My God, my God, thou art a direct God, may I not say a literal God, a
God that wouldst be understood literally and according to the plain
sense of all that thou sayest? but thou art also (Lord, I intend it to
thy glory, and let no profane misinterpreter abuse it to thy
diminution), thou art a figurative, a metaphorical God too; a God in
whose words there is such a height of figures, such voyages, such
peregrinations to fetch remote and precious metaphors, such extensions,
such spreadings, such curtains of allegories, such third heavens of
hyperboles, so harmonious elocutions, so retired and so reserved
expressions, so commanding persuasions, so persuading commandments, such
sinews even in thy milk, and such things in thy words, as all profane
authors seem of the seed of the serpent that creeps, thou art the Dove
that flies. O, what words but thine can express the inexpressible
texture and composition of thy word, in which to one man that argument
that binds his faith to believe that to be the word of God, is the
reverent simplicity of the word, and to another the majesty of the word;
and in which two men equally pious may meet, and one wonder that all
should not understand it, and the other as much that any man should. So,
Lord, thou givest us the same earth to labour on and to lie in, a house
and a grave of the same earth; so, Lord, thou givest us the same word
for our satisfaction and for our inquisition, for our instruction and
for our admiration too; for there are places that thy servants Hierom
and Augustine would scarce believe (when they grew warm by mutual
letters) of one another, that they understood them, and yet both Hierom
and Augustine call upon persons whom they knew to be far weaker than
they thought one another (old women and young maids) to read the
Scriptures, without confining them to these or those places. Neither art
thou thus a figurative, a metaphorical God in thy word only, but in thy
works too. The style of thy works, the phrase of thine actions, is
metaphorical The institution of thy whole worship in the old law was a
continual allegory; types and figures overspread all, and figures flowed
into figures, and poured themselves out into farther figures;
circumcision carried a figure of baptism, and baptism carries a figure
of that purity which we shall have in perfection in the new Jerusalem.
Neither didst thou speak and work in this language only in the time of
thy prophets; but since thou spokest in thy Son it is so too. How often,
how much more often, doth thy Son call himself a way, and a light, and a
gate, and a vine, and bread, than the Son of God, or of man? How much
oftener doth he exhibit a metaphorical Christ, than a real, a literal?
This hath occasioned thine ancient servants, whose delight it was to
write after thy copy, to proceed the same way in their expositions of
the Scriptures, and in their composing both of public liturgies and of
private prayers to thee, to make their accesses to thee in such a kind
of language as thou wast pleased to speak to them, in a figurative, in a
metaphorical language, in which manner I am bold to call the comfort
which I receive now in this sickness in the indication of the concoction
and maturity thereof, in certain clouds and recidences, which the
physicians observe, a discovering of land from sea after a long and
tempestuous voyage. But wherefore, O my God, hast thou presented to us
the afflictions and calamities of this life in the name of waters? so
often in the name of waters, and deep waters, and seas of waters? Must
we look to be drowned? are they bottomless, are they boundless? That is
not the dialect of thy language; thou hast given a remedy against the
deepest water by water; against the inundation of sin by baptism; and
the first life that thou gavest to any creatures was in waters:
therefore thou dost not threaten us with an irremediableness when our
affliction is a sea. It is so if we consider ourselves; so thou callest
Genezareth, which was but a lake, and not salt, a sea; so thou callest
the Mediterranean sea still the great sea, because the inhabitants saw
no other sea; they that dwelt there thought a lake a sea, and the others
thought a little sea, the greatest, and we that know not the afflictions
of others call our own the heaviest. But, O my God, that is truly great
that overflows the channel, that is really a great affliction which is
above my strength; but thou, O God, art my strength, and then what can
be above it? _Mountains shake with the swelling of thy sea_;[265]
secular mountains, men strong in power; spiritual mountains, men strong
in grace, are shaken with afflictions; but _thou layest up thy sea in
storehouses_;[266] even thy corrections are of thy treasure, and thou
wilt not waste thy corrections; when they have done their service to
humble thy patient, thou wilt call them in again, for _thou givest the
sea thy decree, that the waters should not pass thy commandment_.[267]
