should the People do Pray for All in Authority 1 Tim. 2 2. that they may have in their Heads and Hearts as well as in their Hands to do it to do it quickly before the Decree be sealed and the Nation prepared for universal Desolation Ezek 9.4 And what we cannot Prevent be we sure to Lament that the Man with the Pen and Ink-horn may mark us from destruction Hezekiah rent his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth c. Isai 37.1 2 3 14. when he heard the Blasphemies of Rabshekah That day of Blasphemy was a day of Trouble and vexation to him though the Blasphemy was from an Assyrian And shall the days of greater Blasphemies be days of less trouble and grief to us not from professed Assyrians but from professing Christians What Christian heart that hath any true blood of Christianity running in the veins of it can chuse but be deeply affected and afflicted with it I fear we do not generally not cordially enough sigh and cry for all the Abominations that be done in the Land That the Man clothed in Linnen with the Writers Ink-horn by his side may set a mark upon our foreheads from a National Destruction which the suggestions of my fear make me bold to prophecy wherein my love to my Nation would make me glad to be found a false Prophet And now I beseech you to consider with me the wonderful Patience and compassionate Forbearance of our God with us who though his Soul abhor sin infinitely though he cannot go out of sight and hearing as we may but must see and hear all the unpunished blasphemous impious Dishonors done to the Three Dearest to him in all this world more to him then all the world His Name and Worship His Word and Truth His Saints and Children Though Heaven and Earth even sweat again under these Provocations yet hath God Patience to see and hear all Oh! Then come you my Brethren in Christianity Who are we that we must not be crost in the least Toy or Trifle that doth occur of Body Goods or Name but we must run presently to the hard hasty Arguments of Steel and Iron Not only as Zedekiah pleaded with the Prophet a word and a blow 1 King 22.29 2 Sam. 13.22 Cap 20.10 but as Absalom with Amnon a blow without a word strike and say nothing Our sword like Joabs dropping forth upon all occasions discoursing with a neighbor as he did with Amasa in the fifth rib speaking Daggers points unto him Who are we that we cannot put up any Illations of wrongs and injuries with quiet minds Are we Christians Nay are we Men that we will not we cannot bear with men as God bears With men as God did I say Nay with God himself He must showre and shine when we will have him strike and stroke when we will have him else we question sometimes his Power sometimes his Truth sometimes his Providence Oh shame Be we more patient as our Father which is in Heaven is patient Be we Followers of God as dear Children Who are we Oh! Then come you my Brethren in the Ministry Is God so wounded with Blasphemous Reproaches in his Word in his Name and bears it and must not we be toucht in ours Mat. 10 25 Shall the Master of the House be called Beelzebub and must not we of the Houshold be miscalled Remember Uriah's words 2 Sam. 11.1 The Ark and Israel and Judah dwell in Tents and my Lord Joah and his servants abide in the open fields and shall I then go into mine house to eat and drink c. And say we every one Shall my Lord Jesus in his Ordinances the Tokens of his Presence be threatened with Tents and exposed to all the Injuries incident to the open field and shall we then go secure to our houses and enjoyments from all threats of violence and disturbance Lord who are we Men we are as they are and that is for their sakes because they cannot hear the voyce of God himself and live Sinful we are as they are and that is because we are men Mortal we are as they are and that is because we are sinful Yet still though men sinful and mortal 2 Cor. 5.2 we are the Messengers of God and Embassadors of Christ Now in that we suffer as men sinful and mortal Mic. 7.9 Lam. 3.22 we should bear it patiently and give God his Glory the Glory of his Justice that we are Afflicted and the Glory of his Mercy too that we are not Consumed But in that we suffer as Ministers eo nomine as Ministers If our Adversaries should write a Book against us we might with holy Job Take it upon our shoulders and bind it to our heads as a Crown Job 31.35 36 we should bear it gladly Rejoycing with the beaten and abused Apostles That we are counted worthy to suffer shame for his Name Acts 5.41 For alas the worst is not Ours but Theirs whilest Christ himself suffers in our wrongs as his Ministers Exod 