ENGLAND'S SEASON FOR REFORMATION of LIFE.

TO make you see how the Text is exact­ly suitable to the Time, (as well to the Time when 'twas written, as to the Time wherein 'tis read,) It will be needful to entertain you with two such Praeliminary Observables, as without which it is impossi­ble to come at the meaning of the words. And yet the true meaning must be attain'd, as well in their Rational, and Historical, as in their Literal Importance, before I can handle them as I ought, without injustice to the Apo­stle, or Apply them as I desire, without de­frauding the Congregation.

First then, yee are to take an especial notice, That in the space of fourty years after the Crucifying of Iesus, there was to happen [Page 2] amongst the Iews a famous day of Discrimi­nation, whereinMatth. 24. 40. one was to be taken, and ano­ther left. The cruel and the incredulous were to be utterly destroy'd, But the persecuted Be­lievers to be remarkably preserved from that Destruction. Preserved, not only from that deluge of Judgments, likeMatth. 24. 38. Noah in the Ark, but from the mischievous designs of the Mosaical Ze­lots, by whom they could never be forgiven their having been Loyal unto their Lord. Which fa­mous day of Discrimination, as the Scriptures have expressed in those sublimer sorts of Peri­phrasis, [The Kingdome of Heaven, the coming of Christ, the end of all things, and the conclusion of the Age;] so in respect of one part, that of de­liverance unto the Faithful, we find it expressed in other places, by [...], The Redemp­tion drawing neer, [...], The Season, [...],See Doctor H [...]mmond (of blessed memory) upon the place, and the Texts by him re­ferred to.The Day, [...], The Deliverance,] which Delive­rance being nearer at the writing of this Epistle, than when they had first embraced the Chri­stian Faith, is therefore the rather introduced with [an [...],] a consideration of the time; and that as an Argument, or Allective, whereby to win them to the duties of this whole Chapter; which Duties, that they concern us as we are [Page 3] men of these Times, and relating in particular to our now happy revolution, I foresee an oc­casion to shew anon.

As this is the first Praecognition, so it natu­rally affords me an easie passage unto the se­cond. For our Apostle having observed cer­tain spots in the Christians which dwelt at Rome, theie being invelloped at once with a double darkness, as well of their doings, as of their suf­ferings, no le [...]s asleep in sin, than benighted with Persecution, comes early to them in this Epistle; and here endeavours to awake them, not onely with a Call, but a Reason for it. Because the night do's now begin to be less and less dark, he tells them it is fit they be less and less drowzie. In the next words before my Text, we have an Apostolical [...], (the very thing that in English we use to call the Cock-crow,) whereby he tells the guilty sleepers, 'tis more than time that they awake. And the Reason which he gives them is very cogent; [...], for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. That is to say in plainer terms, our delive­rance at present is more approaching, than when we were newly Christianiz'd. It is better with us now, than when we were Neophytes in the [Page 4] Church. But to acquaint them the more di­stinctly how late it is that he awakes them; The Night (saith he) is far spent, and the Day is at hand; (that is) the time of Persecution is now well over, and the day of Deliverance begins to dawn. At the Tyrant Tiberius, our Sun was set; At the other Tyrant Nero, 'tis more than midnight: Do but wait for Vespasian, and you will find it break of Day.

Nor does the vigilant Apostle meerly awake them out of sleep, but also desires that they will rise, and instructs them in the method how to make themselves ready. They are to leave off their chamber-Robes, and make them fit to go abroad; to cast away their Bed-cloaths, as only suitable to the Night; and to appear in such habits, as are agreeable to the Day.

For a man to Preach on this Text, no more is needful than to explain it. The Text it self being a Sermon, as full, and pithy, as it is short. [The Night is far spent, and the Day is at hand;] There is [...], the double Doctrine. [Let us therefore cast off, and let us therefore put on;] There is [...], the double Use.

[Page 5]The words, apparelling the matter, have both number, and measure; and the matter it self is as full of weight. From both together it is obvious to observe three things in this mighty Preacher; His Logick, his Rhetorick, and his Divinity.

We have his Logick in the Illative [Therefore] which is a note of Argumentation, giving the force of an Enthymem, though not the form. And yet the form is implyed with more advantage than if exprest. The Night is far spent; There­fore night-works and darkness must go away. The Day is at hand; Therefore Light must be welcome to us.

We have his Rhetorick in the Figures, of which the whole is made up. For besides the Isoc [...]la, and Homioteleuta of the Text, (that is) the evenness of the Members, and Musical Cadence of every Clause; we see the Metaphors in the Period are just as many as the Members. The first is borrowed from Darkness, the se­cond from the Day; and both in Allusion to two things more which are very distant, to wit our Armour, and our Apparel. And yet the whole is an Allegory, most artificially carryed on. For as he begins his holy Trope with the night of trou­ble and persecution, so he shuts it up too with the [Page 6] light of Peace. In Allegoriâ tenendum est hoc, ut quo in gene­re incipias, eodem desi­nas, aliter consequen­tia sit tur­pissima. Quintilian. Nay, besides all these, the Text affords us three figures more. Three (I say in kind, but six in number. Here is a single Anaphora, a double Epanodos, and no less than a threefold An­tithesis, by which the terms of the last clauses (and there are three Terms in each) are thus op­pos'd to one another; Darkness, to Light; Works, to Armour; and casting off, to putting on.

After the Logick, and the Rhetorick, observe the Divinity of the Apostle; to which his Art is but the Handmaid, and made to serve. Here is a seasonable Advertisment, and a most useful Inference. And each of these is twofold, exactly looking one on another, even as face answers face in a perfect Mirroir. Observe how the later is strongly inforc'd out of the former. Since the night of our sufferings is now far spent, what have we to do with the night of sin? And since the day of our deliverance is hard at hand, what should we do butVers. 13. walk honestly as in the day? The night of Errour and Disorder is now well over; Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness. The day of Mercy and Restauration begins to dawn; Let us therefore put on the armour of light. Let usEph. 5. 8. walk in the light, as becomes children of the light. Let our light so shine before God and [Page 7] men, that Men may see our good works, and God reward them. That men may see our good works, and glorify God in this present world; that God may see our good works, and glorify Us in the world to come. Thus we see S. Pauls Divinity, and way of Teaching.

It is indeed a whole Body of his practical Divi­nity, however summ'd up in so small a System. For the whole Duty of a Christian do's consist in two things; first (by way of privation) in casting off the works of Darkness, in denying ungodliness, and worldly lusts; next (by way of Acquisition) in putting on the armour of light; living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Tit. 2. 12. For so the Apostle explains himself in the two verses after my Text, Let us walk honestly, as in the Day. And how must that be? first he tells us in the Negative, Not in rioting and drun­kenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, not in any of those things which were yesterday forbid by his Majesties excellent Proclamation; (for these are some of the works of darkness, the very worst use that men can make of a Deliverance,) next he tells us in the Affirmative, It must be by putting on the Lord Iesus Christ; By sticking close to his Precepts, [Page 8] and taking a copy from his example; by having a fellowship with his death, and a conformity to his sufferings; For this is here meant by the Armour of Light.

And each of these is improved by three main circumstances. First by the union of the one with the other; they are not set with a disjun­ctive, that we may take which we please, [Let us cast off, Or let us put on] as if the one would serve turn without the other; But tied together with a copulative [Let us cast off, And let us put on,] neither of them must go alone. We stand obliged to do them both by indispensable necessity; nor must we vainly flatter our selves that Salvation is to be had upon easier terms. Secondly by the inforcement of both together, from the seasonable conjuncture of our affairs. For Because the Night is far spent, we must di­vest our selves of darkness; And Because the Day is at hand, we must apparel our selves with light. Thirdly by the order in which these duties are to be done. We must not put on the Ar­mour, Before we cast off the Works; But cease from dishonesty in the first place, and talk of god­liness in the second. For a godly Knave is a con­tradiction in Adjecto. The [...] hath the Pre­cedency, [Page 9] we must begin with casting off what­ever is contrary to virtue; And then comes in the [...], we must proceed to the putting on whatever is opposite to vice. We must not hope to serve two Masters, Matth. 6. 24. (which our Saviour tells us is impossible, and which yet hath been the project of some years past,) erecting a Church for the one, and also a Chappel for the other; But first of all we must abhor, and forsake our Mammon, that so we may rationally endeavour to cleave with stedfastness unto God.

Thus ye see how the Text is ravell'd out into Particulars. And were I not really some­what afraid to spend too much of my time in a meer Division, I would presently wind up all into three great Bottoms. Whereof the first would provide against Hypocrisie, the second against Indifferency, the third against fainting, as also against Procrastination. And when Provi­sion shall have been made for these four things, not only Zeal, and Sincerity, but also dispatch in our amendment, and perseverance unto the end; I know not what can be wanting either to sa­tisfie the Text, or to Edifie the Souls of a Congregation.

But before I come to handle the useful In­ference [Page 10] of the Apostle, (which to do, will be the business of more than one or two Sermons) the time does prompt me to make Advantage of his most seasonable Advertisment, out of which he does fitly deduce his Inference. So opportune is the Advertisment, as well to these, as those Times, that I may say in the very language (though not in the very sense) of our Bles [...]ed Saviour,Luke 4. 21. This day is this Scripture fulfilled in our Ears. For,

We have had both our Iews, and our Gno­sticks too; and are in the highest degree of hope, to be rid of Both. Not (I hope) by their de­struction, (like that alluded to in my Text) but by their happy conversion, and union with us. For mutual love, as well as loyalty, is the thing that this Chapter does chiefly aim at. It presseth earnestly for loyalty, from the first verse unto the eighth. And as earnestly for love, from the eighth verse unto the end. By unavoidable im­plication, it presseth for love throughout the whole, but most expresly, and on purpose, in no less than four verses, to wit, the eight, the ninth, the tenth, and the thirteenth. We must not In­sult over our Enemies, though we ought to give thanks for their disappointment. The noblest [Page 11] benefit of a Conquest, is the opportunity to oblige. Rejoyce not (saith Solomon) when thine enemy fal­leth, nor let thine heart be glad when he stumbleth, lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him, Prov. 24. 17. From whence it is obvious to collect, That to Insult over our Enemies, may do Them good; but all that We can get by it, is God's displeasure. The greatest care is to be taken in the present daw­ning of our day, that it be not overcast with an utter darkness. We have already had a long and a tedious night; (though not so long as the Apostles by twenty years,) a Night of sorrow, and oppres­sion; a Night of disorder, and confusion; a Night of ignorance, and errour; a Night of errour in judgment, and practice too; To summe up all, we have been seiz'd with a night of suffering, which we had drawn over our selves by a night of sin.

It is so far from my purpose, to make or widen the wounds of any, that you will see, (before we part) I do intend nothing but Healing. But I must make an application, as well of the Night, as of the Day; or else the parallel expected will be imperfect. And as 'tis reckon'd the greatest happiness, to be able to say, we have been miser­able; [Page 12] (yea, St. Gregory boldly call'd it an happy sin, which gave occasion to such a Remedy as the coming of Christ into the world:) so 'twill be use­full to reflect upon the darkness of the night, which (by the blessing of God) is so very far spent, the better to relish the injoyment of the glorious day which is now at hand. —Haec olim meminisse juvabit. To recount what we have suffer'd, is no more than to con­sider how much we are able to forgive; and for how manifold a deliverance it now concerns us to be thankful.

VVhen we were dull, and in the dark, and knew not the Happiness we injoy'd, whilst we injoy'd it; when we could not comport with so hard a lesson, as the1 Pet. 2. 13, 14. submitting our selves for the Lords sake, whether to the King, as Supream, or un­to Governours, as sent by him, and whether those that were sent, were Ecclesiastical, or Civil; when it seemed to us a Paradox, Cappado­ces, (inquit Strabo) [...] Strab. l. 12. p. 540. cap. that 'tis the li­berty of the Subject to live in subjection unto the Law, and therefore in loyalty unto him, whom to obey for Conscience sake, is the happiest free­dom; I say when this Lesson would not other­wise be learnt, God sent us to School to a Civil War; the severest Praeceptor, by which poor Scholars could be instructed. So it was call'd by [Page 13] Thucyd. lib. 3. p. 227. [...], &c. Thucydides, [ [...], A violent Schoole­master] and such we found it by sad experience. For it rigidly taught us through the mouth of the angry Cannon, and gave us terrible admonitions upon the point of the sword. A lying spirit went forth into the mouth of the Prophets, Inspiring the Isa. 14. 23. [...]. Polyb. l. 6. p. 458. meanest of the people to affect Dominion over the mightiest; and never ceasing to blow the coals, which they had kindled within the Bram­ble, until they saw it had devoured the lofty Cedar. A Church forsooth was to be swept, (but with the Beesom of destruction,) though the best Reformed in all the world; and because the very Beesom was the uncleanest thing in it, it could not choose but be the fouler for being swept. Nay, all the foundations of the earth did presently grow out of course. In the whole body of the Kingdome, there was little to be seen but wounds and bruises. For our Politick Chirurgions did so follow the Letter (in opposition to the Sense) of the Poets Rule, as to have taken off most of the soundest members, which were—Immedi­cabile vulnus ense reci­dendum. incu­rable indeed, by being faultless. Before the murdering of the King, who was the Head of our Common Mother, they garbl'd both the Universities, which were the Eyes. This was [Page 14] the wit of their Impiety, first to pluck out her eyes, that so she might not see them cut off her head. They did not only (like Alcides) cruelly bite their Mothers Breast, But (like Nero) rip up her Bowels. Not only (like Tarquinius) sum­ma papavera amputare, lopp off the chieftains of the Nation, but (like Procrustes) cut off the feet too. The publick calamities were exten­ded, from him that sate upon the Throne, to him that laboured at the Plough. And, if we extend our consideration to the preparedness of their minds, had all that were faithful in the land had no more than one Neck, those Caligula's I allude to had cut it off at one Blow. Nay, in one sense at least, I may say they did it. For the Head of the Parliament is declared by Law to be the King; and the Parliament (we know) is a kind of [...] whole Nation Epitomiz'd. And so to cut off the King, was to behead the Parliament; which, what was it in effect, but to cut the very throat of the English Nation? Now if we consider the Revolution, by which we all are transported with joy, and wonder, and do compare it with every part of that Politick — [...]. Polyb. Megalop. l. 6. p. 456, 457, 458. wheel, (that [...], as Polyhius calls it,) with which this dis­graced and glorious Kingdome hath been both [Page 15] tortured, and turned round; we cannot but hope that many thousands have found so good an ef­fect of their late Collyrium, that they are not only quicker, but singler sighted than heretofore; and do make such severe expostulations with themselves, as not to need any other Censors.

With how vast an expense of blood, and con­science, and as well of the publick, as private Treasure, did we buy the sad Priviledge of pay­ing Assesments, and Excise? How much pains we were at, to purchase the means of our being Miserable? VVhat a do did we keep, to find out a way to our undoing? we felt an eminent Decay, of Publick Honour, as well as Trade; a Decay of Religion, because of Unity; a Decay of what not, unless of that that decay'd us on e­very side? Nay, the more our sinews were shrunk up, and by how much the weaker our shoulders grew, by so much the more were we laden with heavy Burdens. There was inflicted on many thousands, a Tast of scarceness; and a sight of the Plague, though not of Pestilence. For [Page 16] when did we see a new year, which did not bring along with it a new Disease too? 'Tis true in­deed that many of us had great injoyments; But how many others had right to greater, who yet were reduced to none at all? And all we had be­ing precarious, at the lustful disposal of fellow subjects, we knew not how soon we might be drown'd in the deepest want, how much soever (for a Time] we might swim in plenty. Nay, even Then we were to count it our real misery, that we could see, and deplore, but could not Remedy other mens.

Such was the Darkness of the Night, which now does serve to commend the Day. The Day by whose light we can see to read, [what was hid from our eyes when we sate in Darkness, when the great Lamps of the Church were cruelly hid under a Bushel, and even He was ta­ken from us, who was the light of our Eyes, as well as the Breath of our Nostrils,] I say, by this light we can see to read, That our Liberty does consist in a faithful Discharge of our Allegiance. That 'tis the Interest of the Subject, Not to be able to Rebel. That the Prerogative of the King, is the peoples priviledge. That to lessen his Power, is to betray their Rights. For unless he be able [Page 17] to crush, and injure, he is not able to defend, and protect his Subjects. Any Tyranny will be bet­ter, than that of a prosperous Rebellion, by how much One is less grievous than Many Tyrants; And a Temporary Mischief, that a perpetual In­convenience.

Blessed be God that we can say, (at least as far as our Apostle,) that our Dark state of mi­sery is fairly vanish'd, and that the Light does begin to shew it self in our Horizon. But so far are we yet from our full Meridian, that it will never be Day with us, (I mean, not a glorious uncloudy Day,) till Magna Charta shines forth in its native Lustre. And it appears bySalvae sint Episcopis omnes Li­bertates suae. Mag. Chart. cap. 1. & ult. Magna Charta, that all the Rights of the Church are the chiefest Liberties of the Subject. To be but ca­pable of the Honour, 1 Tim. 5. 17. the double Honour of the Clergy, (to wit, the Reverence, and the Revenue) is an eminent part of the Layman's Birthright. I pray be pleased to consider, what is not every day observ'd, That all the Dignities, and En­dowments, which do belong unto the Church, (at once by the Statutes of God and Man,) are so many Rights which appertain to your childrens children. I must not here be thought to forsake my Text; For it ye compare it with the Con­text, [Page 18] (especially from the first, to the eighth verse of this Chapter,) ye will see the great fitness of all I say, and that my Text cannot be satisfied, unless I say it. For he that saith in this place by the Spirit of God, Rom. 13. 1. Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers, does also say by the same Spirit, Obey them that have the Rule over you, Heb. 13. 7, 17 who have spoken to you the word of God, and who do watch for your souls, as those that must render an Accompt. And the Interest of the former, is so entwisted with the later, That till our Bishops receive their Right, though we are glad to have our King, we may rationally fear we shall not hold him. For ask (I beseech you) of the days that are past, Deut. 4. 32. and ask from the one side of heaven to the other, if ever there were any such thing as This, that a King could be happy without a Bishop? Lord! What an Epocha will it make in our future Kalendars, when men shall reckon from this Year, as from the Year of Restitution? But then (like that which Saint Peter mentions, Acts 3. 21.) The Restitution is to be general, as well to God, as to the People. And ye will find in Magna Charta, (which does deserve to be imprinted in all your memories,) That all the Rights of the Church were entirely granted unto God; They were [Page 19] granted unto God, and that for ever. Now of so sacred a force is the word [For ever,] That if a Statute shall be made against the Liberties of the Church, The Law of the Land hath provided against that Statute; See the first and last Chapter of the 42. of Edward the third. And by an Anticipation, declares it Null. Shall I guess at the cause of so great a Caution? It seems to be, as for other Reasons, so in particular for This; Because to alter that Government, was as well against the Kings Oath, as against the Oathes of both Houses, which swore the Right of his Supremacy, as well in all Ecclesiastical, as Civil causes. Besides that in the Judgment of the most eminent in the world (for depth of knowledge in holy things) The order of Bishops is by Divine Institution. And if 'tis so in good earnest, it will be dangerous to deal with the Laws of Christ, as we readCum ad­versus Rem­publicam La­cedaemonio­rum conspi­rationem ortam noctu comperisser, Leges Lycurgi continuo abrogavit, quae de In­demnatis sup­plicium sumi vetabant. Vol. Max. lib. 7. c. 2. p. 208. Agesilaus once dealt with those of Lacedaemon, which he pretended onely to abrogate, that he might not break them. But whether so, or not so, a thing in Being and Debate is to pass for good, until the Dispute shall be fairly ended. And if an Errour must be adventur'd on either hand, Religion tells us, it ought to be upon the Right.

Would any know why I insist on such a sub­ject in such a place? my Reasons for it are plain­ly These.

[Page 20]First, I insist on such a subject, because my Text (as I said) does exact it of me; And be­cause 'tis my duty, at least to wish, That the day breaking forth may be full and lasting; That the Repentance of the Nation may be impartial; and so to our SOVERAIGNS RETURN, there may be added his Continuance in Peace and Safety. I say in Safety, not more to his Person, than his Posterity. Nor in Safety for a season, so long as men are well humour'd, but so long as the Sun or the Moon endures. And then for you of this Place, who are an honourable part of the English Nation, That which I take to be your Duty, I think is your Interest to indeavour. The most I am pressing on you is this, That ye will labour for the means of your being happy. If ye think ye cannot be happy, with the establishment of the Prelacy, I shall pray you may be happy, at least without it; and also wish I may be able to pray with Faith too. Only as often as I reflect on King IAMES his Motto, [No Bishop, no King,] and withal do consider its having been verified once, and before our eyes, I think it my duty to desire, it may not be veri­fied any more: But that it may rather be here applyed, what was spoken heretofore of the [Page 21] Spartan Laws, [ut semper esse possent, aliquando non fuerunt.] They only ceased for a Time, to the end they might continue to all eternity. These are sin­cerely the very Reasons for which I insist upon such a Subject.

Secondly I do it in such a place, because I look on This Assembly, as on the Head and the Heart of the Royal City. I look on the City, as on a Sea, into which the main stream of the Na­tion runs. Even the Parliament it self hath such a respect unto the City, that if ye plead for Gods Spouse, as ye have done for his Anointed (for which your names will be pretious with late posterity,) if ye shall supplicate for a Discipline which is as old in this land as Christianity it self, and stands established in Law by thirty two Acts of Parliament, and without which ye cannot live, unless by living under the Breach of your greatest Charter, they will not onely be apt to grant, but to thank you also for your Petition.

Having gone thus far in prosecution of the Advertisment, That the Night of our Suffering is fairly spent, and that the Day of our Injoy­ment begins to dawn; And having directed unto the means, (with submission be it spoken to all Superiours.) by which our Day is to be length­ned, [Page 22] not only into a year, but an Age of Iubilee; into a kind of perpetual Sabbath, a Day of Rest from those works, which either wanted Light, or were asham'd of it; which either borrow'd Darkness for their Cover, or else which own'd it for their Cause; I humbly leave what I have said to His acceptance and disposal, in the Hand of whose Counsel are all your Hearts. Tis more than time that I proceed to the general Use of this Advertisment; to which I am prompted by the word [Therefore,] as 'tis a word of con­nexion betwixt the Duty, and the Deliverance.

Our Apostle does not thus argue; Because the Night of Oppression is now far spent, and the Day of Deliverance is hard at hand, Let us therefore inioy the good things that are present, let us stretch our selves upon [...] bed of Ivory, let us Crown our selves with Rose-buds, let us drink Wine in bowles, and let us dance to the sound of the Viol, let us leave tokens of our joyfulness in every street, let none of us go without his share of Voluptuousness, for this is our portion, our lot is this: I say he does not thus reason, (like the swaggerers and Hectors in the second Chapter of Wisdom, and in the sixt of the Prophet Amos,) but on the contrary, That the serious consideration of an approaching deli­verance, [Page 23] should be a double enforcement to change of life, for such is evidently the force of the particle [...], as that looks back on the [...]. Because the Night is far spent, and because the Day is at hand, [...], let us therefore cast off those works of darkness, and let us therefore put on the Armour of light. Which is as if he should have said, At this very Time, and for this very Reason, let us live better lives than we did before; let us buckle up close to our Chri­stian duties; The Reformation of our manners will be the properest Answer to such a Blessing. Such also was the Reasoning which Moses us'd to the People Israel. Did ever people hear the voice of God, as thou hast heard and live? (Deut. 4. 33.) Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes, that it may go well with thee (v. 40.) so again Deut. 8. 6, 7. The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good Land, Therefore thou shalt keep the Commandments of the Lord. Such was the Reasoning also of Zacharie, Luke 1. 71.74, 75. in his Divine Benedictus, That the use we are to make of being saved from our ene­mies, and from the hand of all that hate us, is to serve the Authour of our deliverance, in holi­ness, and righteousness, all the dayes of our life.

What now remains, but that we go, and do [Page 24] likewise? Not arguing thus from our late great changes; Because the Night of our Sufferings is well nigh spent, and the Day of Restitution is hard at hand, let us therefore put from us the evil day, Amos 6. 3. and cause the seat of violence to come neer, for now it comes to our Turn to oppress the poor, and to crush the helpless, and to call our strength the Law of Iustice, let us never so much as think of the afflictions of Ioseph; Verse 6. Let our Joy run out into Debaucherie, and surfet into the braveries of vanity, and the Injoyments of our lust; or at the best let us express it, by the making of Bonfires, and Ringing of Bells, by solemn drinking of Healths, and casting Hats into the Air, whereby to make the World see, that we are glad, rather than thankful; But let us manifest on the contrary, (and let us do it by demonstration,) that we are piously thank­ful, as well as glad. Because the Day of good things breaks in upon us, Let us Therefore offer to God thanksgiving, and pay our vowes unto the Lord. Psal. 50. 14. Our Vowes of Allegiance and Supremacy; Our Vows to assert and maintain our Charters; Our Vows to live according to Law, and obey the Canons of the Church. But above all, let us pay him our Vow in Baptism, by forsaking the [Page 25] VVorld before we leave it, by subduing the Flesh unto the Spirit, James 4. 7. by resisting the Devil un­till he flyes. That whilst God is making all new without us, we may not suffer our Hearts within us to be the only things remaining old; But rather (on the contrary) that we may prove we are in Christ, by that demonstrative argument of our becoming new creatures; which until we do become, we cannot possibly be in Christ, 2 Cor. 5. 17. Do the two Twin Blessings of Peace and Plenty, which have been (for many years) at so low an ebb, begin to flow in upon us from every quarter? Then let not our Souls be carried away, with the pleasant violence of the Tide. Let not any Man seekgreat things for himself, but rather study to deserve, then to injoy them. Make no provision for the Flesh, whereby to fulfil the lusts thereof: but put ye on the Lord Ie­sus Christ, and Adorn his Doctrine, by a confor­mity to his Life. Put on his Modesty, and his Temperance, in a perfect opposition to Rioting and Drunkenness; put on his Chastity, and his Pureness, in opposition to Chambering, and Wan­tonness; put on his Bowels, and his Mercy, in opposition to Strife, and Envy.

