ning proposed as things necessary to be explicitly believed, for the salvation of our souls; for the eternal decrees of God, and his unrevealed mysteries, and the inextricable perplexities of the school, they are waters above the firmament: here Paul plants, and here Apollos waters; here God raises up men to convey to us the dew of his grace, by waters under the firmament; by visible sacraments, and by the word so preached, and so interpreted, as it hath been constantly, and unanimously from the beginning of the church. And therefore this second day is perfected in the third, in the congregentur aquæ, let the waters be gathered together; God hath gathered all the waters, all the waters of life in one place; that is, all the doctrine necessary for the life to come, into his church: and then producet terra, here in this world are produced to us all herbs and fruits, all that is necessary for the soul to feed upon. And in this third day's work God repeats here that testimony, videt quod bonum, he saw that it was good; good, that here should be a gathering of waters in one place, that is, no doctrine received that had not been taught in the church; and videt quod bonum, he saw it was good, that all herbs and trees should be produced that bore seed; all doctrines that were to be proseminated and propagated, and to be continued to the end, should be taught in the church but for doctrines which were but to vent the passion of vehement men, or to serve the turns of great men for a time, which were not seminal doctrines, doctrines that bore seed, and were to last from the beginning to the end; for these interlineary doctrines, and marginal, which were no part of the first text, here is no testimony that God sees that they are good. And, In diebus istis, If in these two days, the day when God makes thee a firmament, shows thee what thou art, to limit thine understanding and thy faith upon, and the day where God makes thee a sea, a collection of the waters, (shows thee where these necessary things must be taught in the church) if in those days thou wilt not remember thy Creator, it is an irrecoverable lethargy.

In the fourth day's work, let the making of the sun to rule the day be the testimony of God's love to thee, in the sunshine of temporal prosperity, and the making of the moon to shine by night, be the refreshing of his comfortable promises in the dark

ness of adversity; and then remember that he can make thy sun to set at noon, he can blow out thy taper of prosperity when it burns brightest, and he can turn the moon into blood, he can make all the promises of the Gospel, which should comfort thee in adversity, turn into despair and obduration. Let the first day's work, which was the creation Omnium reptibilium, and Omnium volatilium, Of all creeping things, and of all flying things, produced out of water, signify and denote to thee, either thy humble devotion, in which thou sayest of thyself to God, Vermis ego et non homo, I am a worm and no man; or let it be the raising of thy soul in that, pennas columbæ dedisti, that God hath given thee the wings of a dove to fly to the wilderness, in a retiring from, or a resisting of temptations of this world; remember still that God can suffer even thy humility to stray, and degenerate into an uncomely dejection and stupidity, and senselessness of the true dignity and true liberty of a Christian: and he can suffer this retiring thyself from the world, to degenerate into a contempt and despising of others, and an overvaluing of thine own perfections. Let the last day in which both man and beasts were made out of the earth, but yet a living soul breathed into man, remember thee that this earth which treads upon thee, must return to that earth which thou treadest upon, thy body, that loads thee, and oppresses thee to the grave, and thy spirit to him that gave it. And when the Sabbath-day hath also remembered thee, that God hath given thee a temporal sabbath, placed thee in a land of peace, and an ecclesiastical sabbath, placed in a church of peace, perfect all in a spiritual sabbath, a conscience of peace, by remembering now thy Creator, at least in one of these days of the week of thy regeneration, either as thou hast light created in thee, in the first day, that is, thy knowledge of Christ; or as thou hast a firmament created in thee the second day, that is, thy knowledge what to seek concerning Christ, things appertaining to faith and salvation; or as thou hast a sea created in thee; the third day, that is, a church where all the knowledge is reserved and presented to thee; or as thou hast a sun and moon in the fourth day, thankfulness in prosperity, comfort in adversity, or as thou hast reptilem humilitatem, or volatilem fiduciam, a humiliation in thyself, or an exaltation in

Christ, in thy fifth day, or as thou hast a contemplation of thy mortality and immortality in the sixth day, or a desire of a spiritual sabbath in the seventh, in those days remember thou thy Creator.

