A SERMON PREACHED To the Honourable HOVSE OF COMMONS At their late solemne Fast Wednesday December 27. 1643. BY ALEXANDER HENDERSON Minister at Edenbrugh NUM 21.14 Wherefore it is said in the booke of the warres of the Lord what he did in the red Sea and in the brookes of Arnon Published by Order of the House LONDON Printed for Robert Bostock dwelling at the signe of the Kings-head in Pauls Churchyard 1644. Die Mercurij 27. Decemb. 1643. IT is this day Ordered by the Commons assembled in Parliament that Master Solicitor doe from this House give thankes unto Master Henderson for the great paines he tooke in the Sermon he preached this day at the intreaty of this House at Saint Margarets Westminster being the day of publike Humiliation and to desire him to Print his Sermon It is also Ordered that none shall presume to Print his Sermon without being authorised under his hand writing Hen. Elsynge Cler. Parl. D. Com. I appoint Robert Bostocke to Print this Sermon Alexander Henderson To the READER THIS Sermon such as it is was preached to the honourable house of Commons at their desire and is now by their Order printed for thy use and by the blessing of God for thy benefit The desire endevor of the Preacher was according to the scope and nature of the Text to shew that after so often renued and long continued humiliation and after solemne entring into Covenant with the most high God The true reformation of Religion is the readiest meane to turne away the still pressing wrath of God from the Kingdome And to bring the desired blessings of all sorts upon Church and State which yet will prove but uneffectuall unlesse the Reformation intended by the Honourable Houses of Parliament and the reverend Assembly of Divines be attended faithfully followed with Renovation and Repentance in the people Repentance for every knowne Sin and how can Sin be unknowne in the midst of so many burning and shining lights But repentance especially for sinnes 〈◊〉 the matter of Religion the present Epidenticall disease of this Land which threatneth changes Armies of sorrowes so it pleaseth the Lord to give more then a taste of the bitter fruits of bad Church-government and a sad representation of the face of the Kingdom if every man should be left to preach professe and print what he will O that my people had harkned unto me Israel had walked in my ways I should soon have subdued their Enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries The haters of God should have submitted themselves unto him but their time should have endured for ever Hearken therefore unto the voyce of God in the spirituall plaine and powerfull preaching of his servants one of the greatest evidences that the Lord hath a purpose of mercy toward you and walke in his wayes Marke them which cause devisions and offences amongst you be wise unto that which is good simple concerning evill the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you A SERMON Preached at the late Fast before the Honourable House of Commons EZRA 7.23 Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven for why should there be wrath against the Realme of the King and his Sonnes THE Lord who is the Father of Spirits hath a great diversity of influence and operation upon the minds and hearts of the children of men he can send a dream upon Nebuchadnezar while he is at rest in his house and florishing in his palace which maketh him afraid and the thoughts upon his bed and the visions of his head to trouble him a While Belshazzar the King maketh a great feast to a thousand of his Lords he can make a hand to write over against the Candlesticke upon the plaister of the Wall which maketh the Kings countenance to be changed and his thoughts to trouble him so that the joynts of his loynes were loosed his knees smote one against another and his wise men and Lords were astonied with him b he can make Balaam when he is called to curse the people of God contrary to his owne intention the desire of Balaak to blesse them three times c He can make Cajephas to prophesie what he understandeth not that one man should die for the people and that the whole Nation perish not d And the Lord can reveale his will to Joseph Daniel and his Prophets concerning things to come for the comfort of his Church e Againe the Lord can renue the hearts of his Enemies and make such a Persecutor as Paul sometime was to be a beleever and Zealous Preacher f He can restraine the impetuous violence of the heart of man thus dealt he with Laban that he durst not speake to Jacob either good or bad g he can also and doth indeed overrule the hearts and wayes of his most Malignant and desperate Enemies whom he neither renueth nor restraineth and contrary to their Counsels and intentions bring them mervelously about to his owne ends as he dealt with Judas Herod Pilate and the people of the Jewes who devised and did mischiefe against Christ but God meant it for good to save his people from their sinnes h There is yet another way of divine providence and Soveraignty when the Lord is pleased neither to proceed to farre as to renue nor doe so little as to restraine but thinketh meet to change the affections of the heart of man whether from particular hatred and opposition as he dealt with Esau comming against Jacob i and Alexander the great marching against Jerusalem k or from that common and innate hatred that all men naturally beare against the true Religion and Church of God Of which we have the example of Ahashuerus in the booke of Ester of Artaxerxes in the booke of Nehemiah of Cyrus and Darius in this booke and of the same Artaxerxes in this Text In whose eyes Ezra did find such favour and of whom he had as ample testimonie of royall benevolence and bounty toward Jerusalem and the house of God there as his heart could have wished and as made him humbly to acknowledge that the good hand of the Lord his God was upon him and to blesse the Lord God of his fathers which had put such a thing in the Kings heart as to beautifie the house of the Lord God which was at Jerusalem In the letter of Artaxerxes expressing his munificence and containing the Commission and instructions given unto Ezra for this purpose the clause which I have read is worthy of a starre or finger in the margent wherein we may perceive that the King as he had heard and learned not from a flattering Court-Chaplaine but from faithfull Ezra beleeveth that the great wrath of God shall come not onely upon himselfe but which was more upon his Kingdome
