Lancelot Andrewes

“ It standeth us therefore in hand, to begin with Hosanna, so to joy, as that we may long joy to pray for the continuance, that it bee not taken from us: ever remembering, the true temper of joy, is not without the mixture of some feare. For, this day, wee see what it is, a joyfull day: we knew not what the next day will be and if not what the next day, what the next yeare much lesse. What will come, we know not; what our sinnes call for to come, that wee know; even that God should call to judgement, if not by fire, by somewhat else. ”

“ Gods doings are many, and not all of one size. The Prophet Zachary speaketh of a day of Small things, and, even in those small, must we learne to see God, or we shall never see Him in greater. Yet, so dimme is our sight, that unlesse they be great, commonly we see Him not: nay unlesse it be greate usque ad miracalum , so great, that marvellous withall, we count it not worth a day, nor worthy God: unlesse it be such. But, if it be such, then it is God's, Qui facit mirabilis solus, Who only workes great marvells: then, man is shut out, and Gods must the Day be. ”

“ That is the true fountaine of joy, that our lips may be faire, when we sing unto Him, and so may our soule which he hath delivered. Nay, he delivered both: and therefore, both the body to rejoyce, and the soul to be glad. This doth Laetemur adde, to exaultemus.
If then we be agreed that we will doe both, I come to the last, how to order our joy, that it may please Him, for whom it is undertaken. It is not every joy, that He liketh. Merry they were, and joyfull that kept their Kings day by taking in boule after boule till they were sick again. ”

“ All is, in God's making, For, as in the Creation , we see, all are the workes, and yet a plaine difference between them for all that, in the manner of making: Some are made Six, Let there be light, a firmament, drie Land; Some, with Faciamus with more adoe, greater forecast, and framing, as man, that master-peece of His workes, of whom therefore in a different sense, it may be said: This is the Creature which God hath made (suppose, after a more excellent manner.) ”

“ And for common and ordinary dayes, wherein as there is no harme, so not any notable good, we rather say, they are gone forth from God in the course of nature (as it were) with a fiat, then made by Him; specially, with a faciamus. So, evill dayes no dayes, or dayes marr'd: and common dayes, dayes; but no made dayes: Onely those made, that crowned with some extraordinary great Favour, and thereby get a dignity, and exaltation above the rest: exempted out of the ordinary course of the Calendar with an Hic est. Such, in the Law, was the Day in the Passe-over, made by God, the head of the yeare. ”

“ Then if such dayes there be, if this of ours be one of them, if the fore-part of the verse doe, then must the latter also belong to us: If this, the day, the Lord hath made then, this, the day, wherein we to rejoyce. When He makes, we to make; and our rejoycing in it, is our making of it.
To rejoyce, no hard request, nor heavie yoke, let it not be grievous to us. We love to doe it, we seek all meanes to doe it in all cases else: then to assay to doe it here. This the Prophet would not require nor make it the office of the day, but that upon such dayes, God himselfe cals us to joy. ”

“ The daughters of the uncircumcised would have made it a day in triumph. Let us not be behind them then, but shew as much joy for our saving, as they would certainly have done, for our perishing.
Exultemus & Laetemur. God loveth our joy should be full; it is not full, except we have both these, the body and the soule of joy: the joy outward of the body, and the gladnesse inward of the soule. ”

“ We have least sense of our soules. To save us, with the true saving health; it importeth the salvation of the Soule; properly to that it belongeth, and hath joyned to it Hosanna in the Gospell to shew it is an high and heavenly salvation.
2. Then, to prosper, If He but grant us the former alone, to have our soules saved though without prosperitie, though with the dayes of adversity, it is sors sanctorum, the lot of many a Saint of his, of farre more worth than we: Even so, we are bound, to thanke Him, if even so, we may be but saved. ”

“ In every sinne of bloud, he hath a claw, but, all his clawes, in such an one as this: wherein so much bloud as would have made it raine bloud, so many baskets of heads, so many peeces of rent bodies cast up and downe, and scattered all over the face of the earth. ”

“ So, that God cast their owne powder in their faces, poudered them and disfigured them with it. and that their quarters stand now in pieces, as they meant, ours should: It is the case of the CIX. Psalme, And hereby shall they know, that is in thy hand, and then the Lord hast done it. How? in that, they are thus cloathed with their owne shame, and even covered with their owne confusion; that they fall as fast as they rise; are still confounded, and still thy servants rejoyce. These five shew, it was God's hand. It was the Lord, that made the day, it was the day, that the Lord made. ”

“ An abomination: so it is, abhorred of all flesh, hatred and detested of all, that but heare it named: yea, they themselves say, they should have abhorred it, if it had taken effect. It is an abomination.
Every abomination doth not forthwith make desolate. ”

“ Then we give the day for God's, without more adoe. Now then, we have all that goeth to it: 1, A Deliverance wrought; 2, wrought, by God, 3, a wonderfull deliverance, 4, and that, even in our eyes, These make David's day, a day of Gods making.
Will these be found in ours, and then ours shall be so too? They will, all of them certainly; and that, in an higher degree, in a greater measure; match David's day, and overmatch it in all. 1. We were delivered, and from a danger, that is cleare. How great? ”

“ And there fore the other, that God will have his joy, not be the joy of the countenance alone, a cleere face and a cloudy overcast heart, he will have the gladnesse of the heart too, of the inner man: Cor meum & caro mee; the heart, as well as the flesh, to be joyfull. The joy of the soule is the soul of joy, not a body without a soul, which is but a carcase. Strange children may dissemble with me dissemble a gladnesse, for feare of being noted and yet within, in heart, you wot what. But , God calleth for his defontibus Israel, which we read, from the ground of the heart. ”

“ That it may be to the purpose, that God may take pleasure in it, it must begin at Hosanna, at Aperite mihi porta Iusitia, at the Temple doore, there must it goe in, it must blesse, and be blessed in the house of the Lord. I will first make joyful in my house of Prayer (it is God by Esay: ) the streame of our joy, must come from the spring head of Religion. ”

“ When treachery hath his course like water, and creepes along like a snail then to make it like the untimely birth of a woman, never to see the sun: but, as in that, priusquam intelligerent spine, or even the thornes gate heat, or the powder, fire ”

“ But, if he adde also prosperitie of the outward, to the saving of the inward man, that not so much as a leafe of us shall wither, but looke what we doe shall prosper, and that, whasoever men of evil counsels do, shall not prosper against us,. ”