Ye know [...] I told you in the beginning, [Page 26] that Loyalty and Love are the two grand duties at which this Chapter does chiefly drive. And having been instant for the first, in the former part of my discourse, I think it a duty incum­bent on me, to be as urgent for the second. For Love is part of that Armour my Text comman­deth us to put on. Nay, considering that Love is the fulfilling of the Law, (in the next verse but one before my Text,) the armour of Light may be said, to be the armour of Love too. Love must needs be [...],Eph. 6. 13. the whole armour of God, in as much as it comprehendeth the fulfilling of the Law. Gal. 5. 14. As one Scripture tells us, that God is Light, 1 Joh. 1. 5. so another also tells us, that God is Love; and therefore the children of light, 1 Joh. 4. 8. must be chil­dren of love too.

Then let the same mind be in us, which was in Christ Iesus; 1 Pet. 2. 23. who when he suffered, threatned not, but committed his cause to God who judgeth righ­teously. And let us prove this mind is in us, by our forbearing one another, forgiving one another, Even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven us. Eph. 4. 32. As we are stones of that Temple, in which the Head of the Corner is Christ himself, He meant his Blood should be the Cement, to fasten [...] every one of us to one another, and altogether unto him­self. [Page 27] And since we see that Disloyalty is taking its leave throughout the Land, lets rather shut the Door after it, by (Love and Unity,) then (by Breaches and Divisions) open [...]way for its Return. Let us effectually make it appear, by the modest use of our Injoyments, Pacem Bello quaesitam esse, That we fought onely for Peace, and contended only for Union; that the end of our strife, was our Agreement; that we aim'd at Truth, rather than Victory; or rather at the Vi­ctory of Truth and Righteousness. Let our generous deportment become an evidence, that as the greatest of our Calamities could not bow down our heads, so the greatest of our Injoy­ments cannot trip up our heels; That as our Crosses could not deprive us of Hope and Comfort, so the Tide of our Prosperity shall but Illustrate our Moderation.

But above all let us distinguish, betwixt our weak, aud our wilful Brethren. Of some (Saint Iude saith) we must have compassion, Jude 22. 23. making a difference. But others (he saith) we must save with fear, pulling them out of the fire. That is, we must save them, 2 Cor. 5. 11. even by making them afraid. Must shew them the Terrors of the Lord, and fright them out of the way to Hell. We must [Page 28] in any wise rebuke them,Lev. 19. 17.and must not suffer sinne upon them. It is a Rule amongst Musicians, that if a string be but True, 'tis to be cherisht, though never so g [...]sly out of Tune; but to be broken, if it be false, because incapable of amendment. Some are so scandalous, that we must not receive them into our Houses, 2 Joh. 10. 11. nor bid them God speed: For to bid them God speed, is to partake of their Evil deeds. (2 Joh. 10. 11.) But there is nothing more Barbarous, than not to hold from the break­ing a bruised reed, Isa. 42. 3. or from the quenching a smoak­ing flax. Mat. 12. 20. Nothing but Pardon belongs to Peni­tents, although they may have sin'd against us, no less than seventy times seven. Mat. 18. 22. It is an excel­lent passage in Herodotus, that whilst Croesus was brewing Vengeance against the Murderer of his Son, Adrastes being the man that had kill'd the Son, threw himself down at the Fathers feet; and in the bitterness of his Soul pass'd such a sentence upon himself, as even melted the very bowels of an inraged King, who straight brake forth into this expression,Herodotus lib. 1. pag. 17. [...]. Friend (saith he) I am re­veng'd; thy severity to thy self hath made me kind. And I think it fit that thou shouldest live, for thinking it fit that thou shouldest dye. If [Page 29] we have failed heretofore in so great a duty, let us learn from that Heathen, to love our enemies for the future. And since it is dangerous not to love them,Heb. 12. 29. in as much as our God is a consu­ming fire, let us love them at least in our own de­fence. Have they persecuted us, when it was in Their power? Let us the rather not hurt them, when 'tis in Ours. For to Imitate their courses, is to Approve them. But [...], (as Arrian speaks,) not to be like them in what is evil, is the most generous kind of revenge, and conquest. Eccles. 12. 13 Now then (if you please) hear the sum of the whole matter. We must demonstrate to our enemies, by the most practical way of ar­guing, That the night of sin is far spent, and that the day of our Amendment begins to dawn; 2 Pet. 1. 19. that the Day-star (in St. Peter) is arising in our hearts; that we are followers of Christ, Joh. 13. 15. and resolv'd to do sincerely as he hath given an Example. Which was not to call down Fire from Heaven, Luk. 9. 54. much less to conjure it up from Hell, Mat. 26. 50. but to call Iudas Friend, whilst he was Executing his Treason, as well as Devil, whilst he design'd it; nay to lay down his Life, even for them that took it away. Now since He is (what he calls himself) the light of the World, and as well our armour, as [Page 30] our apparel, St. Paul did fitly explain his Pre­cept for putting on the armour of Light, by that of putting on the Lord Iesus Christ. This is the use we are to make of the Nights going away, and the dayes approach, if I may not rather say, its presence with us. This is our practical, and vital, (not verbal) Oratory, which (next to the plea­ding of the Spirit,Rom. 8. 26.who helpeth our infirmities, and maketh intercession for us with groans which cannot be uttered,) is the only Oratory with God, that will be powerful to perswade him to pass our Hopes into Fruitions, to Crown our Fruitions with an Increase, to bless that Increase with a long Continuance, and so to Sanctifie unto us our Temporal things, as that we may not fall short of the things Aeternal.

This is the rational importance of the word Therefore in my Text, as 'tis a particle of con­nexion betwixt our Duty, and our Deliverance.

Now that the Duty of keeping close to the Commandments of Christ, (by casting off All our works of Darkness, and by putting on the whole armour of light,) should be inforced upon our Souls from the consideration of the Time, [a Time of Peace, and Prosperity, succeeding a Time of Persecution; a very bright Day, after [Page 31] a very Dark Night;] I shall the rather proceed to prove by the several Reasons of the thing; because the Reasons making for it, will be also the Motives inducing to it. They will not only clear the Truth, but advance the practice of my Assertion.

The first Reason is, Because it is generous, and noble, to amend our lives, with our conditi­ons; and rather out of gratitude, than fordid fear. It will be ever the greatest glory of Titus Vespasian, (above the rest of the Roman Empe­rours) that he was moulded by his Empire from the worse to the better; from having been a very cruel, and a very proud person, to be as emi­nently mild, and humble too, as if he had listen'd to the Precept in Ecclesiasticus, Eccl. 3. 18. and made his Practice an Answer to it, [My Son, the greater thou art, humble thy self so much the more.] Happy is the Man that can say with David, It is good for me that I have been in trouble. Psal. 119. 71. But He is the Man of a rarer happiness, who is inwardly the better for having prosper'd. 'Tis very much worthier of a Christian, to be led by Gods fa­vour, then to be driven into duty by his severity. A well natur'd people, upon the receiving of a blessing, will be apt to bethink themselves, (with [Page 32] David) by what expressions of their gratitude they may signifie their sense of their Obligation. Quid retribuemus? [...] Philo [...] pag. 552.what shall we render unto the Lord for all his benefits bestowed upon us, (Psal. 116. 12.) which of his greatest enemies shall we make a sacrifice to his wrath? what monstrous sin shall we mortifie? what darling lust shall we subdue? how shall we honour him with our lives, and give him thanks by our Reformation? shall we despise the Riches of his forbearance, be­cause he is willing that his forbearance should allure us to Repentance, and not that his Iudg­ments should fright us to it? shall we presume to be evil, because he is good? And offend the more boldly, because his Grace does so much abound? No, we will not (for shame) abuse his Love, and corrupt our selves with his Indulgence. Nor will we (in pity to our Souls) pollute our selves with his gifts, or sin away his graces and mercies to us, by making them serve to incense his Iustice. But by how much the greater his Mercies are, by so much the more will we tremble to provoke the eyes of his glory. Because we find by so late experience, He is a God ready to pardon, swift to shew mercy, and slow to wrath; we will indeavour to let him see, we are a peo­ple [Page 33] ready to serve him; swift to ask him for­giveness, but slow to sin. Thus ye have the first Reason of the word Therefore in my Text, as 'tis a particle of connexion betwixt the Duty, and the Deliverance.

The second Reason is, because he will other­wise Repent of his favours to us, and will punish us the more, for sinning against such Obligati­ons. We ought to look upon our priviledge, with Fear and Trembling: for that which heightens our dignity, whilst we attend to Gods service, does also aggravate our doom, whilst we neglect it. The very things which make us capable of greater happiness than others, may ac­cidentally fit us for greater ruin. Remember those words of our blessed Saviour, [Luk. 10. 15.] And thou Capernaum which art lifted up to Heaven, shalt be cast down to Hell. Whereby 'tis intima­ted unto us, that God will punish Malefactors, as well in respect of the mercies they have re­ceiv'd, as in respect of the sins they have com­mitted.2. Cor. 5. 10. When we shall all appear before the judgment seat of God, to answer for the things which are done in the body, we then must render a strict accompt, what Use we have made of our Grand deliverance, and how much we are [Page 34] the Better, for all that good that is done unto us.

The third Reason is, because our dangers are greater in time of Peace and Prosperity, than in time of Distress and Persecution; and so we have need of the greater Caution. Agur pray'd against Poverty, Prov. 30. 8, 9. for fear of Stealth; but he pray'd against Riches, for fear of Atheism. If Iesurun wax fat, he falls a kicking, and quite forgets the God that made him. [Deut. 32. 15.] If Nabal is drunk with the prosperity of sheering the Innocent and harmless Sheep, it is no time to tell him, that either David, or God is Angry. Nay David himself, in his prosperity, began to boast he should never be moved, [Psal. 30. 6.] From fulness of Bread, ariseth Idleness. and Pride; and those (we know) were the sins of Sodom. When God rain'd Manna upon his peo­ple, and gave them all that they desir'd, Then [saith the Text] they were not estranged from their lusts. Psal. 78. 24. 25. But when he slew them, they sought him, and inquired early after God. If ever any mortal was [...], (that is) the White boy of Fortune, and special favorite of the Fates, (as the Heathens phras'd it) the Youth of Ma­cedon was sure the Man. But though he could [Page 35] not be overcome by the strength of all Asia, he was by the weakness, and softness of it. 'Twas this made Cato cry out in Livy,Ne illae magis res nos cepe­rint, quam nos illas. Liv. lib. 34. pag. 849.Quo magis impe­rium crescit, eo plus horreo. The more our Ter­ritories increase, the more I tremble; for fear the Kingdoms which we have taken, do prove in­deed to have taken Us. He knew that where the Soul is not commensurate with the success, the Pride arising from the Victory, does so de­file the glory of it, that the prize may be said to lead the Triumph into Captivity. It is so na­tural for a man to be transported with prospe­rity, that it extorted from Moses an extraordi­nary caveat, before he could safely admit his people to the delights of Canaan. When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the Land,Deut. 6. 10, 11, 12.to give thee great and goodly Cities, and houses full of all good things,See Deut. 8. 10. to 18.Then beware that thou forget not the Lord, who brought thee out of the Land of Egypt, [Deut. 6. 10. 12.] and so again in the 8 Chapter, When thou hast eaten, and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein, Then beware least thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the house of Bondage. 'Tis a dangerous thing, to be imparadis'd on Earth, because in every such paradise there lurks a Serpent.

[Page 36]The fourth Reason is, Because it is better to have a conquering, then an untempted Innocence. To live exactly in despight of sollicitations to the contrary, is more thank-worthy, and more re­wardable, than only to want the Importunity, or Opportunity to offend. A man may easily be submissive, whilst he is under a Persecution; and study compliance, when he is worsted. But 'tis as laudable, as it is difficult, if we who sought even for Victory, whilst we were trodden under foot, shall sue for Peace in our Prosperity. That which makes us most high, (in the sight of God) is our Humility; for which there is hardly any place in our Humiliation. But the Taller any man is, by so much the lower he hath to stoop; and so 'tis the Benefit of success, to be Remarkable for Modesty, and Moderation. That especially is the season, wherein our Armour of light is of most honourable Employment, when the Prince of darkness hath most auxiliaries within, and our Lusts are made ablest to War against us.

The fift Reason is, because there is no other way whereby to prevail with God Almighty, both to complete that happiness he hath begun, and to continue it when compleated. I say to com­pleat it being begun, because the night is far [Page 37] spent, but not quite over; The day is dawning, or at hand, but not arriv'd at its Meridian. God's Anointed is setled, but not his Spouse. Many are sorry for their Sacriledge, but do not earnestly Repent; Or they Repent a fair way, (as far as Ahab,) but not (with Zachae the Publican) as far as a four-fold Restitution. Many who sinned out of Ignorance in a very high manner, do stifly argue their being Inno­cent, from their not apprehending that they were guilty. But (seeing Repentance is better for them, than a meer Temporal Impunity,) they should be intreated to consider, and put it a little to the question, whether their Ignorance was not caus'd by the Previous Dominion of some great Prejudice, which had also its Rise from some Reigning sin. Alas! The Jews were too guilty of killing Christ, although they knew not what they did; for had they known him, they would not have crucified to themselves the Lord of Glory. But yet I say they were guil­ty, because their Ignorance was not invincible. It was their guilt that they were Ignorant; they might have known what they did, had they not stood in their own Light. If men will either wink hard, or fling dust into their eyes, [Page 38] It is not only their Infirmity, but their fault that they are blind. Saul the Pharisee was excused indeed a Tanto, for having blasphem'd against God, and also Persecuted the Church, because he did it in Ignorance, and Unbelief. But however it did alleviate, it did not nullifie his sins; For to become the Apostle Paul, he stood in need of a Conversion. Now if we do not only earnestly, but also rationally desire to see a sutable end (or rather no end at all) of these fair Beginnings; that the Temple of Ianus may so be shut by our Augustus, Sueton. lib. 2. c. 22. p. 66. as never more to be open'd by any Caesar; Florus lib. 4. c. 12. p. 136. and that this Day of our Deliverance may never more be overcast with a cloud of darkness, but happily lost into Eternity; we cannot better give Thanks to God for the pre­sent breaking in of our glorious day, than by an Annual day of Fasting for the clamorous sins of our tedious Night. I mean the Profanation of Holy Places; the sacrilegious perversion of Holy Things; the monstrous Harmony of Oathes, which some have fancied to arise from the grea­test discord; the effusion of innocent, and (not only so, but of) Royal Blood; with all the Pre­paratives and Attendants of that unspeakable Pro­vocation, which of it self does deserve (and that [Page 39] for ever) a Monthly day of Humiliation. It was the Policy of Balaam (saith Philo the Iew, [...].) to make the Moabitish Women sell the Use of their flesh to the Hebrew Men; Philo p. 501. confer. cum Num. 25. & Num. 31. 16. and that for no o­ther price, than their Sacrificing to Idols. As knowing that the Hebrews were not otherwise to be worsted, than by their own breaches of Gods Commandments. And we know not how soon our dawning Day may grow dark, if we do not cast off the works of Darkness. Which implies a good reason for the word Therefore in the Text, as 'tis a particle of connexion be­twixt the Duty, and the Deliverance.

Now unto the King Eternal,1 Tim. 1. 17. Immortal, Invisible, the only Wise God, be Honour and Glory for ever and ever.

WHen I look back upon the Church in all her motions out of the East, ob­serving how Monarchy and Learning have been at once the two Shoulders to bear her up, and withal the two Legs to bring her hither; And when again I do reflect upon our Twenty years sins, which were the complicated Cause of our Twelve years sufferings; I mean our Drunkenness and Luxury, which were deser­vedly prescribed so long a Fast; the rashnesse and vanity of our Oaths, which gave us a mi­serable option betwixt a perjury, and an undoing; our profanation of the Quire, which turn'd us out of the Cathedral; our gross neglect of Gods Service, which helpt to vote down our publick [Page 44] Liturgie; our general idleness and sloth, which often cast us out of our Houses, and as it were set us to eat our Bread, in the sweat of our brows, or of our brains; our unprofitable walking under all God's methods and means of Grace, which left us nothing but his Iudgments (for many sad years) to work upon us; And yet again when I consider,Psal. 126. 4. How God hath turn'd our Captivity as the Rivers of the South, and cast the Locusts out of our Vineyards, that we may sit under our Vines; injoying our Iudges as at the first,Isa. 1. 26.and our Coun­sellors as at the Beginning; And that the use we are to make of so miraculous a Recovery, is to be fedulous in providing against the Danger of a Relaps; To sin no more after pardon, for fear a worse thing happen unto us; Joh. 5. 14. I think I cannot be transported with a more Innocent Ambition, because I cannot be ambitious of a more profitable Attempt, than that of bringing down the Heads of certain Hearers into their Hearts; that what is now no more than Light, may by that means become Fire; That we may All (in this sense) be like the Baptist,Joh. 5. 35. not only shining, but burning Lamps; not only beautified with the knowledge of Christian duties; but zealous too in the dis­charge; as unaffectedly punctual in all our car­riage, [Page 45] as the greatest Enemies of Godliness are hypocritically precise. And (though Heresies are to be hated, as things which lead unto destru­ction, yet) that Vice may be reckon'd the worst of Heresies, by how much the Errour of a mans Practice is worse than That of his bare Opinion.

Last of all, when I consider, That though Peace is a Blessing, and the greatest in its kind, yet many consequences of Peace are but glittering Snares, and that the things which are given us as helps to memory, are apt to make usIsa. 5. 12. forgetful of Him that gave them;Hab. 1. 13. 16. I cannot think of a fit­ter Text for the giving advantage to my design,Amos 6. 1. 3. than this Remarkable Caveat against Forgetful­ness a [...]d Ingratitude, Hos. 13. 6. amidst the pleasant Effects of a Restauration.

When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the Land, to give thee great and goodly Cities, and houses full of all good things, when thou shalt have eaten, and art full; THEN beware that thou forget not the Lord, who brought thee out of the Land of Egypt.

AT the very first view of which holy Caveat, there are five particulars of Remarque which presently meet my observation. As first, [Page 46] the Downfal of a Nation: Secondly, the De­liverance: Thirdly, the Author of that Deli­verance: Fourthly, the Duty by him injoyn'd: And lastly, the Iuncture of Affairs wherein this Duty is most in Season.

And of all these Particulars each is the grea­test in its kind too. For,

I First behold the greatest Curse, that any poor Nation can struggle under. A Yoke of Bondage and Captivity, impos'd by the hardest and worst of men. A Yoke so insupportable to some mens Necks, that I remember Hegesistratus (a captive Souldier in Herodotus) would rather cut off his legs, Herodot. in Calliope. then indure his Fetters; that by the loss of his Feet, he might be enabled to run away. So insufferable a thing is the State of Thraldome, very significantly imply'd in the Land of Egypt, and exegetically express'd by the house of Bondage.

II But yet the Curse is so set, (like Shadows in a Picture, or Foyles with Diamonds) as to com­mend and illustrate the greatest Blessing. A De­liverance brought about by such a miraculous complication, that nothing but the experience that so it is, can extenuate the wonder that so it should be. A People groaning under the pres­sures of several Centuries of years, and so ac­custom'd [Page 47] unto the Yoke, as to have made it a kind of acquired Nature, ( [...], as Galen calls it) De Terra Aegypti eductus est, is now at last brought out of the Land Egypt.—And yet the wonder begins to cease; Because

The Author of this Deliverance is so much III the greatest to be imagin'd, that he is Dominus, the Lord; Isa. 40. 22. the Lord that stretcheth out the Hea­vens; Psal. 104. 5. the Lord that layeth the foundations of the Earth; Zech. 12. 1. the Lord that formeth the spirit of Man within him. The Lord in whose Hand are the hearts of all men; who turneth man to Destru­ction,Psal. 90. 3.and again who saith, Come again ye children of Men In a word, It is the Lord, to whom Miracles are natural, and by whom Impossibilities are done with ease. 'Tis He that brought thee out of the Land of Egypt. And therefore,

The Duty in proportion must be superlative­ly IV great too, however hid in this place by a little Meiosis of expression. Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God; that is, Remember what he hath done, and thank him for it by thy obedience; Let thy gratitude be seen in thy conversation. Be sure toDeut. 10. 12. love him, and to serve him, 'with all thy heart, and with all thy soul. Forget him if thou canst, unless thou canst forget thou wertDeut. 6. 20, 21. Pha­raob's [Page 48] Bondman. Nay forget him if thou dar'st, unless thou art so stout that thou dar'st be damn'd. And yet beware lest thou forget him, whilst thou art swimming in prosperity, the stream of which may either drown thee, or make thee drunk, if thou are not fore-Armed with circum­spection. And therefore Beware that thou for­get not the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt. And that thou mayest not forget him, write the Favours which he hath don thee,Deut. 6. 7, 8, 9. upon the posts of thine house; and place them as Frontlets between thine eyes; tell them out unto thy children, as thou walkest by the way, both at thy lying down, and thy rising up; Let them be as a Signet upon thine Arme, and as a Seal upon thine heart. That the pleasures of thy Deliverance may not make thee forgetful of thy Deliverer, (forgetful of theDeut. 32. 15. 18. Rock out of which thou wert hewn, and kicking (likeDeut. 32. 15, 18. Iesurun) at him that made thee,) keep an Exod. 13. 3, 4, 10, &c. Anniversary Feast, (a standing Passeover in May,) whereby to fix him in thy Remembrance.

V Lastly, a Duty so indispensable, should be in­forc'd upon the Soul by the present season. A season of Peace and Prosperity, succeeding a season of Persecution. The greatest Incitement to the Duty, should be the manifold Injoyment [Page 49] of this Deliverance. For so 'tis obvious to infer from the particle THEN, (so strongly im­plyed in the Hebrew, that in the English 'tis well express'd,) upon which there seems to lie the chiefest emphasis of the Text, if we observe how it stands in a double Relation to the Context. [When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the Land, to give thee great and good­ly Cities, and houses full of all good things; when thou shalt have eaten and be full, THEN beware that thou forget not the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt.]

The Text is so fruitful of particulars, and each particular is so apt to administer matter of Discourse, that it hath been my hardest Que­stion, whereabouts I should begin, and how I should end my meditations. And after too much time lost in stating the Question within my self, I have thought it at once the fittest and the most useful to be resolv'd, (as most immediate­ly complying with the solemnity of the Time,) not to yield to the temptation of comparing our Land with the Land of Egypt, for fear of seeming to have a pique at the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion; (otherwise 'twere easie to make a Parallel; because, however our Native Coun­try, [Page 50] yet, for twelve years together, it was a very strange Land;) But, not advancing one step be­yond the Threshold, to bestow my whole time upon the little word THEN; as being a par­ticle of connexion betwixt our Duty, and our De­livera [...]ce; betwixt the Business of the Time, and the Time it self; betwixt the Occasion, and the End of our present meeting: looking like Homer's wise man, [...], with a visible prospect on all that follows, and with as visible a retrospect upon the words going before.

When Prosperity breaks in like a mighty stream, Amos 5. 24. (in so much that I may say with our blessed Saviour,Luk. 4. 21. This day is this Scripture ful­filled in your ears,) Then beware that ye forget not the Lord that brought you out of Egypt. Beware ye forget him not at any time, but especially at This. For the particle Then is an Important monosyllable; and that especially in three respects.

First because of the Difficulty of having God in our Remembrance, much more Then, than at other times. Next for the Dignity of the Duty, rather Then, than before or after. Lastly by reason of the Danger of not performing the Duty Then, when it becomes incumbent on [Page 51] us by many unspeakable obligations.

These especially are the Reasons of the par­ticle Then in this place, on which alone I shall insist in this Mornings Service. For should I adventure upon the rest, not only the hour, but (for ought I can conjecture) the day would fail me.

AND first of all let us beware, amidst the I Effects of our Deliverance, that we forget not the Author of it; because it is difficulter THEN, than at other times. For the Flattery and Dalliance of the world, hath perpetually been the Mother of so much Wantonness, or Pride, that Adam found it dangerous to be in Paradise, yea and Lucifer to be in Heaven. Do but look upon Solomon in the Book of Kings, and again look upon him in his Ecclesiastes. How was he there li [...]ted up by his Prosperity? and how does he here Preach it down? I know not whe­ther, as a Prince, he more inioy'd his Pleasures; or, as a Prophet, more condemn'd them. Whe­ther the luxury of his Table made him a Wanton, or whether the vastness of his Wisdom made him a Fool; 'Twas That betray'd him to his Concubines, and This permitted him to his Idols. [Page 52] Since then a prosperous condition hath such a secret poyson in it, as against which no Medi­cine hath been sufficiently Alexipharmacal; and from the force of whose contagion, there is no sort of men that hath been priviledg'd, no not Adam the Innocent, nor Solomon the Wise, nor even Lucifer the beatified; who were so hugely swell'd up with this Venom, and so quickly burst; (not the first in a state of sinlesness, nor the next in a state of grace, nor yet the third in a state of glory;) since there is no other man than the man Christ Iesus, that hath been ever temp­tation proof: Lord, how wretched a thing is hap­piness on this side Heaven! and how dangerously treacherous are our Injoyments! I suppose we are taught by our late experience, how easie it is to be over-joy'd, and how equally hard to be truly thankful, for all those wonders of salva­tion which God hath wrought and is working for us; the grateful commemorating of which, is religiously the end of our present meeting. Sweet-meats indeed are pleasant, but then they commonly turn to choler. 'Tis sure the state of Humiliation, which though we can worst feed upon, we are notwithstanding best nourisht with: we are such barren pieces of clay, that our [Page 53] fruits will be wither'd with too much laughter, if Grace does not water them sometimes with tears. It should be matter of real gladness to a considering Christian, that in the midst of his prosperity he can see himself sorrowful; that as he was destitute, with comfort, so he abounds, with moderation; and that he does not live re­joycingly, is many times a chief reason for which he ought. It was David's resolution (at such a time as this is) to serve the Lord with fear, and (by a pious Oxymoron) toPsal. 2. 11. rejoyce unto him with trembling. And if we reflect on the abuses which many have made of a Restau­ration, we may charitably pray, that God will give them some tears to drink; Psal. 102. 9. 80. 5. and, having given them some tears, will also put them into hisPsal. 56. 8.Bot­tle, that they may serve for this end, to blot their merriments out of hisIbid. which compare with Mal. 3. 16. Book.

