witness If his Judgment hath been great and terrible in that which is consumed his mercy is wonderful and miraculous in that which is preserved Plainly except the Lord had left us a Remnant and visibly interposed to do it we should not have had this place wherein to humble our solves before him We should have been as Sodem and we should have been like unto Gomorrah It was he that in the midst of Judgment remembred mercy when the flaming vengeance was in its height when in the opinion of all men it had arrived at the state of irresistibility and when every mans heart failed him when the hopes of all men were sunk into despair He checked the domineering vengeance he put up the flaming Sword he controul'd the streaming waves of sire and said thus farr shall ye come and no further In a wonderful manner he preserved the Goods and Persons of the poor Inhabitants of the City He restreined the rage of our enemies that cryed concerning our Jerusalem Down with it Down with it Aha! so would we have it He suffered not a foreign Enemy to land nor our domestick loes to make a head in our confusions He was a wall of fire about the persons of our Gracious Soveraign and his Royal Highness and of those valiant Noble Persons which adventured boldly and strenuously and indefatigably laboured the publique preservation He hath given signal Preservations and Victories to our Fleets abroad he hath restored our High-born and Noble-Generals and our Fleet in health and safety He hath given us plenty of all things necessary for the life of man In one great word to sum up an aggregation of great and various mercies he hath upheld our Religion and our Government in peace and for an earnest of his further preservation he hath given us this seasonable opportunity with health and safety in this place to attend the Publique Service to advise and assist in this arduous Juncture of affairs Arduous and difficult indeed it is to restore our City and defend our Country to restore the Houses of God and Publique Buildings to re-edifie ten Thousand private habitations to sustein the poor and needy to preserve the rights and properties of men to find such a temper of Justice and equity that there be no decay no just complaining in our Streets To uphold the Traffick of the Nation and to keep it in order and security free from private Robberies and publick Insurrections and therefore in order to all those ends to uphold our Religion in the zealous and effectual exercise in the sincerity and uniformity thereof to preserve it from encroachments and undermining Tollerations ruinous to Religion destructive to the Government of the Nation And all this while to make provision against our dangerous and cruel Enemies Gebal and Ammon and Amalech the French Dutch and the Dane who have conspired to our destruction These things are arduous but not insuperable difficult but not to be despaired of Concerning Jerusalem burned and laid wast by the Assyrians Daniel foretold that the streets and the walls thereof should be rebuilded even in troubleous times and when the time came that they were re-edified we read in Nehemiah that the labourers in one hand held the trowel and the other held a weapon one half of the people laboured in the work and the other half held the Spears the Shields the Bows and the Habergeons because of their cruel enemies on every side If God shall be pleased to give us a spirit of Understanding and teach our Senaters Wisdom If he shall pour out a publick spirit upon our Councels a spirit of tenderness and compassion of Justice and Equity Temperance and Frugality Fortitude and Magnanimity If all Orders and Degrees amongst us Civil and Military and Ecclesiastical shall take to themselves the spirits of Christians and of men If our Counsels and endeavours shall be answerable to the care and benignity to the fervour and strenuous industry of our gracious Soveraign and to the alacrity and magnanimity of our couragious and generous Country-men then speaking humanely and abstracting from our Deservings we need not greatly fear but we may yet subdue the pride and insolence of our barbarous Enemies we may yet behold our City rising out of its ashes in greater splendour than we have seen it heretofore Wherefore arise and gird your selves O ye Princes ye Nobles ye Rulers of our Israel Consult consider and give sentence Men Brethren and Fathers let us arise and labour let us up and be doing be strong and of good courage and the good hand of our God shall be upon you he shall give you the honour to be the defenders of your Country he shall make you repairers of the breaches restorers of our City to dwell in Yet I cannot I may not forbear to put you in remembrance of this one thing Except the Lord build the City their labour is but lost that build it It is not our wisdom or industry much less our confidence that will do it unless God be for us neither will God be for us unless we turn from the evil of our ways except we repent we have reason to fear that what we have seen hitherto will be no more but the beginning of our sorrows The Prophet Esay tells us That the Lord sent a word unto Jacob and it lighted on Israel and all the people shall know that say in the pride and stoutness of their hearts the Bricks are fallen but we will build with hewn Stones the Sycamores are down but we will change them into Cedars Therefore the Lord will set up their Adversaries and joyn their Enemies together the Syrians before and the Philistims behind and they shall devour Israel with open mouth Because this people turneth not to him that smiteth them Wherefore turn you turn you every one from the evil of his ways Let us search our hearts and try our ways and turn to him that hath smitten us Turn unto him with all our hearts with fasting and with weeping and mourning he hath smitten us and he will heal us because his compassions fail not Come and let us reason together saith God though your sins were as scarlet they shall be white as snow There is yet a way open to take away the terror of our Particular Judgment and to prevent a final Judgment from falling upon the Nation We are yet in the Land of hope and space is given for Repentance the door of mercy is not yet shut upon us nor the ears of our Judge sealed against us O that men would therefore praise the Lord for his Goodness and declare the wonders that he hath done for the children of men that hath not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us according to our Iniquities that hath not cut us off in the midst of our sins nor in the height of our impenitencies snatched us away to Judgment that hath not dealt with us as with the Apostate Angels
