taken up with thoughts of themselves that they have no leisure to think of God and especially in a course of uninterrupted happiness and prosperity the Soul is as it were weakened and lost and dissolved in ease and softness and the rational faculties are depressed and deprived of their directive power and the gratification of a lust is set up in competition with the service of God and oftentimes preferred before it and the pleasures of sense prevail and when we are full we are apt to forget and deny God Deut. viii 11.14 Prov. xxx 9. It is but necessary then that men be taught the true and just knowledge of themselves which is done most effectually by judgments This shews how they depend necessarily upon God and how unable they are to stand before an Almighty power by this they are sensible that his anger can consume them in a moment and that his power can crush them into pieces Thou even thou art to be feared and who may stand in thy sight when thou art angry Psalm lxxvi 7. Let us deny now if we dare but certainly our fears and our convictions will not permit us to deny Gods power over us when we either hear on see so many thousands falling before us and when we see the whole creation at his command and doing his will An apprehension and sense of distress and danger will bring us upon our knees and will throughly convince us of our folly to forget much more to oppose and defy God and will force us with trembling and amazement to acknowledge his Almightiness and power by the judgments which he brings upon the World 2. If we look about us and observe the horrid violations of the Laws of God and Religion we shall soon justifie God in his proceeding so severely with us for by this he shews his anger against sin and how jealous he is of his honour It is most certain that this life is for the trial of our faith and obedience and that hereafter every one shall be rewarded according to his works and that tho God be provoked every day yet his patience and goodness seem to lay restraints as it were upon his Justice from breaking out upon the Sinner For if God should punish as often as men sin and should proceed according to the rigour of his justice all mankind would sink under the weight of his heavy hand If thou Lord wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss O Lord who may abide it Psalm cxxx 3. And we see what ill use is made of Gods forbearance and long-suffering how some interpret this in their own favour and how others harden themselves in wickedness and sin the more boldly Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the hearts of the sons of men are fully set in them to do evil Eccles. viii 9. But to rectifie all misapprehensions that they may not pass into general opinions and to shew that he will not forbear always he doth often manifest and signalize his justice even in this life and loudly proclaim from heaven his anger against the unrighteousness of men and especially by national judgments in such cases as these When Religion is scorned and derided as an argument of a pusillanimous mind or as an effect of superstition or else is made use of as a cloak to cover maliciousness revenge and ambition when virtue and modesty are accounted parts of ill breeding and when wickedness appears bold and impudent in the day-light when luxury and effeminacy and a dissolution of manners have overspread a people when no regard is had to the sacred tyes and religion of repeated Oaths and Sacraments and to the most solemn obligations of natural and civil right and justice when the public worship of God is slighted and no check given to Atheism and profaneness when men live as if there were no God or which is worse cared not for him when blasphemies against God and Christ and the mysteries of our holy religion are tolerated and go unpunished when such kind of impieties all or some more or less become common and prevail in a Nation ruine cannot be afar off It is time for thee Lord to work for they have made void thy law Psalm cxix 126. We may safely and allowably pretend to foretel that vengeance hangs over the heads of such a people unless a general repentance and reformation intervene and avert the impending evil And tho no Prophets are now extraordinarily commissioned from heaven to prophecy against a nation and tâ— particularize the judgment which God will inflict except they amend yet we may be as sure of it that so it will be and we have as much reason to expect it as if there were because God has revealed his mind and will in his holy word and signified his intentions sufficiently that thus and thus he will proceed with an obstinate and incorrigible people 3. Judgments serve for examples and warning to others Punishment is so essential to government that without this it would soon be dissolved and confusion and all manner of disorder would break in upon the world it would be scarce possible to live with any kind of security It is fear which keeps men in and lays restraints upon their passions which otherwise would break out in fury and madness and what the sad and dismal consequences of the passions are when once let loose is easie to imagine and of which we may frame some tolerable kind of idea from the murders the sacrilegious rapines the villanies the desolations caused by a brutish rabble So that punishment becomes necessary not only that the criminal may make some satisfaction for the breach of Law but for security of the publick peace that others if the crime be capital especially seeing his shameful and untimely end may be deterred from following his bad example Which consideration is enough to vindicate the