their Blasphemies against God and most barbarous violence and cruelty to his people erecting pillars to their Emperors as Trophies of their abolishing Christianity Then did the Providence of God manifest it self in many severe and signal judgments upon them In the reign of one Emperor there was in Rome a most raging Famine a Plague of which we are told there dyed in that City 2000 a day Great multitudes were slain in a Sedition and a great part of the wealth of the City was consumed by Fire from Heaven And besides these under Commodus there were many of the like Judgments under their following Emperors until Constanstine And when the Christian Emperor at length fell into all manner of Vice and Wickedness the Goths and Vandals and other rude and barbarous Nations were let loose upon it and suddenly made most terrible havock and destruction of it But we need not search into Ancient or Foreign Chronicles for instances of the wrath of God punishing the sins of a provoking people For if a long and bloody War amongst our selves and all the woful effects of it a wasting and devouring Plague and most dreadful and consuming Fires may be reckoned as publick Judgments the sins of this Age and Nation have not altogether gone unpunished This then hath manifestly been the constant course of Gods providence to showre down his Judgments on a sinful people And that we may rationally conclude from hence that it will be so still will appear if we consider these two things First That God is the same Wise and Just and Holy God and Governour of the world that ever he was He is the Lord that changes not and his Dominion endureth throughout all Generations Are not his ways still equal Will not the Judge of all the world still do right Is not his hatred of sin as great as ever and his inclination to punish it Doth he repent of his past severity or find cause to correct the wonted method of his providence Doth not the Lord still see or hath he forsaken the earth If God be still the Governour among the Nations If his providence be still directed by the same wisdom and holiness and justice we may safely conclude that his dealing with sinful nations as to the substance of it will be the same too that because he hath not therefore he will not finally acquit a wicked and impenitent people but sooner or later as he hath always done will visit their iniquities with Rods and their sins with Scourges Secondly The Spirit of God in Scripture doth use this very way of arguing from former examples of Gods judgments Jer. 25. 29. God doth thus reason with the Nations He telleth them they shall drink the cup of his Fury For saith he Lo I begin to bring evil on the City which is called by my name and should ye be utterly unpunished Do I punish them for their iniquities and shall I not punish you for yours ye shall not be unpunished for I will call for a Sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth saith the Lord of hosts After the same manner doth St. Peter argue 2 Pet. 2. 5. and the following verses If God spared not the old world bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly And turned the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes he inferreth That the Lord still knoweth how that is is still able and ready to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is To reserve the unjust being punished here in some such remarkable manner as the Old World Sodom and Gomorrha were unto the day of Judgment when they shall receive their eternal doom and recompence St. Paul in the 11th to the Romans sheweth the danger the Gentile Christians were in from Gods severity on the unbelieving Jews Because of unbelief they were broken off be not high-minded but fear For if God spared not the natural branches take heed lest he also spare not thee Rom. 11. 20 21. He telleth us also plainly 1 Cor. 10. 11. That the judgments which God sent upon the Jews in the Wilderness happened unto them for examples and are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come To teach all Nations to the end of the world to expect the like Judgments if they are sinners like them If the case then of a sinful people be thus desperate if prevailing wickedness will thus certainly make them unhappy not only by it self and the fruits that naturally spring from it but also by provoking the wrath and pulling down the judgments of God upon them Doth it not greatly behove us in time to look about us and to see whether the clouds be not gathering and the wrath of God ready to fall in most horrible tempests upon us I come therefore Secondly To shew That we of this Nation are very much concerned in the truth of the Proposition I have been now proving and that it prophesieth evil concerning us This will be sufficiently manifest if we do but search and try our ways and impartially consider what great sinners we are A meditation very proper and seasonable at this time now that we are met together to call our sins to remembrance and to humble our selves for them Give me leave therefore to set some of them in order before you and briefly to represent the sinful state and condition of this our Nation And here I am entring upon a subject will afford us equal matter both of wonder and of grief of wonder that there should be such and so much wickedness practised where so pure and holy a Religion is professed and of grief too that we should be these Offenders and Englands sins the matter of our astonishment If a man should barely contemplate the purity of our Religion and the great stir we make about it with what heat and zeal we contend about some little matters relating to it he might with reason enough conclude that we were the most religious and holy people upon earth But if he come once abroad and look but with half an eye upon the lives and common practices of men amongst us he would soon find he was mistaken in his conclusion and that the most zealous pretenders to the most pure and holy Religion may be as corrupt and wicked as those that have no true knowledge of God in their Land Are not Atheism and Infidelity openly avowed by our Heroick Sinners and some pretended Refiners of Wit and Reason amongst us Who if they will allow him to be a Fool that saith in his heart there is no God it is because he saith it only in his heart and declareth it not with them in more publick and daring expressions And amongst those that profess to know God how many in works deny him being abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate Blasphemies Oaths and Curses seem to be affected as the greatest Ornaments of Speech in
