PSAL. 4. Vers. 7. Thou hast put gladness in my heart (or Thou hast given me joy of Heart) more than when their corn and their Wine increased. 
AS it has in all Ages discouraged some from being Christians to see some of our Professors holy but on one side, and Religion only hung out; so it has always offended narrow and earthy minds, to see Christianity happy but on one side: and to observe that whilst it promises its followers Thrones and sceptres, it leaves its Disciples oftentimes to Shackles and the cross. So that religion's Bills and undertakings▪ have been always thought by some to exceed her Powers, bringing men to the condition of those ships which Plutarch says the Stoics were like, which after their valiant names and Inscriptions of lion, Elephant, Invincible were notwithstanding torn by common Tempests, and made the sport of an ordinary wave: But through the Dull Eye or the evil Eye of the looker on, it hath been the frequent Fate of things Excellent, to be Things mistook; God cannot thunder down a Church, and suffer some Robber of that Church to live and survive the storm and Bolts, but the Epicure straight will say God sits with his back towards the World, and sees nothing. And if He shines out upon a wicked man, and looks on upon the ragged virtues of a poor Saint, his mercy shall be called his sleep, and his Providence said to be away: half of that being true of the most eminent things which the Stoiques said of the best men, That they can neither quickly be, nor quickly be understood. Hence is it, that Heaven and happiness proposed as removed & future things, make so shallow impressions upon carnal hearts: as spiritual substances are of so fine and subtle an essence, that to them the Eye itself is but a lid: so spiritual promises, evident only to spiritual minds, are wrapped & undiscovered to a natural & an eye born but once. Thus Afflictions which to the wicked are Miseries, to God's Children appear a kind of severe and not prayed for blessings, and the rougher sort of Love: and since they are meant only as Cures, & are at once both Wound & Balsam, the faithful are taught to number their favours by their stripes, and call whips Affection. David sometimes a man of so sad and thrown down a condition, that he wept his own meals, (I have made my tears my meat: Psal. 42) Yet is often found awaking his Lute; his different days were so divided betwixt the coal and the chalk, that in one David there seems to be above one man: and for the Variety of his condition we may look upon the Prophet, as we did on our Saviour that was of his Line, not as a Man but Mankind: Yet through an even cheerfulness he will never let his sufferings be sufferings, but seems to look down upon the properity of the wicked, and reckon all delights that are showered from the Spirit, among those things which are to be pitied, saying to God himself, Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than when their Corn and their Wine increased.  
The words are David's acknowledgement of a double bounty: first, of his being favoured; Thou hast given me joy: Secondly, of his being preferred, Thou hast given me more joy. Call them (if you please) David's Triumph. (Thou hast given me joy) And because in Triumphs there is usually some Insultation, some Captivity and sadness, here is joy, more than theirs; corn and Wine They have, not Perfect gladness, which is the oil within, and Wine to the Wine; That without which corn and plenty is only had, not enjoyed; and a full harvest is no more the Masters then 'tis the Barns; The godly hath massy lights of gladness cast from the contemplation of God's private favours; The prosperous villain has some dilute rays of Blessings, but not his Countenance; So that as the earth's best and upper parts are enlightened, but it's Riches, it's Mines lie below and shaded; So the Best men receive from heaven the most Comforts, though not the most of those Influences which make men rich. The Text then (as those Schemes which are made to represent the body of the Earth) has two sides, A light one, and a shaded. The light side contains the Godly man's condition here in this life, joy, [Thou hast given me joy] joy Positively, and joy Eminently, More joy; The shaded side has the condition of the flourishing wicked man, (if it be flourishing to grow up and thrive to the fire) Some gladness or shadow of gladness they have from their corn and Wine. Lastly, the pencil that draws both these sides, God's favour; Thou hast put into my heart, great and more gladness, Into theirs, Thin and Narrow and some gladness, when their corn and Wine Increase. I begin with the Godly man's Condition in this life, positively considered, 'tis a joyful Condition.  
