Mountain and he speaks unto it by an Apostrophe as the more emphatical expression Who art thou O great Mountain before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain Thou hast hitherto opprest my people and kept them in bondage But behâ—ld I am against thee saith the Lord which destroyest all the earth and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee and roll thee down from the rocks and make thee a burnt mountain Jer. 51. 25. Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain Though thou art high and strong as a great Mountain seemest in thine own eyes and others also irresistable invincible thy pride shall be brought down thy high looks abased thy mighty strength abated thy huge and vast body laid level with the earth and be made a plain so that all thy opposition shall be as nothing and all difficulties made plain and easie to Zerubbabel by the power of my Spirit that shall support him and suppresse all his opposers It follows He shall bring forth the head stone thereof with shoutings crying Grace grace unto it vers. 7. that is He shall accomplish the building with the joyful acclamations of the beholders even to the wonder and astonishment of his very enemies that shall say and say again Grace grace unto it And not to it alone but to us by it shall great grace and glory also come and that they did say so the Psalmist tells us Psal. 126. 2. Then said they among the Heathen The Lord hath done great things for them which the Jews as their eccho resounded back again vers. 3. Yea the Lord hath done great things for us whereof we rejoyce Lastly The Prophet adds as a Corollary and confirmation of all vers. 8 9. Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me saying The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house his hands shall also finish it statutum esse it is a statute a decree past in the highest Court of Heaven not to be reversed that as Zerubbabel hath begun the work and laid the first stone the head-stone of the corner so with a non obstante maugre all contradiction he shall put to his last hand and compleat the work Thus you see by whom this great work was effected Multorum manibus grande levatur onus Many hands went to it but two especially Nehemia and Zerubbabel they were the principal instruments under God for the carrying on of the same and therefore both of them justly meriting the style and title of honor and dignity that is here given in the Text which is my third point Vocaberis reparator ruinarum Thou shalt be called The repairer of the breach c. And indeed what better what nobler title can be bestowed upon a man a more glorious one could hardly be thought on Quanto honestius est principi si reparator ruinarum vocetur quam vastator civitatum as Marlorat notes well upon the place How much more honorable is it for a Prince to be call'd the repairer of ruines than the destroyer of Cities It was a vain and horrible brag of Senacherib which he spake as tending to the honor of his predecessors and himself too as descended from them 2 King 19. 11. Behold thou hast heard what the Kings of Assyria have done to all lands by destroying them utterly And the like we read of Alexander and Pompey who were called Great from the great conquests and bloody victories they atchieved glorying in the many thousands yea millions they had slain The two famous Scipios had their sirnâ—mes from the Countries they subdued the one was called Africanus the other Asiaticus How much a better title was that of Solomon and our King James of happy memory Rex pacificus I have heard it credibly reported fides sit penes authorem I would not wittingly and willingly father a falshood upon the worst of men but give even the devil his due that the late Oliver Cromwel in whom hypocrisie and tyranny strove which should be predominant boasted he had been the death of near upon 40000 Scots in their own Country and at Worcester where besides what were slain in fight many were kill'd in cool blood a cruelty which a Turk would be ashamed of I have read of a greater Warrior and a better man than he Tamberlane who having fought a battel with the Muscovites wherein he had slain upon the turf about 40000 men and taking a view of the dead was so far from rejoycing at the sight that he lamented the condition of such as commanded great Armies commending his fathers quiet course of life accounting him happy in seeking for rest and the other most unhappy who by the destruction of their own kind sought to advance their own glory protesting himself even from his heart grieved to see such sad tokens and trophies of his victory Hence then let Princes and great ones learn how to raise themselves a glorious name that may survive them and be sweet and precious when their bodies rot and consume in their sepulchers while others take a pride and pleasure to kill and destroy let them labour to save and preserve the world in peace while others pull down and lay waste Cities and Temples let them raise up and repair the breaches so shall they be truly called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} gracious Lords Luk. 22. 