all this Are we not a sinfull unthankfull stubborne People as ever tasted of mercy a seed of evill Doers that call God t Ier. 3.4.5 Father and yet doe as evill things as we can And yet for all this God hath opened his hand wider than ever we opened our mouths and crowned all our yeares and dayes with such loving kindnesse and mercy as never any Nation under Heaven received greater or enjoyed longer If therefore David upon the bare promise of a mercy could not but sit downe before the Lord as one in an Extasie crying out Who am I O Lord and what is my Fathers House that thou hast brought me hitherto How much more would our spirits be lifted up beyond all expression to glorifie his Great Name for so great a mercy actually conferred when we consider who and what we are that doe receive it 3. The deliverance is extraordinary 3. Look upon the Deliverance it selfe as extraordinary All the g Psal 111.2 Works of the Lord are great yet some greater than others But this is no lesse than the raysing up of a whole Kingdome from the dead For as h Heb. 11.17 Abraham is said to have received his Isaac from death in a figure when Isaac had been bound on the wood and the hand of his owne Father stretched out to kill him so wee in this Deliverance received our King Queen and Prince that then were our King that now is our Parliament Lawes Liberties Lives and Religion it selfe from the dead in a figure when all these were so neere to destruction that there was scarce a step between them and death and such a step as had been easily made had not the Lord to whom belong the issues from death stept in to prevent it 4. And altogether unexspected 4. Take this with you too that this great Deliverance was a mercy altogether unexspected For who apprehended any danger The work was so strange as wee could hardly credit when we saw it done It was with us as with Zion * Psal 126.1 When the Lord turned her Captivitie by Cyrus the Persian Wee were like men that dreame we could scarce trust our owne eyes to behold it or our tongues to proclaime it Men gazed on each other as people amazed And when the thing was found to be so indeed oh how our hearts glowed our affections fired our hayre stood upright our eyes sparkled our joynts trembled our spirits even failed with us to behold the wonder And then oh what might not God at that time have had from us Let him therefore not goe away now with lesse seeing his Mercy even that Mercy endures for ever to our benefit and comfort 5. Behold the Love of God in it 5. And all this as a fruit of his Love makes all to be yet more precious to a thankfull spirit i Isay 43.4 I have Loved thee therefore will I give men for thee and people for thy life saith the Lord. If men yea if a whole Nation conspire against thy life he will redeem thee from that danger with the price of all theirs Hence it is even from his Love that he no sooner espies any enemies out against us but he armes presently as against enemies to himselfe and not onely Layes them at his own feet but even at k 2 Sam 22.41 Rom. 16.20 ours and gives us to wash our feet in the bloud of the wicked 6. Consider God hath gotten him honour 6. God hath gotten him praise from the wicked that sought our destruction and raysed himselfe a praise out of the very rage of those who sought our destruction and shall he not have it from those who enjoy this miraculous Preservation Shall he have it from his enemies and goe without it from his Servants and Friends The Lord forbid But oh farre and for ever farre be such neglect from every of You who being the Chariots of Israel and the Horsemen thereof ought of all others to triumph in his praise for these works of his hands It was a foule Blot to the Elders of Judah that after David was freed of the Rebellion of Absolom they who were * 2 Sam. 19.11 12. his brethren his bones and his flesh should be last in bringing back the King to his House But much greater would the staine and the sinne be in You the Elders of our Jsrael unto whom the Lord himselfe upon the same grounds that he hath elsewhere said l Psal 82.6 Yee are Gods now saith Yee are my brethren yee are my bones and my flesh should have cause to adde Wherefore then are yee the Last to bring the King back Why are You so backward to restore unto Him all that honour that so many Absoloms and sonnes of Rebellion have taken from Him Well If you be not first nay if You outstrip not all others in the Duty of Praise for so great a Deliverance from the rage of man 3. Observation You must exspect no lesse Wrath to break out from the Lord upon your selves and the Kingdome than befell Hezekiah and all Judah for m 2 Chro. 32.25 not rendring to the Lord according to a farre lesse benefit done unto him There be divers other excellent Vses of this comfortable Doctrine but I must lay them all by for haste to the Last Point which is this The third Observation The Experience of Gods over-ruling and mastering the rage of man in times past is an undoubted assurance of the like for all to come This Point so clearely grounded on the Text which speaks of future Deliverances built upon former mercies and so strongly bound downe with a confident asseveration in the front that surely it shall be even so I shall passe