enemy and gathered them out of the land of bondage of Terrors and Ravage must be excused if they think not any time unmeet for them to proproclaim The Lord hath done great things for them The Lord hath done great things for us whereof we are glad He changeth times he changeth events at pleasure and when even the wrath of man praises him how may Gratitude be ever silent Wrath properly denotes the heat of Anger so the Origin of the Hebrew word for it in the Text directs us to take it the fiâ—rceness of man says our old translation well enough O! si sic omnia But not fierceness alone without a mixture and connotation of Pride the common adjunct of wrath both in Nature and scripture Proud wrath Prov. xxi 24. And we have heard the Pride of Moab I know his wrath saith the Lord Jer. xlviii 19 20. Yet are we not for reasons which will appear anon to interpret wrath here only of the inward how ever compound affection but to comprise also under this name all its tendencies and effects all the Disturbances Tumults Oppressions Cruelties Destructions and Desolations it operates to or produces For all these as we shall see each in their way do or shall praise God That indeed touching wrath thus taken it should be said as in the later member of the Text God will restrain it all will acknowledge reasonable to admit But that wrath in such a latitude should praise God is next to impossible to conceive especially when St. James has told us The wrath of man worketh not the righteousnâ—ss Jam. 1. 20. of God We must therefore distinctly consider each branch of the Text. And first The wrath of man shall praise thee Shall may be referred to a double period To the time future in this world or to the day of judgmâ—nt in the next and touching the praise of God by the wrath of man both or either reference will be found most illustriously true 1st Even in the present World the Wrath Furies Insolence Oppressions and all the violence of men shall praise God not indeed by mans intention so 't is sure what St. James says The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God but by God's over-ruling providence by an all-wise and unseen management A threefold act of Providence as to such things as the wrath of man that is even as to moral evils is ordinarily asserted to God by Divines He permits limits and directs 1st To begin with the lowest degree of praise which God reaps from the wrath of man He permits it for otherwise it could not be And he permits it upon most holy and wise counsel None indeed can deny God's absolute Dominion and soveraignty over all his creatures He may do with them and every of them what he will and who shall say unto him what doest thou But it must be together acknowledged that in the Government of world and especially of men God makes as little use of this soveraign Dominion as ever did any who pretended to soveraignty What to Man Law is that to God is his Infinite Wisdom and what ever he does he does for most excellent reasons in the wisest sort and for the best ends He rather wills what he does because it is good than does any thing because he absolutely wills it so that I dare not say Arbitrary Government that is absolute Will for a Law has any precedent even in the Empire of the most High Having therefore in the Creation made free Agents his wisdom did not see it fit to seem so far inconsistent with himself as by his Providence ever to tye them up He can Regulate their Attempts and Govern their Actions in other ways and he 'll shew it so one day In the mean while he 'll not Enslave his Subjects for his Glory He leaves them in the hand of their own counsel gives them indeed most excellent Laws and those enforced by most proper sanctions of the highest Rewards and Punishments He is not wanting with the sweet breathing and preventions of his spirit or assistances of his grace but after all he precludes not men from their natural liberty He is ever constant to himself the same in providence as in creation the holy immutable God without variation or shadow of change The wrath of man still may break forth and it praises God in that it is Permitted But much more 2. in that it is Limited and even in every particular instance most particularly Men do indeed commonly what they will but most times not so much mischief as they would Hitherto shalt thou go and here shall thy proud waves be stopt The whole design against innocent Joseph which his envious brethrens wrath had laid consisted of divers parts Let us slay him say they Gen. xxxvii 20. and cast him into some pit and we will say some evil beast has devoured him and then we shall see what will become of his dreams In other terms they would destroy him make away his body palliate their villany by a lye secure to themselves by that means impunity and in fine defeat God's counsels But Reuben interposes and they slay him not only they cast him into a pit and God provides the pit should have no water in it Reuben's interposition no doubt was no less from God than the pits emptiness and both particulars instances of God's Limiting hand To take another instance The Devil had malice enough to have destroyed Job and all that belong'd to him yet one while he may destroy Job's goods houses stock and