We may run by the Text and easily read in it these three things as so many very Natural Deductions and Emanations from it First our own Ignorance and Stupidity Born like a wilde Asse's Colt as Zophar speaks and then to our Natural we add affected Ignorance too So that we are much to seek and to learn Righteousness it must be taught us Secondly God's infinite and inexpressible Grace and Mercy to us that when we had blurr'd the Original defac'd the first Traces of Righteousness upon our Souls he was pleas'd to provide Expedients to teach it us again the second time that we might be renewed unto Knowledge after the Image of him that created us in Righteousness as the Apostle speaks And Thirdly Our indocible and unteachable Humour our foul and shameful Non-proficiency under so plentiful a Grace For though the Text indeed speaks of our learning Righteousness when God's Judgments are upon us yet if the Appearances of the World abroad suggested nothing to the contrary 't is introduc'd here in the Text too as the Effect of the last Form in God's School in exclusion of all the former as ineffectual his utmost Method not to be used but at a pinch when all the rest are baffled and prove improsperous upon us And then 't is exprest in the Original and learned Versioâ—s with so many Limitations and Abaâ—ements as we shall see by and by that we may well give it up as the sum and up-shot of all that our All-merciful God omits no Means or Methods of our Improvement but we supinely negligent and prodigiously stubborn as we are render them all ineffectual That we may do so no longer but rather make good the profession with which we have dar'd to appear this Day before God of humbling our selves under his Almighty Hand Let us before we pass on any further lift up our Hands and our Hearts to Him in the Heavens beseeching him by the Power of his Mighty Grace so to sanctifie to us All both the Sense of his present Judgment and all our Meditations and Discourses thereupon that by all we may be promoted in learning Righteousness THe Inhabitants of the World will learn Righteousness or Iustice What 's that Is there such a thing in the World Or is it a Name only and a glorious pretence Is it not only another word for Interest or Utility and so nothing just but what is profitable Carneades his infamous Assertion retriv'd and own'd with open face by Christians Is it not the taking of a party or the espousing of a Faction and appearing for it with heat and animosity and a savage condemning and destroying All that are not of it Is it not the Profession to believe such a Systeme of Opinions what life soever is consequent thereupon An airy invisible Righteousness that never embodies or appears in our Actions but hovers in the Clouds in speculations and fancies where no Man can find it The Truth is there is no piece of Unrighteousness more common in the World than thus to weigh Justice it self in an unjust Ballance while every one contrives his Hypothesis so as to salve the Phaenomena so declares his Notion as may best suit and comport with his own unrighteous practices But the Righteousness we are to learn in God's School must not be a self-chosen Righteousness We must not pay God our Soveraign the Tribute of our Obedience in Coin of our own stamping it must be such as will abide the Touch-stone of his Word and the Ballance of his Sanctuary To make short Righteousness or Justice though elsewhere a single Vertue yet here 't is virtually All 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and said the Prophet and the Phylosopher after him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not a part but all Vertue And so often but in Scripture and Fathers comprehensively all Religion the whole Duty of Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Chrisostome Omnes Virtutum species uno Iustitiae nomine saith St. Ierome Not a particular Star nor a single Constellation but a whole Heaven of Vertues an entire Globe of Moral and Christian Perfections an Universal Rectitude of the Will consorming us in all Points to God's Righteous Law the Rule of our Righteousness Or if you will in two words 't is Suum cuique to give every one his Due Suum Deo first and then Suum proximo give God his Due and your Neighbour too These are the integral parts of it So that Righteousness as the great Rule of it hath two Tables or if you will two Hemispheres the upper and the nether Both so vast that we cannot measure them in a Span the Span of time allotted me I shall therefore contract them to the occasion and give you only some of those particular Lessons of Righteousness which this present Judgment of God upon our Land seems most clearly to take us forth both into relation to God himself and to our Neighbours and then call you and my self to a serious Scrutiny how well we have learn'd them and so an end And first we begin as we ought in giving God his due in rendring to God the things that are Gods To limit this wide Universality too and render it more proper and peculiar we may reduce all to that first of Esai's three Songs mention'd at the beginning Glorifie ye the Lord in the Fires giving him upon this sad Occasion the Glory of that great Trinity of his