much therefore in Thankfulness and Praise which are works of Love All goeth on sweetly and easily and acceptably that is carryed on by Love That is the best soul and likest to God that hath most of Love to God and Godliness 〈…〉 that is the best service and likest to the work of 〈…〉 that hath most of Love Let the principal striving and pleading with your hearts be to kindle Love and your principal complaints for the want of it Direct 7. Keep up Charity to all even unto enemies and special Love to all the Godly And therefore hate back-biting and slandering and making the worst of other mens actions Take them as thieves that come to rob you of your Charity He that speaks evil of another perswadeth you so far to hate him unless it be in Charity perswading you to seek his cure Hear the reproacher and back-biter understandingly as if he said in words as he doth in sense I pray you hate such a man or abate your Love to him As the way to cause Love is to represent the object Lovely which doth much more then to command me to Love it So the way to cause Hatred is to represent the object hateful or unlovely which is more then to bid us hate our brother And he that hateth his brother is a man-slayer and none such have eternal life abiding in them Away theresore with those Volumes of Learned slanders and reproaches begotten betwixt uncharitableness and self love or pride and take them as the Devils Books that are written to draw thee to hate thy Brother Frown also upon the censorious Take heed also of divisions and parties because they are enemies to universal Love and are but Imposthumes or Biles of the Church where Zeal and Love are diseasedly drawn into a narrow compass and that is appropriated to a few that should be common to all Believers Cherish meekness and patience and reject all that carnal Zeal or Envy Contention and Animosities which are contrary to Love Read and study well the third Chapter of St. James and the Epistle of John Direct 8. Understand the preciousness and use of time Love Diligence the better because it is a Redeeming of time a doing much in a little time Hate that which would rob you of so precious a commodity Direct 9. See that there be no predominant selfishness or worldly interest unmortified at the heart Study duty and do it faithfully and trust God with Life Estate and Events and shift not for your selves by sinfull means Direct 10. Maintain your authority over your sense and fleshly appetites Captivate not Reason to the Brutish part especially under pretence of liberty Use your bodies as may strengthen them and best fit them for the work of God Let them have so much delight in things allowed as conduceth to this but take heed of making the delights of flesh and sense your end or allowing your selves in an unprofitable pleasing of your enemy or of corrupting your minds and rellishing too much sweetness in the things of the flesh and losing your rellish of Spiritual things Set not the bait too near you Keep the Gun-powder from the fire He that believeth that if ever he be damned it will be for Pleasing his flesh before God and if ever he be saved he must be first and principally saved from the inordinate Pleasures of the flesh will not be so forward as brutish Infidels are to seek out for â—elights and plead for all that pleaseth them as harmâ—â—ss Having thus in the Introduction shewed you What Godliness is and How it may be known and What you must do to be soundly and sincerely Godly I hope you are prepared for the following Discourse of the Certain Necessity and Excellency of Godliness which tends to â—etch over the delaying resisting unresolved wills of those that are yet in the BRUTISH state and are strangers to the Dispositions Employments Desires Hopes and Joyes of true Believers The Lord concurre effectually with his Blessing Amen LUKE 10. 41 42. And Jesus answered and said unto her Martha Martha thou art careful and troubled about many things but One thing is Needful and Mary hath chosen the good part which shall not be taken away from her IN order to the decision of the Great Controversie practically managed through the the world Whether Godliness or worldliness and sensuality be better I have already performed the first part of my task in proving the Certainty of the Principles of Godliness and of Christianity which of it self will inferr the Conclusion which I undertake to prove that the Reasons for Godliness are so sure and clear and great that every one must be A SAINT or A BRUTE He that will not choose a life of HOLINESS hath no other to fall into but a life of SENSUALITY Either the superiour faculties proper to a Rational Nature must be predominant and then we can be no less than SAINTS Or else the inferiour brutish faculties will be predominant and then though from your natural Powers you are called MEN yet if you may be denominated from your intended END and from the USE of your faculties in order to that END you are but an ingenious kind of BRUTES exceeding Aâ—â—â— and Monkies in the cunning contrivance of your unhappy designs but incomparably worse in your successes because you were indeed entrusted with the noble faculties and gifts of MEN while you captivated them unto your Appetites and Sense and lived but to the END of BEASTS The second thing that I have to do for the conquering all