from vers 9 to verse 17 yet he will never perfect the deliverance till this be done The people which returned from Babylon found God to keepe touch with them to a day So soone as the 70. yeares determined their captivity was dissolved and somewhat was done the foundation of the Lords house was laid but the building went slowly up the reformation of Church and State went heavily on and they were never in a thriving condition till Nehemiah 3. Why it is so by the good hand of God lighted upon this course Some Fasts they had kept before yea very many but they never thrived till he added to their publique and solemne Fasting the fastening of them to God by a solemne Covenant Then the worke of Reformation and establishment went on merrily then they prospered Thus farre the Reasons concluding for a Covenant upon receit of deliverances in generall 2. The Reasons inducing us thereunto upon deliverance from Babylon 2 why for deliverance from Babylon in speciall in particular are these 1. Because Babylon 1. Babylon hath ever bin the sorest enemy after once the Church was put under her power had alwaies been the most insolent heavy bitter bloody enemy that ever the Church felt The violence of Babylon was unsupportable her insolency intolerable her bloud-thirstinesse insatiable Hence the Church is bold to challenge all the world to match her misery under the yoke of Babylon Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me that is by the heavie hand of Babylon in the day of his fierce wrath Lam. 1.12 This was so sore that it hath been by some Fathers and others conceived to be the fullest and most lively typical expression of that matchlesse agony and extremity which our Lord himselfe hanging upon the Crosse sustained when he bare all our sins and the wrath of God due to us for them so farre as to make a full satisfaction to the Iustice of his Father in behalfe of all his people And as it was with old Babylon so it is now and ever wil be with the new I meane mysticall Babylon to the end of the world might she so long continue Even she also delights in no other drink but the bloud of the Saints as you shall finde in Rev. 17.5 where the very name written upon her forehead sufficiently sets out her nature Mystery Babylon the Great the Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth And what of her I saw saith St Iohn the woman drunken with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Iesus and when I saw her I wondred with great admiration v. 6. And well he might A woman and drunke And if drunke would no liquor suffice but bloud no bloud but that of Saints and Martyrs She is never in her element but when she is swimming in bloud So insatiable is she that like the horse-leeches daughter she never saith it is enough Therefore when God gives any deliverance from thence 3. Why it is so in speciall there is more than ordinary cause to close with the Lord in a more solemn and extraordinary manner giving him the praise and glory of so great a mercy But then more especially when God works out the full deliverance of his Church by the totall and finall ruine of Babylon Oh then then is the time when all the people in heaven must sing Halleluiah ascribing salvation and honour and power unto the Lord our God Revel 19.1 And againe Halleluiah verse 3. as if they could never sufficiently expresse themselves to God for such a deliverance such a mercy such a vengeance 2. Againe When God delivereth from Babylon 2. Such a deliverance implyes more than ordinary breach of Covenant on our parts for which God formerly put us under such a yoke there is more than ordinary cause of entring into solemne Covenant with him because the very subjecting of the Godly under that iron yoke argues more than ordinary breach of Covenant with the Lord in time past which stirred him up to deale so sharply with them as to put them under the power of Babylon This Provocation was exceeding great too much to be endured even by infinite Patience it selfe else the People of God had never been cast into such a furnace It was for such a fault as dissolved the very marriage knot between God and his people it was for going a whoring from him For this it was that God first put away Israel giving her a Bill of divorce Ier. 3.8 And for this it was that hee afterwards cast Iudah also out of his sight 2 King 17.19.29 And as it was in former times so in later Ages of the world What was the reason that so many millions of soules have been exposed to the butchery of Antichrist in Mysticall Babylon and to bee so hood-winckt and blinded by strong delusions as to beleeve nothing but lyes even that Great Great soul-killing Lye that they might be damned S. Paul tels us it was this They received not the love of the truth that they might be saved but had pleasure in unrighteousnesse 2 Thess 2. What unrighteousnesse Is it meant of every unrighteousnesse that is in the nature of it damnable which is to be found in the world