more and more for we are setling like the Jews in an outward formal Reformation without heart Now it would be terrible if the Lord should chuse our own administration and give us according to our own heart I hope he will not But this lay heavy upon my spirit to tell you of therefore the Lord direct you to make the best use you can that if it be his blessed will this place that is the honor and glory of the Kingdom and the refuge of the Saints that the Lord would not come against it FINIS THE TABLE  Page A  Abiding  ABiding with God in evil times 72 Actions  Saints not under the Law in their actions 157 Afflictions  Afflictions of godly and wicked how different 31 Afflictions turn to the good of Saints 119 The life of Faith in afflictions 130 Saints not under the Law in regard of afflictions 150 Afflictions not to be fainted in 194 Amend  All should amend when the wicked are punished 104 Angels  Angels pry into Gospel mysterie 201 Angels good and bad do it ibid. Apostacy  Apostacy a provoking sin 11 Assurance  Life of Faith in Assurance 130 Awake  Christians duty to awake God 86 B.  Betray  Not to betray Gods cause 88 Blasphemy  Blasphemy a provoking sin 9 Blessing see latter  Bristol  Gods mercy in recovering Bristol 107 C  Christ See cleaving  Christ makes all things amiable 192 Cleaving  Blessedness of cleaving to the Lord 70 Honor of cleaving to Christ in ill times 73 Special times of cleaving to God 77 Comfort  What should help Christians comfort 175 Conceits  Vain conceits of wicked men 33 Confidence  Ground of a Christians confidence 27 Consolation  Consolation a duty 40 Four things that hinder consolation ibid. Covenant  Spiritual understanding of the New Covenant effects of it 66 Covetousness  Covetousness a provoking sin 237 Creature  The vanity of the Creature why discovered 61 Conjunction  Conjunction of those that cleave to God 70 D.  Difference  Difference of Gods dealing with Saints 36 Difference between Saints and sinners 208 Discouraged  Weak Saints not to be discouraged 143 Distrust  Distrust in times of danger to be avoided 87 Division  Division among Saints a provoking sin 9 Duty See Consolation  Four grounds of Duty 149 E.  Enemies  Assurance of victory over enemies the effects of it 64 How God destroyes his enemies 85 Equality  Equality that should be between Saints 144 Evil see good  Example  Example of Saints a ground of prayer 150 F.  Faith  Faith the want of it what it doth 40 Faith the life of it 44 Faith how God tries it 83 Faith how the just live by it 128 See Affliction Assurance Sanctification  False  False dealing 237 Fondness  Holy fondness between God and the Saints 54 Holy fondness in five things 55 Fondness wrought four ways 61 Formality  Formality in duties a provoking sin 4 See Reformation  G.  Garison see Minde  God see Hypocrisie Persecutors  Good  To call evil good a provoking sin 11 See Afflictions Work  Gospel  Gospel precepts highest 162 Gospel Mysteries to be attended 202 Gospel riches to be admired 204 Gospels simplicity 225 Government  Government how to be affected 204 Greater  How to argue from less mercies to greater 120 Grace  Grace weak how to comfort it 45 Grace what meant by it 160 Of those that are under Grace 162 Power in Grace more then the Law 164 H.  Heart  Heart hardened 8 Hidden  Saints Gods hidden ones 90 Holiness  Holiness desired on wrong grounds 41 Right laboring for holiness 198 See Comfort  Hypocrisie  Hypocrisie hateful to God 48 Hipocrites honor creatures above God 50 Hypocrisie dishonors God ibid. I.  Judg.  Saints not to judg one another 143 Judgments  Maner of Gods proceeding to judgment 2 Cause of judgments what 3 Judgments why sent 103 Ingenuity  Ingenuity of right Saints 163 Justification  How to live by Faith in Justification 128 133 K.  Kiss  Holy Kiss what 145 L.  Latter Last  Blessing of the latter times 122 First shall be last how 138 Law  Saints under the Law how 156 See Persons Actions Afflictions Gospel  Learning  Learning humane wherein useful 211 Life see Faith Sanctification  Lord see cleaving  Love  Love of God what it works 62 To love though we be not loved 181 Mutual love how attained 184 M.  Minde  Garison of the minde what 16 Mingled  The life of a Christian mingled 133 Ministers  Ministers sins provoke God 149 N.  Nature  Duties grounded in nature 6 O.  Officers  Officers sins provoke God 8 Oppression  Sin of oppression 236 Ordinance  Prayer an Ordinance of God 149 Ordinances not to be neglected 152 Ordinances needful 153 P.  