will finally remove his Gospel from us and that gives great reason to hope that he will check the Pride and Ambition and put a stop to the Successes of a Prince who glories in the Extirpation of his Protestant Subjects and at once enslaves both the Bodies and the Souls of Men who challenges as absolute a Dominion over the Faith as over the Estates of his Vassals to fill his Exchequer and Purgatory together This I am sure we ought heartily to beg of God in our most solemn Prayers and Fasts and those who scruple this if they understand themselves must never say the Lord's Prayer more wherein our Saviour has taught us to pray Thy Kingdom come which those who wish success to Persecuting and Antichristian Powers do not and cannot pray II. I observe farther That as God's Covenant with Abraham and his Posterity was sure and stedfast that no provocations could ever tempt him utterly to destroy them so he never inflicted any publick Judgments and Calamities on them but when he was greatly provoked by their Sins This was God's express Covenant with them 26 Levit. That if they walked in his statutes and kept his commandments then he would bestow all Temporal Blessings on them Rain in its season and the encrease of their Land in Corn and Wine and Oyl Peace at home and Victory abroad and his special Presence and Favour I will set my tabernacle amongst you and my soul shall not abhor you and I will walk among you and will be your God and you shall be my people But if they would not hearken unto him and would not do all his Commandments then he threatens all sorts of Evils should befal them sickness of Body to flie before their Enemies the unfruitfulness and barrenness of their Land that they shall be a prey to wild Beasts that the Sword shall devour them and they shall be enslaved to their Enemies and buy their own Bread of them that they should suffer Famine to such extremity as to eat their owns Sons and Daughters that he would lay wast their Cities and make their Country desolate and carry them away captive into foreign Countries as you may see at large in that Chapter This was his Covenant with them and this he punctually observed whenever they did obey him they were a happy and prosperous People their Enemies crouched before them they injoyed Plenty and Peace enlarged their Borders and made their Neighbours Subjects and Tributaries to them and tho' God did not always punish them according to their deserts yet he never did inflict any publick or national Judgments on them but when they were grown very corrupt and wicked in their manners as it were easie to shew from the History of those Times and all the remarkable Judgments God inflicted on them Now I must confess when we apply this to the Christian Church the case is very different for God has not so expresly covenanted with the Christian Church for external Peace and Prosperity as he did with the Jews they were the carnal Seed and Posterity of Abraham Heirs of an earthly Canaan and external Prosperity but the spiritual Seed of Abraham are Heirs of spiritual and eternal Blessings which were typified by the carnal Promises made to the Jewish Church the Christian Church was founded in the Sufferings of our Lord the Christian Faith was at first propagated by the courage patience and sufferings of the Apostles and the Primitive Martyrs and Confessors The Terms our Saviour proposes to us are If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me He that loveth his life shall lose it but he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it And therefore the most sincere Believers and most exemplary Christians may suffer very severely in this World and their support and comfort is that they shall be proportionably rewarded in the next this was the great Objection the Jews made against Christians being the Sons and peculiar People of God that they were hated and persecuted for the Faith of Christ and God suffered them to be so whereas he had promised all Temporal Prosperity to the observance of his Laws and Statutes and if believing in Christ had been the Will and Commandment of God he would certainly have made good all the Promises of their Law to the Disciples of Jesus An Objection which very much troubled many believing Jews themselves who did not thoroughly understand the difference between the Jewish and Christian Dispensation between the Law of Moses and the Gospel of Christ and therefore is particularly answered by St. Paul 8 Rom. and in the 7 Heb. But this shews that their Faith and Worship of Christ is not always rewarded with external Prosperity and we must not expect it should be and consequently that very severe Sufferings and Persecutions may befal Christians not always for the correction and punishment of their Sins but for the trial of their Faith and Patience to make them conformed to their Suffering Head to prepare them