MY Text, and so my Sermon too, is the just character of man; A common, and stale theme, you will say; but a needfull one: we are all apt to misknow or to forget [Page 2] what we are; No blacks, nor soule-bells, nor deaths heads on our rings, nor funerall ser­mons, nor tombes, nor Epi­taphes can fixe our hearts e­nough upon our fraile, and miserable condition; And if any man have condescended to see his face in the true loo­king glasse of his wretched frailty, so soon as his back is turned hee forgets his shape straight; Especially at a Court where outward glory would seem to shoulder out the thoughts of poore despicable mortality; Give mee leave therefore, (Honourable and beloved) to ring my owne knell in your eares this day, and to call home your eyes a little, and to shew you that [Page 3] which I feare you too sel­dome see, your selves. Lent and funeralls are wont still to go both in one Livery: There is no book so well worthy reading as this living one; Even now David spake as a King of men, Of people sub­dued under him; now hee speakes as an humble vassall to God: Lord what is man that thou takest knowledge of him?

In one breath is both so­veraignty and subjection; An absolute soveraignty over his people; My people are subdued under me; An humble subje­ction to the God of Kings; Lord, what is man? Yea, in the very same word wherein is the profession of that sove­raignty, there is an acknow­ledgement [Page 4] of subjection; Thou hast subdued my people; In that he had people, he was a King; that they might be his people, a subjugation was requisite; and that subjugation was Gods, and not his own; Thou hast subdued; Lo David had not subdued his people, if God had not subdued them for him; Hee was a great King, but they were a stiffe people; The God that made them swayed them to a due subje­ction; The great Conquerors of worlds, could not conquer hearts, if hee that molded hearts did not temper them: By me Kings raigne saith the Eternall wisdome; and he that had courage enough to en­coūter a Beare, a Lion, Goliah, [Page 5] yet can say: Thou hast subdued my people.

Contrarily, in that lowli­est subjection of himselfe, there is an acknowledgement of greatnesse; though he aba­seth himselfe with a What is man, yet withall, he addes, thou takest knowledge of him, thou ma­kest account of him; And this knowledge, this account of God, doth more exalt man, then his own vanity can de­presse him.

My Text then, yee see, is Davids rapture, expressed in an extaticall question of sud­den wonder; a wonder at God, and at man; Mans vile­nesse: What is man? Gods mercy and favour, in his knowledge, in his estimation [Page 6] of man: Lo, there are but two lessons that we need to take out here, in the world, God, and man; and here they are both: Man in the notion of his wretchednesse; God, in the notion of his bounty: Let us (if you please) take a short view of both, and in the one see cause of our hu­miliation, of our joy and thankfulnesse in the other, & if in the former, there be a sad Lent of mortification, there is in the latter, a chearfull Easter of our raising and exaltation.

Many a one besides David, wonders at himselfe, one wonders at his own honor, and though hee will not say so, yet thinkes What a great man am I? Is not this great [Page 7] Babel which I have built? This is Nebuchadnezars won­der: Another wonders at his person, and findes either a good face, or a faire eye, or an exquisite hand, or a well shap't leg, or some gay fleece to admire in himselfe: This was Absalous wonder: Ano­ther wonders at his wit, and learning: How came I by all this? Turba haec. This vul­gar that knowes not the law, is accursed. This was the Pha­risees wonder. Another won­ders at his wealth, Soule, take thine ease, as the Epicure in the Gospell. Davids wonder is as much above, as against all these; hee wonders at his vilenesse: Like as the chosen vessell would boast of no­thing, [Page 8] but his infirmities: Lord what is man?

How well this hangs to­gether? No sooner had hee said, Thou hast subdued my peo­ple under me, then he adds, Lord what is man?

Some vaine heart would have beene lifted up with a conceit of his own eminence; Who I? I am not as other men; I have people under me; and people of my owne; and people subdued to mee; This is to bee more then a man; I know who hath said, I said ye are Gods. Besides Alex­ander the great, how many of the Roman Cesars have been transported with this self-ad­miration, and have challen­ged Temples, Altars, Sacrifices. [Page 9] How have they shared the moneths of the yeare among them; April must be Neroni­us, May Claudius, Iune Ger­manicus, September Antoninus, Domitian will have October, November is for Tiberius, by the same token, that when it was tendered to him, he askt the Senat wittily (as Xiphiline reports it) what they would doe when they should have more then twelve Cesars; But if there were not moneths enow for them, in the yeare; there were starres enow in the Skie, there was elbow-room enough in their imaginary heaven for their deification. What tell I you of these▪ a so­ry Clearchus of Pontus, as Suidas tells us, would be [Page 10] worshipped, and have his son called Lightning; Mene­crates the Physitian (though not worthy to bee Esculapius his Apothecaries boy) yet would be Iupiter: Empedocles the Philosopher, if it had not been for his shoo would have gone for Immortall. Sejanus will be sacrificing to himself. I could tyre you with these prodigies of pride. I could tell you of a Xerxes that will be correcting the Hellespont, and writing letters of threat to the mountain Athos: of one of his proud Sultan suc­cessors Sapores that writ him­selfe Brother to the Sun, and Moone: of his great neigh­bour of China that styles himself Heire apparent to the [Page 11] living Sun: and the wise Cham of Tartary, Son of the highest God; Caligula would [...] as Dio, counter-thunder to God; and will bee no lesse then Iu­piter Latialis; And the Scythian Roylus can say; It is easie for him to destroy all that the Sun lookes upon; Lord God! how can the vaine pride of man befoole him, and carry him away to ridiculous affe­ctations? The man after Gods own heart is in another vain; when he lookes downward, he sees the people crouching under him, and confesses his own just predominancy, but when hee lookes either up­ward to God, or inward to himselfe, he sayes, Lord what [Page 12] is man? It should not be, it is not in the power of earthly greatnesse to raise the regene­rate heart above it selfe, or to make it forget the true groūds of his own humiliation. Avo­let, quantum volet palea, as he said: Let the light chaffe bee hoised into the ayre, with e­very winde (as Psal. 1.) the solid grain lyes close, and falls so much the lower, by how much it is more weighty. It is but the smoke that mounts up in the furnace, it is but the drosse that swells up in the lump, the pure metall sinkes to the bottome, if there be any part of the crucible lower then other, there you shall finde it. The proud moun­taines shelve off the rain, and [Page 13] are barren; the humble val­lies soak it up, and are fruit­full. Set this pattern before you ye great ones whom God hath raised to the height of worldly honor: Oh be ye as humble as ye are great: the more high you are in others eyes, be so much more lowly in your owne, as knowing that hee was no lesse then a King that said, Lord what is man?

