Who is the Lord that I should concern my self about him You talk of God and think to draw me into a vain and pucillanimous devotion and so to drill me into a frivolous hope and expectation You talk of Waiting have I not waited all this while You speak of Praying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to what end should I pray I have spoken and he will not hear I have called and he will not answer I have clothed my self with Sackcloth Lo here it is upon my loins and he laughs at it The more I court him the more he slights me The evils that are upon us are of his own sending 'T is evidently his hand that is upon us and he that hath cast us into all our misery Wherefore I 'le Seek to him no more I 'le Pray no more I 'le Wait no longer This evil is from the Lord Wherefore should I wait upon the Lord any longer You see now the absurdity involved in this instance which that it may make a better impression upon us we will consider it more particularly In the words are I. A Supposition or Concession and that Sober and Rational This evil is of the Lord. II. An Inference or Conclusion and that Absurd and Irrational intimated in the form of a deliberative Question or Interrogation Wherefore should I wait c. The Supposition or Concession may be considered either 1. Absolutely and simply and then it will afford us this Observation viz. Publique Judgments or Calamities proceed from the hand of God 2. Relatively as proceeding from Joram and then it offers us this Observation viz. The most wicked and distempered persons are sometimes forced to discern and acknowledg the hand of God in the dispensations of his Judgments My business will be First to evince the Truth of the Observations Then to shew the Absurdity of Joram's inference And so to descend to Application 1. The first Observation is this That Publique Judgments and Calamities proceed from the hand of God That is to say They do not arise out of the Dust as Job speaks They are not scattered into the world by the uncertain distribution of blind and improvident Contingency nor thrust upon it by an ungoverned overbearing force of a Brute Fatality They proceed not from a casual coincidence of various senseless Atoms Nor from the overpowring influence or combination of the Planets or the Stars Nor from the malignant ardours of ill-boding and portending Comets all which are the foolish imaginations of Atheistical or Superstitious persons But they are sent out of the Armory and Magazine of him Who hath made all things by his Word susteins them by his Power and rules them by his Providence I may not upon this occasion be permitted to enter upon a Philosophical or Theological discourse concerning the Providential Administration of the world or the Properties or Attributes of God from whence it ariseth upon which it is founded or the manner of his concurrency with secondary Causes how that insinuates its influence and performs its operation so as the Contingency of Events and Liberty of Agents may be maintained I shall here content my self only to suggest thus much to your Notice and Observation That As the Providential Administration of the world proceeds immediately from the Efficacy of the Divine Wisdom Power and Presence So there is not any thing in nature wherein every one of these may not by a considering Person be discerned Praesentemque refert quaelibet herba Deum And as the smallest Rivolet attentively and constantly followed will direct and lead one to the Sea so the most fortuitous event being traced through the chain and series of it's Causes will bring the mind at last to the original Fountain and Ocean of all causality and force an acknowledgment of a wise voluntary providential administration of the world And as for this part of Providence in the dispensation of Publick Plagues and National Calamities it is so obvious to common reason that it hath forced an acknowledgment not only from men of Philosophical and deep consideration whether of the Graecanic or Barbaric Families But from Historians Rhetoricians and Poets persons not obliged by their profession to so severe an enquiry or so deep a penetration into the works of nature Homer refers the Calamities of the Trojan War to the will of Jupiter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Virgil to state the original of the Contest between the Romans and the Carthaginians and of the bloudy Wars and Miseries consequent thereupon enquires Quo Numine laeso With Euripides rhe usual Epithet of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sent from God And to convince the Epicuraeans and the Stoics i. e. the Assertors of fortuitous or fatal Administration St. Paul himself appeals to the testimony of one of their own Heathen Poets namely to a saying of Aratus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But why should I detein you in the out-skirts of humane reason or testimony seeing we have a surer word of Prophesie which plainly assures us both in general and in particular by way of Assertion and Prediction in reference to Nations Plagues and Persons that Vengeance is the Lord's and the Distribution of Plagues and Judgments is within his own peculiar Jurisdiction That it was he that let loose the Cataracts of Heaven upon the old World and sent down the fire and brimston upon the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrha That the plagues of Wars of Pestilence Famine Wild beasts c. are all of them his Messengers and he