glorify himself in our not trusting him; in taking vengeance on us, for not glorifying him: our goodness reaches not to him; but his goodness reaches down to us, in that our hearts are raised up to confidence in him. For, what safety, what unspeakable comfort, is there in trusting to God! When our Saviour, in the last words of his Divine Farewell Sermon to his disciples, would persuade them to confidence, he says, Sapoeiтe; John xvi. 33: and so doth the angel to Paul in prison; a word, that signifies boldness: implying, that our confidence in God causeth boldness and courage. And what is there in all the world, that can work the heart to so comfortable and unconquerable resolution, as our reposal upon God? The Lord is my trust, whom then can I fear? In the Lord put I my trust, how say ye then to my soul, Flee hence as a bird to the hills? Yea, how oft doth David infer upon this trust non confundar, I shall not be ashamed. And this case is general, That they, that put their trust in the Lord, are as mount Sion, that cannot be moved. Faith can remove mountains; but the mountains, that are raised on faith, are unremoveable.

Here is a stay for you, O ye Wealthy and Great, worthy of your trust. If ye were monarchs on earth, or angels in heaven, ye could be no way safe, but in this trust. How easy is it for him, to enrich or impoverish you; to hoise you up to the seats of honour or to spurn you down! What mines, what princes can raise you up to wealth, against Him, without Him? He can bid the winds and seas favour your vessels: He can bid them sink in a calm. The rich and the poor meet together, God is the maker of both; Prov. xxii. 2. Ye may trade, and toil, and cark, and put up, and cast about, and, at last, sit you down with a sigh of late repentance, and say, Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: It is in vain to rise early, and lie down late, and eat the bread of sorrow. Unto how many of you may I say, with the Prophet, Fe have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, and have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled: ye clothe you, but ye be not warm; and he, that earneth much, puts his gains in a broken bag. And whence is all this? Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little: when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it, saith the Lord of Hosts; Hag. i. 6, 9. Behold how easy a thing it is for the God of Heaven, to blast all your substance: yea, not only to diminish, but to curse it unto you, and to make you weary of it and of yourselves! Oh, cast yourselves therefore into those Almighty Hands. shall find true rest and happiness. that hath honoured you with it. God.

Seek Him, in whom only you Honour Him with your substance, Trust not in riches, but trust in

It is motive enough to your trust, that he is a God: all arguments are infolded in that one; yet this Text gives you certain explicit enforcements of this confidence. Every one of these reasons, implying a secret kind of disdainful comparison betwixt the true God and the false, persuade you to trust in God. Riches are but for this world; the true God is Lord of the other, and begins his glory, where the glory of the world ends: therefore, trust in him.

Riches are uncertain; the true God is Amen, the First and the Last, ever like himself; therefore, trust in him. Riches are but a lifeless and senseless metal; the true God is a Living God: therefore, trust in him. Riches are but passives in gift, they cannot bestow so much as themselves, much less ought besides themselves; the true God gives you all things to enjoy: therefore, trust in him, The two latter, because they are more directly stood upon, and now fall into our way, require a further discourse.

, The LIVING God, is an ancient and usual title to the Almighty; especially when he would disgrace an unworthy rival: as St. Paul, in his speech to the Lystrians, opposes to their Vain Idols, the Living God. Vivo ego, As I live, is the oath of God for this purpose, as Jerome noteth; neither do I remember any thing, besides his holiness and his life, that he swears by. When Moses asked God's Name, he described himself by IAM, He is; he lives; and nothing is, nothing lives absolutely, but he; all other things, by participation from him. In all other things, their life and they are two: but God is his own life; and the life of God is no other than the Living God: and, because he is his own life, he is eternal; for, as Thomas argues truly against the Gentiles, Nothing ceases to be, but by a separation of life; and nothing can be separated from itself, for every separation is a division of one thing from another: most justly therefore is he, which is absolute, simple, eternal in his being, called the Living God. Although, not only the life that he hath in himself, but the life that he gives to his creatures, challengeth a part in this title: a glimpse whereof, perhaps, the heathen saw, when they called him Jupiter, Zva, from 2, which signifies to live: In him we live, saith St. Paul to his Athenians, As light is from the sun, so is life from God; which is the true soul of the world, and more, for without him it could not be so much as a carcase; and spreads itself into all the animate creatures. "Life," we say, "is sweet;" and so it is indeed; the most excellent and precious thing, that is derived from the common influence of God. There is nothing before life, but Being; and Being makes no distinction of things: for that can be nothing, that hath no Being. Life makes the first and greatest division: those creatures therefore, which have life, we esteem far beyond those, that have it not, how noble soever otherwise, Those things therefore, which have the perfectest life, must needs be the best: needs then must it follow, that he, which is Life itself, who is absolute, simple, eternal, the fountain of all that life which is in the world, is most worthy of all adoration, joy, love, and confidence of our hearts, and the best improvement of that life which he hath given us. Trust therefore in the Living God,

