Imprimatur Hen. Maurice Reverend Dom. Guliel Archiep Cant. Ã Sacris August 7. 1685. A SERMON Preached in the Parish Church of NEWBURY Berks On the 26th of July 1685. Being the Day of Thanksgiving for His Majesty's Late Victory over the Rebels By John Hinton A. M. Rector of the said Church and Prebendary of the Church of Sarum Published at the Joynt and Earnest Request of the Mayor Aldermen and Burgesses and other Inhabitants of the Place LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-yard 1685. TO THE Right Reverend Father in God SETH Lord Bishop of SARVM My Lord THough the Acceptance this plain Discourse has met with among those that honour the King and love the Church in the place where 't was Preached be a slender Excuse for exposing so very slender a Performance to the Censure of the World yet I am conscious to my self I should deserve to be more censured and have much less to excuse me if having ventured upon this occasion to appear in publick I should not take the Opportunity to make my Acknowledgment of your Lordships Favours to the Author as publick as the Discourse I am not so vain to crave your Lordships Patronage for what I know to be so unworthy of your Lordships View Nor do I make this Address to court your Approbation of a Sermon too mean for so great a Judgment as your Lordships to Approve being Composed only for a Vulgar Auditory and it self too vulgar even for that But the design of it how weakly soever managed being to promote Piety to God and Loyalty to the King Obedience and Gratitude to both I am willing to hope your Lordship who are your Self so Eminent an Example of all will Pardon the Faults of the Composition for the Honesty of the Design and forgive the presumption of prefixing so Great a Name to so Small Thing when the only end of it is to testify to the World the Sense I have of those many personal Obligations your Lordship has laid upon me which I never was nor am ever like to be in a Capacity to deserve And altho in publishing this Discourse I have sufficiently published my own Weakness to a Critical and Censorious Age yet if by this means I can but publish at once my Gratitude to your Lordship for your Lordships Kindness to my Self I am content to undergo the worst of Censures that either Good or Bad Men can pass upon My Lord Your Lordship 's most Obliged and Obedient Servant John Hinton SERMONS Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops Head in St. Pauls-Church-Yard Dr. Scot's Sermon before the L. Mayor July 26th 85. 4 o. Mr. Wagstaff's Sermon July 26th 1685. 4 o. Mr. Cooke's Sermon July 26th 1685. 4 o. Dr. Turner's Sermon at White-Hall May 29th 4 o. Dr. Sharpe's Sermon at White hall March 20th 4 o. Dr. Scot's Sermon before the L. Mayor Dec. 16th 4 o. Mr. Brown's Sermon about the Observation of Holy-Days 4 o. Mr. Leigh's Sermon of the keeping of Holy-Days 4 o. Mr. Gaskarth's Visitation Sermon at Bristol 4 o. Mr. Holland's Sermon at the Assizes at Leicester 4 o. Mr. Lamb's Sermon the Liberty of Humane Nature 4 o. Mr. Wagstaff's Sermon before the Lord Mayor 4 o. 1684. Sermon September 9th 1683. Mr. Gipps's three Sermons 4 o. Mr. Graile's four Sermons at Norwich 8vo Dr. Bridge's Sermon before the Lord Mayor 4 o. Mr. Turner's Sermon before Sir Patience Ward 4 o. Sermon September 9th 4 o. The Divine Omnipresence 4 o. About Transubstantiation Dr. Hicks's Sermon the Spirit of Enthusiasm 4 o. The strongest Temptation Conquerable by Christians 's Peculium Dei 4 o. 's True Notion of Persecution 's Moral Slechinah 4 o. 's Spittle Sermon 4 o. 's Sermon Worcester May 29th 4 o. 's Jan. 30th 4 o. Mr. Hopkins's Sermon before the Lord Mayor Mr. Battell's Sermon at the Assizes at Hertford A SERMON Preached in the Parish Church of NEWBURY Berks On the 26th of July 1685. Being the Day of Thanksgiving for His Majesty's Late Victory over the Rebels 2 Sam. 18.28 the latter part of the Verse Blessed be the Lord thy God which hath delivered up the Men that lift up their Hand against my Lord the King THey are the Words of Ahimaaz the Son of Zadok the Priest when he brought King David the good News of the Rebel Absalom's Defeat And that I may suit my present Discourse upon the Text to the present Solemnity of the Day this being the Day wherein we are commanded by His Majesty to return our Just Tribute of Praise and Thanksgiving to His and Our Dread Soveraign the King oâ— Heaven and Earth for his Infinite Goodness both to Him and us in delivering us from one of the most Infamous Rebellions that was ever contrived in Hell I say that I may suit my Discourse to the Solemnity I shall consider in the Words that I have read these Three Things which they very