severity of the Laws upon the worser sort of malefactors not as if any delight were designed to be taken by heightning or prolonging the misery of any one be his crime never so heinous but only in terrorem to affright those who survive from attempting the like wickedness and to assure them withal what they are to expect if they do so This very method God Almighty is pleased to make use of in the government of the world His Laws are established with sanctions of rewards and punishments according as we either observe or disobey them None can pretend ignorance or complain of a surprize that they are punished before they knew the danger of the Sin For every judgment is a plain denunciation and threatning from heaven that if we equal others in their sin we may be made equal to them in their punishment It is true God takes his own time to punish he doth oftentimes forbear upon most gracious and wise designs he doth often let the sinner go on in his sins because the sinner is in his power and
Providence except a very few whose interest it is to wish there were none that they might live as they list according to their corrupt inclinations without the least molestation or disturbance And yet these very men who deny a Providence cannot but acknowledge and confess that it is agreeable to reason yea and necessary to the well-being of the World that there should be such an over-ruling power regulated and directed by the highest wisdom For if in a private family there could be no peace nor safety without rules and orders to be observed by every one in their respective qualities if in a Kingdom confusions could not possibly be avoided without Laws they being the ligaments of the body politick that tie the members of it together whereby they perform the several offices of Civil life in an orderly conjunction much more would the World which consists of such a variety of parts fail and decay if the Creator had not set them a Law which they are not to transgress and if they were not restrained and kept in from preying one upon another and if an omnipotent and all-wise God had not the whole ordering and disposal of them 2. How came things to be endowed with those qualities which produce such strange and admirable effects as we daily see and hear of 'T is a vain attempt to go about to explain and solve the appearances of nature by the Mechanichal Philosophy how witty and subtile and refined soever without believing God not only to have created matter and put this matter into motion but to determine and modify the several motions of it and tho some effects flow necessarily from their causes according to the established laws of mechanism yet this was wholly according to the will and contrivance of the first causes nor can they display this vertue without the divine concourse all second causes in their several motions needing the continuation of the divine power and influence in order to their operations as well as to their subsistence All things then are at the disposal of God who makes use of them as it pleaseth him and the vertue which they have derives from him Even men are the instruments of his will and that without any restraint of or prejudice to their natural or moral Liberty He brings about the purposes of his Providence by actions which they design to other ends nay sometimes by their sinful passions and the exhorbitances of their temper Nebuchadnezzar a neighbour Heathen Prince made war upon the Jews Gods own people either to satisfy his thirst of fame and glory or to enlarge his dominion or it may be upon some pretended affront or injury done him or the like and yet God calls him his servant Jerem xliii 10. because by him he punished that people for their Sins and it was upon this account that Attilas such another instrument in the hand of God as was Oliver Cromwel when with his barbarous troops he broke into Christendom as if he had received a commission from heaven to execute Gods wrath upon the Christians of that Age for their luxurious and unchristian lives had the title of flagellum DEI. None can deny civil war to be a grievous judgment to a Nation notwithstanding all the plausible pretensions of cunning and designing men to draw the people into their party and to take up arms in defence of Religion and Property both which suffer infinitely more by a Rebellion than by a Persecution if any such had followed according to their fears and jealousies whether well grounded or ill grounded it matters not yet in every such war God gives commission to the Sword and says Sword go through the Land Ez. xiv 17. much more may God make use of all other parts of the visible creation which have no principle of Liberty within them Thus fire and hail snow and vapour and stormy wind are said to fulfil his word Psalm cxlviii 8. and thus God did in the plagues of Egypt and tho judgments be not always so quick and immediate but oftentimes advance slowly and by degrees Yet this doth not hinder but that they are judgments still such for instance are infectious Air malignant Diseases blasting and mildew drought and barrenness of ground Deut. xxviii We must then look beyond natural causes even to the God of nature who orders and directs them to their several ends and over-rules them and oftentimes carries them beyond their usual power according as it seems good to his divine Wisdom and the ends of Providence In a Pestilence we must not look at the evil influences of the Air but at the evil influences of sin for the infection comes first thence God might continue the same temper to the Air if he pleased that it might be for ever healthful but he suffers those