sends them where he sees cause That there can be no evil in a City or a Kingdom which the Lord hath not done That he it was that prepared and ordered and marshalled out the Plagues of Egypt and the Burdens of Moab and Ammon and Dumah and all the other Nations mentioned in the Prophets That he gave Jacob to the spoil and Israel to the robber And to come yet nearer to the Case of Joram in the Text to shew that he was the dispencer of these things he punctually foretold the fate of his Father Ahab and concerning Jezebel his Mother That Dogs should eat her by the Wall of Jezreel And he may seem long before to have pointed at this very particular instance of the Judgment in the Text. If thou for sake the Lord thy God thine Enemy shall besiege thee in all thy Gates and thou shalt eat the fruit of thy body the Flesh of thy Sons and of thy Daughters in the Siege because of the straitness wherewith thine Enemies shall distress thee So that I shall say no more in proof of the first Observation arifing from the Concession of Joram absolutely considered He said This evil is from the Lord. 2. I come now to the second Observation drawn from the consideration of this Concession in reference to Joram from whom it did proceed viz. The most wicked and most distemper'd sinners are forced sometimes to acknowledg the hand of God in the
dispensations of his Judgments To the design and purpose of our present meeting nothing in the world can be of greater consequence than to be thorowly convinced of the truth of the former Observation And to this end nothing can be superadded of greater moment than the manifesting the truth of this which we are now upon Surely great is the power and irresistable the force of such a truth as can assert it self in the most indisposed minds of men and break through the strongest defences and Barricado's raised against it That can gain an admittance and extort a Recognition from those whose understandings are most indisposed to receive it and whose inclinations and affections most averse and whose endeavours are most engaged against it And this is the pretence of the present Observation in reference to wicked and ungodly persons Though they are unacquainted with any religious consideration and the wayes of God and of his Providence very rarely come in all their thoughts Though they give themselves up to vain Imaginations so that their foolish heart is darkned Though they endeavour to put out the light within them and love the darkness rather than the light Though they say unto God depart from us for we desire not the knowledg of thy ways Though they do their utmost endeavour to arm and fortifie themselves against all impression to sear and cauterize their consciences to hearden their hearts as an Anvile and their faces as the nether Milstone In plainer terms though they devote themselves to prophaneness and debauchery enter themselves in the Academy of Atheism and Irreligion become very hard Students in the Schools of Rioting and Drunkenness of Chambering and Wantonness of Hectoring and Ranting Frequent the Brothels and the Stage Yet all this will not serve their turns when the hand of God is lifted up though they will not see yet they shall see and be afraid And to this recognition they shall be constreined by one or both of these two ways especially either 1. By some special signiture upon the Object 2. By some special and extraordinary excitation of the Subject 1. In the dispensation of God's extraordinary works of Providence whether in the way of Mercy or of Judgment he takes an especial care that neither his hand may be undiscerned nor the Acts of his Providence unregarded And to this end he orders them and sends them forth dressed and trimm'd with circumstances eminently conspicuous and characteristical Elihu tells us in the Book of Job That God sets his hand and stamps his Seal upon his Works that all men may see and every man may know that they are his Works The Prophet Esay tells us That God doth his Works in such a manner that they may see and know and consider and understand that the hand of the Lord hath done them Concerning the Works of Mercy David prays That God would shew some token upon him for good that men might see it and that they may know that this is his hand and that the Lord hath done it And concerning God's Judgments he declares that he plainly and sensibly discovered in them the hand of the Almighty Thine arrows saith he stick fast in me and thy hand presseth me sore there is no health in my flesh because of thy displeasure nor any rest in my bones by reason of my sin 2. But secondly this often happens by some great and extraordinary awakening and excitation of the subject of which kind though the particular instances are various as the motion of the wind that bloweth where it listeth yet they may be generally reduced either to I. The natural Eruptions Or II. The providential stimulation and excitations of the Conscience 1. Though the Principles of Synteresis the seeds of Piety and Virtue scattered and disseminated in the Soul to bring forth the fruit of Vertue and Felicity may be trampled on and kept under crop'd and snib'd by the bestial part yet they will sometimes be starting out sprouting and putting forth themselves Though the Scintillae virtutum the sparks intended to enlighten and enflame the Soul to goodness may be smothered and oppressed and raked up in ashes yet sometimes they will make an Eruption and put all things