the Walls of DERRY of whom God alone knows how many perished And even those Brave People within DERRY and their Immortal Brethren of ENNIS-KILLIN cannot but be esteem'd with our Apostle to have been pressed out of measure above strength insomuch as oftentimes to have despaired of Life only resolving in those desperate Circumstances to fall into the Hands of God and not of Men not to sell Life with Dishonour or to be made the Scorn of Foreigners and Faithless Men. These things are so manifest that to use the words of our Town Clark in the Acts They cannot be spoken against It admits not Contradiction that we of late had a Sentence of Death in our selves Now as to the Point Questionable and to be Examin'd Has this Sentence of Death according to Gods Design thereby brought all of us either us of Fourty One or us of Eighty Eight off from our Carnal Refuges and Carnal Life or Sense of things Do we now not trust in our selves but in God which raiseth the Dead Are we all of us as Men ought to be who have had so long the Sentence of Death in themselves prepared for Death Have we in good earnest perswaded our selves that God will raise the Dead Ay and bring them to Judgment too Are we resolved to live as Men only Reprieved a while For our Condition is at best no better We are perhaps delivered from a violent Death but tomorrow or next day at least we know not how soon may we dye a Natural one Behold as Gen. xxvii 2. good old Isaac said I know not the Day of my Death Now are we ready Brethren Has this Sentence of Death mended us Can we each look up to Heaven and say I trust in God that raiseth the Dead If so such Mens Miseries have made them Happy But God knows if we may judge by what appears to Humane Eyes by the face of things by People's Manners Talk Habits Air and like Symptoms the generality of us are as lewd carnal worldly proud vain and santastick as ever Some I will hope remember the Vows of their Misery and will never forget them And to such mainly belongs The second part of my Application the Exhortation and Advice following God has deliver'd you from so great a Death He does Deliver Wherefore trust to Him that He will yet Deliver you 1. He has Delivered 'T was His Hand and His alone in the Irish Rebellion which that any Protestants did or do here survive is little less then a Miracle The Nation was Confederate and as one Man against us They had every where prepared the Instruments of Death of all sorts and they as barbarously divers Months employed them even till glutted with Blood if English Blood could have glutted them That they left us a Remnant was Gods over-ruling Act not at all their Intent or Will Their Design Attempt and diligent Endeavour was to have cut off Root and Branch the Mother with the Child And least our Ashes should have been a kind of a new Seedness of Protestants to the Land they had forbid us so much as Burial Again 'T was Gods Hand and His alone that in the Irish Tyranny deliver'd us the Posterity Brethren or Successors of those who fell in the Irish Rebellion Their Priests indeed are said this time not to have given such Bloody Instructions as in the former day Alas good Natur'd Men They onely at high Mass that is at their most sacred Office and in the highest pitch of their Charity bid all their People Arm at least with Rupperies and Bagonets pretty innocent Weapons and what other Arms they could get They only interdicted them under pain of Suspension from Mass to be seen again after such a short day unarm'd Their Orders for Action only were Plunder and Strip all Protestants Spoil and Burn what you cannot possess but spare Blood That is Kill not the Protestants but starve them with Cold and Hunger O Merciful Priests Quid refert ferro pereamne ruinâ But even this their Mercy lasted not long When many of our Brethren had saved themselves by timely retiring out of the Kingdom how frequent Consults were held to have put to Death us the poor Remainder And herein the Irish Papal Clergy were constant and importunate to this bloody purpose and their People no doubt too many of themselves as ready for acting it Now how a Clergy and a head strong blind abused Nation who denyed even to their own King as they call'd him his Power as often as he would use it in favour of Protestants how I say both these came to be restrain'd from executing their own Will we to this hour are at a loss It was not as some have thought a care of Preserving the English Roman Catholicks which swayed them for they had no regard to them And those of them whom they had in their Army or Councils they scorned hated and to their power turn'd out of Place little otherwise than they did English Protestants It was not fear of an After-Reckoning For by this means only they accounted they would have prevented all After-claps Sometimes I have thought it was our Paucity They scorned us and esteemed us too Few considering their own Numbers for them to sacrifice And really upon After-thoughts herein I believe those who left the Kingdom did a Publick Service For had the whole Body of the English stayed so that our Number had made us Formidable I question not but there had been a Second General Massacre Which what prevented as to us who were in their hands especially at that