All our waters shall run into Jordan, and thy servants passed Jordan dry
foot;[268] they shall run into the red sea (the sea of thy Son's blood),
and the red sea, that red sea, drowns none of thine: but _they that sail
on the sea tell of the danger thereof_.[269] I that am yet in this
affliction, owe thee the glory of speaking of it; but, as the wise man
bids me, I say, I _may speak much and come short, wherefore in sum thou
art all_.[270] Since thou art so, O my God, and affliction is a sea too
deep for us, what is our refuge? Thine ark, thy ship. In all other
afflictions, those means which thou hast ordained in this sea, in
sickness, thy ship is thy physician. _Thou hast made a way in the sea,
and a safe path in the waters, showing that thou canst save from all
dangers, yea, though a man went to sea without art_:[271] yet, where I
find all that, I find this added; _nevertheless thou wouldst not, that
the work of thy wisdom should be idle_.[272] Thou canst save without
means, but thou hast told no man that thou wilt; thou hast told every
man that thou wilt not.[273] When the centurion believed the master of
the ship more than St. Paul, they were all opened to a great danger;
this was a preferring of thy means before thee, the author of the means:
but, my God, though thou beest every where: I have no promise of
appearing to me but in thy ship, thy blessed Son preached out of a
ship:[274] the means is preaching, he did that; and the ship was a type
of the church, he did it there. Thou gavest St. Paul the lives of all
them that sailed with him;[275] if they had not been in the ship with
him, the gift had not extended to them. _As soon as thy Son was come out
of the ship, immediately there met him, out of the tombs, a man with an
unclean spirit, and no man could hold him, no not with chains._[276] Thy
Son needed no use of means; yet there we apprehend the danger to us, if
we leave the ship, the means, in this case the physician. But as they
are ships to us in those seas, so is there a ship to them too in which
they are to stay. Give me leave, O my God, to assist myself with such a
construction of these words of thy servant Paul to the centurion, when
the mariners would have left the ship, _Except these abide in the ship,
you cannot be safe_:[277] except they who are our ships, the physicians,
abide in that which is theirs, and our ship, the truth, and the sincere
and religious worship of thee and thy gospel, we cannot promise
ourselves so good safety; for though we have our ship, the physician, he
hath not his ship, religion; and means are not means but in their
concatenation, as they depend and are chained together. _The ships are
great_, says thy apostle, _but a helm turns them_;[278] the men are
learned, but their religion turns their labours to good, and therefore
it was a heavy curse when _the third part of the ships perished_:[279]
it is a heavy case where either all religion, or true religion, should
forsake many of these ships whom thou hast sent to convey us over these
seas. But, O my God, my God, since I have my ship and they theirs, I
have them and they have thee, why are we yet no nearer land? As soon as
thy Son's disciple had taken him into the ship, _immediately the ship
was at the land whither they went_.[280] Why have not they and I this
dispatch? Every thing is immediately done, which is done when thou
wouldst have it done. Thy purpose terminates every action, and what was
done before that is undone yet. Shall that slacken my hope? thy prophet
from thee hath forbidden it. _It is good that a man should both hope,
and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord._[281] Thou puttest off
many judgments till the last day, and many pass this life without any;
and shall not I endure the putting off thy mercy for a day? And yet, O
my God, thou puttest me not to that, for the assurance of future mercy
is present mercy. But what is my assurance now? what is my seal? It is
but a cloud; that which my physicians call a cloud, in that which gives
them their indication. But a cloud? Thy great seal to all the world, the
rainbow, that secured the world for ever from drowning, was but a
reflection upon a cloud. A cloud itself was a pillar which guided the
church,[282] and the glory of God not only was, but appeared in a
cloud.[283] Let me return, O my God, to the consideration of thy servant
Elijah's proceeding in a time of desperate drought;[284] he bids them
look towards the sea; they look, and see nothing. He bids them again and
again seven times; and at the seventh time they saw a little cloud
rising out of the sea, and presently they had their desire of rain.
Seven days, O my God, have we looked for this cloud, and now we have it;
none of thy indications are frivolous, thou makest thy signs seals, and
thy seals effects, and thy effects consolation and restitution,
wheresoever thou mayst receive glory by that way.