Patience see waiting  Peace  Peace to be studied by Saints 196 Perpetual see Prayer Persecutors Persecution  To cleave to God in persecution 78 Persecutors design 91 God persecuted in the Saints 93 Children of the godly may prove fierce persecutors 99 Persons  Persons of Saints how under the Law 156 Power  Power that Saints have 166 The Spirit called power how 173 See Grace  Prayer  Prayer a perpetual duty 151 Prayer whence it proceeds 169 Wants of prayer how supplied 170 See Ordinance Nature Precept Example Promise  Precept  Precepts ground of prayer 150 See Gospel  Promises  Promises ground of prayer 151 Protection  Protection of God who have right to it 21 Pride  Pride how discovered 185 R.  Reflect  Reflect acts hard to man 177 Saints to reflect on their estate 178 Reformation  Formal Reformation a provoking sin 5 Refuge  God a refuge 14 To repair to God as a refuge 17 Religion  Religion wherein it consists 211 Riches see Gospel  Revolting  Revolting a provoking sin 239 S.  Saints see Weak Sanctification  Life of Faith in Sanctification 129 131 Saintship to be prized 194 Satan  Grounds of Caution against Satan 202 Security  Security why to avoyd it 140 Self-love  Self-love a provoking sin 10 Shame  Iudgments sent to shame men 103 Simplicity  Simplicity of Religion 212 Simplicity of the Gospel 223 Sin  What sins provoke judgments 3 Carriage of Saints faln into sin 43 Saints carriage in a deluge of sin 77 Aggravations of sin 240 Silent  God silent in danger why 83 Soul  The soul of God departs from incorrigible sinners 244 Spirit  Spirit powerful in Saints 166 Spirit undervalued how 167 Spirit wherein powerful 169 Spirit differs Saints and Sinners 208 Spirit how known 210 Spirit to be labored for 213 Spirits excellency 215 Spirits grieving dangerous 220 Spirit to be prized 221 See Word Teaching Work Power  T.  Teaching  Teaching of the Spirit 170 Testament  Testaments compared 188 Trouble  Trouble in Saints whence 190 V.  Vengeance  Vengeance of God against the wicked 27 Union  Union between Christ and Christians 229 Upright  Uprightness ground of it 22 Uprightness how tried 84 W.  Waiting  Ground of waiting on God 112 Weak  Weak Saints not to be contemned 141 Weak Saints their carriage to stronger 142 Weak Saints to be encouraged 196 Word  Spirit to be advanced as speaking in the Word 168 Work  Who works in and for us 172 To be ready to every good work 206 FINIS
Divine Drops Distilled from the FOUNTAIN OF Holy Scriptures Delivered in several Exercises before SERMONS upon Twenty and three Texts of Scripture By that worthy Gospel Preacher Gualâ—er Cradock Late Preacher at All-Hallows Great in London Deut. 32. 2. My Doctrine shall drop as the Rain my Speech shall distil as the Dew Job 29. 22. After my words they spake not again and my speech dropped upon them London Printed by R. W. for Rapha Harford at the Bible in Queens Head Alley neer Pater-noster Row 1650. The several Texts handled in the ensuing Work ISaiah 9. 12 13 c. Isai 26. 1 2 3. Isai 27. 1 2 3 4 c. Isai 28. 15 c. Isai 40. 1. Isai 65. 5 c. Isai 66. 12 c. Deut. 4. Psal 83. Psal 116. Micah 4. 1 2 3 c. Habak 2. 4. Matth. 19. ult Luke 18. 1. Rom. 6. 14. Ephes 3. 20. Ephes 5. 1 2. Phil. 2. 1 2 3 c. Heb. 12. 18 19 20 c. 2 Pet. 1. 9 10 11 12. Jude 19. 2 Cor. 11. 3. Jerem. 6. TO THE READER Christian Reader THou art here presented with a little Work intituled Divine Drops Drops indeed they may be called being but small in quantity but Divine and Spiritual for their quality as thou shalt easily perceive if thou peruse them with a spiritual eye They were several short Exercises of the worthy Author delivered in publike before his Sermons wherein thou shalt finde many Gospel Truths which may not onely tend to thy spiritual profit but delight the work being interwoven with variety of subjects It is like a pleasant Garden wherein thou mayest gather choice of spiritual flowers In one Bed thou shalt finde the just anger of God provoked by sin in another the confidence of the Saints in God their refuge in another the Hypocrite discovered in another the comfort of Gods people proclaimed in another if I may so speak without offence the spiritual fondness between God and his Saints described and in all that which may by the help of Gods Spirit tend to thy comfort and edification I had spared my pains in prefacing but being informed that some though very unworthily have incensed the Author against the publishing of these things For the Vindication of it and my self I have adventured these few lines The work was not gotten out of my hands without the importunity of divers godly men who having formerly enjoyed the ministery of this Reverend Preacher and now being deprived of it by his absence since they could not enjoy him as they would desired to have him present as they might namely in the perusal of some of his works and I hope that shall not offend him that may do so many good Good is of a diffusive nature and the better the good the more it is communicated Some petty good things may be impropriated in the hands of a few but the best even natural good things without which Creatures cannot subsist are common to all as the Sun and the Air c. Good actions of good men especially that are intended for the publike are like the motion of the water wherein a stone is cast there appears first a little circle which grows greater and greater till it have overspred the whole And though these precious Truths were at first delivered in publike yet the Walls of one Church could not contain many hundreds whereas now by this means the benefit may reach many thousands And as Iob speaks of corporal food the loyns of the poor blessed him for it so I doubt Job 31. 