Critical Point of Time when our Blessed Deliverer and their Conquerour appeared cannot as far as I am able to see be assigned except we say It was Gods Almighty Hand He disheartened them and as in the case of those Cities through which Jacob and his Family journeyed Gen. xxxv 5. The Terrour of God was upon them He perfectly amused them so that their Men of Might found not their Hands nor their Wise Men their Counsels He then Delivered us from so great a Death And 2. He doth Deliver How we have subsisted even since the Reduction especially in the Countrey where for the most part both Towns and Fields were in a manner totally desolate and waste where Houses and Stock and in many places even Trees and Hedges were destroyed so that we might have rationally despaired of Food and Shelter is to me next door to a Miracle But when the Bush burns and burns and continues still burning yet consumes not 't is plain God is in it He doth Deliver us 3. Let us therefore trust in Him that He will yet Deliver us 'T is sure only the Power of our Enemies is abated not their Malice or bloody Minds I may add most justly not their Pride or Expectations Their very common People stick not to our face to tell us They will yet have a Day for it and they are as confident of an Army from
is high Ingratitude These two Observations are the proper Result of the Words as far as from a Singular Instance any General Rules can be drawn and the Consequence of both is so strict that neither much need a further proof I shall therefore but touch on what I had prepared And the first being Matter of Fact through several long continued Ages the properest proof of it would be Historical Records both as to Particular Persons and that great Publick Body the Church ** As to Particular Persons The Holy Ghost singling out some of the most Faithful Men and greatest Favourites of Heaven under the Old Testament Names especially Three who were in their Days Wonders of Danger and Misery and yet obtained as wondrous Deliverance through the Faith which they Learn'd and Practic'd in their most desperate Circumstances The Three were Noah Daniel and Job Ezek. xiv 14 c. The Lives of each of These are so many Exemplifications or Precedents of the Case before us What could Noah Trust to or whence could he hope for shall I say or imagine any Help possible but from a Power superiour to Earth and Air from Him that dwelleth in Heaven when he saw the Fountains of the Great Deep broken up and the Windows of Heaven opened and continued mighty Rains for fourty Days and fourty Nights As far as Flesh and Blood can see he had a Sentence of Death in himself at least could trust in nothing but the Living God to survive that Flood by which all Mankind except himself and his perished And according to the Growth of his Dangers no doubt was that of his Faith By Dreadful Discipline he proceeded from Faith to Faith By Faith saith the Author to the Hebrews Noah prepared an Ark for the Saving his House And by that Faith continued and advancing still may I say he saved both the Ark Himself and all with him in it For no more could he and his have lived in the Ark without a kind of Miracle of Faith than the Ark in such a Deluge without a Miracle of Power Again What could Daniel trust to in the Den of Lions by Nature and Hunger merciless What Power below God's that made them could have changed their Natures or sent an Angel to have shut their Mouths But Through Faith saith the now mentioned Author He stopped the Mouths of Lions Hebr. xi 33. He was taken out of the Den and no manner of hurt was found upon him because he believed upon his God saith he himself Dan. vi 23. Further What could Job trust to when besides his being from the Heighth of Wealth and Plenty reduc'd to Nakedness and Nothing besides his being bereaved of his Children in an instant and no Relation left him but one who seems to have sided with the Devil against him forsaken too of all Friends save those Miserable Comforters who with one Mouth told him the Cause of all his Misery was his Hypocrisy when besides such unheard-of and united Calamities his very Body was smitten with sore Boils from the Sole of his Foot to the Crown of his Head and he sitting down among the Ashes took a Potsherd to scrape himself withal What could this Mirror shall I say or Miracle of Constancy and Patience have recourse to but Him that killeth and maketh alive Him that bringeth down to the Grave and bringeth up And to him he resolutely applies Chap. xiii 15. Though he slay me yet will I trust in him To this Great Triumvirate we will only add the Man after Gods own Heart Into what frequent Gulphs of Misery was he cast The Waters came in unto his very Soul He sunk in the deep Mire where there was no standing and in the deep Waters where the Floods over flowed him He was weary with his crying and his Eyes failed him while he waited on God Psal lxix 1 2 c. Yet on God he waited vers 3. And At what time I am afraid I will trust in God Psal lvi 3. Finally This has ben all along verified not onely in Particular Saints but in the great Body of them the Church For Brevities sake let one instance thereof suffice God had plac'd the Children of Israel his then only visible Church in the best part of Egypt in