of curing hath multiplyed our Maladies Punishments are inflicted without mercy not onely for no offences but for acts of righteousnesse Transgressions are made without any Laws forbidding them more than the corrupted rules of some mens unsanctified Consciences The method of Iustice and Government is confounded and instead of the lawfull Officers and Instruments of Government they being removed Changelings are thrust into their places without any legall or authenticall delegation from the fountaine of Iustice and Authority whose want of Commission poisons their administrations and whilst they execute one murderer they commit another therein A stone and a stone and an Ephah and an Epha are become too perpetuall an abomination to the Lord in this notion and in this ruine and devastation of Government All the Duties both to God and man both of the first and the second Table of piety towards him and justice and charity to our Neighbours of chastity temperance and Christian sobriety in our selves how are they fallen and trampled under foot and indeed how should it be otherwise when the hedge of the vineyard is broken down what beast of the field or wilde Boar of the Forrest can wâ—nt an admittance to forrage waste it When the foundations of the Earth are out of course what hope is there of any soundnesse or integrity to bee left The Sunne is scarce more necessary to the world than a lawfull and setled government is to a people And if the Sunne be Eclipsed it is held to bee the forerunner of sad Eclipses of our inferiour Comforts and so wee have found the Eclipse of our Politick Sunne in the State And lastly for our Honour and reputation Alas How should that stay when all these are gone It is a blessing which if it bee true is but the splendour of other perfections and therefore when they are vanished it must likely runne after them Or if it stay behinde it is but a shaddow in shead of light What Credit is to rich men or Riches such is Honour or Reputation to other Excellencies And wee may here remember the old Verse Quantum quisque suâ nuÌ„morum servat in ared Tantum habet fidei When wealth and riches take their journey credit useth not to remaine at home And since Peace Liberty and the nurse of both and of all other blessings Government have left us our reputation is become but a fading flower We were once the Glory who are now the shame the scorne and reproach of other nations Our brightnesse is clouded our splendour is obscured Wee whose name heretofore for comlinesse and beauty in Religion made Rome to blush as it were in all her pride to see Truth in this Church like a Diamond richly set in the gold of excellent Order and decency to out-shine all that sophisticall lustre of their gawdy and glaring superstition We whose fame for Valour and Prowesse hath heretofore put such Agues into the greatest of our bordering Kingdomes whose renowne for learning and knowledge in the Liberall Sciences and in the Lawes Divine and Humane made us so much the Athens and Academy of the World We Ah! what a Wee are wee now become How are wee made the mocking-stock of our Adversaries ROME laughs at us to see our grave and comely Matron for such was our Church spoiled of her decent and seemely ornaments and cloathed in the garments of madnesse and in the ragges of Confusion and desolation To behold that precious Gemme of holy truth which we embraced rent out of the Gold and cast under foot into the Dung-hill To see our field that bore such fruitfull Crops and our Valleyes that stood so thicke with Corne that they did even laugh and sing even with the good Corne of wholsome and sound Doctrines to bee overgrowne now with the Thornes and Briars of Hereticall opinions and mad Factions and Divisions There there say they so would we have it whilst the Calamities of our Church are their game and pastime and as once it was said of Tire in her ruine Is 23.7 so wee may conceive them crying out scornfully against us Is this your Ioyous City and is this the temple of truth and holinesse Is this the Fortresse of the divine Oracles the great Castle and Champion of the reformed Religion See now what is become of their Reformation where now is that excellent building which they had set up Oh how bravely it burnes and consumes in the flamer of those fires which themselves have kindled in it Oh what sport it is to see it How it warmes us how it revives us Thus they delight themselves with our phrensies and strengthen themselves by our confusions and desolations But Lord how long shall the wicked how long shall the wicked triumph How long shall they utter and speake hard things and the workers of iniquity hoast themselves Lord looke upon our reproach and ignominy and restore us for thy mercies sake Let not them that are our enemies wrongfully rejoyce over us neither let them winke with their eyes that hate us without a cause They have opened their mouth wide against us and have said Aha Aha our eye hath seene it This thou hast