Qu. But the question is, Whether Joshua did well to curse any in this manner, since the command is (given by our Saviour) Bless, and curse not?

[Page 6] Ans. Yes, No doubt but Joshua might lawfully do it; because in this he was a Pro­phet; God had revealed to Joshua thus much, that the man should be accursed, that should build the City Jericho; so that he spoke this by the Spirit of Prophecy, foreknowing the mind of God in this matter. This plainly appears by what you read, 1 King 16. last, In his days (that is in the days of Ahab) did Hiel the Beth-elite build Jericho; he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his first-born, and set up the Gates thereof in his youngest Son Segub (that is in the death of these Sons) according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Joshua the Son of Nun, that is in this place, cursed be the man before the Lord, that riseth up and buildeth this City Jericho, he shall lay the foundation thereof in his first-born, and in his youngest Son shall he set up the Gates of it. So then Joshua spoke no more, than what God had revealed to him, and which he knew would most certainly come to pass; he did it by the direction and inspi­ration of the Holy Ghost; for this reason Joshua might lawfully denounce this [Page 7] curse.—Yet we must not hereupon think it lawful for us to curse our Enemies; No, our Rule is, Bless, and curse not: Bless those that curse you, and pray for them that despite­fully use you and persecute you, saith our Sa­viour. It may be a wretched Goliah, an un­circumcised Philistine may accustom his mouth to curses, but such Gall and Poyson becomes not the mouths of Gods People. Besides, he that curseth another, doth in truth curse himself. Observe that of David, Psal. 109. 17, 18. As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him, let it come into his Bowels like water, and like Oyl into his Bones. As the Bird taking her flight from her Nest, fetcheth a Circuit, and then re­turns thither again, so Curses come in where they went out, and at last return upon our own heads, as Dust cast in the Air against the Wind. This therefore is not the use we are to make of such Examples as this in my Text. But where we meet with Curses in the Writings of the Prophets and holy men of God, who had the Spirit of Prophecy, we are to apply them to the [Page 8] Enemies of Gods Church, who seek the Ruine of the true Religion, and profess an open enmity to the Gospel and Faith of Christ. We may ever with safety take Gods part, our Saviours side, and curse all those that are Enemies to him, say­ing, with Deborah and Barak; So let all [thine] Enemies perish, O Lord: But for Judg. 5. 31. our Enemies that have done us any per­sonal or private wrong, to curse them is (as I said before) unwarrantable, un­charitable and ungodly.—So much of the first particular, the denunciation of the curse, Cursed be the man.

2. The next is the reality and certain­ty of the curse, contained in these words, [before the Lord] cursed be the man before the Lord. Which words are not added in vain, therefore not to be passed by without some notice. The meaning is, let him be, or he is cursed indeed: for what is done before the Lord, is truly and solemnly done: And therefore the sense is this, That man that shall build [Page 9] this City Jericho is cursed of God, the Lord Ratifies and Confirms the curse, and it shall certainly light upon him. There are many curses, which in this sense are not before the Lord: Such are the Popes Bulls and Excommunications against Kings and Princes, and all Hereticks, that refuse Subjection to the Papal Power, Obedience to the See of Rome: But the persons thus cursed with Bell, Book and Candle, are not cursed before the Lord, the Lord hath not Ratified and Confirmed the curse; nay, a curse unjustly denounced and by one, who hath no power to denounce it, is not a curse, but a blessing; As the Pro­phet speaks of Balaam's cursing Israel, Neh. 13. 2. The Lord turned the curse into a blessing; So where Rome curseth the Lord shall bless. Therefore we need no more to fear or care for the Popes Curses than a man in Armor needs to fear an head­less Arrow, or a Childs Pot-gun, for an un­just or an undeserved curse hurts not. But when a man is cursed by a qualified person, commissionated of God, and that for a just [Page 10] cause, this is dreadful indeed; for such a one may be said (as in the Text) to be cursed before the Lord. And this leads us to consider the third particular, viz.

3. The Subject of this curse, or the person cursed [The man that shall rise up and build this City Jericho.

Qu. And why is there a Curse denounced a­gainst him that shall build this City, or why would not Joshua have Jericho built a­gain?

Ans. For these Reasons.

1. In obedience to Gods command, who had revealed unto Joshua, that he would curse the man that built it, and therefore he denounced him accursed; besides, you read, Deut. 13. 15, 16. That when any City was destroyed for its Idolatry and other sins committed in it, God Com­mands it should be an heap for ever, and not be built again; therefore in Obedience [Page 11] to Gods Command (which Joshua could not be ignorant of) he would have Je­richo as a ruinous heap for ever, and curseth the man that should raise it out of its Ruines, out of its Ashes, in which he had laid it by Gods Commission.

