judg of Hercules by his foot and the whole by the part already detected was That since they could not cut off the King by their privy Conspiracies nor the Worthies of the Kingdom by their false Witnesses they would now go directly to work and cut off both and all by a bloody Massacre though we hope the same loving-kindness that blasted both their former attempts will also this but beware the third time is a rule that we Learned in the beginning of our days and pray God the arts of our enemies may not make us forget it now And to draw in the more company to abet this bloody work the burning Oliver and the Rump were to umbrage and initiate it on the Stage For a few loose Prentices and a number of unaccountable persons were to begin the tumult under that pretence and when the rout was up the actors themselves were to have appeared and played their part And though great discoveries have been made thereof yet many wise men doubt that we are not yet beyond the danger of it Wherefore if now after all this Justice be not done on this wicked bloody generation both King and People have reason to fear that they are under that dismal sentence denounced by the Lord on Ahab for sparing Benhadad 1 King 20.41 Thy life shall go for his life and thy people for his people I am as little for persecuting the Papists upon the account of Conscience as another But yet I must say that a man that makes it his conscience to plot my destruction and the destruction of all that 's dear and precious to me and is so restless at it that as soon as one Villany is discover'd he forms another and by repeating his Plots again and again upon me gives me such infallible assurance that he will never be quiet till he hath cut my throat I confess I think I should be a great debtor to my own safety should I not desire he might be sent to live a little further of and this is no more than what the common justice due to humane society does require and our very Laws themselves do warrant For if one private person may demand as his right the security of binding to the Peace any one that he avers on his corporal Oath he goes in danger of his life from certainly that Justice is not to be denied to a whole Nation And since no tye of Law is sufficient to bind them to the Peace here sure it is but justice to send them elsewhere that the Nation may be secured and that they may have the less cause to complain of ill usage let them in Gods name carry their estates with them And as our judging rightly of things will enable us to see more clearly through the arts of our enemies in general so will it enable you to see quite thorough their grand cheat in particular For that which they most labour to frighten us with is that unless we have their sentiments and talk and think of things as wickedly and impudently as they do that we are friends to the Fanaticks and enemies to his Majesty the first is said only to divide us from each other the last to prejudice the Government against us both As to the first I 'le only say that I do not think that it is so crying a sin as the clamor of their kind of cattle would insinuate to be friendly to Fanaticks and therefore I am not at all ashamed to confess for one that as I look upon them as the best dissenting Protestants that are most friendly to the Church of England so I look upon them as the best Church of England men that are the most friendly to dissenting Protestants and if all others would account so too I should think our selves in a truer union than any act of Conformity can make and that 's all I shall say to that charge and all that I think is worth the saying to it But as to the last I do confess that I do judg that a very great sin and therefore shall be a little longer and more particular in the examining of this charge For I do hope that every one that makes a conscience of fearing God does make a conscience also of honouring the King But I doubt there is some mistake betwixt us concerning this duty and that this wicked generation call that an honouring the King which indeed is not For I do verily believe that those Presidents of the Kingdom those Governours Princes Counsellors and Captains that consulted together to make that Royal Statute and wicked Decree That whosoever should ask any petition of any god or man for thirty days save of the King should be cast into the den of Lions Dan. 6.7 and that went to the King to ratifie and establish that Decree v. 8. did carry themselves very toppingly for the Kings friends and the only principal Royalists and loyal persons that honoured the King in that Region and so I believe did those in the 3d of Dan. that accused those honest and worthy Nonconformists that would not fall down and perform that worship that the King had commanded ver 12. And I do believe as they accounted themselves the only honourers of the King so they reckoned Daniel and the three Children for factious and disloyal Fanaticks But now I do also believe that if you will but look how God Almighty who is the true and righteous Judg accounted them you will see that those wicked Court-Parasites were under a great mistake and that Daniel and the three Children that refused to obey those unrighteous Laws and Decrees were truer friends to and honourers of the King than those that had made and pressed the execution of them If you will therefore but entertain this Exhortation to judg rightly of things you will see through all these thin and pitiful veils that these wicked Plotters spread both over their own Villany and over your integrity and will see that this is but one of their old arts and a cheat so oft repeated that nothing less than impudence would bestow the pains to lick it over afresh and impose it on the world again For did not this same spirit ever do thus Did they not make innocent Naboth an enemy to the King nay and took away his precious blood upon that account because he would not part with his Vineyard which was his Inheritance Did they not account the Prophet Jeremiah an enemy to the King because he pressed him to obey the word of the Lord in yielding to the Caldeans Did they not account those we last mentioned Daniel and the three Children enemies to the King because they would not obey those wicked and unrighteous Laws that the King had commanded Did not Haman accuse Mordecai one of the best friends the King had and all the Jews for the Kings enemies and such as did not keep the Kings Laws and upon that accusation obtained that bloody Decree which was written and
