forged against you condemning every tongue that hath risen up against you in judgement I need not name the particulars I am perswaded your selves beleeve that no former Parliament can parallell Gods dealing towards you and all this while let me speak freely how little have you done for his honour and glory I know your distractions have unavoidably hindered much of what might and I hope else would have been done But say in this day of your thanksgiving if you be not infinitely behinde hand with this Lord God Almighty with this King of Saints if you have not ordinarily forgot his mercies as fast as he hath wrought them Hath he not often filled your hearts with joy and your purses with money and you like unthrifty children have played away all at a cast Have you not checked his providences not improved his deliverances and the advantages which God hath put into your hands or if your hearts at any time have been raised a little have they not presently been at a dead low ebb again have you not gone about to kill his goodnesse with your unkindnesses by provoking him at the sea even at the red sea even when and where he hath delivered you Especially have not many of you dishonoured his Name and grieved his Spirit by your sinfull lives by breaking out into things extreamly scandalous doing the devills work while you professe your selves to be the Lords servants Let me tell you the Lord will not alwayes strive in one way in the way of mercy and deliverance when he hath many a time delivered a people and they goe on to provoke him with their counsells he knowes how to say I w 〈◊〉 ll deliver them no more he knowes how to bring them low for their iniquity and to give them up into the hands of their enemy he that for a long time hath seemed unweariable in watching over an unthankfull people will prove weary of repenting and in stead of saying I have seene their wayes and will heale them will in the end sweare I will overturn them overturn them overturn them as a man wipeth a platter turning it upside down Secondly consider your own place and standing the calling office and work wherewith God and his people have trusted you at this time doe with a wide and loud voyce call upon you to feare the Lord and glorifie his Name More then the salvation of your own soules depends upon you the glory of Christ the establishment of this Church and Kingdome yea the welfare of all Christendome in great measure are all imbarked in that vessell the steering whereof is in great part committed unto you You are in part one of the Angels who are to poure out the viall of the wrath of God who should therefore come out of the temple cloathed in pure and white linnen having your breasts girded with golden girdles adorned like the Priests of God holy and pure Be you cleane yee that beare the vessels of the Lord Honourable and beloved how a bominable a thing were it to see the Angels of God live like the instruments of Satan how uncomfortable a thing would it be to the people of God who have chosen you to this worke and beare you in their hearts and present you every day at the throne of grace who are willing to sinke and swimme with you to live and dye with you that they should hear that such and such a Parliament man will be drunke that such an one dare blaspheme and swear and abuse Religion that Reformers of Religion should hate religion that such as are called to save the Kingdome should betray the Kingdome that in the grief of their spirits they should be compelled to say O Lord can these men save us tell it not in Gath publish it not in the streets of Askelon How dishonourable would it be not only to you but to the King of Saints who useth you that they who hate the worke you are about should hate it the more in regard of your wicked lives who are intrusted with it That they should have occasion to say of you as Amurath the great Turke said of the Christians who brake their league and Covenant with him and therefore sped accordingly O Iesus are these thy Christians if thou beest a God as they professe thee to be revenge this impiety upon them So when Papists and Atheists and such as hate religion and reformation when they shall see the deformity of your lives shall say O Iesus are these thy Reformers are these the Angels that must pour out the vials of thy wrath Oh beloved do not with Elies sonnes occasion men to abhorre the work of the Lord far be it from you But let the office you are called unto the place you are set in the worke and the dignity of the work ingage you to glorifie the name of Christ that both his work may prosper in your hands and your selves be established before the Lord for ever But if you will not hearken to me let me sadly speak it to you you are as a City set upon an hill you and your wayes are looked upon by all men and if you hinder the worke by your lives which your office calls you to further it were better you had never been born into the world Them that honour Christ he will honour and them that despise him shall be lightly esteemed yea he knowes how to make use of you and your gifts to promote his cause and to destroy you for the iniquity of your lives as many of those who forwarded the building of the arke yet perished in the waters Thirdly consider how loud this dayes deliverance cries in your eares to ingage your selves to feare him and glorifie his name who hath wrought this great salvation for you It were a wastefull expence of time to insist upō the particulars of this late bloudy design in this Assembly though in others usefull All the light we have about it comes from you The many great and high hands which were ingaged in it the subtilty of the contrivance the neernesse of the execution the woefull consequences and the bloudy fruits which must needs have issued from it The good hand of God in crushing this cockatrices egge before it brake out to be a fiery flying serpent are fit things to be published and to be spread abroad in other Congregations But to you I shall only be a remembrancer of thus much That you knew not your neer approaching danger and that had this treacherous and bloudy contrivance took effect many of you had been at your long home ere this time and the rest of this Honourable Assembly hitherto the great preservers of our liberty had beene made as a Parliament of Paris the greatest instruments of the Kingdomes slavery and vassallage for time to come But the Lord was awake when we slept and hath took the enemies in the pit which they digged and hath filled your hearts