The time was when Da­vid made this wonder upon another occasion. Psal. 8. 3, 4. When I see the heavens, the moon and the stars that thou hast ordai­ned, Lord what is man? When looking over that great night-piece, and turning over the vast volume of the world (as [Page 14] Gerson termes it) hee saw in that large folio, amongst those huge capitall letters, what a little insēsible daghes­point man is, he breaks forth into an amazed exclamation Lord what is man? Indeed, how could he doe other? To compare such a mite, a mote, a nothing with that goodly and glorious vault of heaven, and with those worlds of light, so much bigger then so many globes of earth, hang­ing, and moving regularly in that bright and spacious con­tignation of the firmament, it must needs astonish humane reason, and make it ashamed of its own poorenesse: Cer­tainly, if there could bee any man that when hee knowes [Page 15] the frame of the world could wonder at any thing in him­selfe, save his owne nothing­nesse, I should as much won­der at him, as at the world it selfe.

There David wondred to cōpare man with the world; here he wonders too to com­pare man, with a world of men, and to see that God had done so much for him above others in his advancement, deliverances, victories. But if any man had rather to take this Psalme as a sacred Rhap­sody, gathered out of the 18. and 8. and 39. Psalmes; and this sentence as universall; I oppose not; Let this wonder be generall, not so much of David, a man selected, as of [Page 16] David, a man. These two are well joyned, Lord, What? For however man when hee is considered in himselfe, or compared with his fellow-creatures, may be something; yet when he comes into men­tion with his maker, he is lesse then nothing. Match him with the beast of the field, yea of the desert; even there, how­ever, as Chrysostom, every beast hath some one ill quality, but man hath all; yet, in regard of rule, what a jolly Lord he is; here is omnia subjecisti, thou hast put all things in subjecti­on to him; Not the fiercest Lyon, not the hugest Ele­phant, or the wildest Tyger, but, either by force, or wile man becomes his master; and [Page 17] though they have left that ori­ginall awe, which they bare to him so soon as ever he for­sook his loyalty to his King; yet still they doe, (not with­out regret) acknowledge the impressions of Majesty in that upright face of his; Wher­fore are they but for man? Some for his labor as the oxe; some for his service as the horse: some for his pleasure as the dog, or the ape: some for his exercise, as the beasts of the forest, all for man: But when we look up at his infi­nite Creator, Lord what is man? O God, thou art an intelligi­ble sphere, whose center is e­very where, whose circum­ference is no where but in thy selfe: Man is a mere center [Page 18] without a circumference. Thou, O God, in una essentia omnia praehabes, in one essence forecomprisest all things, as Aquinas out of Dionysiw; man, in a poore imperfect compo­sition holds nothing. Thou art light, hast light, dwellest in light inaccessible; Man of himselfe is as darke as earth, yea as hell. Thou art God al­sufficient, the very heathen could say, ( [...]); It is for none but God to want nothing: Man wants all but evill; Shortly, thou art all holinesse, power, justice, wisdome, mercy, truth, perfe­ction: Man is nothing but defect, error, ignorance, inju­stice, impotence, corruption; Lord then, what is man to [Page 19] thee but a fit subject for thy wrath, yet let it bee rather a meet object of thy commise­ration; Behold we are vile, thou art glorious; let us adore thine infinitenesse, doe thou pitty our wretchednesse. Lord what is man?

Leave wee comparisons; Let us take man as he is him­selfe; It is a rule of our olde country man of Hales, the a­cute master of Bonaventure, that a man should bee rigidus sibi, pius aliis, rigorous to him­selfe, kinde to others: Surely, as Nazianzen observes, in one kinde, that nothing is more pleasing to talk of then other mens businesses, so, there is nothing more easie, then for a man to be wittily bitter in in­vectives [Page 20] against his own con­dition; who hath not braine, and gall enough to be a Ti­mon, depreciari carnem hanc (as Tertullian speakes,) to dispa­rage humanity; and like an an­gry Lion to beat himselfe to blood with his owne sterne; Neither is it more rife for dogs to bark at men, then men at themselves. Alas, to what purpose is this currish clamour? Wee are miserable enough though wee would flatter our selves; To whose insultation can we be thus ex­posed but to our owne? I come not hither to sponge you with this vineger, & gall, but give mee leave a little, though not to aggravate, yet to deplore our wretchednes; [Page 21] There can bee no ill blood in this: Amaritudo sermonum me­dicina animarū, this bitternesse is medicinall, saith S. Ambrose; I doe not feare wee shall live so long as to know our selves too well. Lord then what is man? What in his being? What in his depravation? How miserable in both?