He that said that all villainy contained a kind of justice in it, and wickedness carried so much of the Magistrate, that it punishes every offender it makes such, and torments every conscience, which it stains, might have said, that virtue is the other half of the Magistrate, and rewards those that entertain it. Not that it lays up and sows recompense, but makes every good Act crown to itself, and sheds a present delight wheresoever she resides; So that righteousness naked and it self, is a rich satisfaction to its owner, and he that nourishes goodness, reaps it; Such a sereneness and calm of thoughts, (pardon me if I say) such a prospect within, there is in an innocent and swept Breast, that as Origen is said to have thought Hell no more than a galled and eaten conscience, So some wise Heathens have thought happiness nothing but a clean one; and therefore they have sent the virtuous no further for their Happiness then to their virtues, & bid them only look into themselves and be paid. So that Heathen who said, drunkenness rewarded virtue, meant mirth and Content, and was but a Divine of a course Metaphor; for if he understood a serenity arising from the Contemplation of an humble and harmless soul, he might easily be corrected to this Christian Truth, that a good conscience is a perpetual Feast, and the Prophet might have found in the righteous what he incourages them to (in the 32 Psal. vers. ult.) rejoice ye Righteous & shout for joy, all ye that are upright of heart.  
But this is too unconfined, too common a joy to be the Godly's Portion. This is an alms of mirth, and a gladness given at door; those of God's Family have better Provision, holier and less human Comforts; virtues looked upon may cheer a heart, but Graces contemplated anoint and crown one; Christian joy the earnest of that to come being of the same mettle with the whole sum, and as Heavenly as what it represents: God says not to the Temperate man, Thou hast held out against the Nets and Traps which that Painted woman looked, therefore thou shalt stand fair and clear in men's Memories and Reports; Thou hast refused so many bowls, therefore thou shalt scape so many fits, and in flying Taverns hast only abstained from the dropsy; Nor says He to the loyal man, Thou hast in an unperjured Obedience always lived under the crown, Thou hast not made thy Humour nor thy Fancy thy Scripture, nor tied thy faith to the Ignorance and devout Bad faces of the Seditious Lectturer, therefore the discerning part of the nation and the kingdom's judgements shall crown thee with the brave name of Good Subject, and that's thy Comfort; Nor says he to the liberal man, Thou hast feasted me in the poor, therefore all the Bread thou hast given me in the Porch, I will send thee back in full Harvests, and all thy Water in Balmy and desired showers, and that's thy gladness. God has reserved richer comforts for his servants. What a Treasure, what a Mine is that Text? The Lord is my portion, (Lamentat. 3.) How much weightier than all those lower half Solaces, which stooping souls and Minds that obey their Bodies, can call Delights; And that's the second ground of the Godly man's joyful Condition, a grounded confidence of God's Favour. That a just man should expect Protection and Smiles from his God, is the whisper of natural reason, it being congruous to the Divine nature (whose Image we are in this too) to affect and cherish what is most like itself. So that every Good man is the care and charge of the Almighty, by whom he is looked upon, not with that public love which he allows his whole mass of creatures, but with a peculiar countenance, such as we cast upon Alliance and Kindred; Now what an extracted comfort is it, to look upon one's self as the darling of heaven, one whom devil's only aim at, cannot hit; and whilst All things work together for his good, (Rom. 8.) to be the man on whose side his very enemy's Rage and Afflictions serve under. To behold one's self as a thing armed with integrity as a holy kind of magic, and see one's self as 'twere enchanted with God's favour to a state secure from all that malice can dart. There is a malignant delicacy, by which, dangers and sufferings are made things of delight; and it has been a perverse pleasure in men, to stand unconcerned lookers on upon a Perishing Army, or a sinking Fleet; I do not say that the righteous man is glad so cruelly, that his delights are so much his Crimes, and ruin his Recreation; Yet certainly (without loss of innocence) he does rejoice with a Kind of pity at the judgements