affectum amoris Dei erga nos1, The death of Christ was but an effect of the love of God towards us, So God loved the world that he gave his Son: if he had not loved us first, we had never had his Son; here is the root then, the love of the Father, and the tree, the merit of the Son; except there be fruit too, love in us, to them again, both root and tree will wither in us, howsoever they grew in God. I have loved thee with an everlasting love, (says God) therefore with mercy I have drawn thee", if therefore we do not perceive, that we are drawn to love again by this love, it is not an everlasting love, that shines upon us.

All the sunshine, all the glory of this life, though all these be testimonies of God's love to us, yet all these bring but a winter's day, a short day, and a cold day, and a dark day, for except we love too, God doth not love with an everlasting love: God will not suffer his love to be idle, and since it profits him nothing, if it profits us nothing neither, he will withdraw it; Amor Dei ut lumen ignis, ut splendor solis, ut odor lucis, non præbenti proficit, sed utenti, The sun hath no benefit by his own light, nor the fire by his own heat, nor a perfume by the sweetness thereof, but only they who make their use, and enjoy this heat and fragrancy; and this brings us to our other part, to pass from loving to enjoying.

Tulerunt Dominum meum, They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him; this was one strain of Mary Magdalen's lamentation, when she found not her Saviour in the monument: it is a lamentable case to be fain to cry so, Tulerunt, They have taken, other men have taken away Christ, by a dark and corrupt education, which was the state of our fathers to the Roman captivity. But when the abjecerunt Dominum, which is so often complained of by God in the prophets, is pronounced against thee, when thou hast had Christ offered to thee, by the motions of his grace, and sealed to thee by his sacraments, and yet wilt cast him so far from thee, that thou knowest not where to find him, when thou hast poured him out at thine eyes in profane and counterfeit tears, which should be thy soul's rebaptization for thy sins, when thou hast blown him

10 Augustine.

11 Jer. xxxi. 3.

12 Ambrose.

away in corrupt and ill intended sighs, which should be gemitus columbæ, the voice of the turtle, to sound thy peace and reconciliation with God; yea when thou hast spit him out of thy mouth in execrable and blasphemous oaths; when thou hast not only cast him so far, as that thou knowest not where to find him, but hast made so ordinary and so indifferent a thing of sin, as thou knowest not when thou didst lose him, no nor dost not remember that ever thou hadst him; no, nor dost not know that there is any such man, as Dominus tuus, a Jesus, that is, thy Lord. The tulerunt is dangerous, when others hide Christ from thee; but the abjecerunt is desperate, when thou thyself dost cast him

away.

To lose Christ may befall the most righteous man that is; but then he knows where he left him; he knows at what sin he lost his way, and where to seek it again; even Christ's imagined father and his true mother, Joseph and Mary, lost him, and lost him in the holy city, at Jerusalem; they lost him and knew it not, they lost him and went a day's journey without him, and thought him to be in the company; but as soon as they deprehended their error, they sought and they found him, when as his mother told him, his father and she had sought with a heavy heart: alas, we may lose him at Jerusalem, even in his own house, even at this present, whilst we pretend to do him service; we may lose him, by suffering our thoughts to look back with pleasure upon the sins which we have committed, or to look forward with greediness upon some sin that is now in our purpose and prosecution; we may lose him at Jerusalem, how much more, if our dwelling be a Rome of superstition and idolatry, or if it be a Babylon in confusion, and mingling God and the world together, or if it be a Sodom, a wanton and intemperate misuse of God's benefits to us, we may think him in the company when he is not, we may mistake his house, we may take a conventicle for a church; we may mistake his apparel, that is, the outward form of his worship; we may mistake the person, that is, associate ourselves to such as are no members of his body but if we do not return to our diligence to seek him, and seek him, and seek him with a heavy heart, though we begun with a tulerunt, other men, other temptations took him away, yet we end in an

abjecerunt, we ourselves cast him away, since we have been told where to find him, and have not sought him: and let no man be afraid to seek or find him for fear of the loss of good company; religion is no sullen thing, it is not a melancholy, there is not so sociable a thing as the love of Christ Jesus.

It was the first word which he who first found Christ of all the apostles, St. Andrew, is noted to have said, Invenimus Messiam, We have found the Messias, and it is the first act that he is noted to have done, after he had found him, to seek his brother Peter, Et duxit ad Jesum1, so communicable a thing is the love of Jesus, when we have found him.