not reasonably apprehend the approach of the General Judgment either of this World or at leastwise of this sinful Nation Our Lord Christ indeed tells us that of the day and hour of the final Judgment Knoweth no man Yet he hath given us the signs of his coming The Apostles have left us Characters of the last days the Prophets have declared the manner and apparatus of the coming of the Lord to Judgment We read that when the Disciples admired the stones and the building of Herod's Temple at Jerusalem Christ told them That the day was coming when there should not be left one stone upon another upon this the Disciples ask him privately three Questions 1. When shall these things be 2. What shall be the sign of thy second coming And 3. of the end of World As for the precise moment of these things he denies to tell it them Nay he professes that as he was the Son of Man he did not know it But for the other two he cendescends to their curiosity he tells them the signs of his coming and of the end of the World and that they shall be such as these You shall hear saith he Matth. 24. of Warrs and rumours of Warrs Nation rising against Nation and Kingdom against Kingdom There shall be Traytors and false Prophets Saying Lo here is Christ Behold a new Messias in the Wilderness Lo there is Christ Behold he is at a Conventicle in the secret Chambers He tells us that iniquity shall abound and the love of many shall wax cold that he shall hardly find faith on the earth as it was in the days of Noe they ate they drank till the floud came and swept them all away so shall the coming of the Son of Man be He tells us Luke 21. there shall be Famines and Earthquakes Pestilence and fearful sights great signs from Heaven in the Earth distress of Nations great perplexities the Sea and Waves roaring Mens hearts failing them for fear looking after those things that are coming upon the Earth Concerning the last days St. Paul tells us that there shall be perilous times that on one hand there shall be a sort of men that shall be lovers of themselves Covetous Proud Boasters Ranters and Blasphemers On the other hand there shall be a Race of heady high minded Traytors having a form of godliness creeping into houses leading captive silly women They shall despise Dominion and speak evil of Dignities They shall be Separatists from the Church and false pretenders to the Spirit Thâ—se saith St. Jude are they that separate themselves sensual having not the Spirit St. Peter tells us that in the last times there should be a loose prophane a bold Atheistical Gigantick race of scoffers walking after their own lusts saying Where is this God of Judgment let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it Where is the promise of his coming since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were before And for the manner and Apparatus of his coming Our God shall come saith the Psalmist and shall not keep silence there shall go before him a devouring fire and a mighty Tempest shall be stirred up round about him Behold the Lord will come with fire saith the Prophet and with his Chariots like a Whirlwind to render his anger with fury and his rebukes with flames of fire The streams of Zion shall be turned into Pitch and the dust thereof into Brimstone the Earth thereof shall be burning Pitch the smoke thereof shall ascend day and night and shall not be quenched compare Revel 6. with Esai 34. The Kings of the Earth shall tremble the Captains and the mighty shall be horribly afraid the great men and the rich men shall hide themselves all the bond-men and all the freemen shall fly to the Rocks of the Mountains And soon after all this The Heavens shall be rivel'd as a sâ—râ—wl the Earth and the Elements shall melt away for God shall arise to judge terribly the Earth Have not all these things come upon us the men of this Generation Is it weakness is it a vain and superstitious scrupulosity to call these things to our remembrance Have we no reason at all to apprehend the approach of a General Judgment either upon the World or upon our sinful Nation Do we not now envy those despised souls which have made their accounts ready We thought it madness to see them pine away with poenitential exercises and macerate themselves with mourning We thought it folly which they called Conscience for which they denyed themselves the pleasures and enjoyments of the World We fools counted their life madness and their latter end to be without horror But the time is coming when they shall be comforted and we shall be tormented Because he hath called and we have refused he hath stretched out his hand and we have not regarded He will laugh at our calamity and mock when our fear cometh When our destruction cometh as a Whirlwind when distress and anguish comes upon us May we not therefore give up our selves to the torments of our hearts and surrender up our souls unto Despair so Israel said there is no hope we will follow every one the devices of his heart after 20 30 or 40 years continuance in our courses ' tisin vain to think