plowed as a field and Jerusalem shall become heaps and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forrest Good Father what monstrous wretches are these that for their sakes Zion should be plowed Jerusalem laid waste and the mountain of the Lords house made as a forrest What! all the beauty safety and glory of the Church and House of God totally destroyed and turned into a desolate Wilderness and all this for the sake and sins of some kind of men Good Lord whâ—â— prodigious wretches must these be that provoke the most merciful God for their sakes to deal thus strangely severe with his Church Why read the foregoing verse and you 'l find in the very front and first rank of these men if it be lawful to call them men they are such as judg for reward and truly I did well to put in that If for the Prophet Zephaniah in his 3d Chap. and 3d vers is so far from calling them men that he calls them Evening wolves which are the most hungry curst and ravenous after their prey of any Creature whatsoever so that take a man that judgeth for reward and nothing can stop him Not Religion not Reputation not King not Country nor Church nor State no considerations of Publick nor of private weal can stop his career 'T is a Beast of such a greedy canine insatiate appetite that he runs over all runs upon all runs down all And if you should come from this Word of God and say this sin will lay our Jerusalem in heaps they will but laugh at you and clap you up in Gaol Let our Jerusalem lye in heaps as long as it will and our Church be made a Wilderness if it will what care they so they can but get gain But we trust the Lord that hath had that mercy for the King and that mercy for his Protesant people to deliver them thus miraculously from the Papists hands will perfect and compleat his own Salvation and deliver us from such Evening-wolves also and according to his gracious Promise will bless us with Magistrates as at the first and counsellors as at the beginning Isa 1.26 The fourth and last Improvement of this truth That the wicked are Plotters the only Plotters that the world hath in it is of comfort to the just For if it be so that the word of truth doth determine that the wicked are the only Plotters that the world hath in it then do you be comforted in the midst of all the calumnies that are cast upon you You have great reason to take this comfort to your selves for you see the Lord himself hath determined the point on your side the wicked clamor and make a mighty noise in the world as if you were the only Plotters and disturbers thereof but you see the righteous holy Lord hath by his Heavenly Word determined the matter past all controversie for ever for you and says positively that 't is the wicked the wicked persons and they only that are the Plotters and disturbers of the World bear then their reproach with comfort for they do no more by you in this than they have done by the righteous in all ages what if you hear so eminent and righteous a soul as King David complaining that they laid to his charge things that he knew not as you see he doth Psal 35.11 Can you count it much that they will lay such things to your charge If you read the story of just and upright Job you will see that sober men and his intimate friends drew up an unjust charge against him and will you wonder the wicked enemies do the same against you You have a marvellous remarkable instance of this kind in Jer. 37. the series of it lyeth thus The Caldeans besieged Jerusalem but hearing that Pharoah King of Egypt was come forth with an Army they raised the siege The Prophet Jeremiah assured them from the Lord That for all they had raised their siege yet the Caldeans would return and take the city though he would make use of the present opportunity to leave Jerusalem and go dwell in the Country Now as he was executing this honest and innocent intent in the very Gate as he was going out he met with one of the huffing hectoring Captains of the City who took him and brought him back and charged him that he was running away to the enemy and though Jeremiah told him 't was false and that he was not going out with any such intent yet this roaring wretch would not let him go but brought him back to the Princes who the Text tells you were wroth with Jeremiah and smote him and put him in prison vers 15. and in the next Chapter they are eager to put him to death For the Princes came unto the King and said We beseech thee let this man be put to death for he weakens the hands of the men of war in the city and the hands of all the people in speaking such words unto them For this man seeks not the welfare of this people but their hurt vers 4. This was a horrible charge and yet this holy Prophet spake not one word to them nor the people neither but what he had from the mouth of the Lord so in they thrust him into a lothsome and dirty dungeon that he might die there as undoubtedly he had done had it not been for a poor Ethiopian that mediated for him and took him out from thence For the King was such a slave to those wicked Courtiers that carried all before them that he durst not interpose on the behalf of this innocent and eminent Prophet as you may read in the fifth verse Nay to such an