25. Et reparatores ruinarum the repairers of breaches the restorers of paths to dwell in which will be far greater glory to them than if they accumulated all the titles of honor that either Heraldry can invent or this world confer It was well said by our late King of glorious memory to his Son our gracious Soveraign that now reigns vvhom God preserve long among us I had rather you should be CHARLS le Bon than le Grand Good than Great Greatnesse hath no better Character than that of Goodnesse vvithout vvhich 't is but {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a cold and livelesse carcase of nobility like a ruddy colour in a picture that hath no life or heat in it a rich cabinet without a jewel With such an empty casket of honor without vertue Minutius Felix thus elegantly expostulates Fascibus purpuris gloriaris vanus error hominis inanis cultus dignitatis fulgere purpurâ mente sordescere Nobilitate gloriaris parentes tuos laudas omnes pari sorte nascimur sola virtute distinguimur Dost thou glory that thou art invested with highest dignities clothed with Purple and Ermin Alas thou deceivest thy self to be glorious in apparel and sordid in soul is but a vain error and whiles thy face shines with Moses's thy better part is clouded with Egyptian darknesse In boasting of thy noble birth thou praisest thy parents not thy self if thou degenerate Nam genus proavos quae non fecimus ipsi Vix ea nostra voco We are born alike being hew'd all out of the same Rock our father Adam 't is onely
Many houses shall be desolate even great and fair without inhabitant This this was the cause that the Vineyard of the Lord of Hosts that is the house of Israel and the men of Juda his pleasant plant was so eaten up so troden down vers. 5. This was the cause the Christian Church went to wrack by persecution under Heathen Emperors Almighty God making them his Rod to scourge his backsliding people into repentance and better obedience for we are not unlike a childs Top that never goes upright without whipping So St. Cyprian speaking of the times of Decius Quia traditam nobis divinitus disciplinam pax longa corruperat jacentem fidem pene dixerim dormientem censura coelestis erexit Because long peace had corrupted the good order and discipline of the Church delivered to us by divine Authority the wisdom of God thought fit by the hand of his justice to awake the dull and drousie and almost dead faith of Christians And from the same cause Eusebius derives the Original of Dioclesians persecution in whose words as in a glasse we may see the face of our own times with all its deformities take the Latine for want of the Greek Postquam vero res nostrae per nimiam libertatem ad mollitiem ac segnitiem degenerarunt alii alios sunt odio contumeliis prosecuti c. After that our affairs through too great a liberty degenerated into sloth and delicacy and that one began to prosecute another with hate and contumely and when we our selves onely opposed our selves with words of strife and contention when dissimulation and hypocrisie was grown to the heighth of malice Et qui pastcros nostri videbantur repulsa pietatis norma matuis inter se contentionibus fuerunt inflammati c. And they that were or pretended to be our Pastors and Ministers casting off the rule of piety blew the coals of discord among themselves till it grew to a flame and every one made his own ambition play the Tyrant as he listed when such was the hardnesse of our hearts that we were not touched with any sense or feeling thereof nor endeavoured to appease Gods wrath but as if we thought God did not regard and would not punish our sins but were such an one as the Heathen phansied him Nec ben pro meritis capitur nec tangitur ira We ceased not to add sin unto sin and then behold the divine judgment after its usual manner began to visit us by degrees Ita ut persecutio à fratribus qui in militia erant exordia sumeret So that our persecution took its rise and beginning from our brethren that were in the militia then then I say according to that of the Prophet Lam. 2. The Lord covered the daughter of Sion with a clowd in his anger and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel and remembred not his foot-stool in the day of his anger The Lord swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob and hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Juda he hath brought them down to the ground he hath polluted the Kingdom and the Princes thereof he hath encreased in the daughter of Juda mourning and lamentation and he hath violently taken away his tabernacle he hath destroyed the places of the assembly The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts to be forgotten in Sion and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the King and the Priest By this we have discovered what is meant by the old waste places the ruined foundations the breach or breaches that were made in the Israel of God with the reason thereof which hath opened my passage to my second Query By whom the waste places should be built the ruined foundations raised the breaches repaired the paths restored Ex te erunt And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places c. In the seventh chapter of Nehemia there is a long catalogue of the people the Priests and the Levites that had leave from the King of Babylon to go up to Jerusalem and build the waste places especially the Temple their whole number is computed to be forty two thousand three hundred and threescore vers. 66. among whom the grandees or chief are expressed by name vers. 7. and of those I find most honorable mention of two above all the rest as upon whose shoulders rested the main of the work Nehemia and Zerubbabel and therefore we shall insist somewhat upon both as we meet with them recorded in sacred story And first of Nehemias He was cup-bearer to King Artaxerxes as he himself tells us chap. 1. 