What should I fetch the poore wretched infant out of the blinde cavernes of na­ture, to shame us with our conceptions, and to make us blush at the substance, nou­rishment, posture of that which shall be a man; There he lyes, senselesse for some moneths (as the heathen Ora­tour truly observes,) as if hee had no soule. When hee [Page 22] comes forth into the large womb of the world, his first greeting of his mother is with cryes and lamentations, (and more hee would cry if hee could know into what a world he comes) recompen­cing her painefull throwes with continuall unquietnes; what sprawling, what wrin­ging, what impotēce is here? There lyes the poore little Lording of the world, not a­ble to helpe himselfe; whiles the new yeaned Lambe rises up on the knees, and seeks for the teates of her damme, knowing where and how to finde reliefe, so soone as it be­gins to bee. Alas, what can man doe, if hee bee let alone, but make faces, and noyses, [Page 23] and dye? Lord what is man? This is his ingresse into the world; his progresse, in it, is no better. From an impotent birth, hee goes on to a silly childhood; if no body should teach him to speake what would hee doe? Historians may talk of, Bec, that the un­taught infant said; I dare say he learn't it of the goates, not of nature; I shall as soone be­leeve that Adam spake Dutch in Paradise according to Goro­pius Becanus his idle fancy, as that the childe meant to speak an articulate word unbidden: And if a mother or nurse did not tend him, how soone would he be both noysome, & nothing; Where other crea­tures stand upon their owne [Page 24] feet and are wrapt in their owne naturall mantles, and tend upon their dams for their sustenance, and finde them out amongst ten thou­sand.

Yea the very spider weaves so soon as ever it comes out of the egge: Assoone as age and nurture can feoffe him in any wit, hee falls to shifts; all his ambition is to please him­selfe in those crude humours of his yong vanity: If hee can but elude the eyes of a nurse or Tutor, how safe hee is? Neither is he yet capable of a­ny other care, but how to de­cline his own good, and to be a safe truant; It is a large time that our Casuists give him, that, at seven yeares, hee be­gins [Page 25] to lye; Vpon time and tutorage, what devises hee hath to feed his appetite? what fetches to live? And if, now, many successions of ex­periments have furnisht him with a thousand helps, yet, as it is in the text ( [...]) What is Adam, and the son of Enosh? How was it with the first man? how with the next? Could we look so far back as to see Adam and Eve, when they were new turned out of Paradise; in dignam exilio ter­ram (as Nazianzen speakes of his Pontick habitation) Oh that hard-driven, and misera­ble paire! The perfection of their invention and judge­ment was lost in their sinne; their soule was left no lesse [Page 26] naked then the body. How wofully doe we thinke they did scramble to live? they had water and earth before them, but fire, an active and usefull element, was yet unknowne; Plants they had, but metalls whereby they might make use of those plants, and redact them to any forme, for in­struments of work, were yet (till Tubal-cain) to seek. Here was Adam delving with a jawbone, and harrowing with sticks tyed uncouthly together, and paring his nailes with his teeth: there Eve ma­king a comb of her fingers; & tying her raw-skin'd bree­ches together with rindes of trees, or pinning them up with thornes. Here was A­dam [Page 27] tearing off some arme of a tree, to drive in those stakes which he hath pointed with some sharp flint; there Eve fet­ching in her water in a shell; Here Adam the first mid▪ wife to his miserable consort, and Eve wrapping her little one in a skin, lately borrowed from some beast; and laying it on a pillow of leaves, or grasse; Their fist was their hammer, their hand their dish, their armes and legges their ladder, heaven their Canopy, and earth their fetherbed; & now ( [...]) What is Adam? In time Art beganne to improve nature; Every dayes experi­ments brought forth some­thing; and now, man durst affect to dwell, not safe, but [Page 28] faire; to be clad, not warme but fine; and the palate waxt by degrees, wanton, & wilde; the back and the belly strove whether should be more lu­xurious; and the eye affected to be more prodigal then they both; and ever since, the am­bition of these three hath spent, & wearyed the world; so as in the other extreme we may well cry out, Lord what is man?

