hath done for the sons of men; for certainly many woes, and invincible darkness attend those, to whom neither the hand of God in his works, nor the hand of God upon themselves, neither the greatness of this world, nor the crosses of this world, can manifest God; for what picture of God would they have that will neither have him in great, nor little?

SERMON CXIII.

PREACHED TO THE EARL OF EXETER, AND HIS COMPANY, IN HIS CHAPEL AT ST. JOHN'S, 13TH JUNE, 1624.

REVELATION. vii. 9.

After this, I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.

We shall have occasion by and by, to say something of the danger of curiosity, and something of the danger of the broad way, in which, too many walk: we will not therefore fall into either of these faults, at first, we will not be over curious, nor we will not stray, nor cast ourselves into that broad, and boundless way, by entering into those various, and manifold senses, which expositors have multiplied, in the handling of this place, and this part of this book; but we take the plainest way, and that in which, the best meet, and concur, that these words are spoken of the joys, and glory, reserved for them, who overcome the fraud, and the fury, the allurements, and the violences of antichrist; in whom, in that name, and person of antichrist, we consider all supplanters, and all seducers, all opposers of the kingdom of Christ, in us; for, as every man hath spontaneum dæmonem, (as St. Chrysostom speaks) a devil of his own making, (which is, some customary, and habitual sin in him) so every man hath spontaneum antichristum, an antichrist of his own making, some objections in the weakness of his faith, some oppositions in the

perverseness of his manners, against the kingdom of Christ in himself; and as, if God would suspend the devil, or slumber the devil a day, I am afraid we should be as ill that day, as if the devil were awake, and in action, so if those disputed, and problematical antichrists, eastern and western antichrist, antichrist of Rome, and antichrist of Constantinople, Turk and Pope, were removed out of the world, we should not for all that be delivered of antichrist, that is, of that opposition to the kingdom of Christ, which is in ourselves. This part of the book of the Revelation, is literally, and primarily, the glorious victory of them, who, in the latter end of the world, having stood out the persecutions of the antichrist, enter into the triumph of heaven: and it extends itself to all, by way of fair accommodation, who after a battle with their own antichrists, and victory over their own enemies, are also made partakers of those triumphs, those joys, those glories, of which St. John, in this prophetical glass, in this perspective of visions, saw A great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, &c.

We are then upon the contemplation of the joys of heaven, which are everlasting, and must we wring them into the discourse of an hour? of the glory of heaven which is entire, and must we divide it into parts? We must; we will; we do; into two parts; first, the number, the great number of those that shall be saved; and then, the glorious qualities, which shall be imprinted on them, who are saved: first, that salvation is a more extensive thing, and more communicable, than sullen cloistral, that have walled salvation in a monastery, or in a hermitage, take it to be;

or than the over-valuers of their own purity, and righteousness,Pun,

which have determined salvation in themselves, take it to be; for, It is a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, &c. And then, in the second place, salvation is the possession of such endowments, as naturally invite all, to the prosecution of that, which is exposed and offered to all; that we all labour here, that we may all stand hereafter, Before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, &c.

In the first of these, we shall pass by these steps; first, we shall consider the sociableness, the communicableness of God himself, who gives us the earth, and offers us heaven, and desires

to have his kingdom well peopled; he would have many, he would have all, he would have every one of them have all. And then, the first word of the text, (After this) will carry us to the consideration of that which was done before; which was, first, that they which were of this number, were sealed, and then they which were so sealed before, were a great number, one hundred and forty-four thousand; but they who were made partakers of all this after, were innumerable, After this I beheld a great multitude, which no man could number; and therefore we shall shut up that first part with this consideration, what sense, what interpretation may belong unto those places, where Christ says, That the way to heaven is narrow, and the gate strait: of these pieces we shall make up our first part; and for the particulars belonging to the second, we shall fitliest open them, then, when we come to the handling of them.

Our first step then in this first part, is, the sociableness, the communicableness of God; he loves holy meetings, he loves the communion of saints, the household of the faithful: Deliciæ ejus, says Solomon, His delight is to be with the sons of men, and that the sons of men should be with him: religion is not a melancholy; the Spirit of God is not a damp; the church is not a grave: it is a fold, it is an ark, it is a net, it is a city, it is a kingdom, not only a house, but a house that hath many mansions in it still it is a plural thing, consisting of many: and very good grammarians amongst the Hebrews, have thought, and said, that that name, by which God notifies himself to the world, in the very beginning of Genesis, which is Elohim, as it is a plural word there, so it hath no singular: they say we cannot name God, but plurally so sociable, so communicable, so extensive, so derivative of himself, is God, and so manifold are the beams, and the emanations that flow out from him.

