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
with what difficulty he raised up any forces remember what opposition he found in preparing a guard for his royal person indeed he needed none he had a guard of Angels that being quarreld at for him in an open Country which his Courts of Justice thought necessary for themselves in the greatest place of security I should distrust your judgments to remember you of Dans ships or Ashers coast Towns Reubens divisions or Gileads confaederacy What ever the wit of man could invent to stop supplies by sea or land of monyes or men or ammunition what ever disheartning could be thrown upon his well affected subjects what ever opposition could be made by an association entred between Geball and Ammon and Ameleck the Phylistines and those that dwell at Tire all these and more then these he incountred with But non est consilium contra altissimum In the day of battle Deborah wins the field wonder not if the power of Heaven prevail Against the arme of flesh Though his excellency reach unto the Heavens and his head mount up to the clouds yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung Job 20.6 Mount Tabor can tell you and so can rebellious Meroz too how succesfull those Northern troops have been which God rais'd up as a pledg of his providence over his anointed which all that look upon impartially must needs conclude with an hic Dei digitus This is the hand of Heaven which has defended the Lord of the earth Against the mihgty But I haue cut out these so large a share in my text that I have kept for our selves but a very small division What ever remains two words shall dispatch 1. Imprecemur 2. Deprecemur let us curse and let us pray Curse those that have deserved it pray that we may not deserve it Imprecemur first Curse if not with Deborah Meroz there for not helping the Lord yet with St. Paul Meroz here for fighting against the Lord In denouncing which sentence I clash not with the doctrine I have delivered There is an Evangelicall curse for all such coyned to my hands and that the deepest of all other no less then damnation Whosoever resists shall receive to himself damnation Rom. 13. Had we the art of opening our bibles and reading there as well as wearing them under our armes which we love so well we had been taught this divinity from as many plain texts as there are found to confirm any Article of the Creed But a seeming devotion is no new vizor Horace tells us of the light wenches in his dayes that Libellos stoicos jacere inter sericos pulvillos amant they would not go to bed but their grave treatises of chastity must be their pillows profession I know is very good but it is when the hearts and lips are friends But if we walk not honestly toward them which are without we teach Turks and Mahumetans to blaspheme our God and whereas their religion is their shame we prove a shame to our religon For consider I beseech you and consider seriously against whom ye would take up armes Is it not against the power against the ordinance of God Contra animatam Dei Imaginem against the walking picture of Heaven In Kings sayes Lactantius there is a double appearance they are Men before God but they are Gods before Men Such sayes Optatus as acknowledg no power to controul them but him alone which instated them in such power And who that is Tertullian will tell you elegantly Inde Imperator unde homo antequam Imperator inde potestas illi spiritus St. Pauls words shall interpret him there is no power but what is ordained of God Which strook good St. Bernard to so brave are resolution that maugre the confederacy of the world he would prove himself a Christian to God by a loyal subjection to his Soveraign his words deserve letters of Gold in his 170. Epistle Si totus orbis sayes he adversumme conjuraret ut quippiam molirer adversus regiam Majestatem ego tamen Deum timerem ordinatum adeo Regem offendere temere non auderem And he gives his reason Nec enim ignoro ubi legerim qui potestati resistit Dei ordinationi resistit See how vast a difference here is between our Spirits Religious soul the whole earth combining could not make him willingly offend his King and shall the fear of a threatned plundering make us oppose our King Alas Sirs those that we fear for the thorns to wound us should be the spurs to incite us Do their worst it is the best for us they can but rob us of our intanglings as Theophilact glosses upon 2 Tim. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Some Serpents that imbrace us and hinder us from pleasing him who has called us to be Souldiers shall we embrace a little nick named favour here before the Eternal love of God shall the common rout perswade me to go to Hell for company If the name of Christian be not worn out with some newborn title for which we have exchanged it think what our Captain hath done before us He curses Peters sword which was drawn in defence of him his Lord and Master and when the judg of Heaven earth stood before the bar of Caesar to be adjudged he confesses himself to the author of that power which spoke his own condemnation 'T is truely said that Kings have long arms they can reach to heaven for vengeance they can crow'd down to hell for torments And this is true of all Kings Christians or Heathen good or bad not only of the Vespasians the sweet governours but of Domitian the cruel Tyrant of Nero of Tyberius that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as his Master Gadareus called him that heap of morter tempered with blood The Oyl upon Sauls head saved his throat sayes Optatus He was a wicked King it is true and deserved to dy but David was a good man and durst not be his executioner dum timuit olenm servavit inimicum the oyl with which he was anointed David well knew would never sink but in despight of violence would swim uppermost 'T is true that God sometimes refines his Church in the furnace of perfection neither then does he leave it naked and disarme it But what are the Churches weapons St. Anselm had his dolere potero potero flere his sighs and groans against the Gottish Souldiers St. Bernard fought to death against Lewes of France non scutis gladiis sed precibus fletibus prayers and tears were his sword and buckler Nazianzen overcame Julian but it was Christianorum lachrymis ubertim effusis by softning his Adamantine heart with salt drops from their eyes Thence flowes the only sea which can overthrow Pharoahs host But alas this is not our case We prepare other armes against a Prince of another temper One whom if the first Christians had known they would have made him more then the delight of Men they would receive him as
