work enough and yet are reviving with the old and once extinguished names our old animosities to so high a degree that this puts every thing to a stand even the Thoughts of good and wise men It was once hoped that all past Errors had been forgot especially in those who in a time of danger when they saw the tendency of some steps into which they had been engaged made so generous a resistance and stand against the common Enemy which shewed the sincerity of their Hearts and their firmness to the Religion and Laws of England and that former Errors had been the effects of a too great easiness to believe and to think well of others But when this City was so much united in so noble a resistance to barefac'd Popery and Tyranny who could have thought that upon such a Deliverance as we have been blest with we should not have improved it much further than we have done for those great ends for which we have reason to believe that God has sent it to us If some years agoe when all were under those fears out of which God has brought us and were joyned together in that struggle for our most holy Faith out of which if we had not all escaped we must all have perished together any one had said that either differences of Opinion or any former Errours would have made us fall out again if God should again have blest us with the return of Religion and of our Laws in their Ancient force he would have been looked on by all as a Melancholy Presager of evil things But we are now just in this or rather in a worse condition a violent Aversion and a mortal Jealousie appears on all hands we fancy we are not safe from one another and by our fancying it we render our selves indeed unsafe If this should have come upon us after we had got entirely out of all our difficulties and dangers it had been bad enough but in a state of calm we could have better born such Concussions and should have had time to look out for proper Remedies but while we are yet in so much danger while Union is so necessary to all our common preservation that we should now embroil our selves and the Publick as it is just that very madness which our Enemies would wish to us so it carries in it so terrible a Character of God's casting us off and giving us up to the Counsels of our own hearts that if by the earnest Prayers of those who mourn in secret and the hearty endeavours of such as are fitted for such healing work we cannot cure this Disease we must give our selves for a lost Nation If Attempts this way prove unsuccessful then every man must prepare himself the best he can to bear the share that he himself must expect in the Miseries of his Countrey And if through our Passions and Follies God does deliver us up into the hands of our Implacable Enemies as we must expect that they will take care that we shall never be in a condition to shake off the yoke again so to every one whose passions have transported him into those Excesses which are like to be fatal to us the remembrance of this will be one of the most insupportable Ingredients in his misery that he had procured it to himself O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self will carry in it a terrible sound when the Application will be so just Suffer me then in the words of St. Paul to say Is there not a wise man among you I speak this to your reproach Is every Man so soured with the leaven of a Party that he cannot see himself or make others observe the tendency of all this Were the wrongs done so great that they cannot be forgiven Are the differences so wide that they cannot be healed Is there no Balm in Gilead and is there no Physician there Have we no sense of all that God has done for us Will we quite defeat and disappoint it Have we no sense of God's forgiving us our many hainous sins Have we no regard to the great Example of the Holy Jesus who here mourned over that City which was in a few days to cry out against him Crucifie Crucifie And do we not consider the unexampled gentleness of him whom God has set over us whom perhaps some may think merciful to an excess But it is a happy state for Subjects when this is one of their chief Complaints He to whom under GOD we owe our present peace and happiness does both by his own practice and his advices recommend this temper so earnestly to us that if none of all these Considerations of Religion Reason Example and Interest can work upon us we must conclude that this is one of the heavy Judgments of God which is already poured out upon us that is not only heavy in it self but is chiefly heavy on this account because it will most certainly draw a great many heavier ones than it self after it If our differences were of so strange a nature that no Expedient could be offered that were proper to compose them nothing in such a case should remain but to cry out The wound of the Daughter of my People is greater than that it can be healed But as it is a strange reproach to a Physician if one should die under his hand of one of the slightest evils that could possibly affect the Body of Man so to see the Peace of a City or of a Nation disturbed not to say lost upon such matters must prove either that the Humours are very bad or that the Wound has been but slightly cured by those who perhaps