in pleasant places we have a goodly Heritage 4. Aged persons and housholders you that are Parents have reason to lament after the Lord of the Ark and the Ark of the Lord that the Waters of the Sanctuary may run both with a clear and strong stream to your Families and Posterity Alas we that have Children have been Instruments to propagate filth and guilt and wrath to our Off-spring and what can we do to heal and help them But if the Lord would be our God he hath promised to be the God of our Seed God forbid we should intail a Curse on our Posterity and give them occasion to curse us to all eternity What unworthy Parents are those that have fair Estates left them and by their Prodigality leave their Children Beggars or Bankrupts But oh how sad would this be to deprive our Posterity of this Gospel-Legacy it will be both their loss and our own Lord suffer us not to go off the Stage in a snuff and leave such a stink behind us Better we had never been born than to fry and blaze in Hell flames we and our poor Children bundled up in Faggots together God thinks good to bind up Parents and their Seed in the Bond of the Covenant Oh Lord we are resolved to follow after thee for the sure mercies of David Be thou our God and we shall have better hopes for our Seed O remember that word Isa 59.21 As for me this is my Covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy Seed nor out of the mouth of thy Seeds Seed saith the Lord from henceforth and forever This word is full and satisfying 1. Thy Spirit shall be upon me and mine in Sanctification 2. Thy words in my mouth and Childrens mouths in profession solemn Worship 3. They shall not depart from my Seeds Seed to many Generations 4. No not for ever 5. God even Jehovah undertakes this 6. It 's through Christ the Redeemer that 's come to Sion 7. It 's a new Covenant-mercy 8. It doth concern all Converts and such as turn from transgression in Jacob and am not I one of these My dear Lord make thou this word good to me and mine thou that livest for ever and ever I shall live in my Posterity when I shall be here no more let the Gospel-message survive me and the Gospel-grace live in them when I am gone Oh! cut not off thy kindness from my Seed let not them that follow me be deprived of that which I have found so much sweetness in O that Ishmaels may live in thy sight What will become of such as are born in sin if they want means of Conviction and Conversion There 's much ado to awake the sleepy Consciences of our dead Posterity under quickening Ordinances Oh! what then will become of these when such helps are gone How can I endure to see or foresee the destruction of my own bowels Oh! it cuts me to the heart to think of the damning of any much more my own flesh Lord prevent I will pray in hope live in hope die in hopes of the continuance of Gospel-Priviledges 5. Ministers must make it their work to lament after the Lord You you are the Persons mainly concerned You must sound an alarum to awake others you are appointed by the Lord as Instruments to carry on this work and if ever God do return he will excite his Servants to quicken themselves and others to this work as Samuel here Gird your selves and lament ye Priests howl ye Ministers of the Altar come lye all night in sackcloth ye Ministers of my God Yea let the Priests the Ministers of the Lord weep between the Porch and the Altar and let them say Spare thy People O Lord and give not thine heritage to reproach that the heathen should rule over them wherefore should they say among the People Where is their God Alas my brethren have you been so long cast out of Gods publick Work and Worship even twenty long years and have you not yet leavned to lament shall our Master cashie us his service and not judg us worthy to blow our triumpets of Rams horns break a pitcher or hold the lamps for him Surely he is very sore provoked shall I say three Shepherds he cut off in one month nay near three thousand in one day And hath drawn out his wrath a great length and is there no fault in us Yes certainly our Father would not have spit in our face or poured contempt upon us upon us peculiarly but he hath found great fault in us he hath doubtless seen much amiss in us He doth not use to single out a sort of men to shoot his arrows at without fault we cannot excuse instruments but certainly we have deserved all this at God's hands is not God punishing Eli's house for the iniquity he knoweth of Let us my Brethren deal faithfully and impartially with our selves before God and the world cast the first stone at our selves at last justify the Lord by taking shame to our selves Hath God set us in this office only to tell others of their faults Have we not reason to call to remembrance our own faults this day I hope such as are truly gracious have made this reflection many times Nor is this my present work to rake in this dirty Channel only it becomes us to enquire why God hath made us contemptible and base before all the People Mal. 2.1 9. My present work is to quicken our lamenting after the Lord that if it be possible we may fetch him again I may say as Mal. 1.9 And now I pray you beseech God that he will be gracious unto us This hath been by your means O it 's well if our People have not reason to say so of their Ministers how beit sincere Repentance will not make men throw it off themselves by laying it on others but we may sadly eccho Yes yes it hath been by our means we have put out our Candles by the Thief we have lodged therein We having obscured our glory by sinning We have robbed our People of the Ark and exposed them to Seduction and destruction by the abominations that have been found amongst us Let us fall close to our work of Preaching reforming praying calling God again who knows but if we mourn to our People but they may lament Our watery eyes may affect Peoples hard hearts If the Fishers mourn and such as cast angles into brooks lament our People will be moved God will hear our universal cry and awake for us Some will needs have our wearing black to import our mourning If so let us not be Hypocrites but lament indeed not in shew Some observe that People are much formed after the preaching examples dispositions of their Teachers But it 's to be feared they
as Sampson I will go out as at other times before and shake my self But he wisteth not that the Lord is departed from him When he reflects on himself and finds it so will he not see sad cause to lament And have not some Godly Souls cause to say as Gideon Judg. 6.13 Oh my Lord if the Lord be with us why then is all this befallen us And where be all his miracles which our Fathers told us of But now the Lord hath forsaken us 1. In point of quickening exciting and actuating their graces May not that sad complaint be taken up Isa 64.7 There is none that calleth on thy name that stirreth up himself to take hold on thee For thou hast hid thy face from us hast consumed Heb. melted us because of our iniquities Where is that flaming love that working faith Gospel-repentance that lively hope that filial fear that spirit of adoption that found mind tender conscience and working affections as in former days It 's much to be feared there 's a general decay of grace or damp in point of exercise on the Spirits of living Christians it 's well if the Bridgroom find not even the wise Virgins asleep 2. As to strength and assistance against the assaults of temptation and out-breakings of corruption many Thorns in the flesh Messengers of Satan do too prevalently push forwards Gods Children to sin and they find not his grace sufficient for them as sometimes but stumble and fall and are broken snared and taken Yea sometimes to the breaking of their bones dishonouring of God scandal of their profession and endangering of their precious Souls Oh let not such things be told in Gath or published in Askelon lest the uncircumcised Philistins triumph over Gods People and be hardened in their sinful ways Alas where shall Gods tender Spirited Children hide their faces when their brethren prophane Gods holy Name and men shall say These are the People of the Lord and are gone forth out of his land Ezek. 36.20 These are your Praecisians and scrupulous Zealots that will not do as others now they shew that they are a pack of Hypocrites This cuts deep and wounds to the heart 3. As to communion with God Gods People of old could assert it with a truely however carnal men scorn it now 1 Joh. 1.3 Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ Not only in that secret essential fundamental communion whereby grace is maintained in its being and life but that sweet sensible Soul-refreshing fellowship that gives grace its activity maintains intercourse betwixt God and the Soul in duty But alas have not Gods Children cause to complain as the Church that God withdraws himself She seeks him but finds him not in publick Ordinances in secret Duties in communion of Saints Gods Children complain with Job chap. 23.8 9. Behold I go forward but he is not there and backward but I cannot perceive him c. He looks East West North South but in vain This is strange that God who is every where should be found no where but though the Child of God be aware of Gods general Omnipresence and feel his common Providence yet is not satisfied without his special presence and gracious influence And missing this he hath reason to lament after the Lord when he hides himself 4. As to assurance settlement and comfort sometimes Gods Children are left to a sad unsatisfyed and doubting frame full of fears troubles jealousies are much in the dark in point of state this is a very general complaint at this day Many have blurred their evidences by sins or carelesness and cannot give any distinct account how their principles are stated what condition their Souls are in are damped and daunted as to their interest in Christ title to the promises hopes of Heaven Have not these great cause to lament after the Lord And surely these must say as David Psal 51.8 12. Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoyce restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free Spirit O my God! My Soul is cast down within me one while I argue with my own heart communing expostulating challenging charging my Spirit and alas I can do no good with it other whiles turning me to God but still I am restless cannot be quiet but am tossed with tempests and not comforted Well I am determined to look towards Gods holy temple and cast my self at Gods feet in the vertue of that promise Hos 6.3 Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord his going forth is prepared as the morning and he shall come unto us as the rain as the latter and former rain unto the earth Thus much for the Doctrinal part and the clearing of an objection All the Application I shall make of this point shall only be of Exhortation to put us all upon this so seasonable and needful a duty of lamenting after the Lord the Ark of the Lord and the Lord of the Ark. In prosecuting this I shall do these four things 1. Propound some Motives and Arguments to press this duty upon our Spirits 2. Discover what sort of Persons are concerned thus to lament after the Lord. 3. Lay before you some Helps to carry on this work of serious lamenting 4. Propound some Cordials to incourage our hearts till we overtake the Lord. 1. For Motives to persuade prevail with our hearts to practice this duty once at last and indeed it 's a very sad consideration that this People of Israel were twenty years before they began to feel their feet or come to themselves This shall be the First Argument That a professing People may lye long under dreadful Spiritual judgments without a sensible Spirit It was so with them here it 's well if it be not so with us And this sensless frame is greater evil than any other judgments Qu. But how comes it to pass that men may be so long senseless and not lament after the Lord all this while Ans 1. From the nature of sin sin is of an hardening stupifying brutifying nature when men fall into sin their hearts are hardened by it Heb. 3.13 Sin is of a cold congealing nature it freezeth the Soul rocketh conscience asleep and like the Fish Torpedo that diffuseth its benumming poison through the hand arm and creeping at last to his heart kills him so doth sin It 's not to tell how David's sin rockt him asleep and led him on to other sins till it indangered his Soul's sleeping the sleep of death 2. From the worldly enjoyments men have in room of Ordinances as the Captives in Babylon being well settled in their conveniences forget God's Appointments and Jerusalem comes not into their mind while their enjoyments afford contentment Yea though some returned they can sleep quietly in their Cieled houses while the House of God lies waste Hag. 1.4 God's Ark
Israel's Lamentation After the Lord OR A DISCOURSE WHEREIN Every well-wisher to Zion is excited and directed how to lament after the Lord with Prayers and Tears To maintain the Ordinances of God or God's presence with his Ordinances amongst us BEING Some Meditations upon 1 Sam. 7.2 Psalm 80.4 O Lord God of Hosts how long wilt thou be angry Heb. smoke against the Prayer of thy People LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the three Crowns Bible at the lower end of Cheapside 1683. AN Humble Address TO THE Righteous GOD. RIghteous art thou O Lord in all thy ways and holy in all thy works must Dust and Ashes say when they speak to thee or plead with thee All Israel have transgressed thy Law and despised thy Gospel therefore hast thou brought upon us a great Evil such as hath scarce ever been done under the whole Heaven not three Shepherds cut off in a month but some thousands in one day and this not for a day or month or year but even twenty years already neither is there any among us that knoweth how long this sad Cloud may be upon us Thy will be done Thou hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve but to the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses though we rebelled against thee and shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right Look down from Heaven and behold from the habitation of thy Holiness and of thy Glory Shall the needy alwaies be forgotten shall the expectation of the Poor perish for ever Be not wrath very sore O Lord neither remember iniquity for ever Behold see we beseech thee we are all thy People though our iniquities testifie against us do thou this for thy Names sake for behold for thy sake we are killed all the day long The Lord God of Hosts the Lord God of gods he knoweth and Israel he shall know if it be rebellion or transgression against the Lord. Judg O Lord them that have walked in their integrity Recompence thy Servants according to the cleanness of their hands in thine Eye-sight that have not wickedly departed from their God or by the grace of God have acknowledged their offence returned to thee and who at last are following on to know the Lord and pleading and hoping for a reviving and raising up after these daies or years of death let thy dead men live thy slain Witnesses be called up and ascend to Heaven in a Cloud let there be a shaking that these dry Bones may come together Come O Wind and breath on them that they may live Cause thy face to shine upon thy Sanctuary for the Lord's sake In midst of Judgment remember mercy and at last revive thy work Give us the opening of the mouth Set thy Light on a Candlestick Hold the Stars in thy right hand Let thy Peoples Eyes see their Teachers Give us help from trouble for vain is the help of man Purifie the Sons of Levi that they may offer to the Lord an Offering in Righteousness Thou art Jehovah and changest not therefore we the Sons of Jacob are not all consumed Thou art the Creator of the Ends of the Earth and therefore canst command deliverance for Jacob. There 's no searching of thine understanding therefore canst devise ways for the banished to be restored a faithful God and wilt perform thy Promises and confirm the Word of thy Servants But our God is a God of Judgment blessed are all they that wait for him He which testifieth these things saith Surely I come quickly Amen even so come Lord Jesus TO All the Mourners IN ZION That wait for The Consolation of Israel Grace Mercy and Peace THe sharp rebukes that Divine displeasure hath laid us under these many Years have caused many thoughts of heart whilst prophane men have shot their Arrows bitter words it becomes Gods Children to have many solemn searchings of hearts and serious Enquiries after the Reason of the Lords Controversie with the Daughter of Zion word and Rod call to us to consider our ways and Gods People have called on themselves and one another saying Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord Doubtless the occasion is given by us we turned away from God before he turned his back upon us Judgment is begun at the house of God and he expects repentance should begin there That pacification may be first begun there God saith You only have I known of all the Families of the earth therefore I will punish you for your iniquities And well he may for the provocation of his Sons and Daughters goes nearest his heart as being against greater light and love means mercies obligations and expectations then any others surely it 's high time for us to awake out of sleep The charge is drawn up the indictment is read Scourges have been laid on yea of such a nature as have come nearest the hearts of the Godly Loss of Gospel-priviledges is a greater affliction then loss of Gold Goods Houses Liberties Relations Yea of life it self Yea saith God Woe also unto them when I depart from them God doth not use to depart till he be slighted or thrust away This hath been a long dark and gloomy day a day of rebuke and Blasphemy a day of Scattering and treading in down the valley of Vision Ministers and their dear flocks rent asunder Solemn assemblies sorrowfully broken up Sad and silent Sabboths by some profaned Ignorance increasing conversion work stopped Sinners hardened Young beginners in Religion discouraged Atheism abounding Presecution revived and thousands of precious Souls wandring about as sheep that have no shepheard Many publick uplaces being ill supplyed and guilt broaght upon the nation pressing us down tow ords destruction yea such sins as leave a People remediless mocking the messengers of God despising his words misusing his prophets till the wrath of the Lord arise against us till there be no remedy or no healing this brought Israel into captivity out of their own Land Yea this hath brought the final scattering of that forlorn Nation to this day killing the Lord Jesus their own Prophets persecuting the Apostles forbidding them to speak to the gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sins alwaies for wrath is come upon them to the uttermost surely this lies nearest the hearts of real Saints next to Gods glory and their own Souls that poor sinners damn themselves destroy the Nation It 's dreadful indeed to see debauchery in the land abounding and basest of men vent personal malice against Gods dearest Children for no other fault but worshipping God and praying for their persecutors Men write voluminous treatises of invectives against us charging us with Schisms Sedition Faction and Rebellion which God knows our Souls hate and we durst appeal to our worst
the Priest a kindness to find him work by new sinning to get pardons Yea some think strange at others that they are not as bad as themselves And is not this matter of lamenmentation to see the Earth thus for saken by a righteous God and possessed by so many Bears Lions Tygers and Goats that men are grown Wolves yea Devils to each other Is it not time to lament after that God that gives up men to such profligate and prodigious courses as hasten their own damnation and England's desolation Is it not time to seek God till he come and Rain Righteousness upon us Hos 10.12 2. Is not converting grace much withdrawn from the Ordinances of God And doth not this call sensible Souls to lament after the Lord Time hath been that our Lord hath mounted his white Horse and hath bent his Bow and shot his Arrows of Conviction and made them sharp in the hearts of the King's Enemies and caused people to fall under him going forth conquering hath had his Crown set upon his head by the Daughters of Jerusalem But alas now the Church hath a miscarrying Womb and dry Breasts Ministers cry out Who hath believed our Report I have laboured in vain God doth not go forth with his Word as formerly The Apostles were Fishers inclosed many at a draught present Ministers Hunters shout and run all day and catch but one or two and well too It 's worth a whole lifes pains Though it cannot be denied God's despised Servants have now and then seals of their Ministry to God's glory their incouragement and the stopping of the mouths of slanderers Jerusalem is built even in troublesom times The Gospel is not bound though Ministers be Men civilly dead may convey spiritual life God hath not left his Servants without some Testimonies in the Consciences and Conversations of their Hearers that God is in his Ordinances