that fall only about him, not as they are his Enemies, but as they are not his own: and devout persons are read to have sung their enemy's destruction, (than sang Deborah Iudg. 5.) Not out of an ungoverned and woman's Insultation, but a Violence of joy for the favour of a delivery. If the Roman conquerors could scarce stand under their own laurels, and joyed so vehemently over a fired town or two, or a few chained Germans, that their Triumphs were not their least dangers; So that there has been an Officer by, to toll them some cold & sad sentence to keep them within themselves, and hinder transportation, Can you think a Good man can triumph less over his fettered Flesh, and Corruptions. And when he shall see himself, the devil, and the World stand conquered, and bound with distinct shackles, which his Graces and Integrity have filed. Believe it, for joy there's no Throne to the neck of a Lust; No Triumph to a subdued affection. Think then what an unmeasured felicity 'tis to be absolute, and one's own, not commanded by a Vice; of a soul smooth and without a wave; and then to be smiled upon by that God, without whose leave nothing can hurt, who must consent before Poison can be more fatal than Cordials, who is so far Master of all that pretends power, that all punishing evil is but his Commissioner; and Afflictions are Afflictions under Him, to have the Affection of Him to whose love the Best and Patterns of Mothers compared are cruel (Mothers may forget, saith he himself) and the most natural Heart a Rock, that has bid his little flock not fear; and since he has dy'd for his Children, certainly he will not sleep against them, (He that keepeth Israel does not so much as slumber.) Lastly, to be not only of God's Pastures, but his Hall too, so much more than his sheep, as to be his son; His son, all whose children are Eldest, and with whom the whole Family inherits; This is so transcendent a Comfort that what Seneca said, was a brave thing, is here in some degree attained and compassed, To have the Infirmities of a Man, and the Security of a God.  
But here, because some unholy lips and mouth of flesh, in one that measures other men's Comforts by his own want of them, or because some shaded soul may object, That 'tis often times foul weather in the cleanest Breast; that the Godly man's Graces make a state compounded of sun and storm; That David cries out often for his Lost or Hid God, and the Spouse in the Canticles mourns for her Christ, in the cliffs of the rock; Therefore God carrying himself to his children as a remote and distant God, the state of the Godly is not so joyful, and their Condition no otherwise comfortable than seasons in almanacs may be said to be fair, when they are divided betwixt Shining and Snow. And then, because some worm and no man, one so much slave to his false gain, that he calls God only Good as he doth Fortune for being the richer by him; that He is bountiful only by the ox and sheep, and favoured Job in the camels alone, not i'th' Patience he gave him for their loss; And such a man when he sees a stripped Christian, and so much Piety in Fetters, may say, Is this the man of a joyful Condition? Call ye Hunger and Rags Felicity; and are we to think ourselves so much nearer happiness as we are nearer starving? I shall therforee conclude this Point by endeavouring satisfaction to both these Opposers; First, to them which deny the Blessings of God's Right hand, Divine Comfort: And secondly, to them which allow not those of his Left (Temporal ones) to be frequent enough to make a Godly Condition a joyful one. For the First  
'Tis true, spiritual joy is a Feverish thing, and the Christian Pulse beats unequally. God is to his chosen a sun and a Shield, in one verse of the 84 psalm; in this a Sun; that he rises and goes down, Enlightens and is clouded from his faithful; In this a shield, not only that he is so to them for their defence, but to himself too to be covered from them.  
1. But take it thus. To prevent wantoning with his Comforts, and avoid Pampering, God dispenses his Love and Favours by Proportions, not by floods of Comfort; He gives us not cordials by the Pound, we are not always allowed a standing Omer of this Manna, the merciful God denies us himself Physically, and diets us with his Spirit. What then God means Remedy, call not thou Anger; Slander not his Cure with any jealous apprehension; 'Twas Care of human Bodies first brought the Lance and Probe into Surgery, and when God sads thee with retiring, say not he wounds, but severely provides for thee.  
