are not bound to believe it: if I may plead it, it is a promise, and if it be an issuable promise, it is in the Scriptures. If any distresses in my fortune and estate, in my body and in my health, oppress me, I may find some receipts, some medicines, some words of consolation, in a Seneca, in a Plutarch, in a Petrarch; but I proceed in a safer way, and deal upon better cordials, if I make David and the other prophets of God my physicians, and see what they prescribe me in the Scriptures, and look how my fellow-patient Job applied that physic by his patience. And if any thing heavier than that which fell upon Job fall upon me, yet I may propose one to myself upon whom there fell more than can fall upon any man; for all mankind fell upon him, and all the sins of all mankind, and God's justice, God's anger, for all the sins of all mankind fell upon him, and yet he had a glorious eluctation, a victory, a triumph over all that. And he is not only my rule and my example, but my surety and my promise, That where he is I shall be also 40; not only where he is, in glory now, but in every step that he made in this world; if I be with him in his afflictions, I shall be with him in his eluctation, in his victory, in his triumph. St. Chry sostom, falling upon such a meditation as this, is loath to depart from it; he insists upon it thus: Illine, qui à dextris Dei sedet, conforme fiet hoc corpus? Will God make this body of mine like that that sits now at his right hand? Yes, he will. Illi, quem adorant angeli? Like him, whom all the angels worship? Yes, like him. Illi, cui adstant incorporales virtutes? Like him to whom the thrones, and powers, and dominations, and cherubim, and seraphim minister? Yes, he will do all that, says that father. But allow me the boldness to add thus 40 Job, xiv. 3. much: Cum illo, I shall be with him before, with him wheresoever he was in this world. I shall be with him in his agonies and sadness of soul; but in those agonies and sadnesses, I shall be with him still, in his veruntamen, in his surrender of himself, Not my will, but thine, O Father, be done. I shall be with him upon his cross, but in all my crosses, and in all my jealousies and suspicions of that dereliquisti, that God, my God hath forsaken me, I shall be with him still, in his in manus, in a confidence and assurance that I may commit my spirit into his hands. For all this I do according to his promise, that where he is I shall be also. Si totus mundus lachrymis sumptis deflesset (says the same father), If men were made of tears, as they are made of the elements of tears, of the occasions of tears, of miseries, and if all men were resolved to tears, as they must resolve to dust, all were not enough to lament their miserable condition, who lay hold upon the miserable comforters of this world upon their own merits, or upon the supererogations of other men, of which there are no promises, and cannot find that true promise which is implied in those examples of Job and Christ, appliable to themselves. Nevertheless we, we that can do so, we that can read that promise, that where they are we shall be, that what he hath done for them he will also do for us, we, according to his promise, declared in his Scriptures, in the midst of scoffers and in the midst of terrors, expect and look for more than we have yet; which is another and our fifth consideration. As God hath provided us an endlessness in the world to come, so to give us an inchoation, a representation of the next world in this, God hath instituted an endlessness in this world too; God hath imprinted in every natural man, and doth exalt in the supernatural and regenerate man, an endless and undeter But minable desire of more than this life can minister unto him. Still God leaves man in expectation: and truly that man can scarce prove the immortality of the soul to himself, that feels not a desire in his soul of something beyond this life. Creatures of an inferior nature are possessed with the present, man is a future creature. In a holy and useful sense we may say that God is a future God, to man especially he is so; man's consideration of God is specially for the future. It is plain, it is evident, that that name which God hath taken in Exodus" signifies essence, being. Verum nomen Dei, Semper esse 2, God's proper name is Always being. That can be said of no creature that it always was, that which the Arians said blasphemously of Christ, Erat, quando non erat, is true of all creatures, There was a time when that thing was nothing. of God more than this may be said; so much more as that when we have said all that we can, more than so much more remains unsaid: for Totum Deum, nemo uno nomine, exprimit, sicut nec totum aerem haurit“, A man may as well draw in all the air at one breath, as express all God, God entirely, in one name. But the name that reaches farthest towards him is that name which he hath taken in Exodus. Deo si conjungimur sumus", In being derived from God we have a being, we are something; In him we live and move and have our being: but Deo si comparemur, nec sumus, If we be compared with God, our being with his being, we have no being at all, we are nothing; for being is the peculiar and proper name of God. But though it be so clear that that name of God in Exodus is being, yet it is not so clear whether it be a present or a future being: for though most of the fathers expressed, and our translators rendered in the 42 Ambrosius. 41 Exod. iii. 14. 44 Gregory. present, Sum qui sum, I am that I am, and, Go and tell Pharaoh, that he whose name is I am, hath sent thee, yet in the original it is plain, and plain in the Chaldean paraphrase, that that name is delivered in the future, Ero qui ero, I shall be that I shall be, and, Go and tell Pharaoh, that he whose name is I shall be, hath sent thee. God calls upon man, even in the consideration of the name of God, to consider his future state: for if we consider God in the present, to-day, now, God hath had as long a forenoon as he shall have an afternoon; God hath been God as many millions of millions of generations already, as he shall be hereafter; but if we consider man in the present, to-day, now, how short a forenoon hath any man had; if sixty, if eighty years, yet few and evil have his days been. Nay, if we take man collectively, entirely, altogether, all mankind, how short a forenoon hath man had! It is not yet six thousand years since man had his first being. But if we consider him in his afternoon, in his future state, in his life after death, if every minute of his six thousand years were multiplied by so many millions of ages, all would amount to nothing, merely nothing, in respect of that eternity which he is to dwell in. We can express man's afternoon, his future perpetuity, his everlastingness, but one way, but it is a fair way, a noble way, this: that how late a beginning soever God gave man, man shall no more see an end, no more die, than God himself that gave him life. Therefore says the apostle here, We, we that consider God according to his promise, expect future things, look for more at God's hand hereafter than we have received heretofore; for his mercies are new every morning, and his later mercies are his largest mercies. How many, how great nations perish, without ever hearing the name of Christ; but God wrapped me up in his covenant, and derived me from Christian parents; I sucked Christian blood in my mother's womb, and Christian milk at my nurse's breast. The first sound that I heard in the world was the voice of Christians, and the first character that I was taught to know was the cross of Christ Jesus. How many children that are born so, born within the covenant, born of Christian parents, do yet die before they be baptized, though they were born heirs to baptism! But God hath afforded me the seal of that sacrament. And then, how many that are baptized, and so eased in original sin, do yet proceed to actual sins, and are surprised by death before they receive the seal of their reconciliation to Christ in the sacrament of his body and his blood; but God hath afforded me the seal of that sacrament too. What sins soever God forgave me this morning, yet since the best (and I am none of them) fall seven times a day, God forgives me seven more sins to-morrow than he did to-day, and seven in this arithmetic is infinite. God's temporal, God's spiritual blessings, are inexhaustible. What have we that we have not received? But what have we received in respect of that which is laid up for us? and therefore expectamus, we determine ourselves in God so, as that we look for nothing but from him; but not so as that we hope for no more from him than we have had, for that were to determine God, to circumscribe God, to make God finite therefore we bless God for our possession, but yet we expect a larger reversion. And the day intended in this text shall make that reversion our possession, which is the day of judgment. Therefore in the verse immediately before the text, the apostle accompanies this expectantes with another word; it is expectantes et properantes, looking for, and hasting to, the coming of the day of God. We must have such an expectation of that day as may |