Provoking Guilt and Offences against Heaven the Lord thus Appeared for us Could we Behold what Excellent Wisdom how Glorious Power what Free Goodness how Exceeding Great Compassions what Wonderful Patience and Long-Suffering the Lord has Displayed in Working out this our so Great and Multiplied Salvation with What Thankful Hearts Raised Affections Praising Tongues and Eminently-Fruitful Lives should we Set our selves to Bless Extoll Serve and Magnify our Good God Casting on Him the Glory of All What we Are the Lord has Made us What we Enjoy is the Gift of his Free Bounty Fetched by his Mighty Arm as out of the Fire and Handed to Us from the very Jaws of Ruin The Lord has Gone before Us in the Greatness of his Strength has been a Jer. 14. 8. the Hope of our Israel the Saviour thereof in the time of Trouble b Psal 72. 4. Who has Judged the Poor of our People and Saved the Children of the Needy and Broken in pieces oâ—â— Oppressours c Psal 72 14. he has Redeemed our Soul from Deceit and Violence and Precious has our Blood been in his Sight Even he d Jer. 10. 10. the Onely True and Living God the Everlasting King at whose Wrath the Earth doth Tremble and whose Indignation the Nations are not able to Abide has Looked on Us in our Low Estate Saved Us from Job 5. 15 20. the Power of the Sword f Job 5. 12. Disappointed the Devices of our Crafty Enemies so that their Hands could not Perform their Enterprize and does now Abound toward us in Riches of Goodness and Forbearance and Long-suffering Purposely to Lead us to Repentance O therefore let us Duely Oâ—â— Him Rightly Mention his Holy Name and Shew forth All his Praises Let us Break off oâ—â— Iniquities by Repentance and Turn unto the Lord with all our Hearts and not feignedly Let us study What to Render unto the Lord for all Hiâ— Benefits And according to the Modell of Truâ— Thankfulness though alas too short and lamâ— that has been Set before you always Strive to your Utmost with Heart Lip and Life with All you Are Have Meet with and Can Dâ— to Yeild unto the Lord the Glorious Honour of his Majesty and of his Wondrous Works Psal 145. 5. And to Provoke Us to such a God-Glorifying Course Know we and Consider well 1. That we are no True Christians nor will God so Account of us if we Do it not Taking the Name of the Lord upon us without Living after His Example who spent his Days in g John 17. 4. Glorifying His Father and h Acts 10. 38. Going about â—â—d Doing Good or Doing His Holy Will or Following the Conduct of His Spirit will Avail us Nothing Then only are we Christians in Truth when our Souls are Renewed Our Hearts Withdrawn from Vanity Wills Subdued to God and our Whole Man Absolutely Devoted to the Honouring of God in Christ Believe it To be a Christian indeed is a Very Great and Serious Business a Business which will not be Done with a Careless Mind or a Slothful Unresolved Soul nor with the Thoughts and Hours which Pride and Vanity can Spare and which are the Leavings of Fleshly-Lusts and Pleasures And Persons will One Day Find that Christ will not be Put off with Vain Complements or Reward Any who under His Livery Pleased the Flesh and Served the World 2. What ever Mercies and Gifts God Bestoweth on Any He Expecteth to Receive again with Usury The 19. Luke 12 13 23. Deserves your Serious and Lasting Consideration The Lord Keeps Account of What ye Have and will have a Reckoning with you to See What Work you have been Minding and whether you have Served His Interest with what you had or Proâ—â—gally Wasted it on thâ—t of the Flesh If you have Wealth Interest and Power and you Succour not the Poor do not Right and Protect the Distressed and Promote the Cause of God and the Common Good But a Job 29. 12. Ye Refuse to Dâ—liver the Poor that Cry and the Fatherless and him that hath none to Help him If ye b Isa 58. 7. Draâ— not forth your Soul to the Hungry c. If you Decline c Ezek. 18. 16. Loosing the Bands of Wickedness and Undoing Heavy Burdens to let the Oppressed Gâ— Free i. e. if you will not Honour God with Hâ— Own nor be the Instruments of His Beneficence to Others nor as Faithful Stewards Improve the Talents He has Entrusted you with to Holy Uses and Ends You 'll be Cast and Ruined in the Great Day of Account Live not therefore as if it were enough to Do No Harm and say as the Slothful Servant Here is thy Talent which I hid 3. 'T is most Excellent and Honourable Work the Lord Calls you to herein And Christianity surely is a most Noble Thing when it Requirâ—s and Makes Persons to be so Like unto the Holy God It 's Work and Business being but to Represent God's Glorious Perfections and by the Light of Holy Living to Shew forth and Recommend the Divine Majesty to a Darkenel World as a Candle Lighteth what Way so-ever it Goeth It Instates us into God's Family and Imploys us in that which is the Work yea the very Glory of Heaven it self Shall a Creature be Called forth to the Honouring his Maker and a Mean Worm be said to Glorify God O who can Conceive of the Glory and Honour hereof We Read Psal 78. 