Surely no but signanter of that unrighteousnesse whereby men turned the truth of God into a lye Rom. 1. that is by corrupting the true worship of the true God and afterwards falling off to down-right Idolatry even within the pales of the Church it selfe Most of you are well seene in the History of the Church and can soone point with your finger to the times wherein Babylon began to besiege Hierusalem and Antichrist began to pull off his vizzard in the Churches of Christ even then when Pictures and Images began first to be set up in Churches for remembrance then for ornament then for instruction too and at last for adoration and worship Then God suffered her to bee over-run and over-spread by Babylon as by an hideous opacum or thick darknesse and to bee exposed and prostituted to all manner of whoredomes and filthinesse so as the slavery of the Iewish Church in old Babylon was scarce a flea-biting in comparison of the miseries of the Church Christian under the new which makes havock and merchandise not of the bodies onely but even of the soules of men Revel 18.13 Now then when God pleaseth to deliver a people from such bondage and to awaken them effectually to look up and to reflect even with astonishment upon those great and gastly sins of theirs which had cut asunder the cords of the Covenant betweene God and their Soules and provoked God to subject them to so much bondage and that they must either renew Covenant or bee obnoxious to more wrath and be laid open to more and greater temptations and sinnes this cannot but exceedingly work upon their soules causing their hearts to melt and
prayed have wee not fasted Have we not had more Fasts at Parliaments of late than in many yeares before Yea hath not there been generally among Gods people more frequent humiliations more frequent seeking of God notwithstanding the malice and rage of some men to discountenance and suppresse it than in former times Why then is Deliverance and Reformation so slow in comming Surely Beloved we have all this while mistaken the maine businesse and neglected the principall part of a Religious Fast You come Fast after Fast to seek God in his House You forbeare your victuals afflict your soules endure it out a long time you pray heare confesse your sinnes and freely acknowledge that all is just that God hath brought upon us and that we suffer lesse than we deserve All this is well But here is the error and the true Cause of the continuance of all our evils and of their growing greater namely that all this while wee have never in any Fast or at any other time entred into such a solemne and publique Covenant with God as his people of old have often done upon like occasions and exigents That I may yet more effectually bring home this to all our hearts give mee leave briefly to parallel the slow pace of our deliverance out of Mysticall Babylon with that of Iudah and some of the remnant of Israel out of old Babylon which for a long time had held them Captives And here first bee pleased to call to minde that as touching the Captive Iewes God failed not on his part of his promise At the end of 70. yeares liberty of returne from Babylon to Hierusalem was proclaimed in the first yeare of Cyrus the Persian Monarch whereupon Ezra 1.1 2. Ezra 2. many did returne under the conduct of Zorobbabel Being come home to Hierusalem wee may not conceive that they were not at all touched with sense of their deliverance or of the sins which had formerly provoked the Lord to cast them into that great bondage out of which they were delivered Well on they goe first to offer sacrifices in the right place Although the foundation of the Temple of the Lord was not yet laid Ezra 3.6 In the second yeare of their comming Zorobbabel began to set forward the work of the house of the Lord and the foundation was laid Verse 8. Verse 10. Ezra 4.1 But the adversaries of Iudah the Great Officers of the Kingdome under the King of Persia apprehending or rather pretending the going on of this building to be matter of prejudice and danger to that Monarchy they procure a stay of it upon reason of State so as it was well nigh an hundred yeares ere they got liberty to go on againe and it was above an 100. yeares before the Temple could bee finished For as many exact Chronologers observe the Temple was not perfected in the reigne of Darius Hystaspis as some have thought but in the sixth yeare of Darius Nothus betweene whom and the former Darius both Xerxes the husband of Esther and called in Scripture Ahashuerus and Artaxexes Longimanus successively swayed the Persian Scepter In all which time many things were amisse Cruelty Oppression Adultery Mixture with strange wives and other great deformations remained Then comes Ezra after the Temple was finished and somewhat he did to set forward the work of Reformation in the seventh yeare of Artaxerxes Mnemon Ezra 7.7 successor to Darius Nothus And yet there was much more to doe After him therefore