power and goodness, are preludes to his greater work. It is most senseless to have a thought of preventing him, from whom all good and all being flow. And this greater work he performs. If any be in Christ, he is a new creature: the word is, all made new, new delights and desires, and thoughts new; a new heaven and a new earth, a new soul and a new body, renewed in holiness, sanctified, and made conformable to Jesus Christ.

And when thou findest some work of grace, which thou canst not wholly deny, and yet wantest that peace and joy which thou desirest, look to him for that too. Thou findest it not from the word preached; yet he can speak it, and even by that word wherein formerly thou didst not find it. It is the fruit of the lips, but it is so withal, that it is his creation: he only causes it to be. I create the fruit of the lips; peace, peace. The Father wrought by the Son in the first creation, but in a new and special manner he works by him in this second creation. He is that Word made flesh who is the life and the spring of all the grace and comfort thou desirest or readest of. Go to him. He delights to let forth his mercies to thirsting souls; to revive them, to restore or turn them again, when they are in a swoon, as the word is, Psal. xxiii. 3. The more thou puttest him to it, the more shalt thou experience his prevailing power and the fulness of grace that dwells in him, which is no more diminished by all he shows forth, than his Divine power was weakened by the framing of the world. There is no scarcity of Spirit in him; therefore he proclaimed it as plural: If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth in me, out of his belly shall flow RIVERS of living water.

How manifold are thy works, O Lord! says the psalmist; and then he adds that wherein all the variety of them agrees, the holding forth of his incomparable wisdom, from whose wisdom they are; In wisdom thou hast made them all. As there are some of them more excellent than others, they certainly do, in a clearer and more eminent degree, glorify God. In the great fabric, that part which hath the highest place, the heavens, hath also this advantage-the greatness of the Great Architect appears somewhat more bright in it. Therefore it is singled out from the rest for that purpose, both here and in Psal. xix. 1.

But beyond all the rest, and even beyond the heavens are the wisdom and goodness of God displayed in the framing of his reasonable creatures.

There are of them two stages; the one higher, the angels, the other lower, yet here we have them together. lower than the angels; of the intelligent spirit.

but a little lower, man; as Thou hast made him a little nature of a spirit, a rational,

ISAIAH VI.

Ver. 1. In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.

I SAW.

Observe the freedom of God in his choice of men to be near him and know him. And in the measuring out of the degrees of discovery unto those men differently, some had extraordinary revelations; and though prophetic visions now cease, yet there are certainly higher and clearer coruscations of God upon some souls, than upon many others, who yet are children of light, and partake of a measure of that light shining within them. Thus we are not carvers and choosers, and therefore are not peremptorily to desire any thing in kind or measure that is singular-that were pride and folly. But above all things. we are to esteem and submissively to desire still more and more knowledge of God, and humbly to wait and keep open the passage of light; not to close the windows, not to be indulgent to any known sin or impure affection; that will soon obstruct it. Into a filthy soul wisdom will

not enter.

In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord on his throne. There is another king named here, to denote the time by; but he was a diseased and a dying king, who lived some years a leper, and then died. Men may speak in a court style of vain wishes, O king, live for ever; but this King here on the throne is indeed the King immortal, the ever living God.

God measures and proportions all his means to their ends. When he calls men to high services, he furnishes them with suitable preparations and enablements.

Thus

here with the prophet. He was to denounce heavy things against his own nation, a proud, stubborn people; to deal boldly and freely with the highest, yea, with the king himself; and he is prepared by a vision of God. What can a man fear after that? All regal majesty and pomp looks petty and poor after that sight. Two kings together on their thrones in royal robes did no whit astonish him who had seen a greater. I saw, says Micaiah, the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing by. Much like this is the vision of Isaiah here before us.

Eyes dazzled with the sun see not the glittering of drops of dew on the earth; and those are quickly gone, with all their faint and fading glory, to a soul taken with the contemplation of God. How meanly do they spend their days, who bestow them on counting money, or courting little earthen idols in ambition or love! From how high a stand doth he look down on those, who looks on God and admires his greatness, wonders at what he sees, and still seeks after more! These two are therefore joined together, beholding the beauty of the Lord, and inquiring in his temple. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. Psal. xxvii. 4.