City Aie at the second assault Joshua contents not himself with the head of the ruler or the throats of the Citizens but makes the place it self a desolation And this judgment God sends down sometimes upon the inanimate Creature either because it hath been the instrument to occasion mans folly or rather that his folly may be punisht by that judgment that man may learn to groan for sin by the Creaturs example which grones under that punishment which is due to the sin of man Well may the young Eagles cry when the ones sacriledg has fired the nest she builds in 't is the peoples sins begets the Cities curse That 's the last part the cause of this excommunication denounc'd Curse ye Meroz sayes the Angel and her inhabitants because they went not out to help the Lord to help the Lord against the mighty And indeed when God himself is gone up with a shout and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet he may curse himself that stayes behind If it be true that God does pursue those whom he doth not accompany it is more true that he comes back upon those that do not accompany him Gods cause is ours in which if we will not bear a share we shall surely bear the burthen When the Reubenites and the Gadites whether tired out with their tedious march or allured with the fatness of the plains of the Gileadites or affrighted with their Brethrens reports of the enemies strength fron the valley of Eschol were now grown lazy and neglected the portion of the other tribes desiring as they thought to sleep in a whole skin and not to endanger themselves by passing over Jordan See what a contestation Moses himself undertakes Numb 32. What a strife beget they in meekness He which chid his own passions before now fell to reviling them They were nigri Jovis incrementum an increase of sinfull men the fomentors of Gods anger And accordingly was their reward The first and greatest Giant Og must be their task to tame and the Gileadites once cleared unless they will go armed before the Lord to warr and help their Brethren intrench themselves as sure as they can they shall never shut out a bosom enemy there sins will find them out But stay can God want help will he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sufficient of himself for Heaven and Earth flie to man for succour in whom there is no help What new Typhoeus have we upon the Earth which drives the Heavenly powers to the banks of Nile for refuge Is not God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Almighty Whose Lips are the fountains of power at the breath of whose nostrils the infernall spirits tremble and shall he want assistance against the mighty T is true and yet he so disposes his affairs on Earth That man may sometimes seem to get the upper hand God works not all things by a miraculous power but lets out some part of his vineyard to the tillage and husbandry of man in which sometimes depopulatur aper the wild boars have their lurking holes and the little foxes have their boroughs force or cunning have broken down their hedges He sometimes permits a reviling Shimei in the face of Davids Army a sacrelegious rout to deface his Sanctuary and not bury them in the ruines which they make a Jewish confederacy which Turcisme would stand amazed at to recrucifie our Saviour in imagine and hitherto not payes them home with Judas his portion to go hang themselves And these the all seeing eye of providence dispenses whether the more surely to prove his friends or the more fully to confound enemies For the first God hath a storehouse from whence he could fil the hands of al his members yet leaves he some hungry some thirsty some naked to see who would refresh them Non quod te indiget sed quod te â—o indigere cupit he has no need of thee but he desires that thou shouldest have need of him What needed 32000 men of Israel gathered under Gideons standart when 300 did the feat But to try who would stand up for the Lord and who will bow their knees to drink of the waters who would adore the flowing Transitory pleasures here 'T is true in temporall as well as eternall salvation qui te sine te fecit te sine te non salvabit he which created thee alone requires thy own concurrence to thy preservation nay by this means God pulls off the vizard from the face of Hypocrytes unguilds their garnished frontlers and leaves them as black as the sin they flatter with If it had not been for Absoloms rebellion who could prove Achitophel Davids privy Counsellour had been a traitor Who would have thought Amasa honoured by David with the name of Cozen one of his bone and of his flesh would have accepted of the generalship without Davids Commission Who could believe that Jerusalem that Royall City honoured with Davids Throne not subsisting as it seems two Moneths without his presence would have gone up after Absalom This is the Divine Eye of Wisdom which can produce sound fruit from such rotten stocks In the second there is the supream hand of power when wicked designs prosper so