comes Nehemiah Neh. 1.1 in the twentieth yeare of the same Artaxerxes Mnemon and after all the former endeavours he findes the Church still weltring in her bloud and even wallowing in her owne gore I meane in most of her old and long continued sins although cured of Idolatry so that still there was great corruption in doctrine in worship and in manners Whereupon he now resolves and sets upon a more thorough Reformation of all these but could never effect it till beside the proclaiming and holding of a publique Fast he and all the people lighted upon this course namely of entring into a publique and solemne Covenant with the Lord subscribed sealed and sworne unto Neh. 9. ult and 10.29 as before you have heard and so from that time forward the work prospered and the Church was purged of many abominations wherewith till that time she was defiled Behold here Quantae molis erat dilectam condere Gentem how great a work how long a businesse to perfect a Reformation even of Gods dearest people Their captivity in Babylon lasted not halfe so long time as was spent after their returne thence ere their Reformation could be brought to any tolerable perfection And why so Did they omit prayer and fasting and seeking early after God surely no. For in Zach. 8.19 we read of foure severall publike Fasts * Quarto menst Vrbs fuit expugnata quinto autem fuerat excisum Templum consumptum incendio septimo mense interfectus tandem fuit Godoliaes qui stâ—terat cum residua plebe quae collectaserat ab ejus manu Iejunium autem dici mi mensis putant fuisse institutum post urbem obsessam Ergo jejunium mensis decimi tempore alio praecessit Calvin in Loc. Non quod haec omnia in eodem acciderunt anno sed diversis annorum intervallis The fast of the fourth moneth the fast of the fifth moneth the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth moneth which they held not onely by all the time of the 70. yeeres captivitie in Babylon but many yeeres after their return thence Zach. 7.3 and vers 5. But all this labour was in great part lost for want of this addition to all their humiliation and prayer namely The ioyning of themselves to the Lord in an everlasting Covenant not to be forgotten And when God once directed Nehemiah to this course see how all things began to thrive and come on a maine Now not onely the Temple but even the walls of Hierusalem were built up and that within one twelve yeeres after this Covenant was smitten which before lay wast many scores of yeeres Let us now reflect upon our selves and the State of Religion and progresse of Reformation in our owne Church that we may make up the Parallel Some beginnings of our deliverance from Babylon we received by King Henry the eighth For he threw out the Pope His sonne King Edward the sixth came after and cast out Popery in the body and bulke of it A great work and a large step for the short time of his infant reigne And indeed he had many excellent helps that way beside the zeale of his owne pious heart an Excellent Archbishop a Prudent and vigilant Protector beside others else he could never have done so much Notwithstanding the potency and secret underminings of those mighty Factions then prevailing hindred the work not a little so that it exceeded not an infant Reformation yea through the immature
death of that Iosiah it soone prov'd abortive The Princesse that came after quickly turn'd the Tide before it was halfe high water and she set all the Gates wide open again both for Pope and Popery to reenter with triumph and to drink drunk of the bloud of our Ancestors till God discharged her and released his people from her crueltie So that when Queene Elizabeth that glorious Deborah mounted the Throne although her heart was upright and loathed the Idolatry of the former Reigne yet found she worke enough to restore any thing at all and to make any beginnings of a Reformation She soone felt when she would have throughly pluckt up Popery both root and branch superfluous Ceremonies and all remaining raggs of superstition as well as grosse Idolatry that she had to do with an Hydra having such a strong partie of stout Popelings to grapple with at home and such potent and dangerous abetters of them to cope withall abroad I need not name them I might adde hereunto some difficulties arising from the interests and engagements of not a few of those though good and holy men that underwent voluntary exile in the heat of the Marian persecution who while they were abroad had a large share in the troubles at Franckford too eagerly perhaps pursuing the English Formes of Worship and Discipline and so when upon their returne they were advanced to places of Dignitie and Government in this Church they were the more apt and forward to maintaine and hold up that Cause wherein they had so farre appeared and for which some of them with more heat than Charitie had so openly declared themselves in forrein parts And so what by one impediment and what by