It is a garden worthy of your walking in; come into it, but by the gate of nature: the natural man had much to do, to conceive God: a God that should be but one God: and therefore scattered his thoughts upon a multiplicity of gods: and he found it, (as he thought) reasonable, to think, that there should be a god of justice, a god of wisdom, a god of power, and so made the several attributes of God, several gods, and thought that one god

might have enough to do, with the matters of justice, another with the causes that belonged to power, and so also, with the courts of wisdom: the natural man, as he cannot conceive a vacuity, that any thing should be empty, so he cannot conceive that any one thing, though that be a God, should fill all things: and therefore strays upon a plurality of gods, upon many gods, though, in truth, (as Athanasius expresses it) Ex multitudine numinum, nullitas numinum, He that constitutes many gods destroys all God; for no god can be God, if he be not all-sufficient; yet naturally, (I mean in such nature, as our nature is) a man does not easily conceive God to be alone, to be but one; he thinks there should be company in the Godhead.

Bring it farther than so. A man that lies in the dregs of obscured, and vitiated nature, does not easily discern, unicum Deum, a God that should be alone, a God that should be but one God. Reason rectified, (rectified by the word of God) can discern this, this one God. But when by that means of the Scripture, he does apprehend Deum unicum, one God, does he find that God alone? are there not three persons, though there be but one God? It is true the Romans mistook infinitely, in making three hundred Jupiters; Varro mistook infinitely, in making deos terrestres, and deos cœlestes, sublunary, and superlunary, heavenly, and earthly gods, and deos marinos, and fluviatiles, sea gods, and river gods, salt, and freshwater gods, and deos mares, and fœminas, he gods, and she gods, and (that he might be sure to take in all) deos certos et incertos, gods, which they were sure were gods, and gods which might be gods, for any thing they knew to the contrary. There is but one God; but yet was that one God ever alone? There were more generations (infinitely infinite) before the world was made, than there have been minutes, since it was made: all that while, there were no creatures; but yet was God alone, any one minute of all this? was there not always a Father and a Son, and a Holy Ghost? And had not they always an acquiescence in one another, an exercise of affection, (as we may so say) a love, a delight, and a complacency towards one another? So, as that the Father could not be without the Son and the Holy Ghost, so as neither Son, nor Holy Ghost could be without the Father, nor without one another; God was from all eternity collected into

one God, yet from all eternity he derived himself into three persons: God could not be so alone, but that there have been three persons, as long as there hath been one God.

Had God company enough of himself; was he satisfied in the three persons? We see he proceeded further; he came to a creation; and as soon as he had made light, (which was his first creature) he took a pleasure in it; he said it was good; he was glad of it; glad of the sea, glad of the earth, glad of the sun, and moon, and stars, and he said of every one, it is good; but when he had made all, peopled the whole world, brought all creatures together, then he was very glad, and then he said, not only that it was good, but that it was very good: God was so far from being alone, as that he found not the fulness of being well, till all was made, till all creatures met together, in an host, as Moses calls it; then the good was extended into very good.

Did God satisfy himself with this visible and discernible world; with all on earth, and all between that, and him? Were those four monarchies, the four elements, and all the subjects of those four monarchies, (if all the four elements have creatures) company enough for God? Was that heptarchy, the seven kingdoms of the seven planets, conversation enough for him? Let every star in the firmament, be (so some take them to be) a several world, was all this enough? We see, God drew persons nearer to him, than sun, or moon, or stars, or anything, which is visible, and discernible to us, he created angels; How many, how great? Arithmetic lacks numbers to express them, proportion lacks dimensions to figure them; so far was God from being alone.

And yet God had not shed himself far enough; he had the leviathan, the whale in the sea, and behemoth and the elephant upon the land; and all these great heavenly bodies in the way, and angels in their infinite numbers, and manifold offices, in heaven; but, because angels could not propagate, nor make more angels, he enlarged his love, in making man, that so he might enjoy all natures at once, and have the nature of angels, and the nature of earthly creatures, in one person. God would not be without man, nor he would not come single, not alone to the making of man; but it is Faciamus hominem, Let us, us make man; God, in his whole council, in his whole college, in his