20. not but the souls of many poor Christians may have cause to bless the Author for these spiritual Viands who never saw his face and being written for the Generation to come the people which Psal 102 18. shall be created shall praise the Lord. It is true the Word of God in the hearing of it is like milk immediately drawn from the brest that hath more strength and spirits in it then after it hath stood in the vessel yet hearing is transient and the memory trecherous and frail and apt to let good things slip Therefore though the Priests and Levites had the Book of the Law yet God commands the King to write him out a copy of it that he might Deut. 17. 18. have recourse to it all the days of his life Many excellent Proverbs of Solomon it is likely had been lost as some other of his Works are had not the men of Hezekiah King of Judah Prov. 25. 1. copied them out And I am sure of late days the Works of many worthy Men * Dr. Preston Dr. Sibbs Mr. Shute Mr. Ramsden c. had been drowned in oblivion had they not floated in such an Ark as this and for ought I know the Truths here presented had been useful to none but those that heard them had they not been preserved this way And if for our unfruitfulness our Halcion days should be turned into such as were the Marian times who knows what sweetness may secretly be sucked from such brests of consolation Isal 66. 11. I confess had the Author published the things himself it is likely they might have been more exactly adorned for circumstance but it is his own expression That Gospel spiritual Truths have that self excellency that they have no more need of the Embroidery of humane learning then a suite of Skarlet to be laid with Copper Lace The things are substantial solid and serious set forth in the Authors own Language and Phrase without alteration only repetitions omitted and not them neither where they are emphatical And I am confident whoever heard them delivered shall finde his very vestigia in the reading of them as many have acknowledged that in reading his former Book published they called to minde what they had heard though there were the distance of some yeers between I have not not ever did in any mans works taken the boldness to adde one piece of a sentence or to diminish ought The Lessons are wholsom and cordial thou shalt herein finde no lethal Gourd that any should cry out There is 2 King 4 40. death in the Pot. If there be any material error I desire to bear the blame if there be any literal faults let the Printer own them if neither let them blame themselves who without cause have endevored to prejudice the Work For my own particular had I aymed at private gain I could have imployed my time and pains with advantage that way in other things but he who knoweth the heart knoweth I intended the publike good in it and if a Christian must forgive his brother to seventy Mat. 18. 22. times seven times when perhaps sometimes he may wilfully offend I hope I shall easily obtain pardon who if I have offended it is in that wherein I expected encouragement and if I be evil spoken of for this it is for that for which 2 Cor. 10. 3. I give thanks I
Christ whereas he usually means Iesus Christ as I could fully cleare it if I had time Let me give you one instance In the last verse of the former Psalm Arise O God judge the earth for thou shalt inherit all nations That is clearly meant of Christ for we know that God inherits all Nations he made the world and he had the command and possession of it but to God in Iesus Christ there is a time when God hath promised that he shall inherit the nations from the uttermost ends of the earth And therefore here by God is meant Iesus Christ For indeed ordinarily and naturally you shall not finde a people conspiring against God properly you shall see no wicked man but in some sort or other he will speak honourably of God but God in Christ God in the mediator God in the Gospell God in his Saints God in Gospell ordinances and the like hence are all the tumults in the world and all the conspiracies against God and his Saints Therefore if you compare this place Thine enemies make a tumult against thee with Psal 2. Why do the heathen rage Or why do they make a tumult as some read it and why do the people imagine a vaine thing the Kings of the earth take counsell