authority was now a setting that the holy Spirit records three stories unparalleld by any place of Scripture And lest the cause of all might be mistaken four times in these four Chapters the same words are again repeated In those dayes when those were acted there was no King in Israel First Micah from a converted theife turns a superstitious innovator He made an Idol of the Silver before or else he would never have stolne it but now emptying his soul of one Divel he gives another free entertainment Should our true service of God Almighty be half so dear I fear his Temples would not be so well customed But what he got lightly he spends as liberally Out go the eleven hundred Shekells quantum nummorum servat in arca tantum habet fidei his religion was as high prized as his mony could purchase Gods house was not enough for him he must have an house of Gods an Ephod and a Teraphim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pretty new found Dieties which must preserve their maker give a well-being to him who but just now gave them their being The Old Woman his mother a sex well skilled in such new-fangled religions she likes very well of this new stamp'd devotion and gives a blessing to him who brought a curse upon her and all her family But what shall we do for a Priest to officiate to his golden vanity Oh! Micah's very good at creating His reverence cannot onely consecrate a God but ordain his Minister too Holy orders are very cheap where religion it self is at a loss A God of gold cannot easily want servants there will be some Chryses some Calchis left Rather then fail his Son shall be consecrated the Hebrew word if you look in your margins to the 5th verse of the 17. Chap of this bâ—ok is he filled the hand of his Son ingagement enough to this following service once fill the hand and you have heart and all We would not care so much for consecration if the golden breastplate did not accompany it Yet least his new born piety may want some specious pretence a poor Journey-man Levite is heard of such one as God curses 1 Sam. 2.36 That he shall come and crowch and say put me into the Priests office that I may eat a morsell of bread Such a Titivillitius I say upon high way of acquaintance shall be content for 10. Shekells of Silver a suit of cloaths and victuals besides to covenant to serve this Idol-God thus is our Familist confirmed in his new moulded Frame of devotion his independent congregation and all this while there was no King in Israel Next come your Danites and there is a Tribe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is danger in a multitude they have hands as well to practise as heads to plot their mischiefs A private thiefe may abound with spoiles but when a whole army turnes pillagers that Country must needs be desolate Well! what fair mask did their vice borrow to cover this insolence Their Country forsooth was too little for them their climate was too cold Five Brethren must be sent out for spies to discover the fatness of the land that they might come and tast of the cup which flowed with milk and honey These as they pass by Micah's house hear the Levites voice which sojourned there sure he had good lungs that his tongue could so easily take acquaintance with the high-way travellers Ten pound a year will be soon talked out if he speak so loud but hearing him they must needs hear something from him An exhortation from him will crown the work which they are in hand with an act of blood if the pulpit bless it must needs carry the Lord with it He bids them go in peace incouragement enough for them to prepare for waar Laish is their next stage a quiet careless secure people qui damna nec metuunt nec parant as free from fearing danger as intending of it With these glad tidings they return and inrich the Danites ears They now most truely make up Jacobs their Fathers prophesie Gen. 49.17 they turne Serpents by the way and Adders in the path Albertus tells us the Nature of the Creature is to fly from a cloathed man but to set upon him if they find him naked The Maacathites and Geshurites which live amongst them are armed men let them alone 't is dangerous medling with them but secure Laish had neither strength nor men to aid it the Zidonians were at a farr distance six hundred fighting men well appointed might do good service there The land is very good why sit you still arise make hast enter and possess it But Micahs house affoorded them so good entertainment in their first journal hat they 'l not balk it now in their second progress We have found idolatry upon Mount Ephraim say the spies an Ephod and a Teraphim a graven Image and a molten Image fine golden Idols all of Micah's making let us invite them on this journey with us And there is a Levite too no doubt but he will be content to follow his golden Gods and then assuredly we shall go and prosper Well! however they loved their Idolls well or else they would never have built high places to them afterward sure I