He that hath

miracle showed him able to make good his word. power to command the fishes to be taken, can easily enable the hands to take them.

What is this divine trade of ours then but a spiritual piscation? the world is a sea: souls, like fishes, swim at liberty in this deep. The nets of wholesome doctrine draw up some to the shore of grace and glory. How much skill and toil and patience is requisite in this art! Who is sufficient for these things? This sea, these nets, the fishers, the fish, the vessels, are all thine, O God. Do what thou wilt in us and by us. Give us ability and grace to take; give men will and grace to be taken; and take thou glory by that which thou hast given.

THE MARRIAGE IN CANA.-John ii.

Was this then thy first miracle, O Saviour, that thou wroughtest in Cana of Galilee? And could there be a greater miracle than this, that, having been thirty years upon earth, thou didst no miracle till now? that thy Divinity did hide itself thus long in flesh? that so long thou wouldst lie obscure in a corner of Galilee, unknown to that world thou camest to redeem? that so long thou wouldst strain the patient expectation of those who, ever since thy star, waited upon the revelation of a Messias? We silly wretches if we have but a dram of virtue are ready to set it out to the best show; thou, who receivedst not the Spirit by measure, wouldst content thyself with a willing obscurity; and concealedst that power that made the world in the roof of an human breast, in a cottage of Nazareth. O Saviour, none of thy miracles is more worthy of astonishment than thy not doing of miracles.

What thou didst in private, thy wisdom thought fit for secrecy; but if thy blessed mother had not been acquainted with some domestical wonders, she had not now expected a miracle abroad. The stars are not seen by day, the sun itself is not seen by night. As it is no small art to hide art, so is it no small glory to conceal glory.

Thy first public miracle graceth a marriage. It is an ancient and laudable institution, that the rites of matrimony should not want a solemn celebration. When are feasts in season, if not at the recovery of our lost rib; if not at this main change of our estate, wherein the joy of obtaining meets with the hope of further comforts? The Son of the Virgin, and the mother of that

Son, are both at a wedding. It was in all likelihood some of their kindred to whose nuptial feast they were invited so far; yet was it more the honour of the act than of the person that Christ intended. He that made the first marriage in Paradise bestows his first miracle upon a Galilean marriage. He that was the author of matrimony and sanctified it doth, by his holy presence, honour the resemblance of his eternal union with his Church. How boldly may we spit in the faces of all the impure adversaries of wedlock, when the Son of God pleases to honour it!

The glorious Bridegroom of the Church knew well how ready men would be to place shame even in the most lawful conjunctions; and therefore his first work shall be to countenance his own ordinance. Happy is that wedding where Christ is a guest. O Saviour, those that marry in thee cannot marry without thee. There is no holy marriage whereat thou art not (however invisible, yet) truly present by thy Spirit, by thy gracious benediction. Thou makest marriages in heaven, thou blessest them from heaven. O thou that hast betrothed us to thyself in truth and righteousness do thou consummate that happy marriage of ours in the highest heavens !

It was no rich or sumptuous bridal, to which Christ with his mother and disciples vouchsafed to come from the farther parts of Galilee. I find him not at the magnificent feasts or triumphs of the great. The proud pomp of the world did not agree with the state of a servant.

This poor needy Bridegroom wants drink for his guests. The blessed Virgin, though a stranger to the house, out of a charitable compassion and a friendly desire to maintain the decency of an hospitable entertainment, inquires into the wants of her host; pities them; bemoans them where there was power of redress : When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said unto him, They have no wine. How well doth it beseem the eyes of piety and Christian love to look into the necessities of others! She that conceived the God of mercies both in her heart and in her womb, doth not fix her eyes upon her own teacher; but searcheth into the penury of a poor Israelite, and feels those wants whereof he complains not. They are made for themselves, whose thoughts are only taken up with their own store or indigence.

There was wine enough for a meal, though not for a feast; and if there were not wine enough, there was enough water: yet the holy Virgin complains of the want of wine, and is troubled with

the very lack of superfluity. The bounty of our God reaches not to our life only, but to our contentment: neither hath he thought good to allow us only the bread of sufficiency, but sometimes of pleasure. One while that is but necessary which some other time were superfluous. It is a scrupulous injustice to scant ourselves where God hath been liberal.

To whom should we complain of any want, but to the Maker and Giver of all things? The blessed Virgin knew to whom she sued. She had good reason to know the divine nature and power of her Son. Perhaps the bridegroom was not so needy, but if not by his purse, yet by his credit he might have supplied that want; or it were hard if some of the neighbour-guests, had they been duly solicited, might not have furnished him with so much wine as might suffice for the last service of a dinner. But blessed Mary knew a nearer way: she did not think best to lade at the shallow channel, but runs rather to the well-head where she may dip and fill the firkins at once with ease. It may be she saw that the train of Christ, which unbidden followed unto that feast and unexpectedly added to the number of the guests, might help forward that defect, and therefore she justly solicits her Son Jesus for a supply. Whether we want bread or water or wine, necessaries or comforts, whither should we run, O Saviour, but to that infinite munificence of thine which neither denieth nor upbraideth any thing? We cannot want, we cannot abound, but from thee. Give us what thou wilt, so thou give us contentment with what thou givest.