alterations to be made in it by degrees and warns a Nation by such slow approaches of his future intentions So that notwithstanding we could trace the natural and immediate causes of it yet because they cannot act but by vertue of his influence and he makes use of the order and course of things as it best pleaseth him the beginning and progress and decrease of a plague is to be ascribed to his will and pleasure as much as that which we read of 2 Sam. xxiv 16. When the Angel of the Lord stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it the Lord repented him of the evil and said to the Angel who destroyed the people it is enough stay now thine hand And as the Angel so what is called nature is the instrument of God and therefore God is pleased to ascribe to himself the ordinary works of it One would judge it necessary from the constitution of the World that there be refreshing showers and dews to water and moisten the dry and parched ground whose fruitfulness would otherwise fail and decay yet this in the judgment of Saint Paul was enough to convince the Heathen that there is a God as he tells the people of Lycaonia Acts xiv 7. He left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons filling our hearts with food and gladness To this Tertullian does elegantly allude Deum in aperto constitutum vel ex ipsis coelestibus bonis comprehensibilem ignorari non licet And indeed if we do but consider the ordinary works of Nature which we do not value by reason of their commonness and therefore pass over slightly we shall find so much wisdom in their contrivance that we must of necessity have recourse to an infinite Author If then a fruitful Summer if a plentiful and seasonable Harvest and Vintage be a sufficient attestation of Providence can we think that Judgments tho brought about by natural causes are not the effects of the divine anger and displeasure cannot a Sparrow fall to the ground without the Will of God St. Matth. x. 29. and shall there be any kind of Judgment
cannot escape him and the like is to be said of a sinful nation but then this is only a reprieve and respite no revocation of the sentence which is gone out against it and it is the highest provocation of Justice to take no warning it is an unpardonable stupidity and the direct and ready way to ruine Whatever judgments are inflicted in this world concern others as well as those on whom they are inflicted These things are our examples as Saint Paul does most rationally conclude from the overthrow of the Israelites in the Wilderness 1 Cor. x. 6. to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted Now let us consider what is it that has ruined so many famous Monarchies but luxury and pride and base perfidiousness and irreligion how many glorious Cities have been demolished and destroyed by war fire and earthquakes whose ruines will be eternal monuments of their sin and of the divine vengeance All history abounds with examples and above all the Sacred which serves not only to inform us of past events but for direction and warning of what will be they are the standing registers of Gods proceedings with men the prophesies against Jerusalem against Babylon against Nineve in the general are in force still making allowances for the variety of circumstances as to those times and these as if they were directed to Christendom and the Nations out of it and their Capital Cities They are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the Earth are come Look about and see what desolations are brought upon the Earth go and enquire of the ages past and consider how God has dealt with them in his anger how he hath made their own wickedness to correct them as the Prophet speaks Jerem. ii 19. how he has given up some to the violence and fury of an enraged foreign Enemy others to the more raging furies of a Civil War how he has sent pestilential diseases and other plagues among them and the like By which examples God doth forewarn all other Nations as well as the people of the same in different times of the certain and woful and unavoidable consequence of Sin persisted in and unrepented of The belief of this truth that the Judgments which are in the world are the effects of Gods displeasure is necessary in order to our receiving benefit and making that right use of them to which they are designed For so long as Providence is denied and the justice and power of God called in question and the threatnings of Scripture disbelieved and lookt upon as bruta sulmina empty sound and noise and only natural causes supposed to be concerned in the dismal Judgments which have been and are in the world without the superintendency of the first and supream cause and that all things come to pass either by chance as causes which have no dependence one upon another happen to be joyned or by a fatal necessity it is a very easy consequence that men of this perswasion should continue in the same ill course of life and be never a whit the better for the most astonishing calamities Fear indeed is usually wrought in the minds of the stoutest and most resolute by Judgments Psal. lvii 8. Thou didst cause Judgment to be heard from heaven the Earth feared and was still But this may flow only from a principle of self-preservation The most hardy and bold the wits and the Hobbists les be aux et les forts esprits for all their sophistry and artificial evasions and for all their principles of fate and praedestination have an abhorrence of sudden death nor indeed can they think of any kind of death with any patience whose hopes are only confined to the animal life it may also oftentimes be and for the most part