25. How Maâ— did Eat Angel's Food but we are Call'd to Angel's Work 4. The Neglect of this Duty Forfeits All our Mercies and Lays us open to All Miseries whatever a Deut. 28. 47 48. Because thou Servedst not the Lord thy God with Joyfulness and with Gladness of Heart for the Abundance of All Things Therefore shalt thou Serve thine Enemies which the Lord shall Send upon thee in Hunger and in Thirst and in Nakedness and in Want of All things and he shall Put a Yoke of thy Neck c. This Text was Greatly Verified on our Selves in the two Late Reigns untill the Happy Revolution under our Present Gracious Sovereign the Lord Making us to Feel that b 2 Chron. 15. 2. He will be no Longer with a People than they are with Him and that He will Forsake Them when They Forsake Him Where a Mic. 2. 7. Hos 2. 9. Religion Decays States or People cannot Thrive 5. A Good Discharge of this Duty is the onely Way to Put an Utter End to our Remaining Fears and Troubles and Make us Happy here and hereafter b Isa 4. 5. Upon the Glory there shall be a Defence The * A Bishop of Magdenburg hearing the Duke of Saxony was Preparing War against him fell to Reforming his Church and amending what was amiss And being ask'd by one of the Duke's Spiâ—s if he did not hear what the Duke was intending against him because he made no Defensive Preparation He said Year but Ego
False Bridge over Tiber where Constantine was to Pass But in his Hasty Flight Forgetting his own Treachery and * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb Pamphil. Ecclesiastic Histor l. 9. c. 9. p. 358 359. Edit Paris 1659. Passing Thâ—â— Way was Himself with his Soldiers Drowned by the same Meaâ—â— In like manner Charles the Fisâ— his Dâ—signing the Utter Ruin of the Protestant Party in German by Disinheriting the Duke of Saâ—ny and Keeping the Landgrave of Hesse in Perpetual Imprisonment was the Very Occasion of the Confederacy of Smalcald whicâ— almost Drove Charles out of Germany and Established the Protestant Party in the Liberty of their Religiâ— Thus the Methods Used by the Two Late Kings and their Ministers to Settle Popery and Slaâ—â— in these Kingdoms hath by God's Oveâ— Ruling Hand been a Means of both Freeing Us from the said Fearful Evils with the Contrivers of them and of Establishing to us also our True Religion Rites and Liberties with Greater Advantages than before So hath the Church's Preservation from Time Judges 14. 14. to Time been a Good Interpretation to Sampson's Riddle Out of the Eater came forth Meat and out of the Strong came forth Sweetness It 's Bloody Foes Desperate Attempts against it have in the Issue been no more Pernicious unto it than His was to Phereus Jason when he Run at him with his Sword who instead of Killing him as he hoped only Opened an Incurable Impostume and Thereby Saved his Life Again It pleaseth God sometimes to Step in between his Church and Danger by Diverting the Enemies through some or other Urgent Emergency When Saul in the Pursuit of David had at last Lodged him in a Place whence he could not Escape and was just ready to Fail on him Lo a Messenger comes to him all in hast to Call him off to Defend his Country against the Philistines who had just then Invaded it 1 Sam. 23. And Sennacherib was Taken off from Hezekiah and his Pâ—ople in the same Manner 2 Kings 19. So Vile Julian being Resolved to Cut off all Grâ—g â—at Orat. 4. in Julian the Christians was Compelled to Go first against the Persians by whom the was Quite Overthrown And This Way did God Stop Charles the Fifth from Persecuting the Protestants even by the Turks Breaking into Hungary Thus the Over-Ruling Hand of God sometimes Orders the Wicked to be a Ransome for the Rightâ—ous Prov. 21. 18. The Lord will Give Men for them and People for their Price Isa 43. 3 4. Prov. 11. 8. At Other Times he Quells the Rage of his Enemies by Striking them with Amazing Terrors and Confounding them with Pannick Fears So he Saved his People of Old once from the Syrians by Scaring and Scattering them on an Empty Sound 2 Kings 7. 6. And again from the Midianites whose Vast Army a Poor Dream of one of their own Number so Affrighted and whose Terror the Pitiful Noise of Broken Potsherds so Aggravated that they Turned their Swords against one another Judg. 7. 1 3. And Remarkable to this Purpose is the Vengeance His Death was Precationis Opus non Morbi saith Socr. Schol l. 1. c. 15. Cambd. Elis God Took on that Sore Plague of the Church Arius for Causing a Sudden Consternation of Mind to Seize him he went a-side to Ease Nature but Died Miserably by Emptying out his Bowels A like Terror and Fear Overthrew the Germans in their War against the Hussites of Bohemia and the Spaniards at Zutphen in the Low-Countries Anno 1586. Under the Conduct of Germanus here in Britain who Arch. Usser de Britan. Eccles Primoid Came over from France to Subdue the Pelagian Heresy then Prevailing amongst us against a Mighty Army of Saxons and Picts the Britains Prevailed only by the three Times Pronouncing the word Hallelujah Which Voice Ecchoing and Redoubling from the Acclamation of his Followers among the Mountains nigh to which the Enemies had Encamped Frighted them and Won the Conquest upon which it was Called Victoria Hallelujatica And how likewise did the Spirits of the Late King and his Formidable Army Sink and their Hearts Melt away like Grasshoppers before the Suâ— according to the Expressions in Nah. 2. 