16 8 And what are we said Moses and Aaron Your murmurings are not against us but against the Lord He that rejecteth Me Joh. 12 48. and receiveth not my Word There Christ interested himself in the quarrels of his Word He that despiseth you despiseth me Luk. 10.16 There Christ interested himself in the quarrels of his Ministers as his Ministers The mighty Nimrods of our Times deal with us as Hunters do with Hedges leap over them or tread them down in the pursuit of their Pleasure and Game and run to them for shelter in a Storm When God shall restore them to their right minds his Word and Ministers shall be restored to their Honors again Then they will glorifie God and honour his Word and Ministers in the day of Visitation 1 Per. 2 12 And till then my Brethren let it be accounted scandalous to receive Honour at their hands or tongues by whom Gods holy Name is blasphemed his holy Son dishonored his holy Spirit resisted his holy Word and Ordinances despised 1 Tim. 5 17 Should such ungodly Miscreants present us with their double or single Honour it were not a proud but an holy disdain to fling it back into their faces again as unworthy of the honour 1 Sam. 2.30 to honour the servants of Christ whom God doth honour Now no more of this Question Will you bear but one Question more Question 3 Why the Devil seems more familiar with men in our Time then in former Days Why Witchcraft so much abounds As Examples shew in other Circuits abroad and would there had been none in ours here at home Shall we say it is because of Reformation that the Devil so bestirs him beyond former wont Reformation is a good word yea glorious both name and thing such as would rather provoke the Devil unto his most outragious Tyranny then invite him unto Familiarity Oh that we were an
fears and neglects of Duty in our difficult and perplexed Times It is a Naked one without Dedication like the Author now without a Patron Now no Patron but God and therefore no Dedicatory Epistle but Prayer To be hid in the secret of his Presence from the Pride of Men Psa 22.12 Psa 68.30 and to be kept secretly in his Pavilion from that strife of Tongues To be delivered by the Grace of his Power from David's Beasts Calves and Bulls of the people 2 The 3.2 and from Paul's unreasonable and wicked men for all men have not Faith That God would by the Power of his Grace bless and prosper even This Plain This Rough-hewn This Naked Piece unto Thee and Thee unto thy self and Me who am Thine in Him who is ours if we be His even the Lord Jesus Christ To whom be All the Honour of his Grace and Power now and ever Amen MARK 9.29 This Kind can come forth by nothing but by Prayer and Fasting ALthough Coherence make much for the understanding of Scripture-Texts yet Copiousness of Matter and Scantness of Time may forbid to insist thereon An easie Reflection on the foregoing Argument would clear the Connexion and shew the Dependance But I am loth to lead your Attention so far back as the 14th Verse where our Context begins lest I detain you too long in the Porch of a Preface having but one hour to stay with you in the House of this Discourse This Story here as it stands upon sacred Record is very obvious The sum whereof is this 1. Here is a Poor Son miserably possessed with the worst kind of Devils Wheresoever he taketh him he teereth him Verse 18 20 22. that he walloweth fometh gnasheth with his teeth and consumeth away casteth him into the fire and into the water to destroy him c. A poor Son 2. Here is a Sad Father grievously perplexed solicitous how to cure him and happily hearing of a Society of men in the world that had even evil Spirits subject unto them brings him to Christs Disciples that they might cast this evil Spirit out And they could not saith the Text. A sad Father Verse 18. 3. Here is a Sound Doctor Christ who hearing of it readily undertakes it Verse 19 26 27. Bring him to me and really effects it c. 4. Hereupon the Disciples as unsatisfied so soon as they can for shame desire to be resolved why they could not do it Verse 28 Christ tells them that this was no such petty common easie kind of Devil as to be turned out at their meer word-bidding as by slight Spells or Charms But here was need not only of Faith and Prayer Verse 29 but also of Fasting and extraordinary Humiliation as by an holy and more set and solemn Conjuration to cast such a kind of Devil as This out of his old possession Which leads your Attentions to this Text And when he was come into the house his Disclples asked him privately Why could not we cast him out And He said unto them This kind can come forth by nothing