opposition to this Conclusion is to prove the NECESSITY of HOLINESS which being now to speak to such as profess to believe the holy Scriptures I may easily do from this plain and pregnant Text To which I shall annex such cogent REASONS as may silence those that will not acquiesce in the authority of the holy Word So great is the difference between a dreaming Opinion in Religion called a Deâ—â— Faith and a serious hearty practical Belief that if they that say and do but say they believe the holy Scriptures and yet are ungodly had soundly Believed Considered and digested this very Text it would have made such a change both in their Hearts and Lives as would have told them by happy experience that the Gospel is not a dead letter nor saving faith a lifeless uneffectual thing and that God sent not his son into the world only to be complemented with and reverently treated with a few good words nor his Gospel and Ministers meerly to be entertained with a demure silent and respectful audience nor hath proposed his Kingdom to be meerly the matter of commendation or discourse But that as man is a creature of a Noble and Capacious Nature so he hath an high and noble End and consequently the highest imployment for his Reason and that Religion is the most NECESSARY and must be the most SERIOUS business in the world Did they believe this Text as verily as they
wit to scape the Gallows and you are Schollars fit for such bestial Masters 11. Yea let me add this one more mischief Hereby they would destroy all Charity and Good works except the very bestial Love of those that please mens lusts For no Laws of men compell men to the Love of God or man Nor much to Good works Who would do any thing comparatively that believed not a Reward and Punishment hereafter If we give all that we have to the poor we can here have no Reward but the breath of â—â—â—â—â— mouth which at death we understand not Take down the everlasting Ends and Motives and all good works and inward virtues too that should produce them are taken down And by this time you may see what a litter of bears what a pack of ravening dogs what Cannibals the world should be turned into by the doctrine of the Brutists that deny the life to come Well! but perhaps you will by this time have so much sense as to confess that Threatnings and Punishments Hopes and Fears of the State of another Life are necessary to the well governing of this world And if so I desire no more to satisfie any man that believes that there is a God and that is any man that hath not drowned his wits in sin For 1. This will then shew that the Nature of man is formed for another life and God did not make him such in vain 2. And certainly if everlasting Motives must be put into the Laws that govern us and into our Hopes and Fears then it is not possible but such things there are to be expected For any man to imagine that God would make a world which he cannot Govern but by falsehood and deceit this is to say that God is no God For all lying and falshood comes either from a want of Power or Wisdom or Goodness when men either cannot make good their words or otherwise attain their ends or when they have not wit to know what is or was or will be or when they are so bad as to be disposed to deceive But he that ascribeth any of these to God doth worse then to say that there is no God If I hate deceit and Lying my self the God that gave me all that little Good which I have must hate it more Dream not of any but a worm or fool or impious tyrant that needs or loves deceit and falshood to attain their ends Judge by the frame of Heaven and Earth and by that little Good that is in Good men whether the living God be one that needs such Hellish Engines to Rule the world If therefore in order to the Government of mankind we must needs Believe a â—â—fe to come it is certainly True And why do not you believe that which Government requireth you to believe Quer. 13. Moreover I demand of you Whether you take God indeed to be the Governour of this world or not By Governour I mean properly One that Ruleth the Rational Creature as such by Moral Means even Laws and Executions I exclude not his Potential Efficacious operations but conclude a Necessity of Moral Government I know a self-conceited Popish Infidel hath endeavoured to perswade the world that Gods Soveraignty and Moral Government are Metaphorical expressions arising from the misconceivings of weak men and that Wiser men like himself do conceive of Gods Government only as of an Artificers disposal of his works that Physically accomplisheth all his Will As if Gods Natural Causations and his Moral were inconsistent Or as if God were not Wise and Good as well as Almighty or did not in his Government of man demonstrate his sapience in his Laws and his Goodness in Attractive Benefits as well as his Power in meer Natural Motion Or as if man were not a Rational Creature and a free-agent and were not to be governed according to his Nature by Objects suited to his Intellect and Will but must be used and ruled like a stone or beast Or as if God could not infallibly attain his Ends by a Sapiential Government and by preserving the liberty of the Will as well as by a meer Necessitating causation This man was so enamoured upon his supposed skill in Physicks and Metaphysicks that he not only lost his