am they loved the gold better Micah's house is rifled his Oratory spoil'd his guardian Gods could not now defend themselves Sacriledge and Burglary are met together and that false hireling Levite whom he took for his Priest and Father proves his betrayer He stands to make good the passage amongst the armed men in the gate En filii tunicam his linnen Ephod is turned into a coat of Male and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his place he changed but not his office He thought it safer offending with a multitude a Tribe in Israel or two factious Towns of that one Tribe Zorah Eshtaol may well secure an Idoll Priest who goes triumphing in the midst of the Cutthroats If his Mr. Micah come crying after for restitution he may be answered in the wolves language to the Crane who plucked the sheepsbone out of his throat Away thou fool thank me thou hast thy head which I might have so easily snapped off when I had thy long bill in my mouth Speak softly Micah these are angry fellows and if thou talk much of thy Gods thou maist loose thy Life and all Our next work is to plunder Laish to put all the inhabitants to the sword and fire the City And all this while there was no King in Israel Lastly that no society neither of Families Tribes or Cities might be cleer whilst the Danites are bathing themselves in innocent blood the Citizens of Gibeah are acting a wickedness farr more horrid much more barbarous A poor Levite of Mount Ephraim whom love and charity had reconciled to his offending Concubine takes a weary journey after her to Bethlem Juda and overtaking her he was so far from putting her to the shame which the publick
ΛΟ'ΓΟΙ ' ΩΡΑ ΙΟΙ THREE SEASONABLE SERMONS The First Preach't at St. MARY'S IN Cambridge May 31. 1642. The Others designed for publick Auditories but prevented By Tho. Stephens M. A. LONDON Printed by J.C. for John Crooke at the Ship in St. Pauls Church-Yard A PREFACE to the READER Christian Reader WHatsoever Title this book carries in the Front of it thou maist well censure me for having been instant out of Season in obtruding more Sermons upon the World at this time especially when the Pulpit hath almost justled the desk out of the Church and all Religion seems locked up in the Preachers lips When every Young Stripling is ready with Ahimaaz to run before he be sent yea and to outrun the Cushi's too which have true tidings in their mouths and knows nothing only tells you of tumults such perhaps as he has raised by the beating of the pulpit-drum Et quorum pars magna fult Such like the fish Sepia cast their black infusions upon the waters in which they Swim and by staining them do hope not only to secure themselves from being taken but to poyson others too which delight in clearer streams Mistake me not in this I admire I adore this Ordinance of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this power of God unto salvation But it is then only when it is Gods ordinance when it doth not resist another ordinance of God when the throne is not pul'd down to make room for the Doctors chair and the word of God made a vizor to cover the deformities of Sathans Ministers VVhen Corah and his confederates notwithstanding their pretended Holynesse shall contend with Aaron for a share in holy Administrations true Israelites will separate from their Congregations Neither can I admire Saul any mad frantick Enthusiast although among the Prophets The condition of that patient is very deplorable to whom poyson is administred by an unskilfull emperick instead of Cordialls and Restoratives and the state of that people is no less desperate when a lying Spirit in the Mouthes of the pretended Prophets shall perswade them to go up to fight to their own destruction T is true that Faith cometh by hearing But it is by hearing the word of God not commented upon by the Devill for as preaching at first begat faith in our dayes it has usher'd in heresies prophanesse Libertinism I had allmost said Infidelity The snuffing of these new lights is the design of these following sheets VVhich were intended for the publick long ago even then when these Calves of Bethel bleated loudest and so they may secure the Author from the sinister end of time serving But alas 〈◊〉 may remember the dayes and oh that we could not remember them when the mouth of the Ox was musled even that Ox that trod out the corn might neither low nor eat Never did Nation run more in parallel to Israel 2 Chron. 