instead of using Lenitives to allay the heat do rather inflame it Upon the whole matter the right way of procuring fit Remedies to all our evils is to search and try our ways and to turn again unto the Lord to lift up our hearts with our hands unto God in the heavens and to acknowledge that we have transgressed and rebelled and that hither to God has not pardoned That he covered us with his anger and himself with a cloud That Fear and a snare is come upon us that therefore our eye should run down without any intermission till God look down and behold from heaven And then we might see that God would hear our voice and not hide his ears from our cry that he would draw near to us in those days that we call upon him and say unto us fear not That he would plead our cause and redeem our life who sees the vengeance of our Enemies and all their imaginations against us and would render them a recompence according to the works of their hands and persecute and destroy them in his anger from under the heavens There remains little to be said to the last particular that I proposed which is that which is implied in this period that is in the form of a wish or rather supposition If thou hadst
and anise If we have Idols in our hearts tho we have purged our Churches of them if we forget God at the same time that we do not worship Images and if while we are zealous in lesser matters we neglect the great things of righteousness mercy and faith then all our Negative Religion our No Popery and all our zeal for the Church when it does not oblige us to conform our selves to her Dictates and Rules as well as to be hot and eager in her defence will not secure us but that this Thou even thou may belong to us 3dly The Iews at this time had so fallen from all the true Principles of Religion that even their Religion had embittered their Spirits so that they were rather the worse for it than the better The Pried and Affectation of the Pharisees that had no real worth under it to support it set them on all the methods of Slander and Injustice of Falshood and Cruelty so that when they found they could not stand before the true worth of our Saviour and his Apostles they then fell upon the blackest Calumnies and most violent Rage for destroying those before whom they could not maintain their ground upon an equal foot their Morals were universally depraved and their Tempers so vitiated that under the appearance of an adhering strictly to their Religion there never was a Nation that did more totally fall from the power and life of Godliness than they did they were both cruel and barbarous and not satisfied with shedding the Blood of Christ they filled up the measure of their Iniquities by persecuting his Followers every-where so that under a shew of preserving their Law they had entirely lost all the true and good Principles of Religion and so had contracted a vast guilt besides that heavy load of the Blood of him that was the Heir of the Vineyard whom they killed that the Inheritance might be their own And thus the view of a Nation that was both so corrupted and that lay under so heavy a load of guilt leads us to the full importance of this If thou even thou that even after all their Sins and all their guilt there was still room for Repentance If this Nation has brought it self into the like state of having the knowledge of the Truth and seeming zealous about it and yet falling from all that is pure and excellent in Religion into a fierceness about some Inconsiderable Matters if while we seem to have a great concern for our Religion we have none at all for our Morals if Malice and ill-nature if Fury and Cruelty do not only transport us to all excesses but make us cover and justify them with pretexts of Religion if our Cities and Countrey have been defiled with all the brutalities that humane Nature is capable of If instead of mutual Love and Forgiveness we hate and study to destroy one another If instead of Truth there is nothing but Injustice and instead of Righteousness there is nothig but Violence and Deceit then we will find our selves under the worst part of that which is intimated in this If thou even thou Yet after all there is somewhat that gives comfort in this for if a City charged with all the blood that was shed from Abel down to Zacharias was even after all that admitted to a possibility of escaping the Judgments of God by a true Repentance then we see that we who have reason to hope that we are not near so guilty as they were are not yet quite desperate 2. From this I go next to consider the Importance of these words at least in this thy day In Scripture this word of the day or time of a Nation stands in a double sense sometimes for a time of mercy and kindness an acceptable time and day of Salvation sometimes for a day of trial or visitation as it is in the following words The meaning of the first is that when God receives Nations into his Protection and Favour he not being as a Man inconstant and changeable does not easily repent of the good that he shews them nor change his Methods towards them and therefore till their Sins become so high and crying that it does not agree with the honour of his Providence not to shew his anger against them he bears