over with a light foot Nothing more common in Scripture than to conclude what God will ever doe from what once he hath done David even in his youth could be confident of this n 1 Sam. 17.37 The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the Lyon and out of the paw of the Beare he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine And afterwards when that unnaturall Rebellion of Absolom brake out so violently as made Hierusalem too hot for David 2 Sam. 15. causing him to flee whither he could by the way of the Wildernes yet even then after God upon his prayer had spoken comfort to him from experience of former deliverances David growes so secure that he that before durst not stay in his owne house for danger professeth now to o Psal 3.4 lie downe and sleep where he hath not an house wherein to put his head and he that durst not tarry in Jerusalem with all the power he could rayse against his sonne now professeth in a wild howling desolate Wildernes p Vers 5. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves against mee round about Thus let God doe but any thing
An Asseveration in the first word surely 2. An Assertion consisting of two simple Propositions diversifyed by the various consideration of the subject of them both the rage of man which if we consider 1. As the permission of it by his wise and powerfull ordering may conduce to his honour So the rage of man shall praise thee 2. As the breaking out of it further might prove inconsistent with his Glory So the rest of the rage shalt thou restraine The time allotted me will not be sufficient for a distinct prosecution of every Observation which these severall branches afford And your weightie Affaires presse for all expedition I shall therefore fixe only upon the principall points in the shortest way after a briefe explication of the words of the Text. Surely Explication Surely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So I find the Originall Chi rendred by our English Translators Old New and by some of the Latine correspondent thereunto I acknowledge the Hebrew word to be most frequently used as a Causall particle For or Because Howbeit it is not seldome put for a vehement Asseveration or Attestation and translated Surely or Verily Thus Iacob to Laban a Gen 31.42 Surely thou hadst sent me away empty So Judah to Jacob b Gen. 43.10 Except we had lingered surely we had returned a second time And surely there is no inchantment against Jacob said wretched Balaam of blessed Israel In all which places and many moe the Originall word is the same that is in this Text. This may be sufficient warrant for our Translation which is both pertinent and emphaticall Pertinent because had the word been otherwise rendred the sense had been obscured for that it is not a Reason of the Premisses but rather a Conclusion deduced from them Emphaticall also because it lively expresseth the assurance of Faith in Gods Wisedome Power and Goodnesse for the happy disposing of that Rage which he shall at any time please to permit and for the mastering and suppressing of the residue which hee shall finde cause to restraine You see the Asseveration I proceed to the Assertion The rage from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—alâ—re 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ex a descere The rage So I translate Chamath not anger as some not yet wrath as others Anger is too milde wrath too short to expresse it by I know anger wrath and rage or fury be sometimes promiscuously put one for another But withall I finde them sometimes * Anger is cruel and wrath is raging So the old Translation Prov. 27.4 distinguished and in strictnesse some difference may bee found betweene them Anger is the boyling of the blood about the heart causing a commotion of the spirits that are neere Wrath is the manifestation of that inward distemper by lookes gestures or actions tending to revenge But Rage is the extremitie of both the former causing the heart to study destruction d Prov. 24.2 to meditate and contrive the utmost of mischiefe and villanie and the outward man to watch and lay hold upon all opportunities and occasions of putting it in execution out of the depth of malice and in the height of fury Besides it is of longer continuance than anger strictly so called It is such an inveterate anger as * Eccles 7.9 resteth in the bosome of fooles keepes house and constant residence there being deeply rooted and wrought up unto a setled habite which though it doth not alwayes actually breake forth yet is continually desirous of vent like fire impatient of restraint That all this is comprised under the word here used is manifest both by the judgement of the Learned who have expounded it and by the use of it in Sacred Writt Therefore some expresse it by Fervor Tremellius by Aestus or a burning heate like to that of an Oven or Furnace which sets the whole man in a flame that cannot without extraordinary meanes bee quenched or allayed And the Scriptures informe us both of a rage within Psal 2.1 Why doe the heathen rage which is immediately expounded by an internall act the imagining or meditating of a vaine thing and of a rage without too namely the rage of the tongue Hosea 7 16. and the