for richer and brighter Crowns to convince and convert their Persecutors and to propagate the Christian Faith in the World Though it is observed by some of the Ancient Fathers and particularly by St. Cyprian That God never sent a general Persecution upon the Christian Church but when their Sins the general declension of Piety and Discipline their Worldly Mindedness the formality and coldness of their Devotions called for a Scourge Thus it was with the Church while it sojourned as I may so speak in the world as in a strange land had no place of its own no earthly Power and Authority to support it but lived under Pagan Powers was intermixt with them and oppressed by them when they pleased but the case of a Christian Nation where the Power and Authority is Christian seems very different and to come nearer the state of the Jewish Church for God does not use to inflict Publick Judgments and Calamities upon Nations but for the Punishment of some Publick and National Sins And therefore a Christian Nation which professes the True Faith and Worship of Christ preserves the Reverence of Religion corrects and suppresses Vice may expect to be blessed with all external Prosperity for righteousness exalteth a nation it does so in its natural tendency and effects and it does so by the Blessing of God and therefore when God brings any Publick Judgments upon a Nation professing the true Faith of Christ we have reason to take notice of God's Anger and Displeasure to inquire what is amiss among us what that accursed thing is which hath provoked God to Jealousie and made him take the Rod into his hand We have then reason to humble our selves before God to deprecate his Anger and Displeasure to turn from all the evil of our ways that he may return and be merciful to us But there is one thing worth observing which may be matter of Hope and Comfort to us at
Armies all our other Preparations are vain and how can we expect that when we will not ask it or only mock God with some formal and customary addresses without being concerned whether he hears or no or without expecting or at least without trusting and depending on his help 6thly But to encourage those good men how few soever there are among us who have a great sense of the Divine Providence and a firm Trust and Faith in God to be very importunare in their prayers for this Church and Nation I observe farther That God many times has spared a wicked people at the earnest intercessions of some few good men Thus at the intercession of Abraham God promised to have spared Sodom had there been ten righteous persons found in that great City God spared Israel when they had so provok'd him by their Idolatries that he threatned to destroy them only at the importunity of Moses as the Psalmist observes therefore he said he would destroy them had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach to turn away his wrath lest he should destroy them 106 Psalm 23. the Story of which we have 32. Exod. 7 8. at another time when they had provoked God by their Idolatries and Whoredoms with the Daughters of Moab and the Plague broke in among them then stood up Phineas and executed judgment and the plague was stayed 25 Numb And therefore when God declared his resolution to punish them he forbad his Prophet so much as to pray for them 7. Jer. 16. And in 14. Ezek. 14. professes That he would not accept of any Intercessions for them Tho these three men Noah Daniel and Job were in it yet they shall deliver but their own souls by their righteousness saith the Lord Which supposes that at another time the Intercessions of these good men would have prevailed and that it is very extraordinary for God to deny it And if the importunate Prayers of a few good men may obtain Victory and Success and save a Church and Nation let every good man at this time cry mightily to God especially as the Prophet Isaiah exhorts Ye that make mention of the Lord keep not silence and give him no rest till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth 62. Isa. 6 7. 7thly To add no more and it is a very comfortable Consideration God many times saved Israel for his own Names sake when their sins provoked him to destroy them 48. Isa. 9. For my name sake will I defer mine anger and for my praise will I refrain for Thee that I cut Thee not off 11. v. For mine own sake even for mine own sake will I do it for how should my name be polluted and I will not give my glory to another Thus God assigns the reason why he did not destroy Israel in the Wilderness when they so highly provoked him I wrought for my name sake that it should not be polluted before the heathen among whom they were in whose sight I made my self known unto them in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt 20. Ezek. 9. That is they were God's peculiar people the only worshippers of the Lord Jehovah whom he had brought out of Egypt by a mighty hand to make his Name known in the world and though they never so much deserved to be destroyed had he then destroyed them his own great Name would have suffered with them as Moses pleaded with God Wherefore should the Egyptians say For mischief did he bring them out to slay them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth 32. Exod. 12. And thus the Psalmist prays Help us O God of our salvation for the glory of thy name and deliver us and purge away our sins for thy name sake wherefore should the Heathen say Where is their God let him be known among the Heathen in our sight by revenging the blood of thy servants which is shed 79. Psalm 9. 