time especially that you have not called and endeavoured so earnestly as yee ought for Reformation of Religion that every thing might have beene done in the house of God according to his own wil but have pleased your selves with and have rested in the beginnings of a Reformation yee have been for the greater part more pleased with things which were not reformed then the things which were reformed in the worship of God and this sinne hath beene the cause of many other sinnes for where God is not served aright all other duties are but neglected or performed without sincerity Secondly for the present this is the sinne of the Land that the people have not according to their power stayed the King from shedding of blood but many have joyned their Counsels and endeavours to begin and encrease the common misery and others have not resisted the evill but suffered the sword to rage which may make the people justly to say We have sinned and done wickedly The third is the length of this wrath for it reaches to the Kings Sonnes and so to the Posterity The wrath of God endeth not at the persons that have sinned but is extended to others that descend of them without respect of persons and especially for sinnes about the house and worship of God For the horrid and blasphemous murmuring of Israel when they repented themselves of their comming out of Egypt and said one to another let us make a Captaine and let us returne into Egypt not onely their own carkasses fel in the Wildernes but their Children which had not murmered yea which were not yet born must wander in the Wildernesse forty yeers and beare their whoredomes g In like manner in the seventy yeeres of the captivity of Babylon the Children that were borne in Babylon or were carried from their owne Land suffered in that captivity a world of miseries for the sinnes of their Parents The examples of the Children of Dathan and Abiram of the first borne of Egypt of the young ones in Sodome that had not sinned after the similitude of the transgression of Adam and many other judgements of God plucking up root and branch prove this to be the manner of the Lords proceeding against sinners and that without respect of persons The greater the persons be the more grievous in the justice of God is the punishment because the sinnes of great ones are not onely sinnes but examples of sinning and proclamations of liberty to inferiours and therefore I will be glorified in Pharoah and in his servants h saith the Lord For the sinne of Saul in slaying the Gibeonites there was not onely a famine in the dayes of David three yeers yeere after yeere but seven of his sonnes also were hanged up in Gibea David himselfe was not spâ—red but because he had slaine Vriah the Hittite with the sword of the Children of Ammon Nathan said the sword shall not depart from thine house because thou hast despised me i And afterward when his sinne was pardoned because he had given great occasion to the Enemies of God to blaspheme the Child also that is borne unto him shall surely dye This course the Lord doth after a speciall manner follow in sinnes about his house and worship and therefore in the second command and no other doth the Lord threaten to visit the sinnes of the Fathers upon the Children The reasons why the Lord doth so are first that all the world may know how much the Lord abhorreth sinne especially in matters of his worship To this purpose it is observable what he saith Exod. 32.34 In the day when I visit I will visit their sinne upon them So often as he punished the people and their posterity for other sinnes he remembred their sinne of Idolatry which gave occasion to the saying That in every plague of Israel there was one ounce of the golden Calfe Secondly that men may abstaine from sinnes of this sort not onely for respect to themselves but to their posterity whom they love so â—enderly and of whom they are often more carefull then of themselves And this he doth to the third and fourth generation that both the Parents themselves and others who are witnesses to the sinnes of the Parents may be sensible of Gods dealing and know that the Lord is just and the avenger of sinne I leave the theologicall discourse in vindicating the justice of God onely I say first that the Lord punisheth no man with eternall wrath for his fathers sinnes but the soule that sinneth suffereth in that kind Secondly that the ungodly and wicked posterity cannot open their mouth against the justice of God since they continue in the iniquity of their fathers Thirdly that the Godly when they are visited in their bodies goods or estates which they have from their Fathers will find these visitations to be indeed indicia peccati non judicia propter peccatum and rather medicines and preservatives for their eternall happinesse then wrath for their destruction And I come to the use that in this nicke of time and joynture of affaires the great wisdome which God hath given you in your publike places be stirred up and exercised in taking heed that all the former sinnes of this Land committed by so many Progenitors be not brought upon this Generation according to that sore and sad sentence pronounced by the Sonne of God against Jerusalem Matth. 23.35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias Sonne of Barachias whom yee slew between the Temple the Altar and verse 36. Verily I say unto you all these things shall come upon this Generation Yee cannot preserve all particular persons from the judgements due unto them for their own and for their fathers sinnes nor can yee preserve every Family from the wrath which the present and preceding generations have been treasuring up It appeareth that the Lord hath decreed the destruction of some persons and the eâ—tirpation of some Families But it is in your hands to prevent the desolation of the Church and Kingdome The Jewes filled up the measure of their Fathers by crucifying the Sonne of God when he came amongst them and would have wrought a Reformation and therefore their habitation was left desolate and they are no more a Nation nor a Kingdome unto this day It is true the people were executioners but the Rulers were the prime Agents Doe therefore the worke unto which the Lord hath called You and Yee shall save the Kingdome from this wrath It is in Your hands as Instruments to make the posterity blessed and to blesse You for your faithfulnesse Woe to them that leave their Station in such an exigence they doe what they can to bring all the blood and all the sinnes of former times upon this Generation and to make the Posterity miserable Let others professe or pretend what they will I am assured that such