but by Prayer and Fasting I need not open the door of this Text with the key of any acurate Division The words do easily and plainly open and divide themselves into three parts viz. The Malady The Recovery The Remedy 1. The Malady and Disease pointed at in the terms of This Kind 2. The Recovery and Cure intimated in the terms of Coming forth 3. The Remedy and Medicine expressed in the two Ingredients of Prayer and Fasting This Kind can come forth by nothing but by Prayer and Fasting But before I come to speak of the particulars give me leave to deliver this Note in general from the Connexion of these words with the former wherein is propounded a Question by the Disciples Why they could not cast this evil Spirit out Why could not we c. In which I observe Though some godly people in former Ages were furnished at divers times with an extraordinary Power of working strange Miracles yet they had not this Power Absolute could not put it forth of themselves but as they were still holpen by Divine Dispensation 'T is not Absolute in Man but still Arbitrary in God And therefore Joseph's answer to Pharaoh was Gen 41.16 It is not in me God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace But why not in thee good Joseph Thou hadst that gift of God Gen. 40.12 19. Thou couldst give the Butler and the Baker an answer of their dreams was not That in thee why not the King then an answer of his dream No not in me neither That nor This absolutely Gen. 40.8 but as God was still pleased to dispense and go along with me Do not Interpretations belong to God And Moses that mighty man of God who at one time was so powerful with God when God called out unto him Exo. 32.10 Let me alone that I may consume them c. and seemed to stop the mouth of his importunity by saying I will make of thee a great Nation as if Heaven had suffered violence indeed and God could not do as he would as if tyed by the spiritual force of Moses's faithful and zealous prayers c. Yet at another time he makes question of his prevalency with God And now I will go up Verse 30. peradventure I shall make an attonement for you c. to shew us that 't is not the absolute excellency or faculty of prayer that prevails with God but Gods own condescending goodness in providing and accepting such a means as prayer in designing and singling out such a thing as prayer unto such an effect as prevailing with him through his own Condescention And thus the God of strength like Sampson the strong shews us a way how to bind his own hands but still at his own power and pleasure Joel 2.14 Who can tell if he will return c. saith the Prophet Dan. 2.16 19 And Daniel could not give answer to Nebuchadnezzar's dream till he craved some time and had the secret revealed unto him by God Verse 30. humbly acknowledging as it were with Joseph It is not in me for any wisdom that is in me c. it is still with God And in the New Testament Luk. 10.17 Acts 6.8 Act. 19.11 12 â— Cor. 12.10 the Apostles and Disciples of the Lord Jesus were wonderfully endowed with strange power of effecting great Miracles in curing Diseases and casting out of Devils as subject unto them yet not so absolute but as it was given them by divine Dispensation and Limitation Disoipulerum opprobrium as here in this case is seen they were non-plust and at a stand Why could not we cast him out And now what shall we say to this or rather what will this say to us 1. Opprobrium Romanorum For Confutation of our Enemies at Rome and would God we had fewer of them at home who would
short work of God upon Earth Mat. 24 22 in making haste to convert and to sanctifie and to save all that will be converted sanctified and saved quickly before it be too late for Rev. 22.12 Behold I come quickly and my Reward is with me c. Now consider If the Devils time were short then how much shorter is it now when sixteen hundred years of that short time are already gone If St John's time might be truly called 1 Joh. 2 18 as it was The last time If in St Peter's time it might be truly said 1 Pet. 4.7 Phil. 4 5. Heb. 10 37 1 Cor. 7 29 Heb. 10.25 as it was The end of all things is at hand If in St Paul's time it might be proclaimed as it was The Lord is at hand and But a little while The time is short Then surely after so long tract of time must it needs be more true when so many hundred years of that last time of that end at hand of that quickly and little while are already spent passed by Out of doubt the Devils time is much shorter Now and consequently his Wrath must needs be greater Now Enough to stop the mouth of wonder to see him bestir himself to his utmost 2 Cor. 