naturally present to our Observation First The Rebellion it self Secondly The Defeat of the Rebels and Thirdly The Thanksgiving for the Defeat The First being plainly signified to us in their lifting up their Hands against the King The Sâ—cond in God's delivering up the Men that â—ad so done and the Third in Ahimaaz his Blessing God for so delivering of them up I begin I. With the First of these The Rebellion it self or the Peoples lifting up their Hands against the King where I shall consider 1. The Author 2. The Impudence and 3. The Mischiefs of the Rebellion First For the Author of this Rebellion I have already hinted to you and if you look into the Context you will find 't was Absalom One of King David's Sons perverted and alienated from his Duty and Allegiance to the King through the vile Suggestions of the Devil and Achitophel by the too early desires and forbidden hopes of Empire and a Crown An ambitioâ—s vain young Man seduced upon slender Grounds into a great opinion of Himself and by that opinion betrayed into ill Counsels and worse Actions to the Grief of his Father and his own Shame The King ye must know had * 2 Sam. 14.24 Banished him his Presence and the Court for his ill Behaviour for no leâ—s a Crime than * 2 Sam. 13.23 30. Murther and the Murther no less than that of his own Brother and that too when he had first made him Drunk with that design and that design carried on under a preâ—ence of Friendship when he had inviâ—ed him and other of the King's Sons to a Solemn Feast A Crime one would have thought too great to have been easily forgiven But notwithstanding so * Chap. 13.39 fond was the King of this vile Fellow even to a Fault that after some time he gives him his * Chap. 14. ult Pardon receives him again into his Presence and his Favour and treats him with all the Tenderness of a Father with all the Magnificence of a King And now
Vice-gerent So that they could not but say * Psal 118.23 This was the Lords doing and'twas marvellous in their Eyes For the Kings Forces at least they that engaged were but few in Comparison of the Rebels and they were much fewer that fell in the Engagement We read of no less than * Vers 7 8. Twenty Thousand of the Rebels that were slain in the Battle besides we know not how many more destroyed and taken in the Pursuit But not a Word of any Considerable Loss that the King or the King's Forces had nor of any Considerable Officer of the King 's that fell The two chief of his Commanders Joab and Abishai we are sure survived the Defeat From all which 't is plain 't was * Psal 144.10 God who gave Victory to his King and delivered David his Servant from the peril of the Sword And accordingly in my Text we have the Honour of the Victory ascribed to God who Defeated the Rebels that had lift up their Hand against him But this brings me to the third thing considerable in my Text. III. The Thanksgiving for the Defeat And Ahimaaz said unto the King Blessed be the Lord thy God which hath delivered up the Men that lift up their Hand against my Lord the King In which words the good Man first acknowledges God to be the Author of the Deliverance and Secondly Offers unto him the just Tribute of Praise and Thanks for the Deliverance that he wrought 1. I say he acknowledges God to be the Author the sole Author of the Deliverance He Consesses 't is God that delivered up the Men that had lift up their Hands against his Lord the King And the same acknowledgment the thankful King makes himself in the 30th 37th 124th and in several other Psalms that are concluded by Learned Men to have been Composed upon this very Defeat wherein he confesses * Psal 30.3 That the Lord had kept his Life from them that went down to the Pit that * Psal 30.11 't was he that had turned his Heaviness into Joy and put off his Sackcloth and girded him with Gladness That Psal 37.39 the Salvation of the. Righteous cometh of the Lord who is also their Strength in the time of Trouble And that Psal 124.1 2 3 4. If the Lord had not been on their side now might they say if the Lord had not been on their side when Men rise up against 'em they had swallowed up 'em quick when they were so Wrathfully displeas'd at 'em Tea the Waters had drown'd 'em and the Stream had gone oven their Soul the deep Waters of the Proud had gone even over their Soul their Enemies had overwhelmed 'em like a mighty Deluge and buried 'em in the Flood And then he adds Verse 6. Blessed be the Lord who has not given us over as a Prey unto their Teeth Which is the second part of his Thanksgiving 2. The Oblation of his just Tribute of Praise and Thanks to the God whom he had before acknowledged for the Author of his Deliverance