rage of the hand Cursed be their anger for it was fierce and their wrath or rage for it was cruell said dying Jacob touching the bloody butchery committed by his two Sonnes Simeon and Levi upon the newly circumcised Sechemites in cold blood Genes 49.7 Which also shewes the setled permanencie and predominancie of such a Disposition in a wicked man This rage is amplified by the subject wherein it is Man Of man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it is called the rage of mâ—n The Text names no individuall whether Sennacherib of whose rage God himselfe took notice e 2 Kings 19.27 or any other blastering Tyrant or boysterous Ajax but indefinitely termes it Chamath Adam the rage of man a Livery that fits the shoulders of any wicked man in the world And this indefinite expression is used partly for discovery and partly out of contempt of the man that is here demonstrated 1. By way of Discovery to point out the vicious qualitie and corrupt estate of the man in whom this rage reigneth It is the rage of Adam of the old man of every man that hath not put off the first Adam and is not ingraffed into the second Therefore is it called the rage of man because of every man yet remaining upon the old Stock or the first man which is of the earth earthly f 1 Cor. 15. Hence is he called a man of the earth Psalm 10.18 the violent man Psalm 18.48 the bloody and deceitfull man Psal 55.23 and by such like Epithites 2. By way of contempt to shew that be the rage what it will it is yet but the rage of a weake silly man that is of base originall and of too small a strength to grapple with Omnipotencie Thus in Psalm 9.19 Arise O Lord let not Man prevaile Where the Strong GOD is opposed to impotent Man So the next words Put them in feâ—re O Lord that the Nations may know themselves to be but men that is poore weake grashoppers g Job 4.19 whose houses are clay whose foundation is in the dust that are crushed before the moth so that neither h Ezek. 22.14 can their hearts endure nor their hands be strong in the dayes that God shall deale with them Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee I am God But thou shalt be a man and no God in the hand of him that slayeth thee Ezek 28.9 This is the man and this the account which God makes of him in whom this rage is found But against whom is it bent If we consult the story wee shall find God complaining that it went very high for it reached even unto Himselfe Explication I know thy abode and thy rage against mee saith the Lord. 2 King 19
by powder At Holbeach in Worcestershire wherewith they intended the destruction of so many And afterwards Catesby and Piercy the principals in that wickednesse were shot to death by one shot of a Musket and thereby found Gods own hand taking revenge by powder before the justice of man could seize upon them And not onely so but even Faux the appointed Executioner and Garnet the Arch-Devil to blesse their plot confessed to the praise of God as well as the rest at their execution the outragious wickednesse and odiousnesse of that hellish designe Nay further God raised up an everlasting * An Act for keeping of this Day for ever Pillar of Thankesgiving from that very Parliament which should have been blown up and produced effects quite contrary to those which the Traytors intended in preserving not onely the Persons but the Laws which they meant to destroy and in causing moe Lawes to be made against them who so wickedly provoked the Clemencie of the Prince and abused the lenitie and mercie they formerly enjoyed but in providing more carefully ever since for our preservation I need not tell you that the rest of the rage is happily restrained Your eyes behold it and we all sit under the blessing of it unto this day Onely take notice that God did it not by ordinary meanes Not by abating thâ—ir rage for Faux God restrained the rest not in an ordinary after his apprehension repented nothing more then his not giving the blow yea the whole crew afterwards brake forth into open Rebellion till some of them were slain and the rest taken in the height of their rage Not by diverting them for they received not the least interruption till all was ready for execution Not by taking off any of their Instruments for not a man of them was toucht by death sicknesse or arrest till after the very trains were laid to the powder and all prepared for the firing of it Not by arming the creatures against them for no creature once troubled them till they were found out almost too late to be Troublers of Israel Not by smiting them with Panick fears for they were never so high floan before the discovery with confidence of successe nor more desperately fearlesse after they knew that all was discovered Nor yet by setting them one against another for like Simeon and Levi they held too fast together 2. Use of the second Point even unto death but in an extraordinary manner But the Lord did it himselfe causing one of them who had taken three Oaths to conceale it and kept touch with his tongue by a writing to reveile it verifying that of the Wisest King that a Eccl. 10.20 that which hath wings shall tell the matter and affecting the King with a spirit of jealousie who ordinarily offended rather on the