happily that they are gathered into a head till with one stroke God cuts them off as Jehu serves the Priests of Baal 2 Kings 10 Pretends a solemn sacrifice invites them with a full ceremony cloaths them with the richest vestments makes a holy day feast for Baals worshipers The day was theirs and the Prophets of God were looked upon as poor inferiour humble Creatures but in the midst of their triumph fourscore men made it end in a bloody sacrifice they are all cut off not one escapes The Servants of the houshold could have weeded out the tares Mat. 13. But it was the Masters policy to let them grow ripe before he burnt them They would make the greater blaze God Almighty I know could have routed out the tares of heresie the tares of sedition which in these dayes of sin have almost overtopped the standing wheat but I perswade my self out of mercy to his Church he has let them grow to these licentious times when every Son of Belial dares openly discover his untutor'd spirit when we find more sects then some years since we thought our Church had nourish'd Sectaries that the sword of justice now knowing them may make the surer sharper stroke against them Babels confusion had not been so remarkeable but that the tower was raised so high as that it stood a pillar to after ages The weakness of Deborahs forces and Jabins strength enlarge Gods honour he gets a name by pulling down the mighty from their seat but still he is sensible of the false hearted cowardise of the backsliding troops He curses Merox and her inhabitants because they came not forth to help the Lord to help the Lord against the mighty I have made hast you see with the plain-song of my text that I may spend
the Church triumphant if in a true cause we are here militant Thirdly it is not Meroz any poor little Villages they curse tales aquilae muscas non capiunt but Tabor and Hermon the Mounts of God the hills of Learning God knows our Meroz's our Countrey parishes are infatuated with a bayard blindnesse they will neither see nor yet believe they are blind Chyrurgions tell us no such sure sign of death as a senselesse Apathy when we feel not the smarting of our wounds Thus where our State is wounded in the head the seat of judgment wounded in the heart the seat of life wounded in the hands the execution of justice wounded in the feet the interpretation of those laws on whose bottom the Kingdom stands we as if we were bitten with a Tarantula shall laugh our selves to death in the midst of these distractions and only be grieved at yesterdays ache and take physick for that disease which had seazed and left us three years agoe And this was the very case of the Israelites in the great defection from Rhehoboam the complaint was oppression by his Father Solomon whose dayes indeed was golden dayes the very stones of the street which the people trampled on were outvyed in their number almost by others far more pretious But crafty Rhehaboam galling their mindes first and then finding when it pinched he scarrifies first Remonstrates to the people the greivous Yoke the King had thrown upon them and then applies an itching plaister he would ease them of the trouble to go up to worship at the Mother Church at Jerusalem he knew if the doors of the Sanctuary were open the law of God read there would keep the people in subjection 1 Kings 12.17 Therefore he will lock them up if he can and pretend the peoples ease it is too much for them to go up thither especially since they have made Calves at their own homes what need a Church when the highwayes of Dan and Bethel will serve the turne Thus when he had cheated them into a civill war they run madly to their own confusion continually weakning the powers of one another till the forreign Assyrian enemy seized on both Under which captivity ten revolting tribes lost both their names and beings If in the mean time a Prophet come with a message from the Lord to reduce these wandring sheep and bring them home to their forsaken folds Jeroboam presently stretches out his hand against him and if a miraculous power from heaven do not whither it that hand will lay him fast 'T is reported of Julian that Enemy of Christianity that although he himself was an able Clerk yet he hated and forbade all learning in others left they should detect his cunning fallacies The comparison I know is very odious and yet I fear me we shall finde in our dayes more barbarism Meroz cursing Tabor When the people have broken off their golden earings for their calf Aaron himself shall be threatned if he will not dance about it Nay further yet foolish ignorant lying Zedekiah shall have leave to smite Micaiah on the face if he presume to be so honest to diswade his Countrimen from a warr and prevail so far with those that are in power as to clap him up in prison God quit England from Jerusalems sins of stoning those which are sent unto her But fourthly their curses come not for not helping the Lord. Unlesse they could perswade us there are two Gods in Heaven as they would make two faiths and more then two baptismes upon the Earth For was ever the cause of God set up by lying Lying so palpable so notorious that Bellarmines piae frauds were religious if compared with it every week being a Cretian Mart where the Devill sends us in impressions by the whole sale which may teach the next Generation how voluminously wicked their Fathers were Was ever Gods cause set up by oppression Cruel inhuman barbarous oppression where one subject shall be armed with power to kill another Whilst the mouth of the Laws are stop'd and they outroad by Ordinances Where every discontented Country boor shall challenge an Equall share in his Neighbours goods and fall a plundering by the liberty of the Subject Liberty Licence let us rather call it licence qua deteriores sumus an abuse of licence