bear uttering the Wish of the great Chytrâ—…us in this Honourable Audience Urinam potentes rerum Domini majorem Ecclesiae et Scholarum curam susciperent May a godly and a learned Ministry be every where encouraged and no Plantations allowed to live without a good Minister in them May the Colledge be maintained and that River the wholsome streams whereof have made glad the City of God and blest us with a priviledge above the other Out-goings of our Nation be kept Running with Issues beyond those from the Seminaries of Canada or Mexico may Schools be countenanced and all good wayes to nourish them and support them in every Town be put in Execution you shall then probably leave the Presence of God as a blessed Legacy with such as may come after you I know not whether we do or can at this Day labour under an iller Symtom than the too general Want of Education in the Rising Generation which if not prevented will gradually but speedily dispose us to that sort of Criolian Degeneracy observed to deprave the Children of the most noble and worthy Europaeans when transplanted into America The Youth of this Countrey are very sharp and early ripe in their Capacities above most in the world and were the Benefits of a Religious and Ingenuous Education bestowed upon them they would soon prove an Admirable People and as we know that England afforded the first Discoverers of America in these latter Ages whatever the Spaniards may pretend unto the Contrary for it may be proved that both Britains and Saxons did inhabit here at least Three or Four hundred years before Columbus was born into the world which the Annals themselves of those times do plainly enough Declare So our little New-England may soon produce them that shall be Commanders of the greatest Glories that America can pretend unto But if our Youth be permitted to run wild in our Woods we shall soon be Forsaken by that God Whom our Fathers followed hither when it was a land not sown and Christianity which like the Sun hath moved still Westward unto these Goings down of the Sun will Return to the old World again leaving here not a New-Ierusalem as Doctor â—…wiss hoped but a Gog and Magog as Master Mede feared for the last of the Latter dayes Now may the God of Heaven bless the Wisdome and Goodness of Your Endeavours for the continuance of His Presence with those that may rise up in your stead when you shall be gone to be forever with the Lord. Allow me to say unto the Fathers of this Countrey what was said unto the Iudges of old Deal courageously and the Lord shall be with the good And as for Us that are and shall be Inferiors Let us also do what we can That our God may be still among us We ought all of us humbly to lay before our worthy Rulers that Encouragement in Ezr. 10 4. Arise for this matter belongs to thee we also will be with thee be of good courage do it Let there be a publick Spirit in us all for the good of the whole the Rarity Mortality whereof among us New-England bewails among the greatest of its Calamities Especially Let us Pray hard That God would not leave the Land It was a Publique Spirit which was in that Famous Prince of Orange who was the first Captain General of the United Provinces an hundred years ago and the Ancestor of that Illustrious Person whose glorious Design and Service we have lately with so much Unanimity Declared for that when he was basely murthered by the Pistol of a papist His dying and only words were O my God take pitty of my soul and of this poor people When he had but one breath to draw in the world His poor people had half of it O Let this poor People have no less than Half our Cares half our Prayers Let no man say I am a sorry Creature of what account can my prayers be For You that can do little else but pray can yet be the instruments of saving this poor people by the Presence of the Lord. We find in Amos. 7. 2. That a poor Herdsman and Huckster kept the great God from Leaving of the Land A poor Husbandman yea a poor Woman by lively prayers may do incredibly much towards the Keeping of our God yet among us And if God be With us then His Rod and Staffe His mighty Crook which horribly breaks the bones of all that it falls upon will crush and wound all that shall go to make this Wilderness A valley of the shadow of Death unto us and beat away all that may essay to do us any Harm So shall we be Led and Fed among the Sheep of our GOD He will Restore us and His Goodness and Mercy shall follow us all our Dayes MANTISSA THus have the Words of God been Calling upon us to beware of Loosing His gracious Presence Now the Presence of God will either go or stay with His Gospel and the Principal Danger of New-England lies in its giving an ill Entertainment unto that glorious Gospel of our Lord Jesus Let us then see wether the Works of God have not also been calling upon us to take heed of that Epidemical Evil and let what has befallen some of our Neighbours in our dayes be produced as a Warning unto us to avoid any Contempt of that Gospel which others have smarted for the Slighting of I would fill the Remaining pages of this sheet with a Discourse fetch 't from a Reserved Collection of MEMORABLE PROVIDENCES not improper to be produced on this Occasion MATTH X. 14. 