He taketh the wise in their owne craftinesse They meet with darknesse in the day-time and grope in the noone-day as in the night Prov. 21.30 There is no wisedome nor understanding nor counsell against the Lord. And whatsoever is without God is against him No Associations can do good without him See Isaiah 8.9 10. Walls and Fortifications are to no purpose Isaiah 22.8 9 10 c. The sounds of Rams hornes shall be as good as the Batteries of the greatest Rams or the shot of the greatest Cannon against Hiericho if the Lords strength be not the cement of the stones thereof Iosh 6.20 There is no nourishing vertue in the creatures without him Matth. 4.4 Man shall not live by bread onely but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God There is no Security no Prosperity no successe in any Action any Operation or Enterprize without the blessing of the Lord. Except the Lord build the House they labour in vaine that build it Except the Lord keepe the City the Watch-man waketh but in vain c. Psalme 127. What seemes to be attributed unto Chance Eccles 9.11 being spoken as is thought in the person of a carnall man perhaps to convince such an one from his owne principles is without doubt the prerogative of God who is equally the great Master both of contingent and regular events for there is nothing contingent in regard of the first cause The race is not to the swift nor the battell to the strong nor yet bread to the wise c. Eccl. 9.11 There is no peace nor indeed any good to bee had but from him Isaiah 45.7 I forme the light and create darknesse I make peace and create evill I the Lord doe all these things The Scripture flowes with this kind of instruction And the voyce of Reason and Scripture is subscribed by Experience The experiments are innumerable that History affords to this purpose We need goe no farther than to those evidences which have been given us in our late miscarriages Wee see our Wisedome hath forsaken us and the contrivances of our great Counsellors have proved plots of destruction our policies have served but to improve our miseries to cheate us farther and farther into the power of Mischiefe and Desolation On the one side our gracious King the glory of our strength under God is imprisoned and he that should helpe us is not able to helpe himselfe God hath suffered so good a King to fall into such a condition perhaps to teach us this lesson that I am now pressing upon you I pray God we may learne it quickly for his sake Our Armies though they were strong and powerfull and had the great comfort and encouragement of a righteous Cause yet through miscarriage in the mannaging thereof and for want of engaging God with them in the work yea through their dis-ingaging of him by their wickednesse and horrid impieties they have beene defeated and brought to nothing I pray God this may be remembred hereafter On the other side the Armies in which so many have trusted and which they have beene at such cost to set up and maintaine instead of helping them have become their Oppressours the edge of their Swords hath been turned toward themselves and their own force threatneth them with ruine The Money and Wealth of the City and Kingdome hath purchased chased us no deliverance at all but hath rather served for the hire of our calamities All the Pillars on which we have leaned are broken as it were on all sides and we have no Foundation left us to rest our selves upon on earth Oh then now let us learne from all this that there is no helpe but in God If wee have our recovery we must have it from heaven and from his hand No Drug will helpe us but Manus Christi If wee ever have Peace we must have it from him Hee is the Prince of peace and the God of peace Though the whole World should conspire to doe us good and to relieve us yet if the Lord come not in to the worke it will be in vaine Let us therefore learne wisdome by our former follies and doe not now relapse into your old errours againe There is much gaping after helpe from this and from that from the Scots and from the Welch and from I know not whom and indeed these may be instrumentall helpes and it will be wonderfull in God to make them so But all these will deceive us unlesse God be brought in for us unlesse he be with us as good they were all against us They will neither prove faithfull unlesse God hold them nor helpfull unlesse God strengthen and prosper them Let us look upon them therefore as the returning glimpses of Gods mercy unto us as his proffers and invitations to make us seek unto him But let us take heed that we place not our hope in them nor in any creature It is the common Dilemma of humane folly and perversenesse that where no outward help appeareth it is apt to despaire of help from God and we will trust him no farther than we can see him in the meanes but they that are of this mind if they truely search into their condition will finde perhaps that they trust not in God but in the meanes And againe when outward help doth begin to shew it selfe we are presently too apt to forget our dependance upon God and to withdraw our expectations from him and to set up that meanes for an Idoll in his Throne by placing our hope and confidence therein I pray God deliver us from both these extreames and teach us in all the varieties and changes of humane