bear uttering the Wish of the great Chytrâ—…us in this Honourable Audience Urinam potentes rerum Domini majorem Ecclesiae et Scholarum curam susciperent May a godly and a learned Ministry be every where encouraged and no Plantations allowed to live without a good Minister in them May the Colledge be maintained and that River the wholsome streams whereof have made glad the City of God and blest us with a priviledge above the other Out-goings of our Nation be kept Running with Issues beyond those from the Seminaries of Canada or Mexico may Schools be countenanced and all good wayes to nourish them and support them in every Town be put in Execution you shall then probably leave the Presence of God as a blessed Legacy with such as may come after you I know not whether we do or can at this Day labour under an iller Symtom than the too general Want of Education in the Rising Generation which if not prevented will gradually but speedily dispose us to that sort of Criolian Degeneracy observed to deprave the Children of the most noble and worthy Europaeans when transplanted into America The Youth of this Countrey are very sharp and early ripe in their Capacities above most in the world and were the Benefits of a Religious and Ingenuous Education bestowed upon them they would soon prove an Admirable People and as we know that England afforded the first Discoverers of America in these latter Ages whatever the Spaniards may pretend unto the Contrary for it may be proved that both Britains and Saxons did inhabit here at least Three or Four hundred years before Columbus was born into the world which the Annals themselves of those times do plainly enough Declare So our little new-New-England may soon produce them that shall be Commanders of the greatest Glories that America can pretend unto But if our Youth be permitted to run wild in our Woods we shall soon be Forsaken by that God Whom our Fathers followed hither when it was a land not sown and Christianity which like the Sun hath moved still Westward unto these Goings down of the Sun will Return to the old World again leaving here not a New-Ierusalem as Doctor â—…wiss hoped but a Gog and Magog as Master Mede feared for the last of the Latter dayes Now may the God of Heaven bless the Wisdome and Goodness of Your Endeavours for the continuance of His Presence with those that may rise up in your stead when you shall be gone to be forever with the Lord. Allow me to say unto the Fathers of this Countrey what was said unto the Iudges of old Deal courageously and the Lord shall be with the good And as for Us that are and shall be Inferiors Let us also do what we can That our God may be still among us We ought all of us humbly to lay before our worthy Rulers that Encouragement in Ezr. 10 4. Arise for this matter belongs to thee we also will be with thee be of good courage do it Let there be a publick Spirit in us all for the good of the whole the Rarity Mortality whereof among us new-New-England bewails among the greatest of its Calamities Especially Let us Pray hard That God would not leave the Land It was a Publique Spirit which was in that Famous Prince of Orange who was the first Captain General of the United Provinces an hundred years ago and the Ancestor of that Illustrious Person whose glorious Design and Service we have lately with so much Unanimity Declared for that when he was basely murthered by the Pistol of a papist His dying and only words were O my God take pitty of my soul and of this poor people When he had but one breath to draw in the world His poor people had half of it O Let this poor People have no less than Half our Cares half our Prayers Let no man say I am a sorry Creature of what account can my prayers be For You that can do little else but pray can yet be the instruments of saving this poor people by the Presence of the Lord. We find in Amos. 7. 2. That a poor Herdsman and Huckster kept the great God from Leaving of the Land A poor Husbandman yea a poor Woman by lively prayers may do incredibly much towards the Keeping of our God yet among us And if God be With us then His Rod and Staffe His mighty Crook which horribly breaks the bones of all that it falls upon will crush and wound all that shall go to make this Wilderness A valley of the shadow of Death unto us and beat away all that may essay to do us any Harm So shall we be Led and Fed among the Sheep of our GOD He will Restore us and His Goodness and Mercy shall follow us all our Dayes MANTISSA THus have the Words of God been Calling upon us to beware of Loosing His gracious Presence Now the Presence of God will either go or stay with His Gospel and the Principal Danger of New-England lies in its giving an ill Entertainment unto that glorious Gospel of our Lord Jesus Let us then see wether the Works of God have not also been calling upon us to take heed of that Epidemical Evil and let what has befallen some of our Neighbours in our dayes be produced as a Warning unto us to avoid any Contempt of that Gospel which others have smarted for the Slighting of I would fill the Remaining pages of this sheet with a Discourse fetch 't from a Reserved Collection of MEMORABLE PROVIDENCES not improper to be produced on this Occasion MATTH X. 14. 