pensivus; 2. Expensivus; 3. Intensivus, and 4. Extensivus. The two former in the two verbs: 1. active, impendam; and 2. passive, impendar; "bestowing," or spending; "bestowed," or spent itself. The two latter in the adverb and the conjunction; 3. Intensive, straining itself to the highest degree, "most gladly;" and 4. Extensive, stretching itself to those that are farthest from love, and least deserve it; Etsi minus diligar. 1. "To spend;" 2. "To spend and be spent;" 3. "To spend and be spent most willingly." If the full point were there, it were enough. 4. But not only libentissime, but libentissime etsi; "most gladly," yea, "though the more he, the less they;"—that is all in all.

But then, lest we mistake our term of love, as easily we 11. may, and confound it with lust, we must look to our pro in the second part. It is pro animabus, "soul-love," he meaneth all the while. "Love," the fruit of the Spirit; not lust, the Gal. 5. 22. weed of the flesh. Not of this flesh, sister to worms, and Job 17. 14. daughter to rottenness; but of the spirit allied to the Angels, and "partaker in hope of the Divine nature" itself. And not 2 Pet. 1. 4. of one only, but animabus, "of souls"-more than love of one soul; many souls, many thousands of souls, of a whole state or country. Them to love, and to them thus to prove our love, is it which St. Paul would teach, and it which we need to learn. These be the two parts. Whereof, &c. To enter the treaty of the first part. We begin at the four points: 1. Impendam, 2. Impendar, 3. Libentissime, and 4. Etsi. If love be "an ensign," as Cant. 6., the colours. If Cant. 6. 4. it be "a band," as Hosea 11., the twists. If a scale, as Chry- Hos. 11. 4. sostom, the ascents. If an art, as Bernard, the rules of it. [S. BerIndeed, they talk much of an art of love, and books of verses Nat. et have been written of it; but above all verses, is carmen hoc Dignit. amoris. This verse hath more art than they all; and of this Divin. init.] it may be said, Me legat, et lecto carmine doctus erit; learn it [Ovid. Art. and say you learned love.' To take them as they lie, and init.] with the first, first. Ego vero impendam.

I.

The love.

nard, de

Amor.

Amat.lib.1.

1.

Amor im

1. There was a world when one said, Da mihi cor tuum et sufficit; bestow your heart on me, and I require no farther pensivus. bestowing;' and the bestowing of love, though nothing but Impendam. love, was something worth.

2. Such a world there was, but that world is worn out. All

SERM. goeth now by impendam. Love and all is put out to interest. VI. The other empty-handed love is long since banished the

court, the city, and the country. For long since it is that 1 Sam.22.7. King Saul saw it, and said it to his courtiers that he was not regarded, but because he gave them fields, and vineyards, and offices over hundreds and thousands. Nor yet Diana in the Acts 19. 24. city of Ephesus, magnified there by the craftsmen, but because by her silver shrines they had their advantage. Nay nor Joh. 6. 26. Christ Himself neither in the country, but because they "ate of the loaves and were filled." For many miracles had they seen much greater than that, yet never professed they so much, sicut tunc exaturati, as when He bestowed a good meal on them.

2 Cor. 12. 14.

Lu. 15. 31.

3. Such is now the world's love, but specially at Corinth, where they do cauponari amorem indeed; set love to hire, and love to sale, and at so high a rate, as some were forced to give over, lest paying for love they might buy repentance too,

and both too dear.

4. There is no remedy then; St. Paul must apply himself to time and place, wherein as all things else, so love depends upon impendam, yielding and paying.

5. Now, there is nothing so pliant as love, ever ready to transform itself to whatsoever may have likelihood to prevail; and if it be liberality, into that too. For, that love is liberal, nay prodigal, the Greek proverb noteth it that saith, The purse-strings of love are made of a leak blade; easily in sunder, and wide open with no great ado.

6. St. Paul therefore cometh to it; and as he maketh his case a father's case towards them in the verse next before, so he saith with the kind father, Ecce omnia mea tua sunt. Father's love and all must be proved by bestowing.

7. Yea, "I will bestow." Now alas, what can Paul bestow? Especially upon so wealthy citizens? What hath he to part 2Tim.4.13. with, but his "books and his parchments?" Ware, at Athens perhaps somewhat; but at Corinth, little used and less regarded. Indeed, if silver and gold be all, and nothing else worth the bestowing, nothing will come under impendam but it; his bestowing is stalled. But, by the grace of God there is something else. There be talents-so the world will call them when they list, howsoever they esteem them scarce

worth pence a piece. And there be "treasures of wisdom and knowledge," in Christo Jesu, saith St. Paul. Indeed, so had Col. 2. 3. St. Paul need to say; he had best magnify his own impendam, for he hath nothing else to make of. Nay, it shall not stand upon his valuation. They that had both, both the wealth of Corinth and the wisdom of Paul, and both in abundance, as being both of them Prophets; the one of them, King David, preferreth this impendam of Paul's before "gold, fine gold, Ps. 19. 10. much fine gold;" and that we may know how much that much is, "before thousands of gold and silver." This was no Ps. 119. 72. poor Apostle. The other, King Solomon, saith directly; "There is gold, and a multitude of rich stones; but the lips Pro. 20. 15. of knowledge—that is the precious jewel." And not policy, but scientia sacrorum, prudentia; "the knowledge of holy Pro. 9. 10. things is the wisdom" he meaneth. And it was no flourish, he was in earnest. For it is well known he himself chose 1 Kings them before the other when he was put to his choice, and that his liking in that choice was highly approved by God's own liking. The truth is, men have no sense of their souls till they be ready to part with them; and then is St. Paul's impendam called for, and never seriously before, when their case is such as they can little feel what the bestowing is worth.

