dismiss them upon an easy composition. All sins are debts: all God's debts must be discharged. It is a bold word, but a true; God should not be just, if any of his debts should pass unsatisfied. The conceit of the profane vulgar makes him a God of all mercies; and, thereupon, hopes for pardon, without payment. Fond and ignorant presumption, to disjoin mercy and justice in him, to whom they are both essential; to make mercy exceed justice in him, in whom both are infinite! Darest thou hope God can be so kind to thee, as to be unjust to himself? God will be just go thou on to presume and perish.

There can be no satisfaction, by any recompence of ours. An infinite justice is offended: an infinite punishment is deserved by every sin: and every man's sins are as near to infinite, as number can make them. Our best endeavour is worse than finite, imperfect, and faulty: if it could be perfect, we owe it all in present: what we are bound to do in present, cannot make amends for what we have not done in time past; which while we offer to God as good payment, we do, with the profane traveller, think to please him with empty date-shells, in lieu of preservation. Where shall we then find a payment of infinite value, but in him, which is only and all infinite? the dignity of whose person, being infinite, gave such worth to his satisfaction, that what he suffered in short time, was proportionable to what we should have suffered beyond all times. He did all, suffered all, paid all; he did it for us; we, in him.

Where shall I begin to wonder at thee, O thou divine and eternal Peace-Maker, the Saviour of men, the Anointed of God, Mediator between God and man: in whom there is nothing, which doth not exceed, not only the conceit, but the very wonder of Angels, who saw thee in thy humiliation with silence, and adore thee in thy glory with perpetual praises and rejoicings? Thou wast for ever of thyself, as God; of the Father, as the Son; the eternal Son of an eternal Father; not later in being, not less in dignity, not other in substance; begotten, without diminution of him that begot thee, while he communicated that wholly to thee, which he retained wholly in himself, because both were infinite without inequality of nature, without division of essence: when, being in this estate, thine

infinite love and mercy to desperate mankind caused thee, O Saviour, to empty thyself of thy glory, that thou mightest put on our shame and misery. Wherefore, not ceasing to be God as thou wert, thou beganst to be what thou wert not, man; to the end that thou mightest be a perfect Mediator betwixt God and man, which thou wert both in one person; God, that thou mightest satisfy; man, that thou mightest suffer: that, since man had sinned, and God was offended, thou, which wert God and man, mightest satisfy God for man. None but thyself, which art the Eternal Word, can express the depth of this mystery, that God should be clothed with flesh, come down to men, and become man that man might be exalted into the highest heavens, and that our nature might be taken into the fellowship of the Deity: that he, to whom all powers in heaven bowed, and thought it their honour to be serviceable, should come down to be a servant to his slaves, a ransom for his enemies; together with our nature taking up our very infirmities, our shame, our torments, and bearing our sins without sin: that thou, whom the heavens were too strait to contain, shouldest lay thyself in an obscure cratch; thou, which wert attended of angels, shouldest be derided of men, rejected of thine own, persecuted by tyrants, tempted with devils, betrayed of thy servant, crucified among thieves, and, which was worse than all these, in thine own apprehension, for the time, as forsaken of thy Father: that thou, whom our sins had pierced, shouldest, for our sins, both sweat drops of blood in the garden, and pour out streams of blood upon the cross.

O the invaluable purchase of our peace! O ransom enough for more worlds! Thou, which wert, in the counsel of thy Father, the Lamb slain from the beginning of time, camest now, in fulness of time, to be slain by man, for man; being, at once, the sacrifice offered, the priest that did offer, and the God to whom it was offered. How graciously didst thou both proclaim our peace, as a prophet, in the time of thy life upon earth; and purchase it, by thy blood, as a priest, at thy death; and now confirmest and appliest it, as a king, in heaven! By thee only it was procured; by thee, it is proffered. O mercy without example, without measure! God offers peace to

man: the holy seeks to the unjust; the potter, to the clay; the king, to the traitor. We are unworthy, that we should be received to peace, though we desired it: what are we then, that we should have peace offered for the receiving? An easy condition of so great a benefit! he requires us not, to earn it, but to accept it of him: what could he give more? what could he require less of us?

SECTION VI.

The Receipt of our Peace offered by Faith.-A Corollary of the Benefit of this Receipt.-The vain Shifts of the Guilty.