15. Whosoever shall not receive you nor hear your Words It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of Iudgement than for that City To Despise and Reject the Glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ is an Evil than which none is more evil and yet nothing is more ordinary than this extraordinarily sinful Sin which Unbeleef may be accounted as Tertullian of old esteem'd Idolatry the Praecipuum â—…rimen Humani generis the grand Crime of Mankind Low thoughts about the Person and the Office and the Beauty of the Lord Jesus contemtâ—…uous Apprehensions of His Truths and His wayes and His Ordinances these are the Things which bring the most Signal slery Wrath of God upon the Children of unperswadeableness The peculiar Controversy of God with man in the managing of which the most High God inflicts upon particular persons at once a Blasting on their Estates and a Blindness on their Spirits here as the Prologue to the Hottest Vengeance of Eternal sire in the dismal vaults of Hell below is not so much on the score of all their other Profanity Iniquity as this one thing They sleight the Redeemer of their souls And this is that thing by which whole Nations Peoples bring swift Destruction upon themselves that thing for which all the Seals all the Trumpets all the Vials in the Apocalypse have brought in the
that be far from me The sense of these things will prepare your Thoughts for one Conclusion more which is Proposition III. A People must be with God or God will not be with them And here also to prevent Mistakes Let that one Text be alwaies carried in our Minds Neh. 9. 18. Being merciful thou for sookest them not there is Mercy in the Whole of this matter Let it be noted That tho' this Condition seems to be imposed upon us yet it is Grace pure Grace rich Grace that helps us when we are helped unto the performance of it When a people have so been with God as that He has been with them they are to shout Grace Grace concerning all It is also to be noted that this Benefit dos not depend upon that Condition as an Effect upon the real and proper Cause of it When a people has been with God this does not merit and so procure that God should be with them but that is barely the Antecedent unto which this is the Conse Having praemsed this I must now affirm God is with you while you are with Him We need only reflect on the People of Israel for an Instance of it That whole History which almost fills the Bible proclames nothing more than this it loudly declares That while a people are with God God will be with them but that He will be very Terrible in His providential Dispensations towards such a people as do forsake Him But What is it for a people to be With God In short Our being With God implies the Whole of our Obedience to Him Our Duty to God must be attended that we may have the Presence of God The Whloe of this Duty is comprised in that Expressirâ—… of our being with the Lord. Particularly the Hebrew Particle Gnim in our Text admits of three Significations it signifies With and For Like which last Significâ—…tion I make the more free withal because a little Philology will acquaint us with many Exemples of it for instance When David saith in Psal. 120 5. I dwell in Gnim Hebr. the tents of Kedar a very great Interpreter translates it so I dwell As the tents of Kedar i. e. Like the inhabitants of the Stony Sun-burnt Arabia whom indeed I don't Remember David ever was among Accordingly a people have Three Things incumbent on them if they would enjoy the Presence of God First A People should be with God by Communion With Him This t is to be With Him There are Certain meanes of Communion between God and us and these we must be continually approaching to Him in We are With God while we are at Prayer before Him hence in our Context here it immediately follows If you seek the Lord He will be found of you While we do seek Him we are with Him The Psalmist was a man much in prayer and therefore he could say as in Psal. 73. 23. I am continually with thee A people much in Prayer may say the same We are continually with the Lord. A people that will pray upon all occasions a people that will pray over all Businesses a peothat will retire into the Mount for Prayer and Fasting too at every turn that people is with the Lord. And the whole Worship of God must be diligently graciously faithfully frequented by a people that would be with Him We are with God when we are at His House A people should support esteem and use all the Ordinances of God among them The Church of God hath His very special Preseuce in it the Name of the Church is that in Ezek. 48. 