4.4 Ioh. 12 31. as if he were mad to play his pranks and reaks in the world more then ever like a God and Prince * As secured by his Circuivi Job 1 7. More principum loquitur 2 Cor. 12.20 of this world because he must needs know now his time is shorter Now no marvel to see him labour and lay about him to stir up in the world all that St Paul feared among the Corinthians Debates envyings wraths strifes backbitings whisperings swellings tumults And more then that to raise up amongst men Fears Jealousies Plots Conspiracies Iames 4.1 Tumults Wars Fightings Lusts and what not To bring all sorts of sins into fashion if he could and to convert the whole world into Heathenism Epicurism and Atheism if he might as if with Circe's Charm he would turn all men into Swine Now no marvel to see him strive if it were possible to pull down all True Lights that God hath put up Rev. 2 5. by throwing at the Candlestick to strike it down or to remove it that thereby the Truth of God might not have that Eminence and Evidence as it ought but that some faint shadow Iob 6 6 Humane Laws humane Examples are both false lights because imperfect The Devil and Sin wâ—ll evade for all some corner-disguize some modification some temporizing must serve the turn serving in something like the white of an Eg as in Job that hath no taste at all Thus the Devil would have it in the world if he could but compass his ends of taking away or shutting out the true Lights of God and of setting up false Lights of his own thereby to put the fairer gloss upon his wares of sin like deceitful Tradesmen and to counterfeit and disguize most things to men and most men to themselves so that few things or persons are well known by their names calling evil good and good evil darkness light Isai 5.20 and light darkness as in Isaiah Thus and worse then thus would the Devil in his great wrath make it in the world if he might and all because he knows that his time is short Men and Brethren let me speak unto you freely Though I raise no mutinous or tumultuous thoughts against present Government though I make not the Pulpit à priviledg'd place to traduce Superiors and to preach my Self two things that I never did never will Not daring to ascend into it without leaving Self at the feet and lowest step of it as knowing that it never speeds better either with Pastor or People within then when Self is left without the Church-doors with Abrahams Ass and Servants farthest off from the place of Worship for 't is Self that clogs or strikes off our Charriot wheels that we draw heavily 't is Self that makes the Charriot of our best desires so long in coming Yet seeing I speak to so knowing an Assembly and where there is most knowledg there is or should be the most charity I shall presume here to be taken candidly and crave the priviledg of my Function and of this Place to speak plainly without Calumniation or Flattery There are two notable Signs of the Devils short time and of Christs quick coming to end and judg the World The one is That general dead sleep of deep Security like that of the old world in the days of Noah Mat. 24 38 They were eating and drinking marrying and giving in marriage and knew not c. The other is That fearful Deluge of overflowing Impiety wherein the Apostle was a Prophet to Timothy This know also that in the last days Perillous Times shall come 2 Tim. 3.1 2 3 4 5. For men shall be Lovers of their own selves Covetous Boasters Proud Blasphemers Disobedient to Parents Unthankful Unholy without natural Affection Truce-breakers false-Accusers Incontinent Fierce Despisers of those that are good Traytors Heady High-minded Lovers of Pleasures more then Lovers of God Having a form of Godliness but denying the Power thereof From such turn away I have not omitted nor added one word in the reading Put now your fingers in the print of these words and be not faithless but beleeve that Christ and his Apostle were true Prophets indeed by the fulfilling of their Prophecies in the world Mat. 24.3 in sign of Christs coming and of the worlds ending in very short time whereby the Devils time is short Ecclus. 