came for food thither in a time of necessity; and consider them in that branch that overshadowed, and refreshed them, in Joseph, he came thither as a bondman, in a servile condition. So that they were but few persons, and not so great, as that their pressures could aggravate, or taste much more the bitterly, by comparing it with any greatness which they had before; though they were fallen into great misery, they were not fallen from any remarkable greatness. But between the two captivities of Egypt, and Babylon, they were come to that greatness, and reputation, as that they had the testimony of all the world, Only this people is wise, and of understanding, and a great nation'. Now wherein? In that which follows; what nation is so great, as to have the Lord come so near unto them; so great, as to have laws, and ordinances, so righteous, as they had? Now this preculiar greatness, they lost in this captivity; whether they lost absolutely the books of the law, or not, and that they were reinspired and redictated again by the Holy Ghost to Esdras, or whether Esdras did but recollect them, and recompile them, St. Hierome will not determine: he will not say whether Moses, or Esdras, be author of the first five books of the Bible; but it is clear enough, that they were out of that ordinary use wherein they had been before and though they kept their circumcision, and their sabbaths in Babylon, yet being cast thither for their sins, they had lost all ordinary expiations of their sins, for they had no sacrifices there; (as the Jews which are now in dispersion, are everywhere without their sacrifices) they were to rise, but not to stay, arise and depart; and they were to depart, both from their imaginary comforts, which they had framed, and proposed to themselves (when they were fallen from God, they should be deceived in their trust in themselves) and they were to depart even with the law, and ordinances, in which their pre-eminence, and prerogative above all nations consisted: when man comes to be content with this world, God will take this world from him: when man frames to himself imaginary pleasures, God will inflict real punishments; when he would lie still, he shall not sleep; but God will take him and raise him, but to a farther vexation.

And this vexation hath another heavy weight upon it, in this

Deut. iv. 6.

10

little word, for; for this draws a curtain between the face of God, and them: this locks a door between the court of mercy, and them, when God presents his judgments with such an assuredness, such a resolution, as leaves no hope in their heart, that God will alter it, no power in themselves to solicit God to a pardon, or a reprieve; but as he was led as a fool to the stocks, when he hearkened to pleasant sins before, so he is led as an ox to the slaughters, when he hears of God's judgments now; his own conscience prevents God, and tells him, there is a for, a reason, a necessity, an irrecoverableness in his condemnation. God had iterated, and multipled this quia, this for, oftentimes in their ears this prophet was no upstart, no sudden, no transitory man, to pass through the streets with a Vo, vo, Woe, woe unto this city1o, and no more; but he prophesied constantly, during the reign of three kings, of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah: he was no suspicious man out of his singularity; but he prophesied jointly with Isaiah, without separation, and he held the communion of his fellow-prophets; he was no particular man, (as many interpreters have taken it) so, as that he addressed his prophecies upon Judah only; but he extended it to all, to all the tribes. It is not a prophecy limited to idolatry, and the sins against the first table, but to robbery, and murder, and fornication, and oppression, and the sins between man and man: it is not a timorous prophecy, directed only to persons whom a low fortune, and a miserable estate, or a sense of sin, and a wounded conscience, had depressed, and dejected, but principally bent upon rulers and magistrates, and great persons. So that no man hath a quia against this quia, a for against this for, to say, we need not heed him, for he is an upstart, a singular person, and all these his threatenings are rather satirical, than prophetical, or theological; but this thunderbolt, this quia, this reason why these judgments must necessarily fall upon them, fell upon them with so much violence, as that it stupified with the weight, and precluded all ways of escape. These be the heaviest texts that a man can light upon in the Scriptures of God, and these be the heaviest commentaries that a man can make upon these texts, that when God wakens him and raises him from his dream, and

10 Micah ii. 1.

bed of sin, and pleasure, and raises him with the voice of his judgments, he suffers him to read to the quia, but not to come to the tamen; he comes to see reason why that judgment must fall, but not to see any remedy. His inordinate melancholy, and half-desperate sadness, carries his eye and mind upon a hundred places of commination, of threatening in the prophets, and in them all he finds quickly that quia, this curse must fall upon me, for I am fallen into it; but he comes not to the tamen, to that relief, yet turn to the Lord, and he will turn to thee. This was a particular step in their misery, that when they were awaked and risen, that is, taken away from all taste and comfort in their own imaginations and pleasures, when God was ready to give fire to all that artillery, which he had charged against them, in the service of all the prophets, they could see no refuge, no sanctuary, nothing but a quia, an irresistibleness, an irremediableness, a necessity of perishing; a great while there was no such thing as judgment, (God cannot see us) now, there is no such thing as mercy, (God will not see us.)

