that found it so and we his sinfull issue on whom the ends of the world are come do and ever shall find it so till the consummation for the perpetuating of this proceeding in God is made manifest by that of the Apostle where he shews us plainly and as if he saw the arrow falling or the lightning blaze of Gods revengesull fire seizsing on and cingeing the sinners hairie scalp that goes on still in his wickedness For such things sake saith he look about you Behold the wrath of God cometh upon the Children of disobedience 14. Methinks I see some Bravo now some scornfull fool as Solomen blazons the witless and wilfull sinners coat turn his half-face and flearing and swearing urge me with a Why Sir Is God so dreadfull an enemy Yes even thou shalt find and believe him so at last if not too late Thou that in youth and in thy strength and wealth art loth to believe him so these seven yeers yet For observe in God those two properties which make an enemy formidable 1. Power unlimited carries not the third part of the world as he said of Scipio on his neck but holds up or casts down all at will pleasure ruling over all as Almighty doth what he will in the Armies of Heaven and him that walks in pride he is able to abase on earth blasting beauty and youth and strength and riches and wit and all thy growing hopes and fortunes with the very breath of his displeasure And sure this very first consideration of Gods infinite Power will shudder every meer humane make every undevilisht bosom tremble It was a King that said it and a man after Gods own heart and no doubt felt it in his own heart Stand in aw and sin not In aw Of whom shall Lords and Kings stand in aw of him that is King of Kings and Lord of Lords The Lord God I say unto you Fear him Fear him that is able to destroy Dominion and Regality able to reverse all victories confound all earthly glory with disgrace and compound all worldly honor with the dust that is the Lord God here in my Text. Set not light by him that is able to hurt or help was Ethick advice of the Ethnick Preacher Aristotle but it was a divine sentence in the lips of the King before the royal Preacher to Gods own darling people Israel Contend not with one stronger then thou And the famous Preacher of the Gospel to the Gentiles St. Paul opens all sinners eyes and ears to apprehend this ensuing danger in that applicatory question Do we provoke the Lord to jealonsie to anger Are we stronger then he 1 Cor. 10.22 Tush this is needless now saith my Gallant Who knows not this stronger then God Who ever opened his mouth to say so But yet there is an intestine there is a visceral Blasphemy as well as oral and as ill every whit The fool that saith in his heart There is no God or else a blind a drowsie or an impotent God either he cannot or he will not regard all such secret thoughts are as open Blasphemies though not so infectious And therefore I beseech thee whoever thou art for Gods sake if not for thy own souls sake to take notice and to beware For dost not thou conceive that every hard hearted every unrelenting soul feels some such susurration in the secret silence of her own Closet and Cloister some such carnal inspiration while she resolves not to repent but to continue in known sins and saith in effect I have heard much of Gods Power and the Preacher would make me belive that the Word of God is a Wisdom divine and Gods heavenly Power to my salvation But sure I find that Word let them read it preach urge it never so forcibly is yet too weak and all their ghostly Councils and Exhortations of no value I am sure I never yet found them prevalent with me but that I am able during the very Sermon-time to sleep and find that I am not only proof against all their perswasions but perswaded that neither this man though well voyc'd nor that though cryed up for a powerfull Speaker nor the whole Tribe indeed shall ever be able to prevail over me 'T is true indeed that God only can break in upon mans soul and the Word we preach which is but improperly called his Word and is so no surther then we are carefull to separate the precious Truth of Heaven from earthly inventions or conjunctions Yet take heed of despising the meanest Instrument that God sends upon this Embassie and resolve that all Resolvings against the charming Power of Gods are from the suggestion of the foul spirit And if any of this audience should be infected I say if this should be so though Beloved in Christ Jesus this ought not so to be and though I fully hope for better things of you yet for fear it may be so by reason of our common frailty and if this qualification of Omnipotency in God shake us nothing yet let this that follows trie to disimprove and prevent or infeeble all the Charms of the Serpent and dismantle all the strong holds and sorts of Satan in our hearts which would put us on Gods Comminatory Morieris That there is a second