family but not touch his person anon may touch his bone and flesh but not his life Job I and II. In these cases neither men nor devils went as far as their inclination or malice led Yet again sometimes the wrath of man is permitted to vent all its Venim only the External Agents or Instruments are tied up The three young Jewish Nobles are bound and cast unto the burning fiery furnace but the fire fastens only upon their bonds so that they are at liberty to walk to stretch their limbs at ease expatiate in the flames not so much as an hair on their head is singed nor their coats changed nor the smell of fire had passed on them Dan. III. 27. Daniel himself is thrown unto the hungry Lions but the Lions mouths are stopped Not only the Wrath of Man then but the Appetites of fiercest Beasts and even Malice of Devils as well as of Men has its fixed pillars and more than adamantine chains and posts and by these its bounds praises that is gives occasion to the praise of him who there fixed its Neplus ultra In a word the wrath of man praises God in that it stops though on force To God's limitting or setting bounds to the wrath of man doth belong his Baffling it and at such critical instants as he sees meet defeating the poor angry worms This is rather here to be taken notice of because it
Theatre of the world and of all ages shall be opened and the particular scenes of each Tragedy that from the beginning has been acting and acted in the several spots upon Earth shall be displaid then will it appear that All the Furies and Bravo's nay All the Sagâ—s too of the world have all along even in their bloudiest outrages as well as most composed consultations in their gravest as well as in their boldest enterprises and transactions busied themselves only like a company of blind madmen doing they knew not what sometimes pleasing sometimes tormenting themselves in the extravagant swinge of their own humours or lusts but in the mean whilâ— moving in a most regular though to them unseen course and method All order'd by the wisest counsel and over â—uled by the sweetest though Almighty hand Nothing in humane Action forc'd nothing unnatural as to God's part who will then appear let mens intrigues and plots have been what they could never to have been at a loss either for counsel power or instruments to work his own will but on the contrary so to have predisposed and connected all events that to his designs all have been directly subservient and cooperative however to humane eyes they have seemed to run counter Only with this difference some having comply'd with his grace have in the strength thereof served his purpose out of choice others having resisted his grace have notwithstanding their own malice served his purpose against their will The one therefore will be graciously rewarded the other justly punished but as to both the Event in all will appear to have praised him For where in his infinite wisdom he saw not good to order the wrath of man to his praise it will be manifest that the remainder of wrath he did restrain which is the second member of the verse and of which briefly The remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain CHEMOTH Wrath in the plural number seems to be put in opposition to CHAMATH the single wraâ—h of man in the former part of the verse to shew there is more wrath which God is to restrain than meerly that of man There is also more pride which needs alike restraint namely that of the first Lucifer who sinn'd and as is thought fell by aspiring to ascend and to be like the most High There are finally that I may add that beyond my Text other counsels also as well as other wrath and pride besides humane which God confounds There is a wisdom that descendeth not from above no nor grows on earth but is devillish Jam. III. 15. And both wrath pride and wisdom of Devils as well as men shall God restrain when he pleases not to turn them to his praise Let there then be Hellish plots yet our God shall confound them I am not ignorant there is another sense of the word which we render restrain viz. he shall gird himself whether with the remainder of the wraths of Enemies as with spoils when he has defeated what thereof he lists or with wrath of his own against his Enemies I may not stand to discuss I have thought fit to keep to our own translation Waving therefore these interpretations I shall only in two words consider How God restrains the remainder of wrath which he does not see fit shall praise him 1st He sometimes happily restrains it by changing perhaps throughly converting the angry or furious heart For even the hearts of Kings and much more of meaner personages are in the hands of the Lord and as rivers of water he turneth Prov. xxi 1. them whither he pleases He changes I say the angry heart either 1st By Abating its furies and inducing a calm and sweet temper Thus God restrain'd the remainder of Esau's wrath to his brother Jacob. Esau had said in his heart perhaps sworn for he was prophane enough to do so the days of mourning for my father are at hand then will I stay my brother Jacob. Gen. XXVII 14. And he came to meet his brother Jacob an unarm'd shepherd with wives and children and flocks he came to meet I say this his naked brother and four hundred men with him all no doubt in warlike array and he breathing his former fierce intentions But God sweetens him To pass by many little particulars of the story When they are in sight of one another God puts into Jacob's heart to bow himself to the ground seven times until he came near unto his brother Ch. XXXIII 3. 