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A53924
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Jericho's downfal, in a sermon preached upon Jan. 31, 1688/89 being a day of publick thanksgiving to God for our deliverance from popery and arbitrary power / by Samuel Peck, Minister of Popler.
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Peck, Samuel.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing P1035; ESTC R1038
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9,368
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32
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would not subscribe or set to their hands for the building up of Jericho again in this Kingdom And those men advanced to places of greatest trust and profit as well as honour that were for it and would any ways contribute to it There is no end of their Intrigues Plots and Devices to build up Jericho again Three most publick and notorious attempts besides smaller essays have they made this way since the fall of their Jericho in this Kingdom or since our first Reformation In all which they have been bafled and defeated through the mercy and goodness of our God for which we this day praise his name 1. The first was by a Spanish Armado stiled the invincible Armado when they came to rebuild their Romish Jericho furnished with all Instruments of Cruelty and hearts full of confidence that the work would be done that they should cut us off from being a Nation and that the name of Protestant of Heretick should be had no more in remembrance They were so big with hopes as to say with Moab before the fight Vp Moab to the spoil 2 King 3. 21 22 23. up Rome to the spoil for the Victory shall be ours but God in mercy to us Crossed Cursed that design and wonderfully disappointed that hopeful enterprize 2. Their next was the Powder-Plot designed to cut off the King the Prince and Royal Family with all the Noble Peers and Commons the Flower and Glory of our English Nation assembled in Parliament These blown up they doubted not but their Popish Jericho would be built up Wherefore as while Nehemiah and his men were at work to make up the Walls of Jerusalem the adversaries came upon them to temper the Mortar with their blood for they said they shall not see nor know till we come upon them Neh. 4. 11. and slay them and cause their work to cease And as Pilate came upon the Galileans when they were sacrificing and mingled their Blood with their Sacrifices Luke 13. 1 2. So when both houses of Parliament were met to make Laws against the rebuilding of Popish Jericho and for settling the true Religion then did these Plotters of Rome contrive to blow up those Law-makers resolving they should write no Laws but in their own Blood. And what a Vesuvius had those houses been had the Plot taken had the blow been given What an Aceldama what a Golgotha had this Land been what a Chaos had our Church and State been How had our Laws Liberties and Religion been swallowed up in that fiery Gulph and for ever buried in those Ashes How would the Man of Sin the Son of Perdition have triumphed and rejoyced to have seen the Foundation of his Romish Jericho laid in the Ruines of our English Israel But our God delivered us from the barbarous and bloody intendments of our adversaries that time also As he did his Church of old from the Bloody Conspiracy of Haman and brought the Plot upon their own heads So that hitherto God hath said as in the Text Cursed be those that shall rise up to build this Jericho 3. And yet they will not give over but they will to work still and try once more And their last we pray and hope it will be their last attempt was indeed as fair for it as any before For now they had gotten over a vast number of builders Priests and Jesuits who were night and day employed to help the work forward in Court City and Countrey Some parts of Jericho they had erected some Mass-houses they had set up in the City and in many great Towns and Populous places in the Countrey which Antichristian Conventicles were countenanced and upheld contrary to our known Laws where the Priests with unheard of impudence decry'd the true Religion as Heresy and all Protestants as damn'd Hereticks Yea and most blasphemously reproached our very Bibles where our Religion not theirs is to be found as false and spurious preferring their own Old and Rotten Traditions before the Sacred Oracles and the lying Legend of their Saints before the Testament of the Holy Jesus Thus far I say were they gotten which gave them great hopes their Jericho will now up again And which is more they had now a zealous King a Puissant Prince on their side who was able by his power not only to Countenance but in some measure to Command that Jericho should be built having brought over some of our Judges and Nobles to his Service having at his Command a well furnished Exchequer a vast annual Revenue a formidable standing Army with a great number of inferiour Missionaries that went from Countrey to Countrey to reform as 't was called the Corporations and to find out such men for our Houses of Parliament as should abrogate and abolish those Laws that obstructed them in the erecting of their Popish Jericho amongst us and all this gave them great hope it would be done And in truth this Plot was so formed and so far promoted that in their eyes 't was beautiful as Absolom without defect or blemish from Head to Foot. And they were so taken with the Beauty and comliness of it as Nebuchadnezzar was with his Golden Image that they fell down before it and worshipped it What was the matter then that the building went not forward Surely it must be this that the curse of God was upon it Had there been so much pains taken so much time and treasure spent to advance Gods Church and the true Religion God would have blessed it but the design was to build up mystical Jericho which God hath cursed therefore it could not prosper therefore all their power and policy could not bring it to perfection for which our God is to be praised from generation to generation 2. Must not Jericho be built again are the builders of it cursed before the Lord Then let us be none of them I hope none here present ever had or ever will have either heart or hand for this work or any way contribute towards it No let us in our several Places and Capacities heartily oppose it and do all that lawfully we may to hinder the building of it To this purpose 1. Let Magistrates Minister Justice Impartially and duly Execute the Laws of this Kingdom against the builders of Jericho Laws made on purpose to hinder that work and to keep up and preserve the true Church of God among us 2. Attend upon the Ministry of Gods word this is a Light will discover the Errors of Popery And though it seems but a Weak means or instrument yet like the Trumpets of Rams-horns it will make the Walls of Jericho to reel The Jesuits and Priests found this by late Experience when by the Sermons and other Writings of our Divines they were bafled and put to silence yielding up their Paper Controversy as a foundation too weak to bear up the tottering Walls of their Jericho 3. You that have Youth Children or Servants under your charge instruct
