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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85785	The magistrates pourtraiture drawn from the Word, and preached in a sermon at Stowe-Market in Suffolk, upon August, the 20. 1656. before the election of Parliament-men for the same county. / By William Gurnall, M.A. of Eman. Coll. now pastor of the Church of Christ in Lavenham. Suffolk.	Gurnall, William, 1617-1679.	1656 (1656)	Wing G2259; Thomason E889_6; ESTC R202321	24,684	43

THE MAGISTRATES Pourtraiture Drawn from the WORD AND Preached in a SERMON at Stowe-Market in Suffolk upon August the 20. 1656. before the Election of Parliament-men for the same County On Isaiah 1.26 the former part And I will restore thy Judges as at first and thy Counsellors as at the beginning By WILLIAM GVRNALL M. A. of Eman Coll. now Pastor of the Church of Christ in Lavenham Suffolk LONDON Printed for Ralph Smith at the Bible in Cornhil near the Royal Exchange 1656. THE MAGISTRATES Pourtraiture Drawn from the WORD ISAIAH 1.26 the former part And I will restore thy Judges as at first and by Counsellours as at the beginning IF we consider the great wickednesse of the people to whom this holy Prophet was sent we may wonder that God suffered so rare a Jewel to hang so long on such a disobedient care as theirs was that he lent his Prophet so long to a people that made him and his message no more welcome But again if we consider how long heaven indulged them this incomparable mercy and calculate the long race of his Prophetical course we have reason to wonder as much though he found them so bad that yet he left them no better Stones weare with long dropping but these relent not under sixty yeares preaching and more of this holy man for so long the line of his Ministery was stretcht they were wicked enough in Uzziah and Jothams reign when he first ascended the stage of Prophecie but by Manasses his time in which he died and that by a violent and bloody death as Story tells us being sawne asunder they were wicked to some tune It was now full water at Ierusalem yea the whole land becomes sea covered with idolatry oppression and the work of sin which might have been expected anywhere rather then among a people so divinely taught But weeds grow no where so rank as in fat soile we may know enough of this wretched people if we reade this chapter which like a true glasse will give us the feature of that people as it look't in the Prophets time and I wish with all my soul we could not see a cast of our own Nations countenance in their face First they were a people Sermon-proofe They had heard away their hearing eare and 't is a sad deafnesse and hardly cured which is got in hearing of Sermons how far they were gone in this we may guesse by the Prophets strange Apostrophe ver. 2. Hear O Heavens and give eare O earth for the Lord hath spoken I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me Take the words how you will they speak them a people past councel and instruction if by Heaven and Earth you will have the Continents of both meant then by speaking to these is intimated he had as good speak to the inanimate creatures as to them That Preacher surely thinks his people bad indeed who directs his speech to the seats they sit on and pillars they leane to Hear O ye seats and hearken O ye pillars If for the inhabitants Angels and men who dwell in these still he reproaches their obstinacy It shewes the Father can work little on his childe within doores when he comes into the open street and proclaims his rebellion to all the world Secondly as they were Sermon so Affliction-proof they were so mad on their lusts that rather then not have them they would swim through their own blood to them heavy judgements were on them but no physick wrought kindly on them God was weary of smiting but not they of finning therefore we finde him making his moan as a Physician who hath run through the whole Art of Physick to do his Patient good but findes him grow worse under his hand and therefore at last speaks of giving him over ver. 3. Why should ye be stricken any more the whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint If affliction would do you good you have had enough of that I have beat you till I have not left you one sound part from head to heele and yet you will run after your lusts while your blood runs after your heels Thirdly in a word they were impudent in their hypocrisie at the very same time that they acted all their abominations they kept up a gaudy Pageant of Religion they spared for no cost in the multitude of their sacrifices but appeared great Zelots in the Temple which the Prophet ver. 11. protests against as the worst part of all their wickednesse Indeed spiritual wickednesse carries in it the very spirits of wickednesse And all this is not charged upon some petty party and inconsiderable faction in the Nation which had not been so much but the inditement is laid against the whole Nation ver. 3. Israel doth not know ver. 4. Ah sinful Nation The whole head and heart were as sick of sin as they were of suffering 'T is sad when all the house are down together or those that are well not enough to look to the sick There were indeed some gracious ones in that degenerate age but so few that their Religion like a pinte of wine in a tunne of water could hardly be tasted amidst such a multitude of ungodly ones Now as it is in the diseases of the body when a general distemper hath invaded the whole as in a Feaver or the like there is commonly some one principal part whose disorder affects all the rest which a wise Physician bestows his chiefest skill to finde out as most conducing to the cure so here the sad distemper which the Jewish Nation lay under both in regard of sin and misery is observed by the Prophet in a great measure to have proceeded from one principal rank and order of men among them and that was their Rulers and Magistrates ver. 22 23. Thy silver is become drosse thy wine mixt with water thy Princes are rebellious Therefore the Lord levells his threatnings at their breast in an especial manner ver. 24. Therefore saith the Lord Ah I will ease me of mine adversaries That as they had the greatest hand in the sin so they should have the deepest draught in the judgement No sins lie heavier on Gods stomack and make him more heart-sick then theirs who stand in high and publick place of Rule and Government But lest the godly should be discouraged at the calamities denounced against them for they could not but know it would be a sad day with the whole Land when God should make such an overturning of the great ones in it the storme of Gods vengeance seldome falls so upon Princes and Rulers but that the people are taken in the showre and share with them in their sufferings To fortifie therefore the hearts of these few godly ones he opens his designe of mercy which he had towards them even in the captivity coming upon them ver. 25. I will turne my hand upon thee and purely purge away thy drosse and take away all thy Tinne