against the Lord and against his anointed That is meerly meant of Iesus Christ So take notice of that that carnall men ordinarily do not speak or think evil of God absolutely considered but the worst of men speak well of him when he gives them wealth they thank him when he gives them faire weather they blesse him when he gives them peace and preserves them in their journeys and wayes every one speaks well of God but God in Iesus Christ God manifest in the flesh God in the mediator God in his Saints God in his ordinances God in his commands and the like then the men of the world use to make tumults then they take crafty counsell together and conspire against the Lord and against his apointed Keep not thou silence O God hold not thy peace be not still You see the prophet looks upon God as one that in the midst of these conspiracies did keep silence and hold his peace and sit still Not that God doth use to speak or to stir properly as we men do but the meaning is this that many times when his son Iesus Christ and his laws and his ordinances are most conspired against God as it were doth keep silence I meane Iesus Christ God in Christ when his people and ordinances are conspired against he keeps silence and sits still as though he would let his enemies do what they would and what they list as though God did not see or heed which end did go forward The Lord oft doth this Keep not silent O God I remember that place in Isaiah 40. 27. Why sayest thou O Iacob and speakest O Israel My way is hid from the Lord and my judgement is passed over from my God The meaning of it is this that when the enemies of God as we see Chap. 39. did oppresse this people they did pray to him and looked for assistance from him but he was silent as it were or asleep therefore they begin to say in their heart My way is hid from the Lord and my judgement is passed over from my God that is Surely it is impossible that God should eye and see my wayes and how men deal with me while I am believing and waiting and praying and humbling my soul no my way is hid from the Lord and my judgment is passed over from my God that is my God hath forgotten to give ear to me Beloved there is a time when the Lord as it were gives cause to his people so to think that he is as it were asleep and lets their enemies go on and none contradict them I was thinking out of scripture that there are three Reasons 3. Reasons of Gods silence in the danger of the Saints 1. To try their faith why the Lord keeps silence when his people are in danger and sits still when there is most need to give help and assistance One is the Lord doth it to trie their faith as we see clearly Matthew 8. 23. where it is said that our Lord Christ was asleep There arose a great tempest insomuch as the ship was covered with waves but he was asleep and his disciples came and awaked him saying Lord save us we perish We read more fully in Mark 4. Luk. 8. he left them when the ship was covered with waves and they were rowing for their lives their Lord was asleep the while and he said to them Why are ye fearfull O ye of little faith Then he arose and rebuked the wind and the sea and there was a great calm Truly the Lord will not suffer his people to be overwhelmed that is certain but he will suffer them to come very near that the waves cover them and fear and horrour shall cover their souls and all to try their faith For faith is the evidence of things not seen take it in all senses take faith for the soul or faith for the body and we live not here by sense but by faith and as the Apostle saith of hope so we may say of faith If we see why do we yet hope If we did see God present striking of wicked men when they consult against his children this were sense men would see that it were better to stick to God then otherwise and there would be a world of hypocrites as Doct. Preston saith for every man would be a professor But God seems to sleep sometimes and keeps silence and leaves his people as he did this poor fishing boat here to see if when they see nothing they will keep faith to him I do find another reason in Isaiah 59 and that is the 2. To try their uprightness Lord doth keep silence in the midst of the troubles of his people as to trie mens faith so to trie mens uprightnesse who will stick to God as to see who will stick to God by faith so who will stick to his cause or his people out of uprightnesse of heart For if God should alwayes appear for his cause God and his cause should have many favourites and friends but sometimes God leaves his cause and leaves his people and leaves his Gospell and his ordinances to the wide world to see who will plead for it and stick to it As you see in that place of Isaiah Transgressions are multiplied saith the prophet in transgressing and lying against the Lord departing from our God and uttering words of falshood judgement is turned back and justice standeth afar off truth is fallen in the street and equity cannot enter Yea truth faileth and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey And the Lord saw it God was as it were asleep but he looked through the lattice the Lord beheld it and he saw that there was no man