which makes us worse Was ever Gods cause set up by Blasphemy Most execrable deep mouth'd blasphemy which a sober Christian would be afraid to hear least the Divel should be in presence Some daring in the Pulpits which I my self have heard tell Almighty God that if he deserted this cause he would loose his honour none would ever call upon his name again Others professing in that sacred place if this cause failed they should turne Atheists as I think they are already I will not tell all you hear too much allready Oh Sirs we are cheated of our Religion The modester Papists have rob'd us of some of the choycest of our Refined Doctrine whilst we are degenerated into the dregs of Jesuitisme Shall they make proffers of their service to hazerd their lives and fortunes in the just defence of a good Prince which notwithstanding hates their Religion although he cherishes their subjection and shall we unchristianly imagine that we help the Lord by destroying the Lords Anointed The Giants may as well say they raised those mountains for bulwarks to defend the heavens from whence they meant to scale them Judas may as well say he had given his Master a kiss of courtesie when he brought out men with swords and staves to secure him Horrour and amazement keeps in the rest Lastly in their sense I say God ha's needed no help against the mighty For compare Deborahs Estate to Siseras and make an equall reference in all to our own Nation and see who might properly be called the mighty Deborah was under a palm tree in the high way whilst Sisera dwelt in Harosheth You may all remember the time when his sacred Majesty was first driven to these parts when except his goodness there was nothing about him like a Prince whether you look upon his retinue or his provision or the homage of his vicegerents as he passed all so much inferior to his Estate that had those beheld it which could have wisht it meaner I perswade my self they would have pitied it under the burden of which humility he must needs have faln if his heart had not proved like Deborahs palm tree grown higher with depressing Sisera at this time abounding with all provision Deborah seeks out for succour to encounter him but those as you heard come in very slowly and unarmed her enemy had made a party in those Tribes she trusted to When the necessity of a warr was made which God knowes was most unwelcome news to the religious heart of our pious Soveraign witness those several condescentions to almost unequal termes of peace as would make a marble heart thaw to tears that reads them think but
indeed his ambitious heart kept him at far distance when the Priesthood was intayl'd on Aaron and his Successors he joynes himself to Dathan and Abiram two ruling Elders of the Tribe of Reuben with two hundred and fifty Princes of the Assembly and there begins to preach parity a doctrine easily disgested by ambitious minds to this Independent Congregation A pretence of holinesse cloaked their wickednesse For being gathered into a riot and daring do all acts of violence which their strength could secure them in they exclaim against their governours you take too much upon you say they seeing all the Congregation are holy and the Lord is amongst them Wherefore then lift yee up your selves above the Congrâ—gation of the Lord A strange presumption which the mad World will never leave to entitle God to the Divels cause to bring the Lord of Order to countenance their disorders but these unhappy dayes hath left the story at our own doors where a specious outside guilds many rotten Hypocrites Sampsons two foxes cannot be coupled with a firebrand of Sedition between them but they be reported abroad to draw the yoke of Jesâ—s Christ under a pretence of Every one is holy a parity in righteousnes every one strives for a primacy a supremacy in wickedness And it were well if these thrusts were made against Aaron the high priests breast plate only Moses his rod is beaten down too The Miter cannot fall but the Crown shakes they that made Religion their qnarrel just before presently after make politicall grieveances the burden of the song Moses like a good Prince had taken off the envy from his High-Priest Aaron and pointed their arrows at an higher mark you are gathered against the Lord sayes he and indeed Sirs God is in all his ordinances but what is Aaron that yee murmur against him Yet let his next work be to secure himself Is it a small thing say they that thou hast brought us out of a Land that floweth with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness except thou make thy self a Prince altogether over us This strong complaint of Tyranny was the most forcible cord that could unite the hands of the many-headed-monster-multitude But the next verse tells us it was their own particular interests which ingaged the Rebells it was because they had not Fields and Vineyards to their hearts desire Absolom may flatter the people in the gate and pitty their case that justice is delayed them but let his heart comment upon his words and he pitties most his own case that he is not in place to do it But Moses can easily wash his hands of Tyranny I have not taken ass from them neither have I hurt one of them sayes he The complaint of Rebels most commonly is as far removed from truth as their quarrell is from goodness Yet unless God from Heaven will attest his integrity his own righteousnesse will scarce defend him against two hundred and fifty assembly men Moses and Aaron fall upon their faces but the Lord holds them up and at their command the Congregation separates from the tents of Corah and his Confederates who would have made them Separatists from the Congregation Whilst those mutinying Traytors which did not deserve to live are not suffered to dye but are buryed before their death and they which would