Poor children in distresse whither shall they go but to their father Neither sin nor misery will annull that more then naturall relation that supernaturall Paternity and Filiation Though God clothe himself with a cloud in his anger yet faith will make the soul with Moses run thorow the fire and darknesse to him The Prodigall in the midst of his misery resolves to return to his father The Spirit of Adoption in our hardest times will make us cry Abba Father This reason is used in the same place ver 16. Doubtlesse thou art our Father though Abraham be ignorant of us Vers 19. We are thine thou never bearest rule over them The next Chapter vers 8. But now O Lord thou art our Father behold see we beseech thee we are all thy people The Use is for our Encouragement to continue this practice with all earnestnesse and perseverance The Vse If there be any means to draw down a blessing from the heavens on a distressed Nation it is the prayer of the Saints This is the hand that hath drawn up this sinking Land from the pit of ruine that hath set our feet on that Rock of safety whereon now we stand Whatever difficulties are yet before us by this means or none else will they be gotten overcome Though all other should give over this holy exercise of Fasting and Praying or turn it in a sinfull and provoking formality yet it behoves us to keep it on foot remembring both the expresse command of the Lord Call on me in the day of thy trouble I shall deliver thee Psal 50. Lam. 2.19 Arise cry out in the night in the beginning of the watches pour out your hearts like water before the face of the Lord Lift up your hands towards him And your own visible experience As no people have sown more plentifully this pretious seed so none have already reaped more evident fruits thereof Be not weary of this good work untill all our desires be accomplished In the next place observe The second Doctrine Sins are heavier then afflictions The Proof That the chief part of the Saints complaint to God is of their wandrings from his wayes Their sins are heavier to them then all their afflictions This is proved from divers Scriptures Psal 38. When the Prophets trouble was great Nothing sound in his flesh The Arrows of the Lord sticking in him Gods hand pressing him sore yet the chief burden whereof he complains was his sins verse 4. Mine iniquities are gone over my head as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me Psal 40.12 Innumerable evils have compassed me about but mine iniquities have taken hold on me for them he was not able to look out his heart failed him Daniel c. 9. complains of the heavy wrath and curse that was powred out on Jerusalem and of so great afflictions as had befaln to no Nation under Heaven yet the first chief and longest part of his complaint is of the sins of their Kings of their Princes of their Priests and whole Land The reason of the Doctrine The Reason Sin is the greatest evill it s the fountain of afflictions Affliction cometh not out of the dust trouble springeth not out of the ground Sin is the root of it Also sin is most contrary to the nature of God Wrath and trouble even the greatest the very torments of Hell are not so for they are according to his justice The godly therefore who weigh things aright in the just ballance of the Sanctuary esteem their sins much heavier and more grievous evils then any they can suffer for them The use is for our instruction The Vse Let our complaints be rightly ordered and our sorrows rightly placed Beware to spend the most or best of thy sense on thy sufferings Beware to pour out the vehemency of thy passion the bitterest of thy sorrows on calamities either private or publike The first fruits the flower the first-born of thy grief must be reserved for the chief evill The naturall and kindely children of God will have more sorrow at their heart for the sins of the Land then for the desolations thereof What ever poverty disgrace pain can befall their person the very wrath of God suppose the torments of Hell will not be so heavy so bitter so troublesome to them as their sins the cause of all these evils The third observation The third Doctrine Gods hand in our sins encreaseth their bitternes An Objection answered Gods punishing and judiciall hand in our sins is their aggravation and increase of their bitternesse For this is the head of the Churches complaint That God had caused them to erre from his wayes It is true the Saints in Scripture draw comfort from some acts of Gods mercy about sin as from his gracious directing of its act to a good end Upon this ground Joseph comforts his Brethren that not they but God had sent him down to Egypt That their felling of him which they intended for evill God had ordered it so that it did become the mean of all their preservation Also Gods prediction of sin in sundry Scriptures is made a ground of contentment All this was done that the Scriptures might be fulfilled is a common place of comfort against the treason of Judas and the wickednesse of the Jews Likewise the Apostles Acts 4. quiet their minde on this meditation That God in his eternall counsell had determined what Herod and Pilate in time had done in crucifying of Christ Of such acts of Gods mercy about our sins we speak not be they temporall be they eternall but of the acts of his justice and wrath punishing sin by sin From these actions of God we can draw no comfort but they aggravate the weight of our sins and increase our grief The miscarriage