3. 9-12.

And because they would not seek to feel it before, it is God's just punishment they feel it not then. But if men will labour to have sense of that part in due time, they should find and feel such an estate of mind as none know but such as have felt; surely such as they would acknowledge to be worth an impendam. Indeed, this it is St. Paul can bestow, and this it is Corinth needs; and the more wealthy it is, the more. The other, as he hath it not, so they need it not, that is, aurum et argentum; quod autem habet, "but that he hath," he is ready Acts 3. 6. to bestow. What would we have more. Fecit quod potuit, Mark 14. 8. saith our Saviour in Mary Magdalene's case; and dedit quod habuit, in the case of the poor widow's mites; and that is as Lu. 21. 4. much as God doth, or man can require. But be it little, or be it much, he that giveth all leaveth nothing ungiven, and therefore his impendam is at the highest.

Mark 12.44.

2.

But when it is at the highest, the passive impendar is higher Amor exthan it. Much more to "be bestowed," than " to bestow." pensius.

66

Impendar.

SERM. And therefore it hath a super-impendar bestowed on it. VI. 1. For first, they that bestow give but of their fruits; but he that is bestowed giveth fruit, tree, and all. In that, the bestower remained unbestowed; here, he himself is in the deed of gift too. 2. Secondly, before there was but one act of bestowing only; here in one are both bestowing and being bestowed, and there being both must needs be better than one. 3. Thirdly, before, that which was bestowed, what was Heb. 12. 4. it? Our good, not our blood; our living, not our life. Nondum ad sanguinem, "not yet so far as to the shedding of blood." Then, there is somewhat behind. But if to the shedding of that, then is it love at the farthest; if it be as Cant. 8. 6. Solomon saith, fortis sicut mors; "dare throw death his Joh. 15. 13. gauntlet." Majorem hoc nemo, saith Christ; "greater love hath no man than this, to bestow his life." 4. And indeed, we see many can be content to bestow frankly, but at no hand to be bestowed themselves. Yea, that they may not be bestowed, care not what they bestow. For self-love crieth to Mat. 16. 22. us, Spare our living; but in any wise, propitius esto tibi, to Job 2. 4. spare our life. "Skin for skin" is nothing but impendere ne

impendamur; to spend all we have, to spare ourselves.' But hither also will St. Paul come from δαπανᾷν to ἐκδαπανᾶσθαι, without any reservation at all of himself; to do or suffer, "to spend or to be spent."

How "to be spent?" will he die? Yea indeed. What, presently here at Corinth? No, for at this time, and long after he was still alive; and yet he said truly impendar for all that. For, as before we said, so say we in this. If there be no way "to be bestowed" but by dying out of hand, they that in field receive the bullet, or they that at the stake have the fire set to them, they and they only may be said "to be bestowed." That is a way indeed, but not the only way; but other ways there be beside them too. As that is said "to be bestowed," not only that is defrayed at one entire payment, but that which by several sums is paid in; especially, if it be when it was not due, nor could not be called for. This I mean: The Patriarch Lot, or the Prophet Jeremy, that 2Pet.2.7,8. dwelling where sin abounded, and seeing and hearing, "vexed their righteous souls" with the daily transgressions of the people, and for their unkindness too; and thereby prevented

their term, and paid nature's debt ere there day came, bestowed themselves say I, though not at once. For, hearts' grief and heaviness do more than bestow, for they even consume and waste a man's life. And Timothy, that by giving ITim.4.13. attendance to reading, meditation, and study, grew into an anyia, and "often infirmities," and thereby shortened his 1Tim.5.23. time by much, bestowed himself say I, though not at one instant. He that knew it bare witness, that that course of life is "a wearying,” yea, and a wearing of it too; and spends Ecc.12.12. another manner substance than the sweat of the brows.

This

29.

1 Cor. 15.

then, for the present, was St. Paul's impendar. By intentive meditation, for his books and parchments took somewhat from his sum; by sorrow and grief of heart, for Quis scandalizatur 2 Cor. 11. et ego non uror? and that he said and said truly, Quotidie morior, he bestowed himself by inch-meal; and might avow 31. his impendar before God or man. And so far it is the case of all them that be in this case-Sal terræ, as Christ termeth Mat. 5. 13. them; which salt, by giving season, melteth itself away, and ceaseth in short time to be that it was. Lux mundi, "the Mat. 5. 14. light of the world," aliis ministrando, seipsos consumendo, lighting others, and wasting themselves; that is, abridging their natural course, and drawing on their untimely diseases and death, before their race be half run.

But, to make it a perfect impendar and to give it his super, after all this he came to that other too. For so he did; in that point, like the poor labouring ox to which in the ninth 1 Cor. 9. 9. Chapter of the former Epistle he resembleth his state, spending his time in earing the ground for corn, in inning the corn, in treading out the corn; his neck yoked, and his mouth muzzled, and in the end, when all is done, offered on the altar too and made a sacrifice of. It was his case, and thither he came at last; and therefore in both cases, he might truly say impendar, and super-impendar both.

3.

Amor in

libentis

But to elevate it yet a point higher we say, that as either of these are much, and both exceeding much; yet above both tensicus; these is that, which though we handle third, it standeth first, sime. the adverb libentissime. True it is, which in divinity we say: with God the adverb is above the verb, and the inward affection wherewith, above the outward action or passion of impendam or impendar, either. With men it is so too. When a