Use of this may be two-fold One is against the wicked since in these three respects there is no wrath comparable to the wrath of God no wrath is so much to be feared as his wrath Vengeance belongeth to me I will recompence saith the Lord and againe the Lord shall judge his people It is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the living God p although it be much better for the Godly to fill into the hands of God whose mercies are great and who in judgement remembreth mercy then into the hands of men whose mercies are cruell and it were more tolerable for them to have the pestilence then the sword raging in the Land q yet the wicked shall find that it had beene more easie for them to fall into the hands of men then into the hands of God who both killeth the body and destroyeth their temporall being casteth both soul and body into the fire of hel For the Lord whose name is jealous is a jalous God r and which is very proper for such as at this time flatter themselves in their owne wickednesse The Lord will not spare him but the anger of the Lord and his jealousie shall smoake against that man and all the curses that are written in this booke shall lye upon him and the Lord shall blot out his name from under Heaven s To which that of the Prophet is very agreeable Then shall mine anger be accomplished and I will cause my fury to rest upon them and I will be comforted t The wicked amongst the people of God who blesse themselves in their owne hearts saying We shall have peace though we walk in the imaginations of our owne hearts are the naturall element for the curses and judgements of God which are moving to and fro to lye and rest in and when the curses and judgements of the Lord come upon them the Lord is at rest and is comforted and his people that feare his name and tremble at his judgements are also at rest and are comforted Another use is for the Godly who in some similitude and conformity with the wrath of the jealous God should stirre up in themselves their zeal and just indignation against false worship and the contempt of the true worship of his name When Moses did behold the Idolatry of the people in the golden Calfe his Zeale was so strong and he so impatient that he brake the Tables written with Gods owne hand u I have beene very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts saith Elias x For the Children of Israel have forsaken thy Covenant thrown down thine Altars and slaine thy Prophets with the sword When Paul came to Athens and saw the City wholly given to Idolatry his spirit was stirred in him and a Paroxisme like a fit of a feaver did take him y And when Lot was at Sodome he vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawfull deeds his soule was tormented within him z You must not any longer be lukewarme like Laodicea neither hot nor cold a but according to the fervent anger ascribed here to God fervent in spirit serving the Lord b When we are lukewarme in the matters of God then doth the wrath of God wax hot and when we are fervent and zealous then doth his anger cease and the fire of his wrath is extinguished The second is the object of his wrath or the bredth unto which it is extended The Realme of the King he saith not upon the King or upon the King of the Kingdome but upon the Kingdome of the King and thus he expresseth himselfe upon two grounds or for two reasons The one is because he knew that for his fault the people might suffer The other is that he looked more to the suffering of the people then to any thing that could befall himselfe No question he had learned from Ezra and others of his spirit so good and necessary a thing is it that Ezraes and Nehemiahs be about Kings such prove indeed as their names imply helpers and comforters both to King and people that Kingdomes suffers sometimes for the sins of their Kings and Rulers c a truth not unknowne unto naturall men It is also true that Kings sometimes suffer for the sinnes of the people For the transgression of a Land many are the Princes therof d If you shall still doe wickedly saith Samuel to the people e yee shall be consumed both you and your King But all the debate is in the application for Kings many times justifie themselves that the people suffer not for their sinnes but for their owne and the people are as ready to justifie themselves that Kings suffer not for their sinnes but for their owne and when wrath is upon both both are ready to stand to their owne defence and to plead their innocency But the true determination is that no man or multitude suffereth but for that sinne which some way is their owne sinne and whereof they themselves are guilty When David numbred the people the people were punished the people were punished for their owne sinnes both their former sinnes which the Lord at this time did take occasion to call to remembrance and their present sinne in consenting to the numbering of the people for had they beene all unwilling as Joab was and had not consented they had not sinned Kings should not be permitted to commit such publike sinnes but Councell Parliament People and every one according to his place and power should hinder them It may displease them for the present but afterward it shall be no griefe nor offence of heart unto them either that they have shed blood causlesse or have avenged themselves as Abigail said to David f yet David said truely it was his sinne both because it did beginne at him and he was the principall Agent in it and because he gave the provocation at this time and his sinne was the match that set on fire the wrath of God which was ready before to be kindled against the people for their sinnes It is a miserable debate betwixt a King and a people when in the time of a publike judgement both of them stand to their owne innocency and the one accuseth the other of guiltinesse But it is a sweet contest and promiseth much mercy and comfort when the Prince saith I have sinned and done wickedly but what hath the people done and when the people say we have sinned and done wickedly and thereby have drawne wrath upon out selves Although at this time the Kings Majesty when he sees so many of the poore people fall to the ground so much blood spilt should be moved in his heart to say as David said I have sinned Yet yee that are his Subjects each one in his owne place should confesse your owne sinnes and justifie the Lords doing for yee are guilty first of many sinnes before this