property in God I might naâ—◠〈◊〉 more which makes an enemy terrible and that is The affection of Hate My enemies are many and mighty saith David and yet we do not hear the worst and they hear a tyrannous hatred against me there 's the bottom And though such an hate in God is not nor ever can be towards man or any other creature for he hates nothing that he hath made yet sin is a thing that he never made a thing begot betwixt the devil and our own corruption and that the Lord is said to hate with a perfect hatred and it must be so for the righteous Lord love Righteousness with a perfect love and this hate in perfection spreads to the whole Tribe of sinners for sins sake All the Workers of Iniquity and while they live in their sin it mars and makes odious their most exquisite Actions The predominant venom of sin turns the nature of their best performances and makes the most acceptable Sacrifice abominable Their very prayers shall be turned into sin And when they are dead as their names rot and corrupt the very Air so their souls are sent to endure those exquisite torments prepared for the Devil and his Angels I have done with the first 15. OUR second part is the second Party appearing in this Judgement Man the Delinquent I told you God was an Ocean souldless fathomless and when I find St. John telling me that Christ who is God need not that any man should tell him what is in man for he knew it leaves a little of the knowledge of man behind it namely this That man is a thing not or not well known to any but God not to another not
and defiled both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 soon after they were made There 's opprobrium ab origine Thence all slanderers may count their Pedigree For the devil infusing this venom into those Giants enflamed them to the scaling of Joves Throne or if not that we will believe the Scripture that if Nimrod the mighty light upon a rout of Populorum such babling and bawling sots as he found in Shinar all of one lip Gen. 11.1 they in their wicked conspiracy so it is called Wisd 10.5 would soon be at it for a City and Tower unperishable Make it of Brick incombustible and for drowning they 'l take order with the Almighty for the top shall reach to Heaven 9. So deduce Opprobrium from the old Dragon to a Serpentine Cadmean Nimrodian race of Giants mixt of Populorum and Maximorum too And what shamefull work will they make a mad work indeed even a world of wickedness time to look to the Circumference For if these have all one language concur in voting for a new frame and have a mind to be towring aloft nothing will stay them but Sidera feriam ero sicut Altissimus then that 's reaching Heaven right but the wrong way for they are not at Heaven yet Such a piece of work in hand and they bragged of a mountain-birth But Quid exit You know who blasted the business by a consusion first and a diffusion and dispersion afterwards and observe the just recompence the Sentence ex ore tuo Nequam Their babling to marr their building their own tongues to make them to fall fall out and fall off no longer able to stand to their great work because unable to understand one another 10. But for all that sundring at Babel soderd again we find them in the Text. This Generation of Nimrod Belus let him be and these right sons of Belial for no yoak will hold them for observe this confluence of Omnium Populorum Maximorum and find Jusque datum sceleri ex plebiscitis Senatus consultis seelera exercentur all exceeded When mens hands are once at liberty no King in Jsrael why then every man doth what seems good in his own eyes and so here when their tongue 's once loose the Lords anointed shall be reproacht The Lord himself blasphem'd And what Lord shall controul them so floats the ship without an Helm so flings the horse without a Bridle and so their tongues run madding through the world far worse so that the Apostle St. James cries it thrice Fire Fire Fire How great a mischief comes of this Fire setting on fire the the course of nature and is set on fire of Hell thirher still it brings us you see this untuly evil full of deadly and divelish poison all contract in this Malady all concentered in opprobrium 11. But be this poison of Populorum never so noxious and those that ejaculate never so mighty What are these all to the Almighty these Maximi to him Christ is opt max. Shall Jehovab suffer by such a Typhoeus or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be liable to such aspersion No Inimici tui Domine shall not be able to do this violence to thy anointed David nor move a tongue to infest the meanest of thy servants This is indeed the point under tryal for all this seems asserted in holy Scripture 1. First Servi are servati They should indeed be sure to be pelted and dusted and stoned from this Center painted with infamous spots and tokens of this plague in their bosom but for