which the Prophet here meanes was primarily a temporall life secondarily an eternall life absolutely the life of Grace by consequence that of Glory So the Chaldee para renders my Text vita donabit nos in diebus consolationis qui venturi sunt in die resurrectionis mortuorū suscitabit nos vivemus coram eo That is wee shall leade a happy life here and a glorified life hereafter these two following one another like the twinnes out of Rebecca's wombe the later laying hold upon the former and more then these two no covetous Jew could desire I cannot stay to shew you how this Prophesie was verified upon Israel Iudah whom the Lord after seventy yeares captivity raised from the graves of Assyrian bondage and brought them back to that Ierusalem which they beheld with as many tears of joy as they remembred with sorrow when they sate down by the Waters of Babylon where again they lived in Gods sight until new sinnes provoked a more consuming wrath and the Romans for crucifying theire innocent Messiah made the Jewes blood as cheape as their mothers teares The few sands which are yet behinde shall run forth in a short review of my Text by way of application and so I le commend you to God Come let us returne to the Lord c. HAd Hosea uttered his Prophesie the last yeare it would have beene hard to say whether hee meant Israel or England the Sceanes are the same onely the Actors differ both of us have beheld a Tragedy commenced in our owne blood Ierusalem bore the first part London the second Lord how are we spoyled said the Prophet of them and may not I say so of this place A City undone and no man the richer Above 1200 slaine and no sword seen Lord how are we spoyled How is Ierusalem become a desolate widow It was the Lamentation of Ieremiah and may it not be revived upon London how was she forsaken not onely of her children but of her God and many moneths sate like Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted because they were not Your doores which were used to be opened to your friends were shut up by disease and the very casements whereat you tooke the breath of life did let in death so that wee may cry with Israel The Lord hath torne and the Lord hath smitten us and as the Magicians said of the lice of Egypt Exod. 8.16 They were digitus Dei the finger of God Wee may of our Visitation 't was manus Dei the hand of God and therefore we call it plaga a stroake a blow from heaven Yet see the goodnesse of the most high no sooner had we by the appoyntment of our most gracious Soveraigne run to the second of Ioel and proclaimed a Fast called a solemne assembly and cryed with Israel venite revertamur O come let us returne unto the Lord. But that power who repented of making us did also repent of destroying us and said My Spirit shall not alwaies contend with man least the soules which I have made should faile before me Isai 57. And as Ieremiah cryed God is the health of Israel Chap. 3. so may I God is become the health of London it was not the Frost nor the Snow nor any of natures colds throwne downe from those moving shops of Meteors but Dominus sanauit the Lord hath healed the Lord hath bound us up And now let me direct my speech to you right Honourable and the inhabitants of this City and say in the words of the Saviour of the World Art thou made whole sinne no more least a worse thing happen to thee though yee have escaped the last yeares contagion yet there is a Tophet in Isaiah where plagues are eternall And therefore let every man beginne a reformation at home as those cryed out much more will I every man to his tents O Israel to his conscience O London Now looke to thine owne house David I make no question but much cost and labour has beene bestowed in ayring and cleansing your houses but it is to no purpose unlesse you sweepe out sinne which Solomon calls the plague of the heart turne that out of your shops and consciences it will prove a better antidote than all the Pitch Rue and Franckincense in the World Infect the aire no more with your oathes and courteous equivocations make not your selves worse in belying your wares that they are better the most winning eloquence a trades-man can speake is truth and the best way to thrive apace is to pray Look not upon the next life as Mathematitions do at heaven through a cranney or hole out of a darke Chamber which renders it poore and small not venture your hopes of heaven like Cain to build upon earth Raise not the walls of your houses with the ruine of Gods house or your neighbours nor pay your Lecturers with your Parsons tithes let not the wrack't out blood of the Tenant cry against you nor your workmens wages be kept backe Use not false lights and a deceitfull ballance wherein your soules are put and found too light And beleeve me before it is too late Godlinesse is great gaine and there 's no such policy in this World as to bee an honest man And you my Lord and your brethren to whom the government of this City is committed I know you have taken all the courses that wisedome can thinke of to stay the infection when there is but one way to doe it that is to make your Citizens good but you will say 't is God that must doe this you cannot t is true your part is only to shew them the way by a good example and seeing your spirit is the first wheele