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cause_n	great_a	let_v	lord_n	2,934	5	3.6705	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93780	A sermon preached before His Majestie at Christ-Church in Oxford, on the 18. of April 1643. By William Stampe vicar of Stepney in the county of Middlesex.	Stampe, William, 1611-1653?	1643 (1643)	Wing S5194; Thomason E101_1; ESTC R11010	13,508	29

the naturall square of the very Indians is enough to condemne our want of obedience He that said Lo I am with you alwaies even unto the end of the world Mat 28 20 saith also in another place Remember from whence thou art fallen and Repent and do thy first worke or else I will come quickly and remove thy candlesticke out of his place except thou repent Rev. 2. 5. Lastly and which includes all the rest God withdrawes by divorcing himselfe from his people the phrase ye have Ier 3. 8. I gave her a bill of Divorcement saith God of rebellious Israell an expression borrowed from those who by matrimoniall contract have lived a long time together with mutuall joy and comfort till some high misdemeanour breakes out which hath noe other remedy but a divorcement And this should be a word of terror and amazement for the covenant once dissolved betweene God and us our joynture is all forfeited all the pledges of his love to be returned his silver and gold and the faire jewells Ezech 16 17 of his wisedome grace and mercy to be delivered up A Divorce at once casheires us of all relations to God If any man draw backe my soule shall have no pleasure in him Heb 10. 38. And 't is not prateritio a passing by but separatio a word that speakes a farre worse condition Better we had never met under the same roofe then to be parted afterwards Better wee had never tasted the good word of God never knowne the way of righteousnesse Heb 6 5 2 Pet 2 21 then after the knowledge thereof to turne away and forsake it A Divorce proves ever scandalous to one side or other the memory of a better doubleth the misery of a worse estate and the highest aggravation of hels torment lies in poena Damni the remembrance of what we once were the contemplation of what we might have beene Wee have seene how God withdrawes It were well we would consider when he withdrawes too but herein is our blindnesse that God is often with us by the visible hand of his mercy and protection whilst with slumbring Iacob and Samuel Gen 2● 16 1 Sam. 3 7 we are not aware of it And so at other times God withdrawes and will not go forth with us nor have any thing to doe with our designes and yet with infatuated Sampson Jud. 16 20 we are ignorant that God and our strength are both departed that we may therefore be throughly awakened to this danger we are to consider in the last place what condition wee are in when God is departed from us Whensoever God departs from a people or a Citie or a soule he leaves sinne and guilt allwaies behind him If thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted Gen 4 7 but if otherwise Sinne lies at the doore and if Sin lie at the doore we know what to expect from such a porter namely That every mercy shall be excluded and every Judgement shall be let in upon us The Prophet Esayes Judgment shall be let in I will take away the hedge of my vineyard and it shall be eaten up and I will breake downe the wall thereof and it shall be troden downe I will lay it waste it shall not be cut nor digged but briers and thornes shall grow up and I will command the cloudes that they shall not raine upon it Esay 5. 5. The Prophet Ieremies Judgment shall be let in Ier. 13. 13. I will fill the inhabitants of Ierusalem with drunkennesse and I will dash them one against another even the fathers against the sonnes the just character of our unhappy times brother against brother City against City County against County and yet the delusion so strong and bewitching that with Demetrius his rout Acts 19 32 the major part in many places know not wherefore they are come together The Prophet Malachies Judgment shall be let in I will not only powre out my Judgments but I will curse even your Blessings yea I have cursed them already Mal 2. 2. Your Invocations shall become provocations Your Sacraments shall return ye charg'd with more guilt Your Pulpits instead of teaching you to lead a peaceable and quiet life in all godlines and honesty 1 Tim 2 2 shall traine you up into rebellion against God and your King And that meeting so long thirsted after to have clinched and fastned religion and government shall prove a Petar an engine of mischeife to teare all in peices In short when once our iniquities have driven away our God that long roll of judgements that stands upon record Deut 28 will as so many writs be served upon us every mischeife will have his full blow at us in all this extremity that which should be our shelter will prove our snare To shut up all what hath been thus declared in the generall must now be applied to every man in his owne particular When God is driven out of the heart by sin the devill is at that very instant invited to come and take possession this earthly tabernacle of ours will not be long without a tenant 1 Sam 16 14 Saul is not sooner dispossessed of the good then possessed of the evill spirit and whither that evill spirit will lead we may guesse if wee looke after the herd of swine Mar 5 13 or rather indeed to a more dangerous lake then that wherein they perished a lake of fire and brimstone where the worme never dieth nor the fire shall ever be quenched Revel 19 20 Mar 9 43 How much then does it concerne us to separate from that betimes which