into a conflagration and combustion These Principles are congenit and connatural to the Soul They are not to be erased or extinguished but their duration must and will be coextended with the subject of them St. Paul assures us that even the Heathens themselves and even of them the worst and most depraved and debauched such as are filled with all unrighteousness and given up to vile affections and all manner of uncleanness have still the work of the Law of Nature written in their hearts that they know the righteous judgment of God and that they which do such things are worthy of death That the wrath of God is revealed in them And they have Consciences accusing or excusing naturally and certainly tormenting them by particular Applications upon occasion 2. But secondly Wicked men are convinced of the hand of God in the dispensation of his Judgments by the means of Providential Excitations Now these are numberless in particulars and of many kinds I shall only instance in a very few 1. Sometimes they are put into an expectation of Judgments and thereby prepared and disposed to discover and to apprehend the signature and impression of an Avenging Nemesis by the eminent Atrocity of their actions This was the case of Cain and Lamech who having committed Murther were perpetually tormented with ominous bodings and fearful expectations Every man that sees me will slay me cries one If Cain shall be avenged seven fold surely Lamech seventy times seven cries the other This was the Case of Alexander and of Nero when they were haunted and tormented by the Ghosts of Parmeno and Agrippina and is generally the Case of secret Murderers 2. The secure and dormant Conscience is awakened by Acts of Providence not in their nature extraordinary but in the circumstances very suitable and proportioned to some former sin When the Sons of Jacob were brought into trouble and great perplexity into anxiety and anguish of Soul they presently made this Application We are verily guilty concerning our Brother for we saw the anguish of his Soul when he besought us and we would not hear 3. Sometimes by some extraordinary Signs and Indications When Belshazzar saw the singers writing upon the Wall the joynts of his loyns were loosed and his knees smote one against another 4. Oft-times a powerful and seasonable Charge or Admonition from a poor despised Minister qualified and sent upon that Errand hath shaken the stoutest heart and brought down the confidence of the proudest sinner and forced him to tremble at the apprehension of a present or impendent Judgment Of all the Sinners mentioned in the Old Testament the Sacred History gives preeminence to Ahab It always mentions him with a note of Eminence and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This
our bones And if we be not more mad than Joram we cannot but acknowledge them to have proceeded from the hand of God This would evidently appear if I might be permitted to insist and animadvert upon the evils which have befallen us and trace them backward to that great and prodigious Judgment which was the cause of this days observation I shall not need to spend time to prove that our threatning and growing Famine our present Murrein or late Pestilence have proceeded from the hand of God Such plagues as these are so plainly and confessedly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that David being left to his choice betwixt the Sword the Famine and the Pestilence thought it a plain expression of his mind when he only desired he might fall into the hand of God I shall therefore proceed to a few particulars of another nature That a novel and upstart Commonwealth of a Nation lately feeble and poor whining and submissive should in the space of not many years arrive at the ungrateful boldness to provoke a powerful and mighty Kingdom a Kingdom to which they had been in their weakness and minority so much obliged That they should be permitted to disappoint and baffle their strongest Preparations and come to such an height as to attempt and endeavour to fix upon them marks and characters of perpetual ignominy and dishonour That a fire should proceed out of the Bramble which should consume the Cedars of Lebanon That a spark should kindle in a corner and should be permitted to destroy all the stately Palaces publick Buildings and venerable Churches in one of the most considerable Cities of the World besides 12000 private habitations This certainly is Digitus Dei This evil is from the Lord. When after the miseries of 20 years the Lord had caused Light to spring out of Darkness and Order out of Confusion Reduced all things to that state and position out of which they had been distorted Had Restored our Religion our Laws and Liberties Had Established the King the Church the Nobility Gentry Populacy in their ancient Rights and legal Stations Had fortified all these by new additional Laws and a Loyal and worthy Parliament That after all this without any disturbance by Foreign Invasion or intestine Rebellion meerly by the application of our own wisdom and policy and our most industrious endeavours in the short space of about a dozen years the same Parliament still continuing This goodly Fabrick should be shattered and all things e'ne ready to drop into Disorder and Confusion That out of Depth of Policy and Mystery of State the foundations of Government should be subverted and the Ligaments of it dissolved That for the establishment of Government