELL Sub-treasurer, and the rest of the Right Worshipful and Worshipful Governors of the said Hospital. Right Worshipful and Worshipful: NEver age did afford more variety of Sermons, more Elegancy: who will blame choice where there is store and good, or fear to Surfeit at the sight of too much, where the meat is wholesome and heavenly? Who, if not of a sour sullenness, will grudge others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Heliodori Aethiop. lib. 3. what delights, but gluts not, what at once doth ravish and profit: where is mixed utile dulci, 'tis a squeamish stomach turns at the plenty, and as rude an care, startles at all descant and harmony: My heart bubbleth out a good matter, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or if we Psal. 45. 1. read it a good word, the Original will be are us out; and indeed the intermixtures of polite phrase, gives to the matter itself, if not weight, yet ornament: divine truth must have a decent, though not gaudy dress: were it so in this, or were it that. Chariclea's zone, of which Heliodorus tells us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Aethiop. lib. 3. it might be spread before your eyes, and perhaps attract at once your view and liking: but this were a task for Apelles himself, my pencil cannot reach it: why so boldly than have I fixed your names here? I might allege the custom of the Age renet insanabile multos Scribendi cacoethes: not a Rheumatic quill, but is dropping into the press, though it drop tumors and froth only; not an idle head, but is busy at the mart, and asks in his Athenian humour, what new things? all Scribimus indocti, doctique, etc. buy, most out of lenity, all write, most out of fancy, it is not my private fault, I move in the same Orb with others: I plead not this, nor any worthiness in the piece itself, that it should look up to so high a Patronage: the life it had to please, is buried by the disadvantage of a dead letter: that which makes it Public, and now sends it to kiss your hands, is to show the world, where I have settled my Estimation and Service, where I am to pay the fealties and homage of my grateful mind: to whom are the first fruits due, but to him, who bestows the whole crop? I would not smother the publi que fruits of charity in Any, the oil of refreshing which you have poured on the heads of thousands (& quorum pars magna fui, not a few drops fell on mine) I dare not silence it, and make GOD a loser: I cannot, the whole world sees and doth bless you for it, sees the incense of your Aims, how it ascends in pillars of holy smoke into the nostrils of GOD: your names thus embalmed shall never rot: thus much I tell others, whilst I make this public address to you, pardon the rudeness of it, 'tis a testimony of your goodness, whereto I have set my hand, and a weak expression of my duty, sent you as a token of the gratitude of my heart: let him not want your candid Acceptance, who shall pray ever for your flourishing estates every way, and Pride himself to be thought Your Worship's most humbly devoted THOMAS DRANT. Recensui hanc Concionem, dignamque judico quae typis mandetur. THO: WYKES R. P. Episc. Lond. Cap. Domest. THE Divine Lantern. 1 JOHN 1. 5. GOD is Light. THE Truth still gains by Opposition, it not only bears up against the violence of Affronts, but comes of with victory and triumph: like your noble metals, it is fined by those flames, which the breath of malice hath reared to consume and waste it: what matchless Champions in all ages hath even the madness of impugners, armed to the patrociny of the faith, Holy and Cotholike? among others our Apostle is interessed in this sacred quarrel: In this whole Epistle he purposely combats Carpocrates and Epiphan. in Pana● lib 2. T●m. 2. beats down in him that prodigy of opinion: Sin we must, and but by doing the will of the devils themselves, we have no other ascent or stair, by which to mount up to glory: In this first Chapter he enters the lists with Ebion, and vindicates both Zanch. in Prolegom. from his envy and cavil, that CHRIST is from eternity GOD, one with His Father in power and everlastingness, there were Meteors too, who made a blaze of piety, but were indeed false fires and soon went out in a stinch: they ware the livery of CHRIST, but Service or Attendance, they had none for Him: what the Romans did condemn in Publicola, who praised Brutus in Plutarch in vita Publ. words, but followed Tarquin in deeds, their works did ever jar and brawl with what they spoke or taught: these our Apostle unmaskes in my Text, pricks the tumour, which swells them, and what ever dress they put on, displays them to be a Spurious brood within the pale, but no true Sons of GOD or of His Church: were they so, their looks would not speak smiles, whilst storms did surge in their breasts, they would steer as they set their compass, nor would their faces be toward Canaan, and their hearts at Ashdod: what they seem, they would be, be holy as their heavenly Father is holy, do the works of mercy, as He is merciful, tug and wrestle for perfection, as He is perfect, walk in light, as He is light, for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, GOD is Light. The words are not many, but as chrysostom that miracle of the Greek Church spoke of the Chrysost. ad pop. Antiocb. Hom. 1. like, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ they are weighty in substance, though not in bulk, as much sparkling lustre may be in a small jewel, and in a little globe, we may survey a world of countries: the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is soon said, that GOD is Light, but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how He is so, to traverse this, will be a task of more sweat: it must be mine now, and my way shall be, to show you what Light is, and withal what GOD is in relation to it: and so at once, how GOD and Light do agree in the same proprieties: in the handling whereof I shall be animated (I hope) with your most Christian patience and attention. The first quality in which GOD and Light do agree, is the imperceptibility of both. 1. The property of Light is such, as hath staggered strangely and tired the Naturalists in the search and definition of it: insomuch that some Philosophers Cap. 53. sacr. Phi. (saith Vellesius) have thought it the bodily and material part of the Godhead: GOD doth at once ask of job and stoned him: Where is the Job 38. 19 way where light dwelleth, and as for darkness where is the place thereof, that thou shouldst take it to the bounds, and that thou shouldst know the paths to the house of it. GOD is in this respect Light, His incomprehensibleness is above the pitch of all determinate capacities: What is immense how can the fleet dimensions of the mind contain it? GOD He is so. First, for time, all successions of Ages are but Immensitas divinae magnitudinis tuae ista est, ut intelligamus te intra omnia sed non inclusum, extra omnia sed non exclusum. Aug. Med cap. 30. an instant to Him, time itself but a drop of His Eternity. Secondly, for place, to Him the vast circumference of Heaven and Earth is but a point: He is no where excluded, included no where, every where and yet without expansion. We may admire and adore this infinitude, our thoughts are of too narrow a size and bore to comprehend it: and indeed GOD is for man to stand amazed and wonder at: the clogged and drossy soul can never sound Him, who is the invisible fountain of Spirits: nor is it within the reach of Art to define quidditatiuè what He is: de Deo scire Aquinas p. 1. qu. 1. art. 7. non possumus quidest: what the divine Essence is the full knowledge thereof descends not to any finite apprehension: Let others fathom this bottomless Abyss, and scorch their wings whilst they venture them about this flame; I shall not desire to see what the Cherubims saw not, who covered Esa. 6. 11. their faces with their wings, as not able to behold this glory: May I be shown the least dawning or glimpse of it, it is as much as I am capable of, more than I can look on without ecstasy and ravishment. GOD is Light, but such that non nisi purissimis Soliloq. cap. 34. oculis videri potest, in Aug. we must have pure eyes, clear above the Eagles to gaze on this Sun: GOD dwells in Light in the Apostle, but such as 1 Tim. 6. 16. no man can approach unto: brightness is before my GOD in the Psalmist, bright enough (would Psal. 18. 12. I ourface that lustre) to dazzle mine eyes, if not blind them: dark waters too, and thick clouds of the sky are His pavilion round about Him, ver. 11. dark and thick enough to keep of my dim sight that it pierce not through them: I am doubly tutored not to pry too far into this mystery, both by the gloominess that is about GOD and the Light that is in Him. Empedocles did well define GOD, who said, GOD is a Sphere, whose centre is every where, Flut. Apoth. and circumference no where: nor blame I Simom▪ des, who asked by King Hieron (as Tully tells it me) De natura deorum liber. 1. what GOD is, if after much pause and travel, he gave his reason none plust and at a bay, with a quanto diutius considero, tanto mihi res videtur obscarior, the more I sift here, the more I am giddied, 'tis a riddle I cannot unfold, a knot, I am not able to untie: no marvel, for job peremptorily▪ Touching the Almighty, we cannot find Him out: pardon Job 27. 23. the Schoolmen their dalliance with words, they bias aright for the main: three things, they say, are without the verge of a definition: One the Philosophers materia prima the first womb of all things, this they define not, ob summam informitatem, Petr. Galat. de arcanis cathol verit. lib. 2. cap 1. for it is informity and rudeness; the second is sin, the first spoil of all things, this they define not ob summam deformitatem, for it is mishapen deformity: the third is GOD, the first wellspring of life in all things; Him they define not, ob summam formositatem, because of that beauty, the least beam of which puts out all inferior and borrowed lights. Something we may and aught to know of GOD, Heaven and life depend upon it, as death and hell on a muffled ignorance: This is eternal life to know 1 Joh. 4. 