Attributes the Glory of his Power and Majesty the the Glory of his Iustice and Equity the Glory of his Goodness and Mercy Give him the Glory of his Power and Greatness which the Prophet calls Singing for the Majesty of the Lord Chap. xxiv 15. or Beholding the Majesty of the Lord when his Hand is lifted up in the verse after my Text. How great and glorious our God is who is in himself incomprehensible appears best by the glorious greatness of his Works If he builds it is a World Heaven and Earth and the Fulness of both If he gives it is his only Son out of his Bosom the Brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person If he rewards 't is a Crown 't is a whole Heaven of Glories If he be angry he sends a deluge opens the Cataracts of Heaven above and breaks up the Fountains of the great Deep below and pours forth whole Flouds of Vengeance Or else he rains down Hell out of Heaven and in a moment turns a Land like a Garden of God into a dead Sea and a Lake of Brimstone If he discover himself by any overt expression of his Power though the Intention be meer Mercy and loving Kindness Mortality shrinks from it and cannot bear it When his Glory descends on Mount Sinai the People remove and stand afar off and Let not God speak with us say they lest we die And Depart from me O Lord saith St. Peter amaz'd at that miraculous draught of Fishes How much
That we are not as other Men are Extortioners or Unjust In some Cases he is unjust too that gives not his own as well as he that takes away what is anothers In the Sacred Dialect Alms-Deeds are Justice too Even Acts of Mercy and Bounty to those that need them stricti Iuris a part of our Righteousness sometimes so indispensable as not to be omitted without Sin And therefore glorifie thy self no longer that thou do'st harm to no Man Cum dicis stultum qui donat Amico Qui pauperaqtem levat attoliâ—qâ—e propinqui Ét spoliaré docés could the Heathen Poet say He robs his Neighbour that relieves him not He spoils his Friend that in some Cases doth not supply him And though 't is well a good Decree if we can say with S. Paul I have wronged no Man yet he only is perfectly blameless in this kind Qui ne in eo quidem ulli noceat quo prodesse desistat as St. Ierom excellently who doth not this Evil to his Neighbour that he omits to do him all the good he can Thou didst not burn thy Neighbour's house a strange piece of uncouth Righteousness But do'st thou receive him into thy own now he is harborless Thou hast not opprest or impoverisht thy Brother 'T is well But is thy Abundance the supply of his Want in this present Exigent Thy Superfluity the Ransom and Redemption of his extream Necessities If not remember that Dives is in Torments not for robbing Lazarus but for not relieving Sin And the dreadful Decretory Sentence proceeds at the last Day not for oppressing the Poor but for not feeding not cloathing not visiting them A reflection very common indeed yet never more proper or seasonable then at this time when God presents us an Object of Charity the greatest I think and the most considerable that was ever offer'd to this Nation and when Heaven and Earth expect that something extraordinary should be done I have now opened the Book and laid it before you and given you a short Draught of this very important Lesson a Lesson so considerable that our Wise and Good God thinks it worth his while to rout Armies and sink Navies to burn up Cities and turn Kingdoms upside down to send Wars and Plagues and Conflagrations amongst us to set open all his Schools and ply all his severest Methods to teach it us the more effectually Think now that he looks down this Day from Heaven to take Notice of our Proficiency to see how far we are advanc'd by these his Judgments in learning Righteousness And is it possible we should stand out any longer Can we still resist so powerful a Grace Are not the parts of the Text by this time happily met together And the Truth of it accomplisht and exemplified in us to the full God 's Judgments on us and his Righteousness in us Who would not think and hope so But as St. Ierom complains of his Age which was indeed very calamitous Orbus Romanus ruit tamen Cervix nostra non flectitur The World sinks and cracks about our Ears and yet our Neck as stiff and the Crest of our Pride as lofty and as erect as ever How few are they that repent in Dust and Ashes even now that God hath laid our City in Dust and our Houses in Ashes Look we first upon the Text and then upon our Selves and we must ingenuously acknowledge that whatever Abatements or Diminutions to the Height of the design'd event of God's Judgments upon us the Text or any Version of it note or imply our wretched evil Lives do but too plainly express and justifie For 1. Who are they that are said here to learn Righteousness in the Text Not always the Afflicted themselves it seems but some others that stand by and look on For 't is not to be omitted that the Phrase manifestly varies in the parts of the Proposition Iudgments in the Earth or upon the Land some particular Country and the World at large or some few in it learn Righteousness Thus Tyrus shall be devour'd with Fire saith the Prophet Ashkelon shall see it and