greatnesse of his strength we finde him leading them in uncouth wayes which they knew not and wayes which to them seemed unpassable His way hath been in the sea and his pathes in the great waters and his footsteps were not known yet still leading his people like a flock sometimes removing mountains our of their way making them flow down at his presence sometimes skipping over them sometimes his way hath been in the whirl-winde and in the great storm yet always working in such wayes and in such a manner as that first his own people have thought he could intend nothing but their ruin as Ionah did when cast into the Sea and swallowed up by the Whale an unlikely way of deliverance and in such wayes secondly as to the enemy have ever seemed most advantagious to their own purposes and destructive to the Church God suffering them to lay the Plot for their own ruin to dig a pit for their own destruction and making the ways by them intended for the Churches ruin to be the greatest meanes of their deliverance as fully and clearly as Hamans Plot proved the exaltation of the Iews and Mordecai and the ruine and destruction of himself and family a Volume might be filled with instances of this kinde The device of Charles the fifth to disinherit the Duke of Saxony to keep the Landgrave of Hessen in perpetuall imprisonment thereby intending utter ruine to the Protestant party in Germany was the very occasion of the confederacy of Smalcald which almost drove Charles out of Germany and established the Protestant party in the liberty of their religion The Massacre in France in which were destroyed within the space of thirty dayes as the Historian reports it above seventy thousand Protestant souls proved ye know a means within a short space to double and treble if not quadruple their numbers in that Kingdom and procured them publike Edicts and Cautionary Towns for the liberty and security of their Religion which before they had not The cruelty and tyranny of the Spaniards in the Netherlands one of whose Deputies Duke D'Alva boasted that he put to death six and thirty thousand Hugenots and Protestants hath been the greatest meanes to prevent the swelling of his intended Monarchy and increase the freedom and strength of the Protestant party not onely in the five United Provinces but in all these parts of Europe Who that hath read the Scottish Story is ignorant that the Archbishop of St. Andrews cruell burning of Mr. George Wischart conferred much to the Reformation of that whole Kingdom The time would fail me to tell you of the desperate Conspiracies of the Priests and Jesuits in England all the time of Queen Elizabeth of the Powder-treason and their unwearied Machinations in other States and Churches and how constantly the Lord hath turned them all to the advantage of his Church and to bring ruine and destruction upon the contrivers of them And if any of you have not had time or means to observe these things in Story your eyes cannot but see them all fulfilled in Christs late and present dealings with our selves and our brethren of Scotland For them what great things hath the Lord lately done and by what very weak means hardly the fifth part of the Nobility as I have heard appearing for them the greater part openly opposing them scarse one fourth part of the Kingdom owning the Cause how often were they at their wits end when some unexpected door was opened to them And were not all their works wrought for them by the rage cruelty and cunning of their enemies Were not the book of Service and the book of Canons sent and obtruded upon them from England the occasion of their late mercies was not the tyrannie of a few of their Prelats a means to unburden them of their whole Prelacy and when they were as much shut up in straits as the Israelites at the Red-sea and knew not over-night what would become of them the next morning then constantly some absurd desperate Plot or other of their enemies brake out which gave them an out-gate to escape And even so hath God dealt with England his work amongst us is of the very same warp and woof The great mercies which we enjoy the great deliverances we have lately received from what a high hand have they come to what a very dead low ebbe were we brought Our liberty almost swallowed up and turned into slavery our Religion into Popery and Arminianisme and even then God remembred us in our low estate and by what instruments becommeth me not to speak much in your own presence Your selves know how sinfull and all the Kingdom how mean and contemptible in the eyes of your adversaries they looking upon you as Sanballat and his company did upon Nehemiah and his builders and with like scorn uttering the same reproaches What do these feeble Iews will they fortifie themselves will they make an end in a day will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish even that which they build if a fox go up he shall even break down their stone wall And well may you take up the builders complaint Hear O our God for we are despised and yet by such despised broken vessells hath the Lord hitherto delivered us And which is still more wonderfull to the glory of God be it spoken our greatest deliverances have been more promoted by the cunning treachery and violence of the enemy then by the foresight vigilancy and strength of our best friends The Prelates late Canons and Oath purposely contrived for the perpetuating of their Hierarchy and their other treacherous and malicious endeavours against the State joyning with the Papists and with them labouring to turn all into confusion rather then suffering the least abatement of their former pride and tyranny have helped thus farre towards the taking them away both root and branch The multitudes of calumnies and reproaches cast upon the Parliaments just proceedings slighting their Authority slandering their intentions misinterpreting their actions have they not through the goodnesse of Him who preserveth them from the strife of tongi been an occasion of making their Authority Priviledges intentions actions clear as the Sun at noon day And to instance no further this late bloudy and mischievous Design in which this Honorable Senate this famous Citie and with them our lives religion laws and liberties had undoubtedly been made a prey to their mercilesse rage and fury the Lord hath not onely brought to light without any foresight or watchfulnesse of yours but made those that were the contrivers to be the discoverers their own evidence and confession being the thread which lets you into the depths and labyrinths of those counsels which they had digged deep to hide if possible even from the eyes of God himself and thereby giving you a great opportunity the Lord in mercy teach you to improve it to advance the glory of his Name for
onely upon the followers of the Beast the worshipers of the Beast the kingdome of the Beast therefore let none feare any hurt frōthese judgments which Christ is now inflicting but such as either secretly or openly harbour any of Antichrists acursed stuff which must be destroyed let it be I beseech you your speedy care to cast out of this Nation and Church all those reliques which are the oyl and fuel that feed the flame which burnes amongst us God calls you now to this work and will be with you while you set your hearts and hands to doe it and doe it speedily it may be it is one Cause why so many breaches are made upon you because you have no more vigorously attempted it in the first place and fear not that ye should therby lose a party or strengthen a party against you beleeve it that party that hath drunk of the whores cup and is in love with her abominations will never be assistant nor wil Christ suffer them to overthrow the worke committed to your hands they may and shall destroy themselves bringing the curses written in this book upon themselves and their posteritie as Achan did by hiding the Babylonish garment and wedg of gold in his tent but the Lord will be with you therefore go on and prosper 2. Observe That how ever in the pouring out of these vialls in the destroying of the Antichristian faction Christ useth the ministery of Angels of instrumēts comming out of the Temple and fitted for that work yet the work is ascribed to Christ alone Great and marvellous are thy workes just and true are thy wayes thy judgments are made manifest Many worthy and excellent instruments hath Christ stirred up and employed in this Service many famous and learned Divines many excellent Nobles many illustrious Kings Queenes and Princes many grave Senates and Parliaments amongst whom I doubt not Yourselves will one day be recorded have put their hands to this worke to make this harlot desolate and naked to eat her flesh and burne her with fire for God hath put it in their hearts to fulfill his will but they conferre nothing of their own to the work they are but his instruments his bow and his battle-axe meer dead tooles who receive all their efficacy and operation from his hand who useth them their presence addes no strength to him their absence makes the work no more difficult to him And therefore let not our faith comfort ebbe and flow with the increase wane of humane helps Let us not therefore thinke the work will sooner be done because strong is our hand and arme of flesh nor that we are therefore like to lose the cause because our helpes prove either weake or treacherous the viall now pouring out is the Lords work and he will see it done doubt ye not 3. observ. That all the time of Christs pouring out the vialls of his wrath upon Antichrist should be a joyful time to the Church of Christ al those daies should be days of Purim days of thāksgiving though they stand upon a sea mingled with fire they should have the harpes of God in their hands and Hallelujahs in their mouths because Christ is judging the great whore and avenging the bloud of his servants at her hand Although it be so disposed by Christ that during the time of the vialls his Churches have much bitternesse and the hayle of every storme in some degree lights upon them yet must they overlook their own sufferings and be filled with joy for the judgments executed upon Christ's and their enemies and not deferre their prayses till their deliverances be compleat but upon every new deliverance to them and upon every new judgment upon the enemies have their mouths filled with new and renewed songs of prayse and thanksgivings to God as we doe this day These many such like general observations from the