15.3 which for a long time had been without a true God and without a teaching Priest and without a Law T is true Gods cause was cryed up but Gods Vicegerent puld down teachers we had many but teaching priests but a few Sauls footmen had turned against them because their hands had been with David And a Law we had still Veruntamen inclusum in tabulis tanquam gladium in vagina reconditum A law claps'd up in our Bibles but pul'd down in our Churches when the bear reading of the ten Commandements the fifth especially was cause enough of a sequestration But blessed be God who out of mercy to his Church then visibly ruined did still preserve a remnant in Israel many thousands that never bowed their knee to Baal though some of them were hid in caves and fed by stealth blessed be God that suffered not our lamp to be quite extinguisht although it burnt in the Socket but kept it light till there was fresh Oyl and better times to trim it in Blessed be God that although the eyes of our Elyes be waxen dim yet before the lamp of God be quite gone out in the Temple of the Lord they have time still to call some Samuels to the ministration Antient men I know that have seen the first house as in Ezra's dayes may weep with a loud voice to find our Church go less less both in power at home and reputation abroad yet that noise of weeping may be drown'd with shouting aloud for joy that God has left us a remnant to escape and given us a nail in his holy place and lightned our eyes and given us a reviving in our bondage Ezra 9.8 So that although Jachin our establishment be shaken yet Boaz our strength stands upon its basis still 'T is fabled of the old Arcadians who fancied themselves to be born before the moon that Occiduum longe Titana secuti Desperare diem They followed the setting Sun to their utmost borders and there they bad good Night to light despairing of a second day But we need no Poeticall illustrations to set a glosse upon our true fears Many a bleeding heart and weeping eye attended upon Englands funeral when our Sun was set and we could expect nothing but an eternal night of horror and confusion when the bloody and barbarous Regicides could not believe the King was sure enough till they had murdered the Kingdom too and in the place of it had foisted in a mishapen monster called by them a Common-wealth but an almighty power hath called light out of darknesse he hath said to dead bones live and whereas in other acts of providence we may see his finger here with his own right hand and holy arme he hath gotten himself the victory Far be it from me to rake in the Ashes where the coals of division lye buried up and for want of Air will soon be extinguisht the wound is closed and I hope so perfectly cured that it will never fester at the bottom to need a second opening Christs coat was seamless I dare not rend it Tros Tyriusve True Trojan or false Carthaginian shall never more be termes of difference And since his Sacred Majesty in his most Gratious Declaration has desired and ordained that hence forward all Notes of discord separation and difference of parties be utterly abolished I will not be so uncharitable a Christian or so disloyall a subject to disobey such just commands Especially remembring the Propheticall judgment of that blest Saint and glorious Martyr King CHARLES I. That none will be more loyal faithful to his Majesty then those Subjects who sensible of their errors and his injuries will feel in their own souls most vehement motives to repentance and earnest desires to make some reparations for their former defects Those hands which have been deepest dyed in blood if they prove eminent supporters of the throne will be washt from their former guilt Scire piget post tale decus quid fecerat ante Hanc vidi satis est hanc mihi nosse manum Now that God that baptized us all into one body
Mountain at a great distance has seemed to vanish into the Air and prove a little nothing suffer your selves to be undeceived search the Scriptures and if ye be of Davids faith put on Davids conscience who after he had cut off the skirt of Saul's robe privily his heart smote him and his tears wash'd out his faule 1 Samuel 24.6 The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my Master the Lords Anointed to stretch forth my hand against him seeing he is the anointed of the Lord He did but cut off a lap and shall we lay our Lords anointed naked Naked not to relieve his wants naked to discover if any were his shames If we be Christians it makes good our title to him he is Christus Domini The Lords Christ if we be Protesants I speak it again such as disclaiming the names of Papists would not degenerate into their Religion we must confess that damnation is the portion of him that resists this ordinance of God Shall Isaiah call Cyrus the Lords anointed Baruch and Jeremiah bid us pray for Nebuchodonoser Peter and Paul command submission to Tyberius Nero and Caligula all heathenish persecuting Emperors and we neglect our Constantine our Theodesius the dew of Heaven which is fallen upon this fleece of England when all the World is wet with blood besides If we shall abuse his patience into fury can we expect any less judgment then to be forced under that fury to practise Patience If any then neglecting the Urim and the Prophets the establisht ordinance of God as fanatick Saul did 1 Sam. 28. and recurr to Wizards wise women as you call them and inquire of them the event of such a battle as this would prove they may perhaps bring you to Samuels