whereunto all others are fastned it is necessary that you give a good motion for it is held by some Astronomers that when the Sunne stood still in the time of Ioshuah the Moone and Starres kept the like pause Now if you that are Governours would have the Plague a stranger in the City then see that in your Courts of Iudicature justice and mercy kisse each other Let justice runne downe like water and righteousnesse as the river Amos 5.24 It will clense the City better then all your Conduits let loose upon Sundayes Suffer not the wicked Advocate who plowes lies and exchanges God for a bribe to put Trueth upon the Rack and stretch a Clients cause with delayes as the Shoomaker doth Leather with his teeth these men are our Plagues in the times of health and it put Gods mercy to a stand when in Ierusalem there was not found a man that executed justice Iet 5. How shall I pardon thee for this saith the Lord ver 7. But God hath set you on high to no other purpose then to punish vice beneath you and if you suffer that to rise it will trample you under foote and therefore continue my Lord like a good Moses to stand in the gap pleade before God the cause of his people with your prayers and before his people the cause of God with your sword And let me beseech all that heare me that they would leave no sparkes of sinne raked up in their consciences least the fire of Gods wrath breakes out againe more furiously the next spring Verifie the first part of my Text Returne to the Lord with all your hearts with all your soules and he will verifie the second sanabit hee will heale hee will binde us up And though for two dayes you and your shops and your tradings have laine dead yet there 's a third day wherein God will raise you up and make you live in his sight where Divine protection shall watch over you here and keepe all Plagues from your bodies as the Nurse does flyes from the face of her sleeping childe till you enter into the other vision of God the sight of Glory where our miseries can have no beginning nor our felicity any ending where youth shall not waxe old nor health impaire but these bodies which are now the shops of all diseases shall become as impassible as Angels as subtile as rayes of light as radiant as the Sunne and as swift as the wings of thunder and we shall lead no other life than that of God of the knowledge of God of the love of God and that as long as God shall be God and therefore venite revertamur ad Dominum Come and let us returne to the Lord for hee hath torne and hee will heale us hee hath broken and hee will binde us up After two dayes hee will revive us the third day hee will raise us up and we shall live in his sight Which God of his mercy grant c. FINIS
the more they approach the Center by how much the nearer you approach to your neighbour in love by so much the nearer you are to God In the old Law the Iewes were commanded to lift an Oxe or an Asse out of the Pit into which they were fallen Numquid Deo cura de Bobus What hath God care of Oxen surely he hath more of men by how much man comes nearer to his Nature than does the Oxe or the Asse And it was our Saviours charge to St. Peter Luke 22. Thou being converted strengthen thy brethren Peter lovest thou me then feede my sheepe Wee are members of that one body whose head is Christ and as in the naturall so in this mysticall body one member has neede of another member the head is to instruct the hand and the hand to guard the head the eye must see for the foote else they will both fall into the Ditch And this St. Paul calls the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 For the Law commands no more than to love And a more delicate warre saith Chrysologus was never heard of than to conquer all by love and St. Cyprian observes that all the volumes of the Scriptures are to be found in this one word Love in this all religion hath her consummation Surely Charity is a sacred flame kindled in our breasts by the God of Nature 't is the soule and life of the whole World it knowes no more how to hide it selfe than fire does in straw for as fire will bewray it selfe by light and heate so will Divine Charity it gives light by holy examples and heat by pious admonition teaching and admonishing one another Col. 3.16 The Donatists would to heaven alone as wee have some who will allow salvation to none but them of their faction whereas the blessed St. Paul would have ventured to be accursed for the salvation of his brethren and these good men here judged it in glorious piety a piece of repentance to be repented of to returne to the Lord alone fearing perhaps GOD would give them that answer which Ioseph did the Patriarchs Gen. 42. You shall not see my face unlesse you bring your brother with you this made them move together like the fingers of one hand like the eyes of the same head and in love that might invite the eyes of Angels locke arme in arme and as if they had had but one soule to say with one voyce venite come let us Note againe out of their venite what we may think of those who neither returne to God themselves nor suffer others but are as the Authors of their Schisme so the hinderers of their conversion Truely we may fafely judge that they are not of Christs fold who mis-leade his sheepe and it was a sinne which made Lucifer the Divel to draw the Angels away from God and they who on earth goe about to divide Christs seamlesse coat the Church shew that they are not members of his body Union builds Gods Church but Schisme puls it downe and judge you whether it be not a greater sin then Idolatry when it was punished with a greater vengeance then Idolatry the greatest Idolatry of Israel was to be punished with the Sword Ex. 32. but to destroy Church Rebels the Lord did a new thing on earth and made that earth which fed the peacefull devoure the factious Israelites who went downe quicke into the grave and because they were so unworthy to live the Lord scarce permitted them to dye but gave them that deadly vae of our Saviour Matth. 