2. Next, let Bonaventure say, why God sometimes frowns and withdraws; God (Says he) throws a Cloud over, lest we should lie idle and sleep in the sun. Our Prayers and Endeavours are things he aims at, not our Tortures; His Favours ascend as his son did, that procures them only to draw us and our devotions after them. So than a Pious man looking on himself with nature's Eye, must needs view himself with jealousies & sadness; as finding in his soul Vice and deformity, and all that can offend a sight; but then eyeing himself as a Repenting; a washed, and died for soul, must needs be cheered with seeing his Actions in refined shapes and his soul of other Colours; Penitent tears being the only Waters through which things looked upon appear straight.  
Now for the second Opposer of the Godly man's joy, who urges the wants of the lesser Accomplishments which grow here below, Riches, Liberty, Honour, and whatsoever Heathen Altars smoke for; 'Tis true, The Good man does not always Blaze and Glitter in the world, Oftentimes counts his years by other men's Harvests, and looks upon the sun as a thing does nothing for him but warm him: We Christians are not crowned with Roses, employ no Wreaths or Chaplets, says Octavius in Minutius. For Answer; Were Christianity but a better Kind of revels, this were an objection; or did God so glue Comforts to Riches, that so much Pasture must go to the making of so much joy, and men could not be merry but by the Acre, then to be Poor and to be sad were all one; But wideness of Possession is not a dilated and spread heart; And truly 'tis not a Smooth Forehead, a Bright Eye, a resolved look, that makes gladness; joy is a Thing within, and the Heart only Laughs; A pursued lion may eat, he cannot Feast; Every Bit tastes so much of fear and the Hunter, that what he devours is only Prey, no good cheer; So in the middle of an unmeasured Estate, I may have sorrows as unbounded, as that I may be heavy in Purple; and obtain only this by a full fortune, to be a man of a Rich sadness, and sigh with more Revenue than my Neighbour. Therefore the wise man (in nothing more the wise man) makes it his Prayer not to suffer under an over-weighty Plenty; Give me convenient Food; that he might stand i'th' safe Point between Pining and surfeit; and in a just supply of necessities, neither be starved with Poverty, nor break with fullness. God perhaps has not showered upon thee Grapes and Olives, or if he hath, has suffered them to be called back by Tempests, by Robbers, by some Vote or Ordinance (that is, by Printed and Enacted Robbery;) But then withal, God has denied thee those Vices and Humours which Wine and Olives might have been abused to; For the Great Disposer of things lets down Riches as Timber to our Qualities, which we may either hew to Vices, or Carve to virtues and better shapes; being equally disposed either to make Ladders to climb to heaven by, or stairs to carry us downward. But then, Riches advantaged with our own Corruptions, are proner to become our sins; They are wax to Abuses, but Iron to virtue, they will melt and flow to Vice, but must be beat and laboured to goodness. So that God in denying his Children these {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, these Things of the World, things within a Syllable of Nothing, and that deserve but one Single Article in Saint Paul: He only gives them less, to forget them, and should he always allow a flowing estate, we should perhaps so sink in the bountiful stream, as to forget the fountain; and in a swinish not considering who sheds the favour, what He sends Grapes and Olius we should make our acorns. Have then some men numbered Wealth among the feared things, prayed against Prosperity, and thought it a Kind of Daring to Venture being Rich; and shall a Christian think himself forsaken, in the loss of these slender outside things, which some moral Philosophers have thrown away? Say then in the first place, that when God denies the Godly man Plenty, He is no harsher than if he denied him pinnacles and quicksands; He that murmurs that he is not made rich, complains that he is not allowed a Danger; and is sad that he is cast into the wretched condition of being likely to go to heaven with more ease than camels pass through Needles; So that Riches frequently becoming nothing but kneeled for mischiefs, and begged evils, Things (at Best) of so doubtful a Condition, that Tacitus could not tell whether 'twas the Anger or the Bounty of the Gods that denied them to the Germans; we may not measure a Christians comfort by these uncertain and scarce-good things; Poverty may attend a blessed and good man as Thistles a●e Bad things, but signify Good and Rich Ground.  
