NEver such a frame so soon set up , as this in this chapter : For , for the thing it self , there is no other thing to compare it with ; for it is all , it is the whole world . And for the time , there was no other time to compare it with ; for this was the beginning of time , In the beginning God created heaven and earth . That earth , which in some thousands of yeares men could not look over , nor discern what form it had ( for neither Lactantius , almost three hundred yeares after Christ ; nor S. Augustine , more then a hundred yeares after him , would beleeve the earth to be round ) That earth , which no man in his person is ever said to have compassed till our age : That earth , which is too much for man yet ( for as yet a very great part of the earth is unpeopled ) That earth , which , if we will cast it all but into a Map , costs many moneths labour to grave it ; nay , if we will but cast a piece of an acre of it into a garden , costs many yeares labour to fashion and furnish it ; all that earth : And then that heaven , which spreads so farre , as that subtill men have , with some appearance of probabilitie , imagined , that in that heaven , in those manifold Spheres of the Planets and the Starres , there are many earths , many worlds , as big as this which we inhabit : That earth and that heaven , which spent God himself , Almightie God , six dayes in finishing , Moses sets up in a few syllables , in one line , In principio , In the beginning God created heaven and earth . If a Livie or a Guicciardine , or such extensive and voluminous authours had had this story in hand , God must have made another world , to have made them a library to hold their books , of the making of this world . Into what wire would they have drawn out this earth ! Into what leaf-gold would they have beat out these heavens ! It may assist our conjecture herein , to consider , that amongst those men , who proceed with a sober modestie and limitation in their writing , & make a conscience not to clog the world with unnecessary books ; yet the volumes which are written by them , upon the beginning of Genesis , are scarce lesse then infinite . God did no more but say , Let this & this be done ; and Moses doth no more but say , that upon Gods saying it was done . God required not Nature to help him to do it ; Moses required not Reason to help him to beleeve : The holy Ghost hovered upon the waters , and so God wrought ; The holy Ghost hovered upon Moses too , and so he wrote : And we beleeve these things to be so , by the same Spirit in the mouth of Moses , by which they were made so in Gods hand : Onely ( Beloved ) remember , that a frame may be thrown down in much lesse time then it was set up . A childe , an ape can give fire to a cannon ; and a vapour can shake the earth : and when Christ said , Throw down this Temple , and in three dayes I will raise it , they never stood upon the consideration of throwing it down ; they knew that might be soon done : but they wondered at the speedy raising of it . Now , if all this earth were made in that minute , may not all come to the generall dissolution in this minute ? Or may not thy acres , thy miles , thy shires shrink into feet , and so few feet , as shall but make up thy grave ? when he who was a great lord must be but a cottager , & not so wel ; for a cottager must have so many acres to his cottage : but in this case , a little piece of an acre , five foot , is become the house it self , the house and the land ; the grave is all : lower then that , the grave is the land , and the tenement , & the tenant too . He that lies in it , becomes the same earth that he lies in ; they all make but one earth , and but a little of it . But then raise thy self to a higher hope again : God hath made better land , the land of promise ; a stronger citie , the new Jerusalem ; & inhabitants for that everlasting citie , us , whom he made , not by saying , Let there be men ; but by consultation , by deliberation ; God said , Let us make man , &c.