37.14 For stand but up in the watch-towers of each your minds let loose your thoughts and look abroad in the world and say If ever any Age since the world was created did sleep and snort More securely in a Calm then ours now in a Storm More sensless and fearless of the Wrath of God Tell some men of a Judg and they say Quis who is he Of a Judgment and they cry Quando when is it Or of Hell and they cry Ubi where is it More Erroneous and Heterodox about the Works of God mis-interpreting his Dispensations and cross-construing most of his Proceedings Judgments for Mercies and Mercies for Judgments most men tuning all both their inward and outward senses to the key of their own interests and affections presuming God must needs be well pleased or displeased when they are so But beleeve me Christians and Brethren beleeve me The strange Stupidity and desperate Obstinacy of a People are more fearful then the Punishment For when a Nation grows stupid and sensless at Gods Chastisements and doth not or will not see Gods meaning in them Hosea 9 1. Isaiah 1.5 Eze. 16.42 Auferam Zelum with them in Hosea there goes out a speech from the highest Why should they be smitten any more which comes near to the worst that
God doth say I will be no more angry God being most angry when he lets us not see that he is so And ask you What of this Why I say nothing but that The Devils time is short and therefore hath such great wrath Say again If ever any generation of men in the world did attempt More monstrous Babels More prodigious Projects of Bedlam Ranting Outrages let loose More Reins to Heaven-affronting desperate Impieties Cloud-brushing Villanies and cursed Prophanenesses then Ours Now If ever there were More Pride rushling and rattling More Envy snarling More Hypocrisie fawning and deceiving and though I say not More Oaths ringing Whoredom Incest and incestuous Marriages and Drunkenness reeling yet More Uncleanness impudently jetting in the streets then in Ours Now. Say If ever the Gospel in the sincere and powerful Preaching thereof was exposed to more scorn Or Piety in the true practise thereof more disdainfully trampled on both by Scums and great Ones Or the Lords Day more irreligiously dasht out of countenance by prophane Libertinism and countenanced dishonors then Now it is Horresco referens I speak it with bitterness would God I had nothing whereof to accuse my dear distracted Nation I know there are some good Laws in this kind but where is the execution to be found How it is with Superior Magistrates above I know not But with Inferior Officers here below for the most part I know it is so faint and cold as if they were but half perswaded against others Impieties or of their own Authorities whereby it comes to pass that such haynous Crimes are so slightly punished if not rather provoked And ask you again What of this Why I say nothing but that It is the Devils great wrath because he knows his time is short and the Coming of the Lord draweth nigh Iame 5 8. to cut down this luxuriant Crop of the Worlds Prophaneness by his instant approach to Judgment Verily I think since Israel arrived Canaan scarce one Generation ever saw such stupendious Mixtures of Mercies and Judgments ushered in and adorned with Miracles Miranda etiamsi non miracula such interweavings of Miraculous Mercies and Miraculous Judgments as ours have seen Like those Rhetorical Elegancies so frequent among the Prophets as that in Hosea Hos 2 1â— I will allure her and bring her into the Wilderness and speak comfortably unto her as this of God with us Bringing us as into a Wilderness handling us as with Esau's hands and yet speaking comfortably unto us as with Jacob's voyce And if this heavenly strain of Divine Eloquence allure us not I know not what will Verily this time of ours seems like that of diseased people which Physicians call The Critical Time wherein the main conjecture lies whether they be Mending or Ending according to the effects and successes of such utmost means And this I take under favour of better sights to be our Vertical Point and Critical Time one way or other for our Mending or Ending For by sinning at all times we provoke God but by sinning at such a time as This we dare God to punish us Isai 1.24 Ierem 5.9 and to ease and avenge himself of us And shall not his Soul be avenged on such a Nation as This A Nation overflown with such a Flood of Spiritual Wickednesses 1 Tim. 4 1. of Abominable Heresies of Damnable Doctrines and Doctrines of Devils Not whispered and muttered in Corners only by those that mouch up and down to creep into houses 2 Tim. 3 6. but declared and proclaimed on house-tops openly in the streets of the City and in publique Meetings through this Land Mr Case in one of his Sermons before the House of Commons Rev. 12 15 So that most of former Errors as one useth the words of Calvin may seem but Tolerabiles ineptiae as pardonable toys and trifles in comparison And ask you again What of this I say no more but that This is part of The Flood of Water which the Serpent cast out of his mouth in his great wrath because his time is short