words are obvious to every eye very seasonable and suitable to the mercies celebrated this day I desire that they may not lightly be passed over in your thoughts though I shall say no more of thē purposing to confine my speech to one only observation which indeed is the very {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} of the Text the burden of the song and to apply it for the same ends and uses for which it is here recorded by the Holy Ghost viz. The workes of Christ in the pouring out the vialls of his wrath in taking vengeance of the Antichrist and his followers are great and wonderfull fit to be wrought by him onely who is the Lord God Almighty just and true well becoming the King of Saints First they are great works whether of Mercy or Judgment or are great when they are the effects either of great wisedome in their contrivance or of great power in their production Secondly marvellous or wonderfull and that in a threefold respect First such as are rare and unusuall which seldome happen these draw mens eyes after them and make men wonder at them Secondly such as are unexpected which come praeter spem things which no body would think to come to passe Thirdly and chiefly things are wonderfull which are beyond our comprehension whereof we cannot see the causes whose height and depth cannot be measured such as nothing but the power of an infinite and Almighty God can bring to passe Thirdly Iust Wayes are just when they are according to a right rule and wayes of judgement of which my Text are then just when they are according to the nature kinde and degree of the sinnes against which they are executed Thou art righteous O Lord because thou hast judged thus for they have shed the bloud of thy Saints and Prophets and thou hast given them bloud to drink for they are worthy Even so Lord God Almighty true and righteous are thy judgements Fourthly True Wayes are then true when according to Covenant when done according to what was foretold and these wayes become a King of Saints other Kings often deal unjustly bearing the sword to execute wrath upon them that do well strengthening the hands of them that do evill condemning the righteous and acquitting the wicked and often untruly breaking their Oaths falsifying their Covenants but this King of Saints doth so manifest his righteous judgements that his people shall be able to say According to their deeds and according to his Word hath he repayed fury to his adversaries recompense to his enemies and his enemies though with gnashing of teeth shall acknowledge with Adonibezek As we have done so hath God done unto us Now that Christs judgements hitherto manifested in the pouring out the vialls of his wrath in thus farre destroying this great Antichristian enemy are thus great and wonderfull thus just and true may easily appear to every carefull Observer of the Church-story in these parts of Christendome this last Century of years since this work hath been in hand
The particular instances are too many to be related in a Sermon I shall mention onely some few things which as so many continued threads have run through this whole peece of his workmanship first in the greatnesse and wonderfulnesse secondly in the truth and righteousnesse of them First these works have been great and wonderfull for the kinde When the Antichristian Empire which at first was contrived with that wisedome and underpropped with that strength ruling even the souls and consciences of men and had prevailed so farre that all the Kings and States of the World were so drunken with the Whores Cup that they not onely kissed her well-favoured face but as so many brute beasts lay at her foot-stooll prostituting all their power and strength unto the Beast and under her command making warre even against the Lamb himself and helping to drink the bloud of his Saints none daring to question the truth or rather divinity of her Commands so that she could glorifie her self and say in her heart I sit as a Queen and shall see no sorrow now that suddenly it should be put into the hearts of most of the Europaean States to hate this Whore to endeavour to make her desolate and naked to eat her flesh and burn her with fire how great and marvellous doth this speak the work for the kinde of it Who but the Lord God Almighty could do this It is certainly the Lords doing and must be marvellous in our eyes Secondly if we consider the time which our Lord Christ was pleased to make choyce of for the effecting these great works they will appear yet more wonderfull even when his Church was at the lowest when he saw that their power was gone and there was none shut up or left when the enemy was come in like a flood and no man to lift up a standard against him when he saw that there was no helper even then put he on righteousnesse as a breast-plate and an helmet of salvation upon his head and the garments of vengeance for his cloathing Who can be ignorant of these things who knows not the low condition of Germany when Luther first appeared though onely against the notorious abuse of the Popes Indulgences and other luxuriant branches of his Tyrannicall usurpation insomuch that a Bishop wishing him well yet despairing of successe counselled him as the Story reports after this manner Frater frater abi in Cellam dic Miserere mei Deus To thy beads Frier thou wilt do no good in this work For the people of Germany were at that time so bewitched with the sorceries of the Whore and so enthralled to her power that as that proud Cardinall too confidently boasted they were ready at the Popes command for the redemption of their souls to have eaten grasse and hay more pecudum after the manner of brute Beasts And was not the Church in other Countries as low namely at the first appearing of Zuinglins and Oecolampadius in Helvetia of Calvin Viret and Farell in France Cranmer Latimer Ridley especially Bilney and Tyndall in England Hamilton Wischart Knox and others in Scotland at that time when in a word the whole Church might have taken up that complaint Ezek. 37. 