Jehovah here a good Domine that hath chosen and though not quite taken them out of this present evil world yet as good for they use it as if they used it not their Conversation is in Heaven and themselves within three steps In Eph. 2. He hath quickned us together with Christ and hath raised us together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus And is not that high and aloof far and free from Opprobrium 2. Next is David the Lords anointed his body secured in the Sepulchre and this Monster is no Hyena Pascitur in vivis His immortal part is mounted not on Doves but Angels wings and past the clouds and storms of Populorum here hath met those acclamations on mount Zion and made one of that innumerable company the general Assembly and Church of the first-born among the Spirits of just men made perfect and in a Kingdom that cannot be moved all this in Heb. 12.22 23. So David himself is free body and soul from the strife of tongues and left above this world of wickedness 3. Much more is Davids Lord advanced set on the right hand of his Father all his enemies made his foot-stool far above all Principalities and Powers and at his coronation all knees have bowed and all tongues confessed that Jesus is the Lord to the glory of God the Father 4. And for God the Father What can Opprobrium do to him The Lord is King be the people never so impatient the earth never so unquiet God that is very high exalted higher then the highest far aboue all Gods above all men sure out of their reach 't is he too that can still the raging of the waves and the madness of the people If the Fremuerunt be never so loud against the Lord and against his anointed He that sits in Heaven shall laugh The Lord shall have them in derision And now where is Davids Petition What is become of our Circumserence Servi Christus Domini Jehovah all free from Opprobrium nay never a one of all these for all this begin with the highest first and if this Monster set on Jehovah flie in his face he will sure spare none of the rest 1. And we need not go far for proof they corrupt others and speak of wicked Blasphemy their talking is against the most high they blasphem thee dayly saith David even weeping ripe that God would not redress and repress those Blasphemies We need go but to this very Text Remember it O Lord thy enemies have blasphemed thee we need not so much Alas We cannot stop our ears against words cloathed in death and jeasts flumine dignos and those execrable Oaths and Perjuries for which the land mourns spent in despight of God and of his Prophets flying roul full of plagues against such Swearers who yet roul on and roul out their hours in hellish Blasphemies as if they practised here against their coming thither No wonder then if earthly Gods put up and bosome many and mighty reproaches and abuses when it is here upon Record and evidence too much every where of this Crimen laesae Majestatis as high as Heaven 2. Next for Christ Jesus Pursue his story but from his Baptism for all the opening of Heaven and the Doves descent and his Fathers attestation coming among his own How did they receive him Not as the Lord Messiah but as a Messiah in
mockery so they anointed him with spittle made him a Crown of Thorns and a Scepter of a Reed but these were rude and rough Souldiers What was Vox populi a Deceiver a Madman a Glutton and a Wine bibber a friend to Publicans and sinners What said Maximi why the more good he does the more evil they speake of him Doth he heal on the Sabbath day they vote it illegal He is a licencious person a Breaker of the Sabbath straight yea his very Vertues were convitiate his great and stupendious Miracles blasphemed He casts ous Devils by the Prince of Devils and these were his passive Diurnals and his Annals his Chronicles and his Panegyricks with these Dice did they devour till altogether resounded that bloody Epiphonema of Crucifige nay upon the very cross was that verified a scorn of men and out-cast of the people All that see me laugh me to scorn They shoot out their lips and shake their heads saying He trusted in God that he would deliver him Let him deliver him if he will have him But Christ is now in Heaven and Opprobrium cannot hunt or hurt or hurle Aspersions thither yes certainly For as Calvin and Tremellius both will have the Text understood of those Scoffers which while the Church of God expected a Messiah derided then that expectation so a new brood in St Peters time we read of that cried Where is the Promise of his second coming and Teachers he soretels and we have heard of such Teachers in our time damnable Teachers denying the Lord that bought them and too many following their pernicious way by reason of whom the way of Truth and in that he who is the Way and the Truth are blasphemed And St. Paul saith lewd and debosht Christians crucifie again the Lord of Glory make a mock of him and put