For, to rise up with his age and the worlds now, when man is grown ripe in all pro­fessions, an exquisite artist, a learned Philosopher, a stout champion, a deep politician, whither doth he bend all his powers, but to attain his own ends, to crosse anothers? to [Page 29] greaten himselfe, to supplant a rivall, to kill an enemy, to em­broile a world; Mans heart (as Bernard well) is a mill, ever grinding some grist, or other, of his own devise; and I may adde, if there bee no graine to work upon, sets it self on fire. Lord what is man? (even after the accession of a professed Christianity) but a butcher of his owne kinde? Seneca told his Lucilius (the same that Iob hath) that vivere militare est; It is true now not morally but literally: What a wofull shambles is Christendome it selfe ever since the last Comet becomne. Fryer Dominick was according to his mothers dream a dog with a fire brand in his mouth, sure ever since, [Page 30] religion hath been fiery and bloody. Homicida cucurbita­rum, was the style that S. Au­stin gave to Manicheus; now e­very man abroad strives to be bomicida Christianorum: As if men were growne to the re­solution of the old Tartars, of whō Haytonus; they thought it no sin to kill a man, but not to pull off their horses bridle when hee should feed, this they held mortall. What hils of carcasses are here? What ri­vers of blood; At tu domine usquequo? How long Lord, how long shall men play the men in killing? and seek glo­ry in these ambitious mur­ders. Oh stay, stay thou pre­server of men, these impetu­ous rages of inhumane man­kinde, [Page 31] and scatter the people that delight in warre: And blessings be upon the anoin­ted head of the King of our peace, under whose happy scepter we enjoy these calme & comfortable times, whiles all the rest of the world is weltring in blood, and scor­ching in their mutuall flames; May all the blessings of our peace returne upon him, who is (under God) the author of these blessings, and upon his seed for ever, and ever.

How willingly would I now forget (as an old man easily might) to turne back to the dispositions, studies, cour­ses of man, commonly bent upon the prosecution whe­ther of his lust, or malice: Wo▪ [Page 30] [...] [Page 31] [...] [Page 32] is me, how is his time spent? In hollow visits, in idle court­ings, in Epicurean pamper­ings, in fantastick dressings, in lawlesse disports, in deepe plots, crafty conveyances, quarrelous law-suits, spight­full underminings, corrading of riches, cozēing in cōtracts, revenging of wrongs, sup­pressing the emulous, oppres­sing inferiours, mutining a­gainst authority, eluding of lawes, and what shall I say? in doing all but what hee should, so as in this, man ap­proves Polybius his word too true, that he is both the crafti­est of all creatures, & most vi­cious; and in the best and all his wayes makes good the word in my text (even in this [Page 33] sense) Man is like unto vanity; yea like is not the same; Man is altogether vanity. Psal. 39. 6. Indeed so more then vanity that we may rather say vanity is like to man; What a deale of variety of vanity here is; Ones is a starved vanity, ano­thers a pamperd one; ones a loviall vanity, anothers a sul­len one; ones a silken vanity, anothers a ragged one; ones a carelesse vanity, anothers a carking; and all these rivu­lets runne into one com­mon Ocean of vanity, at last, universa vanitas omnis homo; In this busie variety doth he weare out the time and himselfe, till age or sicknesse summon him to his dis­solution; But the whiles, in [Page 32] [...] [Page 33] [...] [Page 34] the few minutes of our life, how are our drams of plea­sure lost in our pounds of gal; Anguish of soule, troubles of minde, distempers of body, losses of estate, blemishes of reputation, miscariages of children, mis-casualties, un­quietnesse, paines, griefes, feares take up our hearts, and forbid us to enjoy, not happi­nesse, but our very selves; so as our whole life sits like Augu­stus, inter suspiria & lachrymas betwixt sighes and teares; and all these hasten us on to our end; and wo is me, how soon is that upon us? I remember Gerson brings in an English­man asking a Frenchman Quot annos habes? (how many yeares are you?) a usuall latin [Page 35] phrase when we aske after a mans age; his answer is Annos non habeo; I am of no yeares at al, but death hath forborn me these fifty; Surely we cannot make account of one minute: besides the vanity of unprofi­tablenesse, here is the vanity of transitorinesse. How doth the momentaninesse of this misery adde to the misery; what a flowre, a vapour, a smoke, a bubble, a shadow, a dreame of a shadow our life is? We are going, and then a carelesse life is shut up in a disconsolate end, and God thinkes it enough to threat, Ye shall die like men: Alas, this wormeaten apple soon falls; vitreum hoc corpusculum (as E­rasmus termes it) is soone [Page 36] crackt, and broken. It is not for every one to have his soule suckt out of his mouth with a kisse as the Iewes say of Moses. He that came into the world with cryes, goes out with groanes; The pangs of death, the anguish of con­science, the shrieking of friends, the frights of hell meet now together to render him perfectly miserable, and now, Lord, what is man? Well, he dyes, saith the Psalmist, and then all his thoughts perish; Lo what a word here is? All his thoughts perish. What is man but for his thoughts? Those are the only improvement of reason, and that in an infinite variety: One bends his thoughts upon some busie [Page 37] controversies, perhaps nec ge­mino ab ovo; another, upon some deep plot of State to be molded up (like to China clay) some hundred yeares after, another, hath cast models in his brain of some curious fa­brick wherewith he will en­rich the surface of the earth; another hath in his active imagination hookt in his neighbours inheritance, and takes care to convey it; one studies Art, another fraud, a­nother the art of fraud; one is laying a foundation for future greatnesse, as low as hell; ano­ther, is laying on a gilded roof where is no firme foundati­on, each one is taken up with severall thoughts, when hee dies all those thoughts perish; [Page 38] all those castles in the ayre ( [...], as Aristophanes his word is) vanish to nothing; onely his ill thoughts stick by him, and wait on his soule to his hell: But I have not yet done with the body: Rame­ses which signifieth wormes, is our last station in this wil­dernesse; yet one step lower e corpore vermes, e vermibus faetor, as Bernard well: Hee that was rotted with disor­der, would be sweetned with odors; but it is more then all Arabia can doe, neither is there more horror in the face of death, then in his breath, noysomenesse. Lord what is man? But alas, it is well for this part that it is for the time senselesse; the living Spirit [Page 39] payes the while for all, which if it bee but a mere mans, is hurried by divels immediat­ly, into the dreadfull regions of horror, and death, and there lyes for ever, and ever, and ever in unsufferable, un­utterable, unconceivable tor­ments, without all possibility of intermission, of mitigati­on. Oh wo wo wo to those miserable soules that ever they were created. And now, Lord what is man?