We shall pursue our great examples , God in Divisio . doing , Moses in saying , and so make haste in applying the parts . But first receive them : and since we have the whole world in contemplation , consider in these words , the foure quarters of the world , by application , by fair and just accommodations of the words . First , in the first word that God speaks here , Faciamus , Let Vs , in the plurall , ( a denotation of divers persons in the Godhead ) we consider our East , where we must begin , at the knowledge and confession of the Trinity : for though in the way to heaven we have travelled beyond the Gentiles , when we come to confesse but one God ( the Gentiles could not do that ) yet we are still among the Jews , if we think that one God to be but one person . Christs name is Oriens , Zech. 6. 12. the East ; if we will be named by him , ( called Christians ) we must look to this East , the confession of the Trinitie : there is then our East in the Faciamus ; Let Vs , Vs make man : And then our West is in the next word , Faciamus hominem : Though we be thus made ; made by the councell , made by the concurrence , made by the hand of the whole Trinity : yet we are made but men ; and man but in the appellation in this Text ; and man there is but Adam ; and Adam is but earth , but red earth , died red in bloud , in bloud , in soul , the bloud of our own souls . To that West we must all come , to the earth ; The sunne knoweth his going down : even Psal. 104. 19. the sunne , for all his glory and height , hath a going down , and he knows it . The highest cannot devest mortality , nor the discomfort of mortality . When you see a cloud rise out of the Lue. 12. 54. west , straightway you say , There cometh a storm , sayes Christ : When out of the region of your West , ( that is , your latter dayes ) there comes a cloud , a sicknesse ; you feel a storm : even the best morall constancie is shaken . But this cloud , and this storm , and this West there must be ; and that is our second consideration . But then the next word designes a North , a strong and powerfull NOrth , to scatter and dissipate these clouds : Ad imaginem & similitudinem ; that we are made according to a pattern , to an image , to a likenesse , which God proposed to himself for the making of man . This consideration , that God did not rest in that preexistent matter , out of which he made all other creatures , and produced their forms out of their matter , for the making of man ; but took a form , a pattern , a modell for that work : This is the North-winde that is called upon to carrie Cant. 4. 16. out the perfumes of the garden , to spread the goodnesse of God abroad : this is that which is intended in Job ; Fair weather cometh out of the Job . 37. 22. North. Our West , our declination is in this , that we are but earth ; our North , our dissipation of that darknesse is in this , that we are not all earth : though we be of that matter , we have on another form , another image , another likenesse . And then whose image and likenesse it is , is our Meridionall height , our Noon , our South-point , our highest elevation ; In imagine nostra , Let us make man in our image . Though our sunne set at noon , as the prophet Amos Amos 8. 9. speaks ; though we die in our youth , or fall in our height ; yet even in that sunne-set we shall have a noon : for this image of God shall never depart from our soul , no not when that soul departs from our bodie : And that is our South , our Meridionall height and glory . And when we have thus seen this East , in the Faciamus ; that I am the workmanship and care of the whole Trinitie ; and this West , in the Hominem ; that for all this , my matter , my substance is but earth ; But then a North , a power of overcoming that law and miserable state , In imagine ; that though in my matter the earth , I must die ; yet in my form , in that image which I am made by , I cannot die : And after all , a South , a knowledge that this image is not the image of angels themselves , to whom we shall be like ; but it is by the same life by which those angels themselves were made , the image of God himself : when I have gone over this East , and West , and North , & South here in this world , I should be sorie , as Alexander was , if there were no more worlds . But there is another world , which these considerations will discover and leade us to , in which our joy and our glorie shall be to see that God essentially , and face to face , after whose image and likenesse we were made before . But as that Pilot , which hath harboured his ship so farre within land , as that he must have change of windes , in all the points of the compasse , to bring her out , cannot hope to bring her out in one day : so being to transport you by occasion of these words , from this world to the next , and in this world , through all the compasse , all the foure quarters thereof ; I cannot hope to make all this voyage to day . To day we shall consider our longitude , our East and West ; and our North and South at another tide and another gale .