otherwise will make an eternall separation betweene God and us especially in times of hazard and perplexity with what confidence might we advance against the enemy were but our drunkennes our prophanenesse the poyson of the whorish woman banished our quarters besides the scandall given to the cause sure our strength would not be the lesse without question our successe would be every day more visible and apparent when thou goest out with an army be sure to keepe thee then from all wickednesse saith Moyses Deut 23 9. The meaning is not that wickednesse may be dispenced with at another time 't is spirituall advise tending immediately to thine owne preservation for when thou goest into the feild thou goest betweene the jawes of death within the reach of the Cannon thou art likely enough to take leave of this world Let not thy mind then be so much upon thine honour or thine enemie as to forget what spirituall armes thou hast on to preserve thy soule from eternall ruine Thou wilt not march out without thine armes and wilt thou leave thy God behind thee He that can so easily want his God gives just cause to suspect he was never yet throughly acquainted with him 'T was wont to be a proverbe Let him that cannot pray go to sea and learne and why not into the feild and learne And yet are the hazards of warre so far from startling the military man that as if together with his commission he had a dispensation to be more desperate and daring in his sins then any other man he makes Lust and Rapine essentiall to his profession the most prodigious oathes but as so many necessary accents of passion belonging to the duty of his place as if indeed he were resolved on Hell were practiceing aforehand to curse blaspheme Beleive it the weight of Damnation is no whit lessened by dandling the name of it upon the tongue nor can I see how they can hope to be preserved of God who wish themselves confounded of him every houre Though God will not heare the prayers of wicked men yet 't is likely enough he will heare their curses and bring them home too like water into their bowells and like oyle into their bones nay 't is past being likely 't is most certaine he will ther 's a text for it Psal 109 18. I know not whether we shall more admire or pitty those bold not valiant amongst us that dare goe forth to meet their eternall condition with hearts more hardned then the Armes that cover them The cause indeed requires our lives it doth not require our soules 't is no honour to venture them Nay little do we think how much our evill lives destroy what with our lives we offer to maintaine 'T is said in the first Psalme That whatsoever the godly man doth it shall prosper Psal 1 3 Methinkes that should be of great esteeme as our times are that would make every thing to prosper in our hand Sure it has more vertue then the Philosophers stone that will turne every thing we touch into a blessing and let no man thinke to prosper otherwise for he that may seeme to prosper in his wickednesse may do well to take notice that he lies under the greatest judgement that can be named on this side hell as having no sence of judgment till it cannot be revers'd nor ever awakened till the fire be all about his eares And therefore whil'st ye are ingag'd in warre be sure ye make your peace with God and take heed of giving your selves that deadly wound that will never be cured unto all eternity give no cause to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme 2 Sam 12 14 and let not your good be evill spoken of Rom 14 16 the goodnesse of your cause be suspected and sullied with the foulnesse of your sins lest whil'st you appeare for your Soveraigne and in him for your selves by your purses and your persons ye plat thornes in his crowne some other secret way and unwittingly wound that righteous cause which cannot will not thrive but by holy addresses unto Almighty God It hath been shewed what it is that separates from God wherein God separates from us how miserable we are when God is departed from us What remaines then but that we so demeane our selves in the presence of God whil'st his hand is not shortned neither his eare heavy that upon all occasions we may have free and open accesse unto his eare and may find that hand of mercy which hath hitherto beene enlarged almost to a miracle constant and propitious to us and our designes That God may alwaies owne us for his servants here in this life and acknowledge us for his Saints in that which is to come Which God of his infinite mercy grant c. FINIS

A SERMON Preached before His MAIESTIE AT CHRIST-CHVRCH IN OXFORD On the 18. of April 1643. By WILLIAM STAMPE Vicar of Stepney in the County of Middlesex OXFORD Printed in the yeare 1643. TO THE MOST ILLVSTRIOVS PRINCE CHARLES PRINCE OF WALES DVKE OF CORNWALL and Earle of CHESTER SIR IT hath pleas'd your Highnesse to command this Sermon to the Presse and mee to be your servant what you have observ'd from either that might incline you to so much grace and favour I know not unlesse it were my plaine dealing with the Times This indeed your Highnesse mentioned with a deep sence and relish Would God the madde world knew it Certainly it were enough to stop the foule mouthes of some enough to warme the honest hearts of others God Almighty so compose the present troubles of this State that the Government thereof may stand the surer for this shaking and continue and increase his graces in you for the glorious support thereof when it shall please him to lay it upon your shoulders Thus prayes Your Highnesses most obliged humble servant WILLIAM STAMPE A SERMON PREACHED before His MAjESTIE at Christchurch in Oxford on Tuesday the 18 of April 1643. ESAY 59. 