things to keepe our selves unmoveably fixed upon this Rocke That our help commeth from the Lord which made heaven and earth Psal 21.2 But it is a great question that comes in the fourth place and would require more space than I have allowed mee to resolve it fully What course may be taken to engage God on our side and to obtaine help and relief from him First let mee entreat you all to bee firmly fixed upon this and to let it seize upon your affections as well as your judgements that if ever we be relieved it must be God that must relieve us And then take in this conclusion for your direction That there is no way to obtain help and deliverance from God but by Humiliation Repentance and faithfull Prayer unto him This onely will doe it and this will doe it I must divide and be briefe I shall premise only this premonition I deny not but God may grant outward deliverances outward blessings where they are not sought of him in this way for divers ends that are knowne unto his heavenly wisdome He doth sometimes take off judgements from the wicked that he may render them so much the more unexcusable and sometimes to give them the reward of some outward Services and sometimes for the sake of the righteous that live amongst them
all our sins have kindled these flames let your penitent teares and earnest and faithfull Prayers endeavour to quench them The anger of the Lord incensed by our iniquities is the root of all these miseries let us seeke to appease his anger by the incense of our fervent devotions God is a powerfull God and is able to helpe us He is a mercifull God and willing to relieve and succour all those that turne unto him with penitent hearts The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him yea unto all such as call upon him faithfully Methinkes we may heare him clucking us unto him as A Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings that he may hide us there oh let us runne unto him Me thinks we may see him spreading out his armes and stretching out his hands unto us as he did once unto Israel that he may reach us unto himselfe and embrace us in our returne oh let us not stand out against his mercy to our owne ruine When the Prodigall child in the Parable returned how ready was the good father to go forth and meete him how did he fall upon his necke and kissed him Oh let us then feed no longer upon the Huskes with the Swine upon the empty shells of created helpes by relying upon them but let us go to our Father our heavenly Father our mercifull Father and say unto him in the bitternesse of our soules and the compunction of our spirits Father we have sinned against heaven and against thee and are no more worthy to be called thy Children Let us now at length lay aside our strifes our divisions our wicked and foolish and frantick and worldly contentions about shadows and trifles and impertinences And let us all joyne together to quench the fires that are kindled in our houses about our eares Consider how long God hath waited for this He hath been seven yeares now upon the matter preaching this Lecture unto us It hath lost many thousands of lives to teach it us Oh let us now learn it then and practice it lest we answer for all that bloud that hath been shed Take heed you weary not out the patience of the Almighty but let his long suffering leade you to repentance lest his despised mercy be turned into the greater fury and you be made to pay a heavy interest for all his for bearance in eternall destruction Oh delay not the time lest the Decree of utter subversion come forth against us and there be no remedy We must seek to him if ever we be relieved let us do it quickly that we may be speedily relieved let us do it quickly lest it be too late away with procrastinations Illud modò modò non habet modum There is no end of our anons too morrowes if we yeeld unto our Tempter and our corrupt hearts Seeke the Lord whilst he may be found call upon him whilst he is neere Plough up your fallow ground for it is time to seeke the Lord. Oh make haste for the day declineth the shadows of the Evening are stretched out the Morning commeth and also the Night if you will returne returne come But especially let me bespeake you my beloved Brethren and fellow sufferers unto whom I desire to empty out my soule in this Exhortation You that are the Loyall people of the Land whom God hath so long disciplined under the yoke of the oppression of your enemies Let not all that pruning and digging about you prove in vaine lest he breake out at length against you in a farre greater judgement Oh despise not the correction of the Lord nor cast his reproofes behind your back deceive not your selves with vaine hopes Trust not to the righteousnesse of your cause Alas have we forgotten so soone how our wickednesse hath betrayed it once already And Sin is as great a Traitour still as ever Ioshua and Israel had a good cause and a good Commission even from God himselfe and had received great pledges of the Almighties favour The Sea divides asunder to give them passage and what was a Wall unto them was a Sepulchre unto their enemies The Mountaines skipped like Ramms and the little Hills like young Sheepe as it were before them The Walls of Iericho fall down at the noise of them and instead of being a fence for their