have made a division from their Fathers may not be gathered to their Fathers in peace But the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up they and all that appertained to them went down alive into the pit and the earth closed upon them and they perished from amongst the Congregation As for the other 250 with censers in their â—â—nds which would be flashing of strange fire before the Lord God sends down a true fire from Heaven which eats them up Two pararell judgments A Schisme of the Earth punisheth a Schism of the People a fire from Heaven consumes their ignis fatuus their false fire upon the Earth so surely does God overtake those which do not carry him along with them in their designs By this time we would think that an awful reverence of Moses Aaron was wrought upon the hearts of the Congregation by the finger of heaven but seditious minds are restlesse Like Sisyphus his stone if it be faln to the bottom it must be rold to the top of the hill again The People fly from the gaping of the Earth and are afraid of the fire from Heaven but having digested their Panick fears next morning like men hardened to their destruction they dare challenge God to renew his judgments by charging his Magistrates with the blood of those which perished in their own rebellion as if Moses his rod which before had devoured the Egyptian mock-Serpents had now feasted upon the Rulers of the assembly and Aarons blue and purple and scarlet were now altogether dyed in blood ye have killed say they the people of the Lord. But unless those whom they accuse for their Murtherers prove their deliverers they are all but dead men for there is wrath gone out against them Aaron at Moses his command runs into midst of the Congregation takes the censer puts fire upon the censer puts on incense and stands between the living and the dead and makes atonement for the People The mercy of a good Governour resembles God from whom he has his Commission he is ready to spare and protect them that conspire his destruction knowing that his Saviour dyed for them which crucified him yet least the death of fourteen thousand and seven hundred should in the next Generation be worn out and forgoten God will perpetuate this story with a lasting miracle and that the mouthes of murmerers may for ever be stop'd he makes choise of Aaron symbolically the twelve Princes of the twelve Tribes cast in their twelve rods as Moses appointed with their names wrote every man upon his rod and on the morrow Moses went into the Sanctuary of the Witness and behold the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi budded and bloomed blossomes and brought forth Almonds In prosecuting these words Aquinas his rule shall be our guide In omni Scripturae narratione historica sayes he profundamento tenenda est veritas historiae de super spirituales rationes sunt fabricondae in any histocal narrative part of Scripture the first principle which we must ground upon is the truth of the history and that foundation once laid we make our mystical spirituall interpretations a super-structure Give me leave hear then to make Aaron another coat and to imbroyder over the fine linnen the groundwork of the history with the Blew and Purple and Scarlet and Gold the several colours of the mystery Observe we then in this miraculous Election of Almighty God the subject on which the miracle was wrought which falls under our notice 1. In the simple it was a rod 2. The composit it was Aarons rod 3. The decomposit it was Aarons rod for the house
affliction may reduce them As David Psal 9. wisht a terror upon the Nations that they might know themselves to be but men From hence then we shall receive a speedy satisfaction to those three questions which are only material 1. penes quos est in whose power this power of cursing lies 2. ad quos attinet on whose shoulders it will fall 3. in quantum praevalet with what burthen it presses there is infinite distance between all these here is abyssus abyssum invocans one deep calling upon another only a powerfull hand from heaven can throw down vengeance only a sinners neck can bear it and if this thunderbolt be not stopt only the pit of hell can bound it From heaven it comes whether immediately from God himself or from his Delegates The first can make that serpent lick the dust of the earth which but just now aspired to the Scepter of Heaven he can make Cain a Runnegate in his own land and fear the stroak of death from man when he and his father summed up for ought we know the total number of mankind The other have it by Commission and that Commission they had need take care should be well signed or else their arrows will recoyl upon their own bosoms and they will provoke God to blesse by their malitious curses Some good expositors are of opinion that all the curses denounced in the old Law shall rather be interpreted for propheticae praedictiones then imprecationes maledicae But what ever power they had I am sure 't is now limited there is an Evangelical temper if we believe Christ that speaks it when James and John would have been a flashing in the clouds and followed Elias in the Law for fire from Heaven on the Village of the Samaritans Christ cooles their furious zeal with another Spirit Luke 9. he rebukes them saying ye know not what manner of Spirits ye are of Foâ—bear such legal threats if you follow me your Master I came to save the World not to destroy it For Ananias and Saphira's judgment 't is true it came from heaven but unlesse you enterline the Text and read it with spectacles to make it bigger it will no way appear to be caused by Peters Curse So that if we compare St. Pauls precept Rom. 12. blesse and curse not with his anathematizing Text 1 Cor. 16. we shall soon find the Church has no keyes left to shut up Heaven but those which Christ left