That the pleasant effects of a Deliverance (which are peace, and plenty, living securely, and at ease,) are apt to make us turn Atheists, pro­voking the Author of our Deliverance to correct us once more in the house of Bondage; appears, as by many other reasons, so particularly by this; that it is hard for us to prosper, and not to lye snoring in our prosperities. For 'tis the [Page 54] [...] of a prosperous man, (as our Sa­viour i [...]plies by way of Parable,) Soul take thi [...]e ease, eat, drink, and be merry, for thou hast much goods laid up for many years, (Luk. 12. 19.) And therefore Agur's wisdome was never more seen, than in his Prayer; Give me not Riches, lest I be full, and deny thee, lest I say, who is the Lord? (Prov. 30. 8, 9.) He knew by manifold experience, thatJam. 4. 4. the friendship of the world is perfect Enmity with God, and tends immediately to practical, if not to speculative Atheism. He did not therefore pray thus, Give me not Riches, lest I be liberal to my Coffers; or, Give me not Riches, lest I be bountiful to my Lusts; but (for fear of a greater mischief) give me not Riches, lest I be full, and deny thee, lest I say in my heart, who is the Lord? that is, for fear I turn Atheist, and only sacrifice to my flesh. So also Solomon, when he was wisest, that is to say, when he repent [...]d, and of a very vicious Prince became a Preacher of Repentance, concluded all under the Sun to be but vanity of vanities; as having found by all his trials (who sure had made more trials than ever any man did,) that Peace and Plenty, with their two Daughters, which are Idleness, and Ease, are exceedingly great, though glorious dangers.

[Page 55]But we need not go farther for an instance, than to the People in my Text; whom though God might have called a very wild Tam'risk, he was pleased to stile his Beloved Vine. Lord! how carefull [...] was it manur'd, with Rain, and Sun-shine? with Quailes, and Manna, and wa­ter squeez'd out of a Rock? with the Dew of Heaven, and with the Fatness of the Earth? and yet when all was don that could be, they either brought forth no Grapes; or if they did, they were commonly wild ones. And when some­times they yielded good, 'twas rather for fear of cutting down, than for the fertility of their soil, or for the manifold helps of their cultivation. 'Twas their frequently being prun'd, which more especially made them fruitful. 'Tis true, that God did not evermore punish, although That people was still offending. For as he own'd his being, as well their Father, as their God; so he was pleas'd to make use of either Method for their Amendment; I mean Incou­ [...]agement, as well as Terror. God dealt with Them, as with Us of this Nation. As he pre­scrib'd them a Law, so he promis'd them a Ca­naan. As he led them into Egypt, so he deliver'd them out of Egypt. As he thundred from on a [Page 56] Cloud, so he whisper'd out of a Bush. As he pincht them with scarceness, so he feasted them with plenty. And if the one was even to famin, the other was even to satiety. But if we compare them with our selves in another instance, by con­sidering how ingrateful, and how unmalleable they were; how repining under their Yoke, and how mutinous in their Liberty; How (like some amongst us in this very day of our Deliverance,) they fell a hungring after the Garlick, and the Flesh-pots of Egypt, quite forgetting the Bondage, and tale of Brick; how they murmur'd at their Moses, as if he were worse than a Pharaoh to them; like some repining at their King, as if he were worse than a Protector, (For That, ye know, was the Euphemismus, whereby to ex­press the most Bloody Tyrant;) How like so many untam'd Heighfers, they were exceedingly hard to be brought to hand; or like a Stable of unbackt and unbridled Colts, how apt to kick at their Rider who gave them Food: How God Almighty was forc'd to discipline this stiff-neckt Rabble, first of all by committing them to the hardships of Egypt, and then by sending them to wrestle with the difficulties of the Wilderness; And how when all this was don, they were fain [Page 57] to miss of their Canaan, whilst they were taking it into possession; (for of so very great a multi­tude to whom the Promise of it was made, no more than aNum. 13. 30 Hab. 3. Caleb and a Ioshua had a Capa­city to inherit it,) we must conclude they were a People who deserv'd to be whipt with a Rod of Iron; not so easily reducible by theDeut. c. 27. & 28. 17, 18, 19. allure­ments of Mount Gerizzim, as by the Curses and the Threats to be thundred out from Mount Ebal. So far were They from considering, what they suffer'd a while agoe in the house of Bon­dage, that they forgot this very Caveat, (as many will do this very Sermon,) which was meant to bring it to their Remembrance; When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the Land, to give thee great and goodly Cities, and houses full of all good things, (&c.) THEN beware that thou for­get not the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt.

Pass we now (if ye please) out of the Vine­yard, into the Fold; from the People under the Law, to Us who live under the Gospel; whom though our Lord (out of goodness) was pleas'd to call his Flock of Sheep, he might have stil'd (out of Iustice) his Herd of Swine. For if He, the great Shepherd, withhold his Crook, Lord how quickly we go astray! And for here and [Page 58] there one who will be led into the Fold, how many are there that must be driven? like the Prodigal in the Gospel, (who would not return unto his Father until he was brought to feed on Husks,) we seldom care for our Physician, until the time that we are sick; and then as soon as recover'd, are very glad, rather than thankful. And this may point us out a Reason, why for so many years together, (before this last,) our Heavenly Father made use of his sharpest Me­thods for our amendment; even placing us as Is­raelites amongst Egyptians, like so many flowers amongst thorns; of which the principal design, was not to torture, but to defend us. To de­fend us from the danger of carnal security, and presumption; of pride, and wantonness; of for­getfulness, and ingratitude. And since the way to be thankful for our twelve months liberty, is very soberly to reflect on our twelve years thral­dome, Let's so transcribe a fair Copy of God's Oeconomy on the Iews, as (with a grateful com­memoration,) to consider it also in our selves.

We who flourish at this day like a goodly Tree, not only planted by the River of God's Rich Mercies, but surrounded (like our Land) with an Ocean of them; we who stretch forth our [Page 59] branches, not only for our own, but for foreign birds also to build their nests; and whose spring (blessed be God) doth promise at least to be as lasting, as once our Autumn was like to prove; we who flourish like a Myrtle, how like a Willow did we droop? How was our verdure almost exhausted? and our boughs, how deflowr'd? How did we fall after the measure our sins had risen? First God blasted our noblest Fruits; then he spoyled us of our leaves; next he hew'd down our branches. Nay, how strangely were we fed on, by those very vermin which we did feed? how greedily eaten up by all those Caterpillars, and Locusts, which though ingender'd perhaps by a Nothern wind, I am sure were bred out of our Body? It is not easie to recapitulate how many Mercies we now injoy, which our Iniqui­ties had withheld for so many years; and how many good things our sins had turn'd away from us. Jer. 5. 25. And now if after our Restitution, we shall be found to be a barren, unfruitful Tree, or fruitful only in our Impieties; so as That which was in­tended to make us better, shall render us worse than we were before; what better usage can we expect, than (after a little tract of years) to be grubbed up by the Root? to have that sen­tence [Page 60] sent out against us, which once went out against the Fig-tree, Cut it down, why cumbreth it the ground? Luk. 13. 7. Then give me leave to repeat the Caveat; And in the meekness of a Remembrancer,2 Pet. 1. 12.to put you in mind of these things, although ye know them already, and are established in the Truth. To put you in mind of being wary, not so much for your selves, as for the people ye represent, by contributing to a Law for the put­ting of Laws in Execution; that they may not intoxicate their Souls, with too many and great draughts of their peace and plenty, for fear a Curse shall break forth from our this daies Blessing, by our unthankfully forgetting the God that gave it. And let this suffice for the first importance of the word Then, as 'tis a particle of connexion, betwixt the Occasion, and the End of our present meeting.

II SEcondly let us beware, amidst the pleasant effects of our Deliverance, (such as liberty and plenty, living in idleness, and at ease,) that we forget not the Author of it; because of the dig­nity of the Duty, rather Then, than before, or after. For, as 'tis the mark of a most servile and base-born spirit, to be the worse for the good [Page 61] that is done unto us; so 'tis the noblest generosity, to mend our lives with our conditions. The deep and serious consideration of which great Truth, as it should lift up our Hearts to a thankful use of our prosperity, so it should also pluck them down, to an humble sense of our obligations. For That indeed is the proper season, wherein humi­lity is a noble, because a di [...]icult vertue. Humi­liation in a Captive, is not a grace, but a necessity. Nor hath Temperance any place in the house of scarceness. These two must have a Theatre, wherein to set themselves forth; cannot easily be seen in a little Room. The proper time of see­ming base in our own modest eyes, is when we are matter of admiration in other mens. The time to shew our selfdenial, (that is, our victory over our selves,) is when we are brought out of an Egypt, into a Land overflowing with Milk and Hony; when our houses are full of all good things, and our Tables stooping under the weight of their sumptuous load. As our Afflictions a year ago did make up God's opportunity, whereby to shew us his Mercy, and loving kindness; so pro­sperity ever since should make up ours, whereby to shew him our meekness, and moderation. The very Atheist will cry [O God!] in a fit of the [Page 62] Strangury, or the Stone; but let us be Religious in time of health. The profanest Mariner will be devout in a tempest; but let us be so in a calm: when the tide of our injoyments is at the full, Then in a more especial manner let our ambition ebb lowest: when we are mounted aloft on the wings of Fame, Then let's retire into the Desert of our most humble contemplations; and be so meek amidst our eminencies, as to become most eminent for that our meekness.

There are some of whom I may say, they have been arm'd with infirmities against the De­vil: some, whose Ignorance hath kept them safe; some, whose coldness hath pass'd for con­tinence; who have been flegmatick, and therefore meek; or been kept under hatches, and therefore lowly. But then it being their necessity, and not their choise; rather their luckiness, than their valour; they having kept their ground, not by vertue of any conquest, but meerly because they never fought; Aristot. Eth. Nichom. l. 1. [...], we do not properly commend them, but call them happy; they are but sancti Planetarii, (as a Father of the Church made bold to word it;) All their armour, if they have any, is but defensive; And for their not being worsted, they may thank their [Page 63] Bucklers, but not their Swords. Alas, it should not be a wonder, to see simplicity in the village; or to keep ones integrity, where 'tis an hard thing to lose it.Quis abstinens dicetur, subla­to eo [...] quo ab­stinendum est? Quae Tempe­rantia gulae in fame? quae Ambitionis repudiatio in egestate; quae libidinis in­frenatio in Castratione? Tertul. ad­vers. Mar­cion. l. 1. C. 29 (We cannot call That man abstemious, who only riseth with an appetite, because he hath not enough to appease his hunger; nor is He to be commended for not being drunk, who either hath not sufficient to quench his thirst, or has an able Brain to carry it, or else loves his purse a great deal more than his Intemperance, and so is beholding to his baseness for his sobriety. We do not say that He is strong, who does not fall when no man thrusts him. Nor that he is caute­lous, and wary, who does not stumble when the way is plain. No, 'tis He is the brave and the gallant Christian, who can hold out his Castle however besieged with temptations; who can be chaste even in Italy, or mild in Scythia; who can be a Spaniard, and yet not Proud; an English man born, yet not Inconstant; who can be Loyal amidst the Triumphs of the most prosperous Re­bellion; and humbly thankful in his Advancement. He is generously a Christian, who can keep his Vow in Baptism, where 'tis Ridiculous not to break it; who can at once live at Court, and for­sake the world; who can be witty, yet not pro­phane; [Page 64] strong, and mettlesome, yet not presump­tuous; conspicuously handsom, and yet not vain; a Mathematician, and a Chimist, yet not Athei­stical; who will not be covetous in the midst of hid Treasure; nor reconcilable to a vice, al­though it offer him all advantages; who hath all his five senses (those Avenues of the heart) at once attaque't by Hell's Artillery, and yet is able to prevent, or maintain a Breach; and though they batter down the Walls, does not suffer them (notwithstanding) to take the City. This, I say, is the generous, because the self­denying Christian. And agreeable to the figure, by which our vitious affections are call'd our members, (Colos. 3. 5.) we know in our Captain's Interpretation, (Mat. 5. 29.) that to part with an Avarice, is to pluck out an eye; and to cast away a lust, is to cut off a hand. That, as in our Mi­litary Oath, we Swore to fight under his Ban­ner; so, as often as we part with a sinful passion, we are reputed (in his accompt) to lose a Limb in his Battle. Self-denial, it seems, being one kind of Martyrdom; a dying daily for his sake, who,Heb. 2. 10. as the Captain of our Salvation, was made perfect through sufferings. 'Tis very true in this sense, that the valiantest Souldier is the very best [Page 65] Man. For no mau living is truly valiant, but he who bravely dares be good, when the Times are evil; and dares not be evil, when Times are good; who stands the shock of temptations, not only in the worst, but the best of daies; bravely holding out his Fort against the batteries and as­saults, not of poverty only, and pain, and other effects of persecution; but against plenty also, and pleasure, and other Fruits of a Restauration.

To sum up all in a word, and to carry on my Metaphor the most I can to Their advantage, who will not be carried to any duty, which is not honourable, and brave: The Battles of Leu­ctra, and Mantinea, were not half so full of glory to that immortal Theban, Epaminondas, as the two victories of a Christian over his [...]. That unruly Element of double fire, his anger, and his lust, which his greatest felicities do most enkindle. And this I hope may be enough for the second importance of the word Then; as 'tis a particle of connexion betwixt the business of the Time, and the Time it self.

LAst of all let us beware, that the manifold III injoyments of our Deliverance do not make us forgetful of our Deliverer, because of the [Page 66] greatness of the Danger of not performing the Duty THEN, when it becomes incumbent on us by many unspeakable Obligations. For let a man's sin be never so great, in point of nature, or degree, Ingratitude will give it an Aggravation. And Ingratitude taking its stature from prece­dent obligations, so as the sins we commit run higher, or lower, as the graces we receive have been more, or less: there are not any so very capable of provoking Gods Fury, as the men whom he hath pleas'd to take the most into his favour. The reason of it may be taken from the Athenians in Thucydides, Thucydides lib. 1. pag. 52. [...]. The least unkindness from a Friend is of greater smart, than the hardest usage from an Enemy. The very sight of Brutus more woun­ded Caesar to the heart, than all the rest of his Assassinates had don with Daggers. David in­deed was somewhat troubled, that they who hated him did whisper together against him, (Psal. 41. 7.) but 'twas his greatest cross of all, that they who had eaten of his Bread should ingrate­fully lift up the heel against him. For, in that he said, He could have born it from anPsal. 55. 12. 13.enemy, he did significantly imply, he could not bear it from a friend. And as it was David's Cordolium, the [Page 67] Type of Christ; so also was it Christ's, the Son of David: who did not weep over other Cities, from which he met with an ill Reception; but he wept over Ierusalem, the Royal City, which he had so much obliged, yet found so cruel. And no doubt but our Saviour is so much more keen­ly and nearly touch'd, that the most obliged Chri­stians should break his Precepts, than that the ignorant Iews should offer violence to his Person, that we may rationally suppose him thus speak­ing to us. Had the Iews or the Heathens spit upon me by their impurities, and buffeted me by their blasphemies, and stript me by their sacri­ledge, and murder'd me by their rage; from such as These I could have born it. But that ye should war against me, and in the behalf of that base Triumvirate, the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, having sworn to me in Baptism that Ye would fight under my Banner against all Three: That Ye who have the priviledge to be call'd by my Name, to be admitted into my House, to have a place at my Table, to hear my Word, and to partake of my Supper, to be miraculously brought from the house of Bondage, injoying your Kings at the first, and your National Councils as at the beginning, and sitting your selves as [...] [Page 68] many Princes under your Vines and Fig-trees, in­joying the liberty of your persons, the propriety of your estates, the important benefit of your Laws, and the glory to be subjected by a most honourable obedience; that such as Ye should de­spise me, and cast my Law behind your back, this is that I can least indure. My greatest fa­vour, thus abus'd, will be converted into fury.

And indeed if we consider, that as God (on the one side) accepteth according to what a man hath, 2 Cor. 8. 12. so withal (on the other side) of them who have received much, Luk. 12. 48. much in proportion shall be requi­red; we may with good Logick infer, and strong­ly argue within our selves, that an honest Hea­then is far better, than a Christian Knave. And if an Heathen shall be extirpate for being barren, much more the Christian, if He is fruitless, shall be cast into the fire. A fruitless Tree, which should by nature bear fruit, being fit to make fewel, and nothing else. According to that of our Blessed Saviour, (which is at once of uni­versal and endless verity,)Mat. 7. 19. Every Tree which bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down, and cast into the fire. And we who are grafted into the Vine, must not only bear fruit, but such fruit too, as Christ expects to r [...]ap from us. A [Page 69] Bramble cannot be censur'd for not bearing fruit; because it is in its nature to bring forth none. It was therefore the Fig-tree, and not the Bramble, on which our Saviour bestow'd a Curse, Mat. 21. 19. Nor was it the Bramble, but the Fig-tree, which he commanded to be cut down, Luk. 13. 7. we must one day be call'd to a dreadfulMat. 25. 10. reckoning, for all the uses we have made of our this days Talent. God's injur'd Iustice must needs be satisfied, (and sure much more his injur'd Mercy,) either sooner, or later, either in this, or another world. And if instead of being thankful for all the blessings we now in­joy, more especially for That which we this day Celebrate, we shall but turn them into wanton­ness, and grow the worse for the effects of so great a Goodness; what can we reasonably ex­pect, but that the powers of Hell should once again be let loose upon us and ours? For since to continue in our impieties, is the greatest dis­honouring of God that can be; a filling up the measure of our Iniquities, and so the vials of his wrath; He must destroy us, se d [...]fendendo, if for nothing but to defend, and secure his Glory.

What then remain [...]s, but that we take up the Words of the Royal Prophet, and together with [Page 70] Them, his Resolution? We will take the Cup of Salvation, and call upon the Name of the Lord. The Cup of Salvation, that is to say, the Cup of Thanks, for that Salvation which he hath wrought; as Iunius and Tremellius do rightly ex­plicate the Trope. And mark the force of the Copulative, by which these Duties are tyed to­gether. Without the Cup of Salvation, (that is) The Cup of Thanksgiving unto the Author of our Salvation, all our calling upon his Name will be quite in vain: For when we spread out our hands, he will hide his eyes, and when we make many Prayers he will not hear, (Isa. 1. 15.) And then to thank him as he requires, is not only to en­tertain him with Eucharistical words, with the meer Calves of our lips, or a Doxologie from the teeth outwards; but to imitate, and obey him, and to love him after the rate of his favour towards us. That we may not forfeit all our interest in the temporal salvation we this day Celebrate, nor bring a reproach on the Author of it, for saving a people so ill deserving; we must add to our verbal, our vital Prayers; nor only keep an annual Day, but even an Age of Thanksgiving for our Deliverance.

And then with a greater force of Reason, [Page 71] we must beware that we forget not the Lord our God, who, if he brought us not out of the Land of Egypt, did yet deliver us this day from the house of Bondage. We must not any of us forget him, in whatever Represents, or Pre­sents him to us. But Ye especially must not for­get him presented to you in his Vicegerent; whom the more ye do enable to be indeed what he is sti­led, Defensor Fidei, by so much the greater will be your Glory, and the better ye will provide for your childrens safety. The more ye strengthen That Hand, which under God is to brandish the Sword of Iustice, (and ceaseth to be a Sword of Iustice, when wrested out of That Hand by the hand of Man,) the better protected your Peace will be, from the ungainable Enemies of each Extream. Nor can ye rationally hope to keep your Peace any longer, than whilst the evil­ey'd Factions want power to break it. Again beware that ye forget not the Soveraign Author of your Deliverance, wheresoever ye shall find him presented to you in his Messengers; (and what I mean by that word, I need not explain in so wise an Audience;) by whose continuing unrestor'd to their Ancient Priviledge, and Right, your own Restauration remain's imperfect. Again be­ware [Page 72] ye do not forget him presented to you in his Members, who are not only your fellow members, but were your old fellow sufferers in the very same Cause; to which they ever have adhered with the very same constancy; and for which they have been Actors with the very same cou­rage; and do rejoyce in the greatness at least of Your Restauration, how much soever they are mourners for the scandalous littleness of their own. Prosperity (I have shew'd) is a dangerous weapon, such as none but the merciful should dare to use. And if ever there were a Parlia­ment, in which both Mercy, and Iustice met, this has the honour to be reputed so very exem­plary for both, that they who stand in need of both, are very confident to obtain them, now, or never. A Parliament so prepar'd by the special Providence of God, for the perpetuating of Peace in our British world, that nothing less than the presence of all perfections in a Prince, can make us patiently think of its Dissolution.

Will ye hear the conclusion of the whole matter? Eccl. 12. 13. I shall deliver it to you briefly, in this Petition. That so far forth as ye regard the Righteous Judge of all the world, and are season'd by Him with the manifold gifts of the blessed Comforter, [Page 73] with the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, with the Spirit of counsel and ghostly strength, Isa. 11. 2. with the Spirit of knowledge and true godliness, and lastly with the Spirit of his holy fear, Ye will consider what I have said by your own Authority, because in an absolute obedience to your own Order, and Command.

ANd now the God of Peace and Power, who brought you forth on this Day from the House of Bondage, both defend and direct you, from this day forwards, in all your wayes. That every one of your Persons, and the1 Thes. 5. 23. whole of every one, both Body, Soul, and Spirit, may be kept blameless unto the coming of our Lord Iesus Christ. To whom with the Father, in the unity of the Spirit, who is abundantly able to keep us from falling, and to raise us when we are down, and to preserve us being raised, and to present us so preserv'd, before the presence of his Glory with exceeding Joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be ascribed by us, and by all the world, Blessing, and Glory, and Honour, and Power, and Wisdom, and Thanksgiving, from this day for­wards for evermore. Amen.

§. 1. THough 'tis the Language of the Schoolmen [Quicquid dicitur de Deo est Deus] That whatsoever is said of God is God, and that all his Attributes are Himself; so that agreeably to This, Infinitely must be Their sta­ture as well as His, and Eternity their Duration, yet since the Psalmist hath adventur'd to take the Altitude of Two, I mean his Mercy, and his Iustice; And since my Text hath each of these in so remarkable a Degree, that they seem to be here in their Apogaeo, I shall be bold to make use of the Psalmist's Figure, Psal. 36. 5. and pronounce God's Mercy so much higher than his Iustice, as to say in the words of that Royal Prophet, That his Mercy reacheth unto the Heavens, and his Iustice [in comparison but] to the Clouds. Which is as [Page 78] much as to say in Directer Termes, That though neither can be the greater, where Both are Infinite, yet he is much more delighted in the exhibition of the one, than 'tis possible for him to be in the execution of the other.

§. 2. For though the Doom here denounced is sad and direful, even the [...] of which St. Iohn speaks in the Revelation, [...], Rev. 6. 8. (that is) The Pale or Green Horse whose name is [...], bringing Death in the Front, and Damnation in the Rear; Though the Lord of Hosts in this Chapter does Bellum dicere, proclaim a War against his Rebells, and that so grimly set off with a Train of Iudgments, that War it self is one of the least, And the Plague of Famine none of the greatest; Yet if we look upon the Object of this Severity, those Kine of Bashan, the Ingrateful Inhabitants of Samaria, and if together with their Ingratitude, we compare his Goodness and Longanimity, the several steps of the Climax, by which his Anger went up to so [...]ull a Measure; and if we consider that even Then, He made them an offer of Reconcilement, desiring earnestly they would meet him in order to Amity and Peace; we shall not only be forc'd to say that the Mercy of God doth rejoyce against Judgment, and that in [Page 79] the midst of all his Judgments he thinks of Mercy; but withPhilo [...]. p. 23. 7. Philo the Jew, whom we may En­glish out of the Psalmist, [ [...],] that as his Mercy is (in one sense) over all his works, so it is (in another) over all his Attributes.

§. 3. To give you an Instance in the Text, (as his Majesty's Proclamation hath given an Instance in the Time,) behold a Sacred kind of contention betwixt the Mercy and Justice of God Almighty. In which however his Indignation (with proportion to the sins of his people Israel) doth seem to be in its Exaltation, so as his Ju­stice even begin's to pronounce the Sentence; Yet, by a strange Aposiopesis, his Mercy presently interrupts it. He denounceth a Desolation, and (at the very same Instant) desires a Treaty. No sooner threatens that he will, that he compassio­nately Exhorts that he may not punish. No sooner is he enter'd upon his Ideo sic faciam, Therefore thus will I do, but he immediately comes off with a Compone Te in occursum, pre­pare thy self for a friendly meeting. And he enforceth his Advice with a Cogent Reason, Because I will do thus unto thee. That is, Repent whilst thou hast Time, that I may not do it. [Page 80] Because I threaten and do intend to turn thy Bewty into Ashes, thy Eden into a Wilderness, thy oyle of Joy into Mourning, and thy Garment of Praise into a Spirit of Heaviness; Therefore Joel. 11. 12. Now turn unto me with all thy heart, and with Fasting, and with Weeping, and with Mourning, that I may alter my purpose, 1 Sam. 15. 29. and Repent of the things which I have threatned. Which although at first hearing doth seem a Paradox, a kind of [...], a Truth appearing in the disguise of a Contradiction; yet it deserves to be the Para­phrase, and the Exegesis of the Text, ‘Therefore thus will I do unto thee, ô Israel; And because I will do thus unto Thee, pre­pare to meet thy God ô Israel.’