Ye have seen man divided by his times, in his ingresse, progresse, egresse; or, in La­ctantius his termes, in his ori­ginall, state, dissolution: See him now, at one glance, divi­ded in his parts, Bernards two mites, A body and a soule; [Page 40] What is man then? A goodly creature he is: When I looke upon this stirring pile, I can say, I am fearefully, and won­derfully made. Lord, I can admire thee in me, and yet a­base my selfe: thou art so much more wonderfull in thy workes, by how much I am viler: What is this body of mine but a piece of that I tread upon, a sack of dust (if not saccus stercorum as Ber­nard) a sewer of ill humours, a magazine of diseases, a feast of wormes; And as for that better part, the inmate of this ragged cottage, though as it proceeds from thee, it is a pure immortall spirit, a sparke of thine heavenly fire, a glimpse of thy divine light, yet as it is [Page 41] mine, how can I pity it? Alas, how darke it is with igno­rance? For what have I here but that cognitionem nocturnam, which Aquinas yeelds to worse creatures, how foule and muddy with error, nec quis error turpitudine caret, there is no errour that is not nasty as Austin truly; how earthly and grosse with mis-affections; praecedit carnem in crimine, it ushers the flesh in sinfull courses, as Bernard; how as unlike thee, as like him that marred it? And, if both parts in their kind were good, yet put together they are naught; Earth is good, and water is good, yet put toge­ther they make mudd and mire. Lord then what is man?

[Page 42] Such is nature now in her best dresse, but if ye look up­on her in the worst of her de­pravation, ye shall not more wonder at her misery, then her ugly deformity; (Materia vilis, operatio turpis as Bernard) and in a detestation (more then pity) of her loathlinesse, shall cry out, Lord what is man? I doe not tell you of bloody Turkes, man-eating Canniballs, mungrell Tro­glodites feeding upon bu­ried carcasses, Patavian pan­darisme of their own daugh­ters, or of miserable Indians idolatrously adoring their di­vellish Pagodes, I meddle not with these remote prodigies of lost humanity; Yet these goe for men too, I speak of [Page 43] more civill wickednesse, inci­dent to the ordinary courses of men. It is sweetly said of S. Chrysostome; Alas, what is sicknesse, what is blindnesse, nihil sunt ista ô homo; These are nothing, unum duntaxat malum est peccare, there is no evill to sin: If then man be such, as man, what is he as a sinner? when his eyes are the burn­ing glasses of concupiscence, his tongue a razor of detracti­on, his throat an open sepul­cher of good names or patri­monies, his heart a mint of treasons, and villanies, his hands the engines of fraud and violence; Shortly, when he is debaucht with lust, with riot, with intemperance; tran­sported with pride, insolence, [Page 44] fury; pardon mee, now, man is a beast, Psal. 74. that is yet too easie, a monster; yet once more pardon mee, a divell; if the word seeme too harsh, it is my Saviours unus vestrum diabolus, one of you is a divel; In this case, his best is vanity, his next wickednesse, his worst is despaire and damna­tion. Is there any of you now that heares me this day, that findes cause to be in love with, or proud of himselfe as a man? Let me see him, and blesse my selfe: Surely, if there be glory in shame, power in impotence, pleasure in misery, safety in danger, beauty in de­formity, he hath reason. I re­member the learned Chan­cellor of Paris, when in his [Page 45] tract upon the Magnificat, hee describes beauty, to be confor­mitas exemplaris; hee instances that if we see a toad well and lively pictured, We say Ecce pulchrè pictum bufonem; Oh the loathly beauty of our confor­mity, to the naturall condition of man, yea of Satan in him. The philosopher did well to thanke God that hee was a man, but, if I had beene by him, I should have bidden him to bewaile himselfe that he was but a man; and, I say to every of you, whom I now see, and speak unto; that if ye be but men, it had beene better ye had never been; If men, ye are but [...]. 1 Cor. 3. 3. so the vulgar turnes it, men are but flesh, & flesh is a title [Page 46] given to the Egyptian horses, by way of disparagement too; Their horses are but flesh Esa. 31. 3. and flesh and blood cannot inherite the Kingdome of God, it can, it doth, it must inherite misery, sorrow, corruption, torment; It cannot claime, it cannot hope, for more, for other pa­trimony. Oh then, as you tender your owne eternall safety, be not quiet till yee bee more then men; till yee have passed a new birth; It was wise Zenoes word, Difficile est hominem exuere; it is hard to put off the man; hard, but ne­cessary, off hee must, Nisi me mutassem was Socrates his word; till then, your conditi­on, (what ever it may bee in [Page 47] civill and secular regards) is unexpressibly wofull. That same interior cordis homo, the inner man of the heart (the phrase whereof S. Ambrose doth so much wonder at in S. Peter) is that, which ye must both finde, and look to; O­therwise, let your outside bee never so beautifull, never so glorious, ye are no better then misery it selfe. Downe then, dust and ashes, downe with those proud plumes of the vainmiscōceits of thine own goodlinesse, beauty, glory: Thinke thy selfe but so vile as thou art, there will bee more danger of thy selfe contempt: Would our vaine dames be­stow so much curious cost on this woful piece, if they could [Page 48] see themselves, as well as their glasses? Who is so foolish to cast away gilding upon a clay wall, or a crackt pitcher; yea to enamell a bubble? would our gallants so over­pamper this wormes meat, if they could be sensible of their owne vilenesse? The Chan­cellor of Paris tells us of King Lewes the Saint, that he regar­ded not, quam delicato cibo ster­cus conficeretur, nec coquus ver­mium esse volebat; hee would be no cook for the wormes; such would bee our resoluti­on, if wee knew our selves. Oh seasonable and just pray­er of David! Let them know they are but men! Could they know this, how many inso­lencies, and proud out-rages [Page 49] would be spared? how ma­ny good houres, how many useful creatures would escape their luxurious wast?