of Absolon The Proof his rebellion and incest could not but grieve David but to increase his grief 2 Sam. 2.10 God tells him I will do this thing before all Israel and before the Sun in that terrible vision Isai 6. the Lord to demonstrate his wrath against that people sendeth to them a message full of anger Make the heart of this people fat and their ears heavy Their excaecation was in it self a grievous evill but it was more grievous when it came as a plague from an angry God John 12.39 Gods blinding of their eyes that they could not beleeve Christs Word is brought as an aggravation of their sin and of the anger of Christ against them so far as he went from them and hid himself The reason of this is The Reason That these acts of God proceed from wrath and justice punishing former sins Again they are the means to make sin more sinfull the person being given over to be carried headlong by his own lusts and Satans tentations Thirdly The punishment of sin in this degree is much sorer then if it had been a simple sin as in the sixth of Isaiah and elsewhere it appears No
to cite they invite you to permit ravening Woolfs freely to enter your streets and tear in peeces all they meet with to come into your Houses and Chambers to devour the souls of your best beloved Wives Sons Daughters Servants and Friends to lead them all out to a ditch and drown them yea which is infinitely worse to cast them all in the pit of damnation These were hard expressions if they were our own and not our betters I mean Christ and his Apostles Would you permit any whom you were able to hinder to rent the Coat of Christ to tear his Skin to cut his Flesh to pull his Arm from his Shoulder These are the things which too long have been done in our eyes It were good that such impious actions so grievous to God so hurtfull to the souls of men at last were stopped Would you count him a gracious parent who should wink at any who brought into his house Vipers and Serpents Woolfs and Tigers to destroy his Children who brought in Boxes of Pestiferous Cloaths and boldly spread them on the Beds and about the Table where himself and family were to sit and lie This is the office and onely exercise of all our Hereticks and Patrons of errour All Christians are obliged to the uttermost of their power to quench the fire of Heresie and Schism but above all other we have a speciall obligation for this duty we have lifted up our hands to the most high God vowing to him in the sight of all the Neighbour-Nations our endeavours in the sincerity of our hearts to extirpate Heresie and Schism and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound Doctrine without respect of persons If herein we should be negligent would not God avenge our solemn Perjury If respect to any person should make us ever think of breaking that Bond and expressely contrary thereto to begin once to tamper about the toleration of errours contrary to sound Doctrine what might we and the posterity expect from the hand of the God of Justice and Truth Let none object the example of the States of Holland to us in this point The example of Holland an swered For first Where the Will of God is evident the contrary example of men is not to be regarded Secondly The evill example of one State is not to be followed against the good example of all other Protestant Churches Thirdly These States were never bound to God by such a Covenant as we are Fourthly In these States there hath been a connivance at Errours by particular Magistrates for their private gain but to this hour was ever any Sect among them so impudent as to offer a Petition for a Toleration by Law when lately some assayed to do it they repented ever since of that folly Lastly Hath not the Magistrates connivance without any Legall Toleration so much multiplied Sects among them that for this one thing though for many other their renown be great they have become infamous in the Christian World The godly among them have been more grieved with this scandalous sin then with any other and those of them who are wise do see their State this day in greater civill danger by this peece of impious policy and from it apprehend greater hazards of commotion and ruine to their State then from any other ground However the connivence there at Sects and the multiplication of Sects by connivence is no wayes comparable to what is among us but we trust that this kinde of our erring from the wayes of God is near a period and shall shortly be remedied So much for the first part of the Churches complaint The second part of the Complaint exponed followeth the second And hardned our heart from thy fear Not onely they had wanderd out of the wayes of God in divers by-paths of sin but in these sins they were obstinate their hearts had been hard the fear of God moved them not to repentance This was a worse evill then the first so they acknowledge the hand of God and his sore punishment into it and of this make a heavy regrate to him The originall word that here is turned harden What is hardnesse of heart is but once else in Scripture Job 39.16 spoken of the Ostridge She is hardned against her young ones or is removed from her young ones she leaveth them alone It signifies two things To harden or to remove Some of the best Latin Interpreters translate it here Why removest thou our heart from thy fear The Chaldee Paraphrast takes it so also but the Septuagint and the most of other Interpreters old and late translate it as we have it