abject nature and beneath a Prince was the spirit of this King sunk by the conduct of this cursed crew that adventuring to speak privately with Jeremiah he was so afraid lest these damned youths should hear of their Conference that he chargeth the Prophet in the 24th verse That no man should know of the words that had passed between them Well then if so great a Prophet as Jeremiah could not escape the reproach of wicked men from being charged as an enemy to nay a sugitive from the King and as one that sought not the welfare but the hurt of the people be comforted and know that you have nothing but what hath been the common lot and portion of all the people of God in the reproaches and imputations that they cast upon you Nor is the Old Testament only full of examples and instances of this kind but the New Testament likewise For the holy Apostle had the same measure of rage and reproach from these wicked Plotters as well of this kind as all others as the Prophets had In Acts 16. you find St. Paul and Silas going to prayer met a Damsel possessed with a Spirit of divination which brought her Masters much gain by southsaying this wench followed Paul and Silas crying These men are the
such a damnable estate in what a damned condition must these wicked be in here in the Text that by their cursed plots and hellish conspiracies took their harbour from them and that took away their bread from their bellies and their clothes from their backs With what face can these behold the incensed brow of the Lord Jesus the great Judg of quick and dead when he shall come to plead the cause and vindicate the sufferings of those just persons that they have plotted against As ever therefore you would escape their damned doom be exhorted to come out of that estate that does expose you to it And that this Exhortation may be the more effectual I shall farther enforce it with a few Considerations First Consider that till you do obey this Exhortation and depart from the estate and condition of the wicked you are in open rebellion and engaged in publick acts of hostility against God And what do you think it is nothing or but a light thing to be an enemy and rebel against God We of the Clergy keep a huge deal of ado against rebels and enemies to the King and Government and we do well if we level our discourses right and point our weapons against such that are so indeed But we must be sure that in those warm discourses we do not like those in Psal 11.2 bend our bows and make ready our arrows upon the string that we may privily shoot at the upright in heart For else instead of wounding our enemies we do but destroy our friends For do not think because a conscientious man dissents from us in a few Ceremonious observations and the external modes and fashions of our publick Worship that therefore he is presently to be dagger'd to death as a rebel and enemy to the King and Government a practice to which too many of us of the Clergy have too great a propensity For if we make Nonconformity to publick injoined Worship the Shibboleth or Characteristical note of Rebellion farewell to all our Martyrs we must begin a new computation and reckon with the Romanists all those glorified souls for arrant Rebels and so we must the blessed Apostles themselves also and doom at one breath all the generation of the just which would be a plot to purpose but how becoming Protestants I leave to their more cool and sedate consideration that are most apt to be immoderately hot and furious in this matter Only this I 'le add that if our Lord may be believed they are more to blame that impose those offensive things upon the Church of Christ than those that cannot conform to them For he hath planted his wo against him by whom the offence cometh not against him that taketh the offence when it comes Mat. 18 7. Those therefore that lay out more zeal than knowledg about those wens of Worship that rather deform and mishape our Christian unity than beautifie or adorn it would do better and give a better account of the faithful discharge of their Ministry to Jesus Christ whose Embassadors they pretend to be if they would imploy their Talents about this Exhortation in calling out men and women from the number and estate of the wicked that plotteth against the just and shew them plainly from the word of truth that while they continue in that condition they are but enemies and rebels to the God of Heaven and stand engaged in open acts of hostility against him and must fall under that condemnation Mat. 19.27 But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them bring them hither and slay them before me And shew them from the holy Scriptures that while they continue such both they and all that ever they do are an abomination to the Lord. If any thing that they do were acceptable one would think it should be their prayers and Religious services but even these are an abomination also Prov. 28.9 and in Prov 15.8 the wise man tells us That the sacrifices of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord but the prayers of the upright is his delight It is a very gross mistake therefore to think that our coming to Church and our mumbling or saying over a few prayers here with the Congregation is the total of all Religion and to imagine that we are in a good estate because of this For alas this may be and I fear but too much is Vox praeterea nihil and if you remain wicked this doth but add to your abominations For this is but like the Scribes Pharisees and Hypocrites paying tythe of mint cummin and annis whiles they omitted the greater and more weighty matters of the Law mercy judgment and faith Mat. 23.23 Wherefore let others sow what pillows they please under your elbows to make your wickedness easie to you and let them cry peace peace to you as long as they will I must preach to you the word of Truth which says