David Psal 109. 17 18. As he loved cursing so let it come unto him let it come into his Bowels like water and like Oyl into his Bones As the Bird taking her flight from her Nest fetcheth a Circuit and then returns thither again so Curses come in where they went out and at last return upon our own heads as Dust cast in the Air against the Wind. This therefore is not the use we are to make of such Examples as this in my Text. But where we meet with Curses in the Writings of the Prophets and holy men of God who had the Spirit of Prophecy we are to apply them to the Enemies of Gods Church who seek the Ruine of the true Religion and profess an open enmity to the Gospel and Faith of Christ We may ever with safety take Gods part our Saviours side and curse all those that are Enemies to him saying with Deborah and Barak So let all thine Enemies perish O Lord But for Judg. 5. 31. our Enemies that have done us any personal or private wrong to curse them is as I said before unwarrantable uncharitable and ungodly So much of the first particular the denunciation of the curse Cursed be the man. 2. The next is the reality and certainty of the curse contained in these words before the Lord cursed be the man before the Lord. Which words are not added in vain therefore not to be passed by without some notice The meaning is let him be or he is cursed indeed for what is done before the Lord is truly and solemnly done And therefore the sense is this That man that shall build this City Jericho is cursed of God the Lord Ratifies and Confirms the curse and it shall certainly light upon him There are many curses which in this sense are not before the Lord Such are the Popes Bulls and Excommunications against Kings and Princes and all Hereticks that refuse Subjection to the Papal Power Obedience to the See of Rome But the persons thus cursed with Bell Book and Candle are not cursed before the Lord the Lord hath not Ratified and Confirmed the curse nay a curse unjustly denounced and by one who hath no power to denounce it is not a curse but a blessing As the Prophet speaks of Balaam's cursing Israel Neh. 13. 2. The Lord turned the curse into a blessing So where Rome curseth the Lord shall bless Therefore we need no more to fear or care for the Popes Curses than a man in Armor needs to fear an headless Arrow or a Childs Pot-gun for an unjust or an undeserved curse hurts not But when a man is cursed by a qualified person commissionated of God and that for a just cause this is dreadful indeed for such a one may be said as in the Text to be cursed before the Lord. And this leads us to consider the third particular viz. 3. The Subject of this curse or the person cursed The man that shall rise up and build this City Jericho Qu. And why is there a Curse denounced against him that shall build this City or why would not Joshua have Jericho built again Ans For these Reasons 1. In obedience to Gods command who had revealed unto Joshua that he would curse the man that built it and therefore he denounced him accursed besides you read Deut. 13. 15 16. That when any City was destroyed for its Idolatry and other sins committed in it God Commands it should be an heap for ever and not be built again therefore in Obedience to Gods Command which Joshua could not be ignorant of he would have Jericho as a ruinous heap for ever and curseth the man that should raise it out of its Ruines out of its Ashes in which he had laid it by Gods Commission 2. That it might be a remembrance both of Gods Mercy and Justice In mercy to the Israelites God takes this City by a Miracle Now that this miraculous work of God might never be forgotten Joshua would have it remain desolate that so when People in after ages beholding the Ruines of it should enquire the cause of its destruction and the reason why it so remained this might give occasion to speak of the mercy of God towards his people And also of his Justice against the Idolatrous Inhabitants of that City whose sins and abominations had rendred them ripe for Vengeance 3. Joshua would or God rather would have it remain a ruinous heap for terror to the rest of the Inhabitants of the Land. As great Conquerors usually set up some terrible monuments and signal examples of Justice to terrifie others so this being one of the first or chief Cities after their passage over Jordan God to strike terror into others will have it destroyed with the sentence of a curse upon any that should build it again for ever By which we may take notice what a curse sin brings upon most famous Cities and Places Jericho was a goodly place a City of Palm-trees a fenced City whose Walls reached up to Heaven yet being a sinful an Idolatrous City what a woful curse fell upon it to be utterly destroyed and demolished and never to be built again We have the like instances in Sodom Gomorrah and the adjacent Cities upon which the fire of Gods wrath broke forth and consumed them in a miraculous manner Thus you have heard the words run over in a literal sense Now be pleased to hear them in the Mystical and then you will see how well they suit the present occasion 1. First then by way of Analogy and Proportion there be many that venture upon this curse by endeavouring to build up Jericho Popery is a Spiritual or Mystical Jericho and how many are there that in this sense have put to their hearts heads and hands to build Jericho Whereby they stop or hinder the Church and People of God from entring into the heavenly Canaan as antient Jericho did the People of Israel from entring into the earthly What Strange and Crafty Means what Subtil and Wicked Methods have they used and still do use to raise up this building As by shutting out the Light of Gods Truth in those places where Popery prevails and is established By falsifying and corrupting antient Authors that there might be none to witness against them By labouring to make divisions between Kings and their Subjects where their Religion hath not obtained that they may bring it in and have it uppermost By barbarous Homicides and secret Murders to remove those out of the way that are opposers of their designs and by endeavouring to root those out of all places in Church and State that would not promise and engage to promote the work It was Julians Policy to provide that no Christian should be a General a Captain or bear any Office in his Armies And were not the Jesuits and Papists Promoting and practising the same Policy amongst us when men of Worth and Honour both in Church and State were displaced only because they