as a Legacy in that sacred ordination of his Apostles But secondly this curse is only due for sin that being the adequate object of the wrath of God Hence does St. Paul think 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doing good will be an undoubted shield against the power So that Bellarmines Uteunque ferit will prove but a blunt push his excommunication undeserved is but a bull without hornes crackers tyed upon a line flash they may but wound they cannot Lastly to Hell it goes if not prevented The Royall prophet in the 37. Psalm sayes that they that be cursed of God shall be cut off Cut off from the Earth first as Pharoah and his crew of persecutors after they had blunted the arrows of God with often wounding though they could never yet pierce their hardned hearts his final destruction is threatned Exod 9.15 he will cut them off from the face of the Earth But 2. cut them down or a passage for them down to hell too witness Corah and his rebellious Conspirators quibus dum non essent digni vivere sayes Optatus nec mori concessum est not deserving to live they were not vouchsafed to dye sepulti sunt priusquam mortui they which had made a seperation from their Fathers may not be suffered to be gathered to their Fathers but go down quick to Hell This is the effect of a curse a curse arising from a just cause proceeding from a just Judge If this be the cause of Meroz let her beware and sure it is for her judge is just that speaks it the Angel sayes Curse ye Meroz and her inhabitants We are come to the Persons upon whom the censure falls Meroz and her inhabitants Where I will not make you sport to tell you what pains Rupert takes although he cite St. Hierom for it to make Meroz the praesident Angel of the Canaanites and the inhabitants to be the people under his protection Gerrae germanae it is not worth confuting Here is no Labyrinth that needs a clue or if there did expositors with one mouth assure me that this village Meroz was a place adjoyning to the field of battle which must now be made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a piaculum a sacrifice to Gods curse to expiate the degenerate backwardness of the neutrall tribes Well may the gates of the Temple be made of Cedar trees Cedars so fat so joyfull all Hieroglyphicks of Gods mercy when as the gates of Heaven for ought we find here were open to an offending multitude and only shut against this handfull of the people Thus God is pleased sometimes to decimate his malefactors in paucos vindicta transit in plures monitio he sets up Lots Wife as a pillar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes the Scholiast a Trophie to turn the hearts of the backsliding generations for as he is a fire to burn the chaff so he is a fan to separate it from the purer wheat When fawning Absolom had seduced the people to a great rebellion promising a freer course of justice if he might raign 't is true a slaughter of the Israelites was made in the wood of Ephraim but still the surviving rebels were suffered to return with David whilst the justice of God contented it self with the head of Absolom hanging now as his counsels formerly had done between Heaven and Hell But still as Meroz was but one place yet a place it was and a place very considerable With great disadvantage must Deborah fight when the villages about her were confaederate with her enemies Put case that God had defeated her before her enemy as indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. A just cause does not alwayes inherit victory what place was left to retreat to from the bloody Mountain what refreshment could be given to the fainting Souldiers What disheartning found the remoter tribes when the place they marched to for fresh supplies upon occasion proved the quarters of their enemies As God gives to Men so he accepts from Men their opportunities Rehekah was known to be a fit wife for Isaac by her ready letting down her pitcher and that soul that would be espoused to Christ must discover it self by a seasonable and willing service Yet mark one step farther yet together with the inhabitants Meroz herself the very fabrick bears a burthen in the curse The Eagles nest is brought down from the Stars that the young ones may be destroyed Oba 4. Thus when by Gods permission the Israelites accursed for one mans pillaging found a repulse at the great
him dwell alone without the camp shall his habitation be and were it not to prevent the application which is to come anon I should tell you that in Gospel there is a retenta sunt si retinueritis whose sins the Leprosie of the Soul the Priest retains by excommunication they are retained the severest correction of all other But 3. As a rod of power correction so is the Priests rod a rod of guidance instruction too It is the guiding statue the Vibilia set up in the crosspaths of sin to guide the people in the way of Gods Commandments Hereupon the Prophet Malachi makes the Priests lips the Cabinet of knowledg and sends the People to seek the Law at his mouth 2 Mal. 7. From those Conduit-pipes flow those streams which make glad the City of God You know the stopping of the pipes deprives the tankard bearers of water as much as if the fountain head were dried up As good no law as none divulg'd And this was the misery of the Israelites under King Asa 2 Chron. 