of a truth But alas how few gleanings hath our dear Lord compared with the full Vintage Satan gets among men We take these first fruits thankfully till the full Harvest come Let Ministers and People lament after the Lord that he would fill his House with glory hasten the day of his Power to make People chearful Volunteers in the Lord's Warfare Oh that more might knock at our doors with a What must I do to be saved Where is the Lord God of Elijah Lord cloath thine Ordinances with thy Power When shall Aaron's Rod bring forth ripe Almonds Lord let the Children of the Covenant own the God of their Fathers and be sprinkled with Covenant grace Lord break up that blessed Writ of Electing Love in converting grace Let Sermons be seconded with power Make thy Word the Arms of God unto Salvation 3. Doth not God much withdraw from the Societies of his Servants Is there to be sound that entireness singleness faithfulness amongst God's People to each other as in former daies Is there not much pride worldliness decay of love to God abating spiritual zeal for God such as was in the daies of old Alas we have reason to think the Spirit of Prayer is much withdrawn that close walking that distance from appearances of sin that entireness for God that endearedness and usefulness of Christians amongst themselves as is wont to be Yea hath not God seemed to take Peace from the Earth Is not Manasseâ— against Ephraim and Ephraim against Manasseh and they together against Judah Papists against Protestants and Protestants against Papists and they together against zealous Worshippers and exact walkers according to pure and Primitive Institutions Are not some Members of the same Church that desire to keep close to the Rule rendred black while the Sun hath looked upon them with some malignant aspects and reflections of displeasure Yea even the same Mothers Children are angry with them Yea their own Shepherds pity them not Nay some Watchmen are so rigid and censorious that they find them out wound them take away their vail from them expose the Members of the same Church as if they were factious traiterous or heretical and will hold no communion with them that have much charity for them and pursue them with intreaties to beg their consent to walk with them towards Heaven and joyn in God's work for winning of Souls and alas they brow-beat them and seem to deny them liberty to worship the same God own the same Bible or partake of the same common Saviour If this be not for a lamentation what is Methinks some deal with their Brethren as Saul's Courtiers with honest David 1 Sam. 26.19 They have driven me out this day from abiding in the Inheritance of the Lord saying Go serve other gods Or as it is Ezek. 11.15 Son of Man thy Brethren even thy Brethren the men of thy kinred all the house of Israel wholly are they unto whom the Inhabitants of Jerusalem have said Get ye far from the Lord unto us is this Land given in possession Monopolies are dangerous in Spirituals What envy hath excluding others begot in these cases Lamentable is the Story here in England of the haughty carriage of Austin the Monk and petulant behaviour of the Brittish Bishops who neglected to joyn with the other upon private animosities to Preach the Gospel to the Idolatrous Saxons Austin predicted and menaced that if they would not have Peace with their Brethren they should have Wars with their Enemies Shortly after Ethelbert King of Northumberland being a Pagan went with a great Army against the City of Chester whether animated by Austin God knows overcame the Brittans slew eleven hundred Monks i.e. persons religiously devoted to God for praying for the Brittans only fifty escaped with Brockmail Mayor of Chester A Spirit of Aemulation in so good a work hath alwaies bad Effects and Pride hath dreadful consequences Church-Divisions are much to be lamented and very rarely issue without Civil Dissentions For the Divisions of Reuben there ought to be sad searchings and heavy thoughts of heart Lord when shall Conscience-racking Oaths be broken How long shall intangling Orders for decency rend the bowels of thy Church When shall Subscription to Christ's Laws suffice It 's sure a matter of lamentation that the Devil casts the Bone among Professing Christians and they snarl at each other about it How long shall the pride and wrath of men make and blow up that spark into a flame that Satan the great make-bait casts among them When will men see the hand of Joab is in all this and discern at last that among all these contending Clients none is gainer but that common Barreter Lord open mens Eyes heal our bleeding wounds and bring back that antient Christian Spirit of Love and Peace Charity Humility 4. Once more Is there no cause for Gods Children to lament after the Lord for his return to their Spirits Is not God much withdrawn from the hearts of his People If a Child of God say
is forgotten when mens private Chests are full Personal comforts thrust our spiritual as the Sun Beams eat out the Kitchin fire 3. From the want of quickening Means in the want of Ordinances When the Prophets are dead naturally or civilly their Monitors to duty are taken away Psal 74.9 We see not our signs there 's no more any Prophet neither is there any among us that knoweth how long When men want an Haggai or Zechariah they lie still asleep for want of awakening Helps It 's Samuel that promotes this lamenting after the Lord. 4. From the withdrawings of God's grace Psal 80.18 Quicken us and we will call on thy Name As long as God turns his back on us we shall be so far from kindly lamenting after him that we shall turn go back from him My Soul followeth hard after thee Psal 63.8 How comes that to pass why Thy right hand upholdeth me It 's God that gives a repenting heart a lamenting Soul Oh what are we if God leave us to our selves Study these causes of senslesness and let our Souls be ashamed Tremble at these causes and their effects bewail sin settle not in worldly injoyments beg quickening helps and above all Divine grace for our assistance in lamenting after the Lord. This is the first 2. That God's Professing People may and must stir up themselves to lament after the Lord. All men have rational faculties Gracious Souls have spiritual Principles sloth kills both Self excitation is possible and a furtherance to this lamentation after God Men as men have Consciences and Conscience is the Candle of the Lord searching all the inward parts of the belly by self-reflection discovering the want of God and goodness checking for evil putting on to what is good if you follow it not as far as it leads you you wrong it rebel against its Master and deprive your selves of further helps Contradict this Preacher in thy bosom at thy peril Means intervene betwixt a man's can and his cannot if thou canst not move a spiritual step thou must move a natural step after the Lord if thou canst not create a new heart yet thou canst and must endeavour to make thee a new heart and a new spirit If thou be not able to do God's work thou must be doing thy own work bemoan thy self tell him what an unruly Bullock thou art and desire him to turn thee and then thou shalt be turned Stir up thy self to take hold on God Stir up the Gift of God in thee Charge thy self as David My Soul wait thou only upon God Awake thou that sleepest arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light Awake awake put on thy strength oh Zion put on thy beautiful Garments oh Jerusalem shake thy self from the dust loose thy self from the bands of thy neck oh Captive Daughter of Zion Isa 52.1 2. Now at last God expects you should labour to work your hearts to a discovery of your misery the necessity you have of God of his presence and Ordinances You may rouze your selves to this work you must and if you do God will help if not your destruction will be of your selves 3. This lamenting after the Lord and his Ark hath been the practice and is the true Character of God's Children Eli's heart trembled for the Ark of God Phinehas's Wife thought it not worth the while to live when the Ark was gone I will wait on the Lord that hideth his face from the house of Jacob and will look for him Isa 8.17 This was when it was said Bind up the Testimony seal the Law among my Disciples v. 16. Yea if you would seek and find God seek not to familiar Spirits but to the Law and to the Testimony v. 19 20. For should not a People seek unto their God Sirs shew what you are and act as you seem If you be God's Children run weeping after your Father cry after him and say Be not a terrour to me Yea why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the Land and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night Lord art not thou in the midst of us We are called by thy Name leave us not Jer. 14.8 9. Be not thou far from me O Lord for trouble is near for there is none to help Oh! where is that antient serious Spirit of lamenting after the Lord Where are those genuine workings of Child-like bowels after such a Father What 's become of that sighing frame of heart that Spirit of Adoption that God's Children of old were indued with It 's well if new Notions do not drive out that old Spirit of lamentation Shew you are Saints by this as those few declared themselves Saul's faithful Souldiers whose hearts God had toucht following him trembling or trembling after him So Hos 11. v. 10. They shall walk after the Lord he shall roar like a Lion when he shall roar then the Children shall tremble from the West Observe it God's roaring in terrible threatnings or executions drives not God's Children from him but to him only they come trembling appealing from God to God from an avenging Justice offended to tender Mercies through the Merits of Jesus Learn this Mystery an Christian Property 4. This is no controverted Point but a granted duty on all hands I am persuading to Who dare contradict it Yea who dare dispute it What exceptions can any bring against this of lamenting after the Lord I challenge any Caviller to produce any shew of reason against either branch of it either as to the Ordinances of God or God in his Ordinances I think all Parties are agreed in the Theory Oh that all were also agreed in the practice of this duty whatever disputes men make about other Rules or Canons of practice methinks there should be none about this Let us therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded God shall reveal even this unto you nevertheless whereto we have already attained let us walk by the same Rule let us mind the same thing Phil. 3.15 16. Whence I discern 1. That it 's a vain praeposterous thing for persons to spend time in disputing about abstruse and dark Points while they neglect momentous and palpable duties 2. The only way to get Unity in less material Truths or Duties is conscientious practice of what is necessary and indubitable I may truly say that nothing is more likely to make us cordial Friends than the practice of the Duty in my Text when Judah Israel fall a weeping and seeking the Lord then they go together How amicable doth converting grace make those that were at deadly and desperate feud for Repentance turns the hearts of Parents and Children to each other Alas till our faces be set towards the Lord our backs will be on each other and we shall rush with fury one against another But if we agree in this best act and object