Morality but grew to be such an Enemy to it as to blot out all true Morality Civility Policy Oeconomy at a dash and stands with the rest of the Proud fraternity as a Monument of Gods justice against the Proud so deplorately forsaken even in the Reason that he glorieth of that children may perceive his folly He that is all for Operations of Power as excluding Sapiential Government by Laws and their just executions doth think sure that a horse hath more of the Image of God then a man For he is much stronger Bruitish force would be more excellent then the Attraction of Goodness and the Conduct of Wisdom if the Government which is no Government that these men dream of were the most excellent As he will allow his Artificer to shew as much at least of his wit by making a Watch or Clock that shall though by a necessity move without the finger of the workman continually moving it so methinks he should allow the Infinitely Wise and Gracious God to be nevertheless Wise or Gracious if he Rule the Rational-free-agent without a forcible Physical Necessitation by a Gracious Attraction and Sapiential Conduct agreeable to the Reason and Liberty of the Creature as long as we exclude not the Co-working of Omnipotency nor deny the infallibility of Divine Predefinition which may be secured with the security of the Creatures Liberty In a word to deny God to be the Soveraign Governour of the world in proper sense 1. Is a denying him to be God it being a term of Relation comprizing Government and not of meer Nature When it is commanded us that we have no other Gods and when we are required in the holy Covenant to take the Lord for our God and give up our selves to him as his people it most plainly expresseth that his Governing Authority or his Soveraignty is comprehended in the term God And indeed having made a Rational-free-creature whose Nature requireth Moral Government it followed by necessary resultancy that he that had sole Authority and sufficiency must be his Soveraign 2. These Proud Blasphemers that deny Gods proper Government do contradict the very drift of Scripture that calleth him our King and Governour and requireth our subjection and obedience 3. They deny the being of Gods Laws both the Law of Nature and the Written Laws and so blot out the Word of God and the sense and use of all his works Though they allow them a certain Physical operation on us yet as Laws they do obliterate them that is as they are Norma officii judicii our Rule of duty and expectation and Gods resolved way of Judging 4. They hereby overthrow all Duty as such and make Good actions to be but as
you Certainly the Law makers would make other Laws then now they do and men would lead other kind of lives And what security you would have of your goods or houses or lives a week from the malice or covetousness of others I cannot imagine You would not dare to travel by the way or look out among men You could not trust your servants nor your wives or husbands because there would be nothing but temporal punishment to restrain them which cunning might escape I do not think but you would rather have servants or neighbours or husband or wife that believe a Life to come then those that do not if you had tryed others but a little while and seen how little they were to be trusted and consequently how bad your opinion is Quer. 16. And I would know Whether you pretend to any honesty and Conscience or not If not you will give us leave to judge of you and trust you accordingly If you do then upon what ground is it possible for you to be honest If you believe no life to come you must take your pleasure here on earth for your chiefest happiness and you cannot believe any proper Government of the world by the Laws Rewards and punishment sufficient to restrain men from their sin Vertue can be no Vertue if God no more regard it and sin is no sin if against no Law Indeed while you live among Believers where vice is in disgrace you may for your credit seem to be vertuous But your Profession alloweth us to judge that you avoid no evil that you dare commit if it do but suit with your fleshly interest He that believeth no Life to come and tells me so doth bid me in effect to suppose him resolved for all the wickedness imaginable so far as he dare and hath temptations and opportunity Are you of this Brutish judgement I shall expect from you then no better then a brutish life and trust you less then I would do a brute because you have more interest and temptation to do evil and more cunning to perform it Are you Brutists in opinion Then you are already habitually perfidious cruel covetous malicious murderers whoremongers thieves lyars and worse if any thing be worse For honest you cannot for shame expect that any should esteem you I will not believe a word you say further then some interest of your own is concerned in the truth of it Qu. 17. If it be not the very Light and Law of Nature that teacheth and obligeth a man to believe a life to come how comes it to pass that all the world except a few Savages and Cannibals and here and there an Apostate among us do universally profess to believe it The Jews the Turks the Heathens of most Nations besides the Christians do all make it an Article of their Belief We differ indeed about the way and yet are all agreed that Godliness and Honesty fearing