THE purchase, therefore, of our peace was paid at once; yet must be severally reckoned to every soul, whom it shall benefit. If we have not a hand to take what Christ's hand doth either hold or offer, what is sufficient in him cannot be effectual to us. The spiritual hand, whereby we apprehend the sweet offers of our Saviour, is faith; which, in short, is no other than an affiance in the Mediator. Receive peace, and be happy; believe, and thou hast received. From hence it is, that we are interested in all, that either God hath promised, or Christ hath performed: hence have we from God, both forgiveness and love; the ground of all, either peace or glory: hence, of enemies we become, more than friends, sons; and, as sons, may both expect and challenge, not only careful provision and safe protection on earth, but an everlasting patrimony above. This field is so spacious, that it were easy for a man to lose himself in it: and if I should spend all my pilgrimage in this walk, my time would sooner end than my way; wherein I would have measured more paces, were it not, that our scope is not so much to magnify the benefit of our peace, as to seek how to obtain it.

Behold now, after we have sought heaven and earth, where only the wearied dove may find an olive of peace. The apprehending of this all-sufficient satisfaction, makes it ours; upon our satisfaction, we have remission; upon

remission, follows reconciliation; upon our reconciliation, peace. When, therefore, thy conscience, like a stern sergeant, shall catch thee by the throat, and arrest thee upon God's debt, let thy only plea be, that thou hast already paid it: bring forth that bloody acquittance, sealed to thee from heaven upon thy true faith; straightway, thou shalt see the fierce and terrible look of thy conscience changed into friendly smiles; and that rough and violent hand, that was ready to drag thee to prison, shall now lovingly embrace thee, and fight for thee against all the wrongful attempts of thy spiritual adversary. O heavenly peace, and more than peace, friendship; whereby alone we are leagued with ourselves, and God with us; which whoever wants, shall find a sad remembrancer in the midst of his dissembled jollity, and, after all vain strifes, shall into many secret dumps, from which his guilty heart shall deny to be cheered, though all the world were his minstrel! O pleasure worthy to be pitied, and laughter worthy of tears, that is without this!

Go then, foolish man; and, when thou feelest any check of thy sin, seek after thy jocundest companions; deceive the time and thyself with merry purposes, with busy games; feast away thy cares; bury them and thyself in wine and sleep: after all these frivolous deferrings, it will return upon thee when thou wakest, perhaps ere thou wakest; nor will it be repelled, till it have shewed thee thy hell; nor when it hath shewed thee, will yet be repelled. So the stricken deer, having received a deadly arrow, whose shaft shaken out hath left the head behind it, runs from one thicket to another; not able to change his pain with his places, but finding his wounds still the worse with continuance. Ah fool, thy soul festereth within; and is affected so much more dangerously, by how much less it appeareth. Thou mayest while thyself with variety: thou canst not ease thee. Sin owes thee a spite, and will pay it thee; perhaps when thou art in worse case to sustain it. This flitting doth but provide for a further violence at last. I have seen a little stream of no noise, which, upon its stoppage, hath swelled up; and, with a loud gushing, hath borne over the heap of turfs wherewith it was resisted. Thy death-bed shall

smart for these wilful adjournings of repentance: whereon how many have we heard raving of their old neglected sins, and fearfully despairing when they have had most need of comfort! In sum, there is no way but this: thy conscience must have either satisfaction or torment. Discharge thy sin betimes, and be at peace. He never breaks his sleep for debt, that pays when he takes up.

SECTION VII.

Solicitation of Sin remedied.-The ordering of Affections. NEITHER can it suffice for peace, to have crossed the old scroll of our sins, if we prevent not the future: yea, the present very importunity of temptation breeds unquietness. Sin, where it hath got a haunt, looketh for more; as humours, that fall towards their old issue: and, if it be not strongly repelled, doth near as much vex us with soliciting, as with yielding. Let others envy their happiness, I shall never think their life so much as quiet, whose doors are continually beaten, and their morning sleep broken with early clients; whose entries. are daily thronged with suitors, pressing near for the next audience: much less, that, through their remiss answers, are daily haunted with traitors or other instruments of villany, offering their mischievous service, and inciting them to some pestilent enterprise. Such are temptations to the soul whereof it cannot be rid, so long as it holds them in any hope of entertainment; and so long they will hope to prevail, while we give them but a cold and timorous denial. Suitors are drawn on with an easy repulse; counting that as half granted, which is but faintly gainsaid. Peremptory answers can only put sin out of heart, for any second attempts: it is ever impudent, when it meets not with a bold heart; hoping to prevail by wearying us, and wearying us by entreaties. Let all suggestions, therefore, find thee resolute; so shall thy soul find itself at rest; for, as the Devil, so sin his natural brood, flies away with resistance.