13. thee the only true GOD, and whom thou hast sent JESUS CHRIST: but, O GOD, quis cognovit te, nisi tu te, as Saint Augustine sweetly: we may read over all the volumes of thy works, and turn over every leaf of thy Word, we may search after thee, as with Crescent light, in every angle of Heaven and Earth, after all our queries of thy Majesty, 'tis well if we know this, that Sola trinitas tua, soli tibi integrè nota est. Aug. Soliloq. cap. 31. Something we learn of GOD in the School of nature; every creature hath a trumpet in his mouth to proclaim Him; In these we see Him, as in a glass, saith Saint Paul; we read Him too 1 Cor. 13. 12. as in a book, not a page whereof is unwritten on, Basil. Hom. 11. Hexam. not a line but dictates us a divinity Lecture; we hear Him as in a harp, not a string of it can be touched in so sweet an harmony, without an infinite GOD: and saith Saint Athanasius, we view Athan. Orat. contr. Idola. Him as in a picture: even the beasts in job, wear His stamp and image, Ask the beasts and they shall tell thee, that the hand of the LORD hath Job 12. 7. wrought them: Anaxogoras being asked wherefore man was made, made answer to behold the Heavens, and did he, what miracle and power might he behold in them? not a Star spangles there, but is a Preacher and Herald to the Majesty of its Maker: When I consider the Heavens (saith David) the works of thy fingers, the Moon and Psal. 8. 4. Stars, that thou hast ordained, What is man? He so speaks of their excellency, as if no streams or rivers of Eloquence could express them: pictures, some say are the books of Idiots, which lead the gross conceit to GOD, not without delight and pleasure; such an image is the world, not an ignorance so dull, but by the pedagogy of it may be brought to know GOD, so much of him, as to strip Rom. 1. 20. even Heathens of excuse. Something we may know of GOD, from the standing Oracle of His-Word, enough to perfect 2 Tim. 3. 16. us to every good work: this is Jacob's well in Orig: in Mat. contra celsum. Origen, whence all draw the waters of life, not only jacob and his Sons, the high-built apprehensions, but also the cattle and sheep the low-rooft capacities: 'tis a river of clear waters in Gregory, fluvius est, in quo agnus peditat, & Elephas Greg. Epist. ad Leand. natat, where be shallowes for Lambs, and depths for Elephants: what the large Manuscript of the universe could not, the Tomes of holy writ, have discovered of the Deity: the Co-eternity of the Son of GOD with the Father, the procession of the HOLY GHOST from both, the unity of the three in one uncreated Essence, who ever saw through the dark spectacles of nature? all essential truths, so far as salvation is linked to the knowledge of them, we see clearly by the light of the Scriptures, which (as saith David) are a light Psal. 119. 105. 1 Pet. 1. 19 to our feet, and a light shining in a dark place, Clem. Alexan. Protr. p. 25. saith Peter: they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, candles that never go out in Clemens now, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an universal light to all anon. This Light shows to every man, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of our holy faith, that the mysteries of it are divine and true, but fully to no man the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the reason or manner, how they be so: I know with Augustine that GOD is unitas divinitatis, personarum pluralitate Meditat. cap. 30. multiplex, that there is a glorious Trinity in Unity, in which the Father is to be adored as being altogether of Himself, the Son to be glorified Hooker lib. 5. Sect. 5. Eccles polit. as that Consubstantial Word, and the HOLY GHOST ever to be blessed and magnified, as that Coessential Spirit eternally proceeding from both: I know not, 'tis a depth I dare not dive it, how there is one Essence of three persons, or three Lumb Sent. 1. d 34. a. 5. persons of one Essence, and yet not one GOD of three persons, or three persons of one GOD; that GOD hath a Son equal with Him out of the womb of everlastingness, GOD essentially as He, I believe this: but how He who made the world was borne, how a Son and yet one eternal with the Father, or not after Him in time, here I say with Ambrose in Lombard, mens deficit, Sentent. lib. 1. d. 9 a. 8. vox silet, non mea tantum, sed & Angelorum: how can I but be dumb, where the tongues of Angels stutter? how not entranced, when the glorious Cherubims clap their wings? for who shall declare His generation? that the HOLY GHOST Esa. 53. 8. is not the Father's alone, nor the Sons alone, but proceeds equally from both, I subscribe here, Sentent. lib 1. dist. 10. a. 1. & d. 12. a. 3. how this Spirit of Truth comes from the Father, and is of one substance with Him, yet may not be said to be borne, nor called the Son of GOD, or how the Son of GOD comes from the Father, yet may not be said to proceed, nor be called the HOLY GHOST, Augustine here makes a proud knowledge strike sail to a devout ignorance: distinguish betwixt that generation there, and this procession here, nescio, non valeo, non sufficio, I S Aug. in Lumb ubi Supr. know not, I cannot, it is not within the kenn of my skill: And what Vaticans have we read, what Antiquity have we traded with, or had commerce with? what Histories? what fasts have pined us, what prayers have we breathed out, that we should stand and not shake when the grand pillars of the Church shrink, or unlock those mysteries the Seraphins have no key for? canst thouby searching find out GOD, or know the Almighty unto Job 11. 7. perfection? let it be the pride of others to tread this maze, I shall as soon measure Heaven with my span, or weigh the smoke, or catch the wind in a seive, or shadow the Sun with my palm: as soon I will plow the waters, and sow my hopes there; for as thy judgements, O LORD, so thy Psal. 36. ver. 6. nature is a great depth. Most men crack of their knowledge of GOD, and whereas Saint Paul rapt up into Heaven saw things he could not speak, these will speak things they never saw: 'tis indeed the Epidemical disease of the Age, we had rather be Rabbis than Saints, rather eat of the tree of knowledge, than the tree of life; nor care many to loose GOD in the practic exercise of piety, whilst they seek Him in the speculative niceties of the Schools: GOD looks for, I dare say, more conscience than most men have, asks less science than most men brag of: knowledge, 'tis true, is the soul's eye, the mistress to guide the life to virtue, a Mercury to point the road to goodness: when it doth so, I prise it above Rubies, and say, the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gaine-thereof than fine gold: but Prov. 3. 14. that which fires the brain, warms not the heart, which disjoined from grace doth float in some frothy notions, and seek the applause only of a dexterous wit and voluble tongue; who would fraught his ship with such drossy oar, or stay for that jail, which cannot waft him to Heaven? in that day, when all knowledge shall vanish away, 1 Cor. 13. 8. where will be the scribe, where the disputer, where the wise? a dram of devotion will then outweigh a pound of discourse, one work of mercy turn the scale to the whole library of Aristotle: Some talk over the series and descents of all times, as if they had been made with the first Adam, and with such perfumed breaths, in such richness of language, as if myrrh and pearls dropped from their lips, but at that Assize, the laurel and crown will be charities: Come ye blessed, I was naked and ye clothed me, I was hungry and ye fed me, I Mat. 25. 34. was sick and ye visited me. What ever tympany of knowledge swells others; grant me, O LORD, to know thee savingly; So inspire us all, as to obey thee in thy Word, not curiously pry into thy nature; what ever Art we would be graduates in, thou standest in the forefront of the School, and bidst us learn thee first, ere we turn over a new leaf? but how learn thee? learn to awe thee for thy power, to trust thee for thy truth, to dread thee for thy justice, to depend on thee for thy providence, love thee for thy mercies, fear thee for thy love, reverence thee for thy goodness, and for thy tender compassions, take the cup of salvation, and sing praise unto thee: we beg not to see thy face, nor view thee as thou art, Moses, that standard of examples could not; thy backparts are enough, the least twilight or ray of thee enough to seal up our happiness unto us and enhance it: thy Name is so apparelled with Majesty, such mystery is shrined in it, that it Tertull lib. de Trinit init. pag. 197. is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with some, ineffable, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with others, indicible, with many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, ineloquible, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with all, obscure and unknown what it is: what brightness than is in thyself, O GOD, what mists too about thee? I say no more, thou art Light, and because so great a Light, not to be seen of any: and thus much of the first property, betwixt GOD and Light, the imperceptibility of them both. The second property betwixt GOD and Light 2. is the delight someness and comfort of either. Light is a most lovely and amiable quality, haud scio an rerum coelestium ulla sit excellentior luce, So Scaliger: Exercit. 