away Armour though it were a Kings because he had not tried it in a word if you were but to choose a Shepherd or a Herdsman any should not serve your turne Pharaoh a King thought it not beneath his care though in so low a businesse Gen. 47.6 If thou knowest any man saith he to Joseph of activity amongst thy brethren make them rulers over my cattel you are to choose such as are not to go before beasts but to lead in and out the Lords people and flock Secondly consider your voices and suffrages are not your owne to bestow them where you list to gratifie this friend or that party withal No if you do you give what is not your own What Jehoshaphat said to his Judges I may with a little alteration apply to you that are Electours this day 2 Chron. 19.6 Take heed what you do for yee choose not for man but for the Lord who is with you in the choice He is with you to observe who you give your hand for and why you give it There is one more that takes hands then you see When Bishop Latimer heard a pen going behind the hanging as he was upon examination before the Queens Councel it made him more watchful what he said and shall not Gods pen that walkes behinde the Tent where thou settest thy hand make thee conscientious 'T is God we have to do with in this matter he is the Supreme Lord of Nations all Magistrates are his under-Officers and hold their place of him and are to do faithful service for him Moses 't is said was faithful as a servant Heb. 3.5 Now of what dangerous consequence is it for a people to chuse one into an office that is a Traitour to his Prince This thou doest when thou settest thy hand for an unfaithful person Magistrates are said to be taken into Gods throne 2 Chro. 9.8 Now darest thou set Gods enemie in Gods throne what is this but to set up a Standard against God and declare to the world thou wouldest shake off his Government This day the temper of this Nation will be discovered no way that I know like this to feel how its pulse beats and for my own part as this solemn National act shall appear I cannot look upon it otherwise then as our owning or disowning God to be our God to rule over us and if the Nation do but vouch God to be their God by a godly choice I shall not bury my hopes for our future happinesse God comes in mercy many times before he is sent for but he departs not to carrie away his mercie from a people till they give him leave to go yea drive him away and oh how unhappy art thou O England if thou mayst still have thy God and will not Thirdly consider the solemn Obligation that lies upon us by a National Covenant famous through the Christian world and we infamous for the breach of it to promote and procure with our utmost endeavours the Reformation of the Land God hath I beleeve most of your hands to shew for this and darest thou who hast bound thy selfe in such a Covenant give thy voice for an unworthy man to sit in Parliament whom thy conscience if thou wouldest have patience to heare it will tell thee he will never be the man that will help on that work with any Vote of his yea that is an enemy to it and feares it more then desires it if thou hast got the mastery of thy conscience so far as to do this bold act let me tell thee what thou doest thou comest this day to declare in the face of all the Countrey yea before God men and Angels that thou art a forsworne wretch and if thou gettest this brand upon thy forehead once go where thou wilt thou dragest a chaine after thee that will binde thee over to the fearful expectation of Gods wrath that come it sooner or later will take hold on thee And now tell me hadst thou not better have been asleep in thy bed yea sick in thy bed yea dead in thy grave then to have come hither to do so unhappy a dayes work Oh think when thou goest this day to give thy suffrage for any that thou didst see the Covenant with thy hand at it spread before thee durst thou then venture to blot out what there thou hast wrote by a wicked and unworthy choice Suppose one should put himself under an oath of friendship to promote the good and welfare of another to his utmost power as Jonathan to David and this his friend to whom he is thus engaged falling sick should trust him to bring a Physician to him and he should fetch a murderer to poison him or an Emperick which by his ignorance should kill him which comes to all one Oh how would his oath rot upon his conscience This thou doest only with this aggravation thou doest it to a Nation he to a private person before therefore thou subscribest spend one thought more upon the matter Consider thou standest at the greatest advantage of paying thy vows and performing thy Covenant this day that thou mayest in all thy life possiblie before the three yeares for a Parliament come about thou mayest be summoned into another world to give an account how thou bestowedst thy voice now or if alive thou mayest be reserved to see a poor Nation helped to its ruine by thy hand and such as thou art Fourthly consider the greatest hopes our enemies have is to ruine us by our own Councels The time hath been the plot was to blow up our Parliaments now they labour to blow us up by our Parliaments to make our Parliaments I mean blow us up by their destructive Councels and a Nation cannot die of a worse death then to be ruined by their Saviours and how near we have been undoing by some of them 't is so late I think I need not help your memories Quest But you will say Who is the man fit for our suffrage Answ A hard Question who fit for such a place among such a people and at such a time a Question I hope you have been asking your selves and others wiser then the Preacher before you came hither It were impudence for me to undertake a resolution yet I shall not be too bold if I lay a few Scripture lines together which will make up an excellent Pourtraiture of a Parliament-man though I fear we must abate something of the beauty which will appear in the face of it if we choose any this day The face is seldome so faire as the picture I am sure you will finde it impossible to meet with any among the sons of men whose graces are so orient and unsullied as to answer the Magistrates face as it is drawn by the Holy Spirits curious pencil in the Word And therefore your care is to come as neare the pattern as the imperfections of the best among you will permit You may see on a piece of clay