15.9 For a long season they had been without the true God and without a Priest to teach and without the law Observe the connexion no Priest to teach the Law for a while and presently the law it self is quite forgotten And this made Aaron have golden bells as well as Pomgranats the soundness of the fruit of the one is nothing without the tinkling of the other Moses made two silver trumpets as well as two stone tables that the law might be registred in the one and proclaimed with the other God admits nothing dumbe nothing barren in his service The very Cattle which draw the arke must be milch kine such as give down their milk and they must have calfes shut up at home that they may low after them as they go And this befalls not under the law alone but under the gospel too whose very name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies as much A good message it is but no message before it be delivered which imprints upon every Ministers heart S. Pauls vae mihi 1 Cor. 9.16 Wo is me if I preach not the gospel Lastly as to govern correct and guide so to support the people too Aaron has his rod and a heavy load is laid upon it if we look to the first institution 28 Exo. 38. He is to bear the iniquity of the offerings of the People Pliny tells us of a poysoned fountain of Arabia where the shepheards pay the price of the sheep that drink and perish Let Ezechiel interpret this Chap. 3.17 18 19 20 21 Verses the sum of all is this the blood of the wicked soul which dyes in his iniquity if he be not forewarmed and admonished God will require at the watchmans hands Nay not only the inquity of the Peoples offerings but the offerings themselves lye upon the Priests shoulders Heb. 5.1 He is ordained for Men in things appertaining to God that he may offer both guifts and sacrifiees for sins Have the People offended The Priest shall make an atonement for them before the Lord. Has Abimelech a curse upon his family send to Abraham he is a Prophet he shall pray for him and restore him Is Hezekiah discomforted by Rabshaketh send to Esayah he is a Prophet he shall lift up his prayer for the remnant that is left Is any man sick Let him send for the Ministers not the lay-Elders as some falsely interpret Saint James and let them pray over him and their prayer shall work for the health of his body and Salvation of his soul Thus is the Priest the staff which the people lean on and in these respects amongst many other a rod was the most proper subject for the miracle 2. It was Aarons rod Aaron who was summus Pontifex a Mountain as his name imports which overtops the rest God which is the God of Order would in no age ever leave his Church to the mischiefs of disorder and confusion Which Order God observed as soon as there was a Church and a Church there was so soon as their was a Congregation and Men upon the Earth to make it And first the most honourable the first born of the families were vertually called to this dignity to pray instruct and sacrifice for the rest Neither can I hear omit St. Austines observation that at the Creation where God brought foorth all other Creatures in abundance storing all the Earth with many individuums and particulars of the same Species as many beasts many birds and the like he made but one Man and devised all the rest should flow from his loynes and so acknowledg him their chief and principle and so from him a lineal descent should be derived by primogeniture in whose hands should rest the government of all the rest so that Monarchick Government is tantum non natural But when God as I may say had imbodyed his Church and formed them into a camp he then immediately from himself without any suffrage of the People elects his Governours and dignifies them with the rods of their authority Moses in the temporalls Aaron in the spiritualls From God I say immediately they were chosen not by themselves not by the People Not from themselves first for what power had a poor hireling Shepheard Reuels Son in law to ingage a whole army what policy what insinuations could he use which was slow of speech stammering of tongue Unwilling to receive his commission when t was given him unwilling to execute it when he had it fearing those very miracles which should confirm him flying from his rod now made a serpent which should incourage him Or grant that ambitious minds do politickly decline that which they most greedily affect what was there here that could inflame their desires pugna est de paupere regâ—o a bare Soveraignty over naked Men whom they must guide through a tedious Wilderness and feed and furnish with all necessaries in a forty years journey and when they have Canaan their desires in view then be swept away and leave them Unlikely that any men aspired to be thus miserable or chose so burthensome a dominion And more unlikely the People chose them to it who were more likely to rebell against them then to obey them And for all their pains paid them no other tribute but that of murmerings and revilings inconstant fickle men whose queazy stomacks sometimes affect garlick onions before quailes Manna The Levites which but lately drew their swords with them now bandy themselves against them and these which at the beginning of the Chapter give praise for a late deliverance before the end murmure for a new affliction But commissions signed from Heaven are armour of proof against all the conspiraces of the Earth Moses knew I am that I am alters not and though the Princes of the Congregation take censers in their hands they do but kindle a fire to their own destruction the brass of their censers shall make a lasting Monument