Adversaries become a pavement unto them These and a thousand more favours God had done for them and yet though their cause was never so good and their Commission never so authenticall and though all these priviledges were bestowed upon them yet we know what one Achan did amongst them See the Story Ioshuah 7. Alas my Brethren how many Achans are there amongst us we may even tremble to thinke on it I love you too well to flatter you in this Israel was Gods people and Midian was his Enemy and yet when the Children of Israel did evill in the sight of the Lord the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven yeares Let your owne sad experience make you wise you see whither your Sins have brought you and your Cause and your gracious King Take heed you runne not againe into the same errour for which you have already suffered so much and do actually suffer God hath put you to the Triall once againe whether you will receive mercy or no by making new offers of deliverance unto you let not your sins now stand in the way to divert his mercies from you Do not run away from God by your iniquities when he is comming toward you in his goodnesse Oh I beseech you be humbled be reformed let us have no more of your Oaths and Blasphemies and horrid Execrations Your Dammees and your Sinke-mees I feare there are some of your number now cursing banning in Hell for it for all their Loyalty and their righteous Cause and how shall they escape thinke we that love damnation so well as to pray for it It is the monster and prodigy of Corruption that the Devill should so besot any soule Let us have no more of your swinish Drunkennes nor your riotous revellings nor your brutish Lusts No more of your contemning of God and his Truth and his Worship of his Ministers and his Ordinances You see God will not be contemned I pray you consider it hereafter lest if you miscarry againe you miscarry without recovery and your King and the Church and these whole Nations fall with you Oh endeavour I beseech you to make amends for former miscarriages Do not thinke you can do any thing without God leave him out of he businesse no more Trust not to the Scots Trust not to the Welch though I hope they will prove faithfull Trust not to your strength your forces your friends Trust not to the people All these will come to nought without God Trust in God take him along with you in all your waies Consult with him in his Word let him be President of your Councels of Warre and
he was punished for sinne This might further appeare from the goodnesse of God who can meditate no evill to his poore creatures made after his owne Image if not engaged thereto in justice God was all love and mercy till sinne kindled a flame of fury and wrath in him and yet that is a flame of love too for it is his very love unto goodnesse that incenseth him against sinne No cause in God without sinne no cause in the creature without sinne Affliction commeth not forth of the Dust neither doth trouble spring out of the Ground Job 5.6 2. From the nature and use of afflictions as they are either punishments or chastisements or trialls Were there no sinne there would bee no Punishments Were there no Diseases there needed no medicines Where there are no errours there need no corrections Where there are no falsifications ther eis no use of trialls If there were no corrupt money or base Metalls the Touchstone might bee throwne away 3. From the cleare expressions of the Scripture 1. Those that place the fountaine of our Destructions and our Calamities in our selves Hos 13.9 O Israel thou hast destroyed thy selfe but in me is thine helpe 2. Those that more plainely lay the charge upon our sinnes Psalme 107.17 Fooles because of their transgressions and because of their sinnes are afflicted See Ier. 2.19 and a multitude of other places 3. Those wherein God threatens affliction all which threatnings are either explicitely or implicitely brought in by sins See Deut. 28 c. 4. Those wherein we find the people of God acknowledging sin as the root of their Calamities as Psalme 38.3 There is no soundnesse in my flesh because of thine anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sinne Where we have the descent and pedigree as it were of afflictions and judgements set before us The first root is sinne that enkindleth Gods anger and that breakes forth into judgments c. God is the first cause of all good and blessing But the Devill and our corruptions are before him in the production of evill and the curse Hee is the Author indeed of these two and the first cause of all that is good and of being in them but as they are evill they are first from Satan and sinne For God sends afflictions not as an instituter of nature but rather as a revenging Iudge or as a healing Physician c. Therefore this is opus alienum the first spring of this motion is in some sense not in God that is to say in regard of the evill that is therein 5. Those wherein the spirit argues from calamities to repentance and reformation as a meanes of removall ubi negatio est causa negationis ibi affirmatio est causa affirmationis 6. Those places where wee finde Gods practice herein recorded It was for the sinne of Adam that he was cast out of Paradise made subject to the Curse to death and damnation and that the creature was