10. And this is matter of hope to us That tho our sins are very great yet God will not utterly destroy us but will send deliverance for his name sake for the sake of that holy Faith which is professed among us lest our Antichristian Enemies should triumph and say Where is now their God When the preservation of a wicked people is for the defence and honour of the true Christian Faith we have reason to hope and good men have a very powerful argument to plead with God That he will save us for his own Names sake FINIS Books Published by the Reverend Dr. SHERLOCK Dean of St. Paul's and Master of the Temple AN Answer to a Discourse Entituled Papists Protesting against Protestant Popery 2d Edition 4to An Answer to the Amicable Accommodation of the Differences between the Representer and the Answerer 4to A Sermon at the Funeral of the Reverend Benjamin Calamy D. D. 4to A Vindication of some Protestant Principles of Church Unity and Catholick Communion from the Charge of Agreement with the Church of Rome 4to A Preservative against Popery Being some plain Directions to unlearned Protestants how to Dispute with Romish Priests First Part 4to 5th Edition A Second Part of the Preservative against Popery 2d Edit 4to A Vindication of both Parts of the Preservative against Popery in Answer to the Cavils of Lewis Sabran Jesuit 4to A Discourse concerning the Nature Unity and Communion of the Catholick Church First Part. 4to A Sermom before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London on Sunday Nov. 4. 1688. 4to A Practical Discourse concerning Death Fifth Edition 8vo A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and Ever-Blessed Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God occasioned by the Brief Notes on the Creed of St. Athanasius and the Brief History of the Vnitarians or Socinians and containing an Answer to both 4to The Second Edition The Case of the Allegiance due to Sovereign Powers stated and resolved according to Scripture and Reason and the Principles of the Church of England with a more particular Respect to the Oath lately enjoined of Allegiance to Their present Majesties King William and Queen Mary 4to The Sixth Edition A Vindication of the Case of Allegiance due to Sovereign Powers In Reply to an Answer to a late Pamphlet entituled Obedience and Submission to the present Government demonstrated from Bishop Overall's Convocation-Book with a Postscript in Answer to Dr. Sherlook's Case of Allegiance c. 4to Printed for William Rogers
Christ and his spiritual Seed those who are the Children of Abraham by Faith in Christ as he proves at large in the 9 10 11 Chapters to the Romans though he gives another answer to this too That though the Promises do no longer belong to Abraham's carnal Seed yet God so far remembers his Covenant with Abraham and his carnal Seed that he has not wholly cast them off but will in time engraft them into his Church again by Faith in Christ For out of Sion shall come the deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. But I cannot enlarge on this now To apply this then to the times of the Gospel We certainly learn from God's Care of the Jewish Church that God will always preserve and protect the Christian Church that the true Faith of Christ and his true and sincere Worshippers shall never wholly fail in the World as Christ promises That the gates of hell shall not prevail against his Church for God established an everlasting Covenant with Abraham and his Seed that is with Christ and the Christian Church who are the true spiritual Seed of Abraham to whom the Promises belong and if God so punctually performed his Promise to the carnal Seed of Abraham while they were to be his visible Church until Christ came who was the promised Seed we learn by that Example how he will protect defend and support the Christian Church to the end of the World till Christ the promised Seed return again to Judge the World to put an end to all Things and to receive his Church into the Kingdom of his Father To this we owe the Continuance and Preservation of the Christian Church to this Day amidst all the Dangers which have threatned its final Ruin when the Church is tossed on the foaming Billows of this World like the Ship into which Christ and his Disciples entred 8 Matth. 