15. Whosoever shall not receive you nor hear your Words It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of Iudgement than for that City To Despise and Reject the Glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ is an Evil than which none is more evil and yet nothing is more ordinary than this extraordinarily sinful Sin which Unbeleef may be accounted as Tertullian of old esteem'd Idolatry the Praecipuum â—…rimen Humani generis the grand Crime of Mankind Low thoughts about the Person and the Office and the Beauty of the Lord Jesus contemtâ—…uous Apprehensions of His Truths and His wayes and His Ordinances these are the Things which bring the most Signal slery Wrath of God upon the Children of unperswadeableness The peculiar Controversy of God with man in the managing of which the most High God inflicts upon particular persons at once a Blasting on their Estates and a Blindness on their Spirits here as the Prologue to the Hottest Vengeance of Eternal sire in the dismal vaults of Hell below is not so much on the score of all their other Profanity Iniquity as this one thing They sleight the Redeemer of their souls And this is that thing by which whole Nations Peoples bring swift Destruction upon themselves that thing for which all the Seals all the Trumpets all the Vials in the Apocalypse have brought in the
Necessarium of New-England Nothing is more Desireable for us than the Presence of our God The Jews have a Fable of their Manna That whatever any man had a mind to tast he presently found in the Manna a Savour a Relish of it It is very true of this Blessed Presence all manner of Blessings are enwrapped in it There is a multitude of Blessings which we are desireous of but they are all contained in this comprehensive thing It will give every honest man all that he wants This will extricate us out of all our Labyrinths This will set all things to rights among us This will wonderfully carry on all the Salvations which have been begun for us by the God of our Salvations If Christ if God be aboard our little Vessel will not sink in the gaping roaring formidable Waves now tossing of it Well did the Apostle say in Rom. 8. 31. If God be for us who can be against us Thus If God be with us we have All for us One GOD will weigh down more than ten Worlds If we have the Presence of that God Who made and moves the Universe by a Word if we have the Presence of that God Who can Command and Create our Deliverances O most Happy We We may then join in such Triumphant Acclamations as that in Psal. 118. 6. The Lord is on my side I will not fear what can man do unto me We may then defie even the Gates of Hell it self for Cur metuat hominem homo in sinu Dei positus and tho' abroad at this day The earth is removing and the Waters roar and are troubled and the mountains are shaking splitting tumbling with the swelling thereof Tho' the great and the terrible God be at this Day coming out of His place to make all Europe a stage of blood and fire and make the Nations everywhere drink deep of the Cup that shall make them giddy with all manner of Confusion Astonishment Yet WE shall be helped right early for God is in the midst of us Add to this Nothing is more Necessary for us than the Presence of God We are undone thrice and four times Undone if we have it not Methinks I hear the Almighty GOD with a voice more awful than that of the loudest Thunder saying over us as in Hos. 9. 12. Wo to them when I depart from them And Wo to us indeed we are in a most woful estate if it come to that How can we endure the mention of it without our most importunate Deprecations O our God leave us not We can have a prospect of nothing but horrible Disorders Agonies and Vexations if we lose the Presence of our Lord We ly open to no less than a fearful Dissipation and more than all our late Oppressors would rejoice to see brought upon us We have lately been complaining of Burdens that were grievous to us but I may warn you of our danger to feel one Burden more which will infinitely exceed them all t is that in Jer. 23. 33. What Burden I will even forsake you saith the Lord. Behold a Burden that will sink us into a bottomless Abiss of Calamities The Presence of GOD This is no less than the very Soul of New-England We are dead and gone if that withdraw When Israel was nimbly enough possessing themselves of the promised Land which God had given them such a CHARTER for they perished in the Attempt for in Deut 1. 