11 7. Woe to them by whom offences come It was Ieroboams brand set upon him by God himselfe that he made Israel to sinne and brought that Schisme into the Church which rent 10 Tribes not onely from the Scepter but the God of Iudah As for himselfe hee lived to see his Altars cracke under the horrour of his new religion and his posterity were so closely pursued by the wrath of God that in the revolution of a short time there was not a handfull of the dust of his house left alive upon the face of the earth and the miserable Tribes whom he seduced were lost in forraigne captivity and scattered as so much dust before the wind or as so many strawes upon a wrought sea And thus in Eusebius the famous Schismaticke Novatus swore all his Communicants upon the Sacrament that they should adhere to his Sect and never more returne to the Orthodox Cornelius The Church at unity with her children is the fairest among women but when once torne in sunder by severall Factions she prooves like the Levites divided Concubine the horrour and detestation of every eye The speediest way to set a man at variance with God is to be at opposition with his brother and what a shame is it that Theeves and Murderers should goe more friendly to hell than Christians doe to he even O that our Novatian brood they of the separation would consider this who dispose Heaven to 〈◊〉 but them of their brother and sisterhood would they would remember That heaven was made for more then for themselves though they entitle God to a cruell Decree and passe the sentence of Reprobation upon all that are not as mad as themselves Yet maugre their malice all are their brethren that can say Our Father brethren by a threefold tye that is not easily broken by the same Father God by the same mother the Church by the same Redeemer Christ And therefore I will beseech all Christians in the powerfull words of an Apostle 1. Cor. 1.10 by the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ that they would be perfectly joyned together in the same judgement and the same minde that yee all speake the same things And if ye now hope to reestablish your broken peace with God The newes Carryer of Ipswich you must be at unity with his Church Let the seditious man who sowed his tares by night his Pamphlet in your streets rayle on till the accuser of his brethren the Devill who set him on worke pay him his wages as for our selves the way to recover our union with God lies in the happy agreement with one another when you all say with one heart and one voyce what Israel here did venite revertamur ad Dominum come let us c. And so I passe from the proposition with its adjuncts faith and charity to the reasons whereof the first is drawn A Iustitia Dei from Gods Iustice For he hath torne and he hath smitten us ANd this may seeme a strange reason that a man should returne to him by whom he is sore wounded and kisse that hand to whose severity he owes the losse of blood as if David should embrace Saul for running at him with a javelin Yet such is the wholesome power of affliction that whom faire words could not returne rough blowes will bring backe againe and the Prodigall childe did more at the urgence of hunger and could than at the teares
and oratory of his Father Ionah in faire weather would be running from God but the tempest and the Whale brought him backe againe Nay a Dungeon freed Manasseh from the Pit of Hell had he not beene chained in Babilon he had gone on in sinne till hee had beene bound hand and foote and cast into utter darknesse This people who in prosperity like Balaam rode poast to sinne yet when Divine vengeance drew upon them as the Angel did upon him then downe upon their faces and cry If it displease the Lord wee will goe backe againe Numb 22. These who before made the holy one of Israel to cease yet now the rod is upon them sue to him without ceasing and verifie that which the Lord spake in the verse before in angustijs manè requirent me in their afflictions they will seeke me earely Truely in this men use God as children doe fruite trees throw stickes at them in faire weather but when once a storme comes runne under them for shelter The Lord could not otherwise scowre Israel but with the file of afflictions they would not looke towards their Maker untill the destroyer was come forth nor turne backe till judgement trode on their heeles this indeede prevailed more with them without speaking a word than God and all his Prophets could with their passionate Sermons The Almighty threatned them two verses before this I will be a Lyon unto Ephraim and as a yong Lyon to the house of Judah I will teare even I and none shall rescue them yet threatning would doe no good no newes as yet of their conversion but when the wrath of God had brought the Assyrian troopes into their land and they beganne to bathe their swords in their bowels then every man to his knees O Israel venite revertamur come and let us returne to the Lord. O how powerfull is Justice to save when grace comes with it these who before forgat God and themselves yet now in their miseries remember both they who before sought after pleasures and profits yet now when the Lord slew them then they sought him Psal 78. 