Flock what wilt thou say when he shall punish thee 3. The Sins of the People amongst whom there is almost an universal corruption and depravation of Manners insomuch that Impiety and Vice seem to have over-spread the face of the Nation so that we may take up that sad complaint of the Prophet concerning the People of Israel and apply it to our selves that we are a sinful Nation a People laden with iniquity a seed of evil-doers that the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint and that from the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in us but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores We may justly stand amaz'd to consider how the God of all patience is provok'd by us every day to think how long he hath born with us and suffered our manners our open Profaneness and Infidelity our great Immoralities and gross Hypocrisy our insolent contempt of Religion and our ill-favour'd counterfeiting of it for low and sordid ends And which is the most melancholy consideration of all the rest we seem to be degenerated to that degree that it is very much to be fear'd there is hardly integrity enough left amongst us to save us And then if we consider further our most uncharitable and unchristian Divisions to the endangering both of our Reformed Religion and of the Civil Rights and Liberties of the Nation Our incorrigibleness under the Judgments of God which we have seen abroad in the Earth and which have in a very severe and terrible manner been inflicted upon these Kingdoms that the Inhabitants thereof might learn righteousness Our insensibleness of the Hand of God so visible in his late Providences towards us and in the many merciful and wonderful Deliverances which from time to time He hath wrought for us And lastly if we reflect upon our horrible Ingratitude to God our Saviour and mighty Deliverer and to Them likewise whom He hath so signally honour'd in making them the happy Means and Instruments of our Deliverance And this not only express'd by a bold contempt of their Authority but by a most unnatural Conspiracy against Them with the greatest Enemies not only to the Peace of the Nation but likewise to the Reformed Religion therein profess'd and by Law established and to the interest of it all the World over So that we may say with Ezra And now O our God what shall we say unto thee after this And may not God likewise say to us as He did more than once to the Jews Shall I not visit for these things saith the Lord and shall not my soul be avenged on such a Nation as this Thirdly We should likewise upon this Day earnestly deprecate God's displeasure and make our humble Supplications to Him that He would be graciously pleas'd to avert those terrible Judgments which hang over us and which we have just cause to fear may fall upon us and that He would be entreated by us at last to be appeas'd towards us and to turn from the fierceness of his Anger This we find the People of God were wont to do upon their Solemn days of Fasting and Prayer and this God expressly enjoyns Blow the Trumpet in Zion sanctifie a Fast call a solemn Assembly gather the People sanctifie the Congregation assemble the Elders c. 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 thy heritage to reproach that the Heathen should rule over them Wherefore should they say among the People Where is their God And to this earnest deprecation of his Judgments God promiseth a gracious answer for so it immediately follows Then will the Lord be jealous for his Land and pity his People And thus likewise Daniel when he set his face to seek the Lord God by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes does in a most humble and earnest manner deprecate the displeasure of God towards his People and beg of Him to remove his Judgments and to turn away his Anger from them O Lord according to all thy righteousness I beseech thee let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy City Jerusalem thy Holy Mountain Because for our sins and for the iniquity of our Fathers Jerusalem and thy People are become a reproach to all that are about us Now therefore O God hear the prayer of thy servant and his supplication and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary which is desolate for the Lord's sake O my God incline thine ear and hear open thine eyes and behold our desolations and the City which is called by thy Name For we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousness but for thy great mercy O Lord hear O Lord forgive O Lord hearken and do deferr not for thine own sake O my God for thy City and thy People are called by thy Name And thus also should We upon this Solemn Occasion cry mightily unto God and with the greatest importunity deprecate those terrible Judgments which we so righteously have deserv'd and to which the great and crying Sins of the whole Nation have so justly exposed us Humbly beseeching Him not for our Righteousness but for his great Mercy for his own Name 's sake and because we are his People and are called by his Name and because his Holy Truth and Religion are profess'd amongst us that He would be pleas'd to hear the Prayers of his Servants and their Supplications which they have made before him this Day for the Lord's sake Fourthly We should likewise upon this Day pour out our most earnest Supplications to Almighty God for the preservation of Their Majesties Sacred Persons and for the prosperity and establishment of Their Government and for the good Success of Their Arms and Forces by Sea and Land And more especially since His Majesty with so many Confederate Princes and States of Europe is engaged in so necessary an Undertaking for the Common good of Christendom and for the mutual preservation and recovery of Their respective Rights We should earnestly implore the favour and assistance of Almighty God in so just and glorious a Cause against the common Invader and Oppressor of the Rights and Liberties of Mankind And that of his infinite Goodness He would be graciously pleased to take the Person of our Sovereign Lord the King into the particular care and protection of his Providence That He would secure his precious Life from all secret Attempts and from open Violence That He would give his Angels charge over him and cover his Head in the day of Battel and crown it with Victory over his Enemies and restore Him to us again in safety And that He would likewise preserve and direct the Queen's Majesty in whose hands the Administration of the Government is at present so happily plac'd That He would give Her Wisdom and Resolution for such a Time as