2. That it might be a remembrance both of Gods Mercy and Justice. In mer­cy to the Israelites God takes this City by a Miracle; Now that this miraculous work of God might never be forgotten, Joshua would have it remain desolate; that so when People in after ages, beholding the Ruines of it, should enquire the cause of its destruction, and the reason why it so remained, this might give occasion to speak of the mercy of God towards his people.—And also of his Ju­stice against the Idolatrous Inhabitants of that City whose sins and abomina­tions had rendred them ripe for Ven­geance.

3. Joshua would (or God rather would) [Page 12] have it remain a ruinous heap, for terror to the rest of the Inhabitants of the Land. As great Conquerors usually set up some terrible monuments and signal examples of Justice to terrifie others; so this being one of the first or chief Cities after their passage over Jordan, God, to strike terror into others, will have it destroyed, with the sentence of a curse upon any that should build it again for ever. By which we may take notice what a curse sin brings upon most famous Cities and Places. Jeri­cho was a goodly place, a City, of Palm­trees, a fenced City, whose Walls reached up to Heaven; yet being a sinful, an Idolatrous City, what a woful curse fell upon it, to be utterly destroyed and de­molished, and never to be built again. We have the like instances in Sodom, Gomorrah and the adjacent Cities, upon which the fire of Gods wrath broke forth and consumed them in a miraculous man­ner.

Thus you have heard the words run o­ver [Page 13] in a literal sense: Now be pleased to hear them in the Mystical, and then you will see how well they suit the present occa­sion.

1. First then, by way of Analogy and Proportion, there be many that venture upon this curse by endeavouring to build up Jericho. Popery is a Spiritual or My­stical Jericho; and how many are there, that in this sense, have put to their hearts, heads and hands to build Jericho? Where­by they stop or hinder the Church and People of God from entring into the hea­venly Canaan, as antient Jericho did the People of Israel from entring into the earthly. What Strange and Crafty Means, what Subtil and Wicked Methods have they used and still do use to raise up this building? As by shutting out the Light of Gods Truth in those places, where Popery prevails, and is established. By falsifying and corrupting antient Au­thors, that there might be none to wit­ness against them. By labouring to make [Page 14] divisions between Kings and their Sub­jects, where their Religion hath not ob­tained, that they may bring it in, and have it uppermost. By barbarous Homi­cides and secret Murders, to remove those out of the way, that are opposers of their designs, and by endeavouring to root those out of all places in Church and State, that would not promise and engage to pro­mote the work. It was Julians Policy to provide that no Christian should be a General, a Captain, or bear any Office in his Armies. And were not the Jesuits and Pa­pists Promoting and practising the same Po­licy amongst us; when men of Worth and Honour, both in Church and State, were displaced, only because they would not subscribe, or set to their hands for the building up of Jericho again in this Kingdom? And those men advanced to places of greatest trust and profit, as well as honour, that were for it, and would any ways contribute to it? There is no end of their Intrigues, Plots and Devices to build up Jericho again. Three [Page 15] most publick and notorious attempts (be­sides smaller essays) have they made this way, since the fall of their Jericho in this Kingdom; or since our first Reformati­on; In all which they have been bafled and defeated, through the mercy and good­ness of our God, for which we this day praise his name.

1. The first was by a Spanish Armado, stiled the invincible Armado, when they came to rebuild their Romish Jericho, fur­nished with all Instruments of Cruelty, and hearts full of confidence that the work would be done, that they should cut us off from being a Nation, and that the name of Protestant, of Heretick should be had no more in remembrance. They were so big with hopes, as to say with Moab, (before the fight) Ʋp Moab to the spoil; 2 King, 3. 21, 22, 23. up Rome, to the spoil, for the Victory shall be ours; but God, in mercy to us, Crossed, Cursed that design and won­derfully disappointed that hopeful enter­prize.