with their Offences or if he corrects them for them he does it not in anger he will chastise them as he said with relation to David's Posterity If they sin against him but he will not quite cast them off he will visit their Transgressions with the rod and their Iniquity with stripes Nevertheless he will not take his loving kindness utterly from them And thus we find it was often said of the Iewish Nation in the Old Testament that God would have cast them off if he had not remembred Abraham Israel and Iacob so in this sense the Iews were still God's People and in Covenant with him To them were the first offers of the Messias to be made and therefore if while that Covenant lasted and they were still under the Privileges of it they could have applied themselves to know the things that belonged to their Peace they might still have maintain'd their Title to his Favour The second sense of this thy day imports that there is a time of Trial and Repentance granted by God even to guilty Nations in order to their preventing the last strokes of his Wrath and the final Calamity that is threatned When God was provoked by the sins of the old World to bring a flood upon the whole Earth he gave them the space of 120 years for a time of warning in which Noah continued as a Preacher of Righteousness denouncing to them the Judgments that were to be poured out upon them Even Niniveh had 40 days given to them for a time of Repentance by which their final destruction might be respited as in fact it proved to be We find upon three great occasions that God granted to the people of the Iews a time of 40 Years When they rebelled against him at Kadesh-barnea and would not go in and possess the Land he declared that none of them except two should enter into it but that they should fall in the Wilderness yet they were to wander in it 40 Years for so long does the Psalm say that he was grieved with that generation Next when Manasses had so defiled Ierusalem with both Idolatry and Bloodshed that it is said that God would not pardon it yet upon Iosiah's serious Repentance and purging the Temple which he began in the 12th Year of his Reign God granted to the Iews 40 Years Reprieve for it was just so long between the 12th of Iosiah and Zedekiah's Captivity And the third 40 Years was from the first year of our Saviours Preaching to the final Destruction of Ierusalem they were then in the day of their Visitation which grew gradually upon them the Roman Yoke becoming every day more
or our Country to the present or the succeeding Generations we must now unite our whole Strength and turn our whole Forces against those Enemies of Humane Nature who wheresoever they come turn the richest Soil to a barren Wilderness and after they have gratified their Revenges with unheard-of and studied Cruelties their Appetites with the most defiling Rapes their Avarice with the most exquisite Plunder finally destroy all that cannot be any way serviceable to themselves These are things which we cannot easily believe since Warrs formerly were managed by Rules and a Faith that was held sacred even in the hottest Rages of War but those Beasts of Prey gave themselves no Restraints or if they themselves were capable of any yet the terrible Orders that are given them of executing whole Nations and Provinces leave no room for any Remnant of Humanity that is perhaps not quite extinguished in them Men of gentle and peaceful Natures cannot form to themselves a just Idea of the Miseries which must follow on our falling under such an Enemy If while things are in this State every one will look on and fancy That this lies on the Government and not on himself if Men will neither with their Persons nor their Purses contribute what is in them to our preservation if some small Distastes do alienate them from one another and from the publick this gives us yet a more terrible Prospect than the Jews had For tho' they had whetted their Spirits one against another beyond Imagination yet all agreed in opposing the Romans And when they attacked them they went all to their common Defence But if we will throw up all because we cannot carry every things if because we cannot revenge or subdue those who differ from us or because some things do not please us we come to have softer Thoughts of our Enemies and imagine that we can make Terms with them and trust them and if some fancy that by reason of some Managements they have been in their Fate will be milder not to say better this is an Error that they will not perhaps ever see because they are not like to outlive it To such as can so deceive themselves I will only tell what the Pope's Legate that commanded the Army that besieged Beziers said When as they were going to storm the Town some told him That there were many good Catholicks among the Hereticks or Albigenses and therefore askt orders what to do with them Kill all said he God knows them that are his being resolved that what share soever they might have in the Mercies of God they should have none of his Under the Price of our being both Papists and Slaves there can be no Redemption and when they have destroyed with so much unrelenting and treacherous Fury whole Countries of their own Religion not sparing neither