God and doing Righteousness are necessary but that there is another life we are in almost all the world agreed And will you go against the light of humane Nature it self Or with what face can you expect that here and there such a wretch as you should be though wiser then all the world till you give us better evidence of your wisdom And how justly do they perish that will follow you Quer. 18. Are not those that Believe the Life to come of Holyer lives for the generality then those that do not And whether is it like that God should reveal his mind to them or unto wicked wretches and is it liker that he should forsake all the holy persons of all ages and give them up to deceit in the greatest matters who most diligently study and pray for Knowledge rather then forsake those sensual wretches that wilfully forsake him Quer. 19. Is there not in thy own Conscience at least sometimes some fears yet left of a life to come I believe there is and when thou hast done thy worst thou wilt hardly perfectly overcome them Doth not conscience say O but what if there should be a Hell for the ungodly Where am I then Hearken then to thy Conscience Quer. 20. Dost thou believe that spirits in borrowed shapes have oft appeared unto men and in voioâ—s spoaken to them to draw them to sin or to perdition If thou do believe it thou maist easily believe that there is a Hell which they are so busie to perswade us to and a Heaven of which they would deprive us If thou believe not that there have been such Apparitions I am able to give thee undenyable testimonies Read what I have said in my Treatise against Infidelity of this Read Remigius Bodin Danâ—us Malleâ—s Maleficorum c. of Witches and Read a little Book called The Devil of Mascon where is abundant testimony of his Vocal conference for about a quarter of a year together in the house of a godly Minister in a populous City before Papists Protestants and all Many I could give you that were done here at home In these twenty Questions I have but endeavoured to prepare you to Believe by shewing you the very Light of Nature But it is a lively faith in the word of God that effectually prevaileth against Infidelity and therefore next let us come to that I will not so much lose my time as to cite particular Texts of Scripture for that which is the very work and drift of the Scripture But because thou canst have no shift in the world for thy Brutish unbelief but by denying the Scripture to be the Word of God I referr thee to that which I have written in the Books forementioned to prove it And at this time shall add to what is there said but these few Questions Qu. 1. If the Scripture be not the Word of God How could it tell us of the making of the world and such like things which none but God alone could tell I know you will say I know not whether it tell us true or not or whether the world were not as Aristotle thought from eternity But tell me this then to pass by the rest now How comes it to pass that in all the world there are no Books or Monuments known of any longer standing then the time that Scripture assigneth to the Creation It is not six thousand years since the Creatiou If the world had lasted thousands and millions of years before is it possible that all its Antiquities should be lost and not one to be seen nor mentioned by man in all the world For the sabulous tales of some in China without all proof are not worth the mentioning Certainly some Book would have been saved or some Cities or lasting piles or stony monuments preserved or some sign or tradition kept alive of some of all those many thousand years If you say that Writing or Printing were not then known you come to that which confounds you more How is it possible that in so many hundred thousand years the
Book against Infidelity to which I must again dismiss you that there is a full and infallible Evidence that this Scripture was written by the Apostles and Evangelists and these Miracles done as there is that any of the Statutes of this Land are the currant Statutes of those Parliaments that are said to make them And your Lands and Lives are held by the credit of these Statutes A word or two to the objections of a Masked Infidel of this Countrey Clem. Writer Saith he Men be not commanded to believe these Statutes on pain of damnation Therefore the case is not like Answ But men are commanded to obey them upon pain of death and believing is prerequisite to obeying therefore the case is like Death is the utmost penalty that man can inflict or if there be greater it all runs on the same foundation And sure that evidence that proves men culpable for breaking mans Laws must prove him culpable for breaking Gods You have no other eyes to read the Laws of God then those by which you read mans Laws And doth it follow that God must not condemn you for breaking his Laws when men do but hang you for breaking theirs Sure Gods Laws and mans may be printed in the same Character and read with the same eyes and both have the same Natural means of delivery and yet the sin and punishment differ as the Authority doth Objection But saith he Can the Miracles confirm the Scripture when it is the Scripture that reports the Miracles Answ 1. Cannot a Statute tell you what Parliament made it and what matters of fact were the occasion and also what shal be your duty