But when are we likeliest to find him? It is said by Moses, of the words and precepts of God, They are not hid from thee, neither are far off, not in heaven that thou shouldst say; Who shall go up to heaven for us to bring them down? nor beyond the seas, that thou shouldest go over the sea for them; but the word is very near thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart; and so near thee is Christ Jesus, or thou shalt never find him; thou must not so think him in heaven, as that thou canst not have immediate access to him without intercession of others, nor so beyond sea, as to seek him in a foreign church, either where the church is but an antiquary's cabinet, full of rags and fragments of antiquity, but nothing fit for that use for which it was first made, or where it is so new a built house with bare walls, that it is yet unfurnished of such ceremonies as should make it comely and reverend; Christ is at home with thee, he is at home within thee, and there is the nearest way to find him.

It is true, that Christ in the beginning of this chapter, shadowed under the name of Wisdom, when he discovers where he may be found, speaks in the person of human wisdom as well as divine, Doth not wisdom cry, and understanding utter her voice? where those two words, wisdom and understanding, signify sapientiam, and prudentiam; that wisdom whose object is God, and that which concerns our conversation in this world; for Christ hath not taken so narrow a dwelling, as that he may be found but one way, or in one profession; for in all professions, in all nations, in all vocations, when all our actions in our several 14 Deut. xxx. 11

13 John i. 34.

courses are directed principally upon his glory, Christ is eminent, and may easily be found. To that purpose in that place, Christ, in the person of Wisdom, offers himself to be found in the tops of high places, and in the gates of cities; to show that this Christ, and this wisdom which must save our souls, is not confined to cloisters and monasteries, and speculative men only, but is also evidently and eminently to be found in the courts of religious princes, in the tops of high places, and in the courts of justice (in the gates of the city) both these kinds of courts may have more directions from him than other places; but yet in these places he is also gloriously and conspicuously to be found; for wheresoever he is, he cries aloud, as the text says there, and he utters his voice. Now temptations to sin, are all but. whisperings, and we are afraid that a husband, that a father, that a competitor, that a rival, a pretender, at least the magistrate may hear of it; temptations to sin are all but whisperings; private conventicles and clandestine worshipping of God in a forbidden manner, in corners, are all but whisperings; it is not the voice of Christ, except thou hear him cry aloud, and utter his voice, so as thou mayest confidently do whatsoever he commands thee, in the eye of all the world; he is everywhere to be found, he calls upon thee every where, but yet there belongs a diligence on thy part, thou must seek him.

Esaias is bold (says St. Paul) and says, I was found of them that sought me not, when that prophet derives the love of God to the Gentiles, who could seek God no where but in the book of creatures, and were destitute of all other lights to seek him by, and yet God was found by them; Esaias is bold (cries the apostle') that is, It was a great degree of confidence in Esaias, to say, That God was found of them that sought him not: it was a boldness and confidence, which no particular man may have; that Christ will be found, except he be sought; he gives us light to seek him by, but he is not found till we have sought him; it is true that in that commandment of his, Primum quærite regnum Dei; First seek the kingdom of God; the primum is not to prevent God, that we should seek it before he shows it, that is impossible; without the light of grace we dwell in darkness, and

15 Rom. x. 20.

in the shadow of death; but the primum is; that we should seek it before we seek anything else, that when the sun of grace is risen to us, the first thing that we do be to seek Christ Jesus: Quærite me et ciretis, Seek me, and ye shall live", Why? we were alive before, else we could not seek him, but it is a promise of another life, of an eternal life, if we seek him, and seek him early, which is our last consideration.

The word there used for early, signifies properly auroram, the morning, and is usually transferred in Scriptures to any beginning of any action; so in particular, Evil shall come upon thee, and thou shalt not know, shakrah, the morning, the beginning of it"; and therefore this text is elegantly translated by one, Auro•rantes ad me, They that have their break of day towards me, they that send forth their first morning beams towards me, their first thoughts, they shall be sure to find me. St. Hierome expresses this early diligence, required in us, well in his translation, Qui mane vigilaverint; They that wake betimes in the morning shall find me; but the Chaldee paraphrase better, Qui mane consurgunt, They that rise betimes in the morning shall find me; for which of us doth not know that we waked long ago, that we saw day, and had heretofore some motions to find Christ Jesus: but though we were awake, we have kept our bed still, we have continued still in our former sins; so that there is more to be done than waking: we see the spouse herself says, In my bed, by night, I sought him whom my soul loved, but I have found him not; Christ may be sought in the bed, and missed; other thoughts may exclude him; and he may be sought there and found, we may have good meditations there; and Christ may be nearer us when we are asleep in our beds, than when we are awake; but howsoever the bed is not his ordinary station; he may be, and he says he will be, at the making of the bed of the sick, but not at the marriage of the bed of the wanton, and licentious.

16 Amos v. 4.

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17 Isaiah XLvii. 11., auroram. But this more probably means, morning after the night of evil;" although all the versions render it otherwise.-ED.

18 Cant. iii. 1.