71. it beautifies Heaven itself, the Sun would be but a blind heap, but for the light of the Sun: GOD from this treasury would enrich the whole Gen. 1. 14. world, and therefore made it the store-house of Light in the Creation: the day, which is the child of Light, Plato will have it so called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to long after, let the Preacher interpret the Etymon; Eccles. 11. 7. Light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dion. Chrys. Orat. 4. to behold the Sun, the worth of this benefit they can truly prise who live in disconsolate dungeons, fast bound in fetters and irons: what were the world without it? how confused? how formelesse? what more comfort in it, than in the grave? what joy can I have, asks blind Tobit, when I sit in darkness and do not see the Light of Heaven. GOD is in this respect Light, the Light and serenity of His countenance, is the only happiness of man; in His favour is life, Psal. 30. 5. His living kindness is better than life, Psal. 63. 3. What is a bundle of Myrrh between the breasts, what a Cant. 1. 12, 13. cluster of Cypress in the vineyards of Engedi, such is GOD to atrue Christian heart, His love laid close unto it, and His grace spread abroad there, like aromatic odours in a house, or in the bosom, with what unimaginable refresh is it cheered? how sweetened with a divine fragrancy? no powders of the Merchant smell so, the world yields not a breath, but 'tis stinch unto it, how pleasant soever insent to a carnal sense: these are those perfumes and unguents the Spouse speaks of; because of the savour of thy good ointments, Thy name is an ointment poured out, therefore the Virgins Cant. 1. 2. love thee: the Hebrews observe, that those four letters which make up the name JEHOVAH, that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that mighty Name of GOD, are litter aequiescentes, letters of rest: and this inference Zanch▪ de natura Dei, lib. 1. cap. 13. Fagius extracts thence, In GOD alone is the rest, repose, tranquillity of all creatures: He is that haven of rest, where till we arrive in our spirits, we are mazed in endless wanderings, tortured on the rack of self vexation, our desires know no shores or bottom: the glorious Trinity alone, who made it, fills the heart with gladness, every Acts 14. 17. roo●●●ond angle of it, leaves not a chink for distractions to creep in; for how can a sparkle of them fall on that breast, where to quench it is a fountain of living waters, and fullness of joy flowing thence: whilst we are in our corruptible rags of earth, our soul will be irregular and erratike, like the planets in their Epicicles, there will be winds to raise storms in it, like Noah's Dove, she finds not amidst the swelling tides of this world whereon to stay her feet: when dismantled of the clogging flesh, she shall be satisfied with the fatness of GOD'S House, and filled with the rivers of His pleasures, when united unto GOD, who is the Ocean of all true happiness, it shall lie down in the lap of eternity, it will then be pleased and quiet, there will be no storm or tempest in it, it will rest in GOD'S everlasting rest: O GOD what are the heavens without Light, what are our bodies without a soul, what are our souls without thee? Thou, O GOD, art our rod and staff of comfort, the joy and bliss of our souls, how should they long afterthee, and the fruition of that happiness thou hast richly stored up for those who seek thee and it: but alas we seek thee not, nor care to find thee, but in our gardens of pleasure, or wardrobes of vanity, or aware houses of profit, or tables of surfeit, or cellars of drunkenness, or offices of bribery, or parlours of wantonness; I had almost said, but in the stews of impurities, the brothels of lewdness, or Acheldama the field of blood, we are no company for GOD: Some say to the wedge of gold thou art our confidence, and do base homage to that, which should be the worst drudge; Some roll on the floods of pleasure, nor did Cleopatra vie a more costly health to her Mark Antony, than what they let down their throats, into the Charybdis and Scylla of our Laert. de vita Phillip lib. 6. life, the belly, as Diogenes styled it▪ Some like brutes look downward, nor know any other joy, than what is in the shadow and froth of things transitory, these are the men of this world, whose portion Psal. 17 14. is in this life only, O what fools are we to cast away our souls upon such gauds and trifles! to lose an eternal kingdom for toys & vanities, to chaffer Heaven for Earth, as sottish Indians truck away Oar for glass: heap up all the riches of the world in one pile, till they reach the stars▪ charm up all the delights of the world into one circle, and enjoy them freely; there's a desire in man which looks over them as things fleeting and transient, as bark and shell only, without pith or substance of true solace, such as can neither satiate, or stay. First, they have nothing solid in them, they are Non sunt solidae, non fideles, etiamsi non nocent, sugiunt. Senec. Epist. 27. ad Lucil. meats of a washy and fluid nature, which or slip through the stomach without concoction, or if they digest, 'tis into raw and noisome crudities: who carouse deepest of pleasures, shall vomit them up again, or if they stay, they will be the gall of Asps within: thoughts that stream toward wealth, cataracts and rivers are but draughts enough for them: quod naturae satis est, homini Seneca Epist. 119. ad Lucii. non est: the grave Moralist speaks it of Alexander, who had swallowed up Darius and the Indies, and yet in those floods did thirst, and in that surfeit was hungry: the land with her Minerals of gold, the Sea with her shipwrecked treasure, nature in her rich store-house, had not wherewith to quench the flame of his desire; inventus est qui concupisceret ali quid post omnia, that huge vastness of appetite is now found, which craves somewhat after all things: I speak this among those, to whom wealth hath flown in that abundance, as not to satisfy alone, but amaze, who send ships of Tarshish to the West for gold, and such spices from the East in the Navy of Hiram: the blessing of Heaven hath showered opulency into your laps, be content and thankful, else you know whose it is, He that loveth silver, shall not be satisfied with Eccles. 5. 10. silver, nor he that loveth abundance with increase. Secondly, there is nothing sure in them; you that lad yourselves with thick clay, you that swim in a sea of voluptuousness, let me ask with the Prophet, How long? the bowls, pleasure Hab. 2. 16. quafs in, may please the palate for a round or two, but the lees are at hand, even her best cordials Plus Aloes, quam mellis habet. juven. Satyr. 6. have some tart ingredients in them, and whatever honey they are in the mouth, they are bitterness in the belly: Solomon once feasted his ears with music, and his taste with wine, and his eyes with whatever they desired; here's all Comedy to the last Scene, which is shut up with I said of laughter it Eccles. 2. 2. is mad, and of mirth what doth it: the pomp of riches is brickle, like your globes of Crystal, the least touch cracks them: the Wise man one while curtailes them only of Eternity, Riches are Pro. 27. 24. not for ever, elsewhere he shoots home to their fleetingnesse, Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that Pro. 23. 5. which is not? Sure riches make themselves wings, they fly as an Eagle toward Heaven: there is a gadding vein in money, which makes it ever and anon to shift masters, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ Pythag. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. in Pythagoras, 'tis a trick it hath, now to fawn, and anon to be coy, and who would weary himself to hunt the wind? The Cosmopolite without my envy shall grasp this cloud, nor will I fret at the Epicure & his earthly paradise: Say thou, O LORD, unto my soul, I am thy portion in the land of the living, it is enough to bless and raise me above those icy hills of joy, whence our earthworms, Senec Epist. 119. ad Lucil. Idem de brevit. vitae cap. 16. whilst they climb them, not slip only but tumble: Absolute content dwells not here below; what we here traffic for, is but Alchemy and daubing: were we Monarches of the world, and retinued with all the Equipage of greatness, all were but bracteata faelicitas, copper leaved with gold, a bugel at best or glassy carcanet, which if we finger, we break it: An apple of Sodom, josephus de bello judaico, lib. 5. cap. 5. which we may eye not taste, unless our bread should be Ashes, for such a touch makes them: A false light, such as betrays our Seamen to rocks and shelves, and as it leads, shipwrecks them: A fresh brook of water, which may dance and sport a while in her crystal channel, but falls into a mare mortuum, a sea of gall and wormwood: for knowest thou not that it will be bitterness 2 Sam. 2. 