fear Gaza and Ekron shall be very sorrowful But not a word how Tyrus her self is affected God forbid it should be so with us May it never be said that any of our Neighbours make better use of our Calamities than we our Selves Have we any so hard-hearted amongst us that can look upon so sad a Spectacle as if they sate all the while in the Theatre or walkt in a Gallery of Pictures little more concerned then at the Siege of Rhodes or the Ruines of Troy Shall any Neighbour-City say wisely Mea res agitur jam proximus ardet Ucalegon Shall our Enemies themselves the sober and the Wise amongst them at the least tremble at the Relation and we continue stupid and senseless Shall Constantinople and Alexandria resent it and we not regard it as we ought Nay shall China and Peru it may be Surat and Mexico both the Indies hear and be affected with it and we our selves insensible Shall the Inhabitants of the World abroad warm themselves at our Fires with kindly and holy Heats while in the mean time our Repentings are not kindled nor our Charity inflam'd and our Devotion as cold and frozen as ever Shall our Mountain which we said in our jolly pride should never be removed be fulminated and thunder strook but the blessed shower that follows the Instruction that descends after like the Rain slide off to the Vallies to Others that are round about us Our Lord wept over Ierusalem because she knew not then at forty years distance the time of her Visitation for the Days will come saith He when there shall not be left one Stone upon another But Wo is me Our Day is come already and our Visitation now actually upon us and yet I fear we will not know it as we ought For 2. Reflect a little upon the Tense of the Verb how that varies too in the parts of the Proposition The Judgments Are in the Earth and the Inhabitants Will learn So the Vulgar Latine and the English 'T is still per verba deâ—futuro For we liâ—t not to handfast our selves to God Almighty to make our selves over to him by present Deed of Gift but would fain forsooth bequeath our selves to him a Legacy in our last Will and Testament Ay but In necessitatibus nemo Liberalis 'T is not a free or a noble Donation which we bestow when we can keep it no longer our selves For such a Bequest we may thank Death rather than the Testator saith St. Chrysostom But we are all Clinicks in this point would fain have a Baptism in Reserve a Wash for all our Sins when we cannot possibly commit them any more Like Felix the unjust Governour when St. Paul reasons of Righteousness our Heads begin to ake and presently we adjourn with Go thy way for this time 〈◊〉
or Umbrella over their Heads and are all the while in the Shade And yet every Shade is not a safe Protection Umbra aut Nutrix aut Noverca est saith Pliny And all the Naturalists tell us that the shadow of some Trees is unwholsome of others deadly Ay there is a shadow of Death too in Scripture Language and you have heard of the Shades of Hell it self And therefore to distinguish this benign and saving Protection from those black and dismal Shades here is yet a further and a higher Emphasis 3. 'T is in the third place Umbra Alarum a Shadow of Wings An Expression borrow'd from Birds and Fowls that brood and foster their young Ones under them The Wing of the Dam is both the Midwife and the Nurse it brings forth the Chickens and it brings them up too So Providence is both the Womb that bare us and the Paps that give us suck The Wing is not only as the Shade a protection from the Heat but a more Universal Defence against all the Injuries and Inclemencies of the Air. Is it too hot The Wing casts off a cold Shade Or is it too cold The Wing affords a warm Covering Are the Younglings frighted with a Storm The Wing is a ready Shelter Doth the Kite or Hawk the Tyrants and Freebooters of the Air hover over and threaten The Wing is a safe Retreat And thus in sacris Domini Defensionibus as Cassian speaks in God and his holy Protections we have All. That our Troubles are not long since grown too hot for us 't is because He cools and allays them That our Comforts do not grow cold and die away in our Bosoms 't is because he warms and reinforceth them That we have heard it bluster abroad for so many years together in a formidable Tempest which hath drench'd and drown'd so great a part of Christendom in Blood and yet the Storm hath hitherto flown over us That the Clouds have been gathering at home too and so long hung black o're our Heads and yet not power'd themselves forth in showers of Vengeance That Gebal and Ammon and Amaleck and the Rest that Hell and Rome and their Partizans our Enemies on all Hands both foreign and Domestick have been so long confederate against us saying Come and let us root them out that they be no more a People that the Name of the Reformed Church of England may be no more in Remembrance that they have so often lookt grim and sour and roar'd and rampt upon us and yet not been able to seize us to what can we justly ascribe all this but to the gracious protections of God's shady Wings spread over us 'T is pity Brethren we are not more deeply apprehensive of it since so it is We sit continually in the Lap and Arms of Providence She is at once