Churches nor Monasteries for which even savage Nations have had some regard What can Hereticks expect from him who has vowed their destruction and reckons the Persecution that he has set on foot against them the top of his Glory If after all this Men will not apprehend their danger or will fancy that they can secure themselves by acting in a different Interest let these see if among the Protestants of France those that shewed at all times the most submissive Compliances with all the Inclinations of the Court found when the fatal Decree was given any other Distinction than that a very few of them were suffered to go out of the Kingdom and even this Cruelty was to be magnified as an extraordinary Favour and Gratitude of the Court We are now upon the greatest Crisis of any Age The greatest that is in our History and much the greatest that has been since the Reformation began If we can get through this War with Success and Victory we have before us the happiest Prospect that any Nation can have in view of securing our own Peace and Happiness our Religion and our Government And of being the Nation that shall give a Deliverance to Europe and a Security to the Procestant Religion and of setting Bounds to the great Abaddon the Destroyer and Enemy to Mankind If we value either our own Happiness or the Honour of our Country will we think it a heavy thing to lessen our Expence to cut off from Prodigality and Luxury and reduce our selves to a narrow compass that we may preserve the whole when a few Years frugality may support a chargeable War and bring us into Habits that may make the succeeding Peace prove a double Blessing to us Can we think any thing is too much when our Religion our Countrey our Lives and Liberties are the price that is to be fought for And when the Issue of the present Scene and War must be our Being either the happiest or the miserablest Nation upon Earth The Fate of Constantinople was terrible and ought to be set before us They were besieged by the Turks whom they knew to be a most cruel Enemy and a most barbarous Master They could hope for nothing if they fell into their Hands but to become a prey to them Yet they would neither assist their unfortunate Emperor with their persons nor their Purses He had none to preserve both him and them but some hired Troops who for want of pay were mutinying upon all occasions he coined all his own plate even the sacred Vessels were not spared He went in person among the rich Citizens and with Tears in his Eyes desired their Assistance towards the preservation of the Empire and City but by a fatal stupidity they either did not see their danger or took no care to prevent it For though there was an inconceivable treasure found among them in the sack of Constantinople yet they seemed to take care to preserve it all for the Enemy and would imploy none of it for their own defence This was such a degree of Infatuation that if the Historian who relates it had not lived in the time and had his Information from Eyewitnesses we could scarce give credit to it God grant such Examples may make us wise The poor Emperor resolved not to outlive his Glory and so in a desperate sally that he made he fell before the Enemy who after that found so faint a Resistance that they quickly carried the place and became Masters of all that Wealth which its former owners had so carefully preserved for them If we had a sute for our whole Estate with one that spared no cost we should not out of an ill timed Frugality let him carry it rather than be at the charge of maintaining our Right we should rather save it out of every thing else than let all go Our Enemy leaves his subjects as well as his Enemies nothing so he finds spoil enough to support his Ambition and Lust of Conquest When then all is struck at all must concur in so just and so necessary a cause But I come in the last place to those things that
belong to our mutual Peace among our selves The common Peace and Safety will be ill preserved if we are biting and devouring one another we shall need no Enemy to destroy us if this continues for we shall be consumed one of another We have nothing so conspicuous in the History of the Destruction of the Iews as their cruel intestine Feuds and Wars which made them an easie Prey to the Romans They were at first divided into three great Sects that of the Sadduces who were plain Atheists and Libertines that denied the being of Spirits and a future state and that by consequence could lie under no Restraints from their Religion They struck in to Herod and afterwards fell under so general an Odium that they grew more inconsiderable towards the end of that State The second Sect was that of the Essens who were men of excellent Morals and of a sublime Piety who retained their ancient Simplicity they retired from the World lived in common at work and in constant Devotion These did likewise disappear and probably they became Christians to which their holy Dispositions and their strict Lives did so much prepare them that it is scarce possible to think that Men of such Tempers could resist such a Religion But the third Sect that swallowed all the rest up was that of the Pharisees of whom so much is said in the Gospels that it is not