26. at the latter end: GOD is that Ocean, into which all the rivers of a full delight do run: He the fruit of that Eden, whose alone smell is all pleasure, whose taste is life: He that Spring and Source of true felicity, which all souls pant after, and of which who drinks shall never thirst: He that clear Sun, where all the light of grace and glory is centred, and which no Eclipse can darken: O give us of the fruits of that Orchard, O lead us to those waters of comfort, O be thou our star to the Heaven of happiness: Thou, O LORD, who mad'st the Light without a Sun, and than madest the Sun to be the chariot of that Light! O be thou our Sun, that all our Light may be gathered unto thee, be thy presence our Light, that we may shine like the Sun in beauty; whilst thou art our Light, we can never want beauty, whilst thou art our Sun, we can never want Light: for thou art Light. And thus much of the second property betwixt GOD and Light, the delightsomeness and comfort of them both. The third property in which GOD and Light agree is their unblemished purity and fairness. Light is a quality most clear, most pure, most unblemished, that especially, whose emanation being from a body most simple and free from mixture, the Philosophers entitle celestial: hence perhaps it is, that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 affies somewhat with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which Macrobius in the first of his Saturnals, taketh for the Sun, the Prince of the Planets of Heaven, the fountain and alone mine of Light. GOD is in this respect Light: that perfection of purity which shines in Him, no clouds of error, no mists of impieties can obscure or shadow: a lustre of holiness shows itself in the glorious Deity, such whereto the fairest beauty of Angels is a ball of darkness: So those glorious Hierarchies themselves in their mutual cry; Holy, Holy, Esa. 6. 1. Holy, is the LORD of Hosts: the holiness of Saints, though a fair body of brightness, is but a beam of this, and influenced from it: GOD only is by nature pure, in the abstract purity, and His is the praise and glory of it in the sweet singer of Israel; Exalt the LORD our GOD, and worship Psal. 99 9 at His holy hill, for the LORD our GOD is holy: and therefore as He is Light here in my Text, so in Saint james He is the Father of Lights, James 1. 17. the rays of which did He not dispense unto us we were in darkness, more palpable than those groping Egyptians, more hellish than hell itself: what ever midnight is below with man, there is all noonday with GOD above, what ever darkness is under His feet, there is all brightness before His face, and such as damps all other: it is no Hyperbole in job, Behold the Moon and it shineth Job. 25. 6. not, yea the Stars are not pure in His sight: there is beauty in the Stars, more in the Sun, from whose Magazine of Light they borrow theirs: O how incomprehensibly glorious is that Light which is in thee O LORD! who couldst create Lights to give such glory to thy work-manship! these even the brute creatures may behold, those not the very Angels. GOD is Holy, Three in one, all three but one GOD, and all holy in that Anthem of the four beasts: Holy, Holy, Holy LORD GOD Almighty, Revel. 4. 8. which was, and is, and is to come: whom these beasts emblem, whether the four Evangelists, as Haymo, Ribera, and others, or four Angels who In Locum. for their more noble employments are set 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in regard of the rest, is a question may giddy, not better me. Saint Augustine's gloss hath more of pith and juice in it: Vnum JEHOVAM celebrant, Aug de fide ad Pet cap. 1. repetendo unum & idem (Sanctus) trinum agnoscunt, ter repetendo, quod uni tribuerunt: they acknowledge one GOD, whom they esteem only holy, and a Trinity they acknowledge in that blessed Unity of the Godhead, whilst they repeat thrice Holy, Holy, Holy: GOD the Father is Holy: with this inscription the Bethshemites could blazon Him: Who is able to stand before this Holy LORD GOD? 1 Sam. 6. 20. GOD the Son is Holy, Gabriel as both His Priest and Herald, at once christens Him and proclaims it; that Holy thing which shall be borne Luke 1. 35. of thee, shall be called the Son of GOD: So is the HOLY GHOST, witness that royal title in daniel's vision, in which the Ancients interest Him, as by whom is the unction of holiness the most Dan. 9 24. Holy: Some things are holy by Creation as Angels; bless the LORD ye His holy Angels, that Psal. 103. 20. excel in strength: Some things by communication, as the Elect, who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Saint 1 Cor. 1. 2. Paul phraseth it, called to be Saints: Some things by dedication, as His Temple, O worship the LORD in the beauty of Holiness: Somethings are Psal. 84. 7. holy for use, as the creatures, Moses branded with uncleanness some of them, but Adam caused it, by his sin filth was poured on all: CHRIST hath wiped out this legal impurity, and lodged under one roof, whole hooves and cloven: if the Jews were than a holy people, the Gentiles are Deut. 14. 2. now a holy Nation: it is true of men, beasts, things, all creatures, through the four corners of the earth, are clean and holy, and this was taught 1 Pet. 2. 9 us by Saint Peter's great sheet, let down by four corners from Heaven, but made good by CHRIST, who pulling down that Screen or wall of partition between them, hath taught us not to call any thing unclean which GOD hath cleansed: when julian poisoned the wells, the shambles, the fields, with his heathenish lustrations, the Christians (says my Antiquary) drank Theod. Hist. Eccles. lib. 3 freely of them, and by virtue of Saint Paul's Quicquid in macello: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, nothing unclean is S. Peter's rule, at least with Saint Paul's paraphrase, munda mundis, if myself be clean, I read this posy on what ever I use, Holy: if otherwise, my clothes (saith job) shall make me filthy. Job 9 31. All things are in themselves in some degree Holy, GOD alone is holiness itself: So those Heavenly Musicians chant it: Who shall not fear Revel. 15. 4. thee, O LORD, and glorify thy Name, for thou only art Holy: who would not set this Sampler before him, to work by, who would not write after so fair a copy? thus to do we are pressed by a Summons from above; be ye Holy, for I am Holy: Levit. 11. 44. I say not, Absoluta aequalitate, but similitudine: GOD'S perfection is above the Heavens, we cannot Job 11. 7. reach it, imitate it we must, though the best fall short of the pattern, 'tis here as in the stars; those of lesser magnitude have light in them, the greatest shine brighter, yet these are dim to the Sun: the holiness of Saints is beneath that of Angels, the holiness of Angels not at the same height with that of CHRIST'S glorified humanity, and this infinitely below the loftiest pitch of holiness, which is GOD: Strive we must to be holy as GOD is, not that we can equal our example, but to arrive at what perfection we may, and we are capable of: Strive we do, some for health, more for riches, and not a few here for gay clothes: but holiness, the salve of sins, the wealth of Saints, the robe of Angels, who strives for this salve, more sovereign than all the ointments of the Apothecary, this wealth more precious than the rocks of most pure Diamond, this robe more glorious, than all the wardrobe of Solomon: the Hypocrite much cackles of purity, when all is shell and rottenness; one who worships GOD in public, and at home cares not for him, who prays often, and his heart knows not, whether his lips go, who will have all good about him, and be himself the worst thing he hath: the mere Moralist breaks gloriously, and at his first rise outshines the morning light, but a storm clouds him at noon, or like Hezekias' Sun, he goes back many Theod. Hist. lib. 3. cap. 2, 3. degrees in the dial, or like julian, full of hope and piety in his first years, a Nero in his end, all massacre and villainy; or as the four Ages in the Poet, the first gold, as the head of that image in Hesiod. opera & dies. lib. 1. Daniel, the last, as the feet, clay or worse, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: the true Saint, is Antipode and treads cross to them both, he is for the life, not paint of holiness, nor till the game is his, gives he o'er the chase, he mistakes not the goal, nor till he wins it, lags of, with Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he doth press Phil. 3. 14. hard towards the mark, and says, cloth me with righteousness, O LORD, I prise it above clothing of wrought gold, and those garments that smell of myrrh and richest powders of the Merchant: one mite of grace is worth a talon of bravery, the sackcloth of a Saint more glorious than the purples of a glutton: raiments of needlework and precious imagery are for King's Palaces on earth, without the white stoles of godliness we shall never look into those courts, where dwells the King of glory: Blessed are the pure in Math. 5. 8. heart, for they shall see GOD; nor those, who are pure in their own eyes, who about the froth of their own brains, dare rend the peace of the Church, and war for the airy projections of their giddied heads, as if Heaven and Earth were little enough to be mingled in the quarrel; the holiness, without which we shall not see GOD, is that of the heart, not the lip; write, O LORD, upon these flinty hearts of ours, holiness unto thyself, give us but a drop from thy Ocean, for thou art all holy, one glimpse from thy Sun, for thou art all Light. GOD is all beauty, as the Spouse in the Canticles, Cant. 1. 16. My beloved, behold thou art fair and pleasant: O how should the love of Him inflame us! how ravish us out of ourselves! Amiableness is the object of love, and what things are fair are gracious, and sweetly win our souls to desire them: 'tis beauty in all things doth allure or rather entrance us: whiteness in the Lily, red in the Rose, purple in the Violet, the purity of the marble, the sparkling of the pearl, the silver scales of fishes, the matchless colour of birds, the congruous symmetry of parts in beasts: here we gaze ourselves into wonder, and cry out as in a trance, O the wonderful works of GOD, that such glory should dwell with corruption! O think than what celestial excellencies are in those courts above, where is no need of the clear light of the Moon, or the Revel. 21. 