Ghost some Devill in a Prophets likeness but look for no better success then he fourd there the death of your selves and your Sons The stars in their course from Heaven will fight against Sisera conjurati venient in classca venti the wind and the hail-stones will muster up their forces against Adonizedek and his confederates But for you which despise Micah and his private new fangled devotion which resist Dan and his riotous tumultuous assemblies which would cool Benjamin and his goatish ravenous lust make it your care to continue a Rex in Israel Suffer no Baanahs and Rechabs that dare murther Kings there beds no Bightans and Tharezes that dare entertain the motion in their hearts to live amongst you Oyles by experience we know will mix although power'd into a vessel much water be put betwixt them You which have found the Oyle of the holy Spirit in your hearts let it joyne your hearts and commix your souls to the Oyle upon the head of Gods anointed That thus the religion of your hearts may burst our of joyfull lips with prayers That God would visit him as he did Moses in the bush Joshua in the Battell Gideon in the field David in the Temple that the dew of his abundant mercies may fall upon his head and that he would give unto him the blessings of David and Solomon That he would he his helmet of Salvation against the face of all his enemies and a strong Tower of defence in the time of adversity That his raign may be prosperous and his dayes many That peace and love holynesse and Justice and Truth all Christain Vertues may flourish in his time That his people may serve him with Honour and Obedience and that he may so duly serve God here on Earth that he may hereafter everlastingly raign with God in Heaven Amen Amen The Second SERMON JUDGES 4.23 Curse ye Meroz said the Angel of the Lord yea curse ye bitterly the Inhabitants thereof because they came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty A Text no doubt in season we have an age to Curse in I to curse bitterly too tanquam venena Aspidum the poyson of Aspes is under our lips And these lips we think are touched by the Angel of God too A coal from the Altar at least has fired our tongues Nay we are grown valiant of late we dare go out to fight now and make the people believe it is to the help of the Lord And that no title be left out 't is to the help the Lord against the mighty too Our pulpits by their Almighty power can create new forces and in one nights space proclaim them mighty whom our Saterdays night Pamphlets told us where to be pittied for their weakness Thus can we wrest the Scripture to our own destruction and gain this credit when we are once unmaskt that we have been plausible deceivers 'T is no new rule that corruptio optima fit pessima That the most Sovereign antidote when the Spirits are decay'd or that it self by some unskilfull Emperick mis-apply'd proves oftentimes the rankest poyson And I know indigefting stomachs may corrupt the most nourishing meats and the sweetest flowers may stink of his breath that smells them Thus that pure that sacred fountain of Holy Scripture whence the waters of life are drawn in their own Christall integrity when it is royld with our inventions proves aqua mortis the poyson'd waters of Sodom The standing lake which neither flows to other Contryes nor nourishes in their own tuus esse incipit This book of God so abused does God as little or less service then the Turkish Alcoran or the old Romane-Tables I know this place was never meant for controversy The intent of Sermons was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for conclusions to edification not for disputation they should not rob the chair But yet when Sheba shall dare to blow the Trumpet in the high-way and renounce his inheritance in David 't is time for Joab to cast a bank about his City and besiege him If any unprejudicate and well-affected Christians have drank in poyson at their ears which now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inflames their souls sets them a fire on mischief I shall desire which I do on my knees to heaven by a plain lesson on Deboras harp to disenchant them and by a true though homely relation of this story here a relation in which neither language nor method shall be concise to undeceive them The people of Israel Gods own inheritance was at this time under the government of their Judges which had then the supream authority Which authority whether it were the same with what their Kings did after injoy or onely a praeparative to it an Usher to the royall dignity I will not here determine Yet this I am sure of it came from Heaven and God himself was Author of it for when the common people queis semper mutare potentes principium est whose brains are alwaies turning round upon their changes did in the following story desire a King which might seem an honourable and fair exchange whether ye regard their higher credit with other nations or their greater security against forraign powers or the praedetermination