§. 4. In which words being consider'd (not so much in their literal, as) in their rational Im­portance, there are two things express'd, and two imply'd. We have first a Command, with a Com­mination; (Both sufficiently express'd;) And of the later we have imply'd, at once the Merito­rious, and Final Cause. But in as much as the first does carry the last along with it. They all are easily comprised in this Tricotomie.

[Page 81]First a Terrible Commination of no less than utter Ruin to the People of God. Sic faciam tibi ô Israel, Thus and thus will I do.

Next the reasonable Ground of this Commina­tion, which is their living unreform'd under the Essaies and Methods of lesser Judgments. And this I cannot but Collect from the Illative Therefore, as it looks back upon the Causal, in the words immediately going before. For Be­cause Ye have not return'd unto me saith the Lord, Idea sic faciam, Therefore thus will I do.

Thirdly the End, or the final Cause, which is not to Execute the Judgment, but to avert it. For so I gather from the Command, as That re­lates to the Commination. Because I will do thus unto thee, Praepara Te in occursum, prepare to meet thy God ô Israel.

These Particulars thus premis'd, will very naturally afford us four Doctrinal Propositions.

First, That the Terrors of the Almighty do make up one of his choicest Methods, whereby to bring Sinners to true Repentance.

Next that his sharper sort of Iudgments is a fit Remedy for Those, upon whom his milder Chastisements have been unhappily ineffectual. And yet

[Page 82]Thirdly, So far is God from delighting in his Inflictions, or from willingly grieving the Chil­dren of men, that the first and chiefest End both of all his Menaces, and his stripes, is to Execute Destruction not on the sinner, but on the sin; not to slay, but reduce the Fugitive. And therefore

Fourthly, God antecedently desiring the timely Repentance of a Sinner, and only by way of Consecution, The final Destruction of the Im­penitent, 'Tis plain His Menaces are fulfilled by their never coming to pass. Most fully satisfied and accomplish'd, not when they Confound, but Convert a Sinner. My Reason is, because the End of the Command is to anticipate the Effect of the Commination. Because I will do thus unto thee, in case thou dost proudly neg­lect to meet me; meet me therefore in the way, to the end that I may not do thus unto thee.

Of these several Propositions, the two for­mer shew us Gods Justice, and his Mercy shines in the two later. All concurring to the ends of our present meeting; The first to deter us from what is Evil, The last to perswade us to what is Good. The former respecting our late Plague of Rain; the later our blessing of fairer weather. [Page 83] Both conducing to our Design of Crying louder by our Repentance, than we have don by our Im­p [...]eties; That by our timely Reformation we may retrive the heavy Judgments, which our clamorous Sins have been lureing down.

I §. 1. To begin with the First of the Pro­positions, is not more natural to the Text, than it is serviceable and fit to lay the Foundation of the Sermon. For of the many strong Affecti­ons which are seated in the Appetite and Heart of Man, though none is certainly more Infamous, yet (being rationally determin'd) there is not any more Useful than that of Fear. It is in­deed the most unhandsome, (as the World now goes,) but being well fix'd, the most wholesome passion; the most ungentlemanly perhaps, but not the most unchristian Quality; And though the worst for Execution, yet the best for Advise. It was a very good saying, though of a very ill man, (and meant I suppose to as ill a purpose,) Primus in Orbe Deos fecit Timor. That had there been less Fear, there had been also less Religion in many Places of the World. For as Fear was the first Engine which brought in Re­ligion amongst the Heathens; so after the mea­sure [Page 84] that It departed, Irreligion and Atheism fill'd up its Room. This was That that taught the Gentiles, first to make their own Gods, and then to Worship them. They were Religious (poor Souls!) in their own defense, (if we may call Superstition by such a Name,) not out of gratitude to their Deities, for that they had don them any Good, but only out of a Fear that they would otherwise do them Harm. Hence the Heathen Theologists, (I mean their Poets, and their Philosophers,) finding the People more apt to be driven, than led, and to have easier Im­pressions of Fear, than Hope, thought it conve­nient to Catechize them, more in the Torments of their Erebus, than in the Pleasures of their Elizium. They told them of Minos, and Rada­manthus, as the grim Judges of Offenders; of Haggs, and Furies, as Executioners of the Sen­tence; of such as Ixion, and Prometheus, as sad Examples of the Condemn'd. All which (saith Diodorus) were but [...], so many Bugs, or Mormo's, to fright the People into Morality.

§. 2. So great an Influence had Fear on the False Religions of the World. And to disco­ver as great an Influx which it had also upon the True, Let me lead you forth a little out of the [Page 85] Forrest into the Garden, wherein the very first Precept was fens't with Terror. It was not said unto the Protoplast, Thou shalt surely live, if thou eatest not; But (as a method of greater force,) In the day that thou eatest, thou shalt surely dye. If we look into the Bible, from the Be­ginning to the End, This we shall find to have been the Method of each Person in the Trinity. First of all it was the Method of God the Father, when he deliver'd his Law from a Burning Mountain,Heb. 12. 18, 19, 20, 21.even with Thundering and Lightning, with Blackness and Darkness, with smoke and Tempest, with the sound of a Trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice they that heard, intrea­ted that they might not hear it, and so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. This again was the Method of God the Son, who said he came not to destroy, but fulfil the Law; his word is [...], to fill it up. He did endeavour to Preach his Hearers into the High-way of Heaven, even by setting before them the pains of Hell. He threatn'd them with Weeping, and Gnashing of Teeth; with a Worm that dyeth not, and with a Fire that is not quenched. We hear him saying, It is Impossible, (that is to say, exceeding Hard,) for a Rich man [Page 86] enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. He saith the way to it is streight, and the Gate Narrow, and the Travellers that find it extreamly Few. He bids us strive to enter in; and never leave stri­ving, until we Conquer. Nay this was the Me­thod of the Comforter, even of God the holy Ghost; who taught St. Paul to constrain his Scholars, by shewing the Terrors of the Lord. 2 Cor. 5. 11. Nay to de­liver them up to Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh,1 Cor. 5. 5.that their Spirits might be saved in the Day of the Lord Iesus.

§. 3. And indeed if we consider, How many poor Souls have been debauch'd in these Times, by the false Apprehensions of Christian Liberty, and Conscience, of Faith without Love, Justification without Honesty, and Repentance of Sins with­out Amendment; so as the stales of those Here­sies which had been brew'd in ancient Times, are freshly broach'd in our Dayes, and given for Drink to the giddy People; we cannot but wish that all our Clergy would now become Boanerges, or Sons of Thunder; at least by shew­ing the strict necessity of Impartial obedience unto the Gospel; that is to say, unto the Statutes or Laws of Christ; A living in Holiness, and Righ­teousness; in Piety, and Probity; in Godliness, [Page 87] and Honesty; in the Duties of the First, and the Second Table; without the which (saith the Au­thor of the Epistle to the Hebrews) no man living shall see the Lord. Heb. 12. 14.

§. 4. This (we see) is so peculiar to that Amazing Lover of Souls, that he does not only set Hell before us, and sad Examples too behind, but Temporal Crosses on either side. And how­ever surrounded thus with Terrors, we find them All little enough. For first it being not the great­ness, but the presentness of Danger which most affrights us; He does not threaten his Rod only, but often layes it upon our Backs. And then because (like common Mariners) we would not Pray, though in a Tempest, were it impossible to be drown'd, or to suffer Shipwrack; He does not Punish only at present, and for a Time; But also threatens he will do it to all Eternity. For if after this Life is swallow'd up of Immortality, He should only have an Heaven for Loyal Sub­jects, and never a Hell for his Rebellious ones; men would be readier to say, at the last period of their lives, Let us eat and drink, for to mor­row we dye, Than Let us fast and pray, for to morrow we shall be happy.

§. 5. If any [...]iduciary shall say, That [Page 88] Terrors work not a filial, but servile Fear; and rather cause an hypocriticall, than Godly sor­row; the Answer to it is very Easy, That as Gods severity speaks his Power, and That his Excellence; so many times a servile Fear begets a Fear of Admiration; And Admiration is apt to end in a Fear of Reverence; and Reverence is a Compound, which has Love, as well as Fear, for a chief Ingredient.

§. 6. And if again it shall be objected, that John and James are but uncomfortable Preachers, enough to blast a mans Faith, and Thunderstrike him into Despair; I Answer to it by these de­grees. First that for here and there one who possibly falls into Despair, Thousands rise to Presumption, and Millions lye down in carnal Security. Again, The Sin of Despair is not so commonly understood, as it is dangerously mista­ken, and that by some who Domineer in our open Pulpits. There is a kind of Despair, which is only the effect of a broken heart, and the ma­nifest sign of a tender Conscience. The mark of such a [...], as is [...], a Repentance never to be repented. There have been Persons in the world, who have been so very passionately in Love with God, and so amorous of his Purity, [Page 89] that they have hated themselves extreamly, be­cause they have suspected they have not lov'd him; And have been easily betray'd into such suspicion, by their sense of some things which are unavoidable, even the natural Infirmities of Flesh and Blood. Every small Mote in anothers Eye hath seem'd a Beam in their own. They have look'd upon their Sins through a kind of Microscope, (for such is the Glass of an holy Jealousie,) which hath made a little Ignorance to look as bigg as an Infidelity; an human Frailty to seem as monstrous, as an Apostacy from Grace. Thence come those Syncopes of Spirit, by which they are made to cry out, with Christ Himself upon the Cross, (although 'tis quite in another sense,) My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? An evident Argument, and sign, not that God hath forsaken Them, but rather that They have forsaken Sin. So when Peter cry'd out (and even to that very Saviour on whom he depended for his Salvation,) Depart from me ô Lord, for I am a sinful man,] He drew Christ to him, by his intreating him to Depart; The more a Saint in Christs Eyes, for being a Sinner in his own. As there are many silly Shepherds, who mistake a Repenting for a Despairing Sheep; [Page 90] so there is oftentimes an Innocent, but silly sheep, which mistakes his own Weakness for want of Faith. And in as much as he does not at all Presume, is very apt to apprehend he does not sufficiently Believe; whereas his seemingness of Despair is a real Argument of his Faith, whilst attended with an hatred of former sins, and fear of falling into the like. For whilst he thinks he has not Faith, he does at least desire to have it. And whilst he desires, 'tis plain he loves it. And because of just nothing there can be no love at all, He that loves must needs believe, that the object of his Love has a real Being. And if he desires what he wants, and truly loves what he desires, and by consequence believes what he truly loves; Then sure the sequel is unavoid­able, That this falsifying Despair is an excellent good mark of a True Believer. And to This alone it is I would fain drive Others, because to This I would fain be driven. But now the Murder­ing Despair is another Thing, and often issues from the Preaching of unconditional Reprobation; when whosoever thinks himself of the Hopeless Number, is apt to hold it so vain a Thing to catch at an Interest in Heaven, that he resolves to enjoy his good Things upon the Earth. And [Page 91] as nothing is so daring as a Desperate Coward, when he finds no way to obtain his safety by his escape, and thence is made by his Despair a most insufferable fighter, (from whence ariseth the common saying, That when an Enemy is flying, 'tis good to make him a Golden Bridge) so there is nothing more jovial (at least by Intervals and fits,) than the Desperate Sinner which now I speak off; whose Famous Character we meet with in the second Chapter of Wisdom; where the Despairer of Immortality in an extreamly better world, does make an hearty resolution of living merrily in This. This is that desperate Despair which is as mischievous as Presumption, in that it placeth the sinner beyond Repentance. And so the objection notwithstanding, my Doctrine seems to stand firm, and unremoveable, [That the Terrors of the Almighty do make up one of his choicest Methods for the bringing of Sinners to true Repentance.]

§. 7. Having briefly thus insisted upon the proof of the Doctrine, methinks our manifold Experience should save me the Labour of Ap­plication, whether we fall under a publick, or a private consideration. We must confess, as to the publick, That our sins have been as clamo­rous [Page 92] as those of Israel; and God hath us'd the same Method for our Amendment. We have many years felt the effects of War; and now are exercised afresh with the Fear of Scarceness. The very Perfection of our Spring hath as it were been swallow'd up by a Second Winter. The late Abuses of our Plenty have been the Heralds of a Dearth; And the Deluge of our Impieties hath been so rebuked by that of Waters, That God does seem to have alter'd the course of Nature, as 'twere to try if we will alter our course of Sin. 'Tis true the Season began to mend, upon its very first sense of our Humiliation. And God hath only said to Us, as to the People in my Text, Ideo sic faciam, Therefore thus will I do. All is hetherto but a Threat; and That sus­pended with a Condition. Gen. 9. 13. Through the Bowe in the Cloud which was set as a sign betwixt God and Us, he is pleas'd to shoot comfort throughout our dwellings. But then the ground of its con­tinuance doth stand conditionally in This, That we do all at this Instant Prepare to meet Him.

§. 8. As to our private Consideration, perhaps there is hardly any man here, whom God hath not terrefied one way or other, and sent his Rod for an Ambassador to speak his Will. As either by the [Page 93] loss of a Darling Child, or of a most endeared Wife, or else by some pungent and grievous sick­ness, or by some eminent miscarriage in point of Honour, or Estate; or if by none of all These, yet at least he has been threatned, by the woful Examples of other men. (Nam tua Res agitur, Paries cum proximus ardet.) The Rod that is bru­shing but in the Aire, may (we cannot tell how soon) be sharply beating upon our shoulders. The very weather which now is better, may soon be worse than it was before. And though the Immoderation of Rain is pass'd, yet the conse­quences of it are still remaining; And the Re­membrance of the Threat should be present with us. Nay since 'tis clear from that difficult, but useful Text, Mark 9. 49. [ [...]] That we must every one be Season'd with Salt, or Fire; That our putrid Affections must be eaten out here, or else our Persons de­stroy'd hereafter; (there being no medium be­twixt the one and the other;) blessed be He who shall preserve us in Tears of Brine, that he may not consume us in Fire of Brimstone.Rev. 21. 8. We ought to smile on those stripes, which are meant to drive us to Immortality.

§. 9. Let us not think our selves too wise, [Page 94] to be thus Instructed; or too old, to be thus Educated; or too great to be thus Corrected. Perhaps the Robbins of our Schools, are in the School of Jesus Christ no more than humble ABC darians; They that are Aged enough by Nature, may have hardly yet attain'd to be Babes in Grace; And they who brandish the Sword of Justice, are themselves under God's Lash. And since we cannot ever enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, unless we receive it as little Children; Let us therefore, as little Children, down on our Knees before our Father. Let us confess that we have sin'd; Let us ask him Forgiveness, and promise never to do the like. He will not cast away his Rod, until he see's that we have Kiss'd it; And that we can say with the Prophet Da­vid, It is good for us to have been afflicted. For whom his Menaces do not better, they acciden­tally make worse; And if we harden our Hearts, we do but weighten his Hand. The shewing of which will be the work of my Second Doctri­nal Proposition.

II[That God's Severer sort of Iudgments is a fit Remedy for Those, whom his milder Chastise­ments will do no good on.]

[Page 95]§. 1. I cannot shew you this better, than by Example; nor by a better Example, than what this Chapter does here afford us. For when the Kine of Bashan on the Mountains of Samaria, (the Schismatical Tribes of the People Israel, whom God did therefore stigmatize with so disgraceful a Periphrasis,) had oppress'd the poor, and crush'd the needy, (ver. 1.) when they had greatly transgress'd at Bethel, and mul­tiplied Transgressions at Gilgal, (ver. 4.) God was pleas'd to proceed against them by several steps and degrees of his Indignation; that if a lesser corrosive would not cure them, a sharper might. For first he sent them cleanness of Teeth, as his Embassadour or Herald to fetch them in. There was a want of Bread in all their places, which was the first part of Famine; and yet for all this they would not return unto the Lord, (ver. 6.) Next he Plagued them with a Drowth, that second part of Famine; Their Sins had made the Heavens Brass, and the Earth Iron. So that two or three Cities were fain to wander into one, and all to drink a little water. But yet for all this they would not Return unto the Lord, (ver. 8.) After this he proceeded to pour out a Curse upon all their fruits; The fruits of their [Page 96] Gardens, and of their Vineyards, which were sud­dainly blasted, and devour'd, partly by the Mil­dew, and partly by the Palmer-worm. And this (we know) was a third part of Famin; But notwithstanding all this, They would not return unto the Lord, (ver. 9.) Hereupon his Indignation waxt hot against them; For seeing the Gastly Pale Horse had been so utterly unsuccesful, He sent the Red Horse amongst them, and that in both parts of the dreadful Hieroglyphick; I mean the War, and the Pestilence. And yet for all this, They would not return unto the Lord, (ver. 10.) In the Fifth place therefore, when neither any of these Judgments, nor altogether, could do the work; what remained but that the Earth should open her Mouth, and swallow them up? or that a Fire sent from Heaven should send them hastily into Hell? And even of This they had a Tast, (as appears by the verse before my Text,) God overthrowing some of them, as he had Sodom and Gomorrah; and the Rest were but respited, after the manner of a Fire-brand pluckt out of the Burning; And yet in despight of all This, They would not return unto the Lord, (ver. 11.) Sixtly and lastly, when so many Prelusorie Iudgments were in effect cast away on a stubborn [Page 97] People; when all those Emisaries and Heraulds were sent in vain; when Death it self could not fright them, however usher'd and waited on with so grim and formidable a Train; what could in reason be expected but such an Absolute [...], such a complete Devastation of Them, and Theirs, as should not leave so much as a Praeco, (no not so much as a [...]) to carry the Ti­dings of their Ruin to late Posterity? And even This is also Threatned in the words of my Text, Ideo Tibi sic faciam, Therefore thus will I do unto thee ô Israel.

§. 2. And as Thus unto Israel, so why not Thus unto England too, if we continue (as they did) to corrupt our selves with his Goodness to us? If we make no better Use of our Peace and Plenty, and the other effects of a Restauration, than to turn our Peace into Wantonness, and our Plenty into Luxury, our Liberty into Licentious­ness, and our Strength into Presumption, our Power into Oppression, and our Dignities into Pride? Nay in as much as the Dimensions of our Ingratitude, like the Highth and Depth of our Obligations, are far beyond those of the People Israel; God will not only do Thus unto us, but more to Us, than unto Israel, unless we timely [Page 98] prepare to meet him, and present him with the Fruits of sincere Repentance; which, we have nothing to excuse us (when God hath don so much to us to make us fruitful,) if we do not bring forth in the greatest plenty. 'Tis true, we have often gon out to meet him; But not with Prayers, and Tears, the only Armour of a Chri­stian, whereby to hold out against Omnipotence, and the only Weapons to overcome it. We have rather gon out to meet him, as we commonly meet a Just Enemy; Not to ask him forgiveness, but give him Battle. We have gon out to meet Christ, not like Them on Palm Sunday, who ran before him into Ierusalem, with Doxologies and Hosannahs to the Son of David; But rather like his first Crucifyers, with Swords and Staves to apprehend him. And how improsperous so­ever we have hitherto been in our Encounters; Though God hath many years knockt us against each other, and so oppos'd us unto our selves, as that we really became no less his Host, than his Enemies; yet like Marcellus in the Historian, Certamen ferociter instauramus, we are as sturdy a sort of Sinners, (many of us,) as if we never yet had smarted for having sin'd. It was Phormio's saying in Thucydides, That conquer'd men are [Page 99] commonly Crest-fallen, [...]. Thucyd. lib. 2. p. 161. and do remit of their cou­rage against a second Encounter, as soon as they have fatally incur'd the first. And shall we on the contrary be such a besotted kind of Warriars, as like the Indians in Valerius, (even in spight of Pythagoras his Golden Symbol,) to dare Encoun­ter with Fire it self? (For to those that fight with him, we know our God is a Consuming fire, Heb. 12. 29.) And since there is hardly any Affliction, (no not our late immoderate Rain) but is a spark of Gods wrath; Job 5. 6, 7. Ch. XLI. ver. 29. Let us not by our Impenitence presume to heighten it into a Flame. But

§. 3. Let it rather be our wisdom, from this day forewards, Venienti occurrere (non jam morbo quidem, sed) Medico. Since our Indeavours will come too late for the prevention of the Disease, Let us go meet our Physician, and stay the sharp­ness of the means he is preparing for our Recovery. We know not what Judgments may yet be ho­vering over our Heads; and perhaps our very Harvest may be as Terrible as our Spring. God will not give over the Cure, till the Disease is Desperate. For though his lesser sort of Punish­ments did scarce incline the Heart of Pharaoh, his last orecame it; (so far at least as to compel [Page 100] him to let the People go free.) And if his Launce is unsuccesful, we shall be so much the surer to feel his Caustick. But yet behold the Sun of Righteousness breaking forth in this place like the Sun of Nature. There is not wanting mat­ter of comfort, in the midst of those Terrors which have besieg'd us; Because the sharpest Judgments here are but the Regia Medicamenta, or Magiste­rials of our Physician; which, though by accident they may kill, are yet intended only to cure us. And this does lead me to consider the Third Particular in the Division,

III That God is far from delighting in his Inflictions; He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the Chil­dren of men. For the first and chiefest end both of his Menaces and his stripes, is not to destroy the sinner, but the sin; not to slay, but to reduce the Fugitive.

§. 1. Amongst the Reasons which may be render'd to prove the Truth of this Doctrine, This may certainly pass for one, That God is never so much in Wrath, as when he will not vouchsafe to strike. I remember Spartianus ob­serves of Geta, (much what Tacitus of Tiberius) Quod iis praecipue blandiretur quos ad Necem desti­nabat. [Page 101] He made so much of those persons whom he design'd for slaughter, That his Embraces and his best looks became more dreadful than all his Frowns. And though 'twere Impiety but to imagine, (what some notwithstanding have dar'd to Preach,) that God can absolutely will the eternal Ruin of his Creatures; much less that He can will it, when He hath sworn he wills it Not; much less yet that he can contrive it, by taking care for an Impenitence to bring it orderly about;Luk. 16. 25. Yet considering how rarely 'tis given to one and the same man, To sit with Dives at his Table, and to lye with Lazarus in Abraham's Bosome; To have his Good Things here, and hereafter too; I cannot but say of many persons whom the World calls happy, that They who have most of God's Bounty, may yet have least of his Love and Favour. For seeing it is True (what the Scripture saith) That whom God loveth he chasteneth,Heb. 12. 6. 7, 8. and Act. 14. 22.and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth; we may with good Logick infer, That whom he chasteneth not, he doth not love; nor receiveth any Son whom he doth not scourge. 'Twas very shrewdly said by Solon, Herodot. lib. 1. pag. 14. (if we believe He­rodotus,) [...], That the Minions of the Earth are but theProv. 1. sport of [Page 102] Heaven. God often lends them a kind of hap­piness, only to shew them he does but lend it. At once does prosper their Branches, and Curse their Root; turns them loose into Plenty, as fit to be fatted for the Shambles.

§. 2. But not to spend time in this Inquiry, How hardly God's Friends can be the Favorites of the World, or vice versa; And how by Consequence to be pitied those Creatures are, whom God Almighty in his Wrath permits to wallow in superfluity; Methinks the Difference may be This, betwixt a good man afflicted, and an ill man prosperous, that the first does seem to be clearly under God's Cure, and the second to be beyond it; That indeed a Tormented, but This a desperate Patient.

§. 3. It is another way of proving the Infi­nite Goodness of God's severity, in his willing­ness to Cure whom he vouchsafes to Wound, That he is pleased still to threaten, before he strikes; whensoever he is an Enemy, he is de­claredly such in his written Word. He is [...], (as Aristotle calls a Generous Enemy, Aristot. Eth. lib. 4. cap. 8.) And though his Love towards his Children may be sometimes conceal'd, yet his Anger at their Rebellions is still profest; and profest even to [Page 103] Them, whom he does punish with Impunity on this side Hell. Not like Brutus and Cassius, those reserv'd Enemies of Caesar, who Plotted to Murder him in secret; But like Pompey, and Cato, those Brave Antagonists, who bid him De­fiance in the Field. God does tell us when He will Arm himself, that we may stand upon our Guard by sincere Repentance; and he does shew us where he will strike, that we may look unto our Posture. He Brandishes his Rod, that he may not scourge us; and hangs his Sword over our Eyes, that it may not fall upon our heads. There is a Story of Diogenes, That being ask'd what he would take to receive a Blow upon his Head, his Answer was, He would take an Hel­met. Now such is the Mercy of our God, that he gives us an Helmet, before he strikes; And when at last our Provocations have forc'd his Sword out of his Hand, he is willinger to drop it, than throw it down. He does not pour out the Vials of his Displeasure all at once; but first he dispatches his lesser punishments; and those not as Harbingers, to prepare the way for greater, but rather as Heralds to prevent them. And when those greater too do follow, (I mean the Punishments inflicted in this present life,) [Page 104] they are oftner [...], than [...], (as Philoso­phers distinguish,) rather as motives to our Amendment, than as Acts of his Revenge. Thus we find it to have been in the case of Zacharie, Luk. 1. 19. 20. whose miraculous Iudgment was a Token of his Pardon, as well as Sin. God indeed struck him Dumb, but it was that ever after he might speak so much the better, and the Privation of his Lan­guage was to habituate his Faith. Nay I dare be bold to say, (what yet I cannot without Asto­nishment at the wisdom and goodness of our Creator, [...], Ploti­nus Ennead. 2. lib. 3. pag. 48.) that Damnation it self was at first meant to save us, in as much as it is evident that God made Hell, as well for the best as the worst of men; as well for the Terror of the former, as for the Torment of the later; as well to fright all men from coming thither, as to punish the Impiety of bold and desperate Intruders. Much like the merciful severity of former Magistrates here in England, who set up Pillaries and Gal­lowses in publick places of the Realm, as well to keep men from stealing, as to hang up Thieves and Robbers; as well to prevent, as to punish wickedness. And what a fathomless Abysse of God's compassion must we esteem it, to set his Bridewell before our eyes, as some say Phalaris [Page 105] did his Bull, meerly to compel us to take his Favours? How indulgent a Father must He be thought, who when his Prodigal Children are running from him, [...]. Barnab. in Epist. p. 249 Edit. Voss. sets a Lyon in their way, to fright them back into his Embraces? Nay so a­stonishing is the Depth of the Riches of his Good­ness, that He converts our very Tempter into an Instrument of our Good. For when the Devil was such a Dunce, as to accelerate and further the Death of Christ, who was to dye the Propiti­ation for all our sins, and only by Dying to con­quer Hell, he spent his Malice indeed upon our Saviour, but really the mischief was all his Own. So that considering how the Death of our blessed Saviour was at once a sure passage both to His, and Our Glory, It follows that when Iudas did kiss his Master, he only delivered up Christ, but betray'd the Devil. Thus we find St. Paul himself making very good use of the Devil's Discipline. For as one while we have him delivering others up to Satan, and that to this wholesome end,1 Cor. 5. 4, 5. 1 Tim. 1. 20. That they may learn not to Blaspheme; so another while we meet him under the buffeting of Satan in his own person also, and that for this important end, That he may learn not to be haughty, 2 Cor. 12. 7. or highly minded. And so the [Page 106] Devil, in that case, was made Instrumental to his Salvation.