There are some printed Books and Treatises that will give you large Catalogues of these horrid Evils There are some black Bills of these sad particulars where you that can may read them my heart and tongue will not serve me to speak them in this Congregation Ephes 5.3 Mr Obadiah Sedgwick Mr Vines Mr Hoâ—ges against Heresies and Blaspheâ—â—â—â— Things not to be once named among us as becometh Christians There are some printed Sermons preached before the Parliament wherein these accursed things are spread and measured before them their dimensions taken and found For Height amounting to no less then execrable Blasphemies ignominious contemptuous disgraceful Reproaches of God of Christ and of the holy Scriptures c. This is a huge daring Height For Bredth spreading to no less then destructive Confusion That they will leave us neither Church nor State neither Ministry nor Magistracy nor Ordinances neither Duties nor Worship these words are not mine own And where are we then Why Neer the worst Idolatry of all Then a mans Lust shall be his Law a mans Opinion his Bible and a mans Self his God And ask you here again What of This As they there in the burden of Dumah called to the Watchman Is 21.11 12 What of the night c. the Watchman said The morning cometh and also the night c. So may your Watchman say As sure as the night succeedeth the day so sure is a National Calamity to be the end of such daring Impieties unrepented unlamented unreformed In suffering Times under incumbent or impendent Evils men deal about the Causality as they were wont in the case of Bastarday when no father could be found none that would own it to lay it at the Church door And who is sufficient by any Apology for the total aversion of it I dare not undertake it This was long ago in print and I cannot deny it The greatest Traytor to the Clergy is the Clergy Two things God much abominates A Partial Judg and a Prophane Priest Mat. 10 36 The greatest Foes are still Those of the same House Truth Lord As was said of Israel after that their shameful Idolatry Not a Judgment for a long time inflicted on it but had an Ounce of the Calf in it So of every person quality or condition of men afflicted and punished Hos 13 9. there is a pound of Self in it Destruction is of Self Fit therefore that we with others lie down in our shame give God the glory of his Justice beg Mercy bear the Punishment with Thankfulness and Patience with the Church in Micah I will bear the wrath of the Lord because I have sinned against him until he plead my Cause c. Micah 7.9 This may be called the Chancel-door but there is another which might be more truly called in this respect the Church-porch-door at which that Brat
A SERMON Preached at the Assizes in Salisbury Upon Saturday July 23. 1653. By HENRY CARPENTER Vicar of Steeple-Ashton in Wiltshire Uprightness hath Boldness ROM 16.20 The God of Peace shall tread Satan under your feet Shortly REVEL 12.12 Having great Wrath because he knoweth that he hath but a short time LONDON Printed by John Macock for Octavian Pullen and are to be sold at the sign of the Rose in Pauls Church-yard 1653. To My Christian Reader ALL that I crave of thee is that thou make good this Title that I have given thee For Reader and Christian thou mayst be though This never come nigh thee but Mine thou canst not be unless I am so far Thine as that thou read me Christianly And although I dare not as Mine commend it to thy Reading because I know not whether thy Reading can commend it yet being overcome to expose it I dare advise thee If I have written evil to bear witness of the evil but if well Joh. 18.23 to take heed how thou smite me uncharitably in judgment for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh and we shall all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ And if my Charity must call Thee Christian though unknown surely Thine should so call the ends and motives of this Publication though unseen well imagining that he whom so often entreaties could never yet get aboard in a Calm would not now without some kind of constraint launch forth on so thin a bottom in a Storm A Storm beyond that in Paul's voyage to Rome Act. 27.14 by how much the Winds and Seas are more cross and contrary and a more tempestuous Euroclydon * That Seamans plague Yet I am bid be of good cheer in hopes of Gods saying the word that even on This Board and broken piece by his grace some Soul may escape safe to Land I know the Eye is a severer Judg then the Ear and so much the worse for the weakness that is in it but the Eye is a wiser and truer Judg then the Ear and so much the