expresly That there is no peace saith the Lord unto the wicked Isa 58.22 And now whether you will believe the Lord and his word or believe them that sooth and flatter you up in your wickedness at your own peril be it For I am resolved by the help of God to discharge both the parts of my Ministry with faithfulness that as I am commanded to say to the righteous it shall be well with hm so I will also say as I am commanded Wo unto the wicked it shall be ill with him Isa 3.10 11. This is the first Consideration come we now to the second Secondly Consider that till you come out of your wicked estate as you are Gods enemy so God is your enemy and how dreadful is the condition of those that have God for their enemy what to have that God for your enemy in whom you live move and have your being that God that gives you your daily bread and is the very breath of your nostrils to have him for your enemy 'T was a mighty concern that Job that righteous and upright man was in from his apprehension that God held him for his enemy Job 13 24. but how much more his concern would have been if he had apprehended God to have been his enemy you may see in that of Saul for when Saul had so sin'd against God that he would answer him no more neither by Prophets nor by dreams he applied himself to the Witch of Endor and makes his complaint thereof to the spirit that she had raised But see what a cooling answer he receiv'd from the Spectrum in 1 Sam. 28.16 Wherefore then hast thou asked me seeing the Lord is departed from thee and become thine enemy And 't is said in ver 20. That when Saul heard this he straightway fell all along on the earth and was sore afraid so that there was no strength in him And no marvel for it 's enough to strike you stark dead unless you are senseless seared sinners to hear that God is become your enemy
when he that should be your best and greatest friend he that alone can rescue and deliver you out of your enemies hands for him to become your enemy himself Lord what killing news must this be to any soul that will but seriously consider it You read in the 5th of Daniel that King Belshazzar made a great debauch for no less than a thousand of his Lords and as they were busie in taking up of their cups and praising the gods of gold and of silver of brass of wood and of stone at the same instant came forth fingers of a mans hand and wrote over against the candlesticks upon the plaister of the wall of the Kings palace and the King saw the part of the hand that wrote then the Kings countenance was changed and his thoughts troubled him so that the joints of his loins were loosed and his knees smote one against another v. 4 5 6. O! so will yours do you will be in a dreadful twitter when God declares himself your enemy as here he did to him Your heart will fail and the very powers of nature will dissolve within you And therefore among all the Lamentations of Jeremiah though they are every one exceeding sad yet methinks there 's none so dismal as that in Lam. 2.5 where the Prophet complains The Lord was as an enemy and yet this was but as an enemy neither but even that was sufficient the Prophet tells you to increase the mourning and lamentation in the Daughter of Judah As well it might for it totally alters all the methods of Gods Providence towards a people and puts as it were another nature into the Almighty For he that is love it self is turned all into anger God is angry says the Psalmist with the wicked every day Psal 7.11 The greatest consternation and among the greatest persons that ever was heard of in any History in the world I believe by persons especially of their quality is that which you read in Rev. 6.15 16. for the Text tells you That the Kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief captains and the mighty men hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains What! the King of the earth and the rich men nay the chief Captains and the mighty men take to their heels and run away and hide themselves at this fearful rate and not only to do thus but to invocate the very mountains and rocks in which they hid to fall on them and hide them yet more securely why what 's the matter what 's the cause of this mighty prodigious consternation Why nothing else but that the Lord was their enemy and the great day of his wrath and anger was come and they were not able to stand it And do you think to be able to stand when such mighty men as these must fly to corners Do not therefore alter the methods of his Providence nor change the procedure of the Almighty towards you For though he professes that fury is not in him Isa 27.4 yet he also tells you that he will make his fury smoke against the wicked Now consider this all you that forget God lest be tare you away and there be none to deliver Psal 50.22 Thirdly Consider that till you come out of your wicked estate you are under the curse of God and all the prayers of the Church are against you You come hither and think to have a share in the Churches absolution but you are mistaken it belongs not to you read the Absolution and you will see that we are to declare and pronounce to the Lord people being penitent the absolution and remission of their sins but what 's that to you we are to declare That God pardoneth and absolveth all them which truly repent and unfeignedly believe his Gospel But what 's this to you whiles you remain wicked will not repent unfeignedly believe nor perform the conditions of Absolution In Numb 22 and 23. chap. you may see a wicked King bribing a wicked Prophet to curse the people of God the History is of Balack and Balaam but as Balaam said to Balack How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed Chap. 23.8 so must I say to you how can we bless whom God hath not blessed What do you think that Commination Prov. 24.24 of which we have spoken already is to go for