§. 4. Thus we have the words verified which were written to the Christians who dwelt at Rome; to wit, That all things work together for good, Rom. 8. 28. that is, to them that love God, to them that are called according to his purpose. All that be­falls us by God's Appointment, and the most things that happen by God's Permission, are strangely turn'd to our Advantage, though we are many times so stupid, as not to be able to apprehend it. First the evils of affliction are uni­versally made to better us; And next, by the Wisdom of God's Disposal, the evil of sin, in other men, is many times of great use to secure our Innocence. Nor have we only heard the ob­liging Method of God's Proceedings, but I think I may say we have felt it too. How he first of all threatens, that he may not inflict; and how he afterwards inflicts, that he may not consume. How he mercifully indeavours to whip the Sinner into a Saint; destroying the Beast in us, to save the Man. How his Wisdom does sometimes suffer us to be intangl'd with Temp­tations, that so his Goodness may deliver us, and help us out; And that we may be able to say [Page 107] with David,Psal. 119. 75.Thou ô Lord of very faithfulness hast caused us to be troubled. That many times his se­verities are Mercies to us, will be intelligible to any, who shall but consult their own experience. I mean the experience of their lesser, in preven­tion of greater Punishments. As the loss of some Chattels, to save a Limb; or the loss of a Limb, to preserve the whole Body; or the loss of that Body, to save the Soul. Now if God shall de­prive us of one or two Parts, of all we Have, or of all we Are, when All of Both are confiscate for our Treasons committed against his Majesty; shall we not think our selves bound to be glad, and thankful, that even so he hath been pleas'd to reprieve the rest? Admit a Friend should be falling from off a Tower, Quae per insu­avitatem me­de [...]tur, emo­lumento cura­tionis offen­sam sui excu­sant. Tertul. de Poenit. cap. 10. and we in the snatching of him back, should put his Arme out of joynt; would he impute his Deliverance to our unkind­ness, because it cost him some pain in the pur­chase of it? And if in our violent Career of Sin, when we are rushing as it were headlong into the bottomless Pit of Hell, God is pleas'd to pull us back with a stronger violence, (be it by Poverty, or Disgrace, by the Plague of Pestilence, or of Famine, be it by any other purgent or dreadful means,) yet let us thankfully consider, 'tis but [Page 108] to snatch us from a Precipice. And again let us consider, (with as much thankfulness unto God as our hearts can hold,) That if Amendment is the End of his Threats and Terrors, Then that which frustrates his Threats, must needs fulfil them. Which I proceed to shew at large in my last Doctrinal Proposition.

IIII That God desiring antecedently the timely Re­pentance of a Sinner,Qui Poenam per judicium destinavit, Idem & ve­niam per poe­nitentiam spospondit.and only by way of conse­cution, the final destruction of the Impenitent; 'tis plain his Menaces are fulfilled by their never coming to pass; most fully satisfied and accom­plish'd,Tertul. de poenit. c. 4. not when they confound, but convert a sinner.

§. 1. For the better Elucidation of what may seem a dark Point, and for the prevention of such objections as may be made by those men, who are either so unconsidering as not to think of Gods Methods, or so unlearned as not to know them, or so prophane as to murmur and quarrel at them; we shall do well to take notice of those two sorts of Menaces, which do occur to us in Scripture under two several Notions. Some we find under God's Oath, and others only under his Word. The first of which are positive, the second sup­positive. [Page 109] The former are purposed as Revenges, but the later only as Remedies. The Menaces under his Oath he does evermore execute; where­as Those under his Word only He does many times Retract.

§. 2. But now it being not consistent with the simplicity of the Almighty, that either his Oath or his Retractation should differ really from his Will, the Eighth Council of Toledo will give us the Ground of this Distinction. Iurare Dei est, Concil. Tolet. 8. cap. 2. à seipso ordinata nullatenus convellere; Poeni­tere vero, eadem ordinata, cum voluerit, immutare. When God will Execute his Sentence, he is then said to Swear; And when he will alter, or remit it, he is said to Repent.Poenitentia Dei nihil aliud est, quā simplex con­versio prioris sententiae.God's Repentance (saith Tertullian) is nothing else, but a simple Re­suming his former Purpose. Tertul. con­tra Marc. lib. 1. c. 24. And his Oath (saith learned Philo) is nothing else but his Word exerting it self into Effect. So that the Promises and the Threats which are deliver'd under his Oath, [...] ▪ Philo Iud. Allegor. lib. 2. pag. 75. are That indeed which was but said of the now An­tiquated Laws of the Medes and Persians; Irre­versible, and peremptorie, and incapable of a Repeal. I shall make them both plain by a few Scriptural Examples. And

§. 3. First of the Promises under his Oath, [Page 110] the Prophet David gives us an Instance in the 89 Psalm, at the 34 verse, where first he posi­tively pronounceth, My Covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gon out of my lips. And then the reason of it follows, I have sworn by my Holiness that I will not fail David. Another Instance of it we have in the 7. of Deuteronomy, at the 8. verse, where God is said to love Israel more than any other Nation, even for this very reason, and this alone, because he would make good the Oath which he had sworn unto their Fathers.

Secondly of the Threats which God delivers under his Oath, we have a very pregnant In­stance in the 95 Psalm, at the 11 verse, where speaking of the Israelites to whom the Holy Land was promis'd, saith He, I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my Rest. Nor did one of them enter, excepting Caleb and Ioshua, who were exempted from the Sentence, Num. 14. 30. Nay they did not enter in, though God had sworn they should enter. From whence ariseth an objection, How it can stand with God's Veracity, to Swear they shall, and they shall not. For Num. 14, 23, Surely, saith God, they shall not see the Land which I sware unto their Fathers; And (vers. 30.) Doubtless ye shall not come into the [Page 111] Land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein. First he swore they should inhabit in the Land, and yet afterwards He swore they should not see it, much less should they enter, or dwell within it. This objection seems hard, but yet the Answer is very easie, and may be rationally drawn from the same verse with the objection. For the Promise was not made to the Individuals, but to the Nation; not to the Per­sons, but People Israel. So as both these Oaths were most inviolately accomplished, the Nega­tive in the Parents, and the Affirmative in their Posterity. The Negative in the Provokers, and the Affirmative in the Obedient. So that the [...], does still stand good.Heb. 3. 16. The Oath of God does still imply the Immutability of his Decree, Heb. 6. 17.

§. 4. But for the Menaces under his Word only, the Case is different. He had much ra­ther they should be frustrated, than severely fulfil'd upon us. And perhaps I may say with more propriety of speaking, that to frustrate such Menaces is most perfectly to fulfil them. So very signal is the Indulgence and Love of God, that he will imitate and follow his very Creatures. For no sooner can it Repent us of the evil of Sin [Page 112] which we have don, but He as suddenly repents him of the evil of punishment which he intended. It is his own Affirmation, Ier. 18. 8. If that Nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil which I thought to do unto them. And again in the same Chapter, Behold (saith God) I frame evil against you, Jer. 18. 11. when straight it follows, Return ye every one from the evil of his way. A fit example of this we have, 2 Kings 20. 1. where saith Isaiah to Hezekiah, (as a Message sent from God,) Set thy House in order, for thou shalt dye, and not live. And yet so far he is from dying, in the fift verse of that Chapter, that There we find tidings of his Recovery; yea and his Lease of Life renewed for fifteen years longer. Now the reason of it is, because such Menaces are conditional; And con­ditio non impleta non obligat Fidem. If it Repents us of our sins, God Almighty is not obliged to put such Threats in Execution, as were only denounced on a supposal of our Impenitence. Such was that Threat of God Almighty to Abimelech, (for unwittingly taking the Wife of Abraham,) Behold thou art but a dead man. But the meaning of it follows a little after, If thou restore her not, thou shalt surely dye. Now there­fore [Page 113] restore the man his Wife; for he is a Prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live. Gen. 20. 3, 7. And now if any shall yet object, that God did earnestly threaten both Hezekiah, and Abimelech, without a Proviso, or Reserve; I shall send him for an Answer to the Rule of Equity in Quintilian. Quaedam, etiamsi nulla legis significatione comprehensa sunt, natura tamen excipiuntur. The very Nature of certain words, whether promising, or threatning, do so imply an exception in certain cases and suppositions, that they save the Author of them the care and la­bour of expression. A plain Example of which we have in the 7 Chapter of Deuteronomy, where God had forbidden his People Israel to have any Traffick or Commerce with the Neighbouring Nations. And yet if any of those Nations should submit to pay Tribute, and yield obedi­ence to the Precepts which had been given down of old to the Sons of Noah, from that very In­stant Commerce was free. The Prohibition being silent, where the Cause of it did cease. Nay 'tis so absolutely impossible that any Falshood should proceed from the Mouth of Truth, or that his words should be found light in the Ballance of the Sanctuary, that we shall find them holding [Page 114] weight in our humane scales. For 'tis a Rule in our Law, Comminationes nemini jus conferre. And such is the Goodness of our Divine Legislator, that though he gives us a Title to any Rewards which he shall promise, yet he denies us all claim to any Punishments which he shall threa­ten. The reason is, because Promises are foun­ded in materia favorabili, which is in Equity to be stretch'd; But Menaces on the contrary in materia odiosa, which by consequence is to be streightned. For 'twas exactly said by Aristotle, That as the proper vertue of the Intellect is [...], so That of the Will is [...]. Both im­porting such an Equity and Equanimity in the Iudge, (that is to say,) such a propensity towards the right hand of Favour, as blunts and mollifies the Edge of a Rigid Iustice. Thus it ought to be in Man; But in God thus it Is. The Court of Heaven hath been alwayes a kind of Chancery, wherein he useth an Equiprudence in his judging of the Fact, and a gracious Equity in his passing of the Sentence.

§. 5. To conclude this part of my under­taking, and to vindicate God's Veracity from any unworthy Imputation, in the judgments of the best, and the worst of men also, (if they [Page 115] will but deal with God, as they Themselves would be dealt with by humane Laws,) There are three Cases amongst Civilians, wherein all obligations (whether by promises to Reward, or by Menaces to Punishment,) do cease to bind. And we shall find them all applyable to the Doctrine or Thesis we have in hand. First I say they cease to bind, per Cessationem rationis unicae; to wit Impenitence. Next per Casus emergentis Repugnantiam cum voluntate; to wit Repentance. Then per comparationem alterius legis; to wit the law of forgiveness to such as sincerely do Repent. If God hath threaten'd us with Destruction upon a supposal of our Impenitence, (which is the sole reason for which he threatens,) And if our Repentance shall interpose betwixt the Threat and the Execution, (which Repentance is an Emer­gency, to which the Will-of-God-to-punish is most Repugnant,) Then by vertue of the Promise of God to men, [That when soever they repent, they shall not fail of his Pardon,] he cannot possibly be obliged to put his Threat in Execution. For whatsoever may have been said to a yet-sinning People, (as once to Nineve,) yet such a People (like the Ninevites) may seasonably break off their sins by Righteousness, and make it just that [Page 116] the Statute should void the sentence. that is to say, that the Statute enacting Pardon to the Penitent, should void the sentence of Destruction which was but made to unrepenting and desperate Sinners.

§. 6. Now from all that hath been said of the last observable in the Text, it is obvious to gather this observation. That as the Impeni­tence of the Jews did work one Miracle, in that it hinder'd our blessed Saviour from working Mi­racles among them,Mat. 13. 58. which made it look like an infeebling even of Him who was Omnipotent; so Repentance can do a Miracle as great as That, even change the purpose of the Immutable; and when his Arrows are flying at us, can send them back into their Quiver. What a kind of Almigh­tiness hath the Almighty thus indowed Repen­tance with? And what stratagems does he use to induce us to it? How does he fright us to this Duty, (after the manner in which we deal with our little Children,) as well by slight and empty Buggs, as by real Dangers? How does he thunder out his Threats, as so many gracious Equivocations, which with a blessed kind of Fraud are meant to beguile us into Obedience? (It is indeed a bold Metaphor, but I borrow it from St. Paul, 2 Cor. 12. 16. who told his Corinthians, that being crafty, he caught them with guile.) How does [Page 117] he hold forth his Comets to a sinful Nation, very much rather to prevent, than presage his Pla­gues? How does he send out his Thunder, before his Bolt? and affright us with his Lightning, that he may not consume us with his Fire? How did he scare us very lately with Gluts of Rain, that he might not destroy us with perfect Famine? I pray contemplate on my Text, a little more attently before I leave it, and ye will find how exactly it is conformable to the Time. What Beams of Mercy may we descry, most sweetly breaking forth from a Cloud of Justice? How does his Pity in a manner give a Counter-check to his wrath? whilst he says in his Anger, Thus and thus will I do; his Loving kindness interposeth, Prepare to meet thy God ô Israel. Thus will I do, to destroy the Sin; but prepare to meet me, to the end that I may not destroy the sinner. 'Tis true we read that when Adrastes had kill'd the Son of King Croesus, Croesus was so touch'd with that very Murderer's Humiliation, as at that very time to pronounce his Pardon. A Temper (ye will say) in an Heathen Prince, which the grea­test part of Christians would admire sooner than imitate. But how transcendently greater is the Patience and the Love of our God to Us? For al­though [Page 118] by continuing in our Impieties, we often Crucify his Son, he is not only inclinable to give a Pardon, or a Reprieve, but does invite and desire us to give him leave too.

§. 7. If ye will take a right Prospect of both together, (I mean the twofold transcendency both of his Patience and his Love,) hear him speaking unto Israel, and through Israel unto our selves.

Your Povocations, ô Kine of Bashan, have fill'd my Vials full of Wrath.See a De­scription of God's Artil­lerie, Wisd. 5. 17, 18, &c. Behold my Ar­rows are on the strings, and my Thunder-bolt in my hand. I am now riding towards you upon the wings of a whirlewind; And as hetherto ye have found me a quickning Light, ye shall feel me henceforwards a killing Fire. But is there ne­ver a man among you who will make up the Hedge? who will come before me for the Land,Ezek. 22. 30.that I may not destroy it? Is there never a Moses who will stand in the Gapp? not a Phineas among you to stand up and pray? not an Abraham to plead for a Sister of Sodom? nor a Priest to weep out betwixt the Portch and the Altar? Is there never a man of Wisdom to hear my Voice, Mich. 6. 13. how long and audibly soever I have been crying unto the City? O come and stop me in my Carier. [Page 119] Let your Tears disarme me, and let your Pray­ers bind my hands. I will destroy you, But fain I would not. I am All [...]mighty indeed, But I am All-mercy too. And though ye cannot Resist, ye may Prevent me. Because I will do thus unto thee, prepare to meet me that I may not.

§. 8. Let us imagin within our selves, that God is speaking thus to Us, as once to Israel. And withal let us consider, what 'twill be fit­test for us to do. If he is coming to meet Us, as heretofore he met Ephraim, Hos. 13. 8. like a Leopard or a Bear that is bereaved of her Whelps; let us go out to meet Him, even as Benhadad met Ahab, 1 Kings 20. 32. even with Sackcloth upon our Backs, and with Halters about our Necks; or else (as Hushai met David,) with our Coats rent,2 Sam. 15 32.and with Earth upon our Heads. If God's Coming be as silent as a Thief in the Night, and withal as violent as a Thief in the Day; it will be infinitely better that we meet him half-way, than that we ex­pect him within our Dores. It will be best for us to meet him, that so his suddainness may not surprize us; And 'twil be best to prepare, that so his severity may not oppress us. Let us not meet him so soon, as not first to prepare; nor be so long in preparing, as not to meet him. They [Page 120] are Both together in my Text; and may they Both be together in all our Practice. Let us so in good Time meet our God with the fruits of sincere Repentance, as that our God in great Mercy may be pleased to meet us with Grace and Pardon.

And This the God of all Mercy vouchsafe unto us, both for the Glory of his Name, and for the worthiness of his Son. To whom with the Father, in the Unity of the Spirit, be ascri­bed the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, from this day forwards forevermore.

§. 1. THe Text (as things stand) should now be handl'd in such a manner, as to respect the double quality and complexion of the Time. A Time of Thanksgiving, and Fasting too. A Time of great Comfort, and yet of Mourning. A Time which placeth us in the Confine of those two Passions, which seiz'd upon the two Maries at the Sepulcher of our Lord; from which they are said to have de­parted, with Fear and great Ioy. Mat. 28. 8.

First 'tis matter to us of Ioy, that after the very same measure in which our Enemies from abroad did Increase upon us, our abler Enemy here at home began to be at Peace with us. And I think I may say without a Figure, that both the Dutch and the French have one Defeat without Fighting. For, weighing well the two [Page 124] Grounds whereupon the two Nations pre­sum'd against us, The unanimity of our Coun­trymen corrects the Insolence of the Dutch, and the Abatement of our Pestilence does Plague the French for their Supercherie.

But yet 'tis matter to us of Fear, and of Hu­miliation, that though the Pestilence decreases, it also continues in some degree; That whilst the Rod is removing, 'tis also hanging over our heads; And though the Furie of the Judgment is (God be thanked) well pass'd, yet the sense of its Threatnings is present with us. We know the Autumn, many times, is a pregnant season; nor can we Prophecy, This Month, what the Next may bring forth. And as the likelihood of a Victory must needs be very much allay'd by the Possibility of a Defeat; so must the Hopes of a Recovery by the great Danger of a Relaps. And seeing the Wisdom of Authority hath still ap­pointed this Day (although a Day of no sad Tidings) to be observ'd in all our Churches as a Day of Solemn Humiliation; let us Rejoyce with so much Trembling at the Retreat of God's Anger, as by Prayer and Fasting to stop the way to its Return. The Text which now lies before us is very fit for this Purpose. For

[Page 125]§. 2. Now it was that God's People, the men of Israel and of Iudah, after their mani­fold obligations to Watch, and Pray, and give Thanks, for their Deliverance out of Egypt, that House of Bondage, were most securely faln asleep in a dead Lethargy of Sin. A sleep in which they lay snoring with such Indulgency to Themselves, that all his ordinary Calls were too low to wake them. But God hath two sorts of Voices where­by to rouze us into Repentance. The one he ut­ters by his Prophets, and the other by his Rod. And we have Both in this verse, whereof my Text is the later part. For what we call the Lord's Voice, in the next words before my Text, The Chaldee paraphraseth well by [the voice of the Prophets of the Lord.] And This was it he first us'd to the men of Ierusalem and Samaria. Nor did he whisper into the Ear of only here and there one, but extended it to the hearts and the ears of all. The Lord's Voice cryeth unto the City, that is, his voice by the Prophets is lifted up like a Trumpet, to shew the people their Transgressions, and the House of Iacob their Sins. (Isa. 58. 1.) But since the Voice by his Prophets is only heed­ed by very few, (that is to say, here and there by a man of Wisdom,) at least give ear unto the [Page 126] voice which now he uttereth by his Rod; and look ye up unto the hand that hath laid it on. The Chaldee Paraphrase on the Persons to whom the words are directed is most remark­able. For 'tis not only, hear ye Tribes; as the Septuagint read, and the vulgar Latine; nor only hear ye the Rod; as the Interlineary Hebrew. But, here ye Princes, and Rulers, and People of the Earth. Or (as I find it translated by Learned Grotius) Audite Rex, & Proceres, & Conventus. Which I cannot better English, than by King, Lords, and Commons. Let your Qualities or Conditions be what they will, Audite Vos Virgam, Hear Ye the Rod. So that the Voice of the Pro­phets, (in the beginning of the verse,) does seem to differ just as much, from the voice of the Rod, (in the later end,) as the Prophecy from the Iudgment which is Prophecyed of; or as the Threat from the Sentence, and some degree of Execution; or as the Preaching from the Text which is Preached on.

§. 3. This is therefore God's Method for the calling of Sinners unto Repentance. The pub­lick Preachers of his Word do first give warning. Then the truly wise in heart do fear and tremble at the Word Preach'd. Yet the foolish and in­considerate, [Page 127] (who are the most of Mankind) be­ing deaf to that Word, and not afraid of that Warning, The Rod comes in with its Sermon, or excitation to Repentance, and All are conju­red to hearken to it.

This (considering how the words are made obscure by an Elipsis, which the most Critical Commentators have several Methods of filling up) I do conceive to be the plainest and most satis­factory scope of the words in Hand. The Lords Voice cryeth unto the City, and the man of wisdom shall see thy Name.

Hear ye the Rod, and who hath appointed it.

§. 4. The Text in the General, or in the Great, does present us with an Embassy from Heaven to Earth; which being taken in the Re­tail, doth spread it self into these Particulars.

First the Embassadour here employ'd; and that is expressed to be the Rod.

Secondly the People to whom directed; And These are imply'd in the Pronown Ye. My Israel, my Chosen, the peculiar Lot of mine Inheri­tance, Audite Vos, hear Ye.

Thirdly the Audience, or Attention, which is to be given to the Embassadour; Audite, Hear. [Page 128] Last of all we have the Potentate from whom the Embassadour is dispatch'd, described clearly by the Periphrasis of [Him who hath appointed it.]

The first and second of these particulars will be best capable of Discourse, not severally handled, but in conjunction. For the close Ap­plication of the Embassadour to the People, the Rod to Israel, will very seasonably afford us this Doctrinal Proposition.

That God Almighty is so far from conniving at, or not seing Sin in his Children, (though the Tempter in these Times hath taught a great num­ber of men to flatter themselves into Destruction by this Opinion,) that he hates, and will punish it, much more in Them, than in Those that are Stranger, and Aliens to him.

§. 1. Which to the end I may evince in the clearest Method that I can use, I shall first of all observe out of Aulus Gellius, Aul. Gell. l. 6. c. 14. p. 224. (what He him­self does observe out of Plato's Gorgias,) That there are three distinct ends for which Offenders are to be punish'd. Whereof the first is [...], for the Amendment of Offenders. The second [...], for the Benefit of such as are Lookers-on. The third [...], for the Party's Satis­faction [Page 129] who is Offended. And if we look on all Three, as they are applicable to God, in his laying on of stripes on the sons of Men; whe­ther the End of his Inflictions is to redeem us from our Iniquities, or to fright Lookers-on from daring to do as we have don, or to make some Amends to his injur'd Goodness; we shall find him ever Iust, after the measure that he is Merciful. And as he is kinder by much to the little Flock, which he hath tenderly Pent up in his rich Inclosure, than to the numerous Herd which are turn'd out into the Common, so is he rigider to the Sheep that rudely break out of the Fold, than to the Swine or the Goats that were never in it. For the better evidencing of which, let us consider his Rod of Iustice with its three final Causes, and mark how fitly it tends to each.

§. 2. First I say the Rod of God is [...], (as Plutarch calls it,) the Med'cin, or means of Cure, unto the Souls of such men as are sick of Sin. So much the Med'cin, that Plato will allow it no other end; and Lucius Seneca looks upon it, as a Thing that can be useful for no­thing else.Seneca de Ir [...]. l. 1. r. 16. p. 406.Nemo prudens punit, quia peccatur, sed nepeccetur. We are not punished (saith he) because we have already sin'd, but only to the [Page 130] end we may sin no more. And his Reason is as plausible as the matter will bear. Revocari praete­rita non possunt, futura prohibentur. Whatsoever is past, is past all Remedy; And an evil of Sin already don, no evil of Punishment can have the power to undo. But what is future, and yet to come, may be anticipated at present; and though we cannot retrive yesterday, we may wisely provide against the morrow. Nay the sharpest of Remedies is so desirable, where continuance in Sin is the Disease, that when the Patient cannot be cur'd, 'tis a kind of a Favour, to cut him off. Interdum ut pereant, [...]. Helio­dor. lib. 1.interest pereuntium. Even Destruction it self is many times very Medicinal. And many thousands had been undo [...], if they had not perish'd. Sure I am that St. Paul was of this opinion, when he deliver'd men up to Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh,1 Cor. 5. 5.that their Spiri [...]s might be saved in the Day of the Lord Iesus. And re­flecting upon the words which were spoken by Christ of his own Betrayer,Mar. 14. 21.Good it were for that man that he had never been born; [...]. Plotinus Enn. 1. l. 7. p. 62. we may infer, with good Logick, It had been good for that man, to have liv'd very little beyond his Birth. For when the Devil shall give a Visit to such an Impenitent on his Death-bed, his wish will una­voidably [Page 131] be one of these two, That he had led his life better, or sooner dyed. So clear a Truth as this is the very Heathens could discern by the light of Nature. Alexis in [...]. Not Plotinus only the Platonist, but Alexis the Comoedian.