35. Iehovah Shammâ—…h the Lord is there We should all be there too and there give those Encouragements which are due to the Institutions of God So shall we be with the Lord. Secondly A people should be with God by Activity For Him To be For God is to be with God It was once the Summons given in Exod. 32. 26. Who is on the Lords lide And all the Sons of Levi gathered themselves they were with God in doing so T is a Summons given to the world in every Generation Who is on the Lords side They that obey the Summons are with the Lord. A people full of Contrivances for the Interest of God are with Him A people should set themselves to advance the Glory of God they should own His Truths and His Wayes and endeavour to draw all about them into the Acknowledgement of the same A people should propound the Glory of God as their cheef End and the main Scope of all that they do and they should think much of no Cost no Pains nor tho as a Martyr once expressed himself tho' every hair on their heads were a life should a Thousand Lives be dear unto them in the promoting of it Then are they with the Lord they are so when God can say of them as in Isa. 43. 10. Ye are my Witnesses saith the Lord and my servant Thirdly A people should be With God by Behaviour Like Him To be Like God is to be with God They that are with Him do not walk contrary to Him God and we should be One. A people should have the same Designs the same Desires which the Written Edicts of Heaven declare to be in the blessed God and not only so but the same Vertues too Is God Holy Thus a people should not bear with them that are evil Is God Righteous Thus a people should abhor all Injustice and Oppression Is God Merciful Thus a people should be disposed unto all fair acts of Pitty and Kindness Then they will be with the Lord and O that this people were so with Him This is the USE to be now made of what has been delivered Let us all now Be with God that God may Be with us I suppose whatever else we differ in we generally concur in that wish 1. King 8. 27. The Lord our God be with us as He was with our Fathers let Him not leave us nor forsake us O that we might all as much concur in an endeavourous Resolution to be with God as our Fathers were with Him not to leave Him nor forsake him There is as much of new-New-England in this great Congregation as can well be reach'd by the voice of one Address t is indeed the best part of new-New-England that is at least Represented in this Assembly As the great Council at Ierusalem satt near the Temple thus the whole Convention of the Massachusets is here come into the House of God this day Wherefore I take the boldness to say Hear ye me Asa and all Judah and Benjamin The Cheef Sinner and least Preacher among all your Sons now takes a Liberty to mind you That God will be with you while you are with Him Now that we may be all of us inspired with a Zeal for this great thing this Day Let us Consider First How Desirable How Necessary a Thing it is that we should have God with us Truly This is the Unum
I will even for sake them saith the Lord. Secondly Let not Sin be With us and God will be so T is the purpose of our God in Josh. 7. 12. I will not be with you except ye destroy the Accursed Thing from among you Let us then Destroy that Accursed thing Especially Let us take heed of the Sins which at this Time we have a peculiar Disposition to It was complain'd in Hos. 7. 1. When I would have healed Israel the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered It has bin thus but God will not be With us if it still be thus among our selves Our good God the Lord our Healer is now Healing of us O let us not now be impatient patients lest that our blessed Physitian deal hardly and roughly with us Impatiens aegrotus crudelem facit Medicum Let us now no more discover Revengefulness against them that have deserved Ill of us Let the Law and not the Sword measure out their due unto them No more discover an Unthankfulness unto them that have deserved Well of us Requite them not with Censure and Hatred for their unwearied pains to preserve our Peace No more discover a Contempt of the Ministers who set themselves faithfully to Declare the Whole Counsil of God and to Lift up their voice like a Trumpet in shewing us our sins They are all agreed I hope as one man to live and dye studying of your Well-fare but if they are unjustly ill-treated with you the great God whose Messengers they are will take notice of it and say Ye have despised Me And O let us no more Discover such a Spirit of Lying as we have made our selves worthy to be reproved for We find mention of an Evil Spirit that said in 1. King 22. 