Goshen under the happy Government at least Prime Ministry of their Brother Joseph He could here have made them a Numerous and most Flourishing People But this would not have brought them to the Acknowledgment of his Works nor Dependance on his Power They must therefore first be brought into Bondage in Mortar Brick and all manner of service even to make Brick without Straw under Taskmasters which made them serve with Rigour Their Male-Children must be decree'd to the River cast thereinto and destroy'd insomuch that they must groan by reason of their Bondage In this Condition they learn to cry unto the Lord the God of their Fathers and their Cry came up unto him Exod. ii 23. But even yet they are not by sufficient Misery ripe for Deliverance Pharaoh and the Host of the Egyptians must be Arm'd all the Horses and Horsemen and Chariots of Egypt must be drawn out against them and in pursuit over-take them They must be shut up in the Wilderness in the Straits of Pihahiroth with the Sea before and their Enemies behind And now they must stand still and see the Salvation of the Lord that they Exod. xiv 9 10 c. may learn It is the Lord that fights for them and from Him alone cometh their Help But they did not all Learn this and therefore the Carcasses of them that believed not fell in the Wilderness though neither by Pharaoh nor in the Red Sea lest their Enemies should Triumph Those few who did believe Received the Promise and were led into the Promised Rest by that Mighty Arm which brought them out of their Bondage By these Personal Instances of Noah Daniel Job and David Saints undoubtedly of the first Magnitude and by the National Case of Israel the People whom God had Chosen to Himself out of all People it appears as to the Matter of Fact That God often reduces his faithfullest and most beloved Servants to such Critical Depths of Misery whence none but an Almighty hand can Retrieve them and wherein they must either trust in Him or give up all Trust and be lost ** But why should God make any Peoples Course of Life so uneven And why such Peoples especially In Answer hereto Though we who in our own Deliberations and Consults scarce many times know what it is which most sways and lastly determines us to a Resolution may not presume to say where God has not said it first This or that moved God thus to Act yet with humble Reverence we may say in general He does it undoubtedly for most holy and wise Reasons in the Government of the World The Particulars we shall fully know at the Day of the Revelation of all things Mean while As in
Giving Rain and Fruitful Seasons and thereby filling our Hearts with Food and Gladness so sometimes in changing his hand and sundry wise giving us a Sentence of Death in our selves whence yet as he sees fit he grants Reprieves In all these he leaves not himself without a Witness Did all Humane Affairs move in one constant even regular sort as Fixed Stars in an Orb whither no Clouds or Storms arise some would say It is good for us to be here and never think of another World or of True Happiness Others perhaps would cry out All things come to pass o' course There 's no such thing as Providence Now that we see such Eccentrical Motions and Epicycles we must acknowledge there is an Hand that agitates governs and over-rules the Whole Frame And those who demand Miracles that they may believe may find them in and upon themselves in that they among others are now alive But it will be said The Faithful need not these Testimonies for according to the Hypothesis they are already Faithful True they need them not to beget the first Faith but they need them to quicken and confirm the Faith they have But still that part of the Challenge recurres Why should God pitch upon his most Faithful Servants thus to exercise It seems fitter such Examples should be made on those who have more deserved such Severities The Answer may be Wicked Men in such Difficulties would not trust in God apply to Him or glorifie Him at all They would rather turn Impatient and Desperate Let Saul be at a loss and he 'll seek to the next Witch or Devil instead of submitting all to God And those in the Revelations on whom some of the last Plagues came gnawed their Tongues for pain and blasphemed the God of Heaven but repented not of their Deeds to give him glory Rev xvi 9 10 11. Wherefore to such who exercise no Faith who apply not to God or acknowledge Him there is most justly no Deliverance Out of one Misery they fall into another out of a Temporal into an Eternal Abyss But when Holy Mensuffer yet suffering submit with Meekness to Gods Hand call upon Him out of the Deep and in the Deep still trust in Him and are Delivered God is glorified every way His Almighty Power and Veracity is glorified in their Deliverance And the Power of his Grace in them is glorified in their Adhesion to Him and Dependance upon Him even while He delayed to Deliver and seemed not to succour them The Devil and Wicked Men must see and acknowledge to their own Confusion God has such Children who though He frown and chastise though he let loose VVicked Men and VVicked Spirits upon them which may vex them till they are tempted to Curse God and dye yet they will still hold fast good Conscience trust their God love