First then we look towards our East , the fountain Part. 1 of light and life ; There this world began : Oriens . The creation was in the East , and there our next world began too : there the gates of heaven opened to us , and opened to us in the gates of death : for our heaven is the death of our Saviour , and there he lived , and died there , and there he looked into our West , from the East , from his terrasse , from his pinacle , from his exaltation ( as himself calls it ) the Crosse . The light which arises to us in this East , the knowledge which we receive in this first word of our text , Faciamus , Let us ( where God , speaking of himself , speaks in the plurall ) is the manifestation of the Trinitie ; The Trinitie , which is the first letter in his Alphabet , that ever thinks to reade his name in the Book of life ; the first note in his Gammut , that ever thinks to sing his part in the Triumphant Church . Let him have done as much as all the worthies , and suffer as much as all natures martyrs , the penurious Philosophers ; let him have known as much as they pretend to know , Omne scibile , all that can be known ; nay , and In-intelligibilia , In-investigabilia ( as Tertullian speaks ) un-understandable things , unrevealed decrees of God : let him have writ as much as Aristotle writ , or as is written upon Aristotle ( which is multiplication enough ) yet he hath not learned to spell , that hath not learned the Trinitie : he hath not learned to pronounce the first word , that cannot bring three persons into one God . The subject of naturall Philosophers , are the foure elements , which God made : the subject of supernaturall Philosophie , Divinitie , are the three elements which God is ; and ( if we may so speak ) which make God , that is , constitute God , notifie God to us , Father , Sonne , and holy Ghost . The naturall man , that hearkens to his own heart , and the law written there , may produce actions that are good ; good in the nature , and matter , and substance of the work : he may relieve the poore , he may defend the oppressed ; but yet he is but as an open field : and though he be not absolutely barren , he bears but grasse . The godly man , he that hath taken in the knowledge of a great and powerfull God , and inclosed and hedged in himself with the fear of God , may produce actions better then the meer nature of man , because he referres his actions to the glorie of an imagined God : but yet this man , though he be more fruitfull then the former , more then a grassie field , is but a ploughed field , and bears but corn , and corn ( God knows ) choked with weeds . But the man that hath taken hold of God , by those handles , by which God hath delivered and manifested himself , in the notions of Father , Sonne , and holy Ghost ; he is no field , but a garden , a garden of Gods planting , paradise , in which grow all things good to eat , and good to see ( spirituall refection , and spirituall recreation too ) and all things good to cure : he hath his being , and his diet , and his physick there , in the knowledge of the Trinitie : his being , in the mercie of the Father ; his physick , in the merits of his Sonne ; his diet , his daily bread , in the daily visitations of the holy Ghost . God is not pleased , not satisfied with our bare knowledge that there is a God ; for , it is impossible to please God without faith : and Hebr. 11. 6. there is no such exercise of faith in the knowledge of a God , but that reason and nature will bring a man to it . When we professe God in the Creed , by way of belief , Credo in Deum , I beleeve in God ; in the same article we professe him to be a Father too ; I beleeve in God the Father Almightie : and that notion , the Father , necessarily implies a second person , a Sonne . And then we professe him to be maker of heaven and earth : and in the creation the holy Ghost , the Spirit of God , is expressely named : so that we do but exercise reason and nature in directing our selves upon God : we exercise not Faith ( and without faith it is impossible to please God ) till we come to that which is above nature , till we apprehend a Trinitie : we know God , we beleeve in the Trinitie . The Gentiles multiplied gods ; there were almost as many gods as men that beleeved in them ; and I am got out of that throng , and out of that noise , when I am come into the knowledge of one God : but I am got above stairs , got into the bed-chamber , when I am come to see the Trinitie , and to apprehend not onely , that I am in the care of a great & powerfull God , but that there is a Father that made me , a Sonne that redeemed me , a holy Ghost that applies this good purpose of the Father and Sonne upon me , to me . The root of all is God . But it is not the way to receive fruits , to dig to the root , but to reach to the boughs . I reach for my creation , to the Father ; for my redemption , to the Sonne ; for my sanctification , to the holy Ghost : and so I make the knowledge of God a tree of life unto me , and not otherwise . Truely it is a sad contemplation to see Christians scratch , and wound , and teare one another with the ignominious invectives and uncharitable names of Heretick and Schismatick , about ceremoniall and problematicall , and indeed but criticall verball controversies ; and in the mean time , the foundation of all , the Trinitie , undermined by those numerous , those multitudinous ant-hills of Socinians , that overflow some parts of the Christian world , and multiply every where . And therefore the adversaries of the Reformation were wise in their