some time in the descant in which every one of us must bear a part And I cannot but begin with a just indignation against those who have abused the words and made them speak their own crazy humours and frantick dreams Like Men troubled with an Hydrophobia bitten with a mad dog and now raging they think all things before them look like water like the froth of their own brains Indeed Scripture shall be no longer Scripture if it do not please them Being in this like the old Tyrians who were wont to whip their Gods if they crossed them with a misfortune till they made them better Thus came they armed to the Pulpit with as brave a resolution as Hannibal to the Alps aut viam invenient aut facient Where they find no tracke before them they will adventure first and are grown so daringly presumptuous as to slight these texts which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do in plain rerms cross their trayterous position and tell you it was doctrine fit for those times the Apostles lived in I my self have heard it were they upon the Earth now when Christians knew their own strength they would write in another strain Blasphemous wretches is the blessed Spirit of God a servant or the times Is that eternal goodnesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unchangeably constant and for ever more the same become the Idoll fortune and dances he upon a wheel Never Musselman thought thus of his lawgiver Mahomet never Heathen of the rule of Nature Yet that they may shew some commixture of madness and wit sometimes they will prove ingeniously wicked and like a conjurer cast a mist before your eyes till you think you see the face of these times presented you in the glass of prophesie which once perswaded what ever language came from the top of Ebal is a Charientismus a message of peace compared with theirs Thus Deborah the Church shall fall a cursing Meroz the friends to the crown because they came not out to help the Lord against Siseras host the royall Army 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here le ts joyn hands Good sirs instruct me whose person bore distressed Deborah was it not the supream and are there or can there be 2. supreams She was a Mother a Judg a Captain in Israel And can any order that is a primo primus derived from the first be equall to it Had Jabin been a King to Deborah I am sure she had too religious a soul to have cursed him For what was Sisera Was he not a stranger One of another line another claim another religion another God one commanded by God long since to be expeld the Land and his inheritance devided amongst the Tribes Make you your selves an Analogy between the stories and see what an apt proportion they have left But one nice distinction will stop this gap We can cut an hair between the King and his forces The King is a good King a well meaning King and so he is in spite of their bold faced detractions but his Siseras his Generals his Commanders they are none of ours No and yet within these three years the reverend Fathers of our Church were quarreld at by these very Men for leaving their names out of our divine service book But are we grown such experienced artificers to devide between the squirrel and the tail that hides the back The fable makes a pretty dialogue between the wolf and the dog The wolf bids him go home and sleep quietly why should he expose himself to the winters frosts and the summers heat to watch his flock There was no emnity between them true sayes the dog but when thou hast worried my sheep and art grown fat and lusty with their flesh thou maist seize upon my throat next But closer yet for I would faine follow my text however they leave it Neither has the Angel said it to them nor have they power to curse nor have they cutsed Meroz nor curse they for not helping of the Lord nor in their sense does the Lord need any help against the mighty First an Angel has not said it whatever visions they pretend or if he should though an Angel from Heaven deliver any other doctrine then what the Scripture has preached let him be accursed I Gal. I. the Divine revelations and Angelicall descentions which the Anabaptists glory of are things grown too naked to delude us any longer They sound like the story of Mahomets dove Since Christs ascension into Heaven he left the holy Spirit as a Legacy to his Church that Spirit which shall guide it into all truth and so it will notwithstanding all these impostures When their writings are ad thus scombros alligata made as they are wastpaper St. Peter and St. Paul will be true and sound divinity And yet I know t is no new thing for Satan to transform himself into an Angel of light and become a lying Spirit in the mouths of such as would be accounted Prophets We know when he perswaded a Nation to go to warr to its own destruction May our good God defend us from the like mischief But 2ly they have no power to curse no commission for their execrations a Christians