The Godly are not always the great Instances of the Wealthy; but than they are always furnished with a vice-estate, and deputy Fortune, that which does the office of riches, Content: A name in whose thrifty size (as in jewels) plenty is wrapped up; that which Saint Paul had learned to make his Wealth, I have learned in what estate soever I am, therewith to be content. This performs what Riches only pretend, Sabbath to our desires, & makes wishing cease; To have no Desires is to have all bestowed that Desires can reach at, & he that gives thee no appetite to the World, gives thee all the World, only not in Kind.  
When God does not open himself in outward Favours, this is but a spiritual Training, He exercises, does not afflict; and we must count it rather employment then Suffering. Call not then the Righteous man's wants Miseries, but Hard Breeding. The Almighty loves with a masculine and strenuous Affection; Hugging and dandling are not the softness which the Lord of hosts practices; He favours not the mother's way. Afflicting with him is but Reducing; David had wandered, if he had not suffered (in the psalm) and S. Jerome hath delivered it observingly; that there's not a more infallible symptom of his being angry, than his not discovering it.  
Lastly, spiritual and Divine Comforts are joys of another temper from these Lower ones; Wealth, Honour, blood make up but Pleasure; a poor, course name, the happiness of herds and cattle. Joy hath a refined and Clean Being, so abstracted from these lees and dregs of Things, as to be compounded of Grace, Peace, God's Countenance, and whatsoever is map of Heaven here below. Quarrel not then (whosoever thou art that valuest these things highest) that thou art not favoured to Purple and good cheer every day; this is to complain that thou art not fatted to the Altar; Thy Pleasures cannot flow into Pleasures, Saint Jerom tells thee, thou canst not Transire à Deliciis in Delicias, pass from Paradise to bliss, from a Haven to a Port. And in another place, Thou canst not enjoy two Heavens: murmur not that these under-boughs of Comfort are not indulged thee, if thou hast Christ (in an holy sense) that he is thine, thou hast the whole Tree: Thou art to receive an inheritance, stand not with God for farthings; As thou look'st upon thy Saviour not as on a single man but as Mankind (because he represented it in the flesh) so view him not as a single Comfort but as Comfort-kind, because he comprehends them all, and then thou wilt confess the Godliest man is the Merriest man, and that there is no dancing equal to dancing before the Ark; which mentions to me the Godly's joy considered Eminently, or in its degree of Comparison, More gladness— Thou hast put more gladness, my second part.  
When drunkenness was first called a short & merry madness, as much might have been said of all those brittle joys which carnal minds call delights: For what are worldly jollities but certain one-day Vanities, borne this light and not seen the next; Things of so swift and dispatching a frailty, that they last just long enough to have it pronounced of them that they have been; The joy of the Hypocrite is but for a Moment, having only these two Characters stamped on them by Saint Augustine, that they make wretched and Forsake; whereas spiritual joy is lasting, having always this Divine thing in it Not to Cease; Corrupt joy that must be answered for, is but a Song, The pious man is the music of orbs, more heavenly and as lasting: That other, is a Guilty and therefore an unsound and short one: Such is the bloody gladness of them at the Great City, whose Accounts run thus, For so many loyal Subjects murdered here, so many Drowned yonder, so many Starved in Prison: which after a while ends in a sadness made of a contrary List, For so many Rebels slain at one Place, so many sunk at another, so many Famished in a third: No other gladness must They expect, that pray for successes with much Impiety, and rejoice for them with more; that are devout for spoil, and kneel only that they may oppress and ruin prosperously; that like Jezabel Fast for another man's Vineyard, and then devour that Vineyard in triumph that they have wickedly obtained it. Such joy is no more than one Flash made up of the two Glassy properties, Glittering and Breaking, and to which as to some Woods that imitate Light, there belong but these two poor Accomplishments to shine and be rotten; Security may give the Wicked some Truce and Cessation of terrors, but what Solid and Compounded League is there betwixt the Wicked and himself? There is no Peace, saith my God, to the Wicked, Isaiah 48.22. Such a clamorous conscience attends their jollities, as in rainbows, so much thunder there is next to their most gaudy delights, that their very Mirth is scarce merry, and their Laughter seems rather to break forth then be consented to. The Godly man's joy as himself (in the first psalm) is planted by the River side, where there is lasting supply of moisture and freshness; The Wicked are planted shall I say, or rather stuck in, but by the Brook side, which after a short hurry of Waters, dry up and are not. When they are Glad they do not rejoice but for those minutes only forget to be sad. Stretch then this Prophet upon that Child, lay this holy gladness upon that fleshly, and how unequal will their dimensions appear, how short, how dead, what a Child will that joy confess itself that is weaved of any thing beside God's Countenance!  