Mr. BVTLER's Fast-SERMON Preached before the Lord Mayor AND COVRT of ALDERMEN Sept. 16. 1691. Pilkington Mayor Jovis xviimo die Septembris 1691. Annoque Regni Regis Reginae Willielmi Mariae Angliae c. Tertio THese are to desire Mr. Lilly Butler to Print his Sermon preached yesterday in the Parish-Church of St. Mary Le Bow before the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Liveries of the several Companies of this City Goodfellow A SERMON Preached at St. Mary-le-Bow Before the Lord Mayor COURT of ALDERMEN AND CITIZENS of LONDON On Wednesday the 16th of September a day appointed by their Majesties for a solemn Monthly Fast By Lilly Butler Rector of Bubbingworth in Essex LONDON Printed for R. Baldwin near the Oxford-Arms in Warwick-lane M DC XCI To the Right Honourable S R Tho. Pilkington Lord Mayor of the City of London AND THE COURT of ALDERMEN My Lord I Know not any thing could move you to require the Printing this plain Sermon but a great affection to the design of it Which I pray God increase in you all and make you signally instrumental in promoting that Reformation wherein the safety and happiness of our Country is so highly concerned And if the publishing of this discourse may confer but any little matter towards it whatever other defects may be found in it especially after so kind and favourable an acceptance from you will not much concern My Lord Your most Humble and Obedient Servant L. Butler Isaiah LVII 21. There is no peace saith my God to the wicked THe Prophet towards the beginning of this Chapter upbraideth the Jews with their abominable wickedness and Idolatry for which they were shortly to be made Captives in a strange land From whence he telleth them they should in vain expect to be delivered by the Nations whose Gods they worshipped and with whose wickedness they had complied V. 13. When thou criest let thy companions deliver thee but the wind shall carry them all away vanity shall take them Nevertheless if they should at length bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captive heartily bewail their sins and turn unto the Lord they should again see Jerusalem in prosperity and peace upon Israel But he that putteth his trust in me saith God shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain All things shall be made ready for a happy return V. 14. Cast ye up cast ye up take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people The high and lofty one will revive the humble and contrite Spirits v. 15. For I will not contend for ever saith the Lord v. 16. neither will I be always wroth For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth and smote him I hid me and was wroth I have seen his ways v. 18. I have seen them at length corrected and reformed therefore I will heal him I will lead him also and restore comforts to him and to his mourners Their mouths shall be filled with Praise and Thanksgiving for the restoration of their peace I create the Fruit of the Lips Peace Peace to him that is far off and to him that is near saith the Lord and I will heal him But if upon their return out of Captivity they should forget their Redeemer and return to their former wickedness their Peace and Prosperity would soon be disturbed again For saith the Prophet the wicked are like the troubled Sea when it cannot rest which he explaineth in the words of the Text and confirmeth with the Testimony of his God that sent him there is no peace saith my God to the wicked By the wicked in this place we are chiefly to understand a wicked Nation or People as appeareth plainly by the account I have given of the context And by peace Prosperity and Happiness in general according to the common use of use of the word peace in the old Testament The meaning of the words then may be expressed in in this plain Proposition That prevailing wickedness is most certainly destructive of the prosperity and happiness of a People In discoursing upon which I shall endeavour to do these Four things First To clear and manifest the truth of this proposition Secondly To shew that we of this Nation are very much concerned in the Truth of it and that it prophesieth evil concerning us Thirdly To shew what is to be done by us in order to the preventing this evil And Fourthly By some proper motives and argu to perswade every one to do his own part in it First I shall endeavour to clear and manifest the Truth of this proposition That prevailing wickedness is most certainly destructive of the prosperity and happiness of a people This will be sufficiently manifest by the consideration of these following things First The abounding of iniquity is it self the the great unhappiness of a People So long as a Nation is distempered with vice the head sick and the heart faint full of wounds and bruises and putrifying sores as the Prophet describeth a People laden with iniquity no outward Priviledges or Advantages can make it happy If God should give us bread and flesh from Heaven and be always working miracles for us a murmuring and discontented Spirit would still make us miserable The bondage of Aegypt and a deliverance from it would be equally grievous and uneasy to it Tyranny and Oppression Sedition and Rebellion Schism and Faction are the names of great Judgments as well as of great Sins Sensuality transformeth Men into the likeness of Beasts and hatred and malice of Devils and what a wretched Society must such people make Can a People be happy where they are continually envying and vexing cheating and defrauding censuring and reviling striving and quarrelling with one another where judgment is turned away backward and justice standeth afar off where truth is fallen in the street and equity cannot enter Is not this the character of a very unhappy as well as of a very wicked People We can hardly mention any sin but the common and constant practice of it is not only likely to procure but is it self a great Judgment upon a Nation It is therefore mentioned as a heavy curse upon Israel Ps 81. 12. that God gave them up to their own hearts lusts and they walked in their own counsels Oh that I had in the wilderness saith the Prophet Jeremiah a lodging place of wayfaring men that I might leave my people and go from them for they be all adulterers an assembly of treacherous men Jer. 9. 2. David also maketh the same wish Ps 55. when he saw violence and strife in the City deceit and guile in her streets The desolation and barrenness of a wilderness were a desirable refuge from the greater calamities of these sins Secondly Sin doth farther tend to make a Nation unhappy by the natural fruits and consequences of it Is it not vice and passion that break the bands of love and concord the most necessary preservatives of publick