office is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 12.10 speak friendly to their persecutors Marke the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 well to them and well of them too not pump hell for language and arme the tongue with such Rhetorick that it cutteth like a razor The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Septuagint uses here for cursing signifies pray ye barkward if ye will for so the Scholiast tels me that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the theme in Homers time signified humble prayers but being abused in the succeeding ages who turned their prayers into curses the interpretation of the word changed too and it signifide an execration and indeed in this art of praying backward we are too good proficients If that be to pray we can learn our lessons quickly By the abuse of time it comes that we have changed the genuine meaning of the word For in the dayes of old before Religion was adulterated the reverend Fathers in the primitive times were wont to bless the patience of Christian Souldiers bless them for their loyalty bless them for their service performed to their most cruel blood-sucking persecutors When they behaved themselves like the stoutest Champions in the causes of the Emperors they were incouraged with an Euge sic decet Christianos you shew now that yee serve the Lord of Heaven by obeying his vice-roys upon earth But alas the ditty is chang'd in our dayes if any true hearted piety dare be so bold as to stand in the just defence of that Soveraignty which the law of God the laws of Nations our oathes and protestations binds us to there is an Ito maledicta passed upon it it is cursed and cursed bitterly But though they curse yet God will blesse It is not the name malignant can exclude us out of
A comfort it was to Aaron no doubt to see the budding of his rod that there was life in it that God had quickened it and yet we know that a branch cut down so long as the stock of sap which is in it will feed it it will do so But when it shall prove like Jeremies tree planted by the waters Jer. 17.8 Which spreads out her root by the river and shall not feel when the heat cometh but her leafe shall be green and she shall bring forth blossomes This is delight as well as comfort And yet Hosea calls Israel vitem frondosam a vine full of leaves Hosea 10.1 Although within a few verses it wither'd and was plucked up But where the fruit is come to perfection grown hard and ripe and lasting then may it well be laid up in the Sanctuary to testifie for him in the latter day And surely beloved Aarons rod in a mysticall sense continues fruitfull to this day No Sermon which you hear which is but a branch cut off from the tree of Gods word shall return in vain but if it be dead to some and prove the savour of death it will quicken in others and prove the savour of life unto life everlasting Thus the very budding of this rod the watchfull attention of you that hear us puts us in some hopes that our labour is not in vain in the Lord. Or if after hearing you fall a discoursing of some point delivered praise the Preacher commend the fitneses semen accipitis verba redditis sayes St Austin good seed you receive good words you give back laudes vestrae folia sunt fructus quaeritur as he goes on good words are but leaves or at the best but blossomes it is fruit we preach for and this St. Matthew calls Chap. 3. ver 8. fruit worthy of repentance restorative fruit which may be antitidote against the fruit of that other forbidden tree which poysn'd us all If this fruit appear it will testifie for us in the latter day Us that we are of Gods sending called of God as was Aaron You that you are of Gods planting and if by him planted you shall never be rooted up Mat. 15.13 Thus whilst some are budding others in the blossome others grown ripe God may every day receive a fruitfull harvest One word more behold these Almonds grow upon the rod still and are not gathered off and it is a good reason which a reverend Prelate has given why Aarons rod was treasurd up and not Moses because this carried the miracle still in it self whereas the wonders of that other rod were past and gone Those are rotten fruits which fall off from the bough that bears them The parable in 13 Mat. Tells us of seed sprung up hastily amongst the stones but because it had not depth of Earth it withered There is I know a sort of Gospellers whose hearts on a suddain are all on fire but are soon quenched again Jonahs gourd cannot outgrow them but smitten by a worm they wither Those are Gods Champions which stand fast in the faith those are his chosen that fall not away whose buds grow blossomes whose blossomes grow fruit and so they grow on in grace from one degree unto another till they become perfect in the Lord of all perfection Jesus Christ The 2. Circumstances yet remain and I shall handle them but as Circumstances the Time and Place On the morrow in the Sanctuary 1. For the time this