other hand and leading him to an interpretation of the Letter quite contrary to the common sense And not onely so but by sharpning the edg of all mens spirits against the Traitors See the Discourse of the Powder Treason in King James his Works in the Countries where they wandred to kill some of them and to apprehend the rest even before any Proclamation could overtake them and before the people who seised on them knew any thing of this particular Treason Thus He that sitteth in the Heavens laught them their rage and Counsels to scorne compelling them at length to acknowledge the finger of God in their Discovery and his arme in their most deserved Destruction O wonderfull Providence O admirable Justice upon them and Goodnes to his People 2. Use of the second Point Incitation to thankfulnes 2. How should this put all our hearts into a flame of the highest Thanksgiving to Him who hath done for us such wonderfull things When their Rage had concluded that We and all Posterity should for ever wallow in ashes b Nah. 2.7 taber upon our breasts and howle like Dragons for that irreparable Desolation the God of our Mercies hath prevented them broken the snare given us an escape and hurl'd them out of the Land of the Living as out of the midst of a Sling Therefore rejoyce in the Lord and againe I say rejoyce Rouse up your spirits call up your hearts and let all that is within you blesse his holy Name I hope I shall not need to set before you the Institution of a thankefull man nor to spend time in directing how to give thankes On Septem 7. 1641. that Work being excellently performed at your late Publique Thanksgiving Rather let me bestow a few words to incite you to the Duty because I finde every where more and more backwardnesse to it and coldnesse in it For however at first the meltings of most mens spirits were extraordinary their affections being soone upon the wing The necessitie of such an Incitation when the first newse of the Deliverance out-ran the report of the Danger Yet by Degrees men have so farre cooled that not onely too many of the ordinary sort doe wholly neglect this Day but not none of the Clergy also who have sometimes for their hyre declaimed vehemently against that Treason in the Pulpit begin in ordinary discourse to jeere this solemnitie of such a Deliverance and in derision to name it Saint Gunpowders Day Papists perswade their Novices that there was never any such thing Yea some once ours have arrived at so much giddinesse as to pronounce the keeping of this Day to be Will-worship and the religious enjoyning of it even by Parliament to be a trenching on the Libertie left us by Christ as if the binding of our selves as Gods people of old in their feast of c Esth. 9.27 Purim did to give publique thanks for an extraordinary Mercy were a violation of true Christian Libertie O shamefull Ingratitude O Impudent Ignorance And how carelesse the greater part of the better sort are become in observing this Day is a subject more fit for my teares than my tongue even in this Honorable Assembly Wherefore the better to quicken You to restore this Day to its former splender Motives to the Duty that the Great Work of the Lord done herein may be for ever more honorable and glorious Let Me present You with a few Incentives 1. Remember that 1. None but God could doe it none but the Almighty himselfe could possibly have wrought such a Deliverance for us d Psal 124.3 4. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side when men rose up against us they had swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us Let this first settle upon our spirits that e Psal 118.23 24. this was the Lords doing and then it will soone be marveilous in our eyes so as Wee cannot but rejoyce and be glad in it 2. Think seriously what manner of persons wee were 2. He did it for people altogether unworthy of any mercy for whom he did
an execution by fire not from heaven but from hell not by Apostles but by Apostats not upon Hereticks but upon sound Professors of his Truth not by Iames and John whom he dearly loved but upon Samaritans whom all Gods people had cause to hate but by Samaritans Priests and Jesuites Traitors and Rebells abhorred of God and man upon Iames Iohn very Pillars of the Church upon the Lords Annointed upon the Assembly of all the Estates of the Kingdom Sober Modern Papists theÌ„selves are ashamed of this in behalf of those furious Ones of their own Party who cannot blush Nay I appeal from Garnet to Garnet from Garnet sleeping to Garnet waking from his sleeping Conscience consulted to approve it to his Conscience awakened when he was upon the Scaffold to be executed for it When the Question was first put to him by Catesby Whether it were lawfull in some Case to destroy the innocent with the guilty This Good a Widdrington ubi supra Father so soone as he apprehended the Conspirator to be in earnest peremptorily resolved that no doubt it was if the good comming by it might make compensation for the losse of their lives So that with him b Rom. 3.8 Let us doe evill that good may come thereof was good Doctrine though S. Paul disclaim'd it But when he came to die Conscience compelled him to change his note Then he confessed to a Noble c E. of Manch