11. and a great favourite he was as appears chap. 2. for when he commiserating the miserable estate of his native country presented a cup of wine to the King with a heavy heart which discovered it self in a sad face the King said unto him Why is thy countenance sad seeing thou art not sick this is nothing else but sorrow of heart vers. 2. To which Nehemia replied vers. 3. first praying for the King though a heathen as his duty was then telling him the cause of his sadnesse Let the King live for ever Why should not my countenance be sad when the City the place of my fathers sepulcher lieth waste and the gates thereof are consumed with fire Then the King said unto me For what d dost thou make request vers. 4. It seems the King was willing to grant him whatsoever he should ask in reason Observe the piety of the man before he petitions the King he makes supplication to the King of heaven and that was the sure way to speed for the hearts of Kings are in the hand of God So I prayed saith he to the God of heaven and I said unto the King if it please the King and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight that thou wouldst send me unto Juda unto the City of my fathers sepulchers that I may build it Whereupon the King dispatcheth him with a Commission and credential Letters to the Governours beyond the River that they might convey him over to Juda and with a Letter to Asaph the keeper of the Kings Forrest that he might give him timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house and for the wall of the City and for the house of God vers. 8. and to secure him by the way for they that enterprise good and great designes as this was are like to meet with strong opposition the King sent Captains of the Army and Horsemen with him vers. 9. Notwithstanding he like a prudent man resolves to carry on the businesse more by policy than power He comes to Jerusalem the Metropolis or head City of Judea and was there some time before he told any man what God hâ—d put in his heart to do at Jerusalem vers. 12. Then he takes a private survey of the ruined walls
admissae dirimit suffragia plebis A breach upon our estates by imposing taxes what they pleased A breach upon our consciences by enforcing Oaths and Covenants contradictory to former Oaths And to fill up the measure of our ruines a breach upon the Head-stone of the building the chief stake in our hedge was cut up when our King of ever glorious memory was cut off and most barbarously murdered before his own Royal gate a most inhuman unparallel'd Parricide Regicide I had almost said Deicide and if I had it might admit of a sober sence for Kings are earths Deities Gods pictures in a lesser form or model and God himself hath honoured them with his own Name I have said Ye are gods Psal. 82. 6. yet he did not fall like one of the Princes but as if he had been an ordinary or common malefactor Carnificis dextra Cromwelli-potentis obiram Procumbit And when he fell all fell with him ever since we have been a Tohu Bohu rudis indigestaque moles a meer Chaos of confusion a second Babel or like a Tennis-ball tost from hand to hand a reproach to our neighbours a scorn and derision to all that were round about us Psal. 44. 13. Nec ulla requies tempus autt ullum datur Nisi dum jubetur We were put to it beyond Hercules's labours no rest no breathing time no relaxation from our burthens allowed us by our worse than Egyptian-Taskmasters we must make brick without straw pay contribution doubled and trebled as they were pleased to vote it when many had no mony to discharge it but what as the young Prophet said of his ax head was borrowed Nor was it safe for any man to complain of this extream bondage and oppression it being our case in these times as it was the people of Ariminum in Caesar's genitu sic quisque latente Non ausus timnesse palam vox nulla dolori Credita We were fain to mourn in secret and not discover our grief in words or tears Was it not now high time for us to say with the Psalmist and indeed Nihil hic nisi vota supersunt 'T is time for thee Lord to work for they have made void thy Law yea all the Laws both of God and man When all endeavours of men failed and no hope of human help appeared then was it Gods time to work and work he did beyond all expectation even to admiration As he stirred up the spirits of Zerubbabel and Nehemias to repair the breaches in the Jewish Church and State so hath he done for us we have a Nehemias and a Zerubbabel as well as they ex te erunt and we have them of our selves As it was our