What then is this heavy judgment, that is threatened? It is the deprivation of rest. Though there be no war, no pestilence, no new positive calamity, yet privative calamities are heavy judgments; to lose that Gospel, that religion, which they had, is a heavy loss; deprivations are heavy calamities; and here they are deprived of rest; here is not your rest: now, besides that betwixt us and heaven, there is nothing that rests, (all the elements, all the planets, all the spheres are in perpetual motion, and vicissitude) and so the joys of heaven are expressed unto us, in that name of rest; certainly this blessing of rest was more precious, more acceptable to the Jews, than to any other nation; and so they more sensible of the loss of it, than any other. For as God's first promise, and the often ratification of it, had ever accustomed them to a longing for that promised rest, as their long, and laborious peregrinations, had made them ambitious, and hungry of that rest, so had they (which no other nation had but they) a particular feast of a Sabbath, appointed for them, both for a real cessation and rest from bodily labours, and for a figurative expressing of the eternal rest; their imagination, their understanding, their faith, was filled with this apprehension of

When the contentment and satisfaction, which God took in Noah's sacrifice after he came out of the ark, is expressed, it is expressed thus, The Lord smelt a savour of rest"; our services to God, are a rest to him; he rests in our devotions; and when the idolatrous service, and forbidden sacrifices of the people are expressed, they are expressed thus, when I had brought them into the land, Posuerunt ibi odorem quietum suarum, they placed there the sweet savours of their own rest; not of God's rest, (his true religion) but their own rest, a religion, which they, for collateral respects, rested in. And therefore when God threatens here, that there shall be no rest, that is, none of his rest, he would take from them their law, their sacrifices, their religion, in which he was pleased, and rested gracious towards them, he will change their religion: and when he says, here is not your rest, he threatens to take from them, that rest, that peace, that quiet which they had proposed, and imagined to themselves; when they say to themselves, Why, it is no great matter; we may do well enough for all that, though our religion be changed; he will impoverish them, he will disarm them, he will infatuate them, he will make them a prey to their enemies, and take away all true, and all imaginary rest too.

Briefly, it is the mark of all men, even natural men, rest: for though Tertullian condemn that, to call Quietis magisterium sapientiam, The act of being, and living at quiet, wisdom, therein seeming to exclude all wisdom that conduces not to rest, as though there were no wisdom in action, and in business; though in the person of Epicurus he condemn that, and that saying. Nemo alii nascitur, moriturus sibi, It is no reason, that any man should think himself born for others, since he cannot live to himself, or to labour for others, since himself cannot enjoy rest, yet Tertullian leaving the Epicures, that placed felicity in a stupid and unsociable retiring, says in his own person, and in his own opinion, almost as much, Unicum mihi negotium, nec aliud curo, quam ne curem, All that I care for, is that I might care for nothing; and so even Tertullian, in his Christian philosophy, places happiness in rest: now he speaks not only of the things of this world, they must necessarily be cared for, in their propor

VOL. IV.

11 Gen. viii. 21.

12 Ezek. xx. 28.

L

tion; we must not decline the businesses of this life, and the offices of society, out of an aëry and imaginary affection of rest: our principal rest is, in the testimony of our conscience, and in doing that which we were sent to do; and to have a rest, and peace, in a conscience of having done that religiously, and acceptably to God, is our true rest: and this was the rest, which the Jews were to lose in this place, the testimony of their consciences, that they had performed their part, their conditions, so, that they might rely upon God's promises of a perpetual rest in the land of Canaan; and that rest they could not have; not that peaceful testimony of their consciences.

They could not have that rest, no rest, not there, not in Canaan; which was the highest degree of the misery, because they were confident in their term, their state in that land, that it should be perpetual; and they were confident in the goodness of the land, that it should evermore give them all conveniences in abundance, conducing to all kind of rest: for this land God himself calls by the name of rest, and of his rest; I sware that they should not enter into my rest13; so that rest was proper to this land, and this land was proper to them. For, (as St. Augustine notes well") though God recovered this land for them, and re-established miraculously their possession, yet they came but in their remitter, and in postliminio, the inheritance of that land was theirs before: for Shem the son of Noah, was in possession of this land; and the sons of Cham, the Canaanites, expelled his race out of it; and Abraham, of the race of Shem, was restored unto it again so that, as the goodness of the land promised rest, so the goodness of the title promised them the land; and yet they might have no rest there.

They had a better title than that; those often oaths, which God had sworn unto them, that that land should be theirs for ever, was their evidence; if then that land were requies Domini, the rest of the Lord, that is, the best, and the safest rest, and that land were their land, why should they not have that rest here, when the Lord had sworn they should? Why, because he swore the contrary after; but will God swear contrary things? Why, Solus securus jurat, qui falli non potest, says St. Augustine,

13 Psalm xcv. 11.

14

Aug. Ser. cv. de tempore.