11. Our bones are dried our hope is lost we are cut off for our parts then did our Lord Christ open their graves and cause them to come up out of their graves and made them live and stand up upon their feet an exceeding great army this also must needs be acknowledged to be the work of the Lord God Almighty who is wonderfull in counsell and excellent in working And as the kinde and time so thirdly the consideration of the meanes and instruments renders them yet more wonderfull to effect great things by weak meanes is an argument of great power and strength That the walls of Iericho should fall at the blast of trumpets of rams horns that a Cake of barley bread tumbling into the hoast of Midian should come unto a tent and smite it and overturn it that the tent should lie along that Gideon and three hundred men with lamps and empty pitchers should overthrow the whole hoast of Midian who came as grashoppers for multitude they and their Camels being without number that a woman should compasse a man a weak woman subdue a mighty man these are New things as the phrase there is Behold the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth a woman shall compasse a man c. And yet this you shall see was no new but Gods usuall and constant course which he takes in this work pouring out these Vialls of his wrath upon this potent enemy by the ministery of most weak and contemptible instruments pulling his Church out of the dungeon of Superstition by old cast clouts and rotten rags as once Ebedmelech the Ethiopian did the Prophet Ieremie Was not Luther a poor Monk and other priests and shavelins newly crept out of their superstitious Cells the first Engineers that battered the walls of this great Babylon who were they but the poorer meaner sort of people that at the first joyned with the Ministers to raise the building of Reformation few of the Princes and Nobles putting their necks to the work of the Lord or if any did yet the Divine Providence so ordered it that either they were suddenly taken off as the Duke of Saxony and Landgrave of Hessen by imprisonment or immaturely taken away as Edward the sixth by death or more miraculously preserved as Queen Elizabeth a woman in England and King Iames a childe in the beginning of Reformation in Scotland and although in the progresse of the work many Kings and Princes have stood up as nursing Fathers yet still we may observe that the greatest things have been done by them from whom least could be expected as not to trouble you with more instances the almost incredible and strange proceedings of the late victorious King of Sweden will abundantly testifie who as a contemptible Prince crossing the Baltick-sea entred Germany with not above five or six thousand men and a very small sum of Mony and yet in as little time had before his death almost brought to nothing that mighty House of Austria thought by many to be the Sun giving light and influence to the Antichristian world upon which the fourth Viall was to be poured out I might I say give you many other instances this may suffice God will you may be confident in time make all the world know that this great Image this great Antichristian Oppressour shall be broken in pieces by a Stone cut out of the Mountains without hands without humane help Fourthly and lastly and above all the manner of his working proves them most wonderfull For if we observe but the goings of this King of Saints if we trace him in his footsteps in this great work of execution upon his enemies marching before his people travelling in the
chew these cordialls the more sweetness shall we draw from them O therefore that Christ would open our eyes that we might see his wonders in their just dimensions in the wisdome power faithfulnesse greatnesse justice and truth shining in them that those things might be glorious and excellent in our eyes which are mean and common in the eyes of others that wee might be able to answer such as see no such thing in them with the Painter who being much taken with a piece though seeming plain yet of excellent workmanship to one ignorantly asking him what worth he saw in that poor peece O friend couldst thou see with my eyes thou wouldst be ravished with it And that our mouths might be filled with praises all the day long especially upon this day purposely set apart by us thankfully to record the great and wonderfull works the true and righteous judgements of our King of Saints In delivering us from the hurtfull sword in being on our side when men rose up against us in causing our soul to escape as a bird out of the snare of the fowler making their mischief to return upon their own head causing them to sink down in the pit which they made in the net which they hid is their own foot taken And so much for the first Use the Use of Admiration The second use the Church makes here of the works of Christ is to provoke and quicken themselves up to fear him and glorifie him Who would not fear thee and glorifie thy Name for thou onely art holy Lord who can understand these works of thine thus great and marvellous thus just and true and not acknowledge thee to be the onely holy One Let me presse it by way of exhortation to provoke you to the same duty Where first I must open what is meant by fearing and glorifying his Name and that which is made the ground of this fear and glory because thou onely art holy and first of his holinesse Holinesse whatever it is predicated of is nothing but a separation of the thing from common uses and to sanctifie is to respect it according to such separation or as becomes its holinesse and holinesse in God is nothing but the incommunicable Eminency of the Divine Majesty exalted above all other eminences whatsoever So that to be holy alone or to be the holy one in Scripture signification and to be God is all one Hab. 1. 