shall detain thee no longer from the matter but commend it to thy serious and judicious Consideration and it and thee to the blessing of him who onely can give increase to all good endevors and rest Thine in Christian Duty THO. SHELTON ISAIAH 9. 12 13 c. For all this his anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still c. MY intention is not to expound this Scripture but onely at this time to take occasion from the main drift of it to instruct you a little in that we are about The main drift of it is this That here the Lord by the Prophet threatens many and grievous judgments that should come upon this people you shall see who they are in the Chapter I say they were many and they were sore and grievous And the Lord doth begin as his usual maner is with some first and with the least and when the people would not turn to him that smote them then the Lord would send another plague on them For that is the meaning of that phrase His hand is stretched out still They went on in wickedness and then the Lord sends another plague His hand is stretched out still The stretching out of Gods hand is the executing of judgment upon wicked people usually So that he goes on with very fore judgments as here in this Chapter it is said A man shall eat the flesh of his own arm and yet the hand of the Lord is stretched out still A man would think that were the sorest that could be a man would think that were enough yet notwithstanding the hand of the Lord is stretched out still It is the maner of God throughout the Scripture The maner of Gods proceeding to and in judgments to defer judgments a long while before they come and when they come he sends them by degrees but when they come usually they are many and sore and it is uncertain when they will end as we see in Levit. 26. Amos 4. Isai 5. And here and in some of the Chapters following His hand is stretched out still Just so beloved it is with us at this time as I shall Application to our times shew you briefly for I told you I would not expound but take a word to quicken your hearts and mine that we may speak unto the Lord more advisedly You know a little while agone we thought that the Lord was coming to end the wars The Lord gave us victory upon victory after many corrections and judgments before and we thought they were now over but we were deceived as we were many times before You know God hath been many times about to end our miseries but he hath sent back for his mercies and so he hath done now he hath very strangely called back his mercies and loving kindness and hath stretched out his hand many ways against us God begins to raise up enemies again and to strengthen them he suffers the enemy to break in among us besides all expectation And how long or how far God will stretch out his hand that way who knoweth Let me deal plainly with you For this day we The cause of Gods judgment to be sought in our selves should deal plainly with God and our own souls and however through the week we look for Reasons and Causes of things in a natural way who followed and who were the Commanders and what were the Forces and the like yet it should be the business of this day to judg of things spiritually to see spiritual Reasons And here we see in this Chapter and many such That God stretcheth out his hand while there is some continuation of sins or some new provocation against the Lord therefore it may be God hath many more ends in it as doubtless he hath but certainly there is some strange provocation of God among us that the Lord deals so with us again And all this that we may now see that the miseries that are beginning to rise they are but the stretching out of Gods hand It is Gods Those are wilful provoking sins hand and as of private persons so of publike Nations it is not common frailties that grieve the Spirit but some wilful wickedness When a man hath sin at the slaves end and yet lets it come in to his bosome and when he sees sin through the Key-hole and yet opens the door and lets it come in So in a Nation it is not frailties and weakness there will be whoredom and drunkenness though these provoke God It is not so much this as some wicked provocations of God that are among us Therefore in a word give me leave a little to tell you what I conceive what I fear rather what is the reason why God afresh and anew stretcheth out his arme when we thought his sword was half put up yet now it comes out again and God knows how far it will go or how long it will continue Beloved we should be