seene O Lord keepe not silence O Lord be not farre from us Stirre up thy selfe and awake to our judgment even to our cause our God and our Lord. Our bordering Nations that heretofore feared us and honoured us how doe they now dispise or pitty us whilst our samed Valour and Prowesse is degenerated into treachery and basenesse and the glorious noon of our Learning and Knowledge is overspread with a cloud of stupidity and ignorance And all these losses are accompanied with many other with decay in trade of husbandry and what not But I have done with this long and sad contemplation of our miseries although I doubt not but your daily observations and the perpetuall sense of that variety of pressures that are upon us may informe you that I have left many sores untouched But thus farre I have endeavoured to shew you the streames of our evills and now I come to discover the fountain of them I have hitherto set before you some symptomes of our maladies it remaines now that I should lay open the root of them that so we may proceed unto the cures and remedies And here I have a world of matter before me But I have been too prodigall of my paper already and therefore dare not lanch out into these deeps Besides that necessity is urgent upon mee in divers respects for a conclusion Take therefore for that which is behinde these severall Theses The first is this That the generall fountaine of all these our miseries and caldmities are the generall Corruptions Backeslidings and Pollutions that are amongst us in this Nation The Assertion is evident 1. Because sinne is the causa sine qua non The cause without which there is no affliction There was never any but one that was punished without sin and that was Christ and even
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
needlesse for me to speake in an argument that is set on with so much eloquence from heaven But when on the other side I remember how deafe wee have beene unto all those Orators it might well be conceived a thing hopelesse for me to be heard where so many and so earnest pleaders from heaven have not obtained an hearing Not a stroke that God hath laid upon us but hath brought with it an admonition unto humiliation and Prayer The Word of God and the rod of God are but several preachers in a divers dialect of one and the same doctrin The word speakes it more clearely The Rod more terribly The Word is the interpreter of the Rod and the Rod the quickner and enforcer of the Word In the WOrd God dictates his Rules and Precepts and calamities are as it were the Presse of the Almighty to imprint them upon the Tables of our hearts Affliction urgeth us to every duty but to none more properly then to humiliation and prayer The Rhetorique thereof hath been so powerfull that it hath convinced Hypocrites and even meere naturall men It was so powerfull that it brought downe Pharaoh and Ahab to do something in humiliation Though they came short of the full performance it forced some expressions even from corruption it self it overcame the stubbornesse of rebellious Israel although their hearts were not right toward God yet whilst the hand of the Lord was upon them in the multiplied lashes of the divine indignation against sin they durst not stand out in a professed opposition but fell downe prostrate at the incensed divinity Psal 78.34 When he slew them them they sought him and they returned and enquired early after God and they remembred that God was their Rocke and the high God their Redeemer It was prevalent upon the naturall temper for we know no other that bee had of the Shipmaster in Ionah so that he could become the reprover of Ionah for his sluggishnesse and exhort him to the necessary duty of supplication to the divinity Ionah 1.6 when the storme was violent upon them hee thought it strange that Ionah should be asleep and forget to pray He came to him and said what meanest thou O sleeper arise call upon thy God if so be that God will thinke upon us that we perish not It is a Doctrine that nature it self it seemes can heare from the mouth of present distresse and anguish a voice of God that overcommeth the deasenesse of those that are spiritually dead A principle much below Christianity that was legible in the dark and gloomy glimmerings of corrupt humanity That it concernes men to seek for help of God in the time of danger and anxiety Yea some have thought that it hath been forcible enough to improve the bruitishnesse of meere sensible creatures and to teach them some motions toward God and heaven in their extreame necessities The Lions roaring after their prey seeke their meate of God who prepareth for the Raven his food when his yong ones cry unto God Iob 38 41. And although that of Lorinus be good Commentary that it signifies that God is invocated by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not by the clamour of language but by the cry of their necessity which God is pleased to heare by the holy eare of his providence so farre as