of turning from them Our arrears are so farr gone that there is no hope to discharge them and why should we trouble our selves with the thoughts of our Account Nay that which must come let it come and what is a few days respite to Eternity Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall dye Let us go forth as at other times and shake our selves and scatter these troublesom apprehensions of future Judgment What if we should drink a little to drive away Melancholy Yes and fall perhaps and spew and rise no more Nay but I beseech you stay a little and consider consider at least in this your day the things which belong to your peace It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Who among us can dwell with a devouring fire Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings Such careless and desperate resolutions are the advantages which the Devil aims at that he may sear our Consciences and seal us up in a final obduration But there is another kind of advantage which God and our Lord Christ and the Holy Spirit and the Gospel and the Ministers aim at That advantage which I told you of in the beginning of my Discourse That knowing the terror of the Lord they may perswade men And now what is it that they would perswade us that we will be contented to part with the tormenting fears of Judgment that we will condescend not to be miserable to all Eternity That we will accept of deliverance from the wrath to come that we will not neglect so great salvation nor trample on the bloud of the everlasting Covenant
Behold God calls upon us Turn you turn you at my reproof why will you dye O House of Israel As I live saith the Lord I desire not the death of sinners Our Lord Christ calls upon us Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will ease you In the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles he stood and cryed Saying If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink The Spirit says come and who ever will let him come and take of the water of life freely The Gospel assures us That God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life Behold I set before you this day life and death blessing and cursing and as an unworthy Ambassadour in Christs stead I pray you be reconciled to God take his yoke upon you his yoke is easie and his burden light embrace now the tender of the Gospel only repent and believe in the Lord Jesus accept him for your Saviour and your Lord. Your Prophet to instruct you your King to govern you your Priest to save you and you shall be saved Saved from the fears and horrors of a Guilty Conscience condemned by its own witness Saved from the wrath of God and of the Lamb. You shall meet the Lord with Confidence We shall be able to stand with boldness in the Judgment to lift up our heads with joy because our redemption draweth near This is the way to save our own souls from perishing which is the General design of all our Preaching And this is the way to appease the wrath which is gone out against us and to preserve our Nation from destruction which is the particular and more immediate end of our present Humiliation whereof I am yet to speak THe hand indeed of the Lord hath been heavy upon us his wrath hath been kindled it hath waxed hot against the Sheep of his pasture and he hath plagued our Nation very sore His Judgments have been multiplyed his strokes have been redoubled and for all this his anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still Warrs and Pestilences and those other fore-runners of Christ's coming to Judgment have been seen and felt amongst us and now when these have not been able to prevail To awaken a drowsie people to rowse up a Lethargic Nation to ferment a people setled upon their Lees. God has made anew thing in the midst of us he hath wrought a work in our days which makes the ears of all that hear it to tingle A work not to be parallel'd perhaps in all the circumstances since the Creation of the World How hath the Lord covered the Daughter of our Zion with a cloud in his anger and hath cast down from Heaven to Earth the beauty of Israel and remembred not his footstool in the Day of his Anger he hath swallowed up the habitations of his people he hath taken away his Tabernacles and destroyed his places of Assemblies the Ramparts and the Walls lament and languish her Gates are sunk to the ground her Barrs are destroyed Who can express the terror of this fatal Judgment the unexpected eruption the sudden increase the irresistible force the remorsless rage the insatiable voracity of this fiery Judgment the present sufferings the lasting miseries of private persons are inexpressible the publique damage the dangerous consequences it may be unconceivable What thing shall I liken to thee O Daughter of my People Whereunto shall I compare the day of thy Visitation To the destruction of Jerusalem to the great and terrible day of Judgment O the terrors and affrightments the shreikes and lamenations the agonies the confusions of that Day They that were on the house top durst not stay to take any thing out of their houses nor he that was in the field return back to take his Cloathes they that were in the City betook themselves to the Fields and Mountains where they beheld their flaming habitations where they trembled to behold the abomination of desolation raging in the holy places How were the wise men amazed and the strong men terrified despair seised them counsel and strength fled away from them there was no help in them they presently gave all for lost they stood affrighted at a distance gazing at the dreadful spectacle in vain they thought it to contend it looked so like the coming of the Son of Man The breath of the Lord kindled the fire he rode upon Cherub he came flying upon the wings of the wind He made the winds his Messengers and the flames of fire his Ministers