23. bright beams of the Sun, to enlighten them, what inexpressible glory is in GOD Himself, whose glory is the Light of those heavenly Tabernacles! if beauty, which, though it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Theocritus, yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is his verdict of it, if it be naturae gaudentis opus, a privilege of nature, or her wit put into the frontispiece, as Plato; if a dumb comment or still Rhetoric, that persuades without speech, as in Theophrastus, if an accurate Epistle written in the court hand of Heaven, for the praise of the creature as Lucian, if the only loadstone Dial. Amor. or compass to attract, and draw love unto it? How should our hearts cleave unto thee O LORD! How our souls be enamoured of thee! If you will have a perfection drawn out to the life, you have it in Cant. 5. 10. My beloved is white and ruddy, the standard-bearer of ten thousand: nature did never frame such a feature, nor did ever such mixtures kiss in any other cheek, no art can counterfeit such colours of holiness, no pencil reach to express a contexture of such delicacy; the very report of it wounds to the heart all foreign Assemblies, they ask, and with darted bosoms: O thou fairest among women whether is thy Cant. 5. 17. well-beloved gone, whether is thy well-beloved turned aside, that we may seek Him with thee? Since thy Bridegroom (O thou worthy Spouse of such a Husband) is so divine a frame of beauty, may we join with thee in the quest of Him, a holy fire Cant. 8. 6. burns in our breast, much water cannot quench it. We have all of us doted too long on the surphuld face of this world, too much prized the artificial complexioned pleasures of it: nor will we yet know that our structures of Cedar and Vermilion, our garments of tissues and embroideries, our tables of junkets and delicacies, our couches of ease and Ivory, our coffers thronged with gold, all our pomp here, is but paint and garishness, the world itself but a decayed piece of deformity: O that Troy should flame for such a wrinkled Helen, or man's soul for such a gaudy nothing be endangered to eternal fire! Open thou our eyes, O LORD, that we may see those glorious shinings, which come from thy divine self: So beauteous an Aspect will be Spell enough, to chain our hearts unto thee: Constantius, when he came in triumph to Rome, than the mirror and mistress of the world, and beheld there, the Rostra, the Capitol, the Baths, the Amphitheatrum, the Pantheon, the Theatre of Pompey, the marketplace Ammianus Marcellinus. lib. 16. of Trajan, and other her works like Babel, so high, ut eo vix aspicere humanus oculus possit, that the eye of man could scarce climb up unto them; it did not a little amaze him, that nature should empty all her riches, and even impoverish herself on one city: the Kings of the earth, when they were gathered together to the city of GOD, the mountain of His holiness, and joy of the whole earth: they saw it, saith the Psalmist, and so they Psal. 48. 5. marveiled, they were troubled and hasted away: if earthly objects can so enchant us to fear and wonder, how should heavenly ones enamour us to love and rapture! GOD especially, the least gleam of whose infinite purity, excels as far all light and holiness of the creatures, as Light itself doth the pitchiest darkness: for GOD is Light, and in the close of this verse, in Him there is no darkness at all. And thus much of the third property 'twixt GOD and Light, the fairness and beauty of both. Light is an enemy unto darkness, at the approach 4. of it darkness flies, they cannot be wrought to an agreement, they never meet without a fight and opposition: to dehort us from the works of darkness, because they are perpetrated against the Father of Lights, is the But and White, our Apostle here levels at: your garb and profession calls you the children of the day, those characters, which are writ on your face, speak you the Sons and Daughters of Light; why than are those opera tenebrarum of your retinue, why not cashiered? if you are of GOD'S family, sin must not be of yours: for sin is darkness, GOD is Light: GOD than is in this respect Light: Sin hath in it an Egyptian fog, GOD hates it, nature was never capable of the like Antipathy: the works of sin, are the works of darkness, for the parent of them is the Prince of darkness, whose Ephes. 6. 12. Coloss. 1. 13. 1 Thess. 5. 5. kingdom is a kingdom of darkness, whose walks are the walks of darkness, and the Actors of them, are the children of darkness, who sit in darkness and Esa. 9 2. in a deadly shade: Now GOD is Light and darkness thwarts with His nature, and therefore betwixt them there must needs be a war and feud more than mortal: we need no Herald to trumpet it, 'tis done, Psal. 5. 4. Thou art not a GOD that Psal. 5. 4. hast pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with thee: Who ever drank of the cup of the LORD, and the cup of devils? Can the Ark and Dagon be housed under one roof, as if an insensible statue were a fit mate for a living GOD? Can the same heart be a Sacrary for the Holy and un-holy ghost? Or will CHRIST have His Chapel where belial hath his Synagogue? The purity of GOD and man's sin are at a more remote distance, nor can they more meet, than parallel lines in the Mathematics, no more than the two poles may kiss, or a Camel be streind through the eye of a needle and not split it: 'tis a question without an aenigma, nor need we an Oedipus to unriddle it; Shall the throne of iniquity Psal. 94. 20. have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief as a law? It never shall, the Sun shall before drop from Heaven and shine to the land of darkness, that Starre-eyde Canopy o'er our heads shall first become dull earth; Heaven and Earth shall be sooner mingled as in that first Chaos: the word is spoken, nor is there any witchcraft to conjure it back: The face of the LORD is against them that Psal. 5. 6. do evil, to cut off their remembrance from the earth: Cornelius Agrippa hath drawn us a large Catalogue of strange effects in nature, of Antipathies and blind discords betwixt stones, plants, beasts; whose proper and radical cause being unknown, Lib. 1. de occulta Philos. cap. 18. the Academiks did ascribe their virtues to Platonike Idaeaes', Avicen to the rule and presidency of Angels, Hermes to the influence and aspect of planets; some to the joint work and concurrence of all causes: there are between GOD and the wicked, rents and wide breaches not to be made up; these He marks out for vengeance, His Artillery is ever in readiness, His arrow on the string and at their very boosomes: but why this opposition? What unluckey constellations have fore-signed them to it? we need not gaze upward, there is an evil star within them, whose malevolent influence works all: GOD is pure, pure beyond rocks of Marble, or coasts of Jasper, or the Orient and sparkling majesty of Pearl, these are all vile, very Spirtles of uncleanness, dunghills of filth, vessels brimmed up with iniquity: GOD is all Light, no beauty of Angels, no mirrors of crystal can match it: these are all darkness, a very dungeon and loathsome den of evils: Now what communion hath light with 2 Cor 6. 14. darkness? did this darkness ever usurp the same eye, where that Light dwelled: contraries in their abstract are out of all composition; the lightsome air may become dark, but make Light darkness, no Limbick or extract can do it; as health cannot be sickness▪ though an able body may languish into craziness: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ no Arist. lib. 1. Phys. cap. 9 league betwixt things in their own nature opposite, nor doth their combat cease but in the not being of the one: fire and water, truth and falsehood, Light and darkness, GOD and sin, can never be made friends, not brought so much as to parley or interview: For thou art of purer Hab. 1. 13. eyes, O LORD, than to behold evil, neither canst thou look on iniquity. Here is that Pandora's box, whence all evils do fly; those arrows which drink up the blood, that sword, which eats up the flesh, that pestilence which cleaves to the bones: here is the stock, on which grow all those miseries, which environ man, his sins, which work him into the frown of Heaven, the hatred of GOD, thou hatest all workers of iniquity: and Psal. 5. 6. whom▪ He hates, He will bruise them as with a sceptre and rod of iron: 〈◊〉 comes, justissimè Lips. de constant. lib. 2. cap. 16. para semper est: if sin march in the front, punishment will be in the rear, who foster this in their breasts, Nemesis shakes her rod at their backs: Some or drink disease to their bodies▪ or feast them into surfeits, as the voluptnous; Some muffled in a non-imploiment, and lying still, rot their souls into stinch and noisomeness: as the idle; Some like vultures fly over meadows, and fall on carrions, not touch what is found in others, and light on their sores, as the detractor; some will be rifling the altar, and as the Eagle snatch a morsel thence though they fire their nests, as the Sacrilegious Avarice inflames some▪ others pleasure's engulph, some lust disjoints, others rancour envenoms, some are madded with rage, others blown up with pride: the Tragedian as if his bosom had been divinely influenced▪ could doom it of the last, and 'tis true, of all— Sequitur ulior a tergo Deus, vengeance Senec. Herc. Fur. Act. 5. dogs them at the heels, GOD holds a a dagger at their hearts, and is ready to sheathe it in their bowels: the least grain of evil is enough to poise down the soul to the lowest hell: I am yet to learn what those venial sins are, which we need not rinse of with our penitent Desen. Concil. Trident. lib. 3. tears in Andradius, nor for them fall down at the footstool of mercy, with a Forgive us our trespasses▪ as the Rhemists: Sure I am that Saint Basil once asked in earnest, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Ad Rom. cap. 7. v. 8. who dares say of a sin it is little, when the least is able to plunge him into the bottomless pit▪ Who would judge that leak small, which sinks the vessel, or that a slight wound, which gives a sudden i●●●● to death? the rain that falls in small drops▪ makes the earth miry, our drislingst slips, bedash and dirty the soul, which spots, fire shall wash away, if penitence do not. As Saint Paul says to the Corinth's, would GOD ye could suffer me a little: many have sung Panegyrics hence, my tune is to wail out an Epicedium: This Island of ours may be called August. de Civit. Dei Liber. 