him to an open shame See now if any David can look to rise or set to finish his course without opprobrium when this Giant adventurous pursues and would vomere in sinum as far as his Hel-hound tongue can stretch poison the Glory of Christ Jesus himself at his Fathers right hand in Heaven 3. David shall consess it for himself My enemies revile me all the day long are mad upon me sworn together against me with tongues like Serpents poison of Asps and Adders under their lips these of the Populorum The basest dregs of the Rabble Abjects Drunkards Dogs and a dead Dog and some of the mighty too too mighty for him To these add Shebaes Clamorque virum Clangorque Tubarum and for bosom injuries besides those of his kindred his own bowels his own issue and his own flesh his own wife gave him his hand full and his bosom full of opprobrium 'T is true Davids soul is now in Power and Glory but yet he stands here for all his fellows all that are made so much more excellent then their Brethren of mankind as they have obtained a more excellent name then they and that name is here The anointed and all such may glass themselves in Davids sufferings and find that a true Maxime among his Maxims Benefacere male audire Regium est Reproacht and abused oftentimes by those to whom they have been most gracious and greatest Benefactors This raises a shallow brook of Disobedience to a soul deep sea of Rebellion for Judas made really rich by his Masters bag to run over to a company of wicked Elders with his Quid dabitis for the Viper which came out of Pauls bundle of sticks and now grown warm to hang upon his hand indeed no harm was done he flung the Viper into the fire But so could not David be rid of the Serpent in his bosome here that stung him to the heart Thou of my counsel we took sweet counsel together of the same Profession we walkt in the house of God as friends Thou my familiar friend Hie niger est bunc tu Britanne caveto 4. Thus far it s carried against Jehovah Christ Jesus the Lords anointed and then be sure it will take in Christians too It is the lot of all Gods servants all that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer this scourge of tongues For the lofty Poplars will shead their venemous fel-dews on Robur and Cedar and Palms planted in the house of the Lord. The lying lips will cruelly dispitefully and disdainfully speake against the Righteous Our souls and Bosoms must be filled with the scornfull Rebukes of the wealthy and mighty and with the despitefulness both of the proud and ignorant Thus this Monster tramples on God and all good men and drags them at the heels presses upon Vestigia their footsteps so this first in David and then in Christ himself 1. David first Though a man worth thousands of them whose heart was not haughty nor his eyes lofty but walkt uprightly before them and led them as a faithfull Shepheard and walkt not for so the word is in things too great or too high for him but so behaved so quieted his soul as a child that is weaned of his Mother ruling justly over men in the fear of God like a light of the morning of a morning without clouds and yet had many clouds and dusty slanders raised upon his Vestigi◠his footsteps upon his flittings and removes Ps 56. though in danger of his life as we know he was very often All that helpt him in his escapes from Saul that get him away even Jonathan reproached with perverse Rebels and scarce free from the stroke of a Javelin and all that relieve him by the way as Abimelech the Priest that do but give him bread when ready to starve if Doeg the Edomite may be the executioner of Sauls ordinance shall be slain with the sword What path What step of Davids can be free when even his humble Devotions to his God his fasting and putting on Sackcloth and then his wearing the linnen Ephod and dancing before the Ark are made a mockery 2. But what say we to Vestigia Christi Were not his feet deadly pursued not only at the last pass when they came after him with swords and staves but even the cost bestowed upon those blessed feet counted but waste We find in his story he could not step abroad for their lying in wait the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taken from Hunters eager on their game so they sought to intrap or to catch some thing from him he could not go to take an entertainment at the Table not walk in the Corn-fields not go out to heal or preach or do Miracles but still they cavilled and some desire him even to be gone and to depart out of their Coasts If he come from Nazareth no good comes from thence if he remove to Cana or Capernaum they ask Why thither Why Cures and other great Works in other places and none in his own Country and all the while the fault their own Who thought they were astonisht at his Understanding and Answers