[Page 16] 2. Their next was the Powder-Plot, designed to cut off the King, the Prince and Royal Family, with all the Noble Peers and Commons (the Flower and Glory of our English Nation) assembled in Parliament. These blown up, they doubted not but their Popish Jericho would be built up. Wherefore, as while Nehemiah and his men were at work to make up the Walls of Jerusalem, the adversaries came upon them to temper the Mortar with their blood, for they said, they shall not see nor know, till we come upon them, Neh. 4. 11. and slay them, and cause their work to cease: And as Pilate came upon the Galileans, when they were sacrificing, and mingled their Blood with their Sacri­fices; Luke 13. 1, 2. So when both houses of Parlia­ment were met to make Laws against the rebuilding of Popish Jericho and for settling the true Religion, then did these Plotters of Rome contrive to blow up those Law-makers, resolving they should write no Laws but in their own Blood. And what a Vesuvius had those houses [Page 17] been had the Plot taken, had the blow been given? What an Aceldama, what a Golgotha had this Land been; what a Chaos had our Church and State been? How had our Laws, Liberties and Re­ligion been swallowed up in that fiery Gulph, and for ever buried in those Ashes? How would the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition, have triumphed and re­joyced to have seen the Foundation of his Romish Jericho laid in the Ruines of our English Israel? But our God delivered us from the barbarous and bloody in­tendments of our adversaries that time al­so; As he did his Church of old from the Bloody Conspiracy of Haman, and brought the Plot upon their own heads; So that hitherto God hath said, as in the Text, Cursed be those that shall rise up to build this Jericho.

3. And yet they will not give over, but they will to work still, and try once more. And their last (we pray and hope it will be their last) attempt was indeed [Page 18] as fair for it, as any before.—For now they had gotten over a vast number of builders, Priests and Jesuits, who were night and day employed to help the work forward in Court, City and Countrey. Some parts of Jericho they had erected, some Mass-houses they had set up in the City, and in many great Towns and Po­pulous places in the Countrey; which An­tichristian Conventicles were countenan­ced and upheld contrary to our known Laws; where the Priests with unheard of impudence decry'd the true Religion as Heresy, and all Protestants as damn'd. Hereticks; Yea and most blasphemously reproached our very Bibles (where our Religion, not theirs, is to be found) as false and spurious, preferring their own Old and Rotten Traditions before the Sacred Oracles, and the lying Legend of their Saints, before the Testament of the Holy Jesus. Thus far, I say, were they gotten, which gave them great hopes their Jericho will now up again.—And which is more, they had now a zealous [Page 19] King, a Puissant Prince on their side, who was able by his power, not only to Countenance, but in some measure to Command that Jericho should be built, having brought over some of our Judges and Nobles to his Service, having at his Command a well furnished Exchequer, a vast annual Revenue, a formidable standing Army, with a great number of inferiour Missionaries, that went from Countrey to Countrey to reform (as 'twas called) the Corporations, and to find out such men for our Houses of Parliament as should abrogate and abo­lish those Laws that obstructed them in the erecting of their Popish Jericho a­mongst us; and all this gave them great hope it would be done. And in truth this Plot was so formed and so far pro­moted, that in their eyes 'twas beauti­ful as Absolom, without defect or blemish from Head to Foot. And they were so taken with the Beauty and comliness of it (as Nebuchadnezzar was with his Gol­den Image) that they fell down before [Page 20] it and worshipped it. What was the mat­ter then that the building went not for­ward? Surely it must be this, that the curse of God was upon it. Had there been so much pains taken, so much time and treasure spent, to advance Gods Church and the true Religion, God would have blessed it; but the design was to build up mystical Jericho, which God hath cursed, therefore it could not pros­per, therefore all their power and policy could not bring it to perfection; for which our God is to be praised from generation to generation.

2. Must not Jericho be built again? are the builders of it cursed before the Lord? Then let us be none of them. I hope none here present, e­ver had, or ever will have either heart or hand for this work, or any way contribute towards it: No, let us in our several Places and Capacities hear­tily oppose it, and do all, that law­fully we may, to hinder the build­ing [Page 21] of it.—To this purpose,

1. Let Magistrates Minister Justice Impartially, and duly Execute the Laws of this Kingdom against the builders of Jericho; Laws made on purpose to hinder that work, and to keep up and preserve the true Church of God among us.

2. Attend upon the Ministry of Gods word; this is a Light will discover the Errors of Popery: And though it seems but a Weak means or instrument yet like the Trumpets of Rams-horns, it will make the Walls of Jericho to reel. The Jesuits, and Priests found this by late Experience; when by the Ser­mons and other Writings of our Di­vines, they were bafled and put to silence, yielding up their Paper Con­troversy as a foundation too weak to bear up the tottering Walls of their Jericho.

[Page 22] 3. You that have Youth, Children or Servants, under your charge, instruct them in the grounds of Divinity and Principles of Christian Religion. The Se­duction of many in this Nation to Pope­ry hath risen from hence, their not be­ing well seasoned with the grounds of true Religion.

