VICAR OF WYMESWOLD, LEICESTershire, and late fellow of IN SIX VOLUMES. VOL. IV. LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND. M.DCCC.XXXIX. SERMONS. SERMON LXXXI. PREACHED AT THE EARL OF BRIDGEWATER'S HOUSE IN LONDON, AT THE MARRIAGE OF HIS DAUGHTER, THE LADY MARY, TO THE ELDEST SON OF THE LORD HERBERT OF CASTLE-ISLAND, NoVEMBER 19, 1627. THE PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON. O ETERNAL, and most gracious God, who hast promised to hearken to the prayers of thy people, when they pray towards thy house, though they be absent from it, work more effectually upon us, who are personally met in this thy house, in this place consecrated to thy worship. Enable us, O Lord, so to see thee, in all thy glasses, in all thy representations of thyself to us here, as that hereafter we may see thee face to face, and as thou art in thyself, in thy kingdom of glory. Of which glasses wherein we may see thee, thee in thine unity, as thou art one God; thee in thy plurality, as thou art more persons, we receive this thy institution of marriage to be one. In thy first work, the creation, the last seal of thy whole work was a marriage. In thy Son's great work, the redemption, the first seal of that whole work, was a miracle at a marriage. In the work of thy blessed spirit, our sanctification, he refreshes to us, that promise in one prophet, that thou wilt marry thyself to us for ever: and more in another, that thou hast married thyself unto us from the beginning. Thou hast married mercy and justice in thyself, married God and man in thy Son, married increpation and consolation in the Holy Ghost, marry in us also, O Lord, a love and a fear of thee. And as thou hast married in us two natures, mortal and immortal, marry in us also, the knowledge, and the practice of all duties belonging to both conditions, that so this world may be our gallery VOL. IV. B |