born with in searching our selves and beholding and confessing our sins and the sins of those that are among us especially in such days as these unlesse we will deale hypocritically with God and proclaim a fast day and come to humble your souls and no man look after his own sins and men not be allowed to bewaile the common sins I was considering that the Saints before confessed their own sins and the sins of others of their Princes and Magistrates and great ones and the true prophets were bold to tell them also of their sins Therefore though I delight not God he knoweth of any thing to speak of mens sins and if I do the Lord he knoweth I am more willing thorow his What they are among us grace to see my own then any mans sins and to speak of them and bewaile them Therefore I say I hope you will bear with me if I tell you my heart if I now were on my death-bed what I think according to this blessed book provokes the Lord that now so terribly he threatneth us again when we thought his anger was over Therefore I pray hear me I shall be brief The first thing that I fear highly provokes God among 1. A formal practice of penltential duties us and as long as we stretch out this line of sin he will stretch out the line of wrath That is our formall humiliation and repentance and fasting and such like things I do not speak neither can any man that hath charity think I speak against humiliation or repentance or fasting I desire to practise it but our humiliation and fasting and praying and repentance and these things they grow every day more formall then other that truly there is almost nothing but formality in the eye of spirituall Christians and they begin to loath it how much more the Lord who is a pure Spirit whose eyes are brighter then the Sun In Isay 1. you shall read that the Lord punished and chastised the people that there was no
and he wondred that there was no intercessor That is God suffered all this truth to faile and Justice to fall back and every thing to go to wrack and ruine God would see if any man would intercede any man among our Magistrates or Ministers or Citizens if any man would plead for God and for his people and for his truth but he saw none and wondered Truly God wonders and men may wonder to see what abundance of people follow God and good lives in the time of prosperity and when adversity comes and wicked men and al the powers of hell conspire against godlinesse to see how few shew themselves for God God wonders at it Therefore his arm brought salvation unto him and his righteousnesse it sustained him he put on righteousnesse as a breast-plate and an helmet of salvation upon his head and he put on the garments of vengeance for cloathing and was clad with Zeale as a cloak The Lord comes and Arms himself just as valiant souldiers in the wars when a party is gone forth they stand to see what they do how they come off but if there be none that will stick to it but run away they buckle on their armour So the Lord stands to see where is the man that will stick to it in these cases and if there be any God rejoyceth in it if there be none God himself comes in Therefore be sure of this when the Lord suffers his Son or any thing that belongs to him to come to these low conditions when truth failes in the street and equity is perverted it is not that God means to suffer the wicked to have their wills for God hath sworn that Christ shall reign but to trie us a little space whether we will couragiously stick to God and his cause or basely for fear of men comply with the world 3. For the compendious destrution of the it enemies There is a third reason God as it were keeps silence and holds his peace in the middst of the greatest troubles to this end that God may as it were gather the wicked into one fagot into one bundle that they may be destroyed together There is a great deal of ado to gather the Saints in this world and truly there is some ado togather the wicked So God withdraws himself from his people yet he hath a hook in their hearts he holds them up secretly by his Spirit that they shall not leave him yet the world shall not see but that God hath quite left them and all their Ordinances and his Gospell and every thing and then the wicked come together and insult whereby God may come upon them at once and destroy them as we finde ten Nations in this Psalm And so in Genesis God stirs up the Nations against Abraham and his posterity and there are ten Nations that God promiseth to cut off before Abraham at once the Perrezites and the Iebusites and the Canaanites c. So God heaps them together and burns them like stubble Those that burn stubble have rakes and they gather it to heaps and then they fire it This is the way of Gods keeping silence among his people and sitting still in the midst of their miseries thus God gathers their enemies