to extend his care herein unto those bruitish Creatures Or that of Simeon de Muis upon the 104. Psalme That these bruitish Creatures are said to seeke their food of God whose office it is to provide for all in the like sence wherein we may say that the child by his cry asketh food or the Teat of the mother which yet knoweth not the mother Yet I find Euthymius brought in for the Author that many men have often seene it in the time of famine or drought that those brutes have lift up their eyes unto heaven as if they did by an ineffable kind of language call upon their Creatour for a supply And is it not a shame that wee should bee such dunces in Piety that we should be of a lower forme therein than the beasts themselves that wee should be set to learne to seeke God in affliction of the Ravens and the Lions and yet come short of the lesson It was an ignominious reproach that lay upon the ingratitude of Israel Isa 1.3 That the Oxe knew his owner and the Asse his Masters Crib And yet Israel did not know nor consider the bounty of God who was so liberall a Master toward them at whose hand they were continually fed at the breasts of whose providence they continually sucked who bare them in the armes of his mercy and carried them in the bosome of his compassion The Wiseman without doubt intendeth to shame as well as to instruct the sluggard when he sets that Truant to Schoole unto the Pismire that he may learne industry and providence of that little Mistris And certainly Iob meant it for no grace unto the Schollers he was instructing when he sends them for learning in matter of providence to the Beasts and Foules to the Earth and to the fishes And what a dishonourable stupidity is it in us that Affliction should in any sense worke that upon naturall men upon meere hypocrites yea upon bruit creatures that these should in any signification be said to seeke to God in the time of affliction And that we cannot learne this lesson of the same Master It is time for us to disclaimeour very humanity and kind and to yeild up all the preheminence thereof unto the meanest of those creatures if wee suffer them to outgoe us in Religion too as well as they are beyond us in many other perfections And yet alas how dull have we approved our selves How many severe Masters hath God set over us for the purpose To teach us these so low and mean Lectures of Piety To seeke for deliverance from God in the time of our trouble at least when the cause is so with us that we can see no hope of attaining it any where else that we should at least make God our Cum nemini as it is said and betake our selves to him when all other helpers reject us that wee should make him our last refuge if we will not make him our choise and yet how poore proficients have we proved our selves herein Are wee such sworne fooles that experience can teach us nothing after so long a Prentiship of misery Are we so fast asleep that no Thunder can awake us So dead in our Lethargy that wee cannot feele so many bloudy gashes that the Sword of the Lord hath made upon the wounded and dying body of our Nation that we have no sense of the scorching and the scalding of those flames of the wrath of heaven which have so wasted and consumed us and burnt away so many members of our Church and State unto ashes Have so many yeares pruning and digging about us made no cure at all of our barrennes but
a man may judge that to be crooked that agrees with a crooked rule so of the two we might rather conclude that man to be unfit that the people chooseth than to be fit and so more consonant to reason that he should even therefore be rejected than admitted for in that he is chosen by the people it is to be presumed that they are fit to judge of him and if they are competent judges of him it will reasonably be inserred that he is inferiour to them in wisdome and excellency but this is not to be imagined and therefore the conclusion holds fairely per argumentum ab absurdo that the people ought not to have the choice of the Minister Againe it is against two maine ends of Triall and Election which are first that the Minister may be such as may not deceive the people Therefore there must be some wiser than the people to try him or else they may be deceived by him in the capacity of Triers as well as in capacity of Disciples or Learners otherwise this would suppose upon the matter all Election unnecessary in regard of this end for if they are presumed to be able to judge of his Doctrine there is no danger that they should be deceived by it nay for ought I know it will inferre no necessity at all of a Minister or of his teaching them for if they be wise enough to examine him in point of Doctrine or to try him in it it is to be presumed that they have as much or more light than he for that light must be greater that will discover the failings or imperfections of another light unlesse we will have darkenesse to judge of light The second maine end is that he may be such as will not