That is, the first Degree of Happiness, is not at all to receive a life; And the next, is to leave it early.

§. 3. To make my meaning more plain by a familiar Illustration; Admit the Arm or the Legg of any mans body is gangren'd, we do not say it is the Cruelty, but the Skill of the Chirur­geon to cut it off. And if the Patient being angry shall expostulate with the Artist in such a Case, or demand by what Authority he does such things,Crysost. ad 2. Cor. 7. 13. St. Chrysostom tells him he may An­swer, [...]. Dost thou ask me, honest friend, why I cut thee off a Limb? Cuncta prius tentanda, sed immedicabile vulnus Ense recidendum est, ne pars sincera traba­tur. That which gave me this Authority was my Art, and thy Disease. My Art inform'd me 'twas to be don, and thy Disease bid me do it.

Crudelem Medicum Intemperans Aeger facit. [Page 132] And then considering how much the Soul is more preferable to the Body, Apul. de Phi­los. l. 3. p. 48. 49. than the Body can be to a single Member, I cannot choose but as­sent to that Platonick Aphorism in Apuleius,Si nequitia miseros facit, miserior sit necesse est diu­turnior nequā, quos infelicis­simos esse judi­carem, si non eorum mali [...]i­am saltem mors extrema [...]iniret. Boeth. de Cons. Phi­los. l. 4. p. 150Gravius & acerbius est omni supplicio, si noxio im­punitas deferatur; that to the wicked, in this world, the greatest Punishment is Impunity. For Remedy being by Nature very much better than Disease, and so a desperate Remedy than a desperate Di­sease, it must necessarily follow, that to a sin­ner who is Incorrigible, Death it self becomes a Curtesy. The reason is, because it renders him less unhappy, Mali cùm Supplicio [...]a­rent, inest iis aliquid alte­rius mali, ipsa Impunitas. than he would otherwise have been. For that even in Hell there is Room for Curtesy, is just as clear as that the greater infer's the lesser Damnation, —Multo igitur infeliciores sunt Improbi injustâ impu­nitate donati, quàm justâ [...]ltione puniti. Id. ib. p. 152. Mat. 23. 14. And as one Star differs from another Star in Glory; so in the Territories of Darkness, we are told of a diffe­rence between the Sodomites and the Iews, Mat. 11. 23, 24. and so we read of great difference be­tween the punishments inflicted on several Ser­vants; some whereof shall be beaten with many stripes, and some in comparison with but a few. Luk. 12. 48. Now they who know what it is, for the unjust to be reserv'd unto the Day of Judg­ment to be punished, (2 Pet. 2, 9,) will soon con­fess [Page 133] it to be a Truth which is asserted by Boetius, (however an Infidel may be so dull as to be­lieve it a Contradiction,) Cui sententiae consequens est, ut tum de­m [...]m gravio­ribus supplici­is urgeantur, cùm impuniti, esse creduntur. Id. ib. p. 153. That wicked men are Then plagu'd with the more grievous kinds of pu­nishment, when they are thought by standers-by to escape unpunish'd. And clear it is that That Tradition of the wandring Cartophilus, who had been Ianitor (saith Cluver) to Pontius Pilate, Cluverius in Rudolpho Se­cundo ad an. 1600. p. 759. 760. (whether Truth, or Fiction,) does shew a good part of Christendom to have been strongly of this Opinion. For it seems they could not in­vent a severer Punishment to the Iew, for his having contumeliously struck our Saviour, as he was going from Pilate's House unto the Place of Execution, than that our Saviour should condemn him to an Immortality upon Earth; to wander up and down in several parts of this world, beaping up wrath against the day of wrath, and then only to fall, when all the world must rise again. And if 'tis so in good earnest, as it hath hetherto been contended, That previous Punishments are conducing to the Amendment of a Sinner, and conducing in such a measure, that even De­struction is for his Interest, when past Amend­ment; sure God will not withhold it from the unworthiest Subjects of his Dominion, much less [Page 134] from Them who are the Children of his Household. If Pharaoh the Drudge be once admitted under his Cure, sure Ioseph the Darling shall much more be so. For the first and chiefest end of our being so judged as to be chasten'd in the world, is [...], that we may not so be judged as to be damned with the world. 1 Cor. 12. 32. And therefore ye that pretend to be none of their number, who by being uncorrected are known to be Bastards rather than Sons, (Heb. 12, 8,) Audite Vos Virgam, Hear Ye the Rod.

§. 4. The Second End of Punishment is [...], for the Benefit of such as are Lookers-on. And it tends to their Benefit in two respects. First by removing an Example of Sin, which might otherwise make them worse, and next by shewing one of Punishment, which hath an Apti­tude at least to make them better.

§. 5. For the first of these two there is very great Reason. Because your Exemplary Sinners are such a publick sort of Mischiefs, such Epi­demical Diseases, that Seneca looks upon them as on Venemous Beasts, Seneca de Ira, lib. 2. and professeth he would destroy them with the same temper of mind, [Page 135] wherewith he would chop off a Vipers Head; lest by permitting them to live, and to fill the Aire with their poison, they should happen to be contagious to all that neighbour within their stentch. So that Seneca (it seems) was a kind of a Zelot, though not a Iew; and spake at the rate at which Phineas acted; who finding Zimri and Cosbi in their openfac'd Villany, dispach'd them both in as great hast, as a man would have us'd to a couple of Serpents. And indeed he had reason for what he did. For as the rational kind of Viper is more malignant than any other, so of that sort too the most destructive is the religious; (such I mean as are reckoned such, by their putting on Godliness for a Disguise.) There are no such false fires for the leading of Passengers out of their way, as the reputed People of God when they once turn straglers. For as their good Conversation is the Decoy of Heaven, and brings in Proselites to God; so their scandalous exam­ple is the Pandar to Hell, and makes Clients for the Devil. If the People of God refuse the Love of the Truth, 2 Thes. 2. 10. how shall the Heathens then em­brace it, to whom it is but seldom, if sometimes offer'd? If Iudah her self become an Harlot, Babylon is confirmed in all her Whoredoms. And [Page 136] if Israel worship a Calf, how shall Egypt not be Idolatrous? when there ariseth a Dispute betwixt the Iews and the Gentiles, (as once betwixt Elijah, 1 Kings 18. 21. &c. and the Prophets of Baal,) whose God is the truest, and so the fittest to be adored; The Iews have need to prove Theirs, as well by the Sanctity of their Lives, as by the strangeness of their Miracles. Aestimari de [...] Cultoribus suis potest ille qui colitur. Quo­modo enim bonus Magister est, cujus tam malos vide­mus esse Dis­cipulos? Sal­vian. de Gu­bern. Dei. l. 4. Else the Gentiles will conclude them, not to have the truer Prophets, but the skilfuller Magicians. And all their signes which are drawn from Heaven, will pass but for Sor­cery fetch't up from Hell. David laid so great a stress upon this one consideration, that when an evil Example was shewn in Israel, it was his first and greatest Care to have the matter kept secret from those without, 2 Sam. 1. 20. know­ing well that the Example of a scandalous Israel, would soon redound to the discredit of Him that had owned them for his People; Deut. 7. 6. And that it is the usual Custome of the giddily-unjust and censorious world, to pass their Judgment upon the Master, by the Behaviour of his Servants; to make an estimate of the Father, by the Breed­ing of his Children; and so to measure the God too, by the practice of his Votaries.

[Page 137]§. 6. Now since Experience it self, as well as Scripture, doth serve to prove it a disgrace to the Truth of God, for the Professors of the Truth to hold the Truth in unrighteousness; Can we ima­gine it to be likely, that God will harden the Pagans Hearts by the prosperous example of Israels Sin? no, he will mollifie them rather by the publick Example of their Correction, (which is the second of those Respects, in which the pu­nishment of Offenders is for the Benefit of such as are lookers on.) So he once tells them by the Prophet Ezekiel, (chap. 5. vers. 7. & 8.) That he will punish them in the sight of all the Nations round about. Nay so he tells them in one Chapter no less than 4 or 5 times, (it is the 39. of the same Ezekiel,) I will not let them pollute my Name any more, and the Heathen shall know that I am the Lord. (ver. 7, 21, 24,) And again, (ver. 26, 27, 28,) They shall bear their shame, and be led into Captivity among the Heathen, that God may be san­ctified in them in the sight of many Nations. And why is all this, but that their Sufferings for sin may be as Exemplary and publick, as their Sins for which they suffer? God will be very far from giving a just occasion, of his being ill thought of amongst the Heathen; They shall be far from [Page 138] finding Him to be a Sanctuary for sinners, re­maining such. When Israel will not hear, they shall feel his Rod; and the Rod shall be so laid on, that even Edom and Philistia shall hear its Voice. And the Voice of this Rod shall be like that of the Prophet Zachary. Zack. 11. 2. Howl Firr Tree, for the Cedar is faln; howl ô ye Oaks of Bashan, for the Forest of Vintage is cut down. The Voice of this Rod shall be heard in Babylon; and it shall make the same Inference, which St. Peter did when he was there. If Iudgment begin at the House of God, 1 Pet. 4. 17. what shall their end be who are not obedient unto the Gospel? I will shut up this point with that of Salvian. Deus partim gladio, partim exemplo corrigit, ut omnibus simul & coer­cendo censuram & indulgendo pietatem probaret. God does partly punish by Stripes, and partly by Example, (that is, partly by the stroke, and partly by the voice of his Fatherly Rod,) that at once he may testify to the world, as well his Iustice, by the one; as by the other, his Longani­mity. This is said by God in Scripture to be a great end of Punishment,Deut. 17. 13. That all the People may hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously. And therefore Ye that have been hetherto the greatest strangers to Affliction, by the Injoymen [...]s [Page 139] of your Peace in a Time of War, and of abun­dance of Plenty in Times of want, and now of bodily health in a Time of sickness; who seem to look as unconcern'dly on the miseries of your Brethren, as if yourselves had an exemption from all Adversity, and were seated above the level of all God's Arrows; Audite Vos Virgam, hear YE the Rod.

§. 7. The Third End of Punishment is [...], for Revenge; [...]. Arist. Rher. l. 1. c. 10. that is, (as Aristotle in­terprets it) to repair the honour, and to satisfie the Iustice of that Authority, which the Trans­gressions of a Sinner appear so highly to have offended. And in this respect also, as God is iust to all in general, so to his People in particular he is severest. He is very much offended with the Adulteries of the Harlot, but more with the Whoredoms of an obliged Spouse. If the Doves which have an house on purpose erected for their Reception, shall fly away from that House, to be Birds of Prey, they deserve by so much a greater punishment, than Crowes and Harpies, by how much the more they were cared for, and with a more peculiar Providence. So by the same proportion of Justice, God will much sooner [Page 140] scourge the Flocks of Ioseph for their wandrings, than the Kine of Bashan, because there is much a richer feeding in the Plains of Iordan, than on the Mountains of Samaria. Now he whips them with Babylon, ThatIsa. 10. 5.Rod of his Anger. Anon he beats them with Aegypt, ThatIsa. 10. 5.Staff of his Indignation. And if That will not serve, he hews them down at last with Rome, which we may call (by good Analoge) the Axe or Hatchet of his Fury.

§. 8. And if now after the Iews, the People of God under the Law, we reflect upon our selves, who are his People under the Gospel, ob­serving whether we have been falling, as well as from whence, (from the most Christian, the most Reform'd, and the most Disciplin'd sort of Peo­ple, to the most barbarous, the most profane, and I wish I may not [...]ay, the most disorder'd in all the world,) we shall find this difference be­twixt the Heathens and our selves, That They indeed are a diseas'd People, but we commonly a relaps't one. They indeed do disavow the Lord Jesus in their words, But we deny him in our works. They indeed do not receive the Love of the Truth, But we refuse it. They indeed are [Page 141] Erroneous in a very deep measure, but (which is infinitely worse) how many amongst Us are grown Heretical? In so much that whilst They do only want a Physician, the generality of us do stand in need of an Executioner. And now, to compare our selves with some of our Fellow-Christians, (those I mean in the Church of Rome,) whilst their Church is called the Whore of Baby­lon, do not they call ours the Whore of Babel, though not with any Truth, yet with some Plau­sibility? there being a Babel in our Nation, though not in our Church? and many parts of this Nation being become so much the fouler, (I will not say for having been, but) since the time of her being swept, that for one Devil of Popery She hath been dispossessed of, She may be thought (by the Care of Rome) to have given entrance unto seven. It is therefore (as it proves) our unhappy Priviledge of having once drawn neerer, not only to the Mercy, but to the Holi­ness of God, than other Nations, that God is the r [...]adier now in Iustice to stand the farther off from us. And if by a seasonable Repentance, we do not recover our first Approaches, 'twill be as tolerable for Rome in the last great Day, as for Us of this Nation. And so (on a Parallel suppo­sition) [Page 142] it will be somewhat more tolerable for Jerusalem, than for Rome; for Aegypt, than for Jerusalem; for Babylon; than for Aegypt; for S [...]ythia, than for Babylon; and for the wild Salvages, than for them all.

§. 9. Ye will consent the more readily to what I say, by considering those words of our blessed Saviour, Luk. 10. 15. And thou Capernaum which art exalted to Heaven, shalt be thrust down to Hell. Therefore to Hell, because from Heaven. For the higher any one is, by so much greater must be his Fall. When the Eagle in the Apologue caught up the Shell-Fish into the Clouds, it was to break it the more infallibly by letting it fall upon the Stones. And though indeed the God of Heaven never takes any into his favour, to the end he may give them the greater Fall; yet when such will needs fall from their highest Station, they must needs be the unliklier to rise again. They being so broken by their Fall from so high a Pitch, Heb. 6. 4, 5, 6. that hardly any thing can joynt them, or make them whole. For, in our Saviour's own phrase,Mat. 21. 44. They will be grinded to Powder. And 'tis obvious to infer from those other words of Christ, Sin no more, least a worse thing come [Page 143] unto thee, Confer John 5, 14. cum 2 Pet. 2. 20, 21. (Joh. 5, 14,) That God will punish Malefactors, as well in regard of the Benefits they have received, as for the Sins they have committed. And therefore ye that make it your Boast, That ye are Members of a Christian Re­formed Church, Gal. 4. 24, 25, 26. not the Children of Hagar, which is Mount Sinai, and which gendreth to Bondage, but of Jerusalem which is above, and therefore Children of the Promise, whereby ye have the priviledge to call him Father, who by Them that are without, is to be look't upon only as a Creator, and a Judge; And by your being more obliged than other men, are grown by so much the more accountable; Audite Vos Virgam, Hear Ye the Rod.

§. 10. But (Lord) how many have we known, in these last and worst times, who (like Hiel the Bethelite in the Building of Jericho) have laid the Foundation of their Greatness in their First-born, 1 King. 16. ult. and set up its Gates in their younger Children, and yet have been deaf as any Adders, to the Voice of God's Rod in so clear a Cafe? Unto how many of our new Builders, who have cemented their Walls with the price of Bloud, and have set their Nest on high, (with a presumption to be deliver'd from the Power of Evil,) hath [Page 144] the well-instructed Stone cry'd out of the Wall, and the Beam out of the Timber made answer to it, who yet have stop't their Eyes and Ears against the Messages of the Rod that hath spoken to them? I hearkened and heard, (said God here­tofore of his People Israel,) but no man repented him of his wickedness, saying, what have I don? every one turned to his Course,Jer. 8. 6.as the horse rusheth into the Battle. And we do commonly so resem­ble that senseless People, (as to the Callousness of our hearts, and inconsideratness of mind,) that whensoever God dispatches any Embassadour of his Displeasure, although he speaks so loud, that it is hard not to hear him, yet we commonly care so little, as that we seldom or never give ear unto him. Or if perhaps we are attentive to the Voice of Gods Rod, yet we are deaf to the Message on which it comes. Whereas the Audi­ence and Attention which God requires, is rather meant of the second, than of the first of these two. We are not to hearken how it sounds only, but to consider what it says too. Every lash of Gods Rod should make us reflect upon a sin. And as Joseph's false Brethren, when they were brought into Distress, did straight reflect on that Distress into which they had brought their [Page 145] Brother Ioseph; Gen. 42. 21. so if at any time we are groan­ing under the Miseries of a War, we should ex­amine how many ways we abus'd our Peace. If at any time we are brought into some great De­gree of Penurie, we should consider if we have not abus'd our Plenty. And if at any time (as of late) we fall into Times of general sickness, we should reflect on those Sins which have been the great Abuses, and so the Forfeitures of our health. Might I ground a conjecture touching the Message or the Cause of our present Rod, from the words of three Prophets,2, 12. Habakkuk, 3, 1. Na­um, and24, 9. Ezekiel, I should be prompted to con­sider, how many Houses in the late Times have been built with Blood. And Blood we know hath a Voice; yea, and such a Voice too, asGen. 4. 10. cries to Heaven for Revenge. And being the loudest of Cry­ers, 'tis soonest heard. But yet the lover of Souls, who is a God ready to Pardon, in the midst of his Iudgments remembreth Mercy. From whence it is, the Lords Voice does cry aloud unto the City, that the Voice of the City may cry as loud unto the Lord; and that the Voice of mens Tears may even drown that of Blood, as the louder Stentor. Cer­tainly nothing but Repentance will be able to cry up those hovering Judgments, which our Na­tional [Page 146] Sins have been calling down. Nor can any other Repentance cry louder unto God than our Sins have don, but that which brings forth Amendment, and change of life. And this does lead me to the Audience which God would have given to his Embassadour, the third particular in the Division, and next in order to be consider'd.

§. 1. Hear the sound of God's Rod, and hear the sense, or signification. For as the Voice of his Rod is double, to wit the lashing of the Aire, and the beating upon our shoulders; the for­mer, when he threatens, and only threatens to in­flict it, the later, when he proceeds to put his Threats into Execution; so the Message which it brings us is double too; for 'tis expostulatory in part, as when it chides us for our Sins; and in part it is exhortatory, as when it presses us to Re­pentance. Such is the admirable contrivance and disposition of Gods Inflictions, that they commonly speak his Mercy at the same instant with his Iustice. As if it were not sufficient that his Ballance is equal, and that he puts Punish­ment into one Scale, as we Offences into the other; [Page 147] He makes the Punishment many times to have such a similitude with the Sin, as that the Pati­ent may see his Malady in the Nature of the Means which are meant for Cure. [...]. Thus in that famous Controversy 'twixt God and Sodom, we may observe an Analoge as well of Likeness, as of Proportion; for besides that his Iudgment was just as general as their Sin, and only a Lot exem­pted from the one, who only was guiltless of the other; they were appositely burnt with Fire of Brimstone, as before they had been with the Fire of Lust. And as their Lust was contrenatu­ral, although from Hell; so likewise was their Fire, because from Heaven. Thus when Corah and his Confederates (the very first Levellers we ever read of) had widely open'd Their Mouths against Moses and Aaron, straight the Earth, by way of Talio, open'd hers against Them. No sooner were their Throats become open Sepul­chers for the Burying of their King and their Priest alive, but straight it follows in the Text, that they were swallowed up quick. And thus as Iosephs cruel Brethren would not hearken to His Request, when he besought them in the anguish and in the bitterness of his Soul; Gen. 42. 21. vers. 17. so for three dayes together He would not hearken unto [Page 148] Theirs, when in the bitterness of their Souls they had sought it of him. And so, as Dives denyed Lazarus a Crum of bread to stay his hun­ger, he was denyed by the same Lazarus a drop of water to cool his Toung. But we need not go further to find out Instances of the Harmony, betwixt the Punishment of Sin, and the Sin it self, than to the words of the Commission with which the Rod was here sent to the men of Israel. The Lords voice cryeth unto the City. And first it crys for Attention, hear Ye the Rod. Next it cryes as an Herauld, that is, it Proclaims the Sin and Punishment of the People. Are there yet the Treasures of wickedness, and the scant mea­sure that is abominable? There's their Sin. Then follows the Punishment, (vers. 14.) Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied. Again the Rod of God saith, (vers. 12.) The rich men thereof are full of Violence. Whereupon it denounceth, (vers. 15.) Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the Olives, but not anoint thy self with Oyle. Nor is there any thing more equal, than that wicked men should suffer the hainous things that they have don; that the covetous Op­pressor should be Plagu'd with Penurte; and that They who have grinded the very faces of the [Page 149] poor, should finally be famish't for want of Bread.

§. 2. But let us divert our thoughts a while, from the Times of the Text to these we live in. For God hath sent such an Embassadour unto Us of this Nation, as heretofore to the People Israel. And it is now a great while, since our Guilts have risen up into a Rod of wickedness. Ezeck. 7. 11. I mean the Rod of Gods Anger, by which our wickedness is corrected. It being more than twenty years, (and with but little Respiration) since his Rod has been speaking to us in several Dialects of severity. First of all it spake to us by Drums, and Trumpets, and by as many wide Mouths, as the Sword had made wounds in our English Nation; by lying Prophets in the Church, by prosperous Rebels in the State, by loss of ho­nour, and of Religion, by Sacriledge, and Regi­cide, and other execrable effects of a Civil War. From which we have not yet injoy'd more than a five years Respiration, when our Unthankful­ness for That hath betrayed us to a greater and sadder Judgment. For so notable is the diffe­rence betwixt our War heretofore, and our Pe­stilence of late, That the former might be called a Rod of Chastisement, whereas the later began to look like a Beesom of Destruction. That Cor­rected [Page 150] our Nation, but this did threaten to sweep it away. In a very long War there may be very few Battles; But the Pestilence is an Enemy so very skilful to destroy, as that it makes both a nightly and daily Slaughter. It hath slain many more Thousands within the compass of a few months, than our War was found to do in as many years. Just so it was with the famous Pestilence in Thucydides. Thucyd. l. 2. p. 129. ad p. 134. More Athenians were taken off by that invisible Arrow in a few dayes, than by all the great Armies of the Peloponnesians in di­verse years. [...], &c. Ib. p. 129. Invisible I call it, because it walketh in Darkness, and even at that very time when it destroys at noon Day. (Psal. 91, 6.) And 'tis fitly call'd anPsal. 91. 5. Arrow, as well for the swiftness, as sharpness of it. For how swiftly did it fly (in Thucydides his Time) from Ethiopia into Egypt, from thence to Libya, from thence to Persia, from thence to Athens? And how like an Arrow did it fly, [...]. ib. p. 129. (to give an Instance in our own,) as from Amsterdam to London, so pre­sently from thence into divers Countries? Nor did the swiftness of this Arrow exceed the sharp­ness of it at Athens. Where having kill'd up the Physicians, it bred a general neglect of all Indea­vours of Recovery. It made them weary of their [Page 151] Devotions, which at first they had imploy'd as the means of Cure. And, pushed on by their Im­patience, to a [...]. Ib. p. 132, 133. contempt of things Sacred, as well as secular, they grew elaborately Voluptuous in the injoying the goods they had, because they knew not how soon they might loose or leave them. None would enter on any work, [...]. Ib. p. 133. as look­ing to dye ere they could end it. Nor did they fear any Breach of Law, as not believing they could live to be punish't for it. Again this Arrow is so noysome, as well as sharp, (and therefore fitly call'd by David the noysome Pestilence, Psal. 91, 3,) that it does many times kill with the Breath of life. Nay (which is much worse than killing,) it makes a man to be forsaken by the Wife of his Bosom, and even abhor'd by his inward friends; Job 19. 17, 19. as Iob acquaints us with the Acme of all his sufferings. Zosimus tells us of a Pest in the Time of the Emperour [...]. Zosim. Hist. l. 1. p. 21. Gallienus, which was so very much more fierce than the fiercest War, that all they suffer'd from their Enemies was light and moderate in comparison. Nay he tells us of a Pest in the Time of Gallus, (and in the Northern parts of the Roman Empire,) which coming presently after a War, [...], destroy'd the whole of Mankind which [Page 152] the War had left. [...]. Zosim. Ib. pag. 14. There the Rod of God's An­ger was improv'd into the Beesom I lately spake of. It was not only a pungent, but sweeping Rod. And truly such as it was there, it will be here when God pleases. For our greater means of Grace, and more abundant measure of knowledge, are apt to aggravate our Iudgments, because our Sins. And if our Punishment is less, when our Sins are much greater than other mens, it is a just ground of fear, that we are not wholly pardon'd, but only temporally repriev'd, not ac­quitted from the present, but rather reserved for a future, and greater Judgment.