42. The Lord said go not up for I am not among you Alas if we don 't in the first place look to this That God be among us we cannot avoid all manner of Dissappointments Desolations Let us Consider Secondly What uncomfortable Symptomes we have had of God's not being with us It seems as if God had fulfilled that sad Word on this poor Land in Deut. 31. 17. I will forsake them and many evils shall befal them so that they will say in that day Are not these evils come upon us because God is not among us There is a vast number of Calamities which have given us lamentable cause to fear That God has forsaken us Why have we suffered such a Blast both on our Trade and on our Corn that the Husband-man complaines I Iooked for much and lo it came to little and the Mariner complains I went out full came home empty T is Because our God is not among us Why have we had Fire after Fire laying our Treasures in Ashes What means the heat of this Anger that Boston the most noble and vital Bowel of the Territory hath with a twice repeted Conflagration suffered such a Loss of that which in the Body politic answers to Blood in the Body natural T is Because our God is not among us Why have we had War after War made upon us by a Foolish Nation Why have the worst of the Heathen had renewed advantages to disturb our Peace And why have so many of our Brethren and Neighbours been made a prey to the most Savage Murderers in the world It is Because our God is not among us Give me leave to say as in Judg. 6. 12. If the Lord be with us why then is all this befallen us But we may find Humiliation enough to convince us of this deplorable thing from what we have endured upon the Loss of our Government She of old said unto our Lord Jesus in I-h. 11. 21. Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed So If the Lord had been here t is possible we had not Died. If the Lord had been with us would he have made our Wall so feeble that as they said of Ierusalem the going up of a poor Fox upon it should break it down If the Lord had been with us had all the wild Creatures that passed by this Vineyard found such Opportunities to be plucking at it No Our God would have kept us as A vineyard of red Wine and lest any should have hurt us He the Lord would have kept it night and day If the Lord had been with us had you ever thought you had seen cause to Declare as you have lately justly done That a Company of abject strangers had made a meer Booty of us Had we ever felt the sore grievances of an illegal arbitrary Government No The God of Heaven was not with that oppress'd people to whom He said in Isa. 1. 7. Your Countrey is desolate your land Strangers devour it What shall I say It was an Appeal made in Ioel 1. 2. Hear this ye old men hath this been in your dayes Even so I may say to the old men within the hearing of it My Fathers You Remember how we were when God was with us pray was it so in your dayes as it has been in ours Were you visited with Plague after Plague in a long Series of heavy Judgements as We your poor Children are Surely They will tell us God is not with us as He was with them In all
that be far from me The sense of these things will prepare your Thoughts for one Conclusion more which is Proposition III. A People must be with God or God will not be with them And here also to prevent Mistakes Let that one Text be alwaies carried in our Minds Neh. 9. 18. Being merciful thou for sookest them not there is Mercy in the Whole of this matter Let it be noted That tho' this Condition seems to be imposed upon us yet it is Grace pure Grace rich Grace that helps us when we are helped unto the performance of it When a people have so been with God as that He has been with them they are to shout Grace Grace concerning all It is also to be noted that this Benefit dos not depend upon that Condition as an Effect upon the real and proper Cause of it When a people has been with God this does not merit and so procure that God should be with them but that is barely the Antecedent unto which this is the Conse Having praemsed this I must now affirm God is with you while you are with Him We need only reflect on the People of Israel for an Instance of it That whole History which almost fills the Bible proclames nothing more than this it loudly declares That while a people are with God God will be with them but that He will be very Terrible in His providential Dispensations towards such a people as do forsake Him But What is it for a people to be With God In short Our being With God implies the Whole of our Obedience to Him Our Duty to God must be attended that we may have the Presence of God The Whloe of this Duty is comprised in that Expressirâ—… of our being with the Lord. Particularly the Hebrew Particle Gnim in our Text admits