4. And Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him and they wept O that all quarrels between brethren that is at large between private Christians might thus end thus praise God! Or 2. Sometimes God of his infinite grace lays a train uses means to convert and turn to himself the hearts of his his servants enemies Thus it was with them who were sent by the spiteful Pharisees to apprehend our Lord Jesus not without some grains of malice undoubtedly of their own otherwise they would John VII never have gone on such an Errand Now God had so order'd it that at the moment these Officers found Jesus he was preaching in the temple and their curiosity moved them to attend and hear a little before they take him perhaps that they might catch whereof to accuse him But the effect of what they heard is their hearts are touched they are taken themselves they return to their principals Never man spake like this man May God daily more and more thus restrain wrath But we must remember in this sort God uses to restrain only the wrath of men and but of some men too for Devils are incorrigibly malicious and so are too many of their agents Both these therefore are not convertible Wherefore as to their wrath Secondly God more forcibly perhaps dreadfully restrains it by plain tying them up or destroying them As to tying up the Devil at God's pleasure besides the forementioned case of Job whom Satan could not touch until and no farther than God would permit the twentieth of the Revelations when we have stript it of all mystery or prophesy in it is a most positive and indefeasible proof v. 1. I saw an Angel come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand Here is as I may say all the circumstantiative pomp and deviseables for the fastest confinement A mighty Angel for an officer a great chain to bind Satan with a dungeon the bottomless pitt into which he is to be cast here in too he is to be shut then for the dungeon when shut there is a key and after all according to the manner of the Easterlings a seal to be set upon it and none can loose him save he that bound him Stricter restraint cannot be described Thus as to the wrath of the Devil And as to incorrigible men such an one proved Sennacherib the person so much concern'd in the subject of this Psalm
PASTORAL ADMONITIONS Directed by the BISHOP of CORK To all under His Charge Whereunto is added A SERMON REFLECTING On the late Sufferings and Deliverance of the Protestants in the said County and City Preached at White-Hall on the Fourth Sunday in Lent March 22. 1690. CORK Printed by John Brent for David Jones Bookseller and are to be sold at his Shop in Cork 1691. Through hast these faults are escaped which be pleased to amend before you read the whole PAg. I. lin 10. read I wish pag. VI. l. 17 r. I do not say we here p. IX l. 21. 1 are able to p. XI l. 1. r. from every evil p. 16. l. 14. r. wrath both of God's and of their own p. 22. l. 7. r. Wraths p. laâ—t l. 10. r. together Laws To my Dearly Beloved Brethren and Neighbours of the County and City of Corke As well such who were Fellow Sufferers with me in all our late Calamities as such who Retired seasonably from part of them Grace and Peace be multiplied Brethren and Neighbours Dearly Beloved My Joy and I wish I may be able to say My Crown THat I was not unmindful of you or wanting to do you jâ—stice in that my late absence which bodily indisposition first made necessary and then circumstances that I could not remedy protracted beyond my first or last intention to ten tedious months My Constant Thoughts and Prayers as well as the Account I every where gave of you could you be sufficiently acquainted therewith would abundantly manifest But to possess you with such things is not the design of the present paper to you It comes only to bring to you an Admonition or two which the same my constant true Affection and Zeal for your good prompts Namely to beseech and conjure you that you will be mindful of and just to your selves I mean to those your Vows which your lips have uttered and your mouths have spoken when we were in trouble Humane nature is very apt upon all occasions to promise fair but mutable withal and slow to perform Beware of it Though I most intimately knew your sufferings and felt not only my own share but by compassion and sympathy a great measure of your share also yet I cannot say I am privy to any special vows then made by any of you but I am confident this in general was the common vow of all or most of us that If God would please to mend our condition we would mend our manners In his name therefore I importune and conjure you to Examine strictly whether you have been faithful herein to what you then in your hearts intended and promised What lives did you while in prisons or restraints while every minute as to life it self in your enemies hands and at their mercy when amidst flames and