To which purpose we find him in the forementioned and in other Psalms Composed as I said before upon this Defeat Psal 30.1 Magnifying the Lord who had set him up and not made his Foes to Triumph over him And Commanding others to Magnifie the Lord with him * Psal 31.23 Oh Love the Lord all yet his Saints for the Lord preserveth them that are faithful and plenteously rewardeth the Proud Doer * Psal 40.16 Let all those that seek thee rejoyce and be glad in thee let such as love thy Salvation say continually The Lord be Magnified * Psal 27.6 And now shall my Head be lifted up above mine Enemies round about me God has given me a Glorious Victory and made me to Triumph over mine Enemies therefore will I offer in his Tabernacle Sacrifices of Joy I will sing yea I will sing Praises unto the Lord c. 'T is true the Death of Absalom did somewhat lessen and abate his Joy and he seems to lament it with a Great Lamentation * Verse 33. O Absalom my Son my Son Absalom would to God I had died for thee oh Absalom my Son my Son Insomuch that 't is said the Victory for a time was turn'd into Mourning unto all the People Chap. 19.2 But 't is not to be thought he was sorry for the Rebels Defeat No that had lately been the 01 matter of many Prayers 't was even now the matter 01 of many Praises unto God Doubtless 't was not the Death of the Rebel but the Death of the Man that he bewailed a Man whose Person he lov'd and whose Crimes he would have pardon'd Or rather 't was not the Death of the Rebel but the Rebel's dying with the Guilt of Rebellion upon him that he did not live as he would have had him that he did not live to repent but went out of the World as Rebels generally do without any Remorse for his Crime without any sense of his Sin or Danger without making his Peace with God or with the King without which there could be no hopes of Mercy for him And truly this is a sad Consideration indeed so sad that I must beg your Pardon for mentioning it upon a day of Thanksgiving upon a day of Joy But all our Joys in this World have a Tincture of Sorrow And the Mercy of God is never the less to us that others fall and will fall into the hands of Justice David therefore had reason to rejoyce and he did rejoyce in the Goodness of God toward him And * Psal 21.1 his Joy was great in his Salvation And surely ours my Brethren ought to be no less For God be blessed we have the very same reason for Joy we have the very same Obligation to Thanksgiving with David and the Men of Judah in my Text. And I pray God we may be as Joyful we may be as Thankful as they were The truth is our Case seems to be so much the same with theirs almost in every Partâ—cular that I cannot but wonder that I even stand amazed at the Exactness of the Parallel For with Changing only the Names of Things what has been said of this Conspiracy of Absalom's which was acted almost 3000. years ago might pass for the History of our Late Rebellion The one beâ—ng so perfect a Transcript of the other both as to the Rebels Defeated and as to the Defeat of the Rebels that in good earnest I am almost at a loss what to say in the Application of the Subject without saying over again what I have said already For we too have had a young foolish Absalom the ill Son of a good King corrupted by as Perfidious as Wicked an Achitophel from all sense of Duty to his Father to his Prince and by the like Vanity of Ambition by the like Affectation of Popularity betrayed into as ill Counsels into as ill Actions to
would have had it or that Absalom harkened to more Dilatory Counsels and slower Methods of Sedition than his were however that he died before this Horrid and Trayterous Conspiracy came to an Head and having before he Died set his House in Order being buried too in the Sepulchre of his Father near to the very place where our Rebellion began I could tell you of others delivered up to Slaughter or to Justice to Prison or to Death and of a general Dispersion of all the rest contemptible pieces of Mortality that are gone that are vanished like a Shadow and there place can no where be found I could tell you in the next place of the Suddenness as well as the Entireness of their Defeat how that their Calamity has risen as suddenly and as unexpectedly to themselves as their Rebellion did to us that they are speedily fallen themselves into the Pit they designed for others and were not so swift to shed Blood but they have brought upon themselves as swift Destruction I could tell you yet farther and I ought That the Providence of God has appeared likewise very wonderfully and signally on our King's side and That Heaven has manifestly fought for us too as it did for