Now all these days are contracted into less room in this text, in diebus bechurotheica, is either, in the days of thy youth, or electionum tuarum, in the days of thy heart's desire, when thou enjoyest all that thou couldest wish. First, therefore if thou wouldest be heard in David's prayer; Delicta juventutis; O Lord remember not the sins of my youth"; remember to come to this prayer, In diebus juventutis, In the days of thy youth. Job remembers with much sorrow, how he was in the days of his youth, when God's providence was upon his tabernacle "5: and it is a late, but a sad consideration, to remember with what tenderness of conscience, what scruples, what remorses we entered into sins in our youth, how much we were afraid of all degrees and circumstances of sin for a little while, and how indifferent things they are grown to us, and how obdurate we are grown in them now. This was Job's sorrow, and this was Tobias' comfort", when I was but young, all my tribes fell away; but I alone went after to Jerusalem. Though he lacked the counsel, and the example in his elders, yet he served God; for it is good for a man, that he bear his yoke in his youth": for even when God had delivered over his people purposely to be afflicted, yet himself complains in their behalf, That the persecutor laid the very heaviest yoke upon the ancient1 it is a lamentable thing to fall under a necessity of suffering in our age, Labore fracta instrumenta, ad Deum ducis, quorum nullus usus1? Wouldest thou consecrate a chalice to God that is broken? no man would present a lame horse, a disordered clock, a torn book to the king; Caro jumentum20, Thy body is thy beast; and wilt thou present that to God, when it is lamed and tired with excess of wantonness? When thy clock, (the whole course of thy time) is disordered with passions, and perturbations; when thy book (the history of thy life,) is torn, a thousand sins of thine own torn out of thy memory, wilt thou then present thyself thus defaced and mangled to Almighty God? Tempe

14 Psalm xxv. 7. 15 Job xxix. 4.

18 Isaiah XLvii. 6.

16 Tobit i. 4. 19 Basil.

17 Lam. iii. 27. 20 Augustine.

rantia non est temperantia in senectute, sed impotentia incontinentia", Chastity is not chastity in an old man, but a disability to be unchaste; and therefore thou dost not give God that which thou pretendest to give, for thou hast no chastity to give him. Senex bis puer; but it is not bis juvenis, an old man comes to the infirmities of childhood again; but he comes not to the strength of youth again.

Do this then in diebus juventutis, in thy best strength, and when thy natural faculties are best able to concur with grace; but do it; in diebus electionum, in the days when thou hast thy heart's desire; for if thou have worn out this word, in one sense, that it be too late now, to remember him in the days of youth, that is, spent forgetfully, yet as long as thou art able to make a new choice, to choose a new sin, that when thy heats of youth are not overcome, but burnt out, then thy middle age chooses ambition, and thy old age chooses covetousness; as long as thou art able to make thy choice thou art able to make a better than this; God testifies that power, that he hath given thee; I call heaven and earth to record this day, that I have set before you life and death; choose life": if this choice like you not, If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, saith Joshua, then choose ye this day whom ye will serve". will serve". Here is the election day; bring that which ye would have, into comparison with that which ye should have; that is, all that this world keeps from you, with that which God offers to you; and what will ye choose to prefer before him for honour, and favour, and health, and riches, perchance you cannot have them though you choose them; but can you have more of them than they have had, to whom those very things have been occasions of ruin? The market is open till the bell ring; till thy last bell ring the church is open, grace is to be had there: but trust not upon that rule, that men buy cheapest at the end of the market, that heaven may be had for a breath at last, when they that hear it cannot tell whether it be a sigh or a gasp, a religious breathing and anhelation after the next life, or natural breathing out, and exhalation of this; but find a spiritual good husbandry in that other rule, that the prime of the

21 Basil.

22 Deut. xxx. 19.

23 Joshua xxiv. 15.

market is to be had at first: for howsoever, in thine age, there may be by God's strong working, dies juventutis, a day of youth, in making thee then a new creature; (for as God is antiquissimus dierum, so in his school no man is superannuated,) yet when age hath made a man impotent to sin, that is not dies electionum, it is not a day of choice; but remember God now, when thou hast a choice, that is, a power to advance thyself, or to oppress others by evil means; now in die electionum, in those thy happy and sunshine days, remember him.

This is then the faculty that is excited, the memory; and this is the time, now, now whilst we have power of election: the object is, the Creator, remember the Creator: first, because the memory can go no farther than the creation; and therefore we have no means to conceive, or apprehend anything of God before that. When men therefore speak of decrees of reprobation, decrees of condemnation, before decrees of creation; this is beyond the counsel of the Holy Ghost here, Memento Creatoris, Remember the Creator, for this is to remember God a condemner before he was a Creator: this is to put a preface to Moses' Genesis, not to be content with his in principio, to know that in the beginning God created heaven and earth, but we must remember what he did ante principium, before any such beginning was. Moses' in principio, that beginning, the creation we can remember; but St. John's in principio, that beginning, eternity, we cannot; we can remember God's fiat in Moses, but not God's erat in St. John: what God hath done for us, is the object of our memory, not what he did before we were: and thou hast a good and perfect memory, if it remember all that the Holy Ghost proposes in the Bible; and it determines in the memento Creatoris: there begins the Bible, and there begins the creed, I believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth; for when it is said, The Holy Ghost was not given, because Jesus was not glorified", it is not truly non erat datus, but non erat; for, non erat nobis antequam operaretur; it is not said there, the Holy Ghost was not given, but it is the Holy Ghost was not: for he is not, that is, he hath no being to us-ward, till he works in us which was first in the creation: remember the Creator then, because thou canst

24 John vii. 39.