change was wrought on a suddain one night was spring summer and harvest to the rod on the morrow it bore fruit We must not limit the eternal God to time miracles are his works and his works are like himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in an instant And as the high Priest under the law so the Apostles and Bishops in the Gospel on a suddain were advanced There was but an insufflavit he breathed upon them and with his breath they received the holy Ghost Which Spirit so changed their Spirits that it amazed their Adversaries to behold such Idiots as Saint Luke calls them Acts 4.13 men unlearned and simple command so many tongues and cure such diseases So what the Schools say of the Apostles I may say of this Rod probatur Deus per Virgam as this suddain change proves Aaron and the Apostles preferment came from God so by them it proves there is a God since none but he could work the Miracles Then secondly for the place 't was in the Sanctuary and no place so fit as Gods own House for Gods own Work That house which budded in Davids thoughts for which God commends him 1 Kings 3.18 But it flourished in Solomons hands who raised the glorious structure of it And however the zeal of some in these wretched dayes go about to eat it up as the zeal of that eat up Davids Heart Psal 69.9 or rather Christ in David typified 2 John 17. Yet Gods House it shall remain still so long as there be Nations upon the Earth to inhabit any other and that in a twofold respect First as God dwells in it it is his Temple secondly as his services are performed in it it is his House of prayer My house sayes the Prophet Isaiah 56.7 repeated by our Saviour in three Evangelists shall be called the House of prayer to all Nations And now let the brain-sick Separatists brood what conceit they list that Temples were but ceremonial and Christs Passion put them out of date either they must grant the fulness of the Gentiles before the descension of the holy Ghost and that all Nations met at prayers at Hierusalem which is ridiculous enough or that whilst nations acknowledg a God to be worship'd he shall have a House to be worship'd in And truly Sirs we need not wonder that Harons rod in our dayes seems withered since the Sanctuary in which it is kept is so neglected But alas What speak I of the crosier when the crown it self has found the same doom When the traytor Jeroboam seduced the ten tribes of Israel against their King he forbids them to go to the Temple at Jerusalem and sets up his high-way Religion to worship his calfs at Dan and Bethel Nay he drives away the Priests of the Lord the Sons of Aaron and Levi with the Sanctuary away goes the budding rod They are Relatives you see pull down Church government and the Church will not stand long after it 2 Chron. 13.9 and made him Priests like the people of other countreys Whosover comes to fill his hand with a young bullock and seven rams the same may be a Priest of them that are no Gods But what speak I of earthly Princes when neglect of the Sanctuary ushers in Rebellion against the King of heaven Hence we finde those precepts so frequently conjoynd of Observing Gods Sabbaths and reverencing his Sanctuary T is strange that the one should be Morall the other Ceremoniall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the Heathen Psal 74.8 they will burne
whether Jews or gentiles whether bond or free unite all interests into the grand concernment of peace and righteousness Having therefore this charity for others I cannot have a distrust of theirs to me by a suspicion that this Paraenesis to Loyalty will seem unseasonable to any although it was prepared for the most disloyal times For the first of these Sermons was preacht in the University immediately after his Majesty of blessed memory had retired into the North to avoid the rude and unseemly deportment of the tumultuous rabbl◠so to escape the raging of the waters and the madness of the People Where the acceptance which it found arose not from any intrinsick worth it had I dare not flater my self with so vain a conceit but from the suitablenesse of the subject to the affections of that learned and religious Auditory For the good King having lately passed that way had left so deep an impression upon the hearts of the Loyal Students that any man was welcome to them who was a memoria his shall I say Or their Remembrancer of him And here it had dyed with that Generation that soon after passed away had it not come to the knowledg of some of our Countrey-Committee-men four years after some men have long ears for whom I have reason to bless God who raised them up as instruments to make me be thought worthy to suffer any thing for that righteous cause Doctor Holdsworth Yet the Reverend and pious Vice-chancellor obliged me then to another course to supply which the Second Sermon was prepared upon a Text which had been blasphemed in that Pulpit not long before which happened soon after the Signall battail of Edghill But alas