Him and wait his time They believe and therefore will not make haste will not by Impatience put that God out of his own Methods who has Delivered them from so great a Death and doth Deliver them even at the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or instant of their greatest Oppression and Anguish in that under that very Anguish they subsist and in whom they trust that He will yet Deliver them From whence we deduced our second Note That when by an Almighty Hand People have been Delivered from the Extremity of Danger into whatever Difficulties they shall afterwards be brought they ought for ever to trust to that Deliverer ** For such Persons have the same Reasons in common with others to trust God and they have besides Personal Reasons peculiar to themselves The Reasons which Christian People in common have to trust God are his infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness by which He seems as it were in Honour bound to provide for and preserve whom he has put into being and dependance upon Him while they own this dependance begging and trusting to Him that by his Visitation He will preserve the Spirit which He gave And besides all this His Word and Promise so to do These Considerations make it Injustice in any who Know God to Distrust Him But besides these common Motives such Persons whom God has more Signally Deliver'd have had experience of his Loving-Kindness and Good Will Particularly to themselves and this last is all that Christians may or that perhaps most of them are apt to doubt That God is Able enough and Wise enough to help us none who believe the Being of a God can question But whether He Will or no by reason of our guilt is the matter to be doubted Now such Persons having had experience of God's good VVill in Particular to them as well as of his Power VVisdom Veracity and Goodness in general are more exceedingly sinful if Diffident This makes it in them Ingratitude to Distrust Him ** But is it then the Duty of all Christian People when in Danger simply to trust in God for Deliverance Or is it not truly said That Trust in God for such Particular Mercies as we want is not like Repentance and the Faith of Assent and some like Particulars absolutely every Mans Duty who hears thereof but the Duty only of some who are qualify'd and of them to with certain Cautions and under certain Conditions The Answer shall be very brief plain and distinct in Four Conclusions 1. Particular Trust in God being required to be proportionate to Gods Promises and there being nothing that the Faithful can want which God has not promised there is nothing that they can want which they may not trust to Him for The young Lions do lack and suffer hunger but they that Psal xxxiv 9 10 fear the Lord shall not want any good thing Only we must be careful our Confidence take in all the Promise That is 2. They who would Acceptably or according to the will of God trust in Him must take heed they be not without the inward Qualifications which bring Men within the compass of the Promise The Promise is to such who fear the Lord not to them who lightly esteem Him And again Every Man saith the Apostle who hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as He is pure 1 John iii. 3. There is nothing more deplorable than to hear loose impenitent carnal Persons by Carnal I mean such who are without a sense of Godliness or Religion upon their Hearts say upon every Exigent I trust in God You trust in God! VVhat have you to do to trust in Him Hear what God saith to you What hast thou to do that thou shouldest take my Covenant in thy Mouth seeing thou hatest Instruction and castest my words behind thee Psal l. 16 17. Cleanse your Hands ye Sinners and purifie your Hearts ye Double minded and then draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you James iv 8. 3. Because God has no otherwise promised particular outward Blessings to us than as He sees them good for us They that fear the
Lord shall want nothing that is good In our trust to God for such things we must always intermix submission to his Wisdom and Will We need not doubt but He will certainly give the outward Goods we would have if He sees us fit for them and there is nothing fits us more than Purity or Universal Holiness which we urged in the former Particular and Humility or perfect Submission to God which we press in this Lastly Inasmuch as God is without Variableness or Shadow of Changing constant unto Himself and works not extraordinarily but upon extraordinary Occasions inasmuch as He alters not the Course of Nature by the usual Acts of his Providence but Nature and Providence sweetly agree they therefore who trust in God to any Particular Purpose must with such Holiness and Submission as directed mix Diligence and the use of Means proper in order to their End He was it 's true no very good Man in whom I am about to instance but in this point he seems to have been very Exemplary for a right Procedure in his trusting in God When Joab saw that the Front of the Battel was against him before and behind he chose of the choice Men of Israel and put them in Array against the Syrians And the rest of the People he deliver'd into the hand of Abishai his Brother that he might put them in Array against