8. cap 23. the▪ Image of Heaven, (as Mereurius Trismegistus spoke of Egypt) This City, the Temple of the Island: What complaints have been in her streets? One cries out of hunger, as Esua, another of treacherous friends with the Psalmist, a third, of that eavesdropping or tame fury, a bad wife, as job: One is pained in his belly with the Prophet, another in his head, with the Shunamites Son, a third in his bowels, with Israel: this man Jer. 4. 19 mourns as a Dove, in the courts of his house, that Isa. 28. 4. chatters as a Swallow on his house top, I will weep bitterly, a third protests with Isaiah: and wishes a fourth with jeremy, O that my head were Jer. 9 1. waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears! Not a few, put▪ up their moan with the Psalmist, O LORD thou feedest us with the bread of tears, Psal. 80. 5. and givest us tears to drink in great measure: these have been your City cries, yet not so loud as the cry of your sins, but I spare you here: the days can tell you, when this populous and (what Cine as apud Plutar. in Pyrrho. the Epirot spoke of Rome) this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, hath been so shaken into emptiness, that scarce the gleaning grapes have been left: O for a friend calls one here to close my eyes at the hour of death! Who shall lay me out for burial says another there, or carry my bones to the grave in peace: Now a David throbs out an Elegy, and says, O my Son, my Son: anon the Orphan blubbers his cheeks, and sighs with Elisha, O my Father, my Father: Your whole 2 King. 2. 20. City than was one Theatre and woeful▪ Spectacle of sorrow, and the whole Country looked amazedly on, whilst you acted your dying parts▪ GOD hath now drawn His bow again, and scattered some of His arrows here and there as on your skirts, I hope, as jonathan did direct his three flights to David, to warn you out of his Quod autem crebriùs bella concutient, quod sterilitas & fames sollicitudinem cumulent, quod saevientibus morbis valetudo frangigitur. Cypr●●d Demetr. tenderness and love: but if in these Characters ye spell not GOD'S meaning, let Saint Cyprian read, and hear how he lessons his Demetrius: Are you shaken with Wars, are you molested with Dearth and Famine, is your health crushed with raging diseases, is mankind generally tormented with Epidemical maladies? 'tis all for your sins, for which we roar like Bears in the Prophet: So Zion, when she sings a sadding of Isa. 59 11, 12. her misery, for that her crown was fall'n from her head, she makes this the burden of her Lam. 5. 16. song, Woe unto us for we have sinned: O than as you desire the welfare of this your Jerusalem, let uncleanness be purged out of her streets, profaneness whipped out of her Temples, may not Drunkenness reel here, or Sacriledge-rifle Chrys. ad pop. Antioch. there: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in that hony-mouthed Father, and the worst stealth is to rob GOD: both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hor. lib. 1. Epist. 2. are deeds of the night: Surgunt de nocte latrones, it is by night that thiefs spoil and destroy, and they who are drunk are drunk in the night: be 1 Thess. 5. 7. sure, if ye cross not with GOD, nor fall at odds with Him by your sins, He will be your Sun and shield; your shield to safeguard, your Psal. 84. 11. Sun to lighten you: Spread, O LORD, the Light of thy grace into our hearts, and bless us with the Light of thy countenance, direct our steps in thy ways, which are the ways of Light, and so bring us to that Light, which shall not change as the Moon, nor be eclipsed as the Sun; nor set as the Stars▪ even thy glorious self, O LORD, for thou art Light. And so much of the fourth property betwixt GOD and Light, as both are enemies to darkness and sin. The fifth property in which GOD and Light 5. agree, is the spreading virtue of both. Light is a quality diffusive: the Sun as 'tis a most perfect lamp and spring of Light, so most largely spreads his heat, and lends his operative influence, to quicken and cheer this Sublunary globe of ours: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sun, Eustathius will have so called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, from the heat, which is embosomed in that bright and opacous body: and Psal. 19 6. in the Psalmist, nothing is hid from the heat thereof. GOD is in this respect Light: The day is His, Psal. 74. 16. and the night is His, He made the Light and the Sun: wherefore made He it, for the Heavens alone, or the godly alone? Neither, He makes Mat. 5. 45. His Sun to rise upon the evil and good: the riches of His goodness all things taste of, every creature is enriched from His maintenancy: none ever entered the porch of life, but enjoyed the Light and heat of the visible Sun; none ever walked on the pavement of the earth, but was lead by the hand of His invisible goodness: the Psalmist sweetly warbles it: O give thanks unto the Psal. 106. 1. LORD for He is good, for His mercy endureth for ever; there is a goodness Subjectiuò, which is tanquum lux in lucido, this is GOD'S, but we see it not, 'tis covered with a curtain of sacred secrecy, and dwell in Light as unaccessable as GOD Himself: there is goodness in the Object, which is tanquam lumen in Diaphano, this is GOD'S and we feel it: 'tis not confined to the Orb of Israel only, nor cooped up within the pale of jury, no tenure entailed to the fleshly heirs of Abraham: GOD pours out of His treasures upon all, even reprobates have a pension out of His Exchequer: the whole earth is full of the Psal. 119. 64. goodness of the LORD: GOD'S goodness alike extends her sphere with His Sovereignty, for as the eyes of all things wait upon Him in the front, so Psal. 145. 15. in the heel of the verse, He filleth all things with plenteousness. There is a goodness proper to the Elect, the Apostle styles it, the riches of His goodness, Rom. 2. and elsewhere the riches of His grace, Ephes. 2. this is that blessing which maketh rich, and fills, not our garners with store, but our hearts with gladness: GOD at His own cost maintains the whole world, and showers down the happy influences Mat. 5. 45. of Heaven upon the unjust man's ground, but there are riches of mercy which He stores up for the faithful only, nor shall hogs slaver those Rom. 9 pearls: GOD keeps all Cities, if He doth not Psal. 126. 1. the Watchman wakes in vain, but He loves Jerusalem, and the gates of Zion above all the dwellings of jacob; Moab His wash-pot tastes the sweetness of His bounty, and shall judah the signet on His finger lack? joseph feasts all his Brethren, but Benjamins' mess shall five times be doubled to Gen. 43. 34. theirs: Not a Subject in his Dominions but owes much to the goodness of his Prince, but they partake of his more royal favours, who wait in his court, and eat at his table: the pottage may be Esau's, the Birthright is Jacob's, even the wicked have their annuities, but the inheritance is to the righteous: why then will you ask, is the sea of the wicked so calm, of the good so stormy? why are the eyes of these dim, when the other swell out with fatness; hereunto I reply thus. First, Those who forage in the wilds of vice, may brave it a while, as the only favourites and darlings of the age, they may swim in a stream of gold, and tumble in Arabian Spices: David when he sees this, how they start into honour, it sadneth and staggers his encumbered mind, and doth force him to fly to a stop, with a Fret not thyself OH my soul: all goes well hitherto, Psal. 37. 7. but think these minions of the world, how despair vultures their hearts, whilst pleasures merry their fences, they are in the depth of sorrow, even in their height of delight: what ever masks and triumphs the godless state it in; there is a worm gnaws perpetually, what ever harmony or light be without, there is all discord and darkness within: the rays of a Sunshine may gild over his countenance, rip him up, Tacit. Annal. lib. 6. pag. 185 and as Tacitus speaks of tyrants, there is all gnawing and stripes▪ or if their conscience sleeps, whilst they dance in the circle and round of sin, how oft in the Meridian of their jollities do they set in wretchedness, how soon are their warbeling Airs turned into the mournings of Dragons: they may frolic it for a Scene or two, what will the last exit be, what the Catastrophe? their doom is sealed, no juggling or imposture of flesh and blood can corrupt it: when the wicked spring as grass, and all the workers of iniquity do Psal. 92. 7. flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever. Secondly, The true Saint may be in a low ebb of sorrow, as a tree in winter without branch or leaves, or fire buried under the embers without heat: but again he is in a flow of comfort, his withered branches spread, his fainting fire is blown up into a bright flame, and still he jubilates unto GOD with, It is good for me that I was Psal. 119. 