Souls are without Christ being Aliens from the common wealth of Israel strangers from the covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the world Eph. 2.12 Ah poor sinners what will become of you if you live and dye without God You had better be without money trades credit ease house relations cloaths meat every thing all things in the world then without God what will your lives or any thing advantage you without God Alas have you lived thus long in the world without an interest in God! How know you but death is at the next door And what will you do in the day of visitation and in the desolation that shall come from far To whom will ye flee for help and where will ye leave your glory Isai 10.3 4. Without me saith God they shall bow down under the prisoners ' they shall fall under the slain Wo to you if death the King of terrours meet you and God the King of heaven be not on your side What a woful case was Saul in when the Philistins were upon him and God was departed from him Oh when sickness diseases death thy own conscience make war against thee and thou hast no God to flee to what a sad case wilt thou be in Alas friends estate honours or all that the world can do for thee will be insignificant If thou live and dye without God thou must be for ever banished from him And how canst thou in an ordinary way expect to have relation to God without the means of his appointment for obtaining that end The Ark of the convenant is the way of convenanting the preaching of the Gospel is the door of faith saving faith by which the Soul is intituled to God comes by hearing and if our Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost Little reason have the mad-frantick world to rejoyce over the slain witnesses to make merry and send gifts one to another because these Prophets tormented them i. e. would not let them go quietly to Hell but would be jogging them out of their security and summoning them to repentance No no their departure may be like Ezekiel's book written within and without with lamentation and mourning and wo Ah poor Soul God seems to stop Ministers mouths and saith thou shalt not be to him a reprover my Spirit shall strive no more with them feed them no more that that dyeth let it dye and that that is to be cut off let it be cut off q. d. I will concern my self no further about them they regarded not my Counsels and slept away the day of grace and refused the calls of God now they shall be given up as a branch cut off from the Tree I 'le prune it no more but take it away and lay it under that Gospel-curse Never fruit grow on thee from henceforth for ever Or like the flourishing vineyard of the Jewish Church Take away the hedge thereof break down the stone wall lay it wast it shall not be pruned nor digged but there shall come up briars and thorns I will also command the Clouds that they rain no rain upon it And have men cause to rejoyce in this Is it not rather ground of the greatest lamentatation as a prologue and pledge of damnation and a token of rejection Will any but Mad men rejoyce at the approach of calamity upon themselves Or will any but frantick Bedlams triumph that those are gone that stopt them from running into a pit fire or that kept them from dashing out their own Brains We think those young men fools that are glad their parents are dead that restrained their vicious courses If carnal mens eyes were open to know the advantages of a powerful Ministry or pure Ordinances they would lay it to heart as the dreadfullest evil that ever befel them and lament after the Lord with bitter crys for the return of the Means of Grace And say O Lord is light gone and my Soul left still in darkness is life gone and I dead still Are means of Salvation departed and my Soul left under a necessity of perishing Many tears did Ministers shed for me Oh what prayers to God! what beseechings of me to be reconciled to God! But I regarded not Woe is me these embassadours of peace are called home or have their mouths stopt what can I now expect but a Proclamation of war Lord have mercy on me and send those men of God to knock again at my door and I hope I shall give them and their message better entertainment Thus carnal Persons should say But alas such as most need do often least regard these things God knows and after twenty years lying in the grave we may fear they will not still believe tho we should arise from the dead And if after all this there be little or no hopes of these laying this matter to heart I will turn me to another sort 2. Ye gracious Souls lament you after the Lord though Israel play the harlot yet let not Judah offend Though wicked men will not understand nor lay any thing to heart yet let Gods People his Children lay to their hearts the displeasure of God and with bitter cries lament after their departing father Oh that it could be said in this case as Gods own testimony is Hos 11.12 Ephraim compasseth me about with lies pretending to worship God when they intend nothing less And the house of Israel with deceit cheating men thinking to deceive God himself but Judah yet ruleth with God i. e. keeps up his interest at the throne of grace and prevails with me and is faithful with the Saints in point of communion and repute or with the most holy Marg. Oh blessed Judah but doth not Gods Judah need stirring up to lament after the Lord Alas how senseless and slack are the best hearts in this work Who would have once imagined that such a Spirit of worldliness security neutrality would have seized on Gods own Children Ah friends Can you let God depart either from your spirits or from the Assemblies of his People and not stir up your selves to take hold of him Who would have thought that God himself or the tokens of his presence should go from you without weeping eyes or mournful complaints Who must hold him if you will not Who must fetch him back if you will not follow him and call after him You that have interest in him You that have given up your selves to him You that have had sweet experience of his presence And now pretend more love to him than any else You that he hath drawn with cords of Love will not you lament after him Have not you some reason to say as she Hos 2.7 I will go and return to my first husband for then it was better with me then now Especially considering how he hath hedged your way with hewn thorns disappointed you in your overtaking your other lovers
have not your Souls grown lean and ready to famish in other wayes Have you not in all this time discerned some difference betwixt the pure and wholsom waters of the Sanctuary and the impure puddle-water of mens Traditions Yea have you not to your cost discerned some difference by your dear-bought experience betwixt the powerful Ordinances and the very same or like thereto formally heartlesly lifelesly carryed on Tell me deal ingenuously and candidly in the case Have not your Souls been ready to pine for want of provision Yea have you not been tempted to loath some dishes handed to you by blind or Slovenly Cooks Have you not been in danger to be rockt asleep by such Truths as should have awakt you and would if faithfully mannaged Have you not been forced to eat that which some have trodden under their feet and to drink that which some men have fouled with their feet Alas Sirs Whatever others have have not you some reason to lament with holy David Oh God thou art my God early will I seek thee My Soul thirsteth for thee my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is to see thy power and thy glory so as I have seen thee in the Sanctuary Oh my Lord time hath been that my Soul hath been satisfyed as with marrow and fatness and my doubts resolved graces quickened lusts discovered weakened in thine Ordinances so that I could truely say in my own experience God was in them of a truth But alas for this long time matters have been otherwise I have attended as I judged in obedience to thy command and have sometimes met with aiery notions or sapless stuff or mixture of errours or such complementing with God in a dry formality that methinks my soul is dryed with this light food I have reason to lay the blame upon my self and charge my own unprofitable heart as the proper cause but Oh my Lord I long for an heart-Searching state-distinguishing sinrebuking word Oh when shall my Soul injoy heart-melting Ordinances Thou that adaptest means to the end and dost use to work conversion consolation confirmation by most proper probable instruments give suitable means of grace and grace by the means Oh Lord revive thy work in the midst of the years in the midst of the years make known in wrath remember mercy Let all thy Children say Amen 3. You that are young of the rising Generation that are coming up and coming on in the rooms of your Ancestors it becomes you to lament after the Lord and his Ark be it known to you that your Predecessors Piety will not be your Sanctuary or Security You may please your selves with being the Children of the Church but think not to say within your selves We have Abraham to our Father for God is not bound to you you may be Children of the Devil and may be cast into Hell under that title No no you must have a Faith of your own a personal as well as a foederal relation to God It 's disputed at what Age Children are to stand on their own leggs for personal Faith at five or seven or ten or twelve to be sure at years of discretion when they can discern betwixt good and evil they are to chuse for themselves and are not to stand upon heir Parents bottom any longer however they may improve their Parents Covenant But oh you young persons begin betimes to cry after your Father God loves to be followed as with the Hosanna's once so with the small voice and to be held with the little hands of young Children Try what