It is out of mere ignorance that man is so over-glad of himselfe, so puffed up above his brethren; There are but two things, as one notes well, that the naturall man is most proud of, Knowledge, and Power; Surely if he had one of these to purpose, hee could be proud of neither, know thy self, O man, and be proud if thou canst. Why then doth the rich Landlord grate upon his poore scraping Tenant? Why doth the silken courtier brow-beat his russet countri­man? Why do potent Lords (decepti floridate purpurae as Am­brose [Page 50] speakes) trample upon that peasantly mold, which nature hath, not in kinde, dif­ferenced from their owne; since, if great ones could bee more men, they would bee more miserable. Why do we, how dare we insult on each other since wee are all under one common doome of mi­serable mortality? Why doe we fixe our thoughts upon these cottages of clay, which are every houre going into dust, and not make sure work for those glorious and eternall mansions wherein dwells our interminable, and incomprehensible blessed­nesse, longing that this mor­tall may put on immortality, this corruptible incorruption, [Page 51] Come Lord Jesus, come quickly.

Doe not thinke now that I have all this while done, as I have seen some in a throng, or as hood-winkt boyes in their sport struck my friends. The regenerate man is an Angelical creature; And man, what ever he bee in other re­gards, yet, as he comes out of Gods mold, is the great ma­ster-piece of his Creator, ( [...]) thou hast taken knowledge of him: and ( [...]) reputasti eum; thou makest account of him: Turne your eyes then from mans vilenesse, to the more pleasing object of Gods mer­cy; &, as you have seen man in the dust of his abasement, so [Page 52] now, see him in the throne of his exaltation: This grain after a little frost-biting will sprout up the more; If else­where, the Psalmist say, Ele­vans allisisti; here it is allisum elevasti.

It is a great word; thou ta­kest knowledge of him; Alas, what knowledge do we take of the gnats, that play in the sun, or the Ants, or wormes, that are crawling in our grounds? yet the dispropor­tion betwixt us and them is but finite; infinite betwixt God and us. Thou the great God of heavē to take know­ledge of such a thing as man? If a mighty Prince shall vouchsafe to spye and single out a plain homely swain in [Page 53] a throng (as the great Sultan did lately a Tankerd-bearer) & take speciall notice of him, & call him but to a kisse of his hand, & nearenesse to his per­son, hee boasts of it, as a great favour; For thee, then, O God, who abasest thy selfe to be­hold the things in heaven it selfe, to cast thine eye, upon so poore a worme, as man, it must needs bee a wonderfull mercy: Exigua pauperibus ma­gna, as Nazianzene to his Am­philochius. But God takes knowledge of many that he regards not; hee knowes the proud afarre off, but hee hates him; That of S. Austins is right, wee are sometimes said not to know that which we approve not, it is therefore ad­ded, [Page 54] reputastieum, thou makest account of him; An high ac­count indeed; David learned this of Iob; whose word is, Thou magnifiest him, and settest thy heart upon him. Iob 7. 17. Now this knowledge, this account is by David here, ei­ther appropriated to himselfe as a King, or diffused, and communicated to him as a man. The fore-text appro­priates it; the subtext commu­nicates it. In the immediate words before, had David re­ported what God did for him as a King, that hee was his tower for safety, his deliverer from danger, his shield for protection, his subduer of his enemies, for rule; and now he addes, Lord what is man [Page 55] that thou takest knowledge of him; and the son of man that thou ma­kest account of him; intimating, that this knowledge, this ac­count is of David, as a man of men ( [...]) a King of men; as the Grecians title had wont to be. It is Gods truth, it can be neither paradoxe, nor parasitisme, to say that God takes speciall knowledge, and makes speciall account of Kings; especially the Kings of his Israel. I have found David my servant; [...] with my holy oyle have I anointed him. Psal. 88. 21. See what a peculiarity here is: My ser­vant, first, by a propriety, by a supereminence. My servant found out or singled from the rest of mankind, for pub­lique [Page 56] administration; My anointed, when other heads are dry; Anointed with holy oyle, yea Gods holy oyle, whiles other heads with common. What should I tell you of their speciall ordinati­on, Rom. 13. 1. Immediate deputation, Psal. 2. Commu­nication of titles, Exod. 22. 28. [...] specially of charge and protection; 2 Sam. 22. 44. Thus then being chosen, thus anointed, thus ordained, thus deputed, thus entitled, thus protected, well may they ac­knowledge more then com­mon knowledge and ac­count. What will follow hence, but that they owe more to God then other men; since more respect calls for [Page 57] more duty; and, that we owe unto them, those respects, and observances, which Gods e­stimation calls for from us. Homage, obedience, tribute, prayers, lives, are due from us to Gods Vicegerents; There are nations of whom God may say Dedi eis regem in ira: Even such yet must have all these duties; But when the influences of soveraignty are sweet and gentle, Sicut ros su­per herbam, we cannot too much poure out our selves, into gratitude to God for them, to them under God. Even so, O thou God of Kings, still, and ever double this knowledge and deare ac­count of thine, upon that thy Servant, whom thou hast [Page 56] [...] [Page 57] [...] [Page 58] chosen, anointed, ordained, protected, to be the great in­strument of our peace, and thy glory.