ravage Amidst bullets great and small and Bombs over your heads What lives I say did you then promise to God and your selves to live if God youchsafed to deliver you from those Calamities How often and how constantly to pray to fast to communicate to keep a strict account of your ways What sobriety reservedness and considerativeness in all your Actions did you promise and project What retrenchments of unnecessaries and Luxury What Liberality in Alms What abandoning of this world and habitual prepatation for Heaven And have we done all this Those of us who were not in these dangers being before hand driven away with the terrors of the storm we saw approaching did notwithstanding I question not in the respective places whither they had fled make to God like promises or Vows I may therefore generally speaking say Then we were all of us in a great measure reformed serious in our Religion zealous for it penitent for our sins full of Faith and Resignation to God Nay really not only in those our extremities but some while both before things came to such height and afterwards there appeared much of such happy change upon most of us Now do we still retain the same impressions the same resolution temper and endeavour as then we seem'd inspirited with I must be plain and vehement with you for my soul and your souls lie at stake If we are returned again to the mire oâ— which is much the same meerly to minding our thick clay God's Judgments thâ—n and his Mercies now are thrown away upon us And then seeing nothing will finally mend us what can we expect but utter excision and a dreadful portion of wrath to come I will be so candid as to profess I hope better things touching many and endeavour better touching all But my heart bleeds to see not a few of us as vain and Luxurious as loose and licentious as giddy and negligent not only in ordinary conversation but even in the worship of God as ever we were I warn you of these things in my Sermons it may be some think too earnestly at least frequently I shall yet God blessing me not fail so to do one way or other as long as God thinks fit to continue me in a capacity This present warning perhaps some of you will reâ—d who may not have the opportunity or will not come to hear me I beseech all of you to receive it in meekness cordially and without offence from him who does it really in the fear of God and to deliver both his own soul and yours in the great day of the Lord. We have seen enough if any thing can be enough within these two or three last years to take us off from flattering our selves or others either in open sin or in a lukewarm formal heartless profession of Religion For my own part if any one see me behaving my self contrary to such vows as those above-mentioned if any see me vain trifling away my time indulging riot Luxury or the like I will be so far from taking it amiss to be by any one Christianly minded or reproved of my forgetfulness of my self and of my vows that I will thank the person praise God for him yea and pray to God for him too who does it and I beseech you do none of you take this amiss from me whose duty more especially it is to speak these things to exhort and rebuke with all Authority Out of the bowels of Charity and with tender compassion to all your souls write I these things unto you And now I have begun to deal thus roundly and freely with you give me leave to add this Advertisement that perhaps It is highly Necessary many of us Reform farther than possibly our Particular vows may carry us It may be we did not or have not taken notice in our selves of all the sins by which we have contributed to the publick miseries I will not I do not 〈◊〉 say we have been more guilty than our neighbours in other Counties but this I may say we have suffer'd more than many and as much as most wherefore it becomes us narrowly to Examine into the measure and particulars of
our guilt Let us then each particularly as our sufferings have been put the question to our consciences has it not been for such and such our sins that we have suffer'd thus and thus that God of late shook us out of the land which we accounted he had given us for an inheritance that our goods were spoiled or torn away before our faces our houses burnt our goodly plantations destroyed that our Wives have been desolate and our Children seeking their bread amongst strangers that many of our brethren have died for want of food that our very own servants have born rule over us and to use Holy Job's words we have been a derision to those whose fathers we would have disdained Job XXX 1. to have set with the dogs of our flock Has it not been for our manifold transgressions and mighty sins that all these Amos V. 22. evils have fallen upon us I in the name of God require all persons to examine their own consciences and in the fear of God as they find things to repent and reform I will only further add a few Earnest but plain and necessary requests unto you which if I can but prevail for I shall not doubt but a true and general amendment in us will follow and God's mercies attend us The First is that you would each one of you use daily to pray in secret though such secret Prayers should be the shorter and Remember always to put