§. 3. Yet so little is this consider'd, and laid to heart in our English Nation, that our general unconcernedness in the miseries of others, and our apparent Inadvertency how much our own may be greater by seeming less, does pass with some for the greatest of all our miseries. For though the Rod of Gods Anger, hath been thus far the Rod of his tender Love too, that it hath sought to gain from us a Day of Hearing, first by its brushing in the Aire, and then by its beating upon our shoulders; yet so barbarous have we been in our Reception of God's Embassadour, that we [Page 153] have hardly yet allow'd it a patient Audience. We have not hearkn'd to the Rod, nor to him who hath appointed it. Nay so much are many of us become the worse for those Messages, which God had purposely designed to make us better, that we may seem to have abused his special Grace into an Instrument of becoming the more ungracious; And by a necessary consequence, to have so much of God's Mercy as to be damn'd by. For should a Porphiry or a Iulian revive amongst us, and together with the profession compare the practice of many Christians, they would have reason to admire, why a great part of Christendom should be rather call'd Christians, than by any other Name; why rather Christi­ans, than Antichristians, considering how they live in a direct contrariety, at once to the Do­ctrine and Life of Christ, What have such men to do to take his Name within their mouths, whilst they hate to be reform'd, and cast his words behind their backs? Psal. [...]0. 16, 17.) Do they not call Christ their King by the same kind of Ironie by which the Iews call'd him Theirs, when platting a Crown upon his Head, and putting upon him a Purple Robe, they said in the bitterness of their Spirits, Haile King of the Iews? Joh. 19. 2. 3. And just as [Page 154] the Gnosticks heretofore, by owning Christ for their Masters whilst they were servants to the Devil, brought the Christian Religion into such ha [...]r [...]d among the Gentiles, that they esteem'd it a meer Device to legitimate Parricide, and In­cest, and some such other enormous Villanies, as were not so much as to be nam'd, much less committed among the Heathens; so 'tis worthily to be fear'd, that when a sort of Professors a­mongst our selves, who call themselves Christi­ans, and Christians of the Reformation, shall be spoken of in Gath, [...]. Clement R [...]m. in Epist. ad Cor. p. 62. and published abroad in the streets of Askelon, the Daughters of the Philistins will too much rejoyce, the uncircumcised will greatly triumph. I say 'tis too much to be fear'd, (and cannot be too much consider'd, unless too late to be prevented,) least that Christ a second time should become through our means, To the Iews a stumbling Block, and to the Greeks Foolish­ness. The greatest comfort of hope we have left is This, That as the scandalous Aspersions which first were cast on Christianity were wash'd away by the Blood of the antient Martyrs, and blotted out by the Ink of the learned Fathers of the Church; so our Protestant Religion may yet be vindicated and rescued from those Aspersi­ons [Page 155] and Brands of Schism and Atheism, where­with some of our Enemies already have, and others are likely to stigmatize us, by the great Piety of some, who do express it in their Practice; by the learning of others, who do assert it with their Pens; and by the Martyrdom of a third sort, who have readily seal'd it with their lives.

§. 4. But be our Fame what it will, unless our Nation shall so repent upon the Preaching of the Rod which God is now holding over us, as once the Ninevites did at Ionah's; or unless it shall be spar'd for the few Righteous that are within it, (as Jerusalem for the righteousness of Iames the Brother of Christ, who was the first Bishop there;) God will probably say to us, by the Rod of his Anger, as heretofore to the Assyri­ans, by his Prophet Isaiah. I will rise up against them, and cut off from England the Name, and Remnant,Isa. 14. 22, 23.and Son, and Nephew. I will also make it a Possession for the Bittern, and Pools of Water▪ and I will sweep it with the Beesom of Destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts. Such is the Voice of God's Red, whereby it would fright us out of our sins; which is the Negative part of a true Repentance. It hath another sort of Voice where­by [Page 156] by it would Woe us to satisfaction, and Refor­mation of life; which is the Positive part of a true Repentance. And so 'tis easie to hear it speaking, as 'twere in genere demonstrativo, in that persuasive way of Rhetorick, wherein another holy Prophet did once bespeak another People in God's behalf. Cast away from you all your Transgressions, Ezek. 18. 31, 32. whereby ye have transgressed, and make you a new heart, and a new spirit. For why will ye dye ô house of Israel? For [...] I have no de­light in the Death of Him that dyeth, saith the Lord God. Wherefore turn your selves and live.

§. 5. But these are no more than the general Lessons of the Rod. The Lessons it teacheth us in particular are more especially these Three▪ First it teacheth us to reflect on those particular crying Sins which have probably been the Cause of our present Iudgment. Such as are Sacrilege, and Simonie, Perjury, and Profaneness, and Im­patience of the Cross, Schism, and Faction, and an Itch after Changes, and that as well in the Civil, as Ecclesiastical Estate. Next it teacheth us the Necessity of casting out the Accursed Thing, however seemingly as gainful as Achan's wedge; Not an Agag, not an Oxe, not the bleating of a [Page 157] Sheep is to be left in God's Ears, when His command is gon forth for the utter Destruction of an Amaleck. 1 Sam. 15. 3, 14, 20. The choicest spoyles must not be sav'd, though it be for Sacrifice, when it stands in competition with our obedience. Vers. 22. Lastly the Rod which at the present is threatning every one of Us, by whipping others into their Graves who are round about us, does teach humility and dejection to such as pr [...]de it in their persons, whether for the strength or the Bewty of them. It seeks to pull down their vain and exalted thoughts of Themselves, as well as to abate their contempt of Others, by making them to know whereof they are made, and by compelling them to consider of what materials they do consist. For if it is true, what is said by the Philoso­pher, [...], That natural Bodies are resolv'd into the very same Ingredi­ents of which at first they were compos'd, And so that nothing is dissolvable into any other Prin­ciples, than those of which it does consist, and which it potentially conteins; It cannot b [...]t fol­low that the Pestilence is the best Orator in the world, to speak the Frailty and the Filthiness of humane Nature; because it teacheth us into what loathsome and detestable matter, the fairest [Page 158] Complexions may be resolv'd, and that by a mouthful of filthy Aire too.

§. 6. If we shall therefore now consent, that God's Rod, as well as his Prophet, his Deluge, as well as his Noah, is still a Preacher of Repen­tance, let us impartially consider, whether the sorrow and Anxiety which the Calamity of the Time may have wrought within us, does pro­ceed from a Resentment of Sins, or Sufferings. Whether it be a Contrition, or an Attrition only. Whether a sorrow that is worldly, and worketh Death, 2 Cor. 7. 10, 11. and by consequence is to be sorrowed for, or a sorrow according to God, [...] [...]hilo I [...]d. [...]. &c. pag. 141. which worketh Re­pentance to Salvation, and therefore is never to be Repented. If the first of these two, we ought to begg of God Almighty, that he will add to our Patience, rather than take from our Punish­ment; that he will strengthen our shoulders, ra­ther than lessen our Burden; And much rather sanctifie, than recal his Rod. But if we find it to be the second, we must not pray for a Remedy, but rather for a Paroxysm of our Disease; and rather exasperate our pain, than too soon asswage it. We ought to be sadded for nothing more, than that we cannot be sad enough; & only glad, [Page 159] that we cannot be so. For let the man of this world but imagin himself upon his Death-bed, And what then would he not give for the completing of that Anxiety, whereof he is now so over apt even to conjure for an Abatement? Afflictions help to make us happy even in this present world, if we have but the Grace to use them rightly; else they will make us the unhappier in that world which is to come. For without the right use, even the Grace of God it self does accidentally highten our Condemnation. And though I never had yet such a Roman Faith, as to believe that there IS such a thing as Purgatory; yet, with submission to God's Oeconomy, I think the most of mankind might be glad there were. Because it seems a very easy Composition with his Justice, to suffer Hell for a time, in order to happiness for Eternity. It concerns us therefore to pray, in this conjuncture of our affairs, that God will give us to drink of his bitter Cup, not as our Appetites shall crave, but as He in his wisdom shall judge expedient. Let him enable us to choose but this one Requisite for our selves, even His sanctifying Grace; And then in company with That, let him allot us what he pleaseth. Be it War, Pestilence, or Famine; be [Page 160] it Ignomy, Overthrow, or suddain Death. For as by looking upon our Sins, we cannot but see matter of Terror, whereby to hold us in con­stant fear; so by reflecting upon our sufferings, we may discern matter of Comfort, whereby to couple our Fear with Hope. I say 'tis matter of some Comfort, that God doth seem by his Cor­rection to own us still for his People; that he does not severely suffer us to be over prosperous in our impieties; that he has not so wholly left us, as not to visit us with his Rod; but that at least he does vouchsafe us the Mercy of his Iudgments to work upon us. And though he threatens to give us up to some of the cruelest of our Enemies, (such as are the two plagues of per­fect beggery, and the Pestilence,) 'tis that he may not give us up unto our more cruel selves; that we may never indure the Tyranny of our own hearts lust, or live under the Yoke of our vile Af­fections. And therefore to the end we may ra­ther kiss, than undutifully repine at his gracious Rod, which does so charitably smite, and would fain wound us into a Cure; let us continue to fix our eyes, as on the Errand on which it comes, so withal on the Author from whom 'tis sent. Which leads me to the Potentate by whom the [Page 161] Embassadour is dispatcht, The last particular in the Division.

Hear ye the Rod, and who hath Appointed it.

§. 1. That the same Dispensation of the Cup of Trembling and Astonishment should not only have such diverse, but such contrary effects, upon the several Complexions it meets withal, as to be one mans Restaurative, and anothers Poyson, softning one into Repentance, and hard­ning another into Despaire; might seem a diffi­cult kind of Riddle at the very first hearing, were it not that this Accompt may be given of it, That the one looks only downwards, and views the Rod of his Afflictions as meerly springing out of the Dust; whereas the other looks upwards, and acknowledges the Finger of Him that sent it. They whose Spirits and Contemplations are ever groveling on the earth, and look no higher than second Causes, are commonly sorry in their Distresses as men without Hope; whereas the men whose Affections are set on things that are Above, and with the Lyncean Eye of Faith can look on the other side the Veil, do so submit to, and comply with the will of God in their afflictions, as to desire it may be don, as well on Earth as it is in Heaven.

[Page 162]I know not whether it is more to be fear'd, or hop'd, that God will never withdraw his Rod which lyes so heavy upon our shoulders, until he has first of all whipt us into the wisdom to discern, and into so much Humility as to acknowledge, That the Original, and Increase, and present Continuance of our Plague, hath not only arisen to us out of natural Causes, (much less out of fortuitous,) to wit from Atomes, or Insects, or from I know not what malignant and secret qua­lities in the Aire; but from the wrath of a pro­voked and jealous God, for the most brutish un­concerdness and Impenitences of Men. The Pla­gue of Pestilence being a Rod of so astonishing a Nature, that though the Heathens look'd upon it as a thing rooted in the Earth, yet they thought it laid on by an hand from Heaven. TheDiodor. Sic. lib. 14. p. 291. Car­thaginians at Syracuse, and the People of Tolouse in the timeIustin. l. 32. p. 271. of Brennus, ascrib'd the Cause of their several Pests unto the Anger of their Gods for the Sin of Sacriledge, and fled for Refuge to Restitution, as the great means of their Reco­very. And however Diodorus did take upon him to assign the [...]. Diodor. Sic. l. 12. p. 100. natural Causes of the Pestilence that reign'd at Athens, yet he assures us that the [...]. Id ib. p. III. Athenians did look upon it as a Rod of super­natural [Page 163] contrivance. Much more should we Christians impute the Cause of our Plague unto God's Displeasure; as being that that serves to humble, and raise us up too. For as 'tis matter to us of Terror, to fall into the hands of the living God, (Heb. 10. 31.) so 'tis matter also of Comfort, that we do not fall out of the hands of God; no nor yet into the hands of relentless men. For with God there is Mercy, and that in the midst of his Iudgments too; whereas the very tender mercies of men are cruel, (Prov. 12, 10.) God does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men; and when at last he is fain to wound, 'tis to the end that he may heal us. But men to men are so inhuman, that they will commonly break our heads with their pretious Balmes too. And there­fore David having his Option betwixt the Sword of the Lord (for so the Pestilence was call'd) and the Sword of man, did soon determin to choose the former. Let me fall now (says he) into the hand of the Lord, (for very great are his Mercies,) but let me not fall into the hand of men. 1 Chron. 21. 13.

§. 2. If we look back upon the Church whilst she was yet but in her Childhood, and consider her Tribulations as far as from Nero to Dioclesian, we may observe how mens reflections upon the [Page 164] Wisdom and Goodness of God's Oeconomies, did smooth the face of Death it self, as 'twas in­flicted by the Rod of Divine Appointment; and made her Children even to Court it, how grim soever it became by its greatest Torments. A­mongst a thousand Examples which might be given of this Truth, I shall not trouble or de­tein you with more than one. In that dreadful and most bloody Sedition at Alexandria (just as if Cadmus had sow'd his Teeth in that fruitful Soil,)Euseb. Eccl. Hist. l. 7. c. 17. when the Gulf of Arabia became a red Sea indeed, which before was only call'd so by either aDiod. Sic. figure or a mistake; when that Sea was so polluted with Blood and Stentch, that had its wa­ter been to be wash'd, all the Ocean (saith Dio­nysius) had been too little to wash it clean; and when, in consequence of This, there was a Pe­stilence so extream, [...]. as that there was not one House wherein there was not one Carkass; They that were Gentiles in the City were every whit as much terrified, as if Moses once more had turn'd their waters into Blood, and had afflicted that Place with the sad repetition of all his Iudg­ments. Whereas the Christians on the contrary, who to their War and their Pestilence, had a third Plague added, (That, I mean, of Persecu­tion,) [Page 165] were so far from sincking under, that ra­ther of the two they injoy'd their sufferings. Whereof the reason in Eusebius is only this, that they heard not the Rod only, but had regard unto Him who had laid it on. And so they look't upon their Iudgment, [...], as the Test or Touchstone of God Almighty, for either the Triall of their Patience, or for the Exercise of their Faith, or for the Proof of their Fidelity. So extreamly much it is for any mans Interest, and Ease, when the Rod of God is sent in a Message to him, that he consider why it comes, and by whose Appointment.

§. 3. And indeed to speak Truth, whoso­ever like the Heliotrope that is still intent upon the Sun, or like the Pilot in a Ship, who, though the waves and the wind do both conspire his Di­sturbance, does keep his eye the more carefully on his Compass and his Star; I say whoever is this steady, well byass'd Christian, that is not a­fraid for any evil Tidings, and though his heels are tripp'd up,Psal. 112. 7. yet his Heart standeth fast, and be­lieveth in the Lord; He is the Person of the world, that leads the world into Captivity. And is not only plac'd above the level of Fortune, but (as [Page 166] slippery as she is,) seems to have caught her within his Net. He seems to have gotten the Gladius Delphicus, that Catholical kind of Sword, by which he easily cuts asunder all the Difficulties of Life. For if he dwell amongst those that are Enemies unto Peace, who, when he speaks to them thereof, make them ready to Battle; behold his Remedy is at hand, whilst he can say with King David,Psal. 121. 1.I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. Nay if his Troubles are yet inlarged, so as they that destroy him guiltless are mighty, and do not come into Misfortunes like other men; yet his Remedy is at hand still, whilst he can say with David too, Verily there is a reward for the righteous, doubtless there is a God that judgeth the Earth. Nay if a Messenger come and tell him (as heretofore 'twas told David) that he who came out of his Bowels does seek his Kingdom and his life; still his Remedy lies in this, that he can say with David still, Behold here I am; if the Lord say, I have no de­light in thee,2 Sam. 15. 26.let him do with me as it seemeth good to him. Nay if Isaiah bring him a Message, that all the Possessions of his house shall be led captive in­to Babylon, and that the Sons which Issue from him shall be taken away by force, to serve as Eunuchs [Page 167] amongst the Heathen; yet still his Remedy is at hand, whilst he can answer with Hezekiah, Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken. 2 Kin. 20. 19. Nay if the Devil besiege his Patience with all the wittiest of his Engines, and reduce him from his great Affluence, unto his Potsherd, and his Byles; yet even then he hath his Remedy, whilst he can ask with holy Iob,Job.shall I receive good things at the hand of God, and shall I not receive evil also? The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Nay if a Samuel bring him Tidings, not of a private Judgment only, [that the Iniquity of his house shall not be purg'd with Sacrifice,] but of a publick Judgment also, (which whosoever shall but hear shall find that both his ears shall tingle,) to wit, That even the Ark of the Lord is taken, and that the glory is departed from Israel; yet even then he hath his Remedy, whilst he can say with good old Eli,1 Sam. 3. 11, 18, &c.It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good. To con­clude with an Instance much neerer Home; Admit the Dutch and French Armies should come upon us whilst we are sick, Gen. 34, 25. as Simeon and Levi fell on the Shechemites when they were sore; And so should be the same to us, which both Egypt and Assyria were once to Israel, to wit the [Page 168] Rod of God's Anger, and the Staff of his Indigna­tion; yet if We are his Children, and They his Rod, let us but strive as little children to be the better for our Correction, and 'twill be natural for the Father to cast his Rod into the Fire.

§. 4. Which being seasonably premis'd, we are no otherwise to bewail the Rod of God upon our Country, then as we have either by our Sins helpt to betray her to its Infliction, or have not been helping by our Prayers to ease her of it. Let us repent us of the first, and betake our selves unto the second, and then submit the event of All, to his Disposal who hath appointed it.

To him therefore who is able to keep us from fal­ling, and to raise us when we are down, and to pre­sent us being risen, before the Presence of his Glory with exceeding Ioy, To the only wise God our Sa­viour, be ascribed by Us and by all the World, Blessing, and Glory, and Honour, and Power, and Wisdom, and Thanksgiving, from this time for­wards for evermore.

Actorum Capite quindecimo, versu 28. à sanctâ Synodo Apostolicâ sic scriptum legimus;
Visum est enim Spiritui Sancto & nobis, nihil ultra imponere vobis oneris, quam haec Necessaria.

§. 1. QUemadmodum olim apud veteres mos hujusmodi inolevit, ut opus aliquod sive arduum, sive augu­stum aggressuri, in ipso operis quasi vestibulo à summo Numine auspicarentur; pari modo, (quod benè vertat,) opus arduum Augustum (que) (si quod aliud) aggressuro, (Reverendissimi ad­modum in Christo Patres, vosque quotquot ad­estis, viri & Fratres dilectissimi,) liceat mihi vobis omnibus (si cum Sancto Psalmistâ loqui deceat,) exPsal. 116. 13. Illud Po­culum Salutis dicitur, quod est reverà [...], seu gratiarum actioni [...] de omni salute quam Deus in me contulit. Vide Jun. & Tremell. in Locum. Quem etiam confer cum poculo [...] sive benedictionis. 1 Cor. 10, 16. [...] poculo propinare.

[Page 174]§. 2. Quid enim homini Christiano, aut prius aut antiquius haberi debet, (aut nunc prae­sertim opportunius,) quàm ut à laudibus & Elogiis Patri Luminum buccinandis, verba pub­licè facturus exordium sumat? & post nau­fragium litatò factum, votivam Tabulam sus­pendat?

§. 3. Deo scilicet providente, Deploratis­sima scelerum mancipia, quorum audaciâ ante Decennium Domi fortisque exulabamus, ipsa tandem dispersa vicissim exulant; nec jam am­plius assidentes ‘Cernimus immunes aliena ad pabula fucos.’ Deo brachium exerente, Phaethontes isti praeco­eiores, qui annos proximè elapsos alienis curri­bus insedissent, ceu Brontia quadam perculsi, praecipites ruunt prout aguntur. Nec aliud illis jam superest protervitatis suae solatium, quàm magnis ausis excidisse, & (quod habemus apud Longinum) [...] illud [...] documentumque reliquisse, Posteris suis salu­tiferum, [...], nec ulla mancipiis Sa­turnalia in omne aevum duratura. Deo deni (que) curante, & mirum in modum procurante, ex quàm procul dissitis Britanniae partibus, post [Page 175] duodecennem [...], unius corporis [...] in unum denuò coalescimus? nec jam ampli­us periculosa, sed utili fruimur Innocentiâ?

§. 4. O quàm gratulor vobis vestrum ad vos Receptum exoptatissimum! quodque non amplius in Britanniâ ipsa Britannia sit requi­renda! Quin & solennia Gratiarum vota sunt Hostibus vestris nuncupanda; qui rabie suâ ef­fecerunt, ut [...] accenseamini; deturque vo­bis conspectiorem de Fortunâ ferociente Tri­umphum agere. Operae pretium propè erat in tot discrimina incidisse, ut de Divino in vos fa­vore vel sic constaret;— ‘—Aliquisque malis fuit usus in illis.’

§. 5. Nam si Gregorius Adami Culpam rectè dixerit felicem, quippe quae talem Redemptorem habere meruit: Quidni etiam vobis gratuler Ruinae nuperae Beneficium, quibus Talem, Tantumque (qualis est Caesar noster Britanni­cus) indulsit Deus Instauratorem?

§. 6. Illi ergo bonorum omnium Fonti si­mul & Largitori, qui quantumlibet immeren­tibus haec otia fecit, luctumque nostrum tam diu­tinum in Citharam vertit sempiternam, utpote nobis in quantum Subditis, Imperii Principem [Page 176] Augustissimum; (fugientium Charitum cum Camaenis Deo proximum Statorem:) nobis in quantum Christianis, Ecclesiae Proceres corda­tissimos; nobis in quantum Reformatis, hodier­nam Synodum Consultissimam; nec nostra so­lùm, sed nosmetipsos nobismetipsis etiam resti­tuit; soli (inquam) Thaumaturgo, Triuni Deo, Sospitatori nostro sapientissimo, sit Ho­nos & Gloria in omnem deinceps Aeterni­tatem.

§. 7. Nec tantùm DeoHeb. 11. 6. [...] Gratia­rum Actiones habendae sunt de tot tantisque beneficiis in nos collatis; sed insuper nobis o­randum est pro Catholicâ Christi Ecclesiâ, per varia Regna Resque publicas quaquaversum disseminatâ. Nominatim verò, pro Anglicanâ hâc nostrâ; Atque inibi ante alios, ejusdem Ecclesiae Nutricio Carolo, peculiari Dei gra­tiâ, Magnae Britanniae, Franciae, & Hiberniae Rege, Fidei Defensore, in omnibus Causis, omniumque Personarum, sive sacrarum, sive civilium, immediatè secundum Deum Supre­mo in Terris Moderatore. Pro Reginâ Matre Henriettâ Mariâ; pro Illustrissimo Principe, Jacobo Duce Eboracensi; aliisque quibuscun­que è Regio stemmate oriundis.

[Page 177]Pro utra (que) Domo Parliamenti; pro Regni Proceribus Nobilissimis; praesertim iis qui Regi adsunt à secretioribus consiliis. Specia­tim verò Preces apud Patrem Coelestem sunt effundendae, pro universo Clero Anglicano, in utramque Domum Convocationis mox deinde coituro; pro Reverendissimis Archiepiscopis, Episcopis etiam Reverendis; aliisque quibus­cunque inferioris subsellii Clericis, quibus-qui­bus sive muneribus sive nominibus insigniantur; ut Pater Luminum benignissimus, cujus ver­bum est ipsa veritas, & via ad vitam explora­tissima, pro bonitate suâ dignetur Hodiernis Caetibus Interesse; Quò quaecunque demum consilia ab iis erunt ineunda, in publicam cedant utilitatem, inque Dei nostri Gloriam usque & usque efferendam, per Jesum Christum Do­minum nostrum: cujus meritis innixi, ejusque adjuti oratione, (brevissimâ quidem illâ, sed om­nibus numeris absolutâ,) haec & caetera qualia­cunque quae nobis ex usu futura sunt, à Deo op­timo Maximo iisdem verbis exoremus, quibus Ipse Incarnatus orandum statuit.

[Page 178]Pater Noster qui es in Coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat Regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua sicut in Coelo, sic & in Terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie: & dimitte nobis de­bita nostra, sicut & nos dimittimu [...] Debitoribus no­stris. Et ne nos inducas in Tentationem, sed libera nos a Malo. Nam tuum est Regnum, Potentia, & Gloria, in Secula Seculorum.

AMEN.

Visum est enim Spiritui Sancto & nobis nihil ultra imponere vobis oneris, quam haec Necessaria.

INeunti mihi rationem de suscepto munere obeundo, (Reverendissimi admodum in Christo Patres, Fratres in Domino Dilectis­simi,) in mentem illicò immissum est, ( [...], an secus, aliorum per me licet judicium esto,) quemadmodum Synodi & Synedria in id prae­cipuè indicuntur, ut hominum animos com­ponant, & paci publicae velificentur; Ita duo esse potissimùm humani generis Propudia, Loio­litas nimirum & Erastianos, qui (instar Davi illius Terentiani) certatim omnia interturbant; ac utramque [...], civilem pariter & Ecclesia­sticam, (nec enim illa minus, quàm haec, vide­tur coelitus oriunda,) quà publicè, quà privatim, non modo vellicant & delibant, sed pro virili sua parte convulsum eunt. Quicquid est juris Ec­clesiastici, aut ad sacram [...] quoquo modo pertineat, Illi solis Ecclesiasticis (Papae scilicet cum Praelatis) in totum asserunt; Civilium interim Magistratuum nulla habita ratione. Isti verò è regione ad stuporem usque abrepti [...], (ut Sancti Basilii verbis utar,) in­super [Page 180] habitis Ecclesiasticis, ad solos homines seculares Rem totam deferunt.

§. 2. Haec sunt Monstra illa Dogmatum, de quibus Primaeva Dei Ecclesia nunquam vel fando inaudivit; sed quae ab aevis sequioribus ex nescio quo Tartaro erumpentia, & in Bri­tannias has nostras malis avibus advecta, cre­dentium animos mentesque ad subjectionem debitam emicantes, ceu pestilenti quodam sy­dere eum in modum afflaverunt, uti corrupta Christiani Obsequii Regula steterit diu, & ob­mutuerit. Hinc enim odia saepe progerminant plusquam Vatiniana; ex odiis Schismata, Facti­ones, Secessiones in partes, & quod malorum fere omnium extrema linea habenda est, Ne velle quidem sibi ut ab altera parte benefiat. Hinc Templa Templis adversantur, Conciliabula ex diametro Conciliabulis opponuntur, atque Altare contra Altare ubi (que) loci fere erigitur. Nec in Schismate (Proh dolor!) sibi terminum figit malorum seges; sed (gliscentibus indies Animorum Pa­roxysmis, & [...],) Res subinde repetun­tur; & factâ clarigatione, fecialis hasta conti­nuò mittitur; Bellum publicè indicitur; ad­versis concurritur aciebus; & (nisi Divinitùs sit provisum) ad ipsam internecionem jugi tra­ctu dimicatur.