which men are as loud as Baals Priests were in their Prayers and repeat them as often too as if like them they were afraid lest God should not hear lest judgment should sleep or their damnation slumber How many such walkers have we of whom St. Paul could not speak without weeping whose God is their belly whose glory is in their shame who inordinately mind earthly things Rioting and Drunkenness Chambering and Wantonness are such general and publick vices that they can hardly now be called the works of darkness not that they better become the light now than formerly but those that commit them are less afraid of it Fraud and cozening lying and injustice are the common methods of pursuing the profits of this world and hardly ever any age was better skilled or more practised in the several arts of cheating and over-reaching one another Where is that undissembled and hearty love which our Lord hath made the principal badge and cognizance of his Disciples How are we estranged and divided from one another And how jealous of all attempts for the uniting and reconciling of us How uncharitable are we in our censures how bitter in our revilings how merciless and revengeful in our behaviour one towards another How is every thing that is Sacred prophaned by us How great and scandalous are our neglects how irreverent and hypocritical our performances of the duties of Gods worship How full of iniquity our most holy things I have not time to be more particular we are thus and much more sinful after all the various methods of heaven to reform us What could God have done more to his Vineyard that he hath not done in it We have had line upon line and precept upon precept the brightest discoveries of our duty and most frequent and earnest invitations to perform it But all this while God hath stretched forth his hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people God hath placed us in a fruitful and pleasant Land and given us all things richly to enjoy We have had peace within our Walls no leading into Captivity no just complaining in our streets but have lived in ease and quiet whilst almost every corner of the World beside hath been filled with violence and rapine and blood How many and how wonderful have our deliverances been from the secret conspiracies and the open violence of our Romish Adversaries Yea what Nation is there that hath had God so nigh unto them for all we could call upon him for But so prodigious hath been our Ingratitude that we have frustrated the design of all this goodness which should have led us to repentance and the strongest Cords of the divine Love have been too weak to draw us to our God as if we had resolved to outdo the miracles of his mercy by a more miraculous Ingratitude Thus have we requited the Lord O foolish people and unwise God hath sometimes used severer methods with us and sent his judgments into our land that from thence the inhabitants might learn righteousness But we have multiplied our transgressions whilst his Rod hath been upon our backs and in the time of our distress have sinned yet more against him God hath stricken us but we have revolted more and more and have come out of the fire but more hardned and more unmalleable If all this then be a true though not a full account of our wicked state as I would to God it were possible to prove the contrary certainly put all together and it will make up the character of a most Prodigiously wicked ungrateful and incorrigible People What abundant reason then have we to conclude notwithstanding all the great things God hath lately done for us and the most hopeful appearances we now have that for all this his anger is not turned away from us but his hand is stretched out still and that er'e long if we take not due and timely care to prevent it we may to our utter confusion experience what a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God Methinks now the consideration of that sad and terrible abode our sins do make that fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation to devour us they so justly call for should prick us all to the heart and make us ready to cry out with St. Peter's hearers Acts. 2. Men and Brethren what shall we do What shall we do to be saved from these Calamities to fly from this Wrath to come If this now be the Frame and Language of our Souls then are we rightly disposed as they were to hear our duty and I would to God it might be with as good success And thus I come to the next thing I am to do which is Thirdly To shew what is to be done by us for the preventing that evil our sins threatens us with First We should humble our selves before God and sigh and cry for the abominations are done in the midst of us But Oh! what sighs what sorrow can be great or loud enough for us For us who are not only to bewail the sins of some few particular persons but of a whole land that lieth in wickedness not only some of the lowest rank but the highest and most provoking abominations Certainly never any had greater reason than we have at this day to break out into that passionate wish of the Prophet Jeremiah Oh that our heads were waters and our eyes fountains of tears that we might weep day and night Because of the wickedness we have committed to provoke the Lord to anger Did our Blessed Lord weep over Jerusalem that ungrateful City when he considered the greatness of her sins and the nearness of her destruction though he was himself without sin and no ways accessary to the provoking that wrath was coming upon them And can we look with dry eyes and unaffected hearts on those numerous transgressions we have all a share in on those future judgments we have so much reason to fear and the best of us all have helped to deserve God forbid we should be thus insensible O let us in time we pretend to do it at this time humble our selves and God will exalt us Let us mourn and God will comfort us He will give us beauty for ashes the oyl of joy for mourning and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness Let us offer unto God the Sacrifices of broken and contrite hearts and the High and lofty One will dwell with us revive and comfort us Let us turn to him with weeping and fasting and mourning and even rent our hearts before him for then saith the Prophet Joel Chap. 2. The Lord will be jealous for his people and pity his land Secondly To our sorrow and humiliation let us joyn our prayers implore his pardon and deprecate the wrath of God Let us take with us words and turn to the Lord and say unto him Take away all our iniquities and receive us graciously Let us beseech him with