He brought the Winds out of his Treasure and to point the flame directly upon the bulk and body of the City through his power he brought in the South-East wind as a theif in the night as pains upon a woman in travel as the lightning that cometh from the East and passeth to the West so came this flaming Judgment and so shall the coming of the Son of Man be I cannot endure to dilate upon this Argument Sorrow and anguish are in the consideration of it Animus meminisse horret luctuque refugit Great is the Judgment and there is reason for us to fear that it may be portending and symtomatical YEt who can tell but God may have mercy upon us but he may yet save us from destruction though our breach be great as the Sea yet is not in it self irreparable though our wounds be deep and gaping they are not desperate or uncurable hitherto we may say with the Apostle We are chastned but not killed afflicted but not in despair The signs and symptoms of an approaching final Judgment are not so decretory and peremptory that we should despair God's signal Judgments have hitherto been accompanyed with signs of mercies and this is a plain case that he is not fond of our destructions and that he had rather that we should live He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men He stands pausing and hoesitating as he did once before O Ephraim how shall I give thee up O Ephraim O England How shall I give thee up O England What mean else those Alternations and those mixtures and combinations of wonderful Judgments and of wonderful deliverancies and mercies which our ears have heard and our eyes have seen We have heard with our ears and our Fathers have told us what wonderful deliverances he wrought in their time of old We have seen vicissitudes great and prodigious mixtures and combinations marvellous in our eyes horrible destructions and wonderful restitutions succeeding one another raging Plagues at home and signal Victories abroad God hath filled us with bitterness and covered us with ashes But it is his mercy that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not If the arm of his Justice and Severity hath been made bare that it might be seen of all the people He hath not left his mercy without
and with Thousands of our Brethren who were better and more righteous than we Let us once more then return into our selves Let us consider our condition let us veiw over and ballance the grounds of our hopes and the reasons of our fears Let us take an exact account of our whole estate and interest in reference to all our concernments National and Personal Temporal and Eternal Let us deliberate and advise what is to be done and what to be avoided Did I say deliberate Whether we shall save our souls from utter darkness and everlasting burnings Whether we shall save the Nation from final ruine and desolation Nay rather Let us break off our sins by repentance and our Iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor Let us make our selves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness that-when we fail we may be received into everlasting habitations Let us lend unto the Lord that we may have treasure in Heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt nor theives break through and steal Let us fast the fast that the Lord hath chosen Loose the bands of wickedness feed the hungry cloath the naked he that hath two Coats let him give to him that hath none and he that hath meat let him do likewise Such an occasion scarce happens in many hundreds of years and for motives to charity they are all comprised in that great argument of the Judgment to come When the Son of Man shall come to Judgment and shall sit upon the Thnone of his Glory When all Nations shall be gathered before him and he shall set the Sheep on his right hand and the Goats on his left This shall be the mark of their discrimination He shall say to those on his right hand I was hungry and ye fed me thirsty and ye gave me drink naked and ye cloathed me sick and in prison and ye visited me Come ye blessed of my Faiher receive the Kingdom prepared for you And he shall say unto them on the left hand I was hungry and ye fed me not thirsty and ye gave me no drink c. Wherefore go ye cursod into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels The way is short and compendious to save all our interests What doth the Lord require of us but to do justly to love mercy to walk humbly before the Lord our God Let us be merciful therefore as our heavenly Father is merciful and let us humble our selves under the Almighty hand of God as we pretend to do this day Let us betake our selves afore-hand to our Judge and pour out our complaints before him Let us confess our wickedness and be sorry for our sins Let us lay hold on the feet of our Blessed Redeemer and give him no rest till he hath sealed our pardon Let us bathe with our tears the wounds that we have made Let us cry mightily to the Throne of Grace Let us wrestle and strive with our Redeemer and not les him go until he bless us Until he open our eyes to see the dangers we are in and through his mercy shew us a way to escape them Till he quicken us up to resolutions of amendment and carry us strongly through these resolutions Until he heal our back-slidings and make up our breaches Until he save our souls from death and our Nation from destruction To work our selves to these Resolutions and to fix us in them to make them abide upon us all our days let us remember what hath been spoken and let us frequently meditate upon that Sarcastical Concession of the Text Rejoyce O young man in thy youth and let thy heart chear thee in the days of thy youth walk in the ways of thy heart and the sight of thy eyes But know that for all these things God will bring thee to Judgment FINIS I. II. III. IV. V. VI. Applic. general Esai 66. 15. Applic particular Esai 9.