Division and Confusion These are the winds Euroclydon and Boreas and his brethren that lift up the waves of popular Tumults and none but Jehovah can still this Tempest 14. Especially if Maximi mingle in the mass of Populorum and run with them to the same excess of riot in Opprobrium which God forbid True Nobles and great ones worthy the name of the Worthies of Israel will consider the base alloy to be ingloriously harded with vulgar spirits and wise men will not easily be blown up or hurried away with every wind of Doctrine but be and do like those nobler Bereans that is search if those things men preach be so or no. They will read and believe the Scripture which tels them that the Lords anointed who raised them to be Majores Maximi made them suscipere magìs maximè The fountain of all honour is ordained of God to be Caput Head over all the Tribes in the Old and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 supream in the new Testament â—ud so set on the Throne and in the place of God that the Kings enemie is Gods enemie Every Opprobrium cast at him reviles Jehovah here renâ—ers the Rebuker of David a Blasphemer of the Lord. And therefore for the Lords sake since â—o parting him and Caesar every Maximus will â—arn what every Minimus every Christian that hath a soul as Saint Paul saith most learn that 〈◊〉 to be as Jehovah made them subject and that or conscience sake to God conscience of sinning against God blaspheming God and the King go together and the sin is done against Heaven and that Father there which is committed against Paâ—â—rem patriae here To cut a lap from the Kings to be made honest Davids heart smite him and those hearts are but dull and heavy stuff that can endure Detraction to disrobe or expose to disgrace the spiritual Fathers of the Church and especially that Father whom in Oaths and Prayers we stile next and immediately under God over all persons 15. Thus are we something onward to a remedy if either Populus would be reclaimed or Maximi disclaim their associaton but if neither our next Remedy is here explicite Gest are in sinu that is Patience Gods own remedy he is patient and he is provoked every day and Christus Domini bids us Learn of him and Christus Domini David did so in the case of Shimei Let him alone it may be the Lord will look on my affliction and that the Lord will requite good for his cursing this day and so servi Domini enform us St Paul and St. James You have need of Patience and let patience have her perfect work Take the Prophets for examples of suffering affliction and of Patience so this Medicine is Catholicon and hath Gods Probatum affixt The patient abiding of the week shall not perish for ever 16. The last Remedy is in Recordare benedictum which make a whole prayer and first 1. Prayer in general it is the invention of Gods people from the beginning Tents and Iron-works from Cain and His but Invocation from Enos and his royal Progeny and God would have it so Ever since he kept house on earth it must be called an House of Prayer for all Nations all that would be of the houshold of faith and fellowship of the Saints If that honour then this work which pleases God above incense and doth him more honour then all burnt Sacrifice But what good to his servants all the good our hearts can desire for would we do Wonders drie up Seas cleave Rocks stop the Sun or the Lions rage quench the violence of fire subdue Armies Kingdoms or over-power created and increated Nature bind down the hands of God himself Prayer hath done this and more with that Prayer of Bow the heavens and come down the Church of God brought down that Jesus at whose name we bow who bows the Spirit of God to us into us and fills us full of Grace and Truth of Faith and Hope and Love and Joy and all those Graces which serve to bring us in Grace and to reconcile us though sinners and enemies to the Father through the Son as he proclaims the Peace himself In quo acquiesco 2. Secondly Here is Christus Domini at prayer Iexhort that first of all Prayers and Supplications be made for Kings that 's well but I shew you amore excellent way Kings to make Prayers Supplications for themselves an appeal lies to and here from for Caesar too at this Throne of Grace before this Mercy seat of God who is the only Ruler of Princes And in this Davids zeal exemplary I was glad saith he when they said unto me Let us go up to the house of God Our feet shall stand in thy Gates O Jerusalem And in trouble and trouble of enemies let others seek what remedy take what course they please but I take my self nay I give my self unto Prayer 3. Thirdly Prayer in distress the proper Remedy because God erected the Court of Requests in Heaven for the grievances of his Houshold This the pool with several Porches and Parishes where if we wait in right season we may be cured be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never so noisom what disease soever it be Should the enemies of Christus Domini conspire and