The words will bear both but for shortnesse I shall hold with our own translation onely Hardnesse of heart is a metaphor importing the wilfull obstinate and rebellious disposition of the Spirit against the fear and counsells of God As hard Wax refuseth the stamp while the soft receives the impression A hard Wall puts back the Ball which the soft Ayr letteth passe through A Corslet of Iron holds out the Bullet which the softnesse of the flesh receiveth The way how God hardneth the heart against his fear How God hardeneth the heart is not by infusion of any hardnesse or any evill disposition into the heart but by three other actions First By withdrawing of his gracious spirit whose operation it is that softens the heart and makes it plyable to the Counsells of God and subject to his fear Deut. 29.9 The Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive eyes to see and ears to hear to this day That all they had seen in Egypt and in the Wildernesse had not pierced their heart with the love and fear of God Of this wonderfull hardnesse of the peoples heart this reason is rendered by Moses God had not given them a heart to perceive Beside this negative action of God in hardning the heart he hath two positive He gives over the heart to its own naturall hardnesse that it may be more and more hardened Thus the Lord hardened Pharaohs heart He not onely withheld all the gracious motions of his spirit from him but let his naturall obstinacy work it self to an acquired habit of hardnesse And so what was before naturall became habituall and judiciall This is the judgement spoken of the twelfth of John from the sixth of Isaiah Make the heart of this people fat for their rejecting of my former counsels let their rebellious heart become-worse and worse so that thy ministery do them no more good Thirdly God gives over the heart judicially hardned by it self to Satans tentations whereby it becomes more blinde dead and hard then of it self alone it could be He sent evill Angels among the Egyptians for this evill among others Psal 79.49 2 Thes 2. He sends out Satan to work with Antichrist for to blinde the eye and harden the heart with strong delusions By all this you understand why the Church regrates it here to God
mens own lusts to break out on the objects set before them For these acts of Judgment both in our Text and oft elsewhere in Scripture the cause of mens sins not as they are sins but as punishments of sin is ascribed to him 2 Thess 2.10 Because they received not the love of the truth God shall send them strong delusions to believe a lye He was to send on them The Man of sin whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and with all deceiveablenesse The committing of the sin is ascribed to the sinner who believes the lye the tempting to it is ascribed to Satan and his Antichristian Instruments the sending out both of Satan and Antichrist the giving over to delusion is ascribed to God the righteous Judge by these means punishing former sins Rom. 1.18 21 24 26 28. The wrath of God is revealed against all unrighteousnesse of men because when they knew God they glorified him not as God wherefore God gave them up also to uncleannesse For this cause God gave them up to vile affections God gave them over to a reprobate minde The sinfull acts flow from the reprobate mindes and vile affections of the sinners yet God the Judge is thrice said to give them up to these their own sins Rom. 11.8 God hath given them the spirit of slumber eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear to this day Let their Table be a snare a stumbling-block and a recompence to them Let their eyes be darkned that they may not see 2 Chron. 18.22 The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy Prophets Many such places there are where God as a righteous Judge is made to give over sinners to the devil to other wicked men to themselves to be led in more and greater sins as punishments of the former Thus far Protestant Divines do go Protestants are unjustly accused for making God the author of sin and all the acts which any of them ascribe to God about the causation of sin may be referred to one of the three named All which stands well with the holinesse of his Nature and extreme contrariety to sin The Papists and Arminians do slander us most unjustly as if we did blaspheme the holy Lord in making him the author of sin All of us ever have abhorred such Doctrine We never ascribed to God more acts of providence about sin then the most clamorous of our enemies themselves expresly have done The three forenamed acts by Bellarmine and Arminius are attributed to God in as ample and unadvised expressions as ever fell from the Pen of any of our approved Divines I grant the Libertines of old This is the blasphemy of the Libertines and of M. Archers book justly burnt therefore and their children the Antinomians this day do cast out on this subject many abominable Blasphemies but these were ever detested by all Orthodox Protestants as the vomit of the father of all lyes and blasphemies which makes us the more to marvel what these men can mean who lately here under the name of M. Archer a famous Independent in his time have printed the worst and grossest of these Blasphemies Surely if such kinde of Doctrine be entertained by any of that Party our Disputations will not stand long at Church-Government but the world will be confirmed in that opinion which some wise men long ago have given out That Independency