Let us now see the favour diffused, to David, not as a King, but as a man: A sub­ject not more large, then plea­sing; what can be more plea­sing then to heare our owne praises? what more ample then Gods mercies to man? we must but ( [...]); and like skilfull limmers, draw up this large face, in a penny-breadth; or like good market men, cary but an handfull to sell the whole sack. O God, what a goodly creature hast thou made man? Even this very outside wants not his glory: The matter cannot [Page 59] disparage it. If thou mad'st this body of earth, thou ma­dest the heavens of nothing; what a perfect symmetry is here in this frame? what an admirable variety (as Zeno noted of old) even of faces, all like, all unlike each other? what a Majesty in that ere­cted countenance? what a correspondence to heaven? How doth the head of this microcosme resemble that round celestial globe, and the eyes the glittering stars in that firmament, and the intelle­ctuall powers in it those An­gelicall, and spirituall natures which dwell there? What should I stand courting of man in all the rest. There is not one limme, or parcell in [Page 60] this glorious fabrick, where­in there is not both use, and beauty, and wonder. The su­perior members give influ­ence, and motion to the low­er, the lower, supportation to the superiour, the middle contribute nourishment to both: Was it heresie; or fren­zy, or blasphemy, or all these, in the Paternians of old; revi­ved of late times, by Postellus at Paris, that mans lower parts were of a worse author? Away with that mad misan­thropy: there is no inch of this living pile, which doth not bewray steps of an all­wise and holy omnipotence.

But oh the inside of this exquisite piece. As Socrates, Cleanthes, and Anaxarchus, [Page 61] though heathens, truly said; That is the man, this is but the case. Surely this reasona­ble soule is so divine a sub­stance, and the faculties of it invention, memory, judge­ment so excellent; that it selfe hath not power enough to admire its owne worth, what corner of earth, what creek of sea, what span of heaven is unsearcht by it? how hath it surrounded this globe, and calculated the stars, and motions of the o­ther? what simple, or what metall, or minerall can bee hid from it? what eclipse or conjunction, or other po­stures of those celestiall bo­dies can escape its certaine prediction? Yea, O Lord, [Page 62] it can aspire, and attaine to know thee the God of spirits, the wonderfull mysteries of thy salvation; to apprehend I meane, never (oh never) to comprehend the wonderfull relations of thy blessed, and incomprehensible essence; Divinae particula aurae. Lord what is man that thou thus makest account of him?

I feare I shall make this Topaze but so much the dar­ker by polishing; but, as wee may, shortly; Next to that the tongue hath not skill enough to tell the wonders of it selfe. That little filme the interpre­ter of the soule how sweete notes, how infinite varieties of expressions can it forme; and wel-neare utter what [Page 63] ever the mind can conceive; where other creatures cā but bleat, or bel­low, or bray, or grunt, not excee­ding the rude uniformity of their own naturall soūd: By this, we can both understād our selves, & blesse our maker; whence it is that David justly styles his tongue, his glory.

Besides his person, how hast thou, ô God, ennobled him with priviledges of his condition? How hast thou made him the sole sur­vayor of heaven, the Lord of the creatures, the commander of the earth, the charge of Angels? Lord, what is man that thou makest this high account of him?

But, what is all this, yet, in com­parison of what thou hast done for our soules? I am now swallo­wed up, O God, with the wōder, and astonishment of thy uncon­ceiveable [Page 64] mercies. What shall I say, that ere the world was, thou lo­vedst man that should be; with an everlasting love hast thou embra­ced him, whō thou madst happy, and foresawest forlorn, and mise­rable. The Angels fel, thou lettedst them goe; Man fell; and, oh thou blessed Son of the eternall Father, thou wouldst rather divest thy self of the robes of heavenly glory, and come down, and put on these rags of our flesh, & therein indure the miseries of a servile life, the scorns of wretched men, the pains of a bitter, and accursed death, the wrath of thy blessed, and coessen­tiall Father, then men should not be recovered; By thy stripes are we healed, by thy blood we are redee­med, by thy death we are quicke­ned, by thy Spirit wee are renew­ed, [Page 65] by thy merits we are saved; and now Lord, what an account is this thou hast made of man?

What a wonderfull honor is this to which thou hast advanced us? By thee, O Saviour, we are not on­ly reconciled to God, but of stran­gers are become servāts of the high God. Acts 16. 17. Servants? yea friends. Iames 2. 23. yea sons; the sons of the highest. Luc. 6. 35. Sons? yea heires, Haeredes cum re as S. Am­brose; coheires with Christ, Rom. 8. coinheritors of immortall glory. 1 Pet. 3. 22.