unhappinesse that like the spider we spun the web of our miseries out of our own bowels and with our own hands pulled our own houses upon our own heads so it was our happinesse again that God hath raised up from among our selves Heroes and men of renown to stand in the gap to turn our captivity as the Rivers in the South to build up our waste places and repair our breaches For had we sent abroad for builders as Solomon did to Hiram 2 King 2. they might have built a Babel instead of a Temple and overthrown more with one hand than they set up with two What tongue can tell and what heart would not ake to think what desolations had been wrought in the earth if the way to the Throne had been hewed out by the sword of aliens and strangers to the Common-wealth of England Nay had Sir George Booth's design gon on in probability it might have cost hot water multo sanguine vulneribus c. and we had seen another Aâ—eldama or bloody field and even then the King had been fain to swim unto his Crown through a Red-sea of his subjects blood an ungrateful passage both to him and them Vsque adeâ— miserum esse civili vincere bello But blessed be God that as in Solomon's Temple there was no ax nor hammer nor iron tool heard in the house while it was in building 1 King 6 7. so in raising the foundations of this great work and bringing it to perfection no sword nor battle-ax no instrument of vvar lifted up no canon nor musquet nor pistol discharged Time vvould fail me to tell of Gideon and of Barak of Samson and of Jeptha of all our vvorthy Patriots in Parliament in City in Country that by Votes Declarations or other vvays joyn'd heads and hands and hearts to the contriving compassing compleating of this glorious vvork Give me leave to single out one from the rest unus instar omnium I hope vvithout envy I may name him vvhose name vvill be like an oyntment poured forth precious to posterity the Lord General Monck vvho hath upon our stage acted both parts of Nehemia and Zerubbabel to the life As another Nehemias he carried on his work prudently and closely he came up to our Jerusalem or Metropolis and was there some time before he told any man what God had put in his heart to do Artis esse celare artem a man shews his art in concealing his art An unseasonable discovery frustrates a good design whiles a discreet silence fits it for maturity Had he taken off his hood or veil at the first approach God knows what resistance he had found but as long as he carried it in a clowd and hung like a Meteor between heaven and earth or as the Papists picture Erasmus between heaven and hell each party took him for their own and so neither opposed him True it is he put many in a maze and the whole City in great fears when in a seeming compliance with and obedience to the command of those that pretended to the supream authority like Samson he went away with the gates of the City bars and all but he so on made them amends by setting them in statu quo or in a much better condition than he found them Vna eademque manus vulnus opemque tulit The same hand that brake their head gave them a plaister Then again like Nehemias he calls the Nobles and Rulers together brings in the Secluded Members to consult how our breaches might be made up and to secure their sitting sets a guard and raiseth a strong Militia Those members having made some notable Acts in order to a further settlement dissolve and quickly after a full and free Parliament succeeds them and prosecutes if not perfects what the other had so well begun Thus you see how he personates Nehemias in these particulars And may he not passe for a Zerubbabel too I am sure like Zerubbabel he did his work not by might nor by power but by Gods Spirit * Sanballat marched towards him with a more potent Army than his which stood like a great Mountain in his way but he had vertue enough to remove this mountain it became a plain before him and he might
have said to his souldiers as Cesar in the like case to his Tela tene jam miles ait ferumque tuenti Subtrahe non ullo constet mihi sanguine bellum Hold your hands here is no need of weapons nor blows this victory shall not cost a drop of blood As the Magitians said in another case so may I in this Digitus Dei est hic even an Atheist may discover the finger yea the whole hand of God in it and be if not converted at least confounded at the sight May I not take up the Apostles exclamation with a little alteration Behold ye despisers ye phanaticks and wonder and perish for God hath wrought a work which you would in no wise believe though a man had declared it before-hand unto you nor will your posterity easily credit it though a man declare it unto them in the next generation it will sound in their ears more of a Romance than a true story and we our selves that know it to be true may say of it as the Jews did of the like in their time Psal. 126. 