David and Judah in old time that we have vanquished a numerous Army with the loss of a Few so very few that perhaps no modern Story can parallel the Disproportion that if an hundred have not chased a Thousand nor two put two Thousand to Flight yet that for ought we hear with the loss of not many more than two Hundred we have routed more than twice two Thousand I could tell you of many other Instances of the Divine Mercy toward us that might make us with David sing for joy * Ps 86.10 Thou O Lord art great and dost wondrous things thou art God alone * Ps 77.14 Thou hast declared thy power among the People Thou hast mightily delivered thy People even the sons of Jacob and Joseph But the time would fail me and now I fear your Patience too should I insist upon these things or other things of this Nature and what I have hinted to you already is so well known to the Nation and to all of you here present that having drawn one Line to your Hands you may save me the Labour in drawing out the Parallel your selves Only I shall pray that you and I may continue the Parallel to the end in our Thanksgiving for the Defeat which is indeed the Last but should be the Chief Part of our Task What therefore remains my Brethren but that with Ahimaaz in my Text we also Bless the Lord our God who has delivered up the Men that lift up their Hands against our Lord the King and after the * Ps 124.6 Example of David give him our just Praises that he has not given us over as a Prey unto their Teeth Our King has himself given us his Royal Example He has given us his Royal Command for so doing You have lately heard by This Proclamation that upon due considerations hereof he does with all Humility admire and adore the late Mercy and Goodness of God in giving Victory to his Arms and Delivering him and his Kingdoms from the Miseries and Calamities that might and that constantly do ensue an Intestine and Unnatural Rebellion And that considering such Signal and Publick Mercies are an invitation from Heaven to render the most Publick and Chearful Expressions of Thankfulness to the Divine Goodness that we who equally share in the Blessings and Joys of this Deliverance may be United in the Devotions which are offered for it 't is his Will that the just Tribute of Praise and Thanksgiving to his and our Great Soveraign the King of Heaven and Earth be return'd by himself and us for the late Mercy Let then our Joy let our Praise be as Publick be as Universal as the Occasion Let us with David let us with our King ascriâ—e the Honour of the Victory to God let us offer Thanks and Praise unto God who has given us the Victory Let us give unto the Lord my Friends let us give unto the Lord Glory and Honour let us give unto the Lord the Glory due unto his Name Oh! Praise the Lord with me and let us Magnify his Name together High and Low Rich and Poor Young Men and Maidens Old Men and Children let us all Praise the Name of the Lord for his Name only is Excellent and his Praise above Heaven and Earth Oh! sing Praises sing Praises unto our God sing Praises unto our King sing Praises for God is the King of all the Earth sing ye Praises with Vnderstanding Let us Praise him with our whole Hearts let us Praise him among much People let as shew forth his Praise not only with our Lips but in our Lives by giving up our selves to his Service and by serving him without Fear Let the Righteous be glad and rejoyce before God Let them also be merry and joyful Rejoyce in the Lord ye Righteous yea and again I say rejoyce Shout unto God with the Voice of Triumph shout for joy all ye that are upright in Heart that he has not made our Foes to Triumph over us nor delivered us into the Hands of the Wicked whose very Mercies are Cruel This is the Day that the Lord has made let us rejoyce and be glad in it and be glad with exceeding Joy But let us not shew our Joy by our Excesses Nor let Gladness transport us beyond the Bounds of Sobriety and Discretion For true Joy as Seneca tells us is a * Sen. Epist 23.59 Severe a Serious and a Sober thing and can no where be found but in a temperate a just and a good Man Whoever rejoyces to Intemperance rejoyces to Madness rejoyces to his Sorrow he must one day be sorry for his very Joy And surely all such Rejoycing is Evil. This is not Rejoycing in God For 't is as Impossible as Absurd while we Rejoyce in his Mercy to Provoke his Wrath. * Eccl. 7.14 In this day of Prosperity therefore let us be Joyful but let our Joy be Religious let our Joy be Serious or to use the Expression of King David let us * Psal 2.11 rejoyce with Reverence Let us so rejoyce for past that we do not render our selves unworthy of future Mercies