was not so much loved for it self as for somwhat else A liberty without censure to vent such Doctrines as the conscience of Orthedox Divines will never be able to hear with patience But in this I will not enter The zeal of the whole Assembly and both the Honourable Houses against the blasphemous Heresies of that infamous Book doth quiet and secure our mindes herein The fourth word to be exponed Why doth the Church complain of these acts of God about her sins is the Interrogation and Complaint Why hast thou made us to erre The Church being now before God and laying hold on his fatherly compassions pours out before him the troubles of her heart That which troubled them most was their sins and obstinacie in Rebellion which they complain to the Lord had befallen them in his great wrath through his deserting of them and giving them over to be led away by their own lusts and Satans tentations This part of Gods wrath upon them in punishing their sins with more blindnesse and making them erre farther from his ways was their greatest misery the true cause of all their outward plagues and a greater plague then all the rest as we may see in the sixth of this Prophecie where the Lord for contempt of the Prophets Ministery doth punish the body of that people with Spirituall Judgements and makes their heart fatter their minde blinder then before And from this Spirituall evil he makes all their Temporall desolation to flow as out of its proper Fountain Of this misery the people here complain to God not to lay their sins off themselves on the Lord but to witnesse their deep sense of them as coming on them through Gods just desertion and deserved judgement Not to upbraid the Lord with their miseries but to spread them out before his feet as their onely hope from whose hand alone they expected a remedy The first Doctrine The godly pour out all their complaints in Gods bosom From the words thus exponed observe first The children of God in their worst estate are so familiar with their heavenly Father as to pour out in his bosom the complaints of whatever misery lies upon them At this time as appears by the words both before and after the peoples condition was exceeding hard We are all as an unclean thing our iniquities as the winde have taken us away Thou hast hid thy face from us and consumed us because of our iniquities His zeal strength and mercifull bowels seemed to be restrained towards them yet they come before him and that which troubled them most their wandring from his ways they spread it out before his feet as the matter of their chiefest complaint The truth of the Doctrine may be seen Lam. 4.1 The Proof hereof Remember O Lord what is come upon us consider and behold our reproach In all the Chapter and the whole Book there is a familiar complaining to the Lord of all their miseries Moses and Aaron in all their tribulation run to the door of the Tabernacle Jacob at the side of the foord Jabbuk in his great fray for Esau betook himself to weep and pray David in his present danger of stoning by his own men comforted himself in God Hezekiah spread out before the Lord the railing of Rabshakeh and after his desperate sicknesse turned himself to the wall to pour out his heart to God The examples of this practice are innumerable The Reason of it is The Saints interest in God The Reason He is their Father
marvell therefore that men of awakened consciences make it a chief part of their complaint and grief That God had caused them to erre This being a figne of wrath and increase of guiltinesse and a forerunner of greater punishment The use is first for Caution 1 Vse for Caution To beware of that dangerous errour of taking comfort and encouragement from Gods judiciall hand in our sins that is to glory in our shame and to joy for what we should be sad It is to cast off our self the burden of our sin to whom alone it belongs on God whose eyes are purer then to behold iniquity Secondly 2 Vse for Counsel It serves for Councell to make it our chief grief in our mourning That we have faln under so heavy displeasure as to be scourged with the worst of Gods Rods Of all the Arrows in Gods Quiver this is the most venemous To be given over by God to sin this comes from a speciall wrath and is a presage of very great misery following When Gods spirit stirred up David to number the people it came from his anger against Israel and was a forerunner of the destroying Angell The blinding of the peoples eyes Isaiah 6. and John 12. is made an antecedent of a nationall ruine When ever we feel this to be our condition it should be the matter of our most mournfull complaint The fourth observation will clear the third it is this The fourth Doctrine Judiciall errours are most lamentable The godly when their eyes are opened to see their wandrings they are singularly affected with their judiciall errours As here the Church mourning and praying to God for sin and misery begins her complaint for these errours into which by Gods anger and judgement she had faln Old Israel by Gods judgement The Proof had faln in the grievous errour of civill discord which cost in two dayes the eleven Tribes the lives of fourty thousand men and in the third proceeded very near to the extirpation of the twelfth Tribe When the hand of God was lifted off them and they began to look back upon their actions Judges 21.2 they weeped fore before the Lord and complained to him of the great mischief wherein they had faln Though the injustice and