Ver. 2, 3. Above it stood the seraphims; each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. These glorious courtiers, flaming spirits, are light and love, whose very feet are too bright for us, as his face is too bright for them; and they cry, Holy, holy, holy; thrice holy, most holy Three, one God, Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. This they cry one to another, echoing it and returning it incessantly. They that praise him most come nearest their life. When we are to pray or offer any worship to the great God in the sanctuary, especially in solemn worship there, let us think of him as thus on his throne above, and the diffusion of his glory there, of his train filling the upper temple, and so stoop low and fall down before him. Holy, holy, holy. This is the main thing wherein he is glorious, and we are to know and adore him in this view, and abhor ourselves as in his sight.

The whole earth. So many creatures and various works and affairs, fruits and plants, and rich commodities—and so many calamities and miseries that kingdoms and people are afflicted with by turns-and so many disorders, and such wickedness of men in public and private matters —and yet in all these varieties and contrarieties of things, this one is the sum of all, and all is taken up in it, The whole earth is full of his glory. In framing and upholding, in ruling and ordering all, what a depth of power and wisdom!

Ver. 4. The posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

How true must that be, that at his voice the earth quakes and the mountains tremble, when at the voice of an angel crying or proclaiming his name, the very threshold of the temple, the then holiest part of the earth, moves! This in the vision was intended to represent the dreadfulness of his great name, which vile men dare baffle in vain oaths, and can speak thereof without sense; but hearts that are indeed his living temples will find this emotion: when his name is proclaimed, or when they mention or think of it, the posts will be moved with an awful trembling.

And the house was filled with smoke. This was here a symbol of the presence and majesty of God. See Psal. xcvii. 2. Clouds and darkness are round about him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne; not a signal of displeasure, as some take it. He dwells in light that is inaccessible, and round about is thick darkness, shutting out the weak eyes of men, which were not able to abide the brightness of his glory. Much of our knowledge here lies in this, to know that we know him not; and much of our praise, to confess that we cannot praise him. --Silentium tibi laus, as they read Psal. lxv. 1.

Ver. 5. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

THEN said I, Woe is me! He is not lifted up with the dignity, that he should be honoured with such a vision of God; but, on the contrary, is struck with humble, holy fear: I am undone! This constitutes much of the exer

cise of souls admitted nearest to God, even this astonishment and admiration that such as they should be regarded and raised to that height, and holy fear in a sense of their unholiness. When the blessed Virgin heard a voice very much to her own advantage, instead of rising in her own conceit upon it, she was troubled and marvelled what manner of salutation it should be, and was struck with fear, so that the angel found it needful to say, Fear not.

Illusions and deceits of spirits of this kind cannot be better distinguished from true manifestations of God, than by this, that they breed pride and presumption in the heart, make it vain and haughty; while true senses, and joys, and discoveries of love, in what kind soever, do most powerfully humble.

For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts. The mother and nurse of pride is ignorance of God. A small glance of him will make the best of men abhor themselves, and still the nearer sight of him, the lower conceit will there be of self, and the deeper sense of impurity and vileness. This tells us, that though we hear and speak of God, alas! we know him not.

I am a man of unclean lips. He mentions this the rather, because he heard that song which he would have joined with, but durst not, because of polluted lips. Thus we must confess we are polluted all over, but much of our pollution breaks out by the lips, yet, commonly, we think not on it.

I am undone. We could not indeed bear much, we could not see God and live; therefore he veils himself. But surely we might see much more than we do, and live the better for it, the more humbly and holily. Our pollutions hinder and unfit us, as the prophet implies when he says, A man of unclean lips. But O that we saw so much of him as to see this pollution, which makes us so unworthy and so unfit to see him!

He first cries, I am a man of unclean lips, and then adds, I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. This is the true method: there can be no right sense of pollutions about us, but that which begins with a sense of those within us. Few men reflect much on themselves; or if they do, they view themselves by a false light. Unclean lips. This he says in regard of the voice he