your hearts into your prayers Secret prayers you may truly account your own As to prayers with the Family or the Church the Authority of the chief of the Family or the custom of the Countrey puts you upon them and brings you to them but secret prayers come only from within your selves from conscience that is from a sense of duty and from the fear or love of God in you and so as said are purely your own and will most surely speed if sincere Wherefore omit not any day the practice of this kind of prayer Secondly I beseech further That all such who have Families would set up the daily worshâ—p of God in their Families Those of the poorer and meaner sort who cannot use longer prayers might easily learn the Confession Almighty and most merciful Father we have Erred c. one of the Collects for morning O Lord our heavenly Father almighty and everlasting God who hast c. one for the Evening Lighten our darkness and then use the Lord's Prayer and The Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ making all their Family to kneel and with Reverence join Even this would be of a wholsome effect Others of greater leisure and ability both may and ought to use more and I presume want not help at hand Besides this seeing there are daily publick prayers in two Churches of the Town at least what would it be for every sufficient Housekeeper if not to come often themselves yet to send daily at least one or two of the Family to pray there for all the rest The sense of Religion would hereby grow amongst us and the face of it daily look brighter Thirdly On what ever daies or times you are forgetful remiss or negligent suffer not the Lord's-day evening to pass without some solemn prayers in the Family And then call to account the younger sort and servants how they have spent the Lord's-day Where they have been at Church or what they remember and make some of them that are are able to read in the Holy Bible or any other good Books in the hearing of the rest All professions of Christians condemn and will rise up in judgment against the generality of those who call themselves Church of England men for neglect of prayers in the Family and calling their Family to account Fourthly Both your selves in person observe and see that your Families in some tolerable manner of strictness observe the Lord's-Day Nothing more promotes the power of Godliness and keeps up the face of Religion amongst us than such observation Fiftly as one branch hereof send your servants and younger people to Church and Catechism in the afternoon on the Lord's days Business is pretended for many servants in the morning Afternoon there can be little And Catechising is the proper preaching for such people I wish it could be truly said the Elder sort of the Commonalty did not want it Lastly Of all sins both your selve beware of and upon all occasions as you hear it manifest your abhorrence of that common but odious useless and unreasonable sin of Common Swearing Warn your children and servants first and then if after guilty chastise them for it and if servants will not reform it turn them away Keep up the Reverence of God's name and this will be a means to promote in your own and others hearts his fear Now the good God make you perfect in every good work deliver you from evil one and preserve you to his Heavenly Kingdom This I daily on my knees more than once or twice commonly pray for you And do you sometimes at the least when you read this pray the same for Your unworthy but affection at and Faithful Pastour E. Corke Rosse Bishop's-Court Corke Novemb. 27. 1691. For the better minding some of us of particular Vows here follows the Form of Prayer which was made and used when the City being taken our Churches were restored to us O God of all Wisdom Power who alone reignest over all that is or is called Great in Heaven or in Earth Mighty in Counsel Wonderful in Working Terrible in Praises We vile sinners less than the least of thy Mercies humbly adore and bless thee for all that Grace Truth and Faithfulness which Thou hast shewn to us thy Unworthy servants and to the Rest of our Numbers who cannot here now present themselves Thou art Righteous in all thy Waies Holy and Gracious in all thy Works Thou executest Righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed and Thou hast magnified thy Mercy above all thy Name We have cried unto thee O Lord in our Distress and Thou hast heard us Thou hast delivered us from under the power of our Cruel Enemies Thou hast redeemed our Life from Destruction and crowned us with loving kindness and tender mercies Thou hast again set our feet in a large room and restored us to our Liberty to worship thee according to thy Word and Ordinance in publick Assemblies Note The Protestants were often imprisoned in the Churches For our sins O Lord thou madest thine House our Prison and in thy tender mercy thou hast now made our Prison the Place of our Praises We will therefore bless thee as long as we live We will lift up our hands in thy name and Our Hearts in thy Love We will daily pay our vows to thee the God of our salvation and by thy Grace with Life and conversation with Heart and soul and all that is within us strive to make thy praise glorious Blessing and Glory