necessary to enlarge upon their Character They were a sort of People that under an outward appearance of great strictness were the falsest the violentest the cruellest and the most revengeful they were the least moral and the most hypocritical and diabolical Sect that ever was These by the appearance of Exactness and of Zeal had so possessed themselves of the Opinion and the Affections of the People that they could turn them which way they pleased but among them there were Subdivisions The Zealots were those who from the Example and the Rewards of Phinehas came to think that when Magistrates were too slack in punishing Offenders private persons might do it St. Paul had been one of these and as such he not only persecuted the Church from House to House but having got a company of Men of the same fury to follow him he went to persecute them even to strange Cities Now towards the end of the History of the Iews we see this became a matter of meer Rage and Companies assuming this name got together and run about executing whatsoever their own Fury inspired them with as a revenge of Sin in the Name of God These first murdered all the Romans every where and so engaged themselves in a War with them that required either a most mighty resistance or that must in conclusion end in their own utter ruin They also murdered all that inclined or moved at any time to treat with the Romans But men of this sort seldom agree long together So these were soon subdivided into those who were headed by Eleazar who were the Masters of the Inner Courts of the Temple and those who were headed by Iohn that possessed themselves of the Outer Courts And when those within opened the Gates at the Feast of the Passover that so the People might come in and offer their Lambs some of Iohn's party went in and killed Eleazar and so he became Master of the whole Temple But this was not all for there was another party among them that were called the Robbers that did the same thing that the Zealots did for it is scarce possible to think they could do worse But it seems they did not cover it with the pretence of Zeal for the Law and so were the more honest Robbers of the two who owned that they robbed for robbing sake These were at first commanded by Minahem the Son of Iudas of Galilee but he being killed by Eleazar's means they were after that headed by one Simon who being called into Ierusalem drove Iohn out of the City and had many Engagements with him and his Zealots in one of which they burnt the common store of Provisions which if preserved would have served to maintain a long Siege Thus were they fighting with one another when Titus came before them with an Army that consisted only of four Legions besides Auxiliaries a small force against so vast a multitude of Men of an enraged Courage and a City of such extent and defence In this Extremity it was plain that they must either treat and submit or unite and resist vigorously There was but one thing that was both desperate and foolish to perish within their Walls by Hunger and to be destroying one another as oft as the Enemy gave them leisure to go about it And this was precisely the course they took If any spake of treating with the Romans he was presently the Object of the common fury yet they did not sally out upon them till it was too late From the 14. of April that Titus sate down before them the account of those that died by Famine was kept by Mannoeus who had the charge of carrying out the dead Bodies to the 1st of Iuly and it swelled up to an hundred and fifteen thousand and eight hundred This was besides those who were carried out by their Friends After that he fled to the Romans and those who were appointed still to take care of the Dead told that the number was grown up to Six hundred thousand And thus the greatest and once the best but then the worst City in the World perished in so terrible a manner that the History of it would pass for a melancholy aggravating of matters beyond the possibilities of truth if he that wrote it had not been an Eye-witness and a person of so true a judgment of so much probity and so full of affection to his Country that there is no reason to suspect the Relation that he has made of it which as it is by much the saddest piece of History so it is that which can never be enough read for it will alwaies leave a very good Impression upon the Reader 's mind But this is not to be read meerly as a signal Transaction that pass'd 1600 years ago but as a standing Monument of the severity of the Justice of God against an Impenitent and Rebellious Nation and if these things were done in the green tree what shall be done in the dry If the Seed of Abraham Isaac and Iacob were so used why should others hope to escape if they become guilty of the like Ingratitude And since the immediate cause of their ruin was that mutual fury that transported them into the most extravagant Excesses and which blinded them in all they did and made them neglect the most obvious and certain methods for their preservation either in the way of treaty or of defence what a melancholly Prospect does this set before us who have such a mighty Enemy to deal with that all our Heads Hands and Purses united against him will find