nothing Would you have us to undergo the curse of God and the curse of men to bless those that are accursed of God I 'le not flatter ye they are cursed Ministers that undertake so cursed a work What would you have us to debauch the blessings and curses of God and betray and pervert the uses of our highest trust For we are to pronounce none blessed no nor cursed neither on earth but such as we have a sure ground to believe from the word of God will receive the same sentence from our great Master the God of Heaven whose Ministers we are in this dreadful administration and what shall we bless the wicked which the whole Book of God tells us the Lord abhors Or curse the righteous in whom the Scriptures assure us is all his delight How shall we answer and justifie these Censures at the Bar of Christs Tribunal And would to God the Guides and Governours of our Church would lay this thing more seriously to heart than I doubt they do And consider Christ gave them not the power of the Keys to accommodate their lusts of pride envy covetousness nor that they should cast or shut good men out of the Church and let or keep the wicked in as I also doubt is sometimes done For this is utterly to subvert and over-turn the whole design of the Gospel For the design of the Gospel in all the Institutions thereof is that Christs Church might be a pure Spouse unto him not a beastly and impudent Harlot Pray you read Revel 22.15 and you will see what manner of persons they are that Christ shuts out or excommunicates Without says that great Text are dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and murtherers and Idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a lye And if we should shut out all these from our Church I mean all those that are publickly and notoriously such as certainly it is our duty to do I fear we should have but pitiful thin Congregations How therefore we shall answer to Christ the letting in these dogs into his fold of the Church and our so industriously keeping his sheep out is if I mistake not our highest concernment to consider But I proceed As those you see that are in a wicked estate are our enemies to God and as such are under the curse of God so the Prayers of the Church are against them Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered was the ancient standing Prayer of the Church of God But how dismal is that Petition of the Royal Prophet Psal 59.5 where he prays the Lord God of hosts the
servants of the most high God which shew unto us the way of salvation and this she did many days at last St. Paul dispossessed her of the Spirit and in vers 19. When her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone they caught Paul and Silas and drew them into the market-place unto the rulers and brought them to the magistrates saying These men do exceedingly trouble our City And in vers 22. The multitude rose up against them and the magistrates rent off their clothes and commanded to beat them And when they had laid many stripes upon them they cast them into prison charging the Gaoler to keep them safely So as the Prophets were accounted the troublers of the places where they came in the Old Testament so you see the Apostles loaded with the same charge in the new Nay exceeding troublesome These men say these wretches here exceedingly trouble our city And you find them reckoned so troublesom at Ephesus that they raised an uproar upon them Acts 19. where you may see the same Spirit acting them for their gain which was their god was going and that put them beyond all patience For Demetrius layed his charge thus This Paul saith he hath perswaded and turned away much people saying that they be no gods which are made with hands a mighty crime is it not so that our craft is in danger For this Demetrius was a Silversmith and one of the makers of those manufactured gods that St. Paul decried and seeing his gain upon the wing and ready to take its flight he was mad and made that uproar Nor among the Gentiles only that worshipped gods of Gold and Silver of Wood and of Stone was this wrong apprehension of the Apostles but amongst the Jews also who had the true notion of the one and only true God For you read in Acts 17. that St. Paul and Silas coming to Thessalonica and finding there a Synagogue of the Jews went in amongst them and reasoned from the Scriptures that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead and that Jesus whom they preached was Christ And 't is said that some of the Jews believed but the Jews which believed not moved with envy took unto them certain lewd fellows and the baser sort where by the way you may note that lewd fellows and the baser sort of people are and ever were the enemies of Christ and true Christians of these they gathered a company and set all the city in an uproar and when they found not Paul and Silas they drew certain of the Brethren unto the rulers of the city crying These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also And in Acts 24.5 you will find the same Apostle called by Terullus the Orator a pestilent fellow a mover of sedition a ringleader of a sect and an outcry made upon him Away with such a fellow from the earth for it is not fit that he should live Acts 22.22 Comfort your selves then for you see you have no harder measure than the holy Apostles had you can't be called worse than they were called nor have more nor greater calumnies cast upon you than you see were cast on them and yet I am perswaded you do believe that notwithstanding all this wicked rage from these false and wicked Plotters that the holy Apostles were no enemies to Caesar were no troublers nor disturbers of Governments nor People nor no seditious pestilent fellows and unworthy to live upon the face of Gods earth as their tumults uproars and cursed outcrys did accuse them for Nay what if our blessed Lord and Saviour