of three Significations it signifies With and For Like which last Significâ—…tion I make the more free withal because a little Philology will acquaint us with many Exemples of it for instance When David saith in Psal. 120 5. I dwell in Gnim Hebr. the tents of Kedar a very great Interpreter translates it so I dwell As the tents of Kedar i. e. Like the inhabitants of the Stony Sun-burnt Arabia whom indeed I don't Remember David ever was among Accordingly a people have Three Things incumbent on them if they would enjoy the Presence of God First A People should be with God by Communion With Him This t is to be With Him There are Certain meanes of Communion between God and us and these we must be continually approaching to Him in We are With God while we are at Prayer before Him hence in our Context here it immediately follows If you seek the Lord He will be found of you While we do seek Him we are with Him The Psalmist was a man much in prayer and therefore he could say as in Psal. 73. 23. I am continually with thee A people much in Prayer may say the same We are continually with the Lord. A people that will pray upon all occasions a people that will pray over all Businesses a peothat will retire into the Mount for Prayer and Fasting too at every turn that people is with the Lord. And the whole Worship of God must be diligently graciously faithfully frequented by a people that would be with Him We are with God when we are at His House A people should support esteem and use all the Ordinances of God among them The Church of God hath His very special Preseuce in it the Name of the Church is that in Ezek. 48. 35. Iehovah Shammâ—…h the Lord is there We should all be there too and there give those Encouragements which are due to the Institutions of God So shall we be with the Lord. Secondly A people should be with God by Activity For Him To be For God is to be with God It was once the Summons given in Exod. 32. 26. Who is on the Lords lide And all the Sons of Levi gathered themselves they were with God in doing so T is a Summons given to the world in every Generation Who is on the Lords side They that obey the Summons are with the Lord. A people full of Contrivances for the Interest of God are with Him A people should set themselves to advance the Glory of God they should own His Truths and His Wayes and endeavour to draw all about them into the Acknowledgement of the same A people should propound the Glory of God as their cheef End and the main Scope of all that they do and they should think much of no Cost no Pains nor tho as a Martyr once expressed himself tho' every hair on their heads were a life should a Thousand Lives be dear unto them in the promoting of it Then are they with the Lord they are so when God can say of them as in Isa. 43. 10. Ye are my Witnesses saith the Lord and my servant Thirdly A people should be With God by Behaviour Like Him To be Like God is to be with God They that are with Him do not walk contrary to Him God and we should be One. A people should have the same Designs the same Desires which the Written Edicts of Heaven declare to be in the blessed God and not only so but the same Vertues too Is God Holy Thus a people should not bear with them that are evil Is God Righteous Thus a people should abhor all Injustice and Oppression Is God Merciful Thus a people should be disposed unto all fair acts of Pitty and Kindness Then they will be with the Lord and O that this people were so with Him This is the USE to be now made of what has been delivered Let us all now Be with God that God may Be with us I suppose whatever else we differ in we generally concur in that wish 1. King 8. 27. The Lord our God be with us as He was with our Fathers let Him not leave us nor forsake us O that we might all as much concur in an endeavourous Resolution to be with God as our Fathers were with Him not to leave Him nor forsake him There is as much of New-England in this great Congregation as can well be reach'd by the voice of one Address t is indeed the best part of New-England that is at least Represented in this Assembly As the great Council at Ierusalem satt near the Temple thus the whole Convention of the Massachusets is here come into the House of God this day Wherefore I take the boldness to say Hear ye me Asa and all Judah and Benjamin The Cheef Sinner and least Preacher among all your Sons now takes a Liberty to mind you That God will be with you while you are with Him Now that we may be all of us inspired with a Zeal for this great thing this Day Let us Consider First How Desirable How Necessary a Thing it is that we should have God with us Truly This is the Unum