corrupt them by his life and conversation that will not lead them on by ill example in Faction Sedition or in any wicked course Now this is not likely well to be provided for by committing the Election to the people for how soever the timpany of opinionate holines is become so generall a disease in these times yet if we take not maskes for faces if we understand holines aright or make a true survey of the people it will be found a conclusion too operative even in these times That the greatest part of the people are not of the best inclinations and than if that be a true principle that owne appetit simile Every thing delights in that which is like it selfe The major part of the people which is evill are not in any great probability to choose a pious Minister In short the question than will be as I have it from an Elegant Lamenter of this Churches miseries in far better times when these evills which we suffer seeme to have been but in their cradle Quonam pacto de eruditione imperiti vel de sapientiâ stulti and let me adde vel de probitate impii recte judicabunt Querim Eccles How shall rude and illiterate men judge of erudition or fooles of wisdome or wicked men of honesty and righteousnesse Have we not cause to feare with him least in a popular Election the holier sort may be overcome of the greater number and that they may choose such Ministers as in their wills their inclinations their lives and manners are most conformable unto themselves If reason will not prevaile let the Scripture be searched and see if upon due examination it can be found that ever a meere popular Election was erected by any Divine warrant to be the gate for the Ministry to make entrance by into their Functions I deny not there are pretences of Scripture for the purpose but shadowes are many times much longer than their substances if they have any substance at all in them that note which is taken from those that have shewed themselves none of the best friends unto the true and genuine orders of the Church may well serve to abate the force of them in this argument Quae pro populari Electione à nonnullis afferri solent ea nascentium rerum primordiis fuisse accommodata sed nostrae aetati minùs aptè convenire That those things that are produced in behalfe of popular Election by some were proper unto those rudiments and beginnings of the church but do not agree with the age wherein â—e live not only in regard of the necessity which might then give countenance thereunto but also because the whole multitude of Disciples and Christians as they were much more pure and sincere and more eminent in piety which secured them proportionably from miscarriage in the choice so they were endued for a great part if not all as it appeares with extraordinary gifts whereby they were enabled to judge of the Abilities and Orthodoxnesse of those which were proposed to their choice And yet even in those times there is sufficient to be found to shew us that those acts that were done or seeme to be done in that way were not intended for ruled cases to the Church in that it is evident in the practice of the same Apostolicall times that men were sent to exercise the Ministry amongst the people and accordingly undertooke and performed it without any the least reference to their consent or approbation See Acts 13.4 5. and Acts 9.20 with divers other places And indeed had it not been so how should the worke of Gods building have gone on How should the Vine of the Gospell have spread it selfe so gloriously as it did over the face of the earth sending out her boughes unto the sea and her branches unto the River and covering the hils with the shadow of it as the Psalmist speaketh in the 80. Psalm Should the Preachers of the Gospell have staid and expected that they who were not converted to the faith and yet enemies to the Gospel should have chosen Ministers to preach it amongst them Or how can it be expected now in these daies that the people who are deeply infected with corrupt opinions and schismaticall affections should Elect Orthodoxe sound Teachers in such times as these are wherein that sad prediction of St Paul 2 Tim. 4.3 is fulfilled That the time should come when men would not endure sound Doctrine how then is it likely that 〈◊〉 should make choice of 〈…〉 â—inisters or not rathâ—â—â—â—â—â—â—hat they should as they do after their owne lusts heape unto themselves Teachers having itching eares turning away from the Truth and being turned unto Fables Nay if the case were so in such an age as this wherein Religion seemes to be lookt upon and used by too many but as a meere cheate and imposture of humane policy and wherein there are so many that had rather save their Tythes than their soules Both Ministry and Preaching would perhaps ere long be totally discarded and cast off as things unnecessary and burdensome when men have once fully served their turnes with the shews of Piety and Religio◠〈◊〉 all would be swallowed 〈…〉 that Religion that the Storck