is only a kind of present horror a being troubled at the danger lest it may involve them as well as others and a meer effect of surprize and astonishment like the Emperour Caligula who was afraid and crept under his bed when it thundered but as mad and as dissolute as ever as soon as the noise was over But certainly all sober and serious people will make a better use of the judgments of God and in such cases conduct and govern themselves and their behaviour by true measures of wisdom and piety and especially by these two following rules 1. That we look up to God in all times of publick distress and calamity For will it not be a foolish obstinacy beyond all aggravation to complain of the stroke and smart and not see the inflicting hand which is so visibly lifted up No one certainly can be so slight an observer of the age wherein he lives as not to see enough to convince him that there is a God who judgeth in the earth and that he brings about those revolutions which are in the world Psalm lxiv. 9. all men that see it shall say this hath God done they shall perceive that it is his work But tho we are to observe and admire and adore Providence we must not presume to justifie any evil action by it as if success of it self were a sufficient proof encouragement and approbation of it For we cannot but remember how this was the common theme and topick in the late times I mean before the year 1660 of popular discourses both from the pulpit and the press to justifie the cursed rebellion of forty one that the God of hosts fought for his Saints and Servants at Marston-more and gave them victory over his and their enemies that is their rightful Soveraign to whom they had often sworn allegiance and his faithful Subjects and appeared most gloriously on their side at Naseby and the like and Bradshaw in his speech just before his pronouncing the sentence of death upon the blessed King Charles the first in which he most wickedly misapplies Law and the history of the tumultuous times of K. Edward the Second and K. Richard the Second together with foreign examples of the like villany as if they had been just and authentick proofs of what they were then acting appeals to Providence and saith that God had dealt gloriously and miraculously for them Providence cannot without an imputation upon the righteous government of God be supposed much more made use of as a plea or argument to justifie that which religion and the divine law severely prohibit tho judgments by what means or instruments soever brought about are full proof of Gods anger and displeasure against sin In every judgment God doth as it were thunder out of heaven and we must be more than deaf that is affectedly stupid if we will not hear and take notice Micah vi 9. The Lords voice cryeth unto the City and the man of wisdom shall see thy name hear ye the rod and who hath appointed it 2. That we reflect upon our sins which are the meritorious cause of Gods dealing thus severely with us In general may we not justly fear that the Lord hath a controversie with England for the crying sins of it because there is no truth nor mercy nor knowledge of God in the land by swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery they break out and blood toucheth blood Hoseah iv 1 2. and have we not reason also to fear that the following menace will be fully executed upon us v. 3. therefore shall the land mourn and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish But without descending to a minute consideration of the publick sins wherewith almost the whole nation in general stands charged let us as we are private persons reflect upon our necessary dependance on God that all we have we derive from his goodness and that we cannot subsist one moment without his providence which continues our being to us and further consider that notwithstanding those obligations to serve and obey him which our being in the world and our being of such an order of creatures and our daily preservation lay upon us we daily provoke God to anger and if so when ever we feel the smart of our Sins we cannot but bow down our heads humbly before him and adore his justice which yet punisheth us less than we have deserved Righteous art thou O Lord and true are thy judgments Psal. cxix 133. He doth not afflict willingly the children of men Lam. iii. 33. but we our selves pull down these judgments upon our heads we will not let God as it were be at rest we provoke him to wrath and indignation against us by our ingratitude and disobedience and by an obstinate continuance in sin Whenever therefore his hand is lifted up and before it be lifted up let us endeavour to atone his wrath by a hearty and speedy repentance let us prostrate our selves before him and deprecate his anger that we be not consumed by the means of his heavy hand and then we may be assured that he will return to us in mercy and will either avert or remove his judgments from us and will heal us and our Land and the breaches of it tho it shaketh and is ready to fall into pieces FINIS ERRATA PAge 4. line 20. all mankind p. 5. l. 26. for hast r. had p. 6. l. 13. for our r. out p. 10. l. 7. first cause * Matchiavel in his Prince speaking of the ill success of the counsels designs and enterprizes of Caesar Borgia nac que da una straordinaria estrema malignita di fortuna cap. vii * De Paenitentia ex edit Rigaltii page 14â— Specialiter quaedam pronunciata generaliter sapiunt Cum Deus Israelitas admonet disciplinae vel objurgat utique adomnes habet cum Aegypto Aethiopiae exitium comminatur in omnem gentem peccatricem praejudicat Tertull de spectaculis ex edit Rigalt p. 91.