better for the sincerity and simplicity of it Here is all without the least witting omisssion of what was then delivered with the addition of some expressions here and there which were intended but for fear of trespassing upon that Patience omitted whereby some passages haply were obscured in the Delivery As for the Text If my Choyce offend thee and yet not mine let me advertise thee That if I had consulted with my self when Providence called me to this Service by his Desires which to me were virtual Commands I had probably singled out some other Subject that might have seemed more suitable and proved more plausible But asking counsel of God though this Text in all the parts of it had lately been my matter of divers Sermons at home and abroad yet I found this particular press so hard upon my spirit an Apology which too many in our times have used to worse ends that no room for other thoughts could be granted If this excuse not abstract the Occasion and take thou to the Sermon and much good may it do thee Tolle quod tuum est vade Cui nil ipse dabas is Tibi verba dedit It is like the Author a Plain one 1 Pet. 3.4 For the plain Song to that which S. Peter calls the hidden man of the heart makes the best Musick The plain way makes the best speed as Ahimaaz did out-run Cushi 2 Sam. 18. per viam plani by the way of the Plain No affected strains or quaint expressions lest the Auditor should hominem olere smell man in it and so turn his back upon it No gawdy garish cheap dressings of unnecessary Quotations enlarging my marginal Borders with such deep Fringes and broad Phylacteries telling the people how many Authors if not more then I have read Those few of our learned Countrymens Names and Terms being Authentick in their Generation that I have made bold with and that I hope without offence had been spared but for my necessary Vindication from proud Singularity uncharitable Error and Presumption It is like the Author something a Rough-hewn one Ezek. 13.22 yet loth to gall the spirit or make sad the heart of any righteous man whom God doth not make sad never loving to grieve any mans Soul in the Pulpit for harm yet I have known ulcerous men to shriek out at the least suspition of being touched when nothing that way hath been intended And besides in distempered times of violent and various Occurrences 't is hard to speak pertinently to any Text and acceptably to All Hearers especially when there are so many Counter-parties tuning their ears to the key of their own interests and fancies This repugnant Composition in Congregational Bodies like that in Natural which is stiled Medicorum opprobrium discourages and straitens all Ministrations As suppose the Liver be hot and yet the Stomack cold that which helps in respect of the one may hurt in regard of the other So that I scarce know any unsilent Minister that lies not under this difficulty and prejudice at some time or other unless he do as Balak would have it Neither curse them at all Numb 23.25 Job 6.6 nor bless them at all and serve in some Nothing as Job hath it like the white of an Eg that hath no taste at all But for my part Here is no Traducing of Superiors Judg. 5 15. No raising of mutinous or tumultuous great thoughts of heart against Government No disturbing of Peace either in Church or State too much of that already God help it No Exasperating but rather Accommodating rightly understood of The Godly truly so called God increase their Number Graces and Comforts There are that are called Godly Act. 13.50 as there were that were called and counted Devout whom yet the Jews stirred up to raise Persecution against Paul and Barnabas the Apostles of the Lord Jesus a Godly and Devout Party indeed 2 Pet. 2.1 1 Tim. 4.1 If the Devil can get such but to hold his Cards he thinks the Gane his own This of mine is wholly bent and aymed against Damnable Heresies Cursed Blasphemies Impious Doctrines and Works of Devils I hope it will Anger only those whom I fear to Please Prophaners Blasphemers Witches Sorcerers Devils and their Followers It is only by way of Exclamation Lamentation and Direction upon the Devils great Wrath in these last Days and perillous Times because he knows his Time is short And can this be opprobrious and unpleasing to any sound Christian high or low I have less fear and more charity then to think so No no my greater fear is that the cowardly Peace of those Tongues that ought to speak Isai 58.1 yea cry aloud and spare not hath cast us in Gods just Judgment under the ungodly strife of those Tongues that ought to hold their Peace Psal 31.20 The Lord in mercy forgive our humane