continue to drie up that oyl of heavenly Power which pours it self from the head for the preservation of the members or the state it self grow sick of a Tympany or false conception or shake and totter with the palsie or we have just cause to complain in the Church and pray God to deliver u from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is I think such as regard no Topicks fetch their Arguments from no common place of old Reason or Religion evil and absurd men 2 Thess 3.2 O yet here 's our refuge The weapons of our Militia are our our Prayers to him that cals upon us to call upon him in time of trouble and he will deliver us 4. Fourthly Speciaily Prayer is prevalent in this particular textual disease and malady of Opprobrium Our Litany with Libora nos Domine is the best Ditany to throw off this arrow to return and repay and requite it into their bosom that annoy us is but Lutum luto purgare No though it be a case which nearly concerns us and an offence of an high nature yet our best way is to remove it to the highest court of audience in Heaven before the Judge of all the world where we have advocatum Regium and the darling and favorite of that court to plead our cause which is his own and who took this course himself reviled not again but commited it to him that judges righteously The Apostle indeed Eph. 6. arms and prepares the Souldier of Christ with an Helmet and a shield a sword too of the Spirit and fits him with an whole Armoury beaten our in Heaven for him But how concludes he praying always with all
a week tythe all I possess This was well he ought to do so But Christ that saw his root was vain glory brings him on the stage for our learning to play his part of Miles gloriosus with a Panegyrick of his own praises in his prayer With Lord I thank thee that I am not like other men But all such flaring Hypocrites are met with by St. James Thou hast faith so hath the Devil saith he Is that faith which is all words and no works Can that Faith save thee Or is it vera fides Very faith indeed No it is the other Fià es rather that is a very Fiddlestring Saith not St. Paul as much Sever it from works of Charity and it is a meer sound and an ungracious sound too A sounding brass or a tinkling Cymbal Again they are met with by this Apostle where expounding this Text he tells them and us that walking in Light is all one with walking honestly Now is there any honor whence honesty is derided Is it not a shame Is this to deal fairly Is it fit men should so mis-use God and Godliness What make a shew of Godliness and have nothing to shew for it when it comes to the proof If nothing but profess saith Christ I shall be even with you one day Now it s your day to appear goodly and glorious before deluded men and to be thought Saints But when I come to be made manifest in my true and real Saints and to glorifie them indeed then I 'le profess too I 'le profess to you I know you not I know you well enough from the heart root but to be the men you call your selves My Saints my Elect and choice servants for such I know you not Depart from me you have been Retainers and Pretenders to and talkers of piety but workers of Iniquity 2. So far of active now for passive obedience A Christian ought to be such a one as old Philosophy and Poetry did Ideate only and imagine Sibi imperiosus totus teres atque rotundus A kind of Aeneas or Vlysses and Achilles mingled not only to do but suffer nobly For which end the Stoicks made men believe they had no infirmities but had turned out all their Passions and affections which is impossible Nor is that the thing which God requires 'T is not a disparking a disforesting but a Cicuration a Subjugation a Captivity a Crucifixion a Mortification and then farther respecting Christian profession Walking here implies a bold and constant course both in our faith and in our obedience the life and soul of faith a course undaunted an Eagles flight bold and forth on Comes humane injury in the way The heathen could rowse his friend with a Te moneo ut omnem gloriam quâ inflammatus fuisti omni cura industria consequare magnitudinemque animi ne unquam inflectas cujusquam injuria A Christian vertue then should be à crassiore tela then for every file to break 'T is for a weak or guilty mind to be troubled with injurious words like our Duellists preventing the day of Judgement and calling their brother to account next morning for every idle word over night by sending him the length of their sword And since I have mentioned Duellists let me have leave to throw three or four cool words this morning on that fire which is but Ignis fatuus and a Meteor that hath a place only in a middle rank and region of mankind The whole skie of women are clear against it Nobles for Council sit or government will learn to look down with storn upon it Beggars and the poorer Tribes ca◠live and die with a few brawls and