cursed as his utensils and furniture Gen. 3. It was for the bloudy sinne of Caine that hee was cursed from the earth and made a fugitive and a vagahond a Rogue upon the face thereof Gen. 4. It was for the generall corruptions and depravations of the old World that it was destroyed by the wrath of God in the Deluge First the fountaines of the deepe were broken up in a floud of their hellish sinnes and impieties and then the windowes of heaven were opened to overwhelm them with a Deluge of Destruction and so Abyssus Abyssum invocat one deepe calleth another See Gen. 7.11 There was a Fire of horrid and unnaturall lusts blowne up and nourished by those fuellers of Lust Pride and fulnesse of Bread and abundance of idlenesse in Sodom c. before the fire from heaven came downe and consumed them unto ashes c. Gen. 19. Ezek. 16.49 And from such and many other places we may conclude That it is from our sins our great our horrid our crying our nationall sinnes our universall corruptions and desertions of God that these great Evills are befallen us in the Church and State Especially from our hay nous contempt of the Gospell and of the divine worship and ordinances and the prophanations of his House and Service And for the contempt of that Government which he hath set over us and the violating the Authority of Christ from whom it is derived A sin that is indeed the wombe of universall Corruption and Confusion and however it may be painted over with false colours and pretences invented by worldly and depraved mindes to deceive themselves and others withall yet it will appeare one day in its owne Colours when those that have brought forth and nursed this mouster will if they repent not bee afraid to looke upon it c. For these high despights done unto Gods holy and gracious ordinances and for those generall and nationall sinnes of Perjury Sacrilege Extortion Prophanation for those Adulteries and beastly pollutions that have over-flowed amongst us and an innumerable company of other sins are these sad and heavy messengers sent unto us For the Injustice Bribery Partiality Carelessenesse and Cowardise of the Magistrates For the Ambition Covetousnesse Idlenesse Luxury Contentiousness Vain glory Pusillanimity Temporizing Treachery Falsehearteâ—nesse and Scandalousnesse of too many of us of the Ministery For the betraying of Innocency and Justice in the Lawyers their Pleadings against the truth and selling the righteous for a paire of shooes For the loosenesse the Blasphemies and horrid execrations the open and professed drunkennes lust utter contempt of God and the duties of piety on the one side For the Pride the Faction the Hypocrisie the uncharitablenesse the bloudy crueity and oppression the Disobedience and Rebellion the disorderly walking the Perjuries and secret corruptions of another side For the Atheisme and irreligion that is on all sides For the Falshood and injustice of the Trades-men and others in their dealings and contracts their false lights false waights and measures and other deceipts whereby they make a trade of injustice For the murmurings and unthankfulnes face-grindings Tithe-stealings of the Husband men Corne-masters and others For the Pride and impudent shamelessenesse and wantonnesse and vanity of the Women of our age and nation openly professed and written before the eyes of all men as it were in the scandalous and unseemly nakednesse of their Bodies and in those Witchcrafts of Sathan those hellish Characters and Charmes wherewith their faces are bepatched and bespotted those Diagrams of the Devill upon which hee reads infernall Iectures of Lust unto the libidinous and luxurious youth and other people For the dissolution of all order and rules and relations amongst us For the harshnesse and untendernesse of some Husbands to their wives and the foolish and indiscreet fondnesse of others For the stubbornnesse and disobedience unreverence and uncompliancy of Wives unto their Husbands And for the unfaith fulnesse of both one toward another
as God made an offer to Abraham of sparing Sodom if there had been Ten Righteous in the City and sometimes that by them he may correct and chastise his children sometimes to make room for some greater Judgements as Isa 14.29 That the Serpents root may bring forth a Cockatrice and sometimes to leave men to themselves and to give them over as in a desperate condition as a Physitian withdrawes himself from the administration of Physick when hee findes the Disease invincible unto the meanes So God speakes of Israel Isa 1.5 Why should you be stricken any more ye will revolt more and more As the Husbandman gives over the Ploughing and the Harrowing of that ground that will not by all his Husbandry be reclaimed from barrennesse and Weeds And I beseech God deliver us from such a deliverance We ought to pray unto God that he will not withdraw his Corrections from us untill he hath â—one the work of Grace upon us But my meaning is this First That we have no way to engage God unto deliverance no way for us assuredly to obtaine it at his hands but by that Course that I have prescribed And secondly That God useth not to give a mercifull and a comfortable deliverance unto any but those that seeke unto him in that way It is a fearefull thing when God removes his Iudgements before we