these matters our Case may at least have some Correspondence with that in Luc. 23. 28. He made as though He would havegone but they constrained Him saying Abide with us Let us Consider Thirdly If we are not With God we shall be guilty of an Apostasie and that under very shameful very direful Aggravations too We shall be Apostates and O let us not be so lest our God say My soul can have no pleasure in them But if we are so we shall be of all Apostates the most inexcusable Let us Consider what Fathers we have had they were with God I may say of 'em as in hos 9. 8. They were with my God they are gone to be so forever What an unaccountable thing will it be for us to have that Character which we have been so much cautioned against There arose another generation which knew not the Lord What Shall the Grandchildren of Moses turn Idolaters and shall the Children of Samuel become the Children of Belial Shall we forget the Hope of our Fathers or forsake our Fathers Friend The very Graves of those blessed men every Post every Stone upon their Graves is a Witness against us if we do With dismal Accents Methinks their very Ghosts will groan unto us Alas Is our posterity come to this Nay Abraham would be Ignorant of us and Israel would not acknowledge us if we should be so degenerate as to lose the Presence of the Lord. Let us also consider what Warnings we have had It may be said unto us as in Jer. 25. 4. The Lord hath sent unto you all His Servants the prophets This Countrey has been blessed with a most faithful Ministry by which I suppose every Assembly in this Territory has been called upon to Be with God and to keep with Him Especially the Sermons which our ELECTIONS have put the Embassadours of God upon Preaching and Printing of these have been so many loud Warnings unto us That we leave Him not In them we have been faithfully warned That our true Interest is Not to Lye unto God We have been Warned That the latter end of our Misbehaviours will be Destruction from the Lord. We have been Warned That We must Repent and do our first Works or have the Candlestick of the Lord Iesus removed from us In a word We have been warned from Heaven That If we forsake our God He will cast us off for ever O miserable We if we do it after all These Considerations will not have their due Force unless they expire in a Threefold Request which I must now lay before you and I may justly assert concerning the Things contained therein They are not Vain Things they are Our Life Wherefore Hear ye me Asa and all Judah Benjamin Hear ye these things all ye people of the Massachusetts First Let us Return to the Lord. We must Come to Him if we would Be with Him We have marvellously backsliden from our God but He calls after us Return ye backsliding Children and I will heal your Backslidings O that we may all as one man Reply what is in Jer. 3. 22. Behold we come unto thee for thou art the Lord our God! If we ask that Question in Mal. 2. 7. Wherein shall we return Methinks t' were an harder Quaestion Wherin should we not But Behold We have had a great voice out of the Temple in answer thereunto We have had the Elders and Messengers of our Churches conven d in a SYNOD solemnly informing of us Wherein we shall Return God forbid the Advice of that Synod should only serve to Convict us and Condemn us in the Day when He shall take vengeance on us for our Contemning of it That were dreadful indeed But in Compliance with it Let every man seriously now enquire of himself What have I done Mark what I say That man who does not suspect himself of having a share in the Sins which have driven away from us the Presence of our God That man I may safely affirm it is one of the principal Troublers of this Israel I do without any Scruple say it Thou art the man Let us all then Examine our selves and set upon the Reforming of our own Hearts and Lives and the Renewing of our Covenants with the Lord. Indeed both the Objects in which and the Authors from whom we have endured our Calamities those are enough to indigitate what Sins they are that have exposed us thereunto Let me in two or three instances use a plain dealing with you agreeable to my station here this day What have been the Objects in which we have been afflicted Our Fruits have been blasted were they not abused in the excesses of Sensuality Our Lands have been threat'ned and were not They the Idols for the sake of which we have offended GOD and almost Renounced all that was Holy and Iust and Good The most happy and easy Government in the world was changed with us into what has by the most impartial men been confessed to have become Intolerable Why Did not men despise the Best of Governments and procure other things to be set over them because they endeavoured to make Loggs of what they before enjoyed To pass on Were we not in the late unreasonable Extortions of the Law invited to consider Whether our needless Multiplications of Litigious Contentious Law-Suits formerly amongst us were