Yea, that, which all the Angels of heaven stand stil amazed at, and can never bee satisfied with admi­ring, thou hast caryed up this hu­mane nature of ours into the inse­parable union with the ever glori­ous, and blessed Godhead, to be a­dored [Page 66] of all principalities, & pow­ers, and thrones, and dominions of heaven.

Lo I, that even now could have beene sory that I was a man, begin now to be holily proud of my cō ­dition; and know not whether I may change the man for the An­gel. Pardon me, ye glorious Spirits; I durst not speake thus big of my selfe, but in the right of my Savi­our, I dare, and must; non assumpsit Angelum sed hominem; Howsoever man is lower then you; (Alas what should dust & ashes talk of com­paring with spirituall & heavenly powers?) yet I am sure the Son of man is above you; In him will I glory: In it selfe your nature is so much above ours, as it is more spi­rituall, and nearer to your infinite Creator: but if the Sonne of God [Page 67] hath advanced our nature above yours in uniting it to the deity, we cannot so much praise his mercy as you do for us. Yea O ye blessed Angels (whose greatnesse though we must not adore, yet we cannot but awfully acknowledge with due veneration) I may boldly say, ye hold it in no scorn to be ( [...],) serviceable spirits to the behoof of us weak and sinfull men. Heb. 1. ult. Ye behold the face of our heavenly father for us. Mat. 18. Ye beare us in your armes that we dash not our feet against the stones of offence. Ps. 91. Yee pitch your tents about us for our de­fence: Ye rejoyce in heaven at our conversion; Ye cary up our parting soules into the bosome of Abraham. As this is a wonderfull joy and honor to us; so can it be no deroga­tion [Page 68] from your celestiall glory and magnificence, since he whom yee professe to serve with us professes that he the Son of man came not to be served; but to serve. Oh now what can we want whē we have such purveiors? What can we feare whiles wee have such Gardians? whiles we have such conveyance what can let us from ascending into our heaven?

How justly doe we now exult in the glory of man-hood, thus at­tended, thus united? But, soft, that our rejoycing be not vain, whiles our nature is thus glorious, our person may be miserable enough. Except we bee in Christ, united to the Son of God, wee are never the better for the uniting of this man-hood to God: Where should am­bition dwel but at a Court? Oh, be [Page 69] ye ambitious of this honor, which will make you everlastingly hap­py. What ever become of your earthly greatnes, strive to be found in Christ, to be partakers of the di­vine nature, to be favourites of hea­ven. It is a great word that Zozo­men speakes of Apollonius, that hee never askt any thing in all his life, of God, that he obtained not; if we follow his rule, we shall bee sure to bee no lesse happy. And now being thus dignified by the knowledge, by the accoūt of God, how should wee strive to walke worthy of so high favours, both in the duty of selfe-estimation, and of gratitude.

Selfe-estimation. For if God make such account of us, why do not we make high account of our selves? I know I doe now spurre a [Page 70] free horse, when I wish every man to think wel of one; but there is an holy pride, that I must commend unto you, with S. Ierom; a pride as good, as the other is sinfull; that, since God hath so advanced you, you should hold your selves too good to be the drudges of sin, the pack-horses of the world, the vas­sals of satan; and thinke these sub­lunary vanities too base to cary a­way your hearts; It was a brave word of the old Iewish Courtier Nehemiah, Should such a man as I flee? Say yee so, yee regenerate soules. Should such a man as I debauch and sin? should such a man as I play the beast? Is it for my upright face to grovell? Is it for my affecti­ons to walk on all foure? No, let beasts be sensuall, let divels be wic­ked, let my heart bee as upright as [Page 71] my face. I will hate to shame my pedigree; and scorn all the base and misbecomming pleasures of sin, & will beare my self worthy of the favourite of heaven.

Gratitude. In retribution of praise, and obedience. O God, thou mightest have made made mee a beast, yea the ugliest of crawling vermin, that I run away from; I could not have challēged thee; thy will and thy workes are free, thy power absolute; and lo, thou hast made me thy darling, the quintes­sence of thy Creation, man. I will praise thee for I am fearefully and wonderfully made.

Thou mightest have past by me as an out-cast reprobate soule; and so, it had bin a thousand times bet­ter for me never to have been; But thou hast bought me with a price. [Page 72] I will praise thee, for I am no lesse wonderfully redeemed; O God, nothing but man, & man regene­rate, of all the visible works of thy hands, is capable to give thee the glory of thy mighty creation, of thy gracious redemption. The lowest rank of creatures have not life, the next have not sense, the third have not reason; None but the last hath grace to returne thee the praise of thy blessed power, & mercy: Oh let not us be wanting unto thee, who hast thus supera­bounded unto us.

But this is not all. Thankes is a poore windy payment. Our re­turnes to God must be reall; Quid retribuam? what should we render to our God lesse then all? Yea, all is too little for one mercy. We owe our selves to thee, O God, as our [Page 73] Creator. What have we to give to thee as our bounteous redeemer, as our gracious sanctifier? Thou that owest all, take all. Oh that our bodies, soules, lives, actions could bee wholly consecrated to thee; Oh that we could really, and constantly begin here those Alle­luiahs, which we shall ever conti­nue above, amids the Quire of Saints and Angels giving all praise and honor, and glory, and im­mortality to thee O blessed Father our Creator, to thee O blessed and coeternall Son our Redeemer, to thee O blessed and coessentiall Spi­rit our sanctifier, one infinite God, in three most glorious and in­comprehensible persons now and evermore, Amen.