of their rebellion That so long as the altar has a being Men may learn from thence that no Man may take that honour to himself but he that was called of God as was Aaron 5 Heb. 4. And sure the love of God was such that he would choose none but the best of Governments for his Church Had all the Princes of the tribe of Levi had an equall share they by an Aristocrasy would have bred an emulation had all the People injoyed a parity their Democrasie would have brought in confusion but exalting Aaron in the high Priests chair and disposing of the rest in subordinate offices under him God maintained so blessed a Harmony in his Church as that it was an imperfect shadow of that blessed Harmony in heaven But 3. It was Aarons rod for the house of Levi upon whom the priesthood was entailed The Reubenites thought they had a fair plea for it because they were the first born of their Father Jacob and the other tribes wished well toward it witness the rods which every tribe put into the lottery in hopes it might be taken But God which is constant to all his purposes had chosen Levi of all the Tribes of Israel to be his Priest as the Man of God testifies 1 Sam. 2.28 To offer upon his altar and to burn incense before him And it is well that this honour was once esteemed so great that all the tribes were ambitious of it When the Ephod and the imbroydered coat were esteemed glorious The dregs of Jeroboams corruptions have a greater influence upon our times who made Priests of the lowest of the people and when God requires the most comely bodies and proportionable countenances for his service If any by nature be made so decrepit that he be unfit for any other imployment he will come and crouch and say put me into the Priests office that I may eat a morsel of bread Yet this Act of God which made the Priesthood Levi's impropriation as it debars others from affecting of it witness the destruction of the Reubenites Dathan Abiram and their Confederates or so much as intermedling with it vvhich cost poor Uzziah dear 2 Sam. 6.7 Who going to uphold the arke vvas smitten down so neither does it priviledge the Levites themselves to perform his service after their ovvn fancy If Aarons own sons Nahab and Abihu shall presume to offer up any other fire then that which descended from Heaven upon Gods Altar that fire which should consume their sacrifices shall devour themselves The service of the Sanctuary must be intire It will admit of no Mechanicks to officiate nor yet must the fiery zeal of Clergymen themselves coyne any new fangled formes of services and worship which God has not prescribed Both are enemies to Aarons rod here for as the one break it in pieces or steal it away and clap their own in the room so the other bow it to their humor and make it crooked after their own fancy Hitherto we have beheld the rod withered and dead let us now consider it in the miracle and see what fruit it bears which is branched in 3. degrees it budded it blossomed it brought forth Almonds Every tribe in Israel had provided his rod and every rod was strip'd alike and had the name of the Prince of the tribe ingraven on it Aarons rod had no more sap in it no more earth about it Onely it had Aarons name upon it Where God has made a secret choice he will make an open difference They go to the wrong end of the ladder which climb up into Gods breast first and there trace out those unsearchable points of his election and from thence ground themselves upon their impossibility of barrennesse and falling off and by consequence their necessity of budding and blossoming and bearing fruit Would such a course as this have comforted Aaron or satisfied the other tribes What difference between a Log and a Tree before it spring again But then is salvation sure when you work it out Then faith is alive when it is manifested by its works Then is Aaron declared to be Gods chosen when his rod quickens And quicken it must or else he cannot be the chosen of God No surer token of the life of grace then fruitfulness Barrenness was banished at the first creation out of his garden of the World Increase and multiply says he to all his creatures and if any fall short cut it down why combreth it the ground And he that is not marr'd by the Divel is always thus increasing he is alwayes going forward either budding new or ripening his last blossom'd fruit It was a curse laid upon avarice Esaiah 5.10 that ten acres of Vines should yeild but one bath and the seed of an Homer should yeild but an Ephah but one part for ten sure that is an incumbrance not a crop and those Vines are fitter for winters fire then summers vintage Nor yet will standing still in the same condition serve the turne as they say an Oak will for an hundred years together T is a true saying in Divinity qui Deo non progreditur regreditur he that goes not forward to God goes backward to the Devill It was no excuse to the idle servant that had hid his talent although he had buried it up for fear of losing ' ont and put it in a napkin for fear of rusting of it It was taken from him for his negligence he had gained nothing to it Yet who is there here present that cannot strike upon his heart and say Lord I am in a worse condition He was idle I am sinfull He hid his talent and brought it to light again I have spent mine and can shew no portion of it He did not ripen his blossoms I have made strip and wast of mine My beauty I have abused to voluptuousness my wealth to luxury my wit to knavery my zeal to hypocrysy my natural ingeny to maintain schism and heresy Utinam nescirem literas O that thou hadst given me no talent that having little I might had the lesse required The heat of thy spirit has sometimes quickened in me the buds of grace but the coldnesse of my devotion has nipp'd them Or if the warmth the sunshine of thy mercy or the fire of thy judgments has thaw'd my frozen heart and made it vigorous enough to bring forth blossoms the Prince of this ayr has mildewed them Or if the fruit has been set it has either been blown down by the storms of Affliction or wormeaten in the sunshine my prosperity and grown rotten at the Core Thus have our rods which should bud and blossom and bring forth fruit turned like the sorcerers to Serpents and stung us to death Observe yet farther as Aarons rod had three degrees of fruitfulness budding blossomming and bearing fruit so those three degrees met at one season spring summer ana harvest was joyn'd together as the one fed his hopes so the other confirmed his assurance