But what is this I hear? A sharp answer to the suit of a mother? O woman, what have I to do with thee? He whose sweet mildness and mercy never sent away any suppliant discontented, doth he only frown upon her that bare him? He that commands us to honour father and mother, doth he disdain her whose flesh he took? God forbid. Love and duty doth not exempt parents from due admonition. She solicited Christ as a mother, he answers her as a woman. If she were the mother of his flesh, his Deity was eternal. She might not so remember herself to be a mother, that she should forget she was a woman; nor so look upon him as a son, that she should not regard him as God. He was so obedient to her as a mother, that withal she must obey him as her God. That part which he took from her shall observe her; she must observe that nature which came from above, and made her both a woman and a mother. Matter of miracle concerned the

Godhead only supernatural things were above the sphere of fleshly relation. If now the blessed Virgin will be prescribing either time or form unto divine acts, O woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not come. In all bodily actions his style was, O mother; in spiritual and heavenly, O woman. Neither is it for us, in the holy affairs of God, to know any faces; yea, if we have known Christ heretofore according to the flesh, henceforth

know we him so no more.

O blessed Virgin, if in that heavenly glory wherein thou art thou canst take notice of these earthly things, with what indignation dost thou look upon the presumptuous superstition of vain men, whose suits make thee more than a solicitor of divine favours! Thy humanity is not lost in thy motherhood nor in thy glory. The respects of nature reach not so high as heaven. It is far from thee to abide that honour which is stolen from thy Redeemer.

There is a marriage whereto we are invited; yea, wherein we are already interested, not as the guests only, but as the bride, in which there shall be no want of the wine of gladness. It is marvel if in these earthly banquets there be not some lack. In thy presence, O Saviour, there is fulness of joy; and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore. Blessed are they that are

called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Even in that rough answer doth the blessed Virgin desery cause of hope. If his hour were not yet come, it was therefore coming. When the expectation of the guests and the necessity of the occasion had made fit room for the miracle, it shall come forth and challenge their wonder. Faithfully therefore and observantly doth she turn her speech from her Son to the waiters; Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. How well doth it beseem the mother of Christ to agree with his Father in heaven, whose voice from heaven said, This is my well-beloved Son, hear him. She that said of herself, Be it unto me according to thy word, says unto others, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. This is the way to have miracles wrought in us, obedience to his word.

The power of Christ did not stand upon their officiousness: he could have wrought wonders in spite of them, but their perverse refusal of his commands might have made them uncapable of the favour of a miraculous action. He that can when he will convince the obstinate, will not grace the disobedient. He that could work without us or against us, will not work for us but by us.

This very poor house was furnished with many and large vessels for outward purification: as if sin had dwelt upon the skin, that superstitious people sought holiness in frequent washings. Even this rinsing fouled them with the uncleanness of a traditional will-worship. It is the soul which needs scouring, and nothing can wash that but the blood which they desperately wished upon themselves and their children, for guilt, not for expiation. Purge thou us, O Lord, with hyssop, and we shall be clean; wash us, and we shall be whiter than snow.

The waiters could not but think strange of so unseasonable a command, Fill the waterpots. "It is wine that we want, what do we go to fetch water? Doth this holy man mean thus to quench our feast and cool our stomachs? If there be no remedy, we could have sought this supply unbidden." Yet so far hath the charge of Christ's mother prevailed, that instead of carrying flagons of wine to the table, they go to fetch pails full of water from the cisterns. It is no pleading of unlikelihoods against the command of an almighty power.

He that could have created wine immediately in those yessels will rather turn water into wine. In all the course of his miracles I do never find him making aught of nothing: all his great works are grounded upon former existencies. He multiplied the bread, he changed the water, he restored the withered limbs, he raised the dead, and still wrought upon that which was, and did not make that which was not. What doth he, in the ordinary way of nature, but turn the watery juice that arises up from the root into wine?. he will only do this now suddenly and at once which he doth usually by sensible degrees. It is ever duly observed by the Son of God not to do more miracle than he needs.

How liberal are the provisions of Christ! If he had turned but one of those vessels it had been a just proof of his power, and perhaps that quantity had served the present necessity; now he furnisheth them with so much wine as would have served an hundred and fifty guests for an entire feast. Even the measure magnifies at once both his power and mercy. The munificent hand of God regards not our need only, but our honest affluence. It is our sin and our shame if we turn his favour into wantonness.

There must be first a filling ere there be a drawing out. Thus in our vessels the first care must be of our receipt, the next of our expense. God would have us cisterns, not channels.

Our Saviour would not be his own taster, but he sends the first