on heaps as stubble that he may burn them together Therefore from this that I have said I have three words to say to you and to my own soul Vse 1 The first of all is that if the Lord should take any such course in our dayes that you would learn hence to awake God to call upon his Name to be earnest with him Truly there are a generation of people now I leave them to the Lord to judge them as I shall alway for we have all one master but there is a people that throw away the ordinance of prayer and they professe to live immediately upon God without ordinances without prayer and without all the rest I do not know what their perfections may be therefore I cannot judge but this I know as far as ever I had experience that the chiefest way of communion with God is spirituall prayer Build up one another on your holy faith and Pray in the Holy Ghost saith Iude. And therefore though you be ancient Christians and grow spirituall and see a great deal of formality in your prayers as some pray so many times a day and that out of forme not that they should not pray so oft in a day that is well take heed that out of any pretence you be not remiss for truly it is the readiest way to heaven and to attaine happiness and the clearest conduite to bring grace to the soul and the love of God and the shining of his face that I have yet known I yet know no better therefore take heed of the temptations of Satan that you do not upon any pretence either throw away prayer or be remisse in it Vse 2 Secondly if the Lord should leave his Church and people as we know not what he will do it may be God is going to take a napp let me warne you from the Lord and his word for that is the excellencie of the word by it thy servant is forewarned take heed of distrust and unbelief and impatience towards God God doth take a napp sometimes it is for his glory and for your good but yet cleave to him say as it is here in the Psalm O Lord who is like unto thee Do not think that the Lord will leave his people for God hath you know made a Covenant with his Son that he shall inherit all nations he shall subdue all his enemies under his feet All the enemies hitherto that have risen against his Church God hath subdued them and either our Gospell is vaine and our preaching vaine and our faith vaine and all vaine or else God will exalt his Son and his people and Saints and ordinances maugre all enemies though ten Nations as it is in this Psalm fight against them nay though ten thousand if there were so many in the world God will awake and subdue them and if there be no man in the world that will plead their cause God will do it Therefore live by faith and not by sense take heed of living by sense there is nothing that more poysons and imbitters our hearts and spirits and lives then the beholding of things by sense that as one good man speaks I wish saith he sometimes that I were quite bereft of reason that I might exercise faith We are used to sense and such a man doth this and this and here is conspiring in this and that place and all to overthrow Christ and the power of the Gospell What of all this Look by faith what God hath said and Covenanted and promised and keep up your spirits by faith Vse 3 Then lastly I would admonish all in the bowels of Iesus Christ to take heed of betraying Gods cause or people or your own salvation by your fleshlinesse I
mean take heed you that have thought well of God and his people and have spoken well of him that when you see God sleep a little while and seems not to owne them take heed that you help not the children of Lot go not with the Moabites and the Tabernacles of Edom and with wicked men to conspire against the godly if you do know that if there be a God in heaven and if there be truth in this book you are under Gods wrath to be gathered on heaps for the fire There appears no fire yet but be sure you shall feel it hereafter therefore take heed The Lord will come saith the prophet as a bear bereaved of her whelps If a man take away the whelps of a Bear when she is asleep and go away when the Bear awakens you know what case that man will be in when the Bear sees him and her whelps in his arms So God takes upon him to sleep and if he see his little ones oppressed and abused when he awakes he will be as a Bear robbed of her whelps So much concerning that Now the prophet having spoken to God and desire him to awake he begins to tell him how the case stood For loe thine enemies make a tumult and they that hate thee lift up their heads they have taken crafty counsell c. The complaint was this in generall that they began to make a tumult Why a tumlt The whole world is but like an Army a Brigade of men as it were under a Generall and God is the Lord of Hoasts that is the Lord of his Armies now when there is a tumult in an Army they complaine to the officers to the