4. Encourage Learning what you can: For Popery is a Kingdom of darkness and ignorance, nothing Ruines it like knowledge. It first fell in this Nation with the beginning of good learning; and the continuance and encrease of this will keep it down; and therefore amongst the rest of the Contrivances of Jericho's builders, this was one of the chief, to poyson our Colledges, to propagate Popery in our most fa­mous Schools of Learning, and by a Malicious and Illegal Prosecution to have extinguished, the brightest Lu­minaries of the English Church; to the end that the benighted people [Page 23] might the more easily have been misled into the pitfalls of Superstition and Sla­very.

5. And because they Love to fish in troubled Waters; and gain ground by divisions: therefore let us labour to promote Peace and Union amongst our selves; let us not differ and quar­rel, tear and devour one another for small matters, but unite, be of one heart, of one mind, and love one another; leading Holy and Religi­ous Conversations, as becomes our Profession. Popery ever thrives best in a Land of prophaneness; debauchery always did, and always will help forward Popery.

6. Lastly, one special means to pre­vent the rise of Jericho is that which this day occasions; thankfulness to God for the downfal of it; or a thankful remembrance of the great things God hath done for us. When we call to mind their attempts against us, and how God hath [Page 24] crossed and cursed them, it will make us love our own Religion (which God hath witnessed by so many delive­rances) the better, and to hate theirs the more. Therefore let our Souls and all that is within us this day praise the Psal. 10. 3. Lord, for all his mercies of this kind vouch­safed to us; and in an especial man­ner for the glorious deliverance we this day commemorate: It is his doings, and it is marvellous in our Eyes; Not unto us therefore, not unto us, but to him be all the glory of it. But if we shall be unthankful for this and the like gracious preservations; if the won­ders of Gods Love do not melt our hearts, and work in them a sincere gra­titude to God, an hearty Love to Religion and an universal holiness in our Conversations; if all the favours of our God towards us do not win us to a most constant, and Chearful Obedience to his holy commands, it will be just with God, that those ad­versaries should still prove goads in [Page 25] our Sides, and thorns in our Eyes: Just with God to lay us open again to their enraged Malice and Hatred, and when we stand in need of deli­verance, to say to us as he did to Israel in distress, I will deliver you no Judg. 10. 13. more. Stir up your Souls therefore to thankfulness, and testify your gratitude, not only by words, but deeds; not on­ly by the fruits of holiness, but also by works of Charity and Mercy: Your labour shall not be lost; your cost not cast away, for God will re­ward you. Thus honour him, and he will honour you; thus bless him, and he will bless you; give him his praises due on Earth, and he will give you immortal renown in Hea­ven.

3. And in the last place, to our praises for Jericho's fall, let us add our prayers that it may rise no more in our days, or in the days of our posterity. In order to this let us pray,

[Page 26] 1. That God would more and more discover and make known the abomi­nations of Romish Jericho, both in re­spect of their Religion and practice. That he would give all men amongst us a more clear understanding of the errors of their Religion, of the Falsi­ty, Idolatry and Superstition of it, which consists of unwritten Traditions, diabolical Revelations and Illusions: In fruitless Penances, and Pilgrimages; in antiscriptural merits, praying to Saints and worshiping of Images; in unlaw­ful Vows, Masses, indulgences and Dis­pensations; that seeing the Errors of their Religion, we may abhor it, and Shun the Society of those that pro­fess it, and seek the Propagation of it.

2. Pray that God would lay open to the view and observance of all men their ungodly practices: their pro­moting Discord and Division in all Places and Societies; their imposing new [Page 27] Articles of Faith as necessary to Sal­vation; their absolving some from law­ful Oaths and Vows, and obliging o­thers to themselves and their cause by Vows and Oaths unlawful. That the all-seeing Eye, which beholds men in their most secret acts, would detect their bar­barous Homicides, and private Murders, and hear the cries of that innocent Blood which hath been shed both for­merly and lately, to enlarge the bor­ders of their Jericho; a discovery of which would do the cause of God this Ser­vice, to take off the hearts of many from them, and to lessen their strength and num­ber amongst us.—And let us con­clude our prayers, as our Church hath taught us,—That God would scatter our Enemies that delight in blood, infatuate and defeat their Counsels, asswage their ma­lice and confound their devices, and streng­then the hands of all that are in Authority with Judgment and Justice, to cut off all such workers of iniquity, as turn Religion into Rebellion, and Faith into Faction; that [Page 28] they may never prevail against us, or tri­umph in the Ruines of his Church amongst us: That Babylon may never tread down Zion, nor Jericho boast her self a Conque­ror over Jerusalem; but that we, being pre­served in the true Religion, may all our days serve him, and give him thanks in his holy Congregation, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.