generation , when , to supplant the credit of both those great assistants of the Reformation , Luther & Calvin , they impute to Calvin fundamentall errour in the divinitie of the second person of the Trinitie , the Sonne ; And they impute to Luther a detestation of the word Trinitie , and an expunction thereof , in all places of the Liturgie , where the Church had received that word : They knew well , if that slander could prevail against those persons , nothing that they could say , could prevail upon any good Christians . But though in our Doctrine we keep up the Trinitie aright ; yet God knows , in our Practise we do not : I hope it cannot be said of any of us , that he beleeves not the Trinitie : but who amongst us thinks of the Trinitie , considers of the Trinitie ? Father and Sonne do naturally imply and induce one another , & therefore they fall oftener into our consideration ; but for the holy Ghost , who feels him , when he feels him ? who takes knowledge of his working , when he works ? Indeed our Fathers provided not well enough for the worship of the whole Trinitie , nor of the holy Ghost in particular , in the endowments of the Church , and consecrations of the Churches , and possessions in their names : what a spirituall dominion in the Prayers & worship of the people , what a temporall dominion in the possessions of the world , had the Virgin Marie , Queen of heaven , and Queen of earth too ! She was made joynt-purchaser of the Church with the Sonne , and had asmuch of the worship thereof as he , though she paid her Fine in milk , and he in bloud : And , till a new sect came in her Sonnes name , and in his name , the name of Jesus , took the Regencie so farre out of that Queen-mothers hands , and sued out her sonnes liverie so farre , as that , though her name be used , the Virgin Marie is but a Feofee in trust for them ; all was hers . And if God oppose not these new usurpers of the world , posteritie will soon see S. Ignatius worth all the Trinitie in possessions and endowments ; and that sumptuous and splendid foundation of his first Temple at Rome , may well create a conjecture and suspicion . Travell no farther ; Survey but this Citie , and , of their not one hundred Churches , the Virgin Marie hath a dozen : The Trinitie hath but one ; Christ hath but one ; the holy Ghost hath none . But not to go into the Citie , nor out of our selves , which of us doth truely & considerately ascribe the comforts that he receives in dangers or in distresses , to that God of all comfort , the Comforter , the holy Ghost ? We know who procured us our presentation , and our dispensation : you know who procured you your offices , and your honours : Shall I ever forget who gave me my comfort in sicknesse ? who gave me my comfort in the troubles , and perplexities , and diffidencies of my conscience ? The holy Ghost , the holy Ghost brought you hither ; The holy Ghost opens your eares and your hearts here . Till in all your distresses you say , Veni Creator Spiritus , Come holy Ghost ; and that you feel a comfort in his coming : you can never say , Veni Domine Jesu , Come Lord Jesus , come to judgement . Never to consider the day of judgement , is a fearfull thing ; but to consider the day of judgement without the holy Ghost , is a thousand times more fearfull .

This seal then , this impression , this notion of the Trinitie , being set upon us in this first plurall word of our Text , Faciamus , Let us ( for Father , Sonne , and holy Ghost made man ) and this seal being reimprinted upon us in our second Creation , or Regeneration , in Baptisme , ( man is baptized in the name of the Father , and of the Sonne , and of the holy Ghost ) this notion of the Trinitie , being our distinctive character from Jew and Gentile ; this being our specificall form ; why doth not this our form , this soul of our Religion denominate us ? why are we not called Trinitarians , a name that would embrace the profession of all the persons ; but onely Christians , which limits and determines us upon one ? The first Christians , amongst whose manifold persecutions , scorn and contempt was not the least , in contempt and scorn were called Nazaraei , Nazarites , in the mouth of the vulgar ; and Galilaei , Galileans , in the mouth of Julian ; & Judaei , Jews , in the mouth of Nero , when he imputed the burning of Rome ( his own art ) to them ; and Christiani , Christians , so that ( as Tertullian sayes ) they could accuse Christians of nothing , but the name of Christians : and yet they could not call them by their right name of Christians , which was gentle , quiet , easie , patient men , made to be troden upon ; but they gave them divers names in scorn , yet never called them Trinitarians . Christians themselves amongst themselves were called by divers names in the Primitive Church , for distinction ; Fideles , the Faithfull ; and Fratres , the Brethren ; and Discipuli , Disciples ; & after , by common custome at Antioch , Christians : and after that ( they say , by a councell which the Apostles held at the same Citie , at Antioch ) there passed an expresse Canon of the Church , that they should be called so , Christians : And before they had this name at Antioch , first by common usage , after by a determinate Canon , to be called Christians , from Christ ; at Alexandria , they were called ( most likely from the name of Jesus ) Jesseans . And so Philo Judaeus , in that book which he writes de Jessaeis , intends by his Jesseans , Christians . And in divers parts of the world , into which Christians travell now , they finde some