broken heads The three professions are better taught and men of Trade and Occupation in Cities and Corporations understand not the word Business in the quarrelling Dialect So that fighting is confined it descends not usually beneath a serving man nor ascends above a Knight and being thus comprest the hope is it will shortly vanish into nothing For it rises from that which is next to nothing that is Vanity and Lyes and Vapors And you shall observe them still most tender of that dreadfull word the Lye on whom it falls in the nature of a true jest and such most enraged about Reputation forsooth whom wise and honest men know to have very little or no Reputation to lose Briefly What think these Gallants of the old Roman bravery and height of spirit Can they shew me from all that story a pair of worthy courages unless they will alledge those mercenary Fencers embrandled and fighting a duell for the Lye or the son of a whore or any such poor froath as flies from men in wrath or vext with distemper in drink or play But I am preaching to sober Christians a Religion that never occasions much less necessitates any Disciple to a fact which must inevitably draw on or endanger their hanging or damning or both And have we so learned Christ Did not that Lord and King of Glory empty himself first of all his Glory and make himself of no Reputation and then endured such contradiction of sinners such cruel mockings and revilings How many false accusations bore He before he bore his Cross So what a Tullying and declaiming of Tertullus What Rattles and Drums and Gun-shot And what a Catalogue of sufferings past St. Paul before he could finish his course and attain the Crown of Righteousness and even in the shock of painfull afflictions a man of God endued with a true Christian fortitude and Patience will learn to take up his Cross and learn by it as a a sound Distinction and take it as Gods usefull Fan to unmingle him from the chaffie and feathery things of the world and will look through it and find Gods primary intention of Mercy in sending it So David the man after Gods own heart did experiment his afflictions to be good for him and reductive of him into a right way And such a passive walk was his clean through In his beginning the Bear the Lion the uncircumcised Philistine then Troops of enemies with arrows and arrows prepared shot and shot privily Cost and Care and Wit employed to ruine him yet he sings The Lord is my Light and my Salvation whom then shall I fear Nay so far from fearing that if we belong to God it belongs to us to look for crosses What son is it whom the Father chastens not It is the lot of all his genuine Children it is the walk of all his pasture-sheep In the sheep-walk comes the storm the Shearer the Butcher Why For thy sake are we killed all the day long and counted as sheep to the slaughter If it come to death for Christ or his Cause it is the highest dignification to our nature next his own assuming it that parting with life is the consummate the best part of thy walk that severing is Union and that dissolution make the knot indissoluble 1. We come now
it the foulness of the offence Sauls first seems a grosser disobedience then Adams Regardless of Gods express prohibition he reserves Agag and the fattest and best of the spoils as Adam took the fruit forbidden and then iterates his offence in offering Sacrifice intruding on the sacred function which never King could violate without exemplary punishment As Jeroboam and Vzziah stand for proofs in Chronicles and then Davids sin seems souler then Cains Adulterating Vriahs wife making him drunk and then contriving so to murder him though it drew on the slaughter of many of his own Souldiers and Gods servants and occasioned the enemy the uncircumcised enemy to triumph in their bloods A sin doubtless most horrible and as the School-men thwack and throng into Adam sin almost all kind of wickednesses as Pride Gluttony c. so is this of Davids a Rapsody and Fardel horribly complicated and enwrapped with other sins And the wonder is enlarged in the greatness of these royal persons to whom God could have addrest Angels as he might in Adams cause for he had those winged Pursivants even then as we read he did by a destructive execution of the Assyrians in many thousands by one Angel 2 Reg. 19 35. And as he did even to David punishing his other sin of Pride by the sword of a destroying Angel in 2 Sam. 24. 