10. Chap. 3. v. 17. Further Sometimes God's Servants are Preserved by the Lord 's sending a Spirit of Division among their Enemies that Sets them one against another Thus oftentimes of Old Israel was Preserved from their Malicious Enemies by God's making their Enemies like those terrigenae fratres to Fall foul upon one another 2 Chron. 20. 22. 1 Sam. 14. 20. So Charles the Fifth and Francis the French King after a Mutual Agreement to Root out Lutheranism Fell together by the Ears by which Means the Church Got some Halcyon Days And I find an Historian making it his Observation That the Little Religious City of Geneva had certainly been Ruined long since had it not been Environed by so very Many Enemies Again One while he Inspires some of his own Servants with a Preternatural Courage for the Confounding and Overthrowing their Enemies As Great Numbers of them could not Stand before Jephthah Sampson c. Zach. 4. 7. Not by Power or by Might but by my Spirit saith the Lord. And was not our Present Sovereign's Unexampled Bold Attempt and Glorious Success at the Boyn a Late Instance in this Kind Another while he Imploys the Glorious Angels above to Deliver Mittis Unigenitum immittis Spiritum ne quid vacet in coelestibus ab opere sollicitudinis Angelos mittis in Ministerium Bern. his People So in Daniel's Elisha's Peter's Hezekiah and his Peoples Wonderful Preservation 2 King 's 6. Chron. 32. Sometimes he Honours the Unlikeliest of Means and Contemptibliest of Creatures both from Above and Below with a Share in this Great Work From Above Thus he calls forth the Posse Comitatus Coeli Aerii to Defend his People As the Stars are Commissioned to Fight against Sisera and Discomfit the Philistines those Heavenly Bodies by their Influences Raising Winds Thunders and Lightening for the Scattering and Destroying the Power of the Enemy Judg. 5. 20. 1 Sâ—â—â— 7. 10. So Hailstones from Heaven Assist Joshua and Israel against the Five Kings of the Amorites the Stones killing more than did the Sword Josh 10. 11. Remarkable and Worthy the Notice of our Socinians is that Unusual End which the Heretick Olympius Came to being Smitten with Fiery Darts from Heaven after having Vented his Blasphemy against the Trinity A For which the Poet cries out Sudden and Mighty Wind from Heaven Drove back on their own O nimium Dilecte Dco cui militat Aether Heads the Showers of Arrows which Eugenius the Tyrant's Soldiers Et conjurati veniunt ad classica Venti Shot against the Christians Claud. under the Good Emperor Theodosius No less did the Divine Arm Appear for Us in this kind in the Time of the Spanish Invasion at what time the Fire Wind and Water so Victoriously
the Tempest God's Help comes often in Extremity In Zach. 4. 2. The Candlesick of the Church has seven Pipes and seven Lamps signifying God's having seven Pipes to Convey Succour and Mercy to his Church and seven Lamps whereby to Discern its Straits i. e. his Providence for their help is as Vasâ— as his Omniscience and Knowledge of their Needs Again As the Text and Doctrines tell us That God takes a time to Deliver his Church in General from Distressing Troubles and Dangers So this Day witnesseth that he hath taken his Time to Deliver Us in Particular from Manifold felt and Many More Feared Sore Straits and Calamities and therefore Bespeaks our Blessing Praising and Honouring of Him And this brings me to the Third and Principal Proposition or Doctrinal Conclusion in our Text. Doct. III Viz. That it is the Duty of Delivered Kingdoms or Persons to Glorify God their Deliverer In speaking to This I shall first Explain this Great Duty of Glorifying God And Secondly Enforce it And Thirdly Apply it Now the Word in the Original for Gloâ—fying is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Pihel where Dagesh â—â—creases the Signification thou shalt very greâ—â— Honour me from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Kal signifying to be Weighty and Honoured And the Hebrâ—â— Noun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 answereth to the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â— the Hebrew Verb doth to the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is rendred by three Words * Glorifico honorifico clarifico Glorificare honorificare clarificare tria quidem verba sed res una quod Graecè dictatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aug. I. cont sem Arian c. 23. Apud Graecos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud Hebraeos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unum verbum â—â— sed nos pro Lat. Ling. proprietate Honorem posuimus Hierâ—n â—â— Malach. c. 1. p. 291. aiminâ— at one and the same thing And in the Fiâ—â— place it signifies to Think and Esteem and â—â— the next to Celebrate render Illustrious and â— Honour and Reverence unto Sometimes it is Attributed to God Thus he Glorified Christ in his Humane Nature whâ—â— Subjecting all his Enemies under his feet he Raised him from the Grave and took him â—â— into Heaven Placing him at his Right Hanâ— and thereby Manifesting him to be His Sâ—â— and the Only Mediator and Saviour of the World So likewise does he Confer Honouâ— and Glory on Us enriching us with Giâ—â—â— and Graces various ways dignifying us with Grace Here and Glory Hereafter Psal 149. 