obstinacy of Benjamin had been the immediate cause of the dissention yet they pittied their Brethren seeing it was the Lords judgement upon them all that had made that breach in Israel Verse 15. Ephraim in his pride would needs rebell against the house of David and have a King among themselves and Altars of their own making at Dan and Bethel God in justice gave them over to these sins of continuall sedition and idolatry till they were totally ruined He gave them a number of Kings in his anger Hos 8.11 Because Ephraim hath made many Altars to sin Altars shall be unto him to sin But when the Lord gave repentance to Ephraim see how much they are grieved ashamed and confounded for their madnesse wherein by the judgement of God they were made long to go on Jere. 31.18 I have heard Ephrains bemoaning himself thus Surely after I was turned I repented and after I was instructed I smote upon my thigh I was ashamed yea even confounded because I bore the reproach of my youth The Jews were plagued of God with a horrible blindnesse of minde and obstinacy of heart so that they rejected the Gospel crucified the Lord of Life and remain in Rebellion to this day But when the Lord shall take off the vail of their eyes and they begin to see their judiciall errours their madnesse against Christ and the Gospel wherewith God in justice did plague them their grief for it will be extraordinary as it is set down Zach. 12.10 They shall look on him whom they have peirced and they shall mourn for him as one mournath for his onely son and shall be in bitternesse for him as one is in bitternesse for his first-born 2 Thes 2. The Churches of the Gentiles are in Gods justice many of them given over to strong delusions to beleeve Antichristian Lyes but when God begins to open their eyes to see these delusions their grief and indignation for them is so great Revel 17.16 That they hate the whore who did seduce and bewitch them They make her desolate and naked They eat her flesh and burn her with fire The Reasons of this Doctrine The Reasons are the same which of the former especially the second The singular and extraordinary guiltinesse that is in these judiciall errours the blinded soul sees them not while God in mercy remove the cloud and send in his light but then the lightned soul beholding the horrible wayes wherein it hath been wandring such wherein it would never have walked had it not been led by a powerfull Divell set on by the permission and commission of a just God Seeing in these sins a just God a wicked Divell and a heart stirred up by extraordinary temptations by this horrible back-sight is affrighted and amazed till Faith in the infinite mercies of God doth calm and settle it The Use is for admonition The Vse Beware of judiciall errours very often they are never pardoned but bring on destruction both temporall and eternall 2 Thes 2.11 They to whom God sends strong delusions are damned Isai 6.11 When God shut the peoples eyes and made their heart fat the Cities were wasted and the Land made desolate Before Ephraim and Juda recovered themselves from that snare of rebellion and came to the repentance spoken of How many hundred thousands and millions of them did perish both temporally and eternally And these few whom the Lord bringeth to see and mourn for their judiciall ertours How great is their grief How much do they wish to have seen in time their madnesse that they might not so much have been plagued therewith But what are these judiciall errours which we would beware of Search the Scriptures they will make you wise in this very necessary point of knowledge For your use I shall point at some First Civill discord a Judiciall errour Civill Discord is a sin and a great judgement a sin to the authors and fomenters a judgement to all as well the innocent as nocent party Isai 19.2 God punisheth the sins of the Egyptians with his plague I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians and they shall fight every one against his brother and every one against his neighbour City against City and Kingdom against Kingdom and the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof and I will destroy the counsel thereof The same is the Judgement of Israel Zech. 11.6 I will no more pity the inhabitants of the Land but I will deliver the men every one into his neighbours hands and into the hands of his King and they shall smite the Land and out of their hand I will not deliver them This is the great Judgement that long hath lien upon us the
it First The first cure of hardnesse is The embracing of the word by faith believe the Word of the Lord. Gods Word is the means that softneth the heart like the Sun that melteth the wax likethe Hammer that breaketh the stone the Fire that softneth the Iron the watry cloud that moistneth the dry and parched ground With all care and conscience set thy heart under the beams of that Sun the stroke of that Hammer before the heat of that fire under the droppings of that cloud The contempt the neglect the misbelief of this holy instrument of the Spirit is a great cause of all the hardnesse of heart we speak of Heb. 3. To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your heart Take heed there be not in any of you an evil heart of misbelief Who will not hear the voice or doth hear but with an evil heart of misbelief they harden their heart The Word which should melt them as the Sun doth Wax hardneth them as the Sun doth Clay that Word which to the believer is the loud