71. afflicted: there is honey to be sucked out of this thistle, and unction of joy which supples and makes easy this cross: if GOD diets and physics his, 'tis for their health: if dross be in His gold He will fine it, if chaff in His floor He will cleanse it: He will lance and tent to the quick a fore festering in the body of His Church▪ Our Heavenly Physician, where the gross humours of evil begin to corrupt in his, He will purge them out though with the bitter'st pills and potions, and as it is an earnest of His love to us, when our cure is perfected by gentler unguents, so a pawn of His displeasure at our malady, if he use cauteries and and fearing: the sickness of Israel how oft was it healed by these tart ingredients; affliction wrought their recovery, when neither miracles from Heaven not prodigies on earth could do it: See the Psalmist, When He Psal. 78. 34. slew them then they sought Him and enquired after GOD early: whether we reflect then on the ungodly or godly man, we may discover without a perspective, GOD'S goodness to both, as well the sons of darkness as of light; here His special goodness, which to them makes salves of sores, of the flesh of ujpers sovereign Mithridate; which for them extracts Light out of darkness, and confects of poisonous ingredients the wholsomst Antidotes, as a skilful Apothecary works out of hurtful simples a medicinal composition; and therefore in all estates, still the Saints carol it to His praise, quam bonus DEUS Israeli, Sure GOD is good to Israel: there His Psal. 73. 1. general goodness, whence it is, that they flourish as a palm, that they sit under the shade of their own vines, that their breasts are full of milk, their bones of marrow, their bellies of His hid treasures; that waters of a full cup are wrung out to them, that their ways are paved with pleasures, and the paths honey where they set their feet: May thy Sun, O LORD, shine on our Tabernacles here, nor scant us the blessings of thy left hand, a portion of them competent for us, or if our Light must be enterchainged with darkness, if our days, some may be fair, others will be cloudy, so long as we live in this vale of tears, this true Bochim, as the Israelites Judge 2. 5. called their mourning place: O yet may the Light of thy grace arise in our souls, and as the Sun dispels the early mists, may it scatter those fogs of sin and error, which naturally we grope in: As that shining Light, which shineth Pro. 4. 18. more and more unto the perfect day, so may this spiritual Light in us spread still, till from the morning dawn it climb up to its zenith, and be swallowed of a more glorious Light, the Light of glory, and we in those Mansions of Light dwell together with thee, who art the true Light, for thou art Light. And thus much of the fifth way of agreement betwixt GOD and Light, the diffusive and spreading virtue of them both. The last property in which GOD and Light 6. agree, is the Omnipresency of either. Light hath in it a kind of ubiquity, it fills all places: I except only that land of darkness, where vengeanee boyles in a torrent of fire, but as black as hot, where the damned shall meet flame enough to scorch and fry▪ no Light to refresh or solace them: Hell is a fiery dungeon, no seas of waters can quench the least spark of it, it is a burning Tophet, where fury reaks in a river of brimstone; who shall be cast into this furnace (Nebuchadnezars was an Elysium to it) shall see nothing which may allay the rage, or sweeten the tartness of their pains, they shall see all things, that can embitter their sufferings and make them matchless: GOD appeared to Moses out of the midst of a bush, Gen. 3. 2. the bush burnt and consumed not: there was a fire without heat: the wicked shall be turned into Mat. 8. 12. hell, where they shall be lodged in beds of fire, but wrapped up in utter darkness too, here is fire without light, here torture and blackness kiss in this vale of Hinnon; all other places are cheered and blessed with the presence of the Light: lux simplissima est, & omnia occupat, Light shines every where. GOD is in this respect Light; Immense is a peculiar Attribute, wherewith He is clothed, He comprehends all places, none include Him: we do acknowledge Him with Augustine, sine situ S. Aug, Meditat▪ Liber 12. ubique praesentem, sine loco ubique totum, sine extensione omnia implentem: without site every where present, every where whole without place, and without extension of parts filling all things: all bodies have their proper place, and there we say they are circumscriptively, nor would Aristotle Phys. lib. 2. cap▪ 6. Text 45. exempt the highest Heaven, could we find out a body or superficies to encircle it: how excellent are the Angels, who behold the face of GOD in glory, how dignified by CHRIST himself, who though He took not their nature, yet wears their name, the Angel of the Covenant: how Mal 3. 1. ever they are limited in their natures, they are of finite virtue, nor is Gabriel than with the Hierarchy Lumb. Sentent lib. 1. dist. 37. a. 13. in Heaven, when he stoops to the Mother of GOD with an Ave on earth, Hail Marry; these are in their places definitively: it is GOD'S prerogative royal, of which to rifle Him it were a mere treason and robbery to be in all places repletively; it wears indeed the image and stamp of Apocrypha, yet search it to the quick and kernel, and a mysterious weight is shrined in it, the Spirit Wisdom 1. 7. of the LORD filleth the world. How filleth? virtually alone? as the Sun though fixed in his own Orb, yet enlightens all things with his beams, doth cherish them with his heat, enliven them with his influence? or as a King, who sits on his throne, and stretches out the rod of his power over all his Dominions, rules all the people of his Realms with the Sceptre of his Authority? if we coast here, we divest GOD of His power, and bring Him down to His creatures, nay under them, for the very Air is every where, nature not being patient of a vacuity; if I dig down to the centre of the earth it is at the point of my spade, if I shoot up as high as Heaven, it is at the top of my Arrow: how than filleth? what per parts as the Air, whose parts though Homogeneal, take yet up all places severally, Arist. lib. 2. de generat. cap. 3. where no bodily substance is? or as CHRIST (the ubiquitary may storm at this truth, he shall stifle it) is, if we reflect on His Deity, every where, if on His Manhood, in those courts of bliss above, which shall hold Him, till at the last day He shall break the clouds, and come with flames of fire to judge all flesh: is GOD so? Can the Heavens or the Heaven of Heavens 1 King 8. contain Him? No, adest ubique & ubique totus est, non per partes usquam est, sed in omnibus omnis est: it is Saint Hilaries descant on that strain of the sweet singer of Israel; Thou art near O LORD, Psal. 119. 123 and all thy Commandments are true: How than filleth? so as that He is mixed with things sublunary? which was the foul Blasphemy of the Manichees, Zanch. de natura Dei lib. 2. cap. 6 qu. 3. or as their substantial form makes one compound with them? which was the stale and engine to all heathenish Idolatry, if we believe Averro a Lib. 12. Metaph. Arist. comment. Patriarch of their own: No GOD is above all things, says the Apostle, Rom. 6. and in Isaiahs' Isa. 6. 1. vision, He is high and lifted up: and how ever the Poet fills his cheeks with a jovis omnia plena, or we hear it from a tongue divinely touched and with a true Cherubin, In Him we live, and move, and Act. 17. 27. have our being: yet it is so, not that GOD is part of our substance, but Author of it: being the only source and fountain of our life, motion, being: the Platonists, who styled GOD the soul of the world, did fancy yet and coin a god to themselves, who was supreme to this, and him they bedecked and crowned with this rich Epithet, Zanch. de natura Dei lib. ●. cap. 2. qu. 2. the parent of the world's soul, a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always existent in himself, simple, omnipresent: How is GOD Omnipresent? Soft Critic thou art running on shelves which will shipwreck and split thee: that GOD is every where I believe it, and my faith shall Anchor here, how He is so, what Just in. Histor. lib. 11. Alexander hath a sword to cut a sunder this Gordian knot? what Library▪ of the world a key to unlock this mystery? for quomodo ubiquè sit, intellectu Sentent. lib. 1. dist. 37 a 6. non capimus, so Lombard out of the golden-mouthed Homilist doth school us, and bids hush such malapart inquiries as may entitle us to insolence, not improove our knowledge. When we speak of GOD, we are to believe an ubiquity, though what this ubiquity is, is a bottom, we cannot unravel: Heaven is His throne, Isa. 66. 1. and the earth His footstool in Isaiah, in jeremy He Jer. 23. 23. fills Heaven and Earth, omnia implet sine inclusione, I am taught by Saint Augustine here, and I am Medit. cap. 29. told by Saint Hilary there, that a miracle is sphered in it, Deum ubiquè esse, & nusquam abesse, in omnibus esse, & totum esse; that GOD is present In Psal. 138. Exponens illa verba, Mirabilis facta est scientia tua ex me. every where, and in His whole Essence so: to sift this Sacrament, were to be quaintly mad, but what puzzles my reason, my faith shall not startle at: I believe though I bolt my doors, I lock not GOD in, though I close my casements, I shut not GOD out: If I take a fee, to blind my eyes, He sees it, for He is in my closet, He is my cloister when I make it a stews, and under a religious cool live as in a brothell-house: when I unhallow it by irreverence, as if I came to a Mart, to bargain with, not an Oratory to beseech Him, GOD is in His Temple; His residence is especially here, though His presence be every where, indeed tangit omnia, but non aequaliter tangit omnia, Greg. in comment. in Ezek. Tom. 2. Hom. 8. GOD fills all places with His presence, His Church with His gracious presence, no place excludes Him, this is sure of Him, it is His Highness' Court of Requests, where our petitions are best put up, it is that ladder of jacob, where the Angels ascend with our suits, and descend again besprinkling us with graces, it is that Navy Royal which transports our holy Merchandise to Heaven, it was the cheat, with which jeroboam gulled the Israelites in josephus; my good people and friends, you cannot but know that no place is Antiq. lib▪ 8. cap. 3. without GOD, and that no place doth contain GOD; wheresoever we pray He can hear us, wheresoever we worship, He can see us, therefore the Temple is superfluous, a journey needless to Jerusalem, GOD is better able to come to you, than you are to go to Him: GOD'S Essence, 'tis Lumb. Sent. lib. 1 d. 37. a. 14. true, is diffusive through Heaven and Earth, as my soul through every fraction of my body, yet as this hath its chief seat in my heart, so the beauty of the LORD is peculiar to His own house: One thing have I desired of the LORD, and that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house Psal. 27. 