not a Scandal thus chastised Were we not in the late unsufferable Injuries Abuses and Exactions of them that under the pretence of the Excise carried on very outragious Villanies put upon Considering Whether the Multitude or Quality of Drinking-Houses in the midst of us had not once been a Stumbling-block of our Iniquity Again What have been the Authors from whom we have been afflicted Our Molestations have risen very much from Indian Hands And Alas have we not very much Injured the Indians I do not mean by taking from them Their Land For it was Hardly possible they should be more fairly dealt withal than they have been in that particular but by Teaching of them Our Vice We that should have learn'd them to Pray have learn'd them to Sin Endeavors for their Conversion have by many people been blown upon but there have been wicked English who have taught them to drink yea and to curse and swear things which they knew not the meaning of till they came to School unto such White Pagans as some that wear the Christian Livery among our selves And have not we also Followed the Indians The Indians are Infamous especially for Three Scandalous Qualities They are Lazy Drones and love Idleness Exceedingly They are also most impudent Lyars and will invent Reports and Stories at a strange and monstrous rate and they are out of measure Indulgent unto their Children there is no Family-Government among them But O how much do our people Indianize in every one of those Abominable things We must repent of these our miscarriages or else our God will take up that Resolution concerning us
I will even for sake them saith the Lord. Secondly Let not Sin be With us and God will be so T is the purpose of our God in Josh. 7. 12. I will not be with you except ye destroy the Accursed Thing from among you Let us then Destroy that Accursed thing Especially Let us take heed of the Sins which at this Time we have a peculiar Disposition to It was complain'd in Hos. 7. 1. When I would have healed Israel the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered It has bin thus but God will not be With us if it still be thus among our selves Our good God the Lord our Healer is now Healing of us O let us not now be impatient patients lest that our blessed Physitian deal hardly and roughly with us Impatiens aegrotus crudelem facit Medicum Let us now no more discover Revengefulness against them that have deserved Ill of us Let the Law and not the Sword measure out their due unto them No more discover an Unthankfulness unto them that have deserved Well of us Requite them not with Censure and Hatred for their unwearied pains to preserve our Peace No more discover a Contempt of the Ministers who set themselves faithfully to Declare the Whole Counsil of God and to Lift up their voice like a Trumpet in shewing us our sins They are all agreed I hope as one man to live and dye studying of your Well-fare but if they are unjustly ill-treated with you the great God whose Messengers they are will take notice of it and say Ye have despised Me And O let us no more Discover such a Spirit of Lying as we have made our selves worthy to be reproved for We find mention of an Evil Spirit that said in 1. King 22. 22. I will go forth and I will be a lying spririt in the moâ—…th of all the prophets Doubtthe same Devil has been saing for a License to go forth and be a Lying Spirit in the month of near all the people here I would to God this Devil were in a Shorter Chain I beseech you Let not this Land have that Character A Countrey full of Lies But of all our Errors There is none of such dangerous and threatning Consequence as the 〈◊〉 which we are too prone to break forth into We are too much a Conâ—…entioâ—…s and that will soon render us a Wretched and a Ruin'd people A Divided and Quarrelsome People do even say to the Almighty Depart from us for He is the God of Peace But O What is our meaning then to make a fall submission entire resignnation of our selâ—…es to the Tyranny of our own Passions as we have too much done whâ—…le we have been debating about the Measures of another Submission and Resignation in our various Revolutions I have read of a people with whom it was a Law That in a Fray where Swords were drawn If a Child did but cry PEACE they must End the Quarrel or else he dyed that strook the first blow after PEACE was named He that Considers the Feavourish Paroxysms which this Land is now raging in through meer Misunderstandings about the Means leading to the End wherein we are generally agreed and how ready we are to treat one another with siery Animosities had need cry Peace Peace with a very speedy importunity For my own part I confess my self but a Child and among the meanest the smallest of your Children too but yet I am old enough to cry Peace and in the Name of God I do it