you can do with him say not you need him not you cannot set up without him you cannot live safely without him and I am sure you are undone if you die without relation to him and you may die young Oh then make sure of God you are cast upon him from the womb say to him Thou art my God from my Mothers belly so shall you be a seed to serve him and shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation What an advantage will it be when your Father and Mother forsake you by unkindness or death if you have a God to take you up If God hath been your trust from your youth he will not cast you off in old Age But if you run away from God all your younger daies with what confidence can you lament after him in old Age May he not say Go to the gods and lusts which you have served gratified you come but to me for a reserve with self-ends and because you can follow your sensual pleasures no longer I should never have had your company if you had been capable still to have made as good a bargain of the World as you are wont You followed your lusts with a young and swift foot but me you can but follow with a slow Snails-pace a little of this lamenting more early had been more acceptable It 's an hard venture if you now go laughing in the Devil's ways whether you 'l be cordial in lamenting after God in Old Age and so whether the Lord will entertain you And as you would enjoy God lament after the Ordinances of God Thy Testimonies saith David have I taken as an heritage for ever O blessed Heritage Oh precious Patrimony beg it plead it be not content without it Whatever other Inheritance you have say Lord mine Ears have heard our Fathers have told us what work thou didst in their daies in the times of Old What Providences were produced to settle Ordinances What excellent powerful heart-warming Preaching they had how God wrought wonders on Consciences by his Word and Spirit what pure Worship they had Communion of Saints wholsom Discipline and what sweet intercourse with thy self in all now Lord thou hast threatned in part executed this Spiritual Plague of the Famine of thy Word obstructing and obscuring Ordinances and thy hand is still upon us thy end is not attained Papists threaten to darken our Heaven and totally to put out our Lights and thy self seems to menace the removing of the Candlestick stop O Lord execute not thy whole displeasure Alas shall we be that cursed Generation that must again be involved in worse than Aegyptian darkness Alas who shall live when God doth this God forbid that we should out-live this bright Sun-shine of the Gospel that we should not be Heirs of our Fathers spiritual Priviledges as well as earthly Patrimonies Oh! when these are lost we must sadly sigh and say What have our Forefathers been doing that they have deprived us of the Means of our Souls good Must they and we meet in Hell they for non-improvement we for non-enjoyment Woe is us cursed Children of cursed Parents Lord if we have not peace or plenty let us have the Gospel of Peace and true Piety the Gospel of Grace and Grace by the Gospel and then we shall say The Lines are fallen to us
'l sooner dance after our wanton Pipes then mourn after our pious Elegies But God forbid the blame or blemish should proceed from us However for Zion's sake let us not hold our peace and for Jerusalems sake let us not rest until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness and the Salvation thereof as a Lamp that burneth Isai 62.1 For God saith ver 6.7 I have set watch-men upon thy walls Oh Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace day nor night Ye that make mention of the Lord keep not silence and give him no rest till he establish and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth 6. Magistrates supreme and subordinate must lament after the Lord. It 's not a work below them though they may think it a work above us to mind them of it but mean persons have been Monitors to mighty Princes An inconsiderable Page rouzeth up Philip King of Macedon with this Alarum Remember Sir you are a man Daniel's Counsel was seasonable he wisheth it may be acceptable to the Babylonian Monarch to break off his sins by righteousness and his iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor if it might be a lengthening of his tranquillity Dan 4.27 God gives Jeremiah a Commission to say to the King and to the Queen Humble your selves sit down It 's not unbecoming the greatest Princes to adore at the Foot-stool of the King of Kings 'T is prophesied of the Gospel-Church that Kings shall be her Nursing Fathers and Queens her Nursing Mothers Isa 49.23 Yea saith the Lord They shall bow down to thee with their faces towards the Earth c. Which is to be understood not in a literal Popish sense of a civil subjection of their Power to the proud Usurpations of that Man of Rome but a voluntary resignation of all to the great Jehovah and our blessed Jesus an undervaluing their earthly Honours in comparison of spiritual Priviledges as Constantine the Great and Theodosius who professed he would rather be a Member of Christ than Head of the Empire It 's not below Majesty on Earth to lament after the God of Heaven David Asa Jehosaphat and Hezekiah followed the Lord with cares prayers fears and tears and how doth God approve and applaud that tender-hearted Josiah 2 Chron. 34.27 28. Because thine heart was tender and thou didst humble thy self before God when thou heardest his words against this place and against the Inhabitants thereof and humbledst thy self before me and didst rend thy cloaths and weep before me mark the outward tokens of inward sorrow I have even heard thee also saith the Lord. And when Josiah's Grandfather Manasses was unruly God took a course to humble him and set him a following God by hearty prayer and great humiliations But when his Father Ammon and his Son Zedekiah did not walk in these mournful steps of penitent lamentings after the Lord God took another course with them and cut them off Yea God hath brought Heathen Kings upon their knees to lament after God in the best manner they could as the King of Nineveh Jonah 3.5 6. and God took it well v. 10. Yea this outward humiliation prevented Ahab's temporal destruction 1 King 21.27 29. And when God threatned Rehoboam by Shishak's Invasion and Shemaiah's Commination the Princes of Israel and the King humbled themselves and said The Lord is righteous 2 Chron. 12.6 7. And God saith I will not destroy them but grant them some deliverance or for a little while Much more if Princes and Nobles be sincere in humiliations for sin and lamentations after the Lord and universal Reformations Oh what mercy doth the Lord reserve for such Thus in the daies of Ezra Nehemiah Esther The Instances are numerous and pregnant Oh that God would stir up the hearts of the Governours of his People to say Surely we and our People have provoked the Lord against us Yea 't is well if our hands have not been chief in the trespass Oh that as we have been exemplary in sinning we might be exemplary in our repentings as we have driven God from us and our People so we might be the first to fetch him back again God forbid that we should say with Pharaoh Who is the Lord or refuse to let the Servants of the Lord to go and serve him according to Scripture-Rules though they may differ from us in some modes of Worship Yes it 's fit the Governours of Judah should say in their hearts The Inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the Lord of Hosts their God These these are the Chariots and Horse-men of Israel as once a King said of a Prophet God forbid we should arm or animate some Protestants against their Brethren while Papists are putting us on and warming themselves by the fire of their own kindling and when they spy their opportunity will snatch up both the Cocks they have set a fighting and writhe off their Necks and feast on them Let 's rather improve our utmost Interest to make them Friends and bespeak their joynt-prayers for us And since we need the Lord and his Appointments as well as others as much as the meanest of our Subjects let us also follow the Lord with bitter crys and lamentations The Princes digged the Well the Nobles of the People digged it by the direction of the Law-giver with their Staves Why may not we also work hard in these Sacred Wells of Ordinances and then cry out Spring up O Well! And then also put on others saying Sing ye unto it May we also pass through this Valley of Bacah or weeping and make a Well The Rain also filleth the Pools Benedictionibus amicietur Doctor or Teachers shall be clothed with blessings And so this Valley of Bacah will be a Valley of Berachah our speaking comfortably to those laborious Levites that teach the good knowledge of the Lord will reach their hearts and so we shall bring upon our selves the blessing of them that were ready to perish Yea may call them up hither into publick Worship and send them to the People in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Peace We even we have need of Ordinances as well as others we have ignorant minds stubborn wills strong lusts violent temptations and of all sorts of persons Nobles are most unwilling to put their Necks to the work of the Lord. We have greater hinderances in the way to Heaven and therefore need better helps than others Oh! let it never be said of us that when the poor are but ignorant Souls foolish and know not the way of the Lord that we the Great men Noblemen and Gentlemen that know much indeed but do less for God nay more against him that we should altogether break the Yoak and burst the Bonds Our Interest is greater and Influence more upon others therefore our sin of neglect will be greater and Account heavier Lord let us have Means of Grace and Grace