23 24 25. When there arose a great tempest in the sea insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves and Christ was asleep and his disciples came to him and awoke him saying Lord save us we perish And he saith unto them Why are ye so fearful O ye of little faith then he arose and rebuked the wind and the sea and there was a great calm This was a Figure and Emblem of the condition the Church is very often in in this World for most of our Saviour's Miracles had some spiritual significations in them His curing the Halt and Blind and Lame and Deaf represented his Diviner Power in curing the Diseases and Distempers of our Souls in making the Blind to see and the Deaf to hear and the Lame to walk and therefore when he cured the Man that was born blind he turned his Discourse to spiritual Blindness 9 John 39 40 41. When he had fed that great Multitude with a few loaves and small Fishes he discourses to them of that Bread that comes down from Heaven and will nourish them unto Eternal Life and which he only could give them 6 John when he discoursed with Martha about raising her Brother Lazarus from the Dead he preaches to her his Divine Power to raise dead Souls as well as dead Bodies into immortal Life 11 John 25 26. When the Disciples at Christ's command had cast their Net into the Sea after having toiled all night and taken nothing and encompassed a great multitude of Fishes he tells them the meaning of it that he would make them Fishers of Men. Thus here Christ's rebuking the Wind and Sea which were ready to swallow up the Ship wherein he and his Disciples were is a Figure of the State of the Church in this World and of his Readiness to Protect it How threatning soever the Dangers are Christ is in the Ship and all the Powers of the World how much soever they rage and foam can never swallow up that Ship wherein Christ is unless they can swallow Him up too and though he may seem to be asleep and to take no notice of the Sufferings and Dangers of his Church yet the importunate Prayers and Cries of his Disciples will awake him and then he will arise to their defence and hush the Winds and Seas into a Calm This the Church had frequent experience of under the Pagan Persecutions which raged with Fire and Sword and all the witty Arts of Cruelty when nothing would serve but the final Extirpation of the Name of Christians But how often did Christ rebuke the Wind and Sea and restore profound Peace and Rest to his Chuch What a glorious Triumph did he give his Church over the last and most terrible Efforts of the Pagan Powers when he raised Constantine into the Throne and made the Empire Christian And this is a very comfortable Consideration to us at this time The Protestant Churches which profess the Pure and Uncorrupt Faith and Worship of Christ as to all the essentials of Faith and Worship have now for many Years groaned under the Antichristian Tyranny and Persecutions and now at last and I hope it may be the last as it is the most terrible Insult of the Anti-christian Powers a Great and Mighty Prince bends his whole Force to root out the Protestant Name as well as to Usurp upon the Liberties of Europe What he has done in his own Country and where-ever his Power and Influence reached I need not tell you From some of his Subjects he has forced away their Faith others to keep their Faith have lost their Estates their Liberty their Country their Lives What danger we were in at Home we all saw and felt not long since though some Men would now perswade us it was but a Dream but it was a very terrible Dream if it was one and thanks be to God that we are awakened out of it and may we never fall into such frightful Slumbers more or rather let us neither be lulled asleep nor dream awake lest these frightful Dreams prove Realities at last For should that mighty Monarch prevail and like an irresistible Torrent bear all before him as some kind Friends to the Liberties of Europe and the Protestant Name and Interest wish and pray he may it requires not a Spirit of Prophesy to foretel what will become of Protestants But our Hope and Trust is in God that the true Christian Faith shall never be rooted out and I am as certainly perswaded that the Protestant Faith and Worship as to the Essentials of it and as opposed to Popery is the true Christian Faith and Worship as I am of the truth and certainty of Christianity itself and when I remember by what little beginnings and weak and contemptible means GOD spread the true Light of the Gospel over great part of the European World when it was covered with the Aegyptian Darkness and oppressed by the Unsupportable Tyranny of Popery notwithstanding all the Follies Divisions and Miscarriages of Protestants I cannot fear that God will cause our Sun to set again and that he