Covetousness, the Spirit of God tells us, is Idolatry; or, as our old Translation turns it, worshipping of Images. Every stamp or impression in his coin, is, to the covetous man, a very idol, And what madness is there in this idolatry, to doat upon a base crea

ture; and to bestow that life which we have from God, upon a crea ture that hath no life in itself, and no price but from men! Let me then persuade every soul, that hears me this day, as Jacob did his household, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean; Gen. xxxv. 2: and, as St. Paul did his Lystrians, Oh, turn away from these vanities unto the Living God.

The last attractive of our trust to God, is his mercy, and liberality: WHO GIVES US RICHLY ALL THINGS TO ENJOY. A theme, wherein ye will grant it easy to lose ourselves. First, God not only hath all in himself, but he gives to us. He gives, not somewhat, though a crust is more than we are worthy of, but all things. And not a little of all, but richly; and all this, not to look on, but to enjoy. Every word would require not a several hour, but a life to meditate of it; and the tongue, not of men, but of angels, to express it. It is here with us, as in a throng; we can get neither in nor out: but, as we use to say of cares, so it shall be with our discourse, that the greatness of it shall procure silence; and the more we may say of this head, the less we will say. It will content us only to top these sheaves, since we cannot stand to thrash them out.

Whither can ye turn your eyes to look beside the bounty of God? If ye look upward; his mercy reacheth to the heavens: if downward; the earth is full of his goodness, and so is the broad sea. If ye look about you; what is it, that he hath not given us? air, to breathe in; fire, to warm us; water, to cool us; clothes, to cover us; food, to nourish us; fruits, to refresh us: yea, delicates, to please us; beasts, to serve us; angels, to attend us; heaven, to receive us; and, which is above all, his own Son, to redeem us. Lastly, if ye look into yourselves; hath he not given us a Soul, to inform us; senses, to inform our soul; faculties, to furnish that soul; understanding, the great surveyor of the secrets of nature and grace; fantasy and invention, the master of the works; memory, the great keeper or master of the rolls of the soul, a power that can make amends for the speed of time, in causing him to leave behind him those things, which else he would so carry away, as if they had not been; will, which is the lord paramount in the state of the soul, the commander of our actions, the elector of our resolutions; judgment, which is the great counsellor of the will; affections, which are the servants of them both: a Body, fit to execute the charge of the soul; so wondrously disposed, as that every part hath best opportunity in his own functions; so qualified with health arising from proportion of humours, that, like a watch kept in good tune, it goes right, and is fit to serve the soul and maintain itself: an Estate, that yields all due conveniences for both soul and body: seasonable times; rain, and sunshine; peace in our borders; competency, if not plenty of all commodities; good laws; religious, wise, just governors; happy and flourishing days: and, above all, the liberty of the Gospel. Cast up your books, O ye Citizens, and sum up your receipts: I am deceived, if he, that hath least, shall not confess his obligations infinite.

There are three things especially, wherein ye are beyond others; and must acknowledge yourselves deeper in the Books of God, than the rest of the world.

Let the first be the clear deliverance from that woeful judgment of the pestilence. Oh, remember those sorrowful times, when every month swept away thousands from among you*; when a man could not set forth his foot, but into the jaws of death; when piles of carcases were carried to their pits, as dung to the fields; when it was cruelty in the sick to admit visitation, and love was little better than murderous. And, by how much more sad and horrible the face of those evil times looked; so much greater proclaim you the mercy of God, in this happy freedom which you now enjoy that you now throng together into God's house without fear, and breathe into one another's face without danger.

