My God, my God, how large a glass of the next world is this! As we have
an art, to cast from one glass to another, and so to carry the species a
great way off, so hast thou, that way, much more; we shall have a
resurrection in heaven; the knowledge of that thou castest by another
glass upon us here; we feel that we have a resurrection from sin, and
that by another glass too; we see we have a resurrection of the body
from the miseries and calamities of this life. This resurrection of my
body shows me the resurrection of my soul; and both here severally, of
both together hereafter. Since thy martyrs under the altar press thee
with their solicitation for the resurrection of the body to glory, thou
wouldst pardon me, if I should press thee by prayer for the
accomplishing of this resurrection, which thou hast begun in me, to
health. But, O my God, I do not ask, where I might ask amiss, nor beg
that which perchance might be worse for me. I have a bed of sin; delight
in sin is a bed: I have a grave of sin; senselessness of sin is a grave:
and where Lazarus had been four days, I have been fifty years in this
putrefaction; why dost thou not call me, as thou didst him, _with a loud
voice_,[297] since my soul is as dead as his body was? I need thy
thunder, O my God; thy music will not serve me. Thou hast called thy
servants, who are to work upon us in thine ordinance, by all these loud
names--winds, and chariots, and falls of waters; where thou wouldst be
heard, thou wilt be heard. When thy Son concurred with thee to the
making of man, there it is but a speaking, but a saying. There, O
blessed and glorious Trinity, was none to hear but you three, and you
easily hear one another, because you say the same things. But when thy
Son came to the work of redemption, thou spokest,[298] and they that
heard it took it for thunder; and thy Son himself cried with a loud
voice upon the cross twice,[299] as he who was to prepare his coming,
John Baptist, was the voice of a crier, and not of a whisperer. Still,
if it be thy voice, it is a loud voice. _These words_, says thy Moses,
_thou spokest with a great voice, and thou addedst no more_,[300] says
he there. That which thou hast said is evident, and it is evident that
none can speak so loud; none can bind us to hear him, as we must thee.
_The Most High uttered his voice._ What was his voice? _The Lord
thundered from heaven_,[301] it might be heard; but this voice, thy
voice, is also a _mighty voice_;[302] not only mighty in power, it may
be heard, nor mighty in obligation, it should be heard; but mighty in
operation, it will be heard; and therefore hast thou bestowed a whole
psalm[303] upon us, to lead us to the consideration of thy voice. It is
such a voice as that thy Son says, _the dead shall hear it_;[304] and
that is my state. And why, O God, dost thou not speak to me, in that
effectual loudness? Saint John heard a voice, and _he turned about to
see the voice_:[305] sometimes we are too curious of the instrument by
what man God speaks; but thou speakest loudest when thou speakest to the
heart. _There was silence, and I heard a voice_, says one, to thy
servant Job.[306] I hearken after thy voice in thine ordinances, and I
seek not a whispering in conventicles; but yet, O my God, speak louder,
that so, though I do hear thee now, then I may hear nothing but thee. My
sins cry aloud; Cain's murder did so: my afflictions cry aloud; _the
floods have lifted up their voice_ (and waters are afflictions), _but
thou, O Lord, art mightier than the voice of many waters_;[307] than
many temporal, many spiritual afflictions, than any of either kind: and
why dost thou not speak to me in that voice? _What is man, and whereto
serveth he? What is his good and what is his evil?_[308] My bed of sin
is not evil, not desperately evil, for thou dost call me out of it; but
my rising out of it is not good (not perfectly good), if thou call not
louder, and hold me now I am up. O my God, I am afraid of a fearful
application of those words, _When a man hath done, then he
beginneth_;[309] when this body is unable to sin, his sinful memory sins
over his old sins again; and that which thou wouldst have us to remember
for compunction, we remember with delight. _Bring him to me in his bed,
that I may kill him_,[310] says Saul of David: thou hast not said so,
that is not thy voice. Joash's own servants slew him when he was sick
in his bed:[311] thou hast not suffered that, that my servants should so
much as neglect me, or be weary of me in my sickness. Thou threatenest,
that _as a shepherd takes out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a
piece of an ear, so shall the children of Israel, that dwell in Samaria,
in the corner of a bed, and in Damascus, in a couch, be taken
away_;[312] and even they that are secure from danger shall perish. How
much more might I, who was in the bed of death, die? But thou hast not
so dealt with me. As they brought out sick persons in beds, that thy
servant Peter's shadow might over-shadow them,[313] thou hast, O my God,
over-shadowed me, refreshed me; but when wilt thou do more? When wilt
thou do all? When wilt thou speak in thy loud voice? When wilt thou bid
me _take up my bed and walk_?[314] As my bed is my affections, when
shall I bear them so as to subdue them? As my bed is my afflictions,
when shall I bear them so as not to murmur at them? When shall I take up
my bed and walk? Not lie down upon it, as it is my pleasure, not sink
under it, as it is my correction? But O my God, my God, the God of all
flesh, and of all spirit, to let me be content with that in my fainting
spirit, which thou declarest in this decayed flesh, that as this body is
content to sit still, that it may learn to stand, and to learn by
standing to walk, and by walking to travel, so my soul, by obeying this
thy voice of rising, may by a farther and farther growth of thy grace
proceed so, and be so established, as may remove all suspicions, all
jealousies between thee and me, and may speak and hear in such a voice,
as that still I may be acceptable to thee, and satisfied from thee.