osts, be ashamed for my sake; let not those that seek thee be
confounded for my sake, O God of Israel," Psal. lxix. 5, 6. The sorrow and
shame of a hypocrite (as all his other seeming graces) are rooted in
self-love, not in the love of God: he hath not this in all his thoughts,
that he is a spot or blemish in the body or church of Christ, and
therefore to be humbled, lest for his sake God be displeased with his
people; lest such a vile and abominable sinner as he is bring wrath and
confusion upon others, and make Israel turn their back before the enemy. O
happy soul that hath such thoughts as these!

I have now done with the first part of the text, wherein I have been the
larger, because it most fitteth the work of the day.

The second follows: "Show them the form of the house," &c.

Before I come to the doctrines which do here arise, I shall first explain
the particulars mentioned in this part of the text, so as they may agree
to the spiritual temple or church of Christ, which in the beginning I
proved to be here intended.

First, We find here the form and fashion of a house; in which the parts
are very much diversified one from another. There are, in a formed and
fashioned house, doors, windows, posts, lintels, &c.; there is also a
multitude of common stones in the walls of the house. Such a house is the
visible ministerial church of Christ, the parts whereof are _partes
dissimilares_,--some ministers and rulers; some eminent lights; others of
the ordinary rank of Christians,--that make up the walls. If God hath made
one but a small pinning in the wall, he hath reason to be content, and
must not say, Why am not I a post, or a corner-stone, or a beam? Neither
yet may any corner-stone despise the stones in the wall, and say, I have
no need of you.

Secondly, The Prophet was here to show them "the goings out of the house,
and the comings in thereof." These are not the same but different gates,
it is plain: "When the people of the land shall come before the Lord in
the solemn feasts, he that entereth in by the way of the north gate to
worship, shall go out by the way of the south gate, &c., he shall not
return by the way of the gate whereby he came in," Ezek. xlvi. 9. And that
not only to teach us order, and the avoiding of confusion, occasioned by
the contrary tides of a multitude, but to tell us farther, "No man, having
put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of
God," Luke ix. 62. We mus