2. Next, As unsanctified gladness does not dwell and continue, so when it is at all it scarce is gladness; So mingled 'tis and compounded of itself and its contrary, that now for a fresh reason it cannot be said to Last, because indeed it hardly ever was; it being so twisted with Cares, and Starts, and doubtfulness, that 'tis the least part of itself; that it perishes in the very Embrace, and while 'tis enjoyed is gone. So that in the prophet's phrase you may not only compare it to the Crackling of thorns under a Pot, because 'tis short and passes, but because 'tis half thorns itself. For either you shall find it chilled with a fear that 'twill shortly die and leave off, and then what forehead so ere it wear, 'tis but disguised Trembling; Like the motion of one of the orbs which they call music but is Trepidation. Or else 'tis so fretted with jealousies and suspicion of sharers, that 'tis not a Severe thing alone (which the Moralist would have it) but a cruel. Or lastly, 'Tis so flatted with itself, and grows so dull with being enjoyed, that it loads the breast that it should satisfy, and cloying the Appetite that it undertakes to feed, in the middle of Triumph does the Office of a Torment. So that we are to look upon these inferior Pleasures, as we do on some bright armoury, which is Pleasant with a kind of horror, and in the same Eye Pleases and Affrights.  
Look now upon the spiritual joy of the Godly, and you shall find it solid and massy, Full only of itself, not stuffed with Scruples, such as is so Divine, hath so much of bliss and the Blessed Vision, that it whets, and satisfies, fills the faithful, and sharpens them: Blessed are they which hunger and thirst (Matth. 5.) Blessed they are, yet hunger. Survey but one Instance of a man of the Worlds making; Haman (in the third of Esther) a Man within a Name of being great as the Prince that made him such, and yet one poor surly Jew can leaven all the sweetness of his honours, one Private covered head corrupts the pomp of a whole City of Bare ones, and Mordecai's frown sours all the Content the King of Babylon can raise him to; If Mordecai mutter, the Trumpets sound harsh, Give him the royal Robe, if one crawling Captive do not put off to it, 'tis to the wearer but so much Sackcloth, and they can be no Trappings except the Dogged Israelite rise up when they pass by. See how much carnal gladness was hindered from being such by how little a disturbance. Look next upon a Righteous heart, how firm and Collected is such a breast; Nothing more Serene and Even then a Persecuted David: Job cannot be afflicted out of his Confidence and Comforts, and after Sores and the Dunghill, and (which are worse) ●mpertinent Friends and his Wife, is still unshaken and the same lob that he began.  