'T is true Reprobates will not owne God in his Judgements unlesse extreame nothing can startle some but thunder yet good natures will repent at the first blow and like gracious children kneele to the mothers for mercy at one whipping These men could discerne the Lord through the thickest troopes of the Assyrian Armies and in the middest of their swords confesse it was his hand not King Iareb nor Salmanaser nor chance but Dominus rapuit the Lord hath smittenus And thus as in Sampsons riddle Out of the Eater came forth meate when out of this tearing Lyon they could gather the honey of comfort making Gods wrath an argument of his love and returne they will because he hath smitten them Now their argument may bee framed thus 'T is Gods Nature say they to punish where he affects and to chasten every sonne whom he loves Now like a just father he hath smitten us but to breake our stomacks not our bones though he punishes our sinnes yet he pitties our humanity like a wise Chyrurgion he has torne us yet not to kill but cure our festered sores hee is salus Israel Jer. 3. the health of Israell therefore let us returne And thus like Iob they acknowledge affliction commeth not out of the dust nor misery spring out of the earth and therefore resolve with that Champion of heaven Though the Lord teares and slaies us yet will we trust in him And happy are they who so kisse the sonne when he is first angry and fall upon their knees before his whole displeasure bee arose a teare may doe that with God in time which afterwards a shower of blood cannot But thrice miserable they who when they feele the rod yet will not see the hand but arme themselves with Past-boord against the murthering Canon and begge of the creature helpe against the Creator Thus Asa in his disease sought to the Physitian not the Lord thus Iobs Wife in her husbands misery when he should have kneel'd to Prayer fell to cursing Thus wicked Ahaziah turn'd from the God of Israel to seeke helpe from Baalzebub the god of Eckron but all these knockt at a wrong doore and tooke great paines to goe to hell Thou turnest man to destruction saith David Againe thousai'st come again ye children of men And as Hannah sung 1 of Sam. 2. It is the Lord that kils and makes alive that brings downe to the grave and lifts up againe ideo revertamur cries Israel therefore let us returne and this is the first argument the second is drawne A misericordia dei from Gods mercy He will heale he will binde us up A Metaphor taken from Physitians and Chyrurgeons the Septuagint turnes it alligabit sicut fascijs he will binde us up as with swathes as Chyrurgeons doe sores till they are whole St. Ierome uses the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 linteola Linnen ragges put by a Chyrurgeon into wounds to eate out the corrupt matter Indeed in Israels recovery the Lord used much Art and played the skilfull Chyrurgeon first he applyed applyed sharpe corrosives to eate out the festered corruption judgement to eate out sinne then he suppled their broken spirits with his mercy and swathed them with a gratious pardon so David Hee forgives thy sinnes and heales althy infirmities Psal 103. Their disease would admit no Physitian but God to him alone belong the issues of life and death the balmes of Gilead were antidotes too weake for the oyle of the Scorpion must heale his owne stinge and the sight of the Brazen Serpent expell the poyson of the fiery Serpent In the chapter before ver 13. When Ephraim saw his sicknesse and Iudah his wound then went Ephraim to the Assyrian and sent to King Iareb for helpe yet could he not heale nor cure you of your wound No said Ier. 3. in vaine is salvation hoped for from the Hils and mountaines the Kings and great men of the earth God is the health of Israel ver 23. so that now they conclude with Solomon Proverbs 21. There is neither prudence nor councell nor wisedome against the Lord What is the Physitian over his patient without God but a busie Ant striving to put life into a mountaine There is no flying from him but to him from the hand of his justice to the armes of his mercy and looke how much the arme in length exceedes the hand by so much his mercy to the penitent is extended beyond his justice O! this is a safer Sanctuary than was Ierusalems hallowed Temple his favour is a stronger protection than ever were the hornes of the Altar and therefore the Prophet calls them the sure mercies of David mens mercies are sometimes cruell alwaies deceitful but Gods are sure mercies such as never failed any soule that trusted in him And though the same Physicke which helpes an Ague will not cure a Fever yet the same mercy