4. Rom. 8. 30. Otherwise it is Attributed to Men who are said and Required to Glorify God as in our Text with other places And here know That God is Glorified by Men two Ways Actionly and Passively The Latter Way God gets Glory to Himself by an Infinitely-Wise Over-Ruling All even the very Worst Actions and Rebellious Ways of Men and Making them Subservient to His Own Holy Ends and Counsels and so by Working Good out of Evil sets forth the Glory of his Great Power and Wisdom As a Physician 's Skill is discover'd and honour'd by Conquering the Malignity of a â—ost desperate Disease In this Passive Sense Men are but an Occasion of God's being Glorified But then in the Former Way God is Glorified Actively by Men When they Chiefly Intend and Aim at His Glory in the Things they do and the Course of Life they lead When the Honouring and Pleasing of God doth take up the Greatest and Best Part of their Thoughts Cares and Endeavours in All their Duties and Concerns with both God and Men. Here Note That God has not ever the more real Glory by any thing we can Do for him or Yeild unto him Nor can he Want any thing from his Creatures who Receive their All from Him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non ut Naz. in Orat. The Honour given God is not reipâ—â verè and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Testimonio Agnitione ita solùm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gloriae aliquid accedat Deo We Glorifie him not by Adding unto him but by Receiving from him and his Glorious Perfections In our Discharge of this Duty there is not the â—ast Accession made to either God's Greatness or Happiness But only an Acknowledging Loving and Declaring him as he is Glorifying of God is but the Giving God his Own viz. The Reverence of the Inward and Outward Man according to that Worth and Weight of Excellency that is in the Divine Majesty We are to Bring Honour to his Great Name or Maâ—â— it Glorious by Acknowledging Him with oâ—â— Hearts Inwardly and with our Words and Dâ—â— Outwardly to be such an one as he hath â—â—vealed himself that so our selves and other may thereby Become truly Wise and Good and Happy For he will be Honoured in oâ—â— Minds by our Tongues and in our Way anâ— Course of Life But to be more Particular and Express in order to make it still more Plain Know I. We are to Glorify God in our Hearts bâ— Entertaining such Conceptions and Estimation oâ— Him and of his Works and Word and Wheâ— ever Relates to him as are Suitable to his Excellent Majesty and Infinite Perfections We must not Entertain any Low Mean Unequâ—â— Thoughts of so Glorious a Being But ever Conceive of him according to his Peerless Eminence as being Superlative in Power Knowledge and Goodness and so to be Feared Loved and Trusted above All. Yeild him therefore that Internal Reverence and Practical Estâ—â— that is Becoming him who is the End of the whole Creation and the Pleasing of whose Waâ— ye are Chiefly to Intend in All that ye Aâ—â— Have and Do. Also be seriously Affected with the Agreeable Awful Apprehersions of such an â—â— comprehensible Being And see that as All your Thoughts and Apprehensions of his Wonderful Perfections be Worthy of them so that they be Lively and Influential Working up All the Counsels Affections and Purposes of the Heart to an Agreeableness to the said Perfections So Behold Believe Consider and Imbrace the Divine Excellencies as they may have a Proper and Peculiar and Distinct Effect suitable to every one of them upon the Heart and Spirit Let a Good Image of God's Glorious Attributes be so Received and Entertained in your Hearts as that you may Answer the same with suitable Affections Let God's Wonderful Excellencies be Imprinted within you As v. g. So Conceive of his Goodness as to Enkindle in you a Superlative Love unto him and Cheerful Resolution for his Service and to Prevent Distrustfulness of his Providence Let the Apprehensions of his Greatness Impress on you an Holy Fear of Him and Steady Confidence in Him according to the Tenor of His Covenant and Promises Let the Thoughts of his Omniscience and Wisdom be such as to beget a Cheerful Resting and Entire Acquiescence in His Determinations and Disposals Let the Consideration of His Justice Keep you from Transgressions against His Law and Comfort you in your Way of