elements , some fragments , some reliques of the Christian religion , in the practise of some religious men , whom those Countreys call Jesseans , doubtlesly derived and continued from the name of Jesus . So that the Christians took many names to themselves for distinction ( Brethren , Disciples , Faithfull ) and they had many names put upon them in scorn ( Nazarites , Galileans , Jews , Christians ) & yet they were never by custome amongst themselves , never by commandment from the Church , never in contempt from others , called Trinitarians , the profession of the Trinitie being their specifick form , and distinctive character . Why so ? Beloved , the name of Christ involved all : not onely because it is a name that hath a dignitie in it , more then the rest ( for Christ is an anointed person , a King , a Messiah ; and so the profession of that name conferres an unction , a regall and a holy unction upon us , for we are thereby a royall priesthood ) but because in the profession of Christ , the whole Trinitie is professed . How often doth the Sonne say that the Father sent him ! And how often that the Father will , and that he will send the holy Ghost ! This is life eternall John 17. 3. ( sayes he ) to know thee the onely true God , and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent ; and sent with all power in heaven and in earth . This must be professed , Father and Sonne ; and then no man can professe this , no man can call Jesus the Lord , but by the holy Ghost : So that as in the persecutions in the Primitive Church , the Martyrs which were hurried to tumultuary executions , and could not be heard for noise , in excusing themselves of treason , and sedition , & crimes imputed to them , to make their cause odious , did use in the sight of the people ( who might see a gesture , though they could not heare a protestation ) to signe themselves with the signe of the Crosse , to let them know for what profession they died ; so that the signe of the Crosse , in that use thereof , in that time , was an Abridgement and a Catechisme of the whole Christian religion : So is the professing of the name of Christ , the professing of the whole Trinitie . As he that confesseth one God , is got beyond the meer naturall man ; And he that confesseth a Sonne of God , beyond him : so is neither got to the full truth , till he confesse the holy Ghost too . The fool sayes in his heart , There is no God : The fool , sayes David ; the emphaticall fool , in the highest degree of folly : But though he get beyond that folly , he is a fool still , if he say , There is no Christ ; for Christ is the wisdome of the Father : And a fool still , if he denie the holy Ghost . Etiam Christiani nomen superficies est , is excellently said by Tertullian ; The name and profession of a Christian , is but a superficiall outside , sprinkled upon my face in Baptisme , or upon my outward profession in actions , if I have not in my heart a sense of the holy Ghost , that applies the mercies of the Father , and the merits of the Sonne to my soul . As S. Paul said , Whilest you are without Christ , you are without God ; It is an Atheisme ( with S. Paul ) to be no Christian : So whilest you are without the holy Ghost , you are without Christ . It is Antichristian to denie , or not to confesse the holy Ghost . For as Christ is the manifestation of the Father , so the holy Ghost is the application of the Sonne . Therein are we Christians , that in the profession of that name of Christ , we professe all the three Persons : In Christ is the whole Trinitie ; because , as the Father sent him , so sent he the holy Ghost : And that is our specifick form ; that is our distinctive character from Jew & Gentile , the Trinitie .

But then is this specifick form , this distinctive character , the notion of the Trinitie , conveyed to us , exhibited , imprinted upon us in our creation in this word , this plurall word , in the mouth of our own God , Faciamus , Let Vs , Vs . It is here , and here first . This is an intimation , and the first intimation of the Trinitie from the mouth of God , in all the Bible . It is true , that though the same faith , which is necessary to salvation now , were alwayes necessary , and so in the old Testament they were bound to beleeve in Christ , as well as in the new , and consequently in the whole Trinitie ; yet not so explicitely , nor so particularly as now : now Christ , calling upon God , in the name of the Father , sayes , I have manifested thy Name unto the men which thou gavest me out of John 17. 6. the world . They were men appropriated to God , men exempt out of the world : yet they had not a cleare manifestation of Father and Sonne , the doctrine of the Trinitie , till Christ manifested it to them . I have manifested thy Name , thy name of Father and Sonne . And therefore the Jewish Rabbins say , that the Septuagint , the first Translatours of the Bible , did disguise some places of the Scriptures , in their translation , lest Ptolomey ( for whom they translated it ) should be scandalized with those places : And that this text was one of those places , which , ( say they ) though it be otherwise in the copies of the Scriptures which we have now , they translated Faciam , and not Faciamus : that God said here , I will make , in the singular , and not , Let us make man , in the plurall ; lest that plurall word might have misled King Ptolomey to think that the Jews had a plurall religion , and worshipped divers gods . So good an evidence do they confesse this text to be , for some kinde of pluralitie in the Godhead .