Peace my dear Countrey-men Let there be Peace in all our Studies Peace in all our Actions and Peace notwithstanding all our Differences We cannot avoid having our Different Sentiments but Peace I say O let not our Dissents put us upon Hatred and Outrage and every evil work It has not a little surprised mee to read in a Greek Author who wrote Fifteen hundred years ago that in the times long praeceding his there was a Tradition among them that Europe and Asia and Africa were Islands encompassed by the Ocean without and beyond which was another as big as They in which other World were mighty and long-liv'd people inhabiting of great Cities the two greatest whereof were called one of them The Fighting City the other of them The Godly City Behold very Ancient Footsteps of the knowledge which the old World had of our America some Thousands of years ago But I pray which of them American Cities must New-England become Incorporate into Truly If we are a Fighting or a Disagreeing People we shall not be a Pious one We have hitherto professed our selves A Countrey of Puritans I beseech you then let us have the wisdom to be first pure then peaceable Every man should count himselfe liable to follies mistakes Misprisions not a few Are you so or are you not If you are not what do you here in this Lower World where you can find no more of your own Attainments If you are so then be patient and peaceable towards those who see not with your eyes Let us all condescend one unto another and let no man be in a foaming Rage if every Sheaf do not bow to hiâ—… There is one ingenious way to unite this people if it were so heeded as it ought to be I remember an inquisitive person of old that he might know which was the Best Sect among all the Philosophers he asked one and another and every one still preferr'd the Sect which he was of himself But he then asked them successively Which do you reckon the next best and they all agreed that next to their own Plato's was the Best upon which he chose That as indeed the Best of all Thus We all have our several Schemes of things and every man counts his own to be the Best but I would say to every man Suppose your Scheme laid aside What would you count the Next Best Doubtless we should be of One mind as to That And if we could act by the common measures of Christianity we should foon be united in it O that we could receive the Word of the Lord Jesus in 2. Cor. 13. 11. Brethren live in peace and the the God of Love and Peace shall be with you Thirdly Let every man do his Part and his Best in this Matter That God may be with us Behold a work provided for all sorts of men Pardon me that I first offer it unto You that are or may be our Superiours It was said in Hos. 11. 12. Iudah ruleth with God When Rulers are with God O happy Government Unto YOU much Honoured I would humbly address this Petition That Your first work may be to think on some considerable Expedient by which the Presence of God may be secured unto us A little Consultation may soon produce what all New-England may bless you for Yea t is very much in your Power to do what may have a Tendency to perpetuate the Presence of God unto the succeeding Generations I cannot for
presence of God going with them What was that Why They had a cloudy siery Pillar miraculously Leading of them every step of the way There was a wonderful Pillar which was a Cloud by day and a Fire by night the Lower part of which rested on the Tabernacle while the Upper part was to be seen by the whole Congregation the Motions of this being managed by the Ministry of Angels now God was with them and He led them forth by the right way A people are often brought into a Wilderness of Difficulties and Emergencies but if God be with them He guides them to a good Issue of them all The Presence of God appears in His Directing and Inclining of a people to such Actions as may be for His Honour and their Safety and such Methods as may extricate them out of all Distresses When God is with a people He shapes their Counsels for them and he disposes them to the Things that should be done He supplies them with Apprehensions beyond the Reach and Verge of their own Wisdome and He layes before them Invitations and Provocations which as it were push them into the way wherein they should go When the Jews were upon a Re-Assumption of the desireable things which the Babylonians had deprived 'em of they took a Right Way to dissappoint all that were desirous to interrupt them in it We find in Neh. 4. 13. That while those Exercises continued they waited in a posture agreeable thereunto and when the danger was over then they returned every one to his work How came this to pass 'T was because GOD was with them Secondly God is with a People by Protecting of them 'T was the promise of God unto His people in Isa. 43. 