The second is, the wonderful plenty of all provisions, both spiritual and bodily. You are the sea; all the rivers of the land run into you: of the land? yea, of the whole world: sea and land conspire to enrich you.

The third is, the privilege of careful government. Your Charters, as they are large and strong, wherein the favour of princes hath made exceptions from the general rules of their municipal laws; so your form of administration is excellent, and the execution of justice exemplary, and such as might become the mother city of the whole earth.

For all these, you have reason to ask, Quid retribuam? with David: What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits? and to excite one another unto thankfulness, with that sweet Singer of Israel, Oh, that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness! And, as beneficence is a binder, these favours of God call for your confidence. What should you do, but ever trust that God, whom you have found so gracious? Let him be your God; be ye his people for ever: and let him make this free and open challenge to you all: If there be any power in heaven or in earth, that can do more for you than he hath done, let him have your hearts and yourselves.

4. And thus, from that duty we owe to God in our confidence and his beneficence to us, we descend to that beneficence which we owe to men, expressed in the variety of four epithets, DOING GOOD; BEING RICH IN GOOD WORKS; READY TO DISTRIBUTE; WILLING TO COMMUNICATE: all to one sense; all is but Beneficence.

The Scriptures of God, lest any Atheist should quarrel at this waste, have not one word superfluous. Here is a redoubling of the same words, without fault of tautology; a redoubling of the same sense in divers words, without idleness. There is favour in these repetitions; not looseness: as it was wont, for this cause, to be observed, both in councils and acclamations to princes, how oft the same word is reiterated; that, by the frequence, they might judge of the vehemence, of affection. It were easy to instance in many of this kind; as especially Exod. xxv. 35. Psalm lxxxix. 30, John

* About 30,000 in one year.

i, 20, and so many more, as that their mention could not be void of that superfluity which we disclaim.

This heap of words, therefore, shews the vehement intention of his desire of good works, and the important necessity of their performance: and the manner of this expression enforces no less; Charge the rich, that they do good, and be rich in doing good,

Hearken then, ye Rich Men of the World: it is not left arbitrary to you, that you may do good if you will; but it is laid upon you, as your charge and duty. You must do good works; and woe be to you, if you do not! This is not a counsel; but a precept: although I might say of God, as we use to say of princes, his will is his command. The same necessity, that there is of trusting in God; the same is, in doing good to men.

Let me sling this stone into the brazen foreheads of our adversaries; which, in their shameless challenges of our religion, dare tell the world, we are all for faith, nothing for works; and that we hold works to salvation, as a parenthesis to a clause, that it may be perfect without them. Heaven and earth shall witness the injustice of this calumniation; and your consciences shall be our compurgators this day, which shall testify to you, both now and on your deathbeds, that we have taught you, there is no less necessity of good works, than if you should be saved by them: and, that, though you cannot be saved by them, as the meritorious causes of your glory; yet, that you cannot be saved without them, as the necessary effects of that grace which brings glory.

It is a hard sentence of some Casuists, concerning their fellows, that but a few rich men's Confessors shall be saved; I imagine, for that they daub up their consciences with untempered mortar, and soothe them up in their sins. Let this be the care of them, whom it concerneth: for us, we desire to be faithful to God and you; and tell you roundly, what you must trust to.

Do good therefore, ye Rich, if ever ye look to receive good: if ever ye look to be rich in heaven, be rich in good works upon earth. It is a shame, to hear of a rich man, that dies, and makes his Will of thousands, and bequeaths nothing to pious and charitable uses: God and the poor are no part of his heir. We do not hover over your expiring souls on your death-beds, as ravens over a carcase, We do not beg for a convent; nor fright you with purgatory; nor chaffer with you, for that invisible treasure of the Church, whereof there is but one key-keeper at Rome: but we tell you, that the making of friends with this mammon of unrighteousness, is the way to eternal habitations,

They say of Cyrus, that he was wont to say he laid up treasures for himself, while he made his friends rich: but we say to you, that you lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven, while you make the poor your friends upon earth: we tell you, there must be a Date, ere there can be a Dabitur; that he, which gives to the poor lends upon use to the Lord, which pays large increase for all he borrows: and how shall he give you the interest of glory, where he hath not received the principal of beneficence? How can that man ever look