7. of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD: no place lifts up pure hands, no one darts up faithful prayers in vain, for they pierce the clouds, and enter the ears of GOD, wheresoever they are made, yet His ears are more open to one miserere from the Priest's mouth, than the whole service from the peoples, to one Collect of the Church, than whole piles of chamber devotions; for there His honour dwelleth, that is the place of His rest, and the LORD that made Psal 134. 2. Heaven and Earth, doth bless out of Zion: I shall therefore be prostrate and uncovered (spite of the sauciness of too many) in this place principally, though in no place I can be without my GOD, whom I cannot wind into a Meander, nor entangle in a Labyrinth, nor hide from Him in a thicket, nor lose Him in a cloud: Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up to Heaven thou art there, if I make my bed in hell thou art there also, if I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the Sea, even there shall thy hand lead me Psal. 139. 7. and thy right hand shall hold me: How than, if GOD be in all things, escapes he pollution? think we on the Air, how it is in our sightless chambers, nor though we draw our curtains, can we keep it out of our beds, nor out of our hearts when we breath, which would soon be stifled in us, were it not for the cool fanning of the Air: we say vulgarly it infects, but those vapours only do so, which breathed from putrid things, are carried by the stirring wind and fly about in it: the Air clarifies of itself, and mixeth not with that dross and fogs, it doth purge out: much less can things below mingle themselves with GOD'S purity, though He be in them, nor His unblemished Essence be tainted by their touch: the glass we know presents deformities, not deformed itself, the Sun we see not being defiled therewith, darts his beams of light, on carrion and mud; no more can our impurities' bespatter GOD, though He be as Essentially in that place where they are done, as we who Act them, for He is not far 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Act. 17. 27. from every one of us: may this imprint on our souls, a double instruction. To meditate thus, where ever we are, GOD is there, in our houses, our beds, our hearts, that ere our sins are quickened to the birth, or our thoughts have given them conception, He hath a Register Psal. 139. 16. of them, in whose book are all our members written, when as yet there are none: how should it be abridle in our jaws, when we rush into sin, as the horse into battle, and in paths strewed with pleasures, run like Dromedaries: No man can roof or vault himself from GOD, the Egyptians Hieroglyphic of Him was an eye, seven eyes He hath in the Prophet, which run to and fro through the earth▪ divinely Hesiod, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Zach. 4. 10. eye of GOD beholds all things, every work of our hands, every step of our feet, every word of our lips, every motion of our souls: Thy eyes, O LORD, are upon all the ways of the Sons of men: Jer. 32. 19 how then can he be eluded? He that planted the ear, shall not He hear, He that form the eye shall He not see, shall not he know that teacheth man knowledge? What we do in the darkest cells are to GOD Psal. 94. 10. as done on the tops of Mountains; So was Gehazies secret bribery, the close plots of Achitophel, Pilat's washing himself into hypocrisy, the lustful rape of the Elders, when they tempted that Emblem of chastity with, the gates of the Orchard are shut and no body sees us: Tam facile & pronum est superos contemnere testes juven. Satyr. 13. Si mortalis idemnemo sciat: We draw a vale of secrecy o'er our foul deeds, and say, the clouds and darkness shall be a covering for them: but what clouds of day, what darkness of night can shadow us from Him, to whom the Light and darkness are both alike, whom no thickness of walls, no closeness of windows, nor bars of iron can shut out from us: I admire Thales, who asked whether a man doing ill, Diog. Laert. de vita Philos. lib 1. might be obscured from the eye of GOD, he replies, ne cogitans quidem, his very thoughts are unbosomed before Him: into what ever actions we embark ourselves, take we with us the advice of that prince and Patriarch of Philosophers, So do Senec. Epist. 25 ad Lucil. all things as if a Cato, a Scipio, or Laelius did look on: GOD overveiwes all our enterprises, let us shame to act that before Him, we would blush should be whispered to men: GOD sees all, when lust is lodged in the eyes, when violence doth bruise in the hands, when blasphemy croaks in the tongue, when drunkenness reels in the streets: if the treasures of wickedness be in your houses, if fraud and cozenage in your contracts, if in your shops false balances and bags full of deceit: think not with those Atheists in the Psalmist, that GOD hideth His face, that He will never see it: would Psal. 10. 11. we but consult the sacred raptures of the Sibyls, this they give out of Him, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: not the dens of the earth, not the holes of the rocks, not the depth of Seas, or bottom of hills, but GOD is there, who is every whit every where,— quocunque vides, quocunque moveris. Secondly, Is GOD every where, what other witness need we of our best Actions? as Socrates said of Plato, Plato instar omnium, no croudes or throngs of Auditors to one Plato, no such Record or Chronicle of our good deeds, as GOD'S inspection of them: when I fast, though I strive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, GOD sees me, though Chrys. in Mat. cap. 6. Home K. no sourness diffigures my look; when I pray and do so, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Chrys. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. GOD hears us, though no thunder or noise be in our tongve: when I do my alms, though I blow no trumpet nor cackle straight, so soon as my egg is laid, yet I have those who see me, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, not Angels Hierogl lib. 33. only, or Archangels, but GOD, the parent of the universe, who being mundi oculus, saith Pierius, hath His eyes upon us, where ever we are: And sure not a tear drops from our eyes in penitence, but GOD is ready with His bottles to take it up; not a word falls from our lips in praise, but it is Music in His ears, not an Alms is scattered abroad by our hands, but is a sweet incense in His nostrils▪ the bread you cast upon the waters, is truly trajectitia pecunia, money, for which you take a bill of exchange from GOD, and it meets you in a far country; no robbers by land▪ no piracies of Sea, no unfaithfulness of Factors, no violence of tempests, shall take it from you; dispersit, dedit pauperibus (saith the Psalmist) he hath given Psal. 112. 9 to the poor, and his righteousness remains for ever: in one day he dispersed his riches, and we see his memory extends to all ages: the Jews tell us that the Corban which was in the Temple of Eccles. 7. 1. Jerusalem, had this proverb written about it, the gift given in secret pacifieth wrath; and that charity, which like oil makes no noise in falling, doth swim above when it is fallen; our wealth, which may seem lost, is indeed put into a Bank, whence we shall have it with interest, that, and Heaven to boot; I must speak it here to the glory of GOD, who gives us to give, to the honour of the Gospel, that we preach not Solifidianisme, nor can envy itself cavil at what I say: This City because of her successive prosperity in Ammianus Marcellinus wears the royal name of Augusta; She may as well for her works of Charity, which she may vie with any in the world, and without boast: She hath her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Hospitals for the poor, whom she feeds with her morsels, warms with her fleeces: She hath her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Schools of education for friendless infants, whose bowels as she doth refresh, so adorn and enrich their minds; May She be ever a City of praise, the Seat of Kings, and Mart of the world: May her Merchants be as Princes, and You the Worthy Governors of her most famous Nursery, Christ Hospital, founded by King Edward the 6. Yours be the dews of Heaven, and fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and oil: Opera charitatis, are opera lucis, Let your Light so shine before Mat. 5. 16. men that they may see your good works: that is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: Yours hath been Chrysost. in locum. such, GOD, who is Light, give you the Light of Joy in your dwellings, the Light of Peace in your consciences, And in your souls and bodies, when darkness shall be banished for ever, the Light of Glory, Amen. Soli Deo Gloria. FINIS.