1. When the Lord turned again the captivity of Sion then were we like unto them that dream so strange so unexpected so beyond hope that it seemed rather a phancy in a dream than a real deliverance What remained for him to do that he might make up the parallel but that with Zerubbabel he bring forth the head-stone of the building with shoutings crying Grace grace unto it and this was done when CHARLS the Second by the grace of God c. was first Proclaimed and after Crown'd all the people with lowd acclamations crying out God save the King And in him we have found another Zerubbabel and a greater than the former the General was but his {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as John the Baptist was to CHRIST his Forerunner or Harbinger to prepare the way before him and lo he is come like Zerubbabel from a strange Country where he lived in exile divers years to his own native soil and dominions over which may he and his Posterity reign happily to the worlds end Et nati natorum qui nascuntur ab illis And upon this very day whereon he came into the world he came into his Royal City being just thirty years old as David was when he began to reign A Prince whom time and sufferings and converse with forrein Nations have adapted for a Crown and heroick actions A Prince whom the heavens honoured with a Star at his birth which prognosticated him to be a man of wonders A Prince most justly meriting the title which was given to Titus the Emperour Deliciae humanae generis The delight of mankind even his enemies being judges if yet he can have any enemies whom God hath brought in with so high a hand and out-stretched an arm This is that single person whom God set as a signet on his right hand and preserved him as the apple of his eye from the hand of that uncircumcised * Philistine at Worcester who with his numerous Army like fat Bulls of Bashan thought to have closed him in on every side they said Persecute and take him for there is none to deliver him but God gave him cause to say with David My soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fouler the snare is broken and I am delivered And from that mir culous escape it was easie to prophesie of his future felicity his happy return to us as it is this day And though many concluded him then for a lost man that this our Sun was set to us and had bidden us good-night for ever yet we did hope that this Sun would arise again in glory to our Horizon and that with healing in his wings to salve and cure all the wounds and distempers in the body politick and Ecclesiastick too of this Nation When that little Vessell now upon the Thames where it deserves to be kept like Theseus his ship for a monument to after ges when that Vessel I say had safely conveyed his Majesty to the Haven where he would be me-thinks I see him looking back to England and speaking comfort to his yet loyal though then drooping and disconsolate subjects as Aeneas to his companions in the Poet revocate animos maestumquc timorem Millite forsan haec clim meminisse juvabit Recal your courages lay aside your fears both I and you shall have cause to give God thanks for this deliverance which we remember this day with all joy and thankfulnesse This is that single Person whom Rebels abjured and devoted to destruction but the Lord separated and set apart from the womb to be the Repairer of all our breaches in Church and State the Restorer of paths to dwell in Every one may now repose himself under the shade of this Royal Oak and whereas the common prisons were of late years the proper places for loyal subjects now they may sit secure under their own vines and fig-trees Deus nobis haec otia fecit Again As Zerubbabel lived long in the King of Babylon's Court yet retained his own true Religion worshipping the God of his fathers in his true way and manner as he had commanded him So hath his Majesty lived long in the Courts and Territories of forreign Princes of different Religion from him yet with Job he held fast his integrity stood like a Colossus or Rock immovable against all surges of temptations that were raised to shake his faith to alter his Religion witnesse the sharp assaults as we have heard of Monsieur Militiere and others he met with beyond-Sea Like Vlisses he bound himself to the mast of a well-grounded resolution that no Romish Syrens could draw him out of the ship of the Church of England in which he was baptized and educated though that ship were like the other wherein Christ and his Disciples sailed in all appearance ready to sink and when he had no power visible to defend himself he would be still the Defender of the faith once delivered to the Saints therein following the great example of the best of Kings his Royal Father who to his death maintained the Religion of the Church of England and died a Martyr for the same Lastly When Sanballat and others beyond the River offered their service to joyn with Zerubbabel in carrying on the work Ezr. 4. 2. saying Let us build with you his answer was You have nothing to do with us but we our selves will build unto the Lord our God c. So did his Majesty wave all forreign aids tendred to him waiting Gods ways and leisure as the best who hath given him the hearts of his people and found a way for his coming in sine coede sanguinem without bloodshed Thanks be unto God who hath given him this innocent victory through our Lord Jesus Christ Thus what the Psalmist spake of our Saviour may in an inferiour sense be fitly applied to his annointed