12. Art not thou from everlasting my Lord my God my holy One Isai. 17. 7. At that day a man shall look to his Maker and his eye shall have respect to the holy One of Israel that is unto God Psal. 89. 18. The holy One of Israel is our King that is Iehovah is our King Amos 4. 2. The Lord hath sworn by his holinesse that is the Lord hath sworn by himself So then for thou onely art holy is as much as to say Thou onely art God these works of thine thus great and marvellous thus just and true sufficiently speak or prove thee O King of Saints to be the Lord God Almighty Secondly fear who would not fear thee To fear in this sense and in this place is to give that awfull respect unto Christ as becommeth his Excellency to serve him with a singular separate incommunicable service and is so commonly in the Scripture taken for the whole duty which we owe unto him thus to fear God and to take him for our God alone is all one Gen. 31. 53. Iacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac that is by the God of his father Isaac Isai. 8. 12 13. Neither fear ye their fear that is serve not their gods sanctifie the Lord of Hoasts and let him be your fear that is let him be your God alone And glorifie thy Name thy Name that is thy self thy Divine Majesty and to glorifie this holy One is not meant by making him glorious or by adding lustre or excellency to him which before he had not for who ever hath given unto him But to glorifie him is to acknowledge his excellency and glory to do unto him what may become his glorie to set up and exalt his glory To fear him then and glorifie his Name as the holy One is to acknowledge his Divinity to own him as their onely Lord and King and renouncing all other false Christs and Mediatours to devote themselves to serve him alone and worship him with a singular separate incommunicated worship his jealousie admitting no Corrivall there is none holy as the Lord neither shall any partake with him in his glory absolutely eminently to do to him themselves and to provoke others to do as becommeth his Excellency This is the duty which the Church here engageth her self unto and is in truth the whole of Christianity the summe of that everlasting Gospel which the Angel flying thorow the midst of heaven was to preach to them that dwell on the earth and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people saying with a loud voyce Fear God and give glory to him and worship him that made heaven and earth that is Iesus Christ alone by whom all things were created and by whom all things consist And this is the duty Honoured and Beloved which I desire to presse upon your selves even that you would be good Christians in your hearts and in your lives in your private places and in your publike standings to engage your selves with all your might with all your authority to advance the glory of Christ as the redeemed of the Lord as true Subjects to this King of Saints to offer up as a living sacrifice what ever you have or are to his service in advancing his Cause his Worship his Church doing it your selves and promoting it in others To this end I shall first give you a few quickning Motives to stir you up to make you ready and willing to your duty and secondly tell you what the Lord expects at your hands First consider what great and wonderfull things Our Lord hath already done for you and how little you have feared and glorified his Name to this day Who of you can count the great and righteous dealings of the Lord towards you not onely as you are men great or rich learned or noble nor onely as you are Christians redeemed called justified sanctified by this King of Saints though all and every of these mercies call loud upon you for this duty but I mean as you are a Parliament what great things he hath done for you in reference to this service wherein he hath lately employed you Hath he not carryed you in his bosome hath he not kept you as the apple of his eye as an Eagle fluttereth over her young spreadeth abroad her wings taketh them beareth them on her wings so the Lord alone hath preserved you How constantly hath he discovered and hitherto frustrated all the attempts of your enemies suffering no weapon of war to prosper that hath been
with joy and given you another day to praise him Can you upon this day of thanksgiving doe lesse then enquire What shall we render unto the Lord I will tell you what he calls for and expects from you and I beseech you by these mercies of God that you render it unto him That you present your bodies and your soules a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service that you feare him and glorifie his name for he only is holy Fourthly and principally consider the late sacred Covenant and vow which you have all entred into you have not only entred into it your own selves but intend to draw the whole Kingdome with you into the Oath of God let me minde you what you have done you saw we were designed to destruction and that Gods meer mercy hath hitherto prevented it You see there are still destructive and trayterous designes in hand in severall parts of the Kingdome you acknowledge your own sins with others have