converted they will draw others to God in his Worship and give a lively example of it in practice Obj. But this practice is uncouth this path is untrodden few it use in the place where we live we shall be laughed to scorn for our labour It 's Answered ver 22. Yea many People and strong Nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to pray before him God will greatly multiply Converts and so take off the scandal of paucity of Worshipers it 's not a few giddy headed factious Spirits but it's Nations many and strong Nations rich and potent Gentile Converts flock like Doves to the windows not by compact and frand but by peculiar operations of the Spirit in the Ministry of the Word People of Divers languages at great distance The same Spirit acts in all Gospel-worshippers to flock to God in Ordinances Yea warlike Nations and Islands afar off unapproachable or invincible by men shall be conquered by the Gospel as 't is said of Britain Romanis inacessa Christo vero Subdita though the Romans could scarce come to it yet our Lord Subdued it You need not fear want of Good company Yea your zeal may provoke others One forward Christian in a place shall have companions in Gods work in due time And how dost thou know but thou wilt find some spark of goodness in some of thy neighbours that thy invitation may blow up and draw forth Try them by a gentle call thou mayst find more of God in them than ever thou wast aware of possibly bashfulness sense of weakness want of acquaintance with Christians Want of a call and opportunity have kept Some lights under a Bushel which if called out of their retirements and alittle snuffed might shine bright in the Church Obj. But alas I am a person of weak gifts cannot lament after the Lord in any societies can be of no use but a burden Ans Thou needest help so much the more Hence the Text saith ver 23. That ten men shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew Like little Children that are not able to go of themselves afraid to fall will get hold of the hem of their Fathers garment to hold them up from falling and strengthen them to walk more securely or to direct him in a way that he hath not known Sincere proselites will look after communion of Saints The Apostle mentions fellowship in the Gospel from the first day Phil. 1.5 And there 's great advantage by it for Solomon saith Two are better then one Eccl. 4.9 10 11. Which he Illustrates there in several cases which I must not inlarge upon But 't is certain you may find great help in communion of Saints But how shall I know they are Saints or fit to joyn with I may be deceived and misled into by-ways of errour Ans We have heard that God is with you with his Apostles by strange signs gifts miracles holiness in conversation What appearances of God for you by you in you You may safely joyn in with such as God thinks fit to own and communicate himself to I am convinced from the bright beams of Gospel-light and from the powerful influences and convictions of the Spirit that this is indeed the way of God I am therefore resolved to inquire after God in it and joyn with them that travel in it heavenwards Thus much for the second head who are the Persons concerned in this work 3. Another Head is the helps and furtherances in this lamenting after the Lord. What course shall we take both to perform this duty aright and to obtain what we lament after viz. either the God of Ordinances or the Ordinances of God Here I might repeat what was mentioned in the Explication by way of Instruction As 1. They were inclined after the Lord. It were well if poor Sinners would but stop their vain career stand still pause upon it bethink themselves have a tendency God-wards this is the first step to Repentance See Jer. 8.6 2. Settled after the Lord. Oh that men were well resolved upon good grounds that their hearts were well fixed inflamed designed for God! as our Saviour that stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem or as Paul Acts 21.13 3. Congregated gathered united together to go hand in hand after the Lord Zeph. 2.1 Gather your selves together yea gather together O Nation not desired Gather your selves by mutual accommodation and sincere repentance to get under the wing of God as Chickens under the Hen or as the allusion in that Text is that ye be not as Chaff that is dissipated by the wind v. 2. for there 's an affinity in the words sincere Repentance unites to God and his People 4. Groaned complained bemoaned themselves after the Lord as Israel Jer. 31.18 I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself Oh that I should by my sin forfeit God's presence and for sin lose it how miserable am I in this so sad and astonishing loss 5. They cryed called after the Lord by earnest supplication expostulation and it becomes a Child to follow his Mother with bitter out-crys to fetch her back Jer. 31.9 They shall come with weeping and with supplications will I lead them Marg. with favours so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 misertus gratificatus doluit That 's the best Prayer that flows from love and follows God with grief and tears from an earnest good will to God without outward constraint and slavish fear 6. They betook themselves to the Lord by Faith Repentance Reformation Oh what efficacy is in this course Judg. 10.13 God saith I will deliver you no more but bids them cry unto the gods whom they had chosen v. 14. For they had cryed to the Lord v. 10. and confessed sin yet God seems peremptory in denying aid then they reinforce their confession and supplication and withal added Reformation v. 6. They put away the strange gods from among them and served the Lord and see the blessed effect his Soul was grieved for the misery of Israel and he delivers them No way like this 7. They acquiesced in the Lord were fully contented and satisfied with the Lord both as to the object of worship and manner of worshipping And oh for such a frame as that Isa 26.13 O Lord our God other Lords besides thee have had dominion over us but by thee only will we make mention of thy Name i. e. by thy Precepts according to thy Institution will we worship thee our fear towards thee shall be no more taught by the Precepts of men we will worship thee only in thy own way and by thee i. e. in thy strength by the assistance of thy grace thou alone shalt be the Author and object of our love desire pleasure and delight Ashur shall not save us we will not ride upon Horses neither will we say any more to the work of our hands ye are our
Gods for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy Hos 14.3 These are the Duties implied in the Text spread before you required of us all in this World work of lamenting after the Lord. But to help our hearts to and in the due performance of these required Duties I shall propound some qualifications as so many Directions to carry on this work successfully 1. See to your State and Principles except you be related to God you 'l not lament after him nor be much concern'd about him or his Ark whether going or coming Relation is the foundation of Affection A Child will cry after his own Father Now God is not our Father since the Fall till Regeneration make a real and Adoption a relative change of our State and when we have received the Spirit of Adoption then never till then shall we cry Abba Father Rom. 8.15 They only will cry after God that love him fear him honour him as a Father with a filial Affection and they only shall be entertained by him as for others he owns their out-crys no more than the howlings of a Dog Oh therefore examine your State God-wards Hath Converting Grace under Ordinances changed your hearts Hath the Spirit awakened your Consciences convinced you of your undone State by Nature transformed you by the renewing of your Minds translated you out of darkness into light deal faithfully with your Souls in this case you come into the World with your backs turned upon God and you will never lament after him without a turn Yea naturally there 's an enmity and antipathy in our hearts to God and his waies Hath God crushed and conquered that and planted right Principles in you to incline you to him if yet you find not a Divine Nature a new Nature begot in you flatter not your selves you will rather run farther from him than lament after him Let your Souls be chiefly concerned for this first then for the rest Union precedes Communion A real Title is antecedent to laying Claim A Principle of Grace is before an actual exercise of it There must be life before there can be any desire of or nutrition by food I have no hopes of prevailing with graceless Souls to lament after God till they have life and breath voice and lungs except formally for company or for carnal ends which is insignificant Oh for grace truth of grace a reality of interest in Christ and all the Priviledges he hath purchased 2. Inform your selves throughly of the terms we stand in with God Consider how the Lord carries towards us as to our particular Souls and the Nation in general We shall never lament after him till we see him withdrawn Ignorance of the State of things with us keeps Persons in senslesness What the Eye of body or mind sees not is never laid to heart Make some collections and constructions of things at this day Yea make comparisons betwixt former and present Times What think you Hath not God manifested himself more in his Providences for us than of late Have we not reason to take up the Church's complaint in Psal 44.1 9. or to expostulate as Gideon Judg. 6.13 Oh my Lord If the Lord be with us why then is all this befallen us and where be all his Miracles which our Fathers told us of I have told you how much restraining grace is withdrawn from many how rare Conversion is by Ordinances how much God hath withdrawn both from the Societies and Spirits of his Servants I shall not trouble you with repetitions look over these things compare them with what you see and observe and if you find the Lord as formerly be thankful if otherwise be humbled and lament after him It 's to be feared that if you be observant discerning Christians you 'l yet find out more than hitherto hath been mentioned both demonstrations of God's remove and Prognosticks of future removes The most excellent and eminent Servants of God pluckt away by death from amongst us and God saith They are taken away from the evil to come Isa 57.1 The Spirit of Giddiness Atheism and Idolatry spreading at a strange rate beyond all parallel Other things I might mention but I leave them to your inquiry Only there 's one Text methinks is astonishing Zech. 11.8 Three Shepherds also I cut off in one month and my Soul loathed them and their Soul also abhorred me It 's one of the saddest words in all the Bible Whether they were good or bad Shepherds that were cut off it 's dreadful that it hath no better effect than mutual abhorrency Oh that this were not our case We lie under woful fruits of God's loathing us and it 's well if men do not loath him A Spirit of opposition to Godliness is the sad fruit of Divine dereliction which produceth greater Spiritual and Temporal Plagues Hence he adds v. 9. Then said I I will not feed you that that dieth let it die and that that is cut off let it be cut off and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another They shall have no Gospel-Pastors to feed their Souls that 's a Spiritual Plague which fell on the