[Page 181]§. 3. Neque tamen hîc obtinet, quod [...] fortè objiciant;

Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum; Quod enim Dominus salvator de se edixit, Nolite ar­bitrari quod Pacem venerim immissurus in Terram; Non enim Pacem,Mat. 10. 34.sed Gladium; non ad Finem ad­ventus Christi, sed tantummodò ad Eventum re­ferri debet, prae hominum vitiis oriturum. Non est [...], sed [...] tantùm [...], quod ibi loci intelligitur: praedixit Ille quid certò futurum esset, non quid fieri decrevisset, aut faciendum esse existimaret. Non se causam fore dissidii, sed puram putam occasionem. Ipse enim qui & Auctor & Princeps Pacis, tanti Pacem aestima­vit, ut etiam sudore suo & sanguine facilè dux­erit redimendam, suisque Disciplulis valedictu­rus Pacem habuitJoh. 13. 27. commendatissimam, nihil un­quam sollicitiùs in votis habuit (immò verò nec in Praeceptis) quàm ut Pacem Amoebaeam in cunctis hominum commerciis vigere faceret. Et nequid nobis videretur intentatum reliquisse (quantum humanae voluntatis ingenium fert,) quò quod maximè cupiebat effectum daret; promisit suis, abiturus, se missurum Spiritum Sanctum, cujus aura non secus ac Pacis vinculo, omnes obicem non ponentes in unum corpus [Page 182] coagmentaret. [...]. Chrysost. Hom. 61. in Mat. 18. p. 659. Promisit Episcopis vel duobus in nomine suo congregatis (sicut Chrysostomus & Eu­thymius Textum illum interpretantur,) se, per spiritus sui virtutem, in eorum medio affuturum. (Mat. 18. 19, 20.) & si numerus tam exiguus spiritu sancto non destituitur, (ut rectè arguit Coe­lestinus in iis quos scripsit codicillis ad Syno­dum illam Ephesinam,) Quomodo (inquit) non credemus in medio vestrum futurum esse, ubi in unum simul conveniunt tanta sanctorum multitudo? ut quod Apostolus dixit de Juramento, [ [...] esse exhibitum, quò succrescentibus controversiis in Finem esset, ad Heb. 6. 16.] non dubitave­rim etiam de Synodis optimo jure asseverare. Convenit enim inter omnes, (exceptis solis So­cinianis, & si qui sint ejusdem furfuris,) penes Synodum Oecumenicam, omnis dissidii Ecclesia­stici jus supremum decisivum censendum esse; in quantum nullum sit Tribunal (nec ullum sanè vel fingi potest) ad quod à Synodo Oecumenicâ ulla competat Appellatio. Quantum autem Oecumenica quaquaversùs per orbem Terra­rum valet, Tantundem ferè Nationalis, (prae­sertim in regno pleni juris, quale Britannicum, Siculumque, quae verè audiunt [...], atque [...],) intra suarum ditionum Pomaeria obti­net.

[Page 183]§. 4. Ne verò longe abeatur, dispiciamus jam de Synodo, quam habemus prae manibus expendendam: Primâ scilicet & celeberrimâ; & ad quam, tanquam ad normam, Reliquoe om­nes sunt exigendae. Nam quemadmodum olim inter Iudaeos, si quaestio aliqua orta esset quam Schismatis suspicio sequeretur, Synedrium il­licò consulebant, prout illis ex LegeDeut. 17. praecep­tum erat; Pari modo & Christiani, exortâ gravi Controversiâ de Lege Ceremoniali per Moysen latâ, & gliscentibus inter illos de die in diem simultatibus, evestigiò ac sine morâ Concilium verè Apostolicum consultum eunt, (ver­sibus 2, 4, 5.) Apostoli & Presbyteri de propo­sitâ controversiâ consilium ineunt. (v. 6.) Inter caeteros Assessores, Beatus Petrus & Iacobus sententias dicunt; & eâdem fere dicendi for­mulâ, qua Senatores apud Romanos sententiarum Dictionem solito more concludebant; [...], quamobrem ego sic censeo, (v. 19.) Mox in Iacobi sententiam illam universi pedibus euntes, de communi planè consensu hujusmodi placitum decreverunt: ‘ [...]. [Page 184] Visum est sane Spiritui sancto & nobis nihil ul­tra imponere vobis oneris, quam haec necessaria.’

§. 5. In quo verborum circuitu sive com­plexione, habetis Canonem Ecclesiasticum, ab ipsis Apostolis cum Presbyteris [...] con­gregatis, ad lites quasdam dirimendas, Hiero­solymis constitutum.

Tria sunt autem quae prima fronte hîc se of­ferunt observanda. Quorum illud inprimis no­tandum venit, quòd in ipso Canonis statim ini­tio Spiritus Sancti fit me [...]tio, ne de negotio planè humano, aut merè humana Auctoritate, hîc agi videretur. Non enim Synodi sibi ipsis, nec [...] multitudini, nec soli Regum praecellentiae (quorum aut jussu aut permissu in unum coe­unt,) sed annuenti Spiritui Sancto, quicquid ha­bent potestatis acceptum ferunt.

At postquam Synodus dixis [...]et, [...], quorsum illud etiam adjecit, [...]; num ob istam ratiunculam, (quam tanti faciunt Ro­manenses,) Quia de Spiritûs Testimonio ne­quaquam nobis constare potest, nisi Synodus Inspiranti suppetias ferat? minime Gentium. Sed per figuram illam effertur, quam vocant Rhetores Hendiadyn, sive (ut alii explicatiùs) [Page 193] [...]. Ut sensus sit; visum est nobis [...], nobis [...], nobis edoctis & directis per Spiritum Sanctum, (non ne errare valeamus, sed) ne erremus. Unde & Patres in Conciliis solen­niter dicere assolebant, [Decrevit haec sancta Sy­nodus in Spiritu sancto convocata.]

Secundò verò est observandum, Quòd sancta Synodus non censuit, monendas esse hîc Gentes de Rebus ad vitam necessariis, quas jam illis innotuisse compertum habuit, [nempe à caedi­bus, Latrociniis, Rebellionibus, Sacrilegiis, atque id genus aliis omninò esse abstinendum,] sed de iis tantum praecepit, de quibus potuit litigari, illis­que aliquid subesse Dubii; & per quae stetit, quo minus Gentes cum Hebraeis in unum coe­tum coalescerent. Cujusmodi erant [...], sive Immolatitia, sanguis etiam, & suffccata, quae ne Gentes degustarent hîc cautum est. Si quis autumaverit, sub hoc Canone comprehendi quaecun (que) ad salutem requiri solent, toto Coelo errâsse dicendus erit. Quum praecepta sint alia at (que) alia, sub poenâ mortis etiam sancita, quae adeò non comprehenduntur [...] sub isto tam brevi verborum ambitu; ut nec legi­timè ad eundem reduci queant. De illo uno Quaesitum est, à quibus rebus Incircumcisos [Page 194] cavere sibi oporteret, (sintne malae, an mediae, non multum refert,) quò inter Gentes & Judaeos aliquando tandem conveniret. Esu Sanguinis & Suffocatorum. Christianis etiam est interdictum (implicite saltem & interpretativè) à secundo [...]. Conc. Gangr. Can. 2. sed in Cod. Can. Ec. un. Can. 60. A. D. 32 [...]. Canone Concilii Gangrensis: diuque postmodùm fuisse in Ecclesiâ Dei observatum, (nempe post tempora Apostolica,) Testes habemusSuffocatis & Morticinis abstinemus, ne qu [...] sanguine contaminemur, vel intra viscera sepulto. Tertul. Apolog. c. 9. Tertul­lianum,Tantum (que) ab humano sanguine cavemus, ut nec edulium pecorum in cibis sanguinem noverimus. Min. Fael. in Octavio.Minutium, [...], &c. Clem. Alex. Paed. l. 3. cap. 3. p. 228. edit. Paris, 1629.Clementem [...] etiam Alexan­drinum, quin & Novollam Leonis 58^vam [...]. [...]. p. 475. edit. Scrimger. Quanquam prorsus exolevisse sub Temporibus [...]; Euseb. Hist. E [...]c [...]. edit. Steph. 1544. l. 2. fol. 46. p. 1. Augustini, hujusce Canonis Reverentiam, (si non ubique, saltem in Africâ,) ipse nobis Augustinus testatum fecit. Atque vel inde satis constat de rerum istarum indifferentia, sive [...], quibus tamen accedens Lex mora­lem impingit necessitatem. Necesse est enim sub­jici, Rom. 13. 5. & visum est nobis (inquit Syno­dus Apostolica) aliud onus non imponere, quàm haec necessaria; vel (ut ex voce illâ [...] in promptu est hariolari, praesertim illis qui Grae­cè [Page 195] non vulgo sapiunt,) visum est nobis ea tan­tummodò imperare, quae omnino ut fiant, pro­pter Legem nunc latam necesse est.

Quin & illud est tertiò notatu dignum, quòd quemadmodum ipse Christus Religionis cor­ruptelas reformaturus, ad Primordia rerum & Fontes recurri voluit, (Mat. 19. 8.) ita & Syno­dus Apostolica de re praesenti decretura, ad Le­gem illicò respicit Genese [...]s nono promulgatam, non tantùm Gentibus, aut Judaeis, sed Filiis Noae, Aut (quod in idem planè recidit) Huma­no Generi observandam; utut, tempore pro­cedente, apud solos ferè Judaeos vigorem tenuit.

Expensis autem his Tribus, in quibus Scopus hujus Canonis praecipuè vertitur & consistit; Tria [...] statim emergunt, cum bono Deo eventilanda.

Inprimis enim videndum habeo De Potestate Ecclesiastica hujusmodi Synodo competente; quousque scilicet de jure protendi debeat, & quibus cancellis circumscribi.

Secundo loco agendum erit de Rebus purè Adiaphoris; an, & quatenus, & cujusmodi, Necessitatem sibi acquirant; & (legitimâ Synodo decernente) in Leges abeant.

[Page 196] Tertio demùm dispiciendum de Norma illa & Perpendiculo, ad quod decreta Ecclesiastica ne­cesse habent ut exigantur. Haec sunt Tria illa [...], quae pro Temporis ratione, & quantâ po­terunt Brevitate, incumbunt mihi enucleanda.

§. 1. Ad primum [...] quod spectat, Quic­quid est juris Ecclesiastici ad quatuor haec ca­pita referri potest. Inprimis nempe Liberam Religionis professionem, quam Constantinus & Licinius [Libertatem Religionis] in Edicto suo nuncupârunt; Deinde etiam Immunitatem à cunctis publicis muneribus, quae [...] Iustiniano appellatur; Tertiò verò Ex­emptionem à Secularibus Iudiciis; postremò Ius Auctoritativum de Laicorum causis Cognoscendi. Quid ex his Divino jure, & quid humano sit in­troductum, (nempe favore Imperatorum, [...]. Constantini, Constantii, & Constantis, Leonis deni­que, & Anthemii,) facilè cuiquam innotescet, qui cum Scriptis Canonistarum Divina confe­ret. Gravitèr autem errare solent, qui non distinguunt Potestatem à Deo datam Ecclesia­sticis, ab eâ quam Regi acceptam ferunt. Illa enim quasi separat Rempublicam ab Ecclesiâ, sed Ecclesiam Reipublicae adjungit ille. Nam ante tempora Constantini qui Magni nomine in­signitur, [Page 197] (Nominisque mensuram reverà implet,) ita Ecclesia in Regno erat, ut pars ipsius non censeretur. Neque enim aequo jure cum reli­quis civibus utebatur, nec praeter Iesum Cruci­fixum (cui sub cruce militabat) contemptae pas­sim Disciplinae ultorem habuit.

§. 2. Quantum ad Ius Ecclesiasticum in­ternum attinet, Jus nimirum praedicandi, ad pre­ces publicas conveniendi, sacram Synaxin cele­brandi, aedes sacras aedificandi, sacras Synodos cogendi, sacram denique Disciplinam pro rei merito usurpaudi; Illud Apostolis & Episcopis, quiApud nos Apostolorū locum Epis­copi tenent. Hieron ad Marcellum adversus Mon­tan. Ep. 54. p. 160. B. tenent Locum Apostolorum, (ut ipse Sanctus Hieronymus disertè docet) non nisi desuper & à Deo concessum venit. Sed quantum ad juris Exercitium, (quod jus externum vocare licet,) Jus nimirum faciendi quicquid ad sacram [...] pleno modo administrandam optari queat,☞ id (que) non clanculùm & in Latebris, sed [...], (ut loqui solent Imperatores,) Illud à piis Im­peratoribus (sed per illos etiam à Deo) Ecclesia­sticae Hierarchiae indultum fuit.

§. 3. Nam licet Synodus Ancyrana atque Neocaesariensis (ipsâ Nicaena Anteriores) absque jussu Constantini coactae sint; Regiâ tamen auctoritate munitas esse, nemo sanus inficiabitur. [Page 198] Distinguendum autem est semper inter Syno­dos Generales, & merè Topicas; Illae à solisVide Eu­trop. Longo­bard. p. 10. Imperatoribus, Hae ab EpiscopisEpistolae per fratres à Metropolitano dirigendae sunt, &c. Concil. Tarra­con. 500. post Christum annos in Hisp. celebra­ti, Canon. 3. [...]. Con­cil. Antioch. Can. 19. Sed Cod. Can. Eccl. univ. Can 98. [...]. Concil. Antioch. Can. 20. [...]. Concil. Chalced. Can. 18. Codicis vero Can. Eccl. univ. C. 197.Metropoliticis (sive Principum Iussione, sive tacito consensu,) pro veteri more indici possunt. Ad remConsule Euseb. lib. 3. de vit. Const. cap. 4. Evagr. l. 2. cap. 4. Theodoret. lib. 2. c. 8. Anonymum I. C. de libertate Eccl. cap. 3. exem­plis evincendam, (si per otium meum liceret, aut vestram saltem per patientiam,) sexcenta sanè in medium proferre pos [...]em. Sed ne testi­bus supervacaneis impraesentiarum abuti vi­dear, sufficiat semel vel dixisse, quod sanctis­simè recipio in me probandum, (tum contra Papae Parasitastros, tum contra eos qui hâc ex parte Mephitim illam Papismi plus nimio re­dolent,) Quòd sine Regibus annuentibus, ex quo Reges evaserunt Ecclesiae Filii, Nutriciique, & quasi Episcopi [...], etiam divinitùs con­stituti, (ut Magnus Ille Constantinus non semel dixit,) nunquam Placitis Synodalibus subscribi licuit.

[Page 199]§. 4. Jus autem liberè cogendi Synodos, & jus in Synodis celebra [...]dis condendi Leges, pars est cultûs Christiani necessaria prorsus, & [...]. Quomodo enim fient omnia [...],1 Cor. 14. 40. nihil scilicet confuse, & pro cujusque Temeritate? Quomodo controversiarum figetur Serra, & malae fidei mercatoribus Labia saltem obtu­rabuntur? Unde tollentur corruptelae, quae in Ecclesiae Disciplinam subrepsisle comperi­entur? (ut paucis denique absolvam,) Ubi loci di [...]ficillimae de Rebus Fidei Quaestiones, aut tutò poterunt eventilari, aut ad optatum ali­quando perduci Finem, si non in Synodo Nati­onali in Nomine Domini congregatâ, cui vel ipse fidem dedit, se pro certo interfuturum?

§. 5. Quotus enim quisque est, etiam in sacris versatissimus, (si privatim accedat, & extra Synodum,) cui cùm abdita mysteria Di­vinae Naturae appropinquant, simulque incum­bunt enarranda, non refugiat evestigiò trementi sanguis, atque prae metu exalbescat? Quo­tusquisque vel Ingenio complecti queat, (nedum verbis assequatur,) quomodo Pater sine initio, & sine fine gignat Filium, in quem ita Gene­rans sese totum effundit, ut ipsi nihil decedat, & a quo Generatus eâ nascitur ratione, ut ab [Page 200] eo qui generat recedat nunquam? & à quibus utrisque Spiritus Sanctus eo pacto procedit, ut ne [...] quidem confusis Personarum Trium proprietatibus, ejusdem naturae inter omnes consortium existat absolutissimum? Quis est ille in Theologicis usque adeò oculatus, ut expedire mihi queat (saltem pro rei dignitate) ineffabile illud Divinae cum nostrâ Naturâ con­tubernium? quove nexu sibi invicem eum in morem sint copulatae, ut idem qui semper ex Deo vero verus Deus existat necesse est, Homo quoque, & quidem verus, ex verâ ho­mine nasceretur? aut quomodo mulier Des­ponsata ita Parentem suum pepererit, ut virgo [...]uerit, etiam à Partu, multo quàm ante Imma­culatior?

§. 6. Certo certius (Auditores) tantùm abest ut privatim de rebus hujusmodi sit statu­endum; ut nulla sint capita Theologi [...]a, unde natae sunt aut plures, aut certè difficiliores de ipsa Fide Quaestiones. Nulla de quibus erra­tum est, aut facilius utique, aut periculosius. Nulla in quibus insudarunt majore cum animi conten­tione, suprà-quàm-dici-potest eximia Scripto­rum veterum Ingenia. Nulla in quibus expli­candis, aut magis variant Interpretes, aut ma­jores [Page 201] veritati offundunt Tenebras. Tanta est ho­minum imbecillitas, in Rebus Dei investigan­dis; Tanta verborum etiam obscuritas, in in­vestigatis enarrandis; Tantaque rerum diffi­cultas, quae omne verborum artificium plerum­que superat, & compluribus parasangis post se relinquit.

§. 7. Egone verò, aut Ille, aut quisquam alius [...], ut ad ejusmodi ferè [...] mysteria, per loca crebris variisque difficulta­tibus impedita, frequentibus salebris intersepta, lamis ac saltibus impervia, eluvionibus & vora­ginibus saepenumerò intercisa, aditum Singuli faciamus, qui vixdum patuit Universis? ‘Hi sunt vel Synodo tam digni vindice Nodi,’ Ut sibi in solidum enodandis, Frequentiam Ho­minum Angelorum (que) videantur forsan desiderare. Nec aliusmodi sanè frequentiam, quàm cui Chri­stus per Paracletum ita interest, & praeest, ita dirigit, atque gubernat; ut vere possit & sine fuco Tritum illud pronunciari, [Decrevit haec Sancta Synodus in Spiritu Sancto Convocata,] aut quod eôdem ferè redit, [...], Visum est nobis per Spiritum Sanctum, nihil ultra imponere vobis oneris, quam haec necessaria.

[Page 202]§. 8. Non praecise, & per se, & antecedenter necessaria; Necessaria tamen omnimodè, ut vo­bis in partes abeuntibus statuatur uniformis vi­vendi ratio. Necessaria etiam, quia Praecepta. Charitas enim (fatente Beza) in Rebus Mediis est necessaria. Charitas autem sine obsequio, nulla potest excogitari. Et quandoquidem il­lud [...] usque adeò sit pure Graecum, ut apud Atticos etiam Scriptores de iis rebus adhibeatur, quas aut fieri, aut omitti Lex ipsa jubet, ideo rectà me ducit ad secundum [...] trutinandum;

II Nempè de rebus antecedentèr & ex naturâ suâ Adiaphoris. An, & quatenus, & cujusmodi Necessitatem sibi acquirant, & (legitimâ Synodo decernente) in Leges abeant. [...].

§. 1. Vocabulum illud [ [...]] quod à Sanctâ Synodo adhibetur, liquidò notat Au­ctoritatem Praecepto junctam. [...] autem hic di­citur quod [...] suprà (v. 10.) Apertè innuens, Materiam Canonis Apostolici Adiaphoris esse annumerandam. Non de Fornicatione, aut com­mercio cum Idolis, (quae Natura sua sunt mala, & quorum merces mors est,) sed de sanguine lo­quor, [Page 203] & suffocatis, à quibus ut rigidè se abstine­ant tenentur Gentes. Cujus rei Indifferentiam (si per se consideretur) ille Christi Aphorismus abundè probat. Non quod intrat in os coinquinat hominem, sed id quod exit. (Mat. 15. 11.) Et qui forte pauci adhuc ista tangere formidant, (inquit EpiscopusAugustnius ubi suprà, lib. 32. cap. 13. p. 200. C. Wirtemb. Con­fess. art. 35. Vide Bezae Epist. Octavā ad D. Ed­mund. Grin­dallum Epis­cop. Lond. pag. 210. Hipponensis) à caeteris omnibus irri­dentur. Cui etiam suffragatur universa Ecclesia Wirtembergensis: Instituerunt (inquit illa) in Actis Apostolicis, ut Gentes caverent ab esu sangui­nis & suffocatorum; non ut haec observatio inter Gentes esset perpetua, sed Temporalis; & tantis­per duratura, dum hujusmodi esus non esset amplius offendiculum. Ita Ecclesia etiam Bohemica, capite d [...]imo quinto.

§. 2. Rerum autem Indifferentiam cessare pos [...]e, & [...] transire in Necessaria, (saltem pro temporis conditione, necdum legibus abro­gatis per quas jubentur,) Argumentis penè in­numeris probare possem, nisi id hominis videre­tur libertate loquendi suâ intemperantèr abu­tentis. Pace vestrâ tamen liceat (modò brevi­tèr raptimque) ut inde usque ab initio rem to­tam repetam. Dignum est enim quod hic ad­vertam, Post privilegia multifariam primis Pa­rentibus indulta, placuisse Deo Protoplastas [Page 204] triplici Lege coercere. Primâ scilicet naturali, cujus primumAquin. 1. 2. q. 94. art. 2. Praeceptum est, Bonum esse prosequendum, vitandum malum; Altera super­naturali, de Credendo & sperando in unum Deum, ipsumque animitus diligendo; Tertia deni (que) spe­ciali, (ut doctissimus Torniellus loquendum pu­tat) De ligno scientiae Boni & Mali sub poena mor­tis non comedendo. Si quis autem hîc sciscite­tur, cur prioribus non contentus, tertiam insuper Legem adjecerit Deus? Respondent illico Do­ctores, id duplici de Causa à Creatore fuisse fa­ctum. Prima causa haec erat, ut sua in homi­nes [...] luculentiùs aliquantò constare pos­set; cui Res per se Medias, nullisque Legibus adversantes, pro absoluto suo imperio, aut prae­cipere placuit, aut prohibere, quemadmodum ipsi collibitum fuerit. Altera causa videtur esse, ut vel sic in primo homine, (Humani Generis planè Archetypo,) luce clariùs innotesceret futuris seculis, quantum obsequii quasi vectigal (in his quae mala non sunt) [...] solvendum esset. Inprimis Deo, per Quem Rex Regnat; deinde Regi, qui Dei in Terris vicarius audit; postmodum verò Potestatibus à Rege missis. Ita enim Beatus Petrus, Pauli optimus Interpres, Ep. 1. cap. 2. v. 13. & sic deinceps.

[Page 205]§. 3. Et sicut in commodum Reipublicae conduntur Leges seculares; ita in usum etiam Ecclesiae, ab ipsis Ecclesiae incunabulis, Ec­clesiasticae quaedam Leges vigorem suum obti­nuerunt. Nascente adhuc Christianismo, ut in externis etiam Ritibus cultus Dei promove­retur, Beatus Paulus hanc tulit Legem; Om­nia decenter, atque ordine fiant. 1 Cor. 14. 40. ubi vocabulum [...], idem sonat quod [...]. (c. 7. v. 35.)In Col. 2. 5. Chrysostomus, Oecumenius, & Theophylactus, exponunt [...] per [...]. ut nihil confuse peragatur, & pro cujus (que) temeritate. Illud enim cum decoro, (ut S. Ambrosius in­terpretatur,) quod fit cum Pace & Disciplina. Rectè igitur Calvinus illud Pauli praeceptum vocavit Regulam; ad quam (inquit) omnia quae ad externam [...] Ecclesiae spectant exigere con­venit. Et si quis fortè hic urgeat, quod Apo­stolus Iacobus pugnare secum videatur, cum negat exhibendam esse Gentibus molestiam [...]., (Act. 15. 19.) & tamenElegisse mihi viden­tur pro tem­pore Rem facilem, & nequaquam observanti­bus onerosā. Aug. contr. Faust. l. 32. c. 13. Ritus praescribit qui in Lege Mosis continebantur; respondet optimè Calvinus, (cu­jus utinam hâc ex parte fratres nostri dissi­dentes sequaces fia [...]t!)Calvin. Inst. l. 4. c. 10. p. 30 Primum nihil ab il­lis exigit, quod fraternae concordiae non deberent. Deinde etiam haec praecepta nihil eorum conscientiis [Page 206] inquietudinis aut turbae afferre poterant; in quan­tum scirent, se coram Deo esse liberos. Praeterea, in externa Disciplina & Ceremoniis, sigilla [...]im vo­luit praescribere quid sequi debeamus.—postremo; prout Ecclesiae utilitas requiret, tam ritus usitatos mutare & abrogare, quam novos instituere conve­niet. Et,Demon­stravimus de principio, potestatem h [...]nc fuisse à Christo Ec­clesiae tradi­tam, ut scili­cet pro cir­cumstantiis locorum & temporum, proque ne­cessitate Ec­clesiarum le­ges concipiat & Canones. Zanch. l. 1. in 4tum praecept. p. 765. ut in pauca rem conferam, Ecclesiae ferè ad unam omnes quae Protestantium nomine censentur, saltem Bohemica, Helvetica, Gallica, Belgica, Wirtembergensis etiam, & Suevica, An­glica, Saxonica, & Confessio Augustana, (quas de industriâ nudius-tertius hisce oculis usur­pavi) uno ore confitentur, etiamsi non uno ver­borum ambitu, Quod omnes Ritus & Ceremoniae, quae ad pacem faciunt & Charitatem, nec verbo Dei adversantur, sive eae ab Episcopis, sive à Synodis Ecclesiasticis, sive ab aliis Auctoritatibus quibuscun­que extiterint, Vide Harmo­niam Confessi [...] num Genevae Edit. 1581. d p. 210. ad p. 231. prae­sertim p. 213. 214. semel introductae servari debent; & de eo simpliciores laborare non debent, neque hoc mo­veri aut per [...]urbari, sed quia bonae sunt, iis etiam ad bonum uti.