all things on all sides to bring the thing which the Providence of God intended to a happy issue and effect And we must not here forget the many Worthies of our Nation who did so generously run all hazards of Life and Fortune for the preservation of our Religion and the asserting of our ancient Laws and Liberties These are all strange and unusual means but which is stranger yet the very counsels and methods of our Enemies did prepare the way for all this and perhaps more effectually than any counsel and contrivance of our own could have done it For even the Jesuits those formal Politicians by Book and Rule without any consideration or true knowledge of the temper and interest and other circumstances of the People they were designing upon and had to deal withal and indeed without any care to know them I say the Jesuits who for so long a time and for so little reason have affected the reputation of the deepest and craftiest States-men in the World have upon this great Occasion and when their whole Kingdom of Darkness lay at stake by a more than ordinary infatuation and blindness so outwitted and over-reach'd themselves in their own counsels that they have really contributed as much or more to our Deliverance from the Destruction which they had designed to bring upon us than all our wisest and best Friends could have done And then if we consider further how sudden and surprising it was so that we could hardly believe it when it was accomplish'd and like the Children of Israel when the Lord turned again the Captivity of Zion we were like them that dream When all things were driving on furiously and in great haste then God gave an unexpected check to the Designs of men and stopp'd them in their full cariere Who among us could have imagin'd but a few Months ago so happy and so speedy an end of our fears and troubles God hath at once scatter'd all our fears and outdone all our hopes by the greatness and suddenness of our Deliverance O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men And lastly If we consider the cheapness and easiness of this Deliverance All this was done without a Battel and almost without Blood All the danger is lest we should loath it and grow sick of it because it was so very easy Had it come upon harder terms and had we waded to it through a Red Sea of Blood we would have valued it more But this surely is great wantonness and whatever we think of it one of the highest provocations imaginable For there can hardly be a fouler and blacker Ingratitude towards Almighty God than to slight so great a Deliverance only because it came to us so easily and hath cost us so very cheap I will mention but one Circumstance more which may not be altogether unworthy our observation That God seems in this Last Deliverance in some sort to have united and brought together all the great Deliverances which He hath been pleas'd to work for this Nation against all the remarkable attempts of Popery from the beginning of our Reformation Our wonderful Deliverance from the formidable Spanish Invasion design'd against us happen'd in the Year 1588. And now just a hundred years after God was pleased to bring about this last great and most happy Deliverance That horrid Gun-powder Conspiracy without Precedent and without Parallel was design'd to have been executed upon the Fifth Day of November the same Day upon which his Highness the Prince of Orange landed the Forces here in England which he brought hither for our Rescue So that this is a Day every way worthy to be solemnly set apart and joyfully celebrated by this Church and Nation throughout all Generations as the fittest of all other to comprehend and to put us in mind to commemorate all the great Deliverances which God hath wrought for Us from Popery and its inseparable Companion Arbitrary Power And we may then say with the Holy Psalmist This is the Lord 's doing it is marvellous in our eyes This is the Day which the Lord hath made we will rejoice and be glad in it Secondly As the Case in the Text is much like Ours so let us take heed that the Doom and Sentence there be not so too If after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass and since God hath punish'd us less than our iniquities did deserve should we again break his Commandments and join in affinity with the People of these Abominations would He not be angry with us till he had consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor escaping What could we in reason expect after all this but utter ruin and destruction We may here apply as St. Paul does God's Dealing with the People of Israel to the Times of the Gospel for he speaks of it as an Example and Admonition to all Ages to the end of the World Now these things says the Apostle were our Examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted Neither be ye Idolaters as were some of them c. Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of Serpents For the explication of this passage we must have recourse to the History which gives this account of it And the People spake against God and against Moses Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the Wilderness c. impeaching God and his Servant Moses as if by this Deliverance they had put them into a much worse condition than they were in when they were in Egypt And the Lord sent fiery Serpents among the People and they bit the People and much People of Israel died \ But how was this a tempting of Christ Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted that is let not us now under the Gospel tempt our Saviour and Deliverer as the Israelites did theirs by slighting that great Deliverance and by speaking against God and against Moses Neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the Destroyer And how far this may concern Us and all Others to the end of the World who shall tempt Christ the great Patron and Deliverer of his Church and murmur without cause as the Israelites did at the Deliverances which He works for them and against the Instruments of it the Apostle tells us in the next words Now all these things happened unto them for Ensamples or Types and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the World are come Let us not tempt Christ who is now beginning the Glorious Deliverance of his Church from the Tyranny of Antichrist To draw now towards a Conclusion I will comprehend my Advice to you upon the whole matter in as few words as I can Let us use this great Deliverance which God