upon pain of death so that the Makers and facts shall give force unto the Law and yet the Law reveal the makers and facts Do not Church Constitutions do the same The Scripture hath two parts the History and the Doctrine May not the History confirm the doctrine and that doctrine oblige us to our duty 2. But you suppose that the Miracles and facts can only be known by a Divine belief of the History But that is false The common Evidence that all Statutes Histories and Actions in the world have to make them certain to posterity as Cicero's or Virgils Writings or Caesars Reign c. the same have the Books and Miracles of Scripture to us And by these we can know them de facto to be such before we believe them by a Divine faith And as the Scripture is a History that hath the same Evidence as the best of Histories have so it may concur with abundance of other Evidence which I have recited in my my Determination against Infidelity and in my Key for Catholicks to prove the Facts and then those Facts will fully prove the Truth of all the Doctrines which they attest and consequently we shall add to our humane Faith and Knowledge a Divine faith concerning the History it self Object 3. But saith Writer If God had means that the Scripture should be a Law to all he would not have writ it in a language which they understand not Answ Any thing will serve to make an Infidel when the mind is corrupted and deplorate Were they no Laws which the Romans wrote in Latin for the Government of all the Nations of the Roman World It was enough that the Rulers of the Previnces caused them to be so far understood by the People as was necessary to a righteous Government I mean those Laws that were added to the proper Laws of that people 2. Was there any one Language then that all the world understood And was it not enough that God appointed the Ministerial Office purposely to preserve and publish this Gospel to the world from generation to generation And is not Translating whether by Voice or Writing a part of that preaching or explication Did not the Ministers of Christ preach the same doctrine to the world then in the several languages of the Nations where they came And were not the Scriptures presently translated according to the use of the Churches Upon how silly a pretence then would your silly Imperial Majesty impose it on the God of Heaven to write his word in as many Languages as are in the world if he would be believed I 'le trouble you with no more such wretched Cavils These three are the main strength of three Pamphlets written against the Holy Scriptures and me by this Apostate Their sum is Man is man therefore we are not sure that Scripture is true or that God is God I mean Men cannot understand the minds of others but by signs All signs whether words or deeds have some ambiguity or lyableness to misunderstanding therefore nothing can be known concerning God or man by signs These are not his words but the true scope and life of all the Writings of him and all the Infidel Seekers If you chide me for troubling the Christian Reader here with so much against the Infidels and Brutists I answer 1. I did it because that sort increase and threaten the Land 2. Because the strengthening of the Belief of the best Christians is the removing the Cause of all their weakness and complaints 3. And Principally because when once the certain Truth of another Life is manifested he must be a Bedlam or worse that will not be Godly or that will open his mouth any more against a Holy Life What! is it possible for a sober man to Believe that he is so near an Everlasting Joy or Misery and yet to neglect it and oppose them that make it their chiefest care and labour to prepare for it The Brutist hath drowned his Reason and the careless Professor laid it to sleep the Malicious ungodly Professor of Christianity sights against it and only the serious Holy Christian doth use it for his Everlasting good CHAP. IV. Holiness is Best for all Societies REader if thou be but a man that hast the free use of thy reason I have already removed the greatest impediment out of thy way and said enough by confuting thy Infidelity to prove that godliness is the Better part Thou hast nothing left now to say against it but what fighteth against Reason in the open light and therefore I shall find an easier task with thy understanding in all that follows though with thy corrupted Will and Concupiscence the conflict yet may be as strong Well! if yet thou art not resolved that Diligent Serious Godliness is that Good part that all should choose and better then all thy worldly pleasures I shall now discover it to thee in these particulars 1. I shall shew you that Godliness is Best for all Societies 2. That it is Best for every Person And that 1. It is the safest way 2. It is the Honestest way 3. That it is the most gainful way 4. That it is the most Honourable way and 5. That it is the Pleasant and Delightful way Yea that there is no other true Safety Honesty Profit Honour or Delight