3. Lastly, the Condition of the Godly is most joyful because it will be so; There will be a Time, when the great Divider of Right shall weigh out rewards, and justice shall so balance her now questioned Scales, that righteousness and sin shall as easily be distinguished by Enjoying and Suffering as they are naturally related to it, when God shall shine out to the Good and Blaze out to the Wicked in eternal Flames; Paying every faithful soul with Mercy and Peace, but throwing Tribulation and Anguish on every soul that sinneth; when popular Ambition guilded with holy Intents, shall drop its disguise, and become direct aspiring; And Malice which in the Angry breast of a rebel is miscalled zeal, shall be seen through and appear spleen: when all Hearts shall suffer the Eye, and all thoughts grow public; when Pulpit Treasons, tedious vehement forsaking of Texts shall no longer be called Preaching to the Conscience; Nor barren Curiosities in Learning any more be styled Depth; When madness and Licence shall put off the name of Christian Liberty; When there shall be no Private villain, nobody shall be wicked to himself, when there shall be no Pompey, who (as Tacitus says) was only a Secreter bade man than Cesar, not a less; When the just shall shine as the sun, and the Wicked I say not shall Shine, ('Tis some Comfort to be tortured in Light) but burn in Flames as eternal as that God they have offended. Now when a Righteous man with an humble and hoping Eye looks up to Heaven as his Reversion, and views himself a Triumphant Saint (only under Age) he must needs reap Plenty of joy from his Faith, which instates a man in that which he expects even while he expects; It being a Grace which gives what it stays for, and to which nothing is Absent. Now what horrors must tenter the heart of the Wicked, when he shall coldly and seriously contemplate Hell fire as his own, and see himself live here only a reprived devil. I hope you are all too innocent to understand. You see then, the almighty Places his Comforts here, does not hurl them, and gives him the joyful Condition, not that Catches best, but that Lives so: He sets crowns and Solid gladness upon Righteous Hearts in this life, and Coronets of slender joy on Wicked ones, which mentions the Shaded side of my Text; The Worldlings Thin, and Narrow, and some gladness; Thou hast put More gladness in my heart, which implies some in Theirs; my third Part.  
The Coursest of God's Blessings are still Blessings, and Comforts are not Comforts from their Size and Measure; 'Tis Fire in Sparks, as well as in Flaming cities; and Lease Gold is of the same mettle with the whole Wedge: 'Tis so with temporal Good Things; Riches are meant for Kindnesses, they may be Corrupted to Curses; and Honours that came down Favours may be misemployed to things of another name; We may not say that where God showers a full Estate that he goes only to bait and entangle that Rich man; and that in the shape of ample Possessions he sends but a Great Trappe: Or that Esau, when his Father prophesied to him, the fatness of the Earth and the Dew of Heaven (Gen. 27.) kneeled all that while to be cursed: Certainly as God forbids us to fall down to Money and worship wealth, so he will not himself make Riches so far an idol as to have the face of Blessings and not be such; to represent Kindnesses and be only the Statues of Good things. Pronounce not then of outward Accomplishment, and those things which Aristotle calls Ornament and varnish to virtue, That they do but Act Goodness, that it may be said of Heathen prosperity that 'tis little more than a fair evil, as some say (but why God knows) of Heathen virtues, that they are but handsome sins; That nothing which the Wicked have is Good, as some say, Nothing is Theirs (the opinion of some twice baptised but never Christened;) Thou mayest as well say that the same crown upon Constantine's believing head was of Gold, and upon the Apostate Temples of Julian became pasteboard. For God in these low and just-good Things is an exposed and everybody's God (as Tertullian calls him) and these runings over of his mercies are as common as the Senses by which they are enjoyed: For as every thing's being Made makes it a Copy of the Allmighti's Power, so every thing's being bestowed makes it a draught of his kindness. corn and Wine then and these poorer Favours have something in them towards Comforts, and our Saviour that was so severe an Interpreter, that he called A Glance Adultery, A Wish the Act, Pharisees and Doctors Vipers; Yet He calls Glory the Thinnest of Good things, The Hypocrites reward (Mat. 6.) So that these under Mercies are saint Ingredients of a pale happiness, as milk & Honey in Canaan, though they did not compound blessedness, yet they made a Good Land.  