Throne above the Stars of God I will sit also upon the Mount of the Congregation in the sides of the North That is upon Mount Zion for just so the Psalmist describes it Beautiful for situation the joy of the whole Earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the North. Here the King of Babylon threatens to take Jerusalem and to demolish the Temple where the Congregation of Israel met for the Worship of the true God I will also sit upon the Mount of the Congregation in the sides of the North. Much in the same Style with the threatnings of Modern Babylon I will destroy the Reformation I will extirpate the Northern Heresie And then he goes on I will ascend above the height of the clouds I will be like the most High Yet thou shalt be brought down to the grave to the sides of the pit They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee and consider thee saying Is this the man that made the earth to tremble that did shake Kingdoms that made the World as a Wilderness and destroyed the Cities thereof and opened not the House of his Prisoners God seems already to have begun this Work in the late glorious Victory at Sea and I hope he will cut it short in righteousness I have sometimes heretofore wondred Why at the destruction of Modern and Mystical Babylon the Scripture should make so express mention of great wailing and lamentation for the loss of Her Ships and Seamen Little imagining thirty years ago that any of the Kingdoms who had given their power to the Beast would ever have arrived to that mighty Naval Force But the Scripture saith nothing in vain Whether and how far Success is an Argument of a good Cause I shall not now debate But thus much I think may safely be affirmed That the Providence of God doth sometimes without plain and down-right Miracles so visibly shew it self that we cannot without great stupidity and obstinacy refuse to acknowledge it I grant the Cause must first be manifestly just before Success can be made an Argument of God's favour to it and approbation of it And if the Cause of true Religion and the necessary defence of it against a false and Idolatrous Worship be a good Cause Ours is so And I do not here beg the Question we have abundantly proved it to the confusion of our Adversaries If the vindication of the common Liberties of Mankind against Tyranny and Oppression be a good Cause then Ours is so And this needs not to be proved it is so glaringly evident to all the World And as our Cause is not like theirs so neither hath their Rock been like our Rock our Enemies themselves being Judges And yet as bad an Argument as success is of a good Cause I am sorry to say it but I am afraid it is true it is like in the conclusion to prove the best Argument of all other to convince those who have so long pretended Conscience against submission to the present Government Meer Success is certainly one of the worst Arguments in the World of a good Cause and the most improper to satisfie Conscience And yet we find by experience that in the issue it is the most successful of all other Arguments and does in a very odd but effectual way satisfie the Consciences of a great many men by shewing them their Interest God has of late visibly made bare his Arm in our behalf though some are still so blind and obstinate that they will not see it Like those of whom the Prophet complains Lord when thy hand is lifted up they will not see but they shall see and be ashamed for their envy at thy People Thus have I represented unto you a mighty Monarch who like a fiery Comet hath hung over Europe for many years and by his malignant influence hath made such terrible havock and devastations in this part of the World Let us now turn our View to the other part of the Text And behold a greater than he is here A Prince of a quite different Character who does understand and know God to be the Lord which doth exercise loving-kindness and judgment and righteousness in the Earth And who hath made it the great Study and Endeavour of his life to imitate these Divine Perfections as far as the imperfection of humane Nature in this mortal state will admit I say a greater than he is here who never said or did an insolent thing but instead of despising his Enemies has upon all occasions encounter'd them with an undaunted Spirit and Resolution This is the Man whom God hath honoured to give a Check to this mighty Man of the Earth and to put a hook into the Nostrils of this great Leviathan who has so long had his pastime in the Seas But we will not insult as he once did in a most unprincely manner over a Man much better than himself when he believed Him to have been slain at the Boyne And indeed Death came then as near to him as was possible without killing him But the merciful Providence of God was pleased to step in for his Preservation almost by a Miracle For I do not believe that from the first use of great Guns to that Day any mortal man ever had his shoulder so kindly kiss'd by a Cannon-bullet But I will not trespass any further upon that which is the great Ornament of all his other Vertues though I have said nothing of Him but what all the World does see and must acknowledge He is as much above being flatter'd as it is beneath an honest and a generous mind to flatter Let us then glory in the Lord and rejoice in the God of our Salvation Let us now in the presence of all his People pay our most thankful acknowledgments to him who is worthy to be praised even to the Lord God of Israel who alone doth wondrous things Who giveth Victory unto Kings and hath preserved our David his Servant from the hurtful Sword And let us humbly beseech Almighty God that he would long preserve to us the invaluable Blessing of our two Excellent Princes whom the Providence of God hath sent amongst us like two good Angels not to rescue two or three Persons but almost a whole Nation out of Sodom By saving us I hope at last from our Vices as well as at first from that Vengeance which was just ready to have been poured down upon us Two Sovereign Princes reigning together and in the same Throne and yet so intirely one as perhaps no Nation no Age can furnish us with a Parallel Two Princes perfectly united in the same Design of promoting the true Religion and the Publick Welfare by reforming our Manners and as far as is possible by repairing the breaches and healing the Divisions of a miserably distracted Church and Nation In a Word Two Princes who are contented to sacrifice Themselves and their whole Time to the care of the Publick And for the