these is certainly the case of the sanctified and the other of the unsanctified Gal. 3. 10 13. As many as are of the works of the Law are under the Curse for it is written Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the Law to do them Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a Curse for us Rom. 3. 23. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God And Mark 4. 12. shews that the unconverted have not their sins forgiven them Joh. 3. 18. He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already And Act. 26. 18. To open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in me Rom. 8. 1. There is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus that walk not after the flesh but after the spirit Abundance more such passages of holy Scripture do assure us that all the unsanctified are unpardoned and all the sanctified are Justified and delivered from the Curse And which of these are in the safer state Did one of you owe ten thousand pounds more then he were worth or had you committed twenty known selonies or murders would you think your selves safe without a pardon Would you not be looking behind you and afraid of allmost every man you see lest he came to apprehend you O what a case is that man in that hath so many thousands sins to answer for and hath such a load of guilt upon his soul and so many terrible threatnings of the Law in force against him Do you not fear every hour lest death arrest you and bring you to the prison of the bottomless pit But the sanctified is delivered from this danger A thousand sins indeed were against us but we have a pardon of them all to shew In Christ we have Redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins Col. 1. 14. The law hath nothing now against us and therefore we are safe 4. Those are safer that are dearly beloved of the Lord and reconciled to him and taken for his Children then those that are his Enemies and hated by him and under his displeasure But most Certainly the former is the state of all the sanctified and the later is the state of the ungodly You shall see both in the words of God Psal 5. 4 5. Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness neither shall evil dwell with thee The foolish shall not stand in thy sight thou hatest all the workers of iniquity Psal 7. 10 11. My Defence is of God which saveth the upright in heart God judgeth the Righteous and God is angry with the wicked every day Psal 45. 7. Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness Luk. 19. 27. Those mine enemies that would not I should raign over them bring them hither and stay them before me Ephes 2. 3. We were by nature the children of wrath A hundred more such places shew you the state of the unsanctified But how different is the case of the renewed upright soul 2 Cor. 6. 16 17 18. Yee are the Temple of the living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you and ye shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord Almighty Job 1. 12. But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God Rom. 8. 16 17. The spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God And if Children then heirs heirs of God and joynt heirs with Christ Mal. 3. 17. And they shall be mine saith the Lord of hosts in that day when I make up my Jewels and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him Heb. 8. 12. I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more Col. 1. 21 22. And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight Psal 32. 1 2. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there is no guile Zech. 2. 8. He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye Judge now by these plain expressions form the Lord who it is that is in the safer state the godly or the ungodly Is he the safer that is hated by the God of heaven or he that is most dearly loved by him He that is under his displeasure or he that is his delight Why man if God be against thee thou art no where safe not in the strongest Castle not in the greatest Army not in the highest dignity not in the merryest company Thou knowest not but a Commission is gone out for death to strike thee in thy next recreation or fit of mirth How knowest thou but death is ready to strike while thou art eating or drinking or talking or sleeping Thou hast no security from an angry God Till he be reconciled thou art nowhere safe This may be thy fatal day or night for ought thou knowest And if once the mortal blow be struck and thy soul be taken from thy body unrenewed O man where then wilt thou appear O wonderful stupidity that thou dost not eat thy bread in fear and do thy work in fear and sleep in fear and live in fear till thou be sanctified But to the soul that hath God for his security what can be dangerous or what condition while he keeps close to God can be unsafe The Father that gave us unto Christ is greater then all and no man can take us out of his hands Joh. 10. 28 29. Conquer Heaven and conquer the Saints There is their City their garrison their conversation Phil. 1. 20. Heb. 11. 10 16. what enemy what policie what power can endanger him that God will save and hath undertaken for We were never safe one day or hour till we were friends with God Deut. 33. 27. The Eternel God is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms Psal 46. 1 2 5 7. God is our refuge and strength a very present helâ— in trouble therefore will not we fear though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carryed into the midst of the sea God is in the midst of her she shall not be moved God shall help her and that right early The Lord of hosts is with us the God of Jacob is