remove our Sins when the case is with us as Reverend Gildas in his Epistle recordeth it of the Brittaines not to their comfort but their terrour A while ceased saith he the attempts of our enemies but yet not ceased the wickednesse of our Countrymen our Foes lest our People but our People lest not their Iniquities and this was no good presage and I pray God it prove not our case There is cause enough for us to tremble at the very thought of the departures of Calamities from us if we consider how little they have wrought upon us But to the purpose Take it in these foure Branches First there is no obtaining of mercy and favour from God which is the Fountaine of all our comfortable and true blessings and deliverances but by Humiliation for sin past Secondly Repentance or Conversion from sin unto God Third Prayer And fourthly Faith which must present them all unto God in Christ And all these in their efficacy depend upon one another No Conversion without Humiliation no Prayer without Repentance no effectuall Prayer or Repentance without Faith First no reconciling of God nor obtaining of his favour and mercy without humiliation for sin past See how God threatens the people of the Jewes for want of this Ier. 44.10 11 c. They are not humbled even unto this day neither have they feared nor walked in my Law nor in my Statutes that I set before you and before your Fathers what followes Therefore saith the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel behold I will set my face against you for evill and to cut off all Iudah c. See Isa 22.12 13. And many other places where God layes the cause of the continuance and encrease of his fury upon the want of this And if we search the whole Scripture and the History of Gods dealings with the severall people of the world we shall never find that God was ever reconciled to any without this And God is no Changeling He is uniforme in his Actions He is the same God still as he was then hates Sin as much now as ever he did nothing can reconcile him unto Sin The Bloud of Christ could not reconcile him unto Sin though it reconciled him unto Sinners and therefore as long as we are at peace with Sin and at peace with our selves in Sin there is no peace to be had with God His answer will be to all our Petitions for peace like that Answer of Iehu unto Ioram 2 Kings 9.22 Is it peace Iehu saith he And hee answered What peace so long as the whoredomes of thy mother Iezabell and her witchcrafts are so many Such hath the Answer of God beene a long time unto this Nation and such will it ever be untill we are humbled under his hand for our Sins It is our peace that hinders our peace the dead and dull peace of our security that hinders the peace of unity our peace with our Sinnes hinders our peace with God we have had indeed feigned Humiliations Iezebels Fasts But we have not been exercised in true Humiliation and Fasting and therefore we returne without a blessing we have often indeed moved the question as it were unto God but he hath answered us as Iehu did him in a manner in his effectuall and operative word in the continuance and encrease of our afflictions What peace as long as the Impieties and Iniquities of England are so many and there is so little humiliation for them It is the very proper and immediate end for which God sends affliction that hee may make Sin bitter unto us that that bitternesse may produce a sanctified griefe c. See Ier. 2.19 and 4.18 Indeed there can be no peace with God without Humiliation for sin because without this can be no Repentance or Conversion from Sin for this is the Prologue and the Vsher unto Repentance It is as it were the wombe or rather the travell and labour of the soule whereby Repentance is brought forth 2 Cor. 7.10 For godly sorrow worketh Repentance to Salvation not to be repented of So that no Humiliation no Repentance or Conversion for that I conceive the Apostle there meanes by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he there differenceth it from godly sorrow It is the change of the heart which is Conversion And as without Humiliation there is no Repentance so without Repentance or Conversion there is no Reconciliation to God and so no mercifull no true and comfortable deliverance to be obtained That is the second Thesis or proposition That there is none to be had without Conversion Sin in the foule is like Ionah in the Ship untill the rebellious Prophet be cast out the storme will not cease And unlesse this Rebell of Sin be cast out of the soule by a true and serious Conversion unto God a forsaking of all our sins and cleaving unto God the stormes of his fury and indignation will be up against us and if we heare them or feele them not it is because we are in a dead sleep yea we are then many times in greatest danger of them when we feele them least This tempest is oft most violent when it appeares a Calme and it is a great affliction to be without affliction What should I stand to prove this The Scripture is every where almost embroydered with this Doctrine take a place or two for the present See how God threatens not only the continuance but the multiplication of Judgements upon Israel Amos 4. What a Chaine of calamities he makes for them and what a heavy weight of judgement hee hangeth at the end of it from the 6.