1 2. 1 Behold the Lords hand is not shortned that it cannot save neither his eare heavy that it cannot heare 2 But your iniquities have separated betweene you and your God and your sinnes have hid his face from you that he will not heare IN the precedent Chapter we have the difference stated betweene a religious true fast and that which is merely fictitious and Hypocriticall In this we have the true ground why our fastings at some times become fruitlesse and our prayers unsuccessefull Both common theames yet neither of them unseasonable as our times now are Never did any age produce more fasting more preaching more praying Never did these holy exercises produce lesse fruit Looke we well upon the fruites and we must be driven to conclude by an argument a posteriori that sure some where or other there hath been fasting for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickednesse Esay 48. 4. for of these bitter and accursed fruits have wee abundantly tasted witnesse every Cranny and Corner of two miserable distressed Kingdomes So that our devotion hath neither prevented Gods Judgments nor which is worse Gods Judgments prevented our sinnes What betweene the Atheist in heart the schismaticall factious dissembling Hypocrite and the Atheist in profession the licentious daring resolved sinner we are yet to fast and yet to pray and yet to prosper and prevaile with God wee are at best but under the throes and pangs of our deliverance not but that God is as easily intreated at this day as ever he was since the Creation his power and propensitie to releive England and Ireland is as great at this day as ever it was to releive his owne peculiar Israell The great incapacity we labour under is from our selves Gods Controversie for sinne Hos 4. 1. is the Cause of all our Controversies among our selves his Mercy and Justice are as immutable as himselfe and therefore if wee are not relieved wee must not blame him but thanke our selves For Behold the Lords hand is not shortned c. This Text is delivered by the Prophet to prevent a mistake which Commonly arises in the hearts of men in their conceipts of God and themselves For if we want what we would have or feele what we would want we rave and storme and impute the troubles of Israell sometimes to Ahab the King sometime to Elijah the Prophet nay sometimes we pin them on God himselfe and instead of humbling our selves under his mighty hand a 1 Pet 5. 6. we behave our selves very frowardly in his covenant b Psal 44. 17. For the prevention of which this text hath a double aspect with one eye it lookes upwards upon Almighty God and there takes notice of an omnipotent hand an attentive Eare both pointed at with an Ecce Bebold the Lords hand is not shortned that it cannot save neither his eare heavy that it cannot heare with the other eye it lookes downeward upon man upon man at distance from his maker upon man divorceing himselfe from his God and by a selfe Excommunication delivering himselfe up into the power and government of Satan So that we have here Aliquid Dei and Aliquid nostri that which belongs to God described in the Negative his hand is not shortned his eare is not heavy c. that is he is alwaies one and the same God That which belongs to us and which indeed wee can onely call our owne are our sins and not barely sinnes but Iniquities too and these with two desperate Consequences following close at the heeles one is they obscure the light of Gods favourable Countenance Lu● 16. 26. the other is they make a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betweene God and us they make us that which is so odious in the very name Seperatists and of all Seperatists the worst Seperatists from God These are the naturall parts of the text wherein I shall breifely discover Gods power and propensity to releive his people and afterwards enquire into these 3 particulars 1. What it is that seperates from God 2ly Wherein God seperates from us 3ly which results from both in what condition we are when God is depated from us Behold the Lords hand is not shortned c. The words are a large proposall of mercy offered to all that will but make themselves capable of it namely that God hath alwaies an attentive eare and a ready hand to releive those that shall addresse themselves unto him Not that God hath either Hand or Eare in strictnes of speech in both Humanum dicit he speakes to us as the nourse to the child in that language wherein we are best able to understand him Nor is it a single mercy that is here proposed but mercy ingeminated not hand alone or eare alone but hand and eare both not an Hand Shortned or an Eare heavy but an hand stretched out an eare alwaies attentive So that wee can no sooner present a prayer but God immediately meets it with his eare and whilst the prayer is even entring into his eares he meets and embraceth with his hand of mercy Againe the mercies here proposed are of two sorts either Spirituall mercies such as concerne the inward man or Temporall such as concerne the preservation of the outward in both these respects the hand of the Lord is not shortned As for spirituall mercies I shall onely say thus much in briefe that God in that Covenant of Grace which hee is pleased to make with his Creature freely offers unto us his sonne and in him all the Treasures of inexhaustible mercy No otherwise then a King by his Proclamation Royall offers his mercy to those rebels that will but throw away their Armes and come in and submit themselves to him and his Government But