every one should be permitted to do that which is right in his own eyes as if there were no King in Israel That for the Advancement of the Established Religion there should be permitted to assume to themselves a Toleration of all Religions or rather irreligions Schisms Heresies and Blasphemies in the world That out of Indulgence to tender Consciences the Principles of Atheism and Anarchy should be permitted to be disseminated countenanced watered cherished and fostered and all means used that conscience it self should be eradicated out of the Souls of men WIth fear and trembling horror and amazement to come up to the prodigious instance of this day That the vilest and the worst of men should be permitted in the most horrible and most impious the most impudent and brazen-faced manner under a form of Godliness and Justice in the sight of this Sun in contempt and defiance of Providence and of God himself to shed the Royal Blood and take away the Sacred Life of the Lord 's Anointed and of him that was the most Harmless and Innocent the most Meek and Gentle the most Virtuous and Religious the most Sober and Prudent Prince that ever sate upon the English Throne Lastly That after all this and all the rest that our eyes have seen After the Massacre and Rebellion in Ireland The Covenant contrived in Scotland The Bloody Wars and Sacrilegious Judgment and Execution made here in England That after we have seen the end of the Lord the Vengeance of God so signally executed upon the Principal Authors Actors and Promoters the Judges and Executioners of all those things Matters should in so short a time be brought to that pass that according to the various Inclinations of men some should Fear and others Hope that the Monarchy of England and that Religion and those Laws and the very persons which uphold it should now be abandoned And that the great Interests of Religion and Government should be delivered up into the hands of the Irish or English Papists the Scottish or English Covenanters or other Sectaries and Fanaticks Are not all these things strange and wonderful are they not marvellous in our eyes In all this is not the hand of God clearly to be seen certainly we cannot but acknowledge that This evil is from the Lord. So that in respect of Judgments and Calamities you have seen the correspondence of our Case with the Case of Joram 2. Let us now reflect upon the National behaviour and examine Whether hath this been ordered according to the way of Elisha or the way of Joram When the Judgments of God have been so many so grievous so visible amongst us have the Inhabitants of the Land learned righteousness or unrighteousness Have they prevailed upon us to break off our sins by Repentance or to continue in them and increase them with a brisker and sturdier resolution As the Lord's hand hath been more and more lifted up have not we endeavoured with an higher and higher hand to sin against him As he hath smitten us more and more have not we revolted more and more Instead of being made a Religious and a Praying People are we not become an Atheistical and a Scoffing and Blaspheming People Instead of being a Sober and Fasting People are we not become a Riotous and Drunken People Instead of being made a Chast and Modest a Meek and Humble a Gentle and Composed People are we not become a Shameless and Immodest a Ranting and Tearing a Hectoring and God-damning People Briefly Instead of turning to the Lord with all our hearts and with Fasting and with Weeping and with Mourning for our Sins Have we not turned from him with all our hearts and with laughing and with scoffing and with jeering at all Humiliation and Devotion and Religion It is not here my intention to charge every individual Person with these things No doubt there are thousands in this our Israel who have not bowed themselves to these enormities And it is well for them and happy for the Kingdom that there are so for Except the Lord had left us such a remnant we should have been as Sodom and made like unto Gomorrha Yet the exception of this remnant notwithstanding may it not be fit to consider whether we be not truly and properly
is that King Ahab He sold himself to work wickedness he exalted himself against God and man and went on triumphantly in a course of sinning He killed also took possession yet when Elijah a poor overgrown neglected hairy man girt with a girdle of leather about his loins charges him that it was he that troubled Israel and denounces the Judgments which should befall him He rent his cloaths and put sackcloth upon his flesh he fasted and lay in sackcloth and went softly Of all the wicked persons mentioned in the New Testament there is none who by the History of Josephus and by Tacitus and other Roman Authors is represented to have been more impudent and scandalous more outragiously debaucht then Felix the Roman Governour of Judea under Claudius and Nero yet when Paul his Prisoner a little wearish aged man whose bodily presence was weak and his speech contemptible reasoned before him concerning righteousness and temperance and the Judgment to come Felix trembled Whether the conviction of Joram did proceed from one or more or all or any of these causes it is not needful to enquire Thus much appears in fact that though he was extracted from that King Ahab and from that Queen Jezabel though his life and manners were answerable to his extraction and education though he was under a complicated distemper of mind