Though then the haughty Stoic pronounce that he can find richer Pleasure in Hunger and the wheel then the Epicure in his Wine and Roses; Yet certainly (not to envy the Stoic his delicacies) Riches and the governed Contents that grow from them considered merely and lifted above the Abuses, they may be racked to good; and those Thomes which they are, they are so only if leaned upon; They are Maps at least if not solid Globes of Comfort, and the Liturgy's form for Plenty, is a Prayer no Execration. The Rule that Results to us is this; These Fallings of Bounty are Blessings, and make no wretched state. What hands then, how clean and how thankful does it concern us to lift up, that enjoy God in Graces too, and see Him not only in Plenty & his back parts. But than they are poor Blessings, and no match for thine immortal spirit, Thou mayest not Marry the things of this World, they are too much thy Kindred, Things of thy blood, that is, thy Dust; and if they must be Wives, make them such as those wicked men are said to make theirs in Italy, use and contemn them. Trust not a great Fortune, for 'tis a Fortune, and fear not a great Fortune, for 'tis a thing sent down from above, which Casts me on the Penicell that draws both the sides of the Text, God's Favour Thou hast put gladness, my last part, to be briefly dispatched.  
As Philosophers have no swifter way of proving the Heavens to be above frailty and corruption, then because they are the Heavens, and therefore supposed in reverence to such glorious Bodies, to be too excellent for change; So the Christian most roundly evinces all good Things to flow from God, because they are Good; For as God's will is the reason of his doing, so his doing is the reason of any things being Good; goodness being a notion of a double face, which looks not only forward to some Will which may affectt it, but backward too, to the Divine mind to which 'tis already squared; Every good and perfect gift (that is indeed every gift) says Saint James, comes from above. All thy Parts are rays and beams from Heaven, and all thy grace's Influences; Thy Strength is dropped down from the God of Hosts, and thy Wit from the God of Lights; Not thy Acres, but the Blessings upon them fill thy barns, and the fruits of thy ground may rather be said to Rebound from the Earth, then to Come: Call not thy Exact and measured Shape the work or Chance of Nature, but a figure of God's own Geometry: nor thy Wives powerful Colours, Creatures of her blood or Parents; The powers that are (even in this sense) are from above. Call not thy health thy Temperance's health, nox thy honour thy merits honour, nor thy Liberty thy innocency's Liberty; These may be Pipes, they are no fountains of Good things: Through whatsoever God conveys his Favours, they are still his Favours; and if the Heathen prayed down their poems, and would scarce attempt an Epigram without an Invocation, certainly 'tis no huge Christianity to allow God as general a Bounty as he hath a Presence. Thy intellectuals are not the Births of thy sweat and Candles, but God hath shed a bigger talon upon thy soul, to try whether thou wilt improve it in a diffusive Communication, or bury it in a sullen and unactive Contractednes; whether thou wilt Plant upon thy natural Powers by Industry, or in a lazy presumption upon thy rich ground, lose thy fallow and unmanured faculties; Nor was it the Noise and Hats and Affection, and all the tumult of love from the Following and Vnjudging Multitude, that hath blown thee to the helm, and made thee start up a senator and Statesman; but the God of all hearts that hath steered thy country's Votes upon thee, to try whether thou wilt study the kingdom's Peace, or thine own reign; whether thou wilt obey & counsel thy Prince, or else like those Busy Wicked men in a dull ambition think Knight of a Shire signifies Emperor, and that in some poor market Village that sells Cheese and voices, thou wast crowned a burgess. Your honours are given you not for Leaven, to make you sour & swell, but to reward & inflame your virtues,; and your Offices are bestowed not to make you able to oppress the better, but to give you power to relieve and succour: as upper bodies are created to throw kind Influences upon these lower, and the Heavens roll not about for themselves: All you that stand before Princes are Joseph's raised for the good of your Countrymen. Whether then thy Condition be to possess the Vineyard or to sweat in it; to make laws or live under them; to Prescribe or be Prescribed; of what size soever thy state is cut, thy God, not thy Care is the Carver; learn we to acknowledge that the Deity lets itself down in all Shapes to its creature; That our successesses are the Smiles of a bountiful God and our afflictions the plasters of a Curing God, and from the bottom of our either Erected or else suffering souls ascribe to God the Father, son and Holy Ghost, all Honour, Glory, Might, Majesty, and Dominion▪ now and for ever. Amen.  
FINIS.