himself received no better nor fairer quarter from this wicked generation Then I hope you will be comforted and contented with your lot remembring that holy word The Disciple is not above his Master nor the Servant above his Lord It is enough for the Disciple to be as his Master and the Servant as his Lord If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub how much more shall they call them of his houshold so Matt. 10.24 25. And see how opprobriously and contemptuously they called our Lord so Matt. 12.24 They said This fellow doth not cast out Devils but by the help of Beelzebub the prince of Devils And in St. Luke 23.2 they accuse him saying we found this fellow perverting the nation And Joh. 9.29 We know say they that God spake by Moses but as for this fellow speaking of our Lord we know not whence he is And can you be treated at a courser or more insulting rate than this Be comforted therefore as those that have but the same salvage and brutish usage as the holy Prophets Apostles and our most holy and blessed Lord himself had from them And comfort your selves not only because God hath determined for you in his word but because God will determine for you also by his providences here or by his judgments hereafter and this comfort is annexed here to the Text For after the Psalmist had told us That the wicked plotteth against the just and gnasheth upon him with his teeth he adds for our comfort in the very next words The Lord shall laugh at him for he seeth that his day is coming I have seen says the Prophet in this Psalm the wicked in great power and spreading himself like a green bay tree All his wickedness had a Lawrel on it well and what then One would think that now he and his wickedness were secure enough but no such matter for in the very next verse they are both vanished I sought him says the Psalmist but he could not be found vers 35 36. You see his Lawrels were soon withered and all his green and flourishing estate blasted into nothing In the beginning of this Psalm the Psalmist exhorts us not to fret our selves because of evil-doers a pretty hard duty and such as even just Lot could hardly bring his mind to a thorough compliance with for the Apostle Peter tells you That his righteous soul was vexed from day to day with the filthy conversation of the wicked Sodomites 2 Pet. 2 7 8. Well but what argument doth the Prophet urge this duty upon us with that we should not fret at the wicked why the very same that we are upon here For they shall soon be cut down as grass saith he and wither as the green herb vers 2. And in the 10th verse Yet a little while and the wicked shall not be yea thou shalt diligently consider his place and it shall not be Neither their persons nor their places nor nothing shall be left but one and t'other and all cut down and dried up and withered nay their very name and memory shall rot they stank when they were above ground and they rot when they are under it and therefore you find the Royal Prophet praising God that he had destroyed the wicked and put out their name for ever and ever Psal 9.5 Men value their names next their lives and in some cases before them too and therefore they venture upon mighty things that their names may live and that there may be a fame upon their memory why even this shall be put out and not put out to revive again but the Lord shall put it out for ever and ever A man would think if any could be secure from this it should be those wicked ones spoken of in Psal 73.7 concerning whom 't is said That they had more than heart could wish To have as much as heart can wish is pretty well but to have more than heart can wish certainly must mightily secure its owners and yet by and by you see those over-grown wicked wretches that had more than heart could wish cast down by God into destruction verse the 18th And the Psalmist bursting out into admiration of Gods Providence thus in the 19th verse How are they brought into desolation as in a moment As well he might What! men that had more than their very heart could wish but just now and thus all of the sudden in a very moment brought into desolation Certainly we may well cry out with the Apostle Oh how unsearchable are the judgments of God! and his ways past finding out Rom. 11.33 Why here 's a strange winding up of their wickedness a marvellous Catastrophe Those that insulted but now at such a wonderful rate over the holy Prophets Apostles and even Christ himself that fellowed up our Lord and fellowed up his followers and that reckoned him and them but as the filth and dreges of the world and that esteemed them but Mechanicks and the very off-scouring of all things and what is all this huff and rant come to this already O what reason have you then to receive this comfort and to say Great and marvellous are thy works Lord God Almighty just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints For there are many Promises that the righteous shall see these stupendious operations of the Load as Psal 52.6 The righteous shall see and shall laugh at them And Psal 107.42 The righteous shall see it and rejoice and all iniquity shall stop her mouth It will be their turn then to clap their hands and to shout for joy For then all the upright in heart shall glory It may be the blessed God by his gracious Providence may order it so that even here your mouths may be filled with laughter and your tongues with singing But however we are sure it will be hereafter when God shall burn up all these wicked dross of the earth with unquenchable fire that have plotted against the just Wherefore I conclude my Discourse with the Exhortation of the Apostle to the Thessalonians in the first Epistle to the Thessalonians the 4th Chapter and the last verse Wherefore comfort one another with these words Now to God only wise be Glory through Jesus Christ for ever Amen FINIS