Jews for rejecting Christ They shall devour one another with cursed rage and malice as in seditions conspiracies or in their necessity of food by the terrible Famine Thus the Jews were destroyed in Jerusalem's miserable Ruin The like Prognosticks are upon us Lord prevent the fame effects and awake our hearts to use God's appointed Means for prevention 3. Make diligent inquiry into the Reason of our present and approaching calamities Is there not a cause Surely affliction cometh not forth of the dust neither doth trouble spring out of the ground Sin is the Mother and Nurse of sorrow Is not God bringing our iniquities upon us Doth not our own wickedness correct us and our backsliding reprove us Doth not this Rod say Thy ways and thy doings have procured these things unto thee this is thy wickedness because it is bitter because it reacheth unto thine heart or Soul Jer. 4.18 Let Ministers and People lay their hand on their heart and search our Consciences Conversations Is it not I that shut out Ministers as the good Woman said I broke my Ministers Leg My pride unteachableness unprofitablebleness formality neglect of duty censurings and uncharitableness sensuality worldliness hypocrisy and lukewarmness vain glory and mindlesness of Gods glory and my Souls eternal good these these made all the excluding banishing fining imprisoning Laws that ever came out against God's Servants These chiefly have broken all assemblies scatterred meetings armed all the Officers retarded our deliverance By our sins are our enemies strong and the hands of our friends weak Alas It 's my own iniquity that hath brought us low set back a good work banisht God lift up the right hand of our enemies Nor is it the Sins of profane but professors Of the Rock that begat us we have been unmindful and forgotten God that
adversaries in their sober intervals that they cannot but know the contrary and after all these long-lasting and heavy-pressing evils come upon us one barvest is passed and many summers and winters ended and we are not saved As for us our eyes as yet failed for our vain help in our watching we have watched for a Nation that cannot save us We looked for peace but no good came for a time of health and behold trouble And we may discern Gods anger in the wrath of men And after all this shall we sit still and be sottish under this astonishing hand of God Surely our work is not to complain of much less oppose men but look into our own hearts and lives by self examination Humiliation Reformation for these vapours that darken the Heavens arise from our filthy hearts and lives these Arrows are winged with our own feathers it may be said to every individual thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee this is thy wickedness Because it is bitter because it reacheth unto thine heart yea to thy Soul Salvian complained of old that by our sins the enemies were strong this is the Achan in the camp the Jonah in the ship the worm in the gourd if sin abide still in us we cannot be safe it 's in vain to expect deliverance till the cause of the provocation on our part be discarded and purged away It 's true God is the inflicting cause wicked men the instruments but our own selves are the deserving and procuring cause of all our woes The protestants in Queen Marys days lamented that their unprofitableness contempt of the Gospel under King Edward 6th brought on them those bloody days of Persecution and if we do not mourn and reform we may conclude these are but the beginnings of sorrow as drops before the shower of blood that after this prophesying in sackcloth witnesses shall be slain and the number of Martyrs accomplished and Antichrists sins filled up By setting up the abomination of desolation which God Almighty prevent These things considered and often rolled in my thoughts I cast about what was the fittest course to be taken for preventing God's further Removes and reduce him back to our Souls and Assemblies and I find that 1. God purposely removes to make us follow him as a wise Nurse doth by a weak Child 2. He stops and halts as in suspense what to do that he may both alarum us and afford us leisure to consider what course to take 3. He makes a gracious promise that if we do follow on to know the Lord his going forth shall be prepared as the morning And 4. He complaineth that there is none that calleth on his Name that stirreth up himself to take hold on God i. e. to keep him from departing or to fetch him back Considering the Premises I was desirous in my poor measure to promote God's work in the Souls of his People and ingage all that have any Interest in God to improve it at this day for the preventing of his total Removal and detaining of God with us not as the Inhabitants of Tyrus when Alexander besieged it and one of their Diviners told them that it was revealed to him in a Dream that Apollo their god was shortly to depart from them thereupon they take the Image of Apollo and bind it with a Chain of Gold to a Post thinking thereby to detain him No no we cannot force God against his will to tarry but we are in obedience to God's command and discharge of our duty and in performance of the Condition of his Promise to lament after the Lord with Prayers Tears Confessions Reformations pleading with God through the Intercession of his Son for his Return and Residence with us While wicked Gadarens are by words and works bidding blessed Jesus depart out of our Coasts it becomes us solemnly to invite him open the doors of our hearts to him and give him free welcom saying Lord abide with us thus he may be constrained to tarry with us And though in this horrid Tempest that the Ship of the Church is sorely tossed with so that it 's covered with Waves our Lord be asleep yet Faith and Prayer will awake him And though we cannot peremptorily say he will save our Persons Priviledges or his Church in England yet we may with some confidence say he will certainly save Zion and build his Church somewhere in the World he will save our own Souls and it may be we shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger it may be that the Lord God of Hosts will be gracious unto the Remnant of Joseph Who knoweth if he will return and repent and leave a blessing behind him Even an Heathen King took this course and upon no other assurance than a Who can tell There is hope in Israel concerning this thing only it becomes us to wait God's leisure and patiently yea valiantly pass through the Fiery Tryal before us wherein Papists will far exceed Protestants in rage However Mr. Greenham said He that will suffer by Papists must learn to suffer by Protestants and he that hath well passed the Pikes in Camp-fight may hope to pass safe through the Fire-Ordeal Integrity and uprightness will preserve us seconded by a Divine manutenency in sharpest Tryals The God of all Grace who hath called you into his eternal Glory by Christ Jesus after that ye have suffered a while make you perfect stablish strengthen settle you May it please the Lord to own these weak though seasonable Labours for quickening the Spirits of his People to lament after the Lord it may be he will return to the many thousands of his People in these Nations And after we have been digging Esek Strife and Sitnah hateful opposition God may cause us unanimously to digg Rehoboth Room that the Lord may make room for us and make us fruitful in the Land Oh for such a day There is a day wherein they shall not hurt nor destroy in all God's holy Mountain wherein the Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard shall lie down with the Kid c. Wherein his People shall see Eye to Eye and serve him with one consent or shoulder and that he will turn to his People a pure Language or Lip that they shall feed and lye down and none shall make them afraid It becomes God's People to make a Catalogue of these and such like Promises and spread them before the Lord for he is a faithful God and will perform his Promise which saith Jer. 30.17 For I will restore health unto thee and I will heal thee of thy wounds saith the Lord because they called thee an out-cast saying This is Zion whom no man seeketh after And let all that love her say Amen Then the Angel of the Lord answered and said O Lord of Hosts how long wilt thou not have mercy on
Jerusalem and on the Cities of Judah against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years And the Lord answered the Angel that talked with me with good words and comfortable words That this may be the Issue of this Dispensation Intercession Lamentation is the hearty Prayer of Thy Soul-Friend O. H. Aug. 22. 1682. Israel's Lamentation after the Lord. 1 Sam. 7.2 And all the House of Israel lamented after the Lord. THe whole series of the History of the Times in which this Scripture was writ take in short thus After the Judges in the preceding Book so called God raised up Eli who was both a Judg and Priest who though he was a good man himself yet his Sons were prophane and oppressed the People by requiring both boyled-flesh and raw for roasting abusing the women that came to the door of the Tabernacle so that their sin was very great and of bad consequence for men abhorred the offering of the Lord. Eli being informed of his Sons profligate courses too much indulged them or too mildly rebukes them Why do you such things too soft words for such hard and hainous acts there wanted deeds he being a Magistrate ought to have punished or removved them if not put them to death well God sends a man of God to Eli Whether Elias or an Angel or Phinehas or Elkanah I dispute not to rebuke and threaten him and his house but he not reforming God inspires and commissions young Samuel to give him a Sound admonition and warn him as immediately from the Lord the good old man falls under the Admonition though by a Child but now the disease was grown past his curing his counsel did no good and he could not correct them no doubt he acknowledged his fault and since it will be no better he puts the matter over into Gods hands let him do what seemeth him good God can by his grace curb and cure them or by his power he can crush and confound them let him use his pleasure I give my children into his hands let my Lord get to himself a name of Glory by them or upon them I freely submit a speech becoming a man of God and religious Priest well God himself undertakes to deal with them in the 4th Chapter the Israelites and Philistins joyn battel four thousand Israelites are slain the Ark is sent for into the Camp the Tables of the Law within it are broken yet the Ark must be their