7. For Resolution of this we learn first from some Interpreters that this was done with this difference because there those Kings offences were manifest and had witnesses enough These Delinquents sinning the fruit think to escape under the leaves as if God could mistake them for trees To teach Rulers in such cases that Rule of Joh in searching out the matter diligently When Herod feared the ruine of his Kingdom by an Hebrew Infant he enquired diligently of the Wise men all that could inform him for prevention So all wise and just Judges both Soveraign and Dependant ought to be curious and not to cast to non-regardance the search and tryal of gross Offenders For as on the one side no such acceptable sacrifice to God and Angels and good men as the blood af a bloody Murderer or such like Monster No such golden world as where great and grievous sinners are shel'd and disheltered from out their trees and fig-leaves all presumptions in wealth or power So on the other side The Lord beholds all Iniquity wrongful dealing when by clear evidence of naked Truth as in the example here men are careless in judging or punishing their brethren For if to accuse be enough you know who said none could be innocent 8. Which sad and serious Jndagation of the Truth and Execution of Judgement and Justice in inferior Courts would be a blessed sight where too commonly men crie that the Rod of coertion is turned into a devouring Serpent or made an angle-rod to fish for silver in the deep purse of a muddy sinner where the gallant guilt-head or soul Porcpisce and all above his size shall easily break the line or be let go but the poor Pilcher is fetcht up with a vengeance though his greatest fault perchance be but Faut d'argent But these are things like his Aruspices ever complained of and evermore retained and I do but only call upon them in my passage being upon a point of Judgement here which is executed immediately by the Almighty himself to teach all Judges and Rulers some think at least in some crimes a personal Inspection Solomon to that purpose hath a speech of Kings sitting in the Throne of Justice and chasing away all iniquity with their eyes And as we read of Jehosaphat 2 Chron. 19.8 In Jerusalem he set of the Levites and of the ' Priests and of the chief fathers of Israel For what For the Judgement of the Lord and for Controversies This was a Commission Yes it was so to Priests and Levites and chief Fathers of Israel This was a standing Court of Justice in Jerusalem But the King himself in person at the fourth verse goes through the people from Bersheba to mount Ephraim and sets Judges in all the fenced Cities and there he gives them a charge a Caveat with an Enim Take heed what you do for you judge not for man but for God verse 6. 9. Again For Gods referring some to his Ministers of Justice and proceeding to immediate judging others another reason is given or another instruction is gained which is all one namely this That if we can evade or elude humane Tribunals yet none should be so shameless as to hope avoidance of him who is Supernus Inspector that holy One in his Watch-tower above which Lucretius that lookt into the book of nature markt in the usual break of too great Greatness Res abdita quaedam some hidden thing there was so he stiles the divine Peovidence which did Proculcare still kick down the highest things Et sibi Ludibrio habere seemed to take a pleasure in so doing And in the book of Scripture we find what desolation God threatns oft and oft seems delighted to bring upon the high ones of the world in bringing them low So he seems to triumph over the Amorite whose height was as the Cedars yet I destroyed saith he his friut from above and his root from beneath So he doth menance Edom though high-roosted and nested among the stars yet even thence will I fetch thee down saith the Lord Jer. 49.16 These high ones may escape all Power on earth but yet become the quarrie of him that is higher then the highest So the Hern and Vulture outflying both Falcon and gree-falcon are by the Sacre seized on in an instant which fowl as the name imports is made by all a Symbol and Hieroglyphick of the Deity which in sharpest Judgements comes horribly and speedily upon wicked Governors in high places which little of this Methode in Gods proceeding may help us much against distrust in Gods Providence or fretting our souls too far against the Execution of his Justice 10. Thus far upon these words in a review as they deliver us this Text taken in those two parts Of Judgement and the Methode of that Judgement Now we shall further make good our former Assertion that every part of Holy Scripture sets open to several Expositors or Preachers several doors of utterance Be pleased in this last passage over the words to recall that which in the first Sermon I called the Mystick sense of Gods question here that is for so I find it opened Where is thy former Happiness To what a miserable state art thou now by thy sin reduced How hath thy fall bruised the Seal and defaced that glorious Image I erected in thee Alas Adam where art thou From which passionate Increpation and Rebuke mixt with a gracious Bemoaning of Mans Fall divers doctrinal Points might be raised as the term is if a man should raise as some do such things as would sleep and be quiet or lie for dead if no such Raisers