our Fortress and our Store-house 'T is to her we owe both our Defence and Supplies our Safety and our Abundance That we ever had any good thing in this World whether Personal or National 't is because we have suckt the Breasts of her Consolations And that we keep and enjoy any thing while our Soul is among Lyons while we dwell in the midst of Cruel and Blood-thirsty Men as holy David complains a little below my Text 't is because we sit under the shadow of her Wings And since we are for all this so over apt to forget her and to pride our selves in Bulwarks of our own projecting God hath seem'd oftentimes and now again of Late to be about to dismantle all and to teach us this Lesson at the dearest Rate if we will not learn it better cheap That we cannot be safe out of his protection that the shadow of his Wings is our best nay our only Refuge And that whether we take a Refuge for the protection of Secrecy or for the protection of Strength Of which much might be said would the time permit it But so much briefly of the first Privilege that of Safeguard and protection from Calamities that they come not upon us I hast to the second 2. If Calamities do come and who is wholly exempt from that common Tax and Tribute of Mortality the Expression speaks Assistance too and timely Deliverance out of them Wings in the common Notion of the World signifie Speed and Activity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theodoret speaks God's speedy and efficacious Providence and Appearance in time of Need to deliver his People 'T is therefore that we give the Winds Wings and the Angels too as being the swift Messengers of God the nimble Mercuries of Heaven 'T is therefore too that when God appears seasonably to deliver his afflicted People he is said in the Psalm to mount a Cherub and to flie or to come flying to them upon the Wings of the Wind or to carry them off into safety on the Wings of an Eagle Birds do not only cover their young Ones under their Wings within the Neast If the Seat prove dangerous they take them up too on their Wings and carry them off to a safer Station Ye have seen what I have done for you saith God to the Iewish Nation how I bear you upon Eagles Wings and brought you to my self As if he had said When you were in actual Bondage I rescued you not only brooded you under my Wings in Egypt and preserv'd you by my Providence while you were yet in the Egg but I hatch'd you as it were even in the Iron Furnaces of Memphis into Political Life and National being and then brought you out safely openly triumphantly as the Eagle doth her Young and brought you off too into a more prosperous Condition And may not God bespeak us too the People of England in the same Language When we were enslav'd at home and so in worse than Egyptian Slavery and our Pharach and his proud Task-Masters made even our Lives bitter to us in hard Bondage in Mortar and in Brick to build up their own proud Babels when they had now kill'd and also taken possession and divided the Spoil and said in a Frolic of their lusty Pride We have devoured them and there is no Hope for them in their God Then on the sudden as an Eagle stirreth up her Neast and fluttereth over her Young and spreadeth abroad her Wings as Moses speaks in his admirable Song thus awakening and exciting their natural Activity and emboldening them to use it to the utmost and when that will not do taketh them up her self and beareth them away upon her own Wings So here The Lord alone did lead us and there was no Other with him that 's Moses's own Reddition When our own Pinion prov'd too weak and all our faint Flutterings to no purpose then by a Miracle of Wisdom Power and Goodness he took us up to that gallant and wonderful Flight even up to a higher pitch than we durst look and made us to ride upon the high Places of the Earth
and set our Neast again amongst the Stars And now when restless and unquiet Men the true Spawn of him whose Tail drew the third part of the Stars of Heaven and cast them to the Earth would fain by their Hellish Plots and Contrivances bring us down again from thence even down to the very Ground and lay all our Honour in the Dust When by their secret Machinations they are at work on all Hands to hurry us back into the old Confusions in Hope that out of that disordered Mass they may at length rear up a new World of their own But what a World A World made up of a new Heaven of Superstitions and Idolatries a new Earth too of Anarchy first and pretended Liberty but of Tyranny insufferable at the next Remove In such a dangerous State of Affairs as this whether should we rather nay whether else can we run for Help and Deliverance but under his Protections the Stretching out of whose Wings fills the Breadth of thy Land ô England He can make all these Cockatrice Eggs on which this Generation of Vipers that eat out the Bowels of their Mother have sat so long abrood windy at last and addle and he will do it So that out of the Serpent's Root shall never come forth an Adder to bite us or a fiery flying Serpent to devour us He will confound these Babel builders with their City and their Tower or Temple their Foreign Politie and their strange Worship their novel Modes