a paroxysm of madness yet in the midst of all his indisposedness he is forced to acknowledge the hand of God in that Calamity which was upon him He even Joram said This evil is from the Lord. Even wicked and distempered men are forced sometimes to acknowledge the hand of God in the dispensations of his judgments Hitherto I have endeavoured to represent and prove before you the truth and evidence of this concession or supposition the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 laid down by Joram and how agreeable that is to Reason Scripture and Experience And now what consequence would any one expect from such an antecedent If the words had been barely without proof or enlargement delivered by the Prophet had it not been reasonable for him to assent to the truth of them and natural for him to have fallen upon this conclusion This evil is from the Lord therefore upon him will I wait to him will I address my self for our deliverance and forthwith to have put himself upon all necessary and congruous ways of application But being delivered by himself as an extorted acknowledgment of his awaken'd conscience Who would not expect that although before his conviction he went on resolutely in his course Yet being now rowsed and awakened he should proceed according to his Conviction That the same causes which had forced him to see and acknowledge the hand of God in the Judgment should have prevailed with him to apply himself to him for the removal of it Who would not expect that the words should run thus This evil is from the Lord wherefore upon him will I wait for succour and not give over until he have mercy on us But behold he said This evil is from the Lord wherefore should I wait on the Lord any longer And now the absurdity of this Inference is that which remains to be laid open before you I call it an Inference because in effect this deliberative question carries the force of a strong negation Wherefore should I wait i. e. I am resolved I will wait no longer To take the full meaning of that word which is here rendred by waiting I must entreat you to observe that the question is in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quid expectabo Chaldee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cur patienter me geram Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quid deprecabor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Scripture signifies Prayer and Supplication and that with earnestness strong crying and tears and is usually joyned with fasting and other acts of mortification and humiliation So that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is of a large extensive signification and comprehends all these notions in it It seems the Prophet finding him in a distemper had exhorted him to give over huffing and ranting cursing and swearing and to betake himself to fasting and mourning to prayers and earnest Supplication to give over his sturdy and insolent behaviour and to compose himself to meekness and a deep humiliation To leave off his frowardness and impatience and with patience and due submission to tarry the Lord's leisure to expect and wait upon him for deliverance To all which he replies in these words Mah Ochil ladonai Wherefore should I fast and pray or betake my self to weeping and mourning Why should I submit and humble my self under the hand of God to what purpose should I expect and wait upon him any longer for deliverance intimating a peremptory resolution to the contrary You see now the Question betwixt Joram and the Prophet and I am to make your selves the Judges which of them had reason on his side In order whereunto it is necessary that I premise three things 1. In every deliberation the end or scope is presupposed and the question is of the best and likeliest means for the attainment of that end 2. When any one is fallen into calamity it is to be presumed that the end which he will propose to himself will be the removal of the calamity 3. Joram having acknowledged his calamity to have come from God it was supposed on both sides that to remove or continue this calamity was entirely and absolutely in the hand and power of God So that the only question is this which is the likeliest way to prevail with God to remove his Judgments and take away his heavy hand the way of Elisha or the way of Joram Now although it seems very easie to determine this question upon principles of common reason and by reflexion upon the ways of men yet seeing it is to be supposed that every one knows best what way it is that will move and prevail upon himself And seeing God hath declared himself in this matter and his declarations were then extant in the writings of Moses and the Prophets to which a King of Israel ought to be no stranger I should think it most congruous that the deliberation ought to proceed upon those measures and the enquiry accordingly to be what was like to be the issue of Elisha's way and what on the other side if Joram's way should be taken in this case of publick Calamity 1. Then how hath God declared himself as to Prayer and Fasting on one hand and to Cursing and Swearing on the other and so of the rest of the particulars in Question 1. In general Call upon me saith the Lord in the time of trouble and I will hear thee and help I cried unto the Lord in my trouble saith David and he delivered me out of my distress Again as to Fasting and Mourning in a day of darkness i. e. a case of Publick Calamity the way