when I came to suck the breasts of my dear Mother I found them rub'd over with gall and wormwood The Scene was chang'd Athens was turned to a Mars's hill The Musick of Apollos harp could not he heard for the noise of trumpets For on the night before that MAN OF BLOOD came down with a troop of horse which was then his only command the Cockatrice at that time was but an egg and had blockt up the Pulpit with his Janizaries so that prudence bad me retire unlesse I would mingle my blood with my sacrifice The third Sermon was composed for a Visitation at what Time I the unworthiest of those that wait upon Gods Altars by the favour of a Reverend Prelate was nominated to an Ecclesiastical dignity But those places fell in the day of Gods Visitation and the Sermon proved abortive If any thing contained in them may conduce to the settlement of Church and State or inflame thee to a conscionable discharge of thy duty in reference to both I have my end Give God the glory and let him have the benefit of thy prayers who is Thine in all Christian Offices T. Stephens Bury St. Edm. June 6. 1660. Judges 21. 25. In those dayes there was no King in Israel every man did that which was right in their own eyes THen those dayes have been and they have been in Israel too we have Scripture for it sayes our Phanatick and why may they not be again This place I confess is plain enough and as well urged on this occasion as his who maintained his heterodox opinions from St. Pauls position Cor. 1.11 Of necessity heresies must be amongst you But wo be to that man by whom these things come to pass When Every man must be his own Carver and sits Judge upon his own actions there is no King indeed but whole legions of Tyrants each domineering affection every lusting thought all Bastard-off-springs the unreasonable appetites of our reasonable souls will Lord it over us Take away this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must needs follow Kings we may have still but no Subjects to obey every man will be his own Ruler yet every man as unruly as he was before Where there is so much confusion in the text you can expert no curious method in the prosecution of it An Anarchy and the effects of it do divide it Israel had no King there is the Fountain but the rivulets streaming from it they are divers there is division enough in the effects as many parts as men every man has his share they are all in action and actions speciously good too they are every man doing right if themselves may be both judge and parties Their eyes are the Lesbian rules which measure the works of their hands Physiologers tell us a crooked object is received into the eye by strait beams Crooked things may seem strait that may be right in our eyes which is wrong in Gods eyes that notwithstanding we walk in the wayes of our own heart and in the sight of our own eyes Eccl. 9. 9. Yet for all these things God will bring us into Judgment My Text will bear no long Doctrinall discourse neither know I whether I may more properly call it a history of those times or a prophesie of these for I am sure mutato nomine we are as deeply concerned in it as the Jews themselves I shall briefly but more plainly acquaint you with the story then in the Analogy make application to our selves When the pleasure of God had called the People of Israel to be his own peculiar inheritance he did not presently and at the first establish one perpetuall form of Government or set the imperial Crown upon the head of his Anointed but ushers in the Royalty of a King which Abraham enjoyed long before in a Prototype by way of promise Gen. 17. with some inferiour subordination of power from Captains he gave them Judges next to them his Prophets then Judges back again as if Almighty God contrived a way how best and upon the best experience he might be a safeguard to his own people But when these undertitles could not prevail against the daring outrages and bold presumptions of the tribes he then exalts his throne creates his Viceroy the old Scoene disappears and he discovers his King upon his holy hill of Sion And here he stops no change from hence St. Austin proves it for this cause the best because it was the last no supersedeas no removal from it Thus as the Epigrammatist congratulates diseases and honours them with the title of the first inventors of Physick we may bless the sores of the Common wealth which did produce so Soveraign a salve or rather bless God which did prepare an Antidote for yet out of such abominable Villanies For in this interregnum of judiciary power when the sins of the people had devoured their Judges as the Prophet speaks Hosea 7.7 when Owle-ey'd iniquity durst see the Sun Da Phaebe veniam si quid illicitum tui videre vultus and the high hand of sin disdained the coercive power of their petty Magistrates God raises up a new succession of Princes a race of Kings which might suppress such insolencies Which were so notorious in this evening of the Judges when their