to whom Garnet confessed Mâ—rtis sententiam justissimè in cum fuissè pronunciatam c. Lord yet living that for concealing this Treason the sentence of death was just upon him And being led to the side of the scaffold to satisfie the people hee as * Me in Regem peccasse confiteor quod mihi est deâ—ori quoad mali conscius fui scil in reticendo Et hoc nomine veniam a Regia Majestate supplex peâ—o Machinatio contra Regem regnum sanguinolenta erat quamque si peâ—acta fuisset ego ipse in imis sensibus toto animo deâ—estaâ—uâ—â—s erum Doleâ— sane maxime peracerbe feâ—o Catholicos tam atrox immanc facinus suscepisse Ibid. Widdrington reports him freely said I confesse I have offended against the King which is now my griefe in that I was guilty of this Treason in concealing of it for which I humbly crave pardon of his Majestie The Conspiracie against the King and Kingdome was bloody and had it been executed I my selfe should have abhorr'd it from the secrets of my heart and with all my soule And verily it is my greatest griefe and with much bitternesse I feele it that Catholikes undertooke such a cruell and outragious Villany And upon th Gallowes * Eosque adhorto ne ejusmodi proditionibus rebellionibus contra RegeÌ„ se â—mmesceant ibid. infâ—a hee exhorted all Catholikes that they would never more have hand in such Treasons and Rebellions against their Soveraigne Thus farre our first Vse the next is this Learne hence what to expect as from all wicked men in general so from all the brood that be Agents and Factors for Rome in particular whether Lay or Ecclesiastique r Never expect better from them Regular or Secular to the end of the world Surely no better than from the rageing Sea when it cannot rest Nothing but rage and wrath Conspiracie and crueltie Treason and Rebellion so often as power and opportunitie meet Whether q Prov. 29.9 they rage or laugh there is no rest s Mic. 7.2.3 c. They all lie in wait for blood they hunt every man his brother with a net that they may doe evill with both hands earnestly the Prince * Witnesseth Pope and other his Adherents asketh and the Iudge judgeth for reward and the Great man uttereth his mischievous desires so they wrap it up The best of them is a briar the most upright is sharper than a thorny hedge c. Therefore trust yee not in a friend put ye no confidence in a guid keep the doores of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosome if this way addicted What then should you listen to any of their Syrens songs for abrogation or mitigation of the Lawes made against them for toleration of their Religion or for trusting of them as some would perswade They are no Changelings Can the Ethiopian change his skinne or the Leopard his spots t Jer. 13.23 then may they also doe good that are accustomed to doe evill I urge this the rather at this time not only because the very Deliverance which wee this day celebrate rings loud in your cares neither to trust nor tolerate them any longer and strongly moves for a Ne admittas against them but because also even during this very Parliament you find the old spirit of rage and trechery walking too openly and boldly among them and too often pressing too neere upon you Let it not move you that now they are in a Petitioning veine and seem to Petition for some indulgence professing all Loyalty For just so they gave out while they were preparing their materialls for the Gun-powder Treason then they would Petition for a Toleration of Religion Comming they are to manage their Cause and means they have more than ordinary to advance their Party the more reason you should have a more vigilant eye and a more active hand over them to secure the King and the Royall Seed Religion your selves and the Kingdomes against all their machinations The better to quicken this Care in you I shall humbly leave with you these Foure Remembrancers First That they have never been quiet but continually contriving of Treasons ever since the Reformation of Religion Secondly That this practice is not from the Lawes made against them * See Discourse of the Powder-Treason in K. Iames his Works but their very Religion it selfe leades them unto it Thirdly That their Priests are bound to infuse these principles of their Religion into them and to presse the use of them upon all occasions Fourthly That to induce their Disciples to swallow those Principles and accordingly to act them when occasion serveth they propound great rewards and glory to such as shall attempt them and defend and magnifie those who have formerly miscarried in them Each of these I shall now make good unto you in order with some enlargement I. They have never rested from plotting of Treason since the Reformation 1. They have never been quiet but alwayes hammering and contriving or solliciting and driving on desperate Plotts and conspiracies to destroy their Sovereigne to abolish Religion to subvert the Lawes and to expose the Kingdoms to a prey of any forreigne Enemie that would lend them either aide or countenance ever since the happy Reformation of Religion in the glorious Reigne of Queen Elizabeth unto this very day It is not my purpose nor will it suit with the short limits of a Sermon to make a relation of the Treasons themselves