another we see it hath been a long time ere our Reformation can be thoroughly polished and perfected as were to be wished and desired for there is nothing so perfect here but is capable of more perfection Nay so farre are we become now from going forward with the work notwithstanding the pietie care of our Princes since the last Restitution of Religion in this Kingdome that as it was in Iosiahs time though his owne heart were for God yet there was a packe of rottten men both Priests and People very great pretenders to Devotion but indeed mad upon Images and Idols we begin to fall againe and not onely to coast anew upon the brinks of Babylon from whence we were happily delivered but even to launch out into her deepest Lakes of superstition and Idolatry under pretence of some extraordinary pietie of the times and of some good worke in hand What is the reason of all this but that not so much as once since the first beginning of Reformation of Religion in this Island we never for ought I know entred into such a solemne publique universall Covenant to be the Lords as he requireth for those beginnings already given us but have sate loose from God and so have not joyned together as one man zealously to propugne his trueth and Ordinances and to stand by him and his Cause as becomes the people of God in all just and warrantable wayes against all opposers and gainsayers So long as we please our selves in this liberty of our holding off from a Covenant with God we may feed our selves with vaine hopes of redresse of things amisse but shall speed no better than those libertines back-sliders in Ier. 14. who lookt for great matters from God but came short of all and then seemed to wonder at the reason For thus they bespeake him ver 8. O the hope of Israel the Saviour thereof in time of trouble why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the Land and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry onely for a night Why shouldst thou be as a man astonied as a mightie man that cannot save yet thou O Lord art in the midst of us and we are called by thy name See here how they are put to it They acknowledge his Power Goodnesse Presence yet they are not saved He seemes to be like Sampson with his Locks cut off as if he were not able to save or would not do it and this they wonder and stand amazed at as a thing incredible and impossible But God makes them a short and sharp answer which may also serve us ver 10. Thus saith the Lord have they loved to wander they have not refrained their feet therefore the Lord doth not accept them If God be as a wayfaring man sometimes with a people more often gone from them sometimes blessing sometimes crossing them and suffering them to fall under heavy pressures never keeps an even and setled station or course of proceeding with them it is but that he hath learnt from themselves as I may so speake they will be their owne men they will not be tyed to him so strictly they will have some libertie for their lusts for the world for the devill for any thing and loe here is the fruit of it God will not be bound to nor walke with them he will not draw out that strength that goodnesse that compassion which might deliver them from the evils they howle under He will neither heare them nor any body else for them not Ieremy himselfe vers 11. not Noah Daniel and Iob Ezek. 14. Nothing therefore but a more solemne and strict Covenant with God will put us into a posture and condition capable of perfect redresse of our grievances how faire so ever either now 3. Vse Exhortation or hereafter we may seeme to be for it This is the second use Thirdly suffer I beseech you a few words of exhortation The returning Iewes you see call upon all their Nation to enter into Covenant Give me leave then to call upon You the Representative Body of this whole Kingdome who stand here before the Lord this day to humble your soules and let me also prevaile with you all to ioyne your selues even this day to the Lord in an everlasting Covenant that shall not be forgotten Make this day a day indeed a day of Covenanting with God and God shall Covenant with you and make it the beginning of more happinesse than ever you yet enjoyed Beloved mistake me not my meaning extends not to engage you in any Civill Covenant and Bond for defence of your Municipall Lawes and Liberties No doubt you will be able to find meanes enow by the blessing of God to setle those things in a legall way especially if you be carefull to Covenant with God Much lesse is it my purpose to draw you into that late Ecclesiasticall Oath and Covenant enjoyned by the late Canon which in my apprehension is little lesse than a Combination and Conspiracy against both King and State My businesse is meerely to perswade you into a Religious Covenant with God as himselfe hath prescribed and commanded and his people in the best times of Reformation have readily admitted namely every man to stirre up himselfe and to lift up