And if our Joy proceed from Gratitude let it appear by our Obedience by our Obedience to God by our Obedience to the King by performing the vows that we promised with our Lips and spake with our Mouths when we were in Trouble God of his Infinite Mercy hath delivered us from the Rebels and let not us rebel our selves against the God of our Deliverance nor against the King whom God has delivered But let us be thankful to God for his Goodness to our Sovereign let us be thankful to our Sovereign for his Goodness to us And let us Express our Thankfulness to the one and to the other by Honouring and by Fearing Both that he who has already delivered us may continue to deliver us from our Enemies and from the Hands of all that hate us till he settle us at length in the Holy Land the Land of Rest and Peace where no Absaloms no Achitophels nor any of their Associates dwell where even Conspiracies are Impossible and Rebellion has no place FINIS
regular Clergy they that kept to the Laws and observed the Canons of the Church they were all with David their Hearts were with him their Prayers were for him they wisht well to his Person they wisht well to his Cause they were sorry for his Troubles and added Tears to their Prayers the best Weapons they were able or had any Commission to use against the Rebels And all Loyal good men joyned with 'em in their Lamentations All the Country wept with a loud voice Chap. 15.23 All the considerable all the honest part of City and Country bewail'd and lamented the Rebellion All which considerations together with many more of the like nature that might be urged not only argue the guilt but demonstrate the impudence of the thing so much beyond dispute that whoever has any sense either of honesty or shame cannot but abominate the very thoughts of an Action they had the Forehead to act so extremely scandalous so scandalously vile For if thus to trample upon Majesty to fight against Heaven and revile the Gods if to fight for a Kingdom without a Title to a Crown to raise a Rebellion against a Lawful a Valiant a Just a Good King against the Laws of God against the Laws of the Realm against the Laws of Gratitude contrary to the Doctrine to the Practice of the Church to their own Promises and Oaths and to the Sentiments of all good Men if this be not the very height of impudence we may in due time learn modesty from Lucifer and acquit the old Rebel of Presumption But Thirdly As the Rebellion was extremely impudent in it self so 't was extremely fatal and mischievous and had it succeeded must have been much more so in its effects 'T is indeed hard to recount the miseries and calamities of any intestine and unnatural Rebellion whether it succeed or no. The mischiefs that naturally ensue are always great and always dreadful not only to the Rebels but to the King to the People to the Church to Religion in general that ought to be dearer to us all than Liberty or Property or Life And as for the Rebellion in my Text could I give you a prospect of a Country wasted and harrassed by the Violence of Blood-thirsty and Deceitful Men or set before you the Outrages the Rapes the Plunders the Frights usually committed and caused by military insolence could I represent to you with the confused noise of War the horror and sadness of Men wallowing and Garments rowled in Blood could I draw you the dismal scene of a Land defiled and covered or of Fields and Houses filled with Murther Rapine Villainy and Lust could I delineate the misery or Express the cries of Widows and Orphans made so by the Sword or compute the number of Families utterly ruined according to their Tribes could I describe the troubles of a Persecuted King or the sorrows of Afflicted Innocence could I set before you the Grief of the Church or exhibite the Joy and Triumph of the Enemies of God upon this occasion yet after all I could give you but a rude and imperfect draught of that abomination of desolation that this Rebellion caused in Judea The Truth is the Miseries of a Civil War are more than can be imagined by any but those that feel 'em and too great to be expressed by those that do And therefore we only read that David Wept as he went and had his Head cover'd and went barefoot in Token of a Profound and Inexpressible Sorrow and all the People that were with him covered every Man his Head and they went up by the Ascent of the Mount Olivet Weeping as they went Chap. 15.30 Weeping to think of the Miseries that were come upon 'em to think of the Calamity the Trouble they were involved in Their Calamity was Great tho' the Rebellion did not succeed But had This succeeded That had been infinitly greater It must have ended