Here then God notified the Trinitie ; and here first . For though we accept an intimation of the Trinitie , in the first line of the Bible , where Moses joyned a plurall name , Elohim , with a singular verb , Bara ; and so in construction it is Creavit Dii , Gods created heaven and earth : yet besides that , that is rather a mysterious collection , then an evident conclusion of a pluralitie of persons : though we reade that in that first verse , before this in the 26 ; yet Moses writ that , which is in the beginning of this chapter , more then 2000. yeares after God spake this that is in our text : so long was Gods plurall before Moses his plurall ; Gods Faciamus before Moses Bara Elohim . So that in this text begins our Catechisme : here we have ( and here first ) the saving knowledge of the Trinitie . For , when God spake here , to whom could God speak , but to God ? Non cum rebus creandis , non cum re nihili , sayes Athanasius , speaking of Gods first speaking , when he said of the first creature , Let there be light . God spake not then to future things , that were not . When God spake first , there was no creature at all to speak to : when God spake of the making of man , there were no creatures . But were there any creatures able to create , or able to assist him in the creation of man ? who ? Angels ? some had thought so in S. Basils time ; and to them S. Basil sayes , Súntne illi ? God sayes , Let us make man to our image ; and could he say so to Angels ? Are Angels and God all one ? or is that that is like an Angel , therefore like God ? It was sua ratio , suum verbum , sua sapientia , sayes that Father : God spake to his own word and wisdome ; to his own purpose and goodnesse : And the Sonne is the word and wisdome of God ; and the holy Ghost is the goodnesse and the purpose of God , that is , the administration , the dispensation of his Church . It is true , that when God speaks this over again , in the Church ( as he doth every day , now this minute ) then God speaks to his Angels , to the Angels of the Church , to his Ministers : he sayes , Faciamus , Let Vs , Vs both together , you and we , make a man : joyn mine ordinance ( your preaching ) with my Spirit ( sayes God to us ) and so make man : Preach the oppressour , and preach the wanton ; and preach the calumniatour , into an other nature ; make that ravening wolf , a man ; that licentious goat , a man ; that insinuating serpent , a man by thy preaching . To day if you will heare his voice , heare us ; for here he calls upon us to joyn with him for the making of man . But for his first Faciamus , which is in our text , it is excellently said , Dictum in senatu , & Rupertus . soliloquio : It was spoken in a senate , and yet in solitarinesse ; spoken in private , and yet publiquely spoken ; spoken where there were divers , and yet but one , one God , and three persons .

If there were no more intended in this plurall expression , Vs , but ( as some have conceived ) that God spake here in the person of a Prince and Soveraigne Lord ; and therefore spake , as Princes do , in the plurall , We command , and we forbid : yet S. Gregories caution would justly fall upon it , Reverenter pensandum est , It requires reverent consideration , if it be but so : for God speaks so , like a King , in the plurall , but seldome , but five times ( in my accompt ) in all the scriptures ; and in all five , in cases of important consequence . In this text first , where God creates man , whom he constitutes his vice-Roy in the world ; here he speaks in his Royall plurall : And then in the next Chapter , where he exempts mans term in this vice-regencie to the end of the world , in propounding man means of succession ; Faciamus , Let us make him a helper : there he speaks in his Royall plurall . And also in the third Chapter , in declaring the hainousnesse of mans fault , & arraigning him , and all us in him , God sayes , Sicut unus ex nobis , Man is become as one of us , not content to be our vice-Roy , but our selves : there is his Royall plurall too : And again , in that declaration of his justice , in that confusion of the builders of Babylon , Descendamus , Confundamus , Let us do it . And then lastly , in that great work of mingling mercy with justice , which ( if we may so speak ) is Gods master-piece , when he sayes , Quis ex nobis ? Who will go for us , and publish this ? In these places , & these onely ( and not all these neither , if we take it exactly according to the originall ; for in the second , the making of Eve , though the vulgar have it in the plurall , it is indeed but singular in the Hebrew ) God speaks as a King , in his Royall plurall still . And when it is but so , Reverenter pensandum est , sayes that Father , It behoves us to hearken reverently to him , for kings are images of God ; such images of God , as have eares , and can heare ; and hands , and can strike . But I would ask no more premeditation at your hands , when you come to speak to God in this place , then if you sued to speak with the King : to speak with no more fear of God here , then if you went to the King under the conscience of a guiltinesse towards him , and a knowledge that he knew it . And that is your case here ; sinners , and even manifest sinners : for even midnight is noon in the sight of God ; and when your candles are put out , his sunne shines still . Nec quid absconditum à calore ejus ( sayes David ) Psal. 19. 