each hour and moment might stagger our hope: but he is therefore pleased to have it all" of grace, that the promise might be made sure." This comforts us against the guilt of the greatest sins; for love and free grace can pardon what it will. This comforts us against the accusations of Satan, drawn from our own unworthiness-" "Tis true, I am unworthy; and Satan cannot show me unto myself more vile, than, without his accusations, I will acknowledge myself to be but that love that gave Christ freely, doth give in him more worthiness, than there is, or can be, unworthiness in me." This comforts us in the assured hope of glory; because when he loves, he loves to the end; and nothing can separate from his love. This comforts us in all afflictions,-That the free love of God, who hath predestinated us thereunto, will wisely order it all unto the good of his servants m.

Our duty therefore it is, First, To labour for assurance of this free love it will assist us in all duties; it will arm us against all temptations; it will answer all objections that can be made against the soul's peace; it will sustain us in all conditions, which the saddest of times can bring us unto. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" Though thousands should be against us to hate us, yet none shall be against us to hurt us.

Secondly, If God love us freely, we should love him thankfully"; and let love be the salt to season all our sacrifices. For as no benefit is saving unto us, which doth not proceed from love in him; so no duty is pleasing unto him, which doth not proceed from love in us o.

Thirdly, Plead this free love and grace in prayer. When we beg pardon, nothing is too great for love to forgive; when we beg grace and holiness, nothing is too good for love to grant. There is not any one thing which faith can manage unto more spiritual advantages, than the free grace and love of God in Christ.

Fourthly, Yet we must so magnify the love of God, as that we turn not free grace into wantonness. There is a corrupt generation of men, who, under pretence of exalting grace, do put disgrace upon the law of God, by taking away

Rom. iv. 16. 1 John. v. 3.

m Rom. viii. 29. Heb. xii. 6.

n1 John iv. 19.

the mandatory power thereof from those that are under grace; a doctrine most extremely contrary to the nature of this love. For God's love to us, works love in us to him; and our love to him is this, that we "keep his commandments:" and to keep a commandment, is to confirm and to subject my conscience, with willingness and delight, unto the rule and preceptive power of that commandment. Take away the obligation of the law upon conscience as a rule of life, and you take away from our love to God the very matter, about which the obedience thereof should be conversant. It is no diminution to love, that a man is bound to obedience; nay, it cannot be called obedience,' if I be not bound unto it: but herein the excellency of our love to God is commended, that whereas other men are so bound by the law, that they fret at it, and swell against it, and would be glad to be exempted from it, they who love God, and know his love to them, delight to be thus bound,-and find infinitely more sweetness in the strict rule of God's holy law, than any wicked man can 'do in that presumptuous liberty, wherein he allows himself to shake off and break the cords of it.

SECT. 19. Now lastly, when we return with sound repentance unto God, then God is pleased to give more than ordinary tastes of the sweetness of his love, by removing judgements, which are the fruits of his anger, from us. This point falls in with what was handled before on the second verse. Therefore, I shall conclude with these two notes:

First, That, in all judgements, God will have us look on them as fruits of his anger, and take more notice in them of his displeasure, than our own sufferings. When wrath is gone out, the sword drawn, thousands and ten thousands slain in our coasts, Israel given to the spoil, and Jacob unto robbers; a land set on fire with civil flames, and none able

P Sub lege est enim, qui timore supplicii quod lex minatur, non amore justitiæ, se sentit abstinere ab opere peccati, nondum liber nec alienus à voluntate peccandi. In ipsa enim voluntate reus est, qua mallet, si fieri posset, non esse quod timeat, ut libere faciat quod occulte desiderat. August. de nat. et grat. cap. 57. tom. 10. p. 103. Et infra, "Omnia fiunt facilia caritati," cap. 29. Non est terribile sed suave mandatum : De grat. Christi, lib. 1. cap. 13.-Suave fit quod non delectabat: De peccat. et merit. et remis. lib. 2. cap. 17.-Contr. 2. Epist. Pelag. lib. 1. cap. 9.-de doctr. Christi, lib. 1. cap. 15.—de Spiritu et lit. cap. 3.

to quench them; a kingdom divided against itself; a church, which was sometimes the asylum for other exiled and afflicted Christians to fly for shelter unto, miserably torn by the foolish and unnatural divisions of brethren, and dangerously threatened by the policy and power of the common enemy, who studies how to improve these divisions, to the ruin of those that torment them; our work is to make this conclusion," Our God is angry;" a God that loves freely, that is infinite in mercy and pity, who doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men; this should be our greatest affiction, and the removal of this anger by a universal reformation and conversion unto him, our greatest business. And I do verily believe, that England must never think of out-living or breaking through this anger of God, this critical judgement that is upon it, so as to return to that cold and formal complexion, that Laodicean temper that she was in before,-till she have so publicly and generally repented of all those civil disorders, which removed the bounds, and brought dissipation upon public justice: and of all those ecclesiastical disorders, which let in corruptions in doctrine, superstitions in worship, abuses in government, discountenancing of the power of godliness in the most zealous professors of it, as that our reformation may be as conspicuous, as our disorders have been; and it may appear to all the world, that God hath washed away the filth, and purged the blood of England from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgement, and by the spirit of burning."

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Secondly, That God's love is the true ground of removing judgements in mercy from a people. Let all human counsels be never so deep, and armies never so active, and cares never so vigilant, and instruments never so unanimous; if God's love come not in, nothing of all these can do a nation any good at all. Those that are most interested in God's love, shall certainly be most secured against his judgements. Hither our eyes, our prayers, our thoughts must be directed.

Lord, love us, delight in us, choose us for thyself: and then, though counsels, and treasures, and armies, and men, and horses, and all second causes fail us; though Satan

rage, and hell threaten, and the foundations of the earth be shaken; though neither the vine, nor the olive, nor the figtree, nor the field, nor the pastures, nor the herds, nor the stall, yield any supplies; yet we will rejoice in the Lord, and glory in the God of our salvation: sin shall be healed: anger shall be removed: "nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

THE

FIFTH SERMON.*

HOSEA, XIV. 5, 6, 7.

I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow, shall return ; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon.

SECT. 1. In these verses, is contained God's answer unto the second part of Israel's petition, wherein they desired him to do them good, or to receive them graciously. And here God promiseth them several singular blessings, set forth by several metaphors and similitudes, all answering to the name of Ephraim, and the ancient promises made unto him, &c. opposite to the many contrary courses, threatened in the former parts of the prophecy, under metaphors of a contrary importance. Here is the dew of grace,' contrary to the morning cloud' and the earthly dew' that passeth away, cap. xiii. 3. "Lilies, olives, vines, spices," contrary to judgements of " nettles, thorns, thistles," chap. ix. 16, x. 8. "Spreading roots" contrary unto "dry roots," chap. ix. 16. "A fruitful vine" bringing forth excellent wine, contrary to empty vine," bringing fruit only to itself; that is, so sour and unsavoury, as is not worth the gathering, chap. x. 1. "Corn growing," instead of "corn taken quite away," chap. ii. 9, instead of "no stalk, no bud, no meal," chap. viii. 7. "Fruit" promised, instead of “no fruit,” threatened, chap. ix. 16. "Wine promised in opposition to the failing of wine," chap. ix. 2. ii. 9. "Sweet wine" opposour drink," chap. iv. 18. "Safe dwelling," instead

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