in the utter Ruin of David and all his Adherents in the total Subversion of the Government in the fatal Overthrow of the Church It must have entail'd Anarchy and Confusion upon the Land have entail'd another and perhaps a perpetual War upon the Nation For tho' they had destroyed David they could not destroy the King The King could not Die And to be sure the next Heir would have asserted his Right to the Crown And if they had took off him too the Kingdom could not want Heirs or if it had the Rebels would never have agreed long who should be uppermost They would still have been pulling down One and setting up Another till they had not known whom or what to have set up For tho' it be easy to destroy a well Establish'd Government 't is not so easy when that 's done to Establish another that shall give either others or themselves Content And after all it had been ten to one but by their Intestine Differences they had been made a Prey to Foreigners and so have made Religion it self a Prey too to the Common Enemies of God and of his Church And these had been Grievances indeed as great as our Reformers much greater Grievances themselves than any they had to redress But it pleased God to prevent the greatest Mischiefs of all by preventing the Success of the Rebellion which brings me to the 2d thing considerable in my Text and the more acceptable Subject of this Discourse II. The Rebels Defeat The People you see had rebelled under Absalom They were so Impudent and so Mischievous to lift up their Hands against their Lord the King But God delivered up the Men that had done so Presumptuously He delivered up a great part of 'em to Slaughter and he delivered up the rest to Justice So that 't was an entire and a speedy and a wonderful Defeat And 1. I say 't was an entire Defeat For upon the very first Battle the Rebels were so utterly routed that they had neither Courage nor Force to rally again or to stand a second Engagement It seems there were a * Verse 7. great many thousands of 'em kill'd upon the Place and the rest put to Flight and kill'd afterwards in great Numbers by the Kings Forces and by the Country in the Pursuit For they were pursued like Beasts of Prey through the Fields and Forests of Judea and like Beasts of Prey as they were were taken and destroyed and destroyed in Herds 'T is said * Verse 8. The Battle was scatter'd over the Face of all the Country and that the Wood devoured more People that day than the Sword devoured v. 8. of this Chap. i. e. as Josephus the Jewish Historiographer explains it There were more kill'd and taken Prisoners up and down the Country of Them that fled for their Lives into the Woods and Lanes than there were taken or died in the Engagement Their now despised and despicable King Absalom having scaped Death in the Field fled for his Life among the rest into the Forest and in his
Flight by an equally strange and just Judgment of God upon him was taken and hanged * Verse 9. Hang'd in an unaccountable manner among the thick Boughs of a great Oak between Heaven and Earth as unworthy of both as fit for neither forsaken of God and Man and even of the Beast that carried him for the * Ibid. very Beast he rode on forsook him too and fled and in going away from under him sufficiently rebuked the madness of the Rebel who hung there by the hair of his Head in the Tree till * Verse 14 15. Joab one of the King's Officers with his Servants did Execution upon him His chief Commander and fellow Rebel the treacherous and perfidious Amasa was fled too for fear the engagement being too hot for him and had left both Absalom and the Army to shift for himself but was found too and * Chap. 19.13 left to the mercy of the King And as for his Tutor Achitophel the Author of the Association and the Ring-leader of all this Villainy having done all the mischief he could because he found he could do no more he had prevented Justice and * Chap. 17.23 hanged himself or as some say died for grief sometime before this engagement and before Amasa was made General of the Rebel Army For sowe read That when Achitophel saw that his Counsel was not followed that is that Absalom was not for making so quick a Dispatch of the Business as he would have had him he arose and gat him home to his House and put his Household in order made his Will and Hang'd himself so our English and other Translators say but some will have it he * Vide Grotii Annot. in Loc. and in Matth. 