6. There is nothing hid from the heat thereof : not onely no sin hid from the light thereof , from the sight of God ; but not from the heat thereof , not from the wrath and indignation of God . If God speak plurally , onely in the majestie of a soveraigne Prince , still Reverenter pensandum , that calls for reverence . What reverence ? There are nationall differences in outward reverence and worships : some worship princes , and parents , and masters , in one ; some in another fashion : children kneel to ask blessing of parents , in England ; but where else ? servants attend not with the same reverence upon masters in other nations , as with us : Accesses to their princes , are not with the same difficultie , nor the same solemnitie in France , as in Turkie . But this rule goes through all nations , that in that disposition , and posture , and action of the bodie , which in that place is esteemed most humble and reverent , God is to be worshipped . Do so then here . God is your Father ; ask blessing upon your knees ; pray in that posture : God is your King ; worship him with that worship which is highest in our use & estimation . We have no Grandes , that stand covered to the King : where there are such , though they stand covered in the Kings presence , they do not speak to him for matters of grace , they do not sue to him : so , ancient Canons make difference of persons in the presence of God : where and how this and this shall dispose of themselves in the Church of God , dignitie , and age , and infirmitie will induce differences . But for prayer , there is no difference : one humiliation is required of all : As when the King comes in here , howsoever they sat diversly before , all return to one manner of expressing their acknowledgement of his presence : so at the Oremus , Let us pray , Let us all fall down , and worship , and kneel before the Lord our maker .

So he speaks in our Text : not onely as the Lord our King , intimating his providence and administration ; but as the Lord our maker ; and then a maker so , as that he made us in a Councell ; Faciamus , Let us : and that he speaks as in councel , is an other argument for reverence . For what trust or freedome soever I have by his favour with any Counsellour of state ; yet I should surely use another manner of consideration to this pluralitie in God , to this meeting in Councel , to this intimation of a Trinitie , then to those other actions , in which God is presented to us singly , as one God ; for so he is presented to the naturall man as well as to us . And here enters the necessitie of this knowledge , O portet denuo nasci ; without a second birth , no salvation : And so no second birth without Baptisme , no Baptisme , but in the name of the Father , Sonne , and holy Ghost . It was the entertainment of God himself , his delight , his contemplation , for those infinite millions of generations , when he was without a world , without creatures , to joy in one another , in the Trinitie , as Gregorie Nazianzene , and a Poet as well as a Father , as most of the Fathers were , expresses it :

It was the Fathers delight to look upon himself in the Sonne ,

And to see the whole Godhead , in a threefold and equall glorie . It was Gods own delight , and it must be the delight of every Christian , upon particular occasions to carry his thoughts upon the severall persons of the Trinitie . If I have a barre of iron , that barre in that form will not nail a doore : If a sow of lead , that lead in that form will not stop a leak : If a wedge of gold , that wedge will not buy my bread . The generall notion of a mighty God , may lesse fit my particular purposes : But I coyn my gold into currant money , when I apprehend God in the severall notions of the Trinitie ; That , if I have been a prodigall son , I have a Father in heaven , and can go to him , and say , Father , I have sinned , and be received by him ; That , if I be a decayed father , and need the sustentation of my own children , there is a Sonne in heaven , that will do more for me then my own children ( of what good means or good nature soever they be ) can or will do ; If I be dejected in spirit , there is a holy Spirit in heaven , which shall bear witnesse to my spirit , that I am a childe of God : And if the ghosts of those sinners , whom I made sinners , haunt me after their deaths , in returning to my memorie , & reproaching my conscience with the heavy judgements that I have brought upon them ; If after the death of my own sinne , when my appetite is dead to some particular sinne , the memorie and sinfull delight of those passed sinnes , the ghosts of those sinnes haunt me again : yet there is a holy Ghost in heaven , that shall exorcise these , and shall overshadow me . The God of the whole world is God alone , in the generall notion , as he is so , God ; but he is my God most especially , & most appliably , as he is received by me in the severall notions of Father , Sonne , and holy Ghost .