22. I will go forth and I will be a lying spririt in the moâ—…th of all the prophets Doubtthe same Devil has been saing for a License to go forth and be a Lying Spirit in the month of near all the people here I would to God this Devil were in a Shorter Chain I beseech you Let not this Land have that Character A Countrey full of Lies But of all our Errors There is none of such dangerous and threatning Consequence as the 〈◊〉 which we are too prone to break forth into We are too much a Conâ—…entioâ—…s and that will soon render us a Wretched and a Ruin'd people A Divided and Quarrelsome People do even say to the Almighty Depart from us for He is the God of Peace But O What is our meaning then to make a fall submission entire resignnation of our selâ—…es to the Tyranny of our own Passions as we have too much done whâ—…le we have been debating about the Measures of another Submission and Resignation in our various Revolutions I have read of a people with whom it was a Law That in a Fray where Swords were drawn If a Child did but cry PEACE they must End the Quarrel or else he dyed that strook the first blow after PEACE was named He that Considers the Feavourish Paroxysms which this Land is now raging in through meer Misunderstandings about the Means leading to the End wherein we are generally agreed and how ready we are to treat one another with siery Animosities had need cry Peace Peace with a very speedy importunity For my own part I confess my self but a Child and among the meanest the smallest of your Children too but yet I am old enough to cry Peace and in the Name of God I do it Peace my dear Countrey-men Let there be Peace in all our Studies Peace in all our Actions and Peace notwithstanding all our Differences We cannot avoid having our Different Sentiments but Peace I say O let not our Dissents put us upon Hatred and Outrage and every evil work It has not a little surprised mee to read in a Greek Author who wrote Fifteen hundred years ago that in the times long praeceding his there was a Tradition among them that Europe and Asia and Africa were Islands encompassed by the Ocean without and beyond which was another as big as They in which other World were mighty and long-liv'd people inhabiting of great Cities the two greatest whereof were called one of them The Fighting City the other of them The Godly City Behold very Ancient Footsteps of the knowledge which the old World had of our America some Thousands of years ago But I pray which of them American Cities must New-England become Incorporate into Truly If we are a Fighting or a Disagreeing People we shall not be a Pious one We have hitherto professed our selves A Countrey of Puritans I beseech you then let us have the wisdom to be first pure then peaceable Every man should count himselfe liable to follies mistakes Misprisions not a few Are you so or are you not If you are not what do you here in this Lower World where you can find no more of your own Attainments If you are so then be patient and peaceable towards those who see not with your eyes Let us all condescend one unto another and let no man be in a foaming Rage if every Sheaf do not bow to hiâ—… There is one ingenious way to unite this people if it were so heeded as it ought to be I remember an inquisitive person of old that he might know which was the Best Sect among all the Philosophers he asked one and another and every one still preferr'd the Sect which he was of himself But he then asked them successively Which do you reckon the next best and they all agreed that next to their own Plato's was the Best upon which he chose That as indeed the Best of all Thus We all have our several Schemes of things and every man counts his own to be the Best but I would say to every man Suppose your Scheme laid aside What would you count the Next Best Doubtless we should be of One mind as to That And if we could act by the common measures of Christianity we should foon be united in it O that we could receive the Word of the Lord Jesus in 2. Cor. 13. 11. Brethren live in peace and the the God of Love and Peace shall be with you Thirdly Let every man do his Part and his Best in this Matter That God may be with us Behold a work provided for all sorts of men Pardon me that I first offer it unto You that are or may be our Superiours It was said in Hos. 11. 12. Iudah ruleth with God When Rulers are with God O happy Government Unto YOU much Honoured I would humbly address this Petition That Your first work may be to think on some considerable Expedient by which the Presence of God may be secured unto us A little Consultation may soon produce what all new-New-England may bless you for Yea t is very much in your Power to do what may have a Tendency to perpetuate the Presence of God unto the succeeding Generations I cannot for