voice of the Trumpet of God to waken them when sleeping to quicken them when dead becomes to the unbeliever and carelesse hearer the song of a pleasant voice to sing them asleep and to keep them sleeping To such the most powerfull Ministery of a Prophet of an Apostle of Christ himself serveth to make the heart more hard and fat and dead then it was before as from the sixth of Isai and twelfth of John it is manifest That which to the faithfull is a quickning Spirit to the misbeliever is a killing letter What to the one is the power of God to salvation to the other is but as sounding Brasse and a tinkling Cymbal Let it therefore be your earnest endeavour in all holy exercises about the Word private or publike be it preaching or reading or conference to embrace it with an honest heart with all attention reverence and faith Particularly Especially the promise of a soft heart embrace and lay up in thy heart the promise of a soft heart as it is set down Ezek. 36.26 there the people of God were in a worse condition then we yet The fury of the Lord was so far kindled against them for their sins that they were cast out of their Land they were swallowed up on every side as it is in the third verse They were taken up in the lips of talkers they were an infamy of the people and the reproach of the Nations and for all that were not reformed but continued to profane the Name of God and to encrease their provocations in the midst of all their Judgements Yet even then the Lord doth promise For my own Names sake not for your sake will I do this A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and will give you an heart of flesh Let this Word as a pickle of good seed be laid up in the heart it will in time break up to good fruit This is a part of the new Covenant as appeareth from Jer. 31 and 32. and Heb. 8. which belongs to us as to any other which we would embrace humbly waiting till the Lord perform it to us A second help to softnesse of heart will be a Catalogue of sins for which we ought to mourn The second Cure of hardnesse is A clear sight of sin for softnesse of heart is either the same thing or proceeds in a great part from grief and forrow for sin as hardnesse of heart and impenitency are the same or are always conjoyned Thou from thy hardnesse or impenitent heart The tendernesse and melting of Josiahs heart was his mourning for the Lands sin The softning of the Jews heart from their long Plague of induration is when they are weeping and in bitternesse for their sins as one for his first-born The clear sight of sin being a help to grief sorrow and repentance must be so towards the softnesse of heart The speciall end of these solemn Humiliations is for registrating in clear and legible letters in the hearts of the godly the sins both of the Land and of their own persons The Tables of our conscience have been so oft impressed with these Types that I need no more but to remit every one to the books of their brests There you may read in capitall letters the cause of our Woes the matter of our Mourning While the Lords Candle did shine over our head What are the sins of the Land and we washed our steps in butter while to all the Neighbour-Nations for a great number of yeers we were a wonder of Prosperity and with abundance of all Temporall blessings we had likewise plenty of the Gospel How did we meet the Lord Great numbers of all ranks and estates were obstinate in Idolatry and known Papists Of them who professed the Truth how many were altogether void of knowledge void of fear without any conscience of God The most did pollute the Service and Church of God with manifold Superstitions and Prelaticall Tyranny persecuting all who had the least zeal to oppose their Corruptions True Piety was mocked The Sabbath by publike Authority profaned Covetousnesse Pride Oppression Pampering of the flesh Uncleannesse like a flood did overflow the Land In these very times when the Lords patience is broken off and he from heaven is revealing his wrath against our wickednesse yet where is our Repentance How many have an ear to hear more what the present Rods of God do speak then what his former Favours How many Popish and Prelaticall spirits have yet mourned for their old ways How many upon conscience have left any of the named abominations How great an addition have we made to our old heap of sin How much have we put to our old treasure of wrath Rather then to be reclaimed from their ways Hath not a great part run to the Sword and covered the Land with more innocent blood more Rapines and Ravishments then this Isle did see for many Ages together Many whom Gods mercy hath separate to the right hand Episcopacy and Independency flow both from one fountain How do they still provoke the Lord continuing without grief for their old ways And sundry of them who professemost Piety advancing the old unhappie way of this Land an affectation of singularity and difference from all the Reformed The bitter Potions of Gods Judgements have not yet purged out this very evil humour of many stomacks The vain spirits of this Land made that the peculiar glory of England which was truely her peculiar infamy and proper unhappinesse and the speciall grief of the most godly in the Land The gloriation of these light spirits was That England did excell all other Reformed Churches in their Episcopacy and Service-book also That the moderation of their King and Prelats was such that Romane Catholikes might enjoy a sober liberty