2. When thou passest thro' the Waters I will be with thee and thro' the Rivers they shall not overflow thee On which Text blessed Bilney after his Condemnation so sweetly paraphrased that his Friends caused the whole Sentence to be fairly written on their Tables A people may be ready to be swallow'd up by a stormy gaping Ocean of Troubles but if God be with them they shall escape clear of all The Presence of God is a Defence a Refuge to the people that are partakers of it It was said unto David in 2. Sam. 7. 9. I was with thee and have cut off all thine enemies out of thy sight When God is with a people He distracts and confounds their enemies and He troubles those who trouble them A people who have God with them are too strong for all the Malice and Power of their enemies no Adversary no Desolation shall make such a people miserable they are the Iacob unto whom in Gen. 28. 15. Behold I am with thee and I will keep thee saith the Lord. Thirdly God is with a people by His Assisting and Succeeding of them When Ioshua had a vast Undertaking in hand it was said unto him in Cap. 1. 9. Be of good Courage for the Lord thy God is with thee whither soever thou goest q. d. God will Assist thee and succeed thee in thy undertakings The Presence of God will carry a people comfortably through all that they take in hand If they have Canaanites to subdue if they have Enjoyments to obtain or preserve the Presence of God will prosper them in doing all It was said unto Solomon in 1. Chron. 22. 11. My son the Lord be with thee and prosper thou and build the house of the Lord thy God Thus if the Lord be with a people they shall prosper in all their Affairs in every Expedition they shall come off with Satisfaction and they shall not miscarry in any of their Applications This is the Presence of the Lord. Proposition II. The Presence of God with a people in His Outward Providence has a diverse Foundation and Continuance from His Presence with His People in the Covenant of Grace As t is well observed by the great Owen in a Discourse unto the Parliament These two are to be carefully distinguished We must not reflect on the Stability of the New-Covenant for what Variety and Soveraignty we may see in providential Dispensations toward this and that people in the world This matter seems determined by David in 2. Sam. 23. 5. Tho' my house be not so with God yet He has made with me an Everlasting Covenant ordered in all things and sure David had promises for the prosperity of his House He had also the sure mercies of the Covenant made over to him in the promises of God These promises had now a different Establishment The Sure mercies of the Covenant were unto him more Absolute and Immutable but the prosperity of his House we find under another Law and subject unto a dreadful Alteration To bring these things into the case before us God has in the Covenant of Grace promised That He will be with His people This we read in Heb. 13. 5. He hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee The Alsufficient God who is HEE that answers our Necessities Let them be what they will the Unchangeable God who is HE still whatever He was to the Saints of old this God hath said and how much better is this Autos Eireken than the best Ipse dixit in the world He hath said it and this with multipli'd Negatives in the Original heaped one upon another I will not I will not leave thee I will not I will not I will not forsake thee Well but God is not with a people in His outward Providence just after the manner therein observed This Two-fold Presence of God First It has a Diverse Foundation When we look on the Covenant of Grace there the Sins of one are expiated by the Sufferings of another and so God comes to be with His people for whom the Atonement is thus Procured Thus t is said in 2. Cor. 5. 25. Christ was made sin or a Sin-offering for us that we might become the Righteousness of God in Him Now come to outward Providence and there you see other measures taken Here God is with a people according to those Terms in Ezek. 18. 20. The Soul that sinneth IT shall dye one shall not bear the Iniquity of nother Again It hath a Diverse Continuance When we look on the Covenant of Grace there God hath bound Himself to be with His people for ever yea to see that they shall therefore for ever be with Him He there saies as in Jer. 32. 40. I will not turn away from them to do them good but I will put My fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from Me. Now come to outward Providence and there you see t is otherwise God is with a people for a while and upon their misbehaviours and provocations He changes the Tenour of His Dispensations to them T is with them as it was with that family in 1. Sam. 2. 30. I said indeed that thy house should walk before me forever But now the Lord saies