27.5 died out of Grief and Indignation that the Rebel would not take his Measures at last and others that he * V. Menoch and Sanctii Comment in Loc. was Suffocated or Strangled with some Disease according to the Tradition of several of the Hebrews However 't is sure enough He dyed and was buried in the Sepulchre of his Father I suppose at Giloh near to the Place where this Rebellion began Chap. 17.23 And now Achitophel's Wisdom being turn'd into Foolishness indeed even to a degree beyond David's Prayer his master the Devil having made a Fool of him too who never yet taught any Man to be wise for himself Achitophel's Wisdom being so signally turned into Foolishness and all the Heads of the Conspiracy as signally delivered up into the Hands of Justice to convince them and their Associates That Conspiring against God and the King was in effect but Conspiring against themselves I say the Counsels of the Wicked being brought to Nought and the Counsellors to Justice after so many Thousands of the Rebels killed and as many Thousands taken no wonder that we do not hear any more of the Rebellion It had been a wonder indeed if we had For surely this was enough to give 'em an Entire Defeat And so it did So that the King had the most Absolute Victory over the Rebels that his Heart could wish and that too without so much as any the least hazard to his own Royal Person For tho' his Majesty had a great mind to have gone into the Army himself his People would not suffer him He being more worth as they say very well than Ten Thousand of them Verse 3. But to magnifie the Mercy of the Deliverance as 't was an entire so I presume 't was 2. A speedy Defeat For tho' in all the Narrative of the Rebellion we have no Relation of the Exact time it lasted yet one may rationally conclude it did not last long especially considering the vast Army that the Rebel had gathered which we cannot compute to be much less than * Verse 7 8. 30000 Men and that in all this time with all these Numbers there was but this one Pitch'd Battle viz. this that gave 'em the Defeat which in all probability there would have been had not their Ruin been almost as sudden as 't was Great For besides that Ju'dea was so small a spot of Ground being but Fourscore Miles in breadth and but Two Hundred in the utmost length of it that two such great Armies as the King 's and the Rebel 's were could not well be maintain'd in any part of the Country for any long Space the Armies were never much above Forty Miles apart that we know of during the Rebellion It being but Forty Four Miles from Jerusalem whereabouts Absalom and his Party lay most part of the time to Mahanaim where David was and near which the Battle was fought So that the History mentioning but this one Engagement it may rationally be supposed the Armies being so near one another all the while that it was not long â—'re the Rebels were Defeated However this we are sure of 3. That 't was a very signal and wonderful Defeat and that there was a very particular Providence presided over the King's Forces and appeared all along of the King's side For nothing less than that Almighty Power that interests it self in the Protection of Righteous and Religious Kings and States professing his Holy and Eternal Truth nothing less than that Omnipotent Arm which stills at once the Rageing of the Sea and the more Rageing Madness of the People I say nothing less than the Divine and Almighty Power could preserve the Royal Army from the Treachery and Force of so many Blood-thirsty and Deceitful Men. We read that all the Men of Israel were with Absalom Chap. 17.24 All we have reason to believe from * Chap. 17.11 Dan even to Beersheba And the King tells us himself in the 38th and the 69th and in other Psalms that he composed during this Unnatural Rebellion That * Psal 38.11 his Lovers and his Neighbours stood looking upon his Trouble and his Kinsmen stood affar off That * Psal 38.19 his Enemies lived and were Mighty and that they who hated him wrongfully were many in Number * Psal 69.4 That they who hated him without a Cause were more than the Hairs of his Head With many other Expressions to the same purpose They were no doubt a Numerous and had God been on their side had been an Invincible Army But it appeared God was not for 'em Heaven could not favour so Bad a Cause 'T is said The Lord had appointed to Defeat the Counsel of Achitophel to this very Intent that he might bring evil upon Absalom Chap. 17.14 That he might shew the Justice of his Providence in the Destruction of him and all such Unrighteous Rebles And accordingly 't was shewn The Victory was so signal that Providence it self seem'd to be engaged in the Fight They Fought from Heaven The Stars in their Courses as once * Judg. 5.20 against Sisera about 260 years before the Stars in their Courses Fought against Absalom The Lord himself Eminently asserted the Right of his