the Children of Ammon And he said If the Syrians be too strong for me then thou shalt help me And if the Children of Ammon be too strong for thee than I will come and help thee Be of good Courage and let us play the Men for our People and for the Cities of our God And the Lord do that which seemeth good to Him 2 Sam x 9 10 11 12. Here 's a Man now supposing him otherwise Vertuous that trusts for Deliverance from his Enemies as he ought to do He uses all the Conduct and all the Courage he could and then like a Brave Person calmly submits the issue to God Prayer in the Name of Christ Jesus for the obtaining what we trust to God for is but an Act of true Christian Trust or as I may say the Venting of it and therefore I say nothing particularly touching it But supposing all the Conditions before set down namely That our Trust grounds it self upon Gods Promise That we honestly endeavour the Inward State and Temper required by the Promise That we trust for Outward Blessings with Submission to God's Will And that we be diligent in the use of Means proper to the designed Benefits and particularly of Prayer supposing I say these things observed the Rule is Trust in Him at all times O ye People pour out your Hearts before Him God is a Refuge for us On these terms to trust in God at all times is our Duty as well as Interest ** And for us who have been Delivered in such sort as both our selves and Predecessors have been not to trust in our Deliverer would be the vilest Ingratitude as well as Injustice He has delivered us from so great a Death from all the Attempts of our Enemies He does still Deliver us from their present Malice Would it not now be the most abominable Requital not to trust Him that He will yet Deliver us from all their Machinations ** I am yet obliged by the Duty I owe the Day and this Great Audience to a more Particular Application And I beseech You to continue Your Patience on this more than common Occasion a little space First then As to matter of Partiuclar Self-Reflexion We have had à Sentence of Death in our selves This matter of Fact as to our selves I presume we are sensible is true That we should not trust in our selves but in God which raiseth the Dead That this was God's Design upon as many of us as He saw Faithful Adherents to Him we have seen to be no less certain The only Question is Whether this Design have taken effect Whether we by our Dangers and Miseries have learn'd to lay aside Carnal Refuges and Confidence and duely to trust in Him that raiseth the Dead To go over the Particulars We have had I say A Sentence of Death in our selves WE that is our Ancestors and Predecessors this time was One and Fifty Years and as many of us in our own Persons as were then of Judgment It was then instead of a Confession the Remorsless Boast of a Principal Conspirator when apprehended That their Design was so far Advanced by that time as it was not possible for the Wit of Man to prevent it So proud of themselves of their own Wisdom Counsels and Strength so arrogant against God so contemptuous and implacable against us was I wish I could not say is the Malice of the Irish Papists and especially of their Priests who then had God grant they still have not Charm'd that People out of all Reason and Bowels And truly all who then judged as men do might justly have been of the Conspirators minds For the Irish had the generality of the Castles Forts Sea-Ports and strong Holds of the Kingdom in their Possession England was then as good as in Blood by their Arts and so unable to help us the Scots some while abused into a Neutrality and Foreign Countreys ready to pour in Succours to them So that most reasonably in Fourty One had our Parents Brethren or We in our own Persons a Sentence of Death in our selves Again WE lately in the End of Eighty Eight and in the years 89 and 90 a Second Rebellion in little more than Half an Age which yet if any will not allow to be another Irish Rebellion we will to gratifie them at present style The Irish Tyranny and perhaps more properly for that Tyrants choose Methods of slow and lingring Murthers Sentiat se Mori We I say who were in this Kingdom during those years had really a Sentence of Death in our selves For we knew ourselves in the hands of Bloody Enemies Enemies by Nation Manners Religion and Interest Enemies Insolent and some few excepted Barbarous and Bruitish Enemies who never yet kept Faith nor can it be presumed ever will We were Naked even as to Defensive Weapons Deprived of all manner of Refuge or Security yea many of us often times of the very Necessaries of Life We were most causelesly either under Imprisonment or Restraints And not seldom drawn out and set forth as Men appointed for immediate Death Our Surrounding Guards not long before our Servants standing ready with their Arms and calling for The Word The Word and sometimes the Commander in Chief Damning himself that upon the first sight of the Enemy he would sacrifice all our Heretick Souls to the Devil Thus stood it with many of us who are thought to have fared best Others and those not a few in several Places were under Formal Sentence of Death Gallows and Executioners prepared and appearing It was worse yet with those Forlom Numbers driven before