Palladium They doted on the Ark but provoked the God of the Ark they repent not of their corrupt manners or defiling Gods Worship they neither used outward means by recruiting their Army which was a tempting of God nor do they use proper religious means to get reconciliation with God but fondly presume upon Gods lenity and indulgence to them because of the meer presence of the Ark the Ark comes Hophni and Phinehas carry it Israel shouts for joy the Philistines animate one another imagining if they now prevailed they conquered the God of Israel looking on the Ark to be Israels Idol or at least that Gods power was tyed to it after the conceit of Idolaters they fight prevail kill thirty thousand Hebrews Hophni Phinehas take the Ark prisoner the tidings whereof broke Elies heart then his neck brought pangs on Phinehas wife and though she was a mother yet full of grief which she bequeathed to the world in the name of her surviving child Ichabod Well the Philistins now lead Israels God in triumph as they judg they bring it to Dagon they God in Ashdod in reproach of the true God but the triumphing of the wicked is short though Israel be a loser yet Dagon and his Worshippers are no gainers by the Ark of Gods presence Dagon falls on his face prostrated in homage thereto beaten on his own dunghil being crected again his head hands were knockt off by another fall So that now he had neither wit nor strength to help himself the fair Venus or womanish part was gone the fishy part only is left but this was but a sport in comparison of what befell Dagons Worshippers for Gods hand was heavy on them all Ashdod or Azotus as the Spartan Boy carryed the Fox in his bosom till he stopt his vitals so these the Ark that was salutiferous to its observers was mortiferous to its contemners even as the Lords Supper is profitable to due partakers but unworthy receivers find it to turn to their judgment here and damnation hereafter Carnal hearts pretend a fond respect to ordinances but find the Lord a jealous God upon their perverting his institutions or unsuitable carriage Ashdod was soon weary of Gods Ark they hold a councel of their Lords they post it away to Gath which was their Metropolis thinking belike that to be a better air or under a more benign influence of the stars But here also Gods hand was upon them with a very great destruction they had painful and incurable Emerods in their secret parts being weary of the Ark they would shift it off to Ekron but the Ekronites were wise by others harms and a consultation was had to carry back the Ark into its place for all the five citys of the Philistins were sharply punished those seven months it was in their country And they were weary of it only consulted the Diviners how to send it back they advised to send it with a trespass offering i. e. five golden Emrods and five golden Mice give glory to the God of Israel upon a new cart drawn by two milch Kine and by their motion they might know whether it was Gods hand or a chance and peradventure they might be healed they did so the Kine went straight to Bethshemesh a city of the Levites they rejoyced to see it coming but though they offered a burnt-offering to the Lord yet looking into the Ark the Lord smote fifty thousand threescore ten men with death and they lamented it cryed out Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God But alas they lament not their Sacriledg injury to the Ark but the death of their People imitating the Philistine qui propter culpas non dolebant sed propter paenas ululabant they houled for the punishment not kindly mourning for their offences they reflect not on their own miscarriages but transfer the cause to Gods holiness And now they also would be glad to be rid of so chargeable a Guest and send messengers to Kiriath-jearim to fetch it to them who came and fetcht it Qu. Why did they not send it to Shilo where it was before Ans 1. That was far off this near they in hast to get delivered of that burden 2. Divine providence removes from Shilo for the impiety thereof Jer. 7.12 you see ordinances are not perpetually entailed on one place the Gospel is a flitting Gospel God sometimes breaks up
formed us Deut. 32.18 19. Therefore when the Lord saw it be abhorred us because of the provoking of his Sons and of his daughters Oh our wretched ingratitude rebellion covenant-breaking our sins have reached to heaven therefore our judgments are unparallel'd We may say as Dan. 9.12 Under the whole heaven hath no been done as hath been done upon us It 's well if we have not reason to add also ver 13. That all this evil is come upon us yet made we not our prayer Heb. intreated the face before the Lord our God that we might turn from our iniquities and understand thy truth It 's true we have prayed but it 's well if we have so prayed Is not the accursed thing to be found amongst us to this day We have been long in the fire but are we cleansed Alas alas May not that sad complaint and charge be brought in against us as in Jer. 6.28 29 30. They are grievous revolters walking with Slanders brass and Iron they are all corrupters the Bellows are burnt the Lead is consumed of the fire the Founder melteth in vain for the wicked are not plucked away Reprobate Silver shall men call them because the Lord hath rejected them Oh that this were not our case and that Character also given of that professing people Jer. 9.3 7. But I shall leave Christians to this heart-searching work beseeching requiring and charging all persons to deal faithfully with their own Souls find out the Achan that troubles the Camp stone it Cast lots to find the Jonah that raiseth this tempest cast it over-board confess bewail reform get pardon of Sin and who knows but we shall have a calm 4. Get your hearts sensible of the evil of God's departure from us Otherwise you will not think it worth the while to spend time in lamenting after him Come to an heart an house a society a congregation or the nation and make inquiry is God there If it be answered no he 's gone in whole or in part what 's then left that 's good Surely if God go all good goes and all evil comes 2 Chron. 15.3 6. Now for a long season Israel had been without the true God and without a teaching Priest and without Law whether this was under Jeroboam and his Successors or some other time and in those times there was no peace to him that went out nor to him that came in but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the Countreys For God did vex them with all adversity Mark it when God goes all evil comes They that were without the true pure publick Worship of God and with a standing Ministry to teach publickly plainly powerfully but had in their places false Prophets lying Rabbins or graceless Loyterers and it may be the People loved to have it so No wonder if they had Civil Discords Forein Invasions Ecclesiastical Dissentions all things going to wrack setting up one Ruler against another so joyning in Parties Factions using barbarous cruelties imbroyling all in sad contentions imbruing their hands in one anothers blood When God goes he breaks down the hedg of his protecting providence so that the Boar out of the Wood wasts his Vineyard Then it 's eaten up trodden down it shall not be pruned nor digged but there comes up Briars Thorns yea he commands the clouds that they rain no rain upon it what then will become of it Surely the inclosed Vineyard of the Church soon becomes a a wild Common of barbarous Infidels When God removes his Candles darkness comes but when he removes Candlesticks also Mahomet fills up the room The famous Asian Churches are a dreadful instance If the sun set night comes on If the King be absent what Court can be kept If Christ stay not where 's the Church If God should leave his glorious mansion in heaven It would instantly become a dark dungeon of hell Yea if God depart from a People as a friend he comes against them as a dreadful foe If he go away he tears as a Lion consumes as a Moth If he hide his face in Love he comes in wrath and fury to slay them Jer. 33.5 Saul was in a woful plight when God was departed from him and the Philistins were upon him Yea if God depart the Devil comes When the good Spirit went from Saul an evil Spirit from the Lord troubled tormented him 1 Sam. 16.14 23. Satan was from God as framing his nature commissionating him to punish Saul but his wickedness and malignity in his designs and actings from himself Oh how glad is the Devil to take up that room that God leaves truly then saith the Lord Hos 9.12 Yea woe also to them when I depart from them There 's a wo of sinning and suffering attends God's departure Whither will not men run when God forsakes them If the hand withdraw the staff falls if the glass without foot be not held up it falls and breaks and the liquor Spills the very best man is no more dayly but as the Lord makes him Sampson David Peter will fall if God go Much more they that have no hold of God or God of them in a covenant-way they 'l not stop till they commence at the height of Sin and fall into the depth of Hell Hos 9.17 My God will cast them away because they did not hearken to him Hos 7.13 Woe unto them for they have fled from me yea destruction to them because thay have transgressed against me Yea everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power 2. Thes 8.9 Were we kindly affected with all this we should lament after the Lord We have reason to tremble left it prove our case and removing his ordinances is a great step to all this And if we knew what it meant we should with old Eli have trembling hearts for the Ark of God 1. Sam. 4.13 5. Study the advantages and benefit of having God present with us as fear of evil is one motive to avoid it so a desire of the contrary good adds wings in seeking earnestly for it When God goes all good goes So when God returns or continues with a People they enjoy all good inward outward The People that have God with them have a strong Guard to defend them a wise Guide to direct them rich Grace to supply them high Honour to advance them full Rest to content them an abundant Reward in the enjoyment of him They have enough they need no more Happy is the People whose God is the Lord. Luther 's Psalm that Song upon Alamoth Psal 46. is admirable for this for when the Church can say God is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble vers 1. She builds great confidence and comfort on this solid foundation vers 2. Therefore will not we fear though the Earth be removed c. Yea she stands upon this impregnable Rock triumphing over all dangers and enemies