deserved all these judgements which either lye upon us or are threatned against us and as a means to prevent our utter ruine you think it necessary to enter into this Covenant with almighty God and you have done it wherein you acknowledge the desert of your own sins and you confess your hearty sorrow for them and your reall intentions to amend your own lives and what you will further doe to save and preserve Religion and all this you have done in Humility and reverence to the Divine Majesty calling the God of Heaven the searcher of all hearts to witnesse your integrity as you will answer it at that Day when the secrets of all hearts shal be disclosed Think now how deeply you are engaged and brought under the curse of God if you perform not this solemn Covenant Think how horrid a thing it will prove for any of you to stand as perjured men before God in marters of such Consequence Shall he break his Oath said God of a King and be delivered Shall he escape that doth these things O Beloved It is a fearfull thing in such cases especially to fall into the hands of the living God to whom you have appealed and whose vengeance if you wilfully fail you have invocated upon your own heads Lay therefore your hands upon your heart and think what your purposes and Resolutions are in these few things which I shall mention to you First for what is past what reall sorrow have ye in your hearts for those sins which you call God to witnesse you are thus sorry for How grievous is the remembrance of them how intolerable do you feel the burthen of them or do you take Gods Name in vain calling him to witnesse of the sorrow for those things which he knows you take pleasure in Think what answer you will make to this Secondly What are your Resolutions for time to come You know what blasphemies what prophanenesses what uncleannesses you have hitherto lived in what irreligion and libertinisme your selves and families have hitherto been guilty of else you would never have acknowledged your sins to have deserved these judgements Now I demand what you resolve to do for time to come Do you purpose to go on in your old ways He that was unjust to be unjust still he that was filthy to be filthy still and had no other purpose but to lead the Kingdom a dance to go before them in the formality of a service without changing your Leopards spots or your Blackmoors skins or in truth be you resolved being changed by the renewing of your minde to become new creatures to serve Christ in newnesse of spirit that Christ alone may reign as Lord and King hereafter both in your hearts and lives and families as Ioshuah did when he bid the Israelites choose whom they would serve for himself he was resolved though he went all alone He and his family would serve the Lord Thirdly as you are Parliament men what are your purposes concerning your faithfulnesse to Christ and the Cause of Christ and his Church committed to your hands If you should altogether fail deliverance will come another way the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against the Church of Christ But are ye really resolved to save the Church and Kingdom though your selves should perish in the attempt or do you intend under pretence of being factors for Christ to drive a trade for Satan and Antichrist to betray Religion and Liberty or to trade in both the Indies to have a stock going on both sides that you may save your own stake which side soever win or lose to save your own skin whatever become of the Kingdom Like a certain Despot of Servia of whom I have read in the Turkish History who lived among the Christians and kept correspondence with the Turk who was a publike worshipper of Christ but a secret circumcised Turk that that Turkish mark might save him if need were Have any of you such cunning devices to procure externall safety with the certain ruin of your souls Honoured and Beloved I hope better things of you all though I thus speak I hope you purpose according to your Covenant and what God requires and expects at your hands to stick close to Christ and his Cause to sink and swim with the Church and Cause of Christ with singlenesse of heart and unwearied resolutions to carry on the work of God to value your selves onely as his Instruments and let him do by you and with you what is good in his own eyes And for your Encouragement let me speak a little of the third Use which the Church here makes of these great and marvellous these just and true wayes and judgements of this King of Saints which is a Propheticall Prognostication and foretelling of what shall further happen upon the pouring out of every viall and that is more and more people and nations shall come in and submit to Jesus Christ the Nations shall come and worship before thee for thy judgements are made manifest And this inables me for your comfort to help you to an answer of the most difficult question and most perplexing thought that I am perswaded is in the heart of most men living at this day viz. God hath cast our Lot in very perplexed times all the banks are broken down all Gods judgments seem to invade us at once and Gods administration to the Kingdom is such that the wisest man cannot guesse by Gods dealing to day what he intends to do with us to morrow Sometimes the Lord enables a handfull of ours to chase thousands of the enemies Sometimes multitudes of ours flee as at the shaking of a leaf when none pursues them Sometimes we have rare Instruments unexpectedly raised up by and by very usefull men are taken off and hopefull men prove treacherous Sometimes the Lord seems to intimate as in a Cock-pit that one fight shall end the businesse one way or other otherwhiles all