Generall especially and he must come and suppresse them Therefore saith he thou Lord of Hoasts that art Generall of the world lo there is a tumult in the world a mutinie what is it They that hate thee have lifted up their heads That is they are waxen proud and high And take crafty counsell together against thy people and consult against thy hidden ones You see here the property of wicked people when God doth not restraine them to consult and conspire against the godly for by the hidden ones are meant the godly So the Septuagint reads it thy Saints or holy ones They are called hidden ones or secret ones as some read it because they are precious as in Exodus God The Saints Gods hidden ones calls them his treasure my peculiar people my treasure And you know our treasure and riches we hide it and keep it secret And they are called hidden ones likewise because the Lord useth to hide his people in the time of trouble hide me in the hollow of thy hand saith David and hide me under the shadow of thy wings in another place They are called hidden ones I think principally because the world knowes them not because the Devill alway hath some vail upon the eyes of the wicked that they are not able to know the Saints as Saints 1 Ioh. 3. Now we are the sons of God and the world knowes us not It is the clearest note of a man truly carnall that hath nothing of God in him he will tell you that he knows not who are Gods children and Saints and who are not the Devill hath so many wayes and nick-names as to call them Lollards and Schismaticks and Puritans and now there are more nick-names then ever So God hath his Saints and people they are his treasure and peculiar ones but he hides them from the world for it is not in the apprehension of wicked men to persecute the Saints as Saints but they persecute them as Schismaticks or hereticks one way or other yet it may be they may be Gods hidden ones Therefore what you do against Gods hidden ones you do against him I beseech you take heed how you consult and conspire against people that make any profession of Religion though you think they be hereticall or Schismaticks and it may be they are so and it may be they are Gods hidden ones it may be because of my fleshliness I think him to be an heretick or a Schismatick and it may be he is a Saint and childe of God and one of his hidden ones In the next verse he layes down the conspiracie what it was that they craftily consulted of Ver. 4. Come and let us cut them off from being a Nation that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance The desires of the wicked are not to suppress one or two or a few of the Saints though indeed they light upon a few and God never suffers them to touch all The maine design of persecutors but the maine design is wholly to root out godlines and the people of God that they may not be a Nation For if you consider the ground of persecution it is not any one particular thing in a person but the designe of Satan whose part they act who is the old serpent is to overthrow the whole Kingdome of God to destroy the seed of the woman therefore whosoever sets himself against one his aime is if he observe his own heart if he could to destroy all And in the times before when men durst speak the language of their hearts Bonner would say I wish that all the hereticks were in a sack in the midst of the Sea And many Bishops among us have gloried that they had not one Puritan left in their Diocess And some of late have bragged that they hoped their would not be roome for one puritan in England before those scurvie names that are rife among us now came up It may be if we observe we shall hear some of the same phrases still though the words be altered the designe is the same Come let us cut them off from being a Nation You see that Satan is not willing to have one Saint on earth not one ordinance or one Gospell-sermon It is too low a designe for Satan to aime at a particular person Just as it was with Haman in the book of Hester he might have punished Mordecai if he would but it was too low a thing he would cut of the whole seed of the Iews that there should not be one left That is the reason that Pareus a learned man gives why the Saints are said to be a people that are not 1 Cor. 1. because the people of the world wish that they were not the world desires that they were not nor any thing that belongs to them Therefore I beseech you take this caveat from the Lord that you would take heed how you carry your selves against the Saints though they be but some few particular persons though it may be there may be some weakness in them that may provoke your corruptions for if you once begin to fall on persecuting to oppose Christ Iesus or his people though you begin with a few first one and then another you will unawares fall into the tide into the streame to