and Models of Government in Church and State and scatter them abroad from hence upon the Face of all the Earth Like as a Dream when one awaketh so shall he despise their Images and their imaginations too and cause them to vanish out of the City and make the whole Bulk of their vast Contrivance to consume away like a Snail and become like the untimely Fruit of a Woman which shall never see the Sun He that at first made all things with an Almighty Word said only Let it be and it was so can with the same Facility unmake and annihilate those Worlds of Wickedness which these great Architects of Mischief have been so long projecting and building up 'T is but for him to say It shall not prâ—sper or This shall not be and behold the mighty Machin cracks about their Ears and sinks into Ruin into Nothing leaving no Effect behind it more real or conspicuous than a more firm and lasting Establishment of that which God 's own Right Hand hath planted amongst us When the Earth at first was without Form and void and Darkness hovered over the Face of the Deep the Spirit of God saith the Text mov'd upon the Waters The word in the Original as St. Hierom tells us from the Hebrew Traditions implies that the Spirit of God sate abrood upon the whole rude Mass as Birds upon their Eggs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Greek Author speaks elegantly and hatch the Chaos into World by degrees digesting and in the mean time preserving and susteining it by kindly Heats and vital Incubations And to the like benign and gracious purposes doth God still spread the Wings of his good Providence over his People and their Affairs in calamitous times such as this is when he may seem to stretch out upon the Political World the Line of Confusion and the Plummet of Emptiness Tohu and Bohu the very Words which describes the first Chaos as 't is Es. XXXIV 11. And if hereupon we put our selves as we ought under the saving Influences of his Wings he will either digest our Confusions into greater Order and Beauty than before or at least support and chear us while we lye under them which is the third and last Privilege implyed in this Expression 3. Comfort and Refreshment in Calamities while they are upon us For the Wing is not only the Retreat of Safety from Calamities as in the first particular Nor only the Instrument of Deliverance out of Calamities as in the second 'T is also the Seat of Comfort and Fountain of Refreshment when they lye heaviest upon us And here I might spend the Hour with much Delight for the Prospect is fair and large before me But I am sensible that I have already staid too long upon the first Head of Discourse propounded and so perhaps comply'd too much with the common Humour which loves rather to be tickled and amused with high Privilege than instructed in necessary Duty I shall therefore make hast to seize what remains of the Time and improve it to let you see That All I have said hitherto and the Much more I might have said upon that first Head of Privileges signifies nothing at all is all blank and Cypher to them that go not on chearfully to the Second that of Duty II. They that would be safe under God's Wings must not only please themselves with the general Speculation that Safety and Protection is there to be had They must also make their Refuge there they must put themselves under the Shadow of those Wings by their special Act and Deed must deliberately chuse and effectually place their last Resort there and if they will partake the Benefits must comply with the Obligations of such a State God is our Refuge and our Strength saith holy David most devoutly and most Methodically too For we must first make him our Refuge by flying to him before we can hope that he will be our Strength In vain do they dream of God's saving Protections that turn their Backs upon his Precepts and cast his Laws behind them 'T is true God's Altars are our Sanctuary an inviolable Asylum in our Sufferings and in our Sorrows in our Calamities and in our Dangers for our Ignorances and for our Infirmities But are our Crimes too privileg'd and protected there That were indeed to turn God's Temple into a Den of Thieves and Murderers the notorious Abuse of the modern Sanctuaries and to set up the Wing of Abominations spoken of by Daniel the Prophet even in the Holy Place Nay but pluck them from mine Altars saith God or slay them there that sinâ— presumptuously and with a high hand God will not be so merciful to those that offend of malicious Wickedness as to receive them with all their Sins about them under that sacred and saving Protection The holy Dove broods not a Kite or a Vulture They are Birds quite of another Feather If in good earnest we would be foster'd and cherisht under God's Wings we must first be